Military

            Some other “happenings” were some negligent discharges that occurred.  This is where someone fires their weapon when they don’t “intend” to.  It is hard to describe.  “Accidental discharge” is what they are sometimes called, but when you fire your weapon, there is no accident there, and you could kill someone.  Needless to say, they were negligent in their actions, and we had a great many days full of torturous training for our Soldiers after that, (and for us too).  The Armies way of looking at it, someone messes up, punish their supervisors and treat everyone as incompetent children, and the problem will solve itself, but this makes things worse in my opinion.

            Anyway, enough of our extracurricular activities, and on to some good things that we have done in the past month… The elections for one thing, (which I jumped ahead of myself with the last newsletter).  They went off surprisingly without a hitch, and no one was killed in our AO, to my knowledge.  We attached ourselves to just one of the 19 some polling sites in Suweyrah, that were all held at schools of different sorts.  We positioned ourselves between two schools, near the Iraqi Police headquarters building, (which we had fortified the roof on), where we had a good vantage point on most of the town from.  SGT Wilgus deployed the Raven, our Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, to fly around for a few hours by remote and take pictures and monitor various choke points in the city, and swoop down on kids, which loved every minute of it.  That was quite a sight.

            As of yet, we have no overall mission here in our sector, as most Soldiers in the Wasit Provence are victim to.  I suggest that curious readers go to Wikipedia.org and type in “Iraq War” or something akin to the conflict over here, to read of our wins and losses over the last, (almost!), six years.  I have spent too much of my young adult life over here, too much.  I thank God that Christine and I don’t have kids yet.  I don’t know how some of these guys make it the way they do.

            We have greatly improved FOB Zulu, to include more shitters, more shitters, an extended DFAC tent for more eating space, and another tent for more gym equipment, mostly cardio equipment.  We also spent many sweaty hours making a volleyball court.  Yes sir, we are making the Iraqi people safe and sound with our volleyball court, man oh man!  The other two line platoons got into conflict, (as they usually do), over more silly things, and are at the moment trying to out do each other with QRF, (Quick Reaction Force), times.  We just do our job and make it out the gate, guns ready, in less than 7-8 minutes.  They still struggle with 10 minutes after months now. 

            We were strictly forbidden when we started missions in our “Oz” sector here, to do missions while on QRF, in case we were needed.  We figured that we are doing some good with other missions, and if we are needed, then we are already in sector, but the reason for that is so that they can use us and our guys to further “improve” FOB life and burn shit, etc.  The politics and stupidity of some things we do is way beyond me.  Sucking up is something I wish I wouldn’t have to witness every time I turn around too.  Lately we have been getting woke up early in the morning so that we can blast out the gate, ready to kill for God and Country, in a blaze of Glory, ready to plug wounds and stop bleeding of our Friendlies, and then find out that we are on the way to pick up a Chaplain or something, that another Platoon can’t pickup at the time.  Whoa!  Stop right there!  Are we a taxi service now?  Then we got blown out hours later again, and find out that we are taking the Chaplain back to another base, only to find out that they want us to take him almost an hour in the opposite direction.  We said to hell with that, and took him to the closest camp and left him, we can’t be held responsible in case something DOES happen just because higher ups aren’t using their brains whatsoever.

            I could go on, but I don’t want to focus too much on the negatives here, I just like to imagine peoples’ expressions when they find out that “The World’s Greatest Army!”, just isn’t what they might think it is.  Veterans reading this know perfectly well.  I won’t pull any John Kerry stuff here though.  I still love the Green Machine, and it’s a joust of Love, I just don’t like stupid people in charge.  “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” 

            The people of Suweyrah absolutely LOVE us.  My Platoon Sergeant, SFC Vernon, could very well run for mayor, (as also the current one is in jail, with a good deal of his staff), and he is like a celebrity here when we roll out.  Because of some occurrences on our side, as well as theirs, most of the police in Suweyrah were swapped out with another sector, to minimize people that were twisted there.  On our side, they felt that different leadership would change some of the Soldiers, and I thank God again that our Platoon stayed the same, (as we haven’t messed up, but still get the punishment).  The Fun Police were out in full swing though, because we had to cover up all of our Red Rockets as they saw that we were liked “too much” by the Iraqis, and that was unprofessional.  The ODA, (Special Forces guys that share part of the small base here, over the wall), fly a number of flags, namely the American one, which we can’t because it would make it appear that we are an occupying country, (which of course we are!).  Man have things changed here a lot over the years.  This doesn’t seem like a war anymore.

            I am including some pictures as usual, and I hope I don’t put any here that I have already included in other newsletters to you guys.  I would like some feedback as well.  I write these to keep you all informed, to vent a little, and to answer questions you might have, but I don’t hardly get any feedback.  If anybody reading these doesn’t want them anymore, or would like to hear of other things Military or Army related here or elsewhere that I can answer, then let me know, please!  That would allow me to mail it to people that want it, and don’t just delete it.  I appreciate those of you who do read it, and enjoy it.  I write these for you!  Thank you and God bless!

            Here is something that I want to include as well:

Sincerely,

Red Rocket 2: Staff Sergeant Tim Hartmann, Suweyrah, Iraq