Army of Dude: Photo Story Monday - Groundhog Year

[babylonsister]

This blog is fascinating. For a firsthand account of what some are experiencing, this is it.


Monday, November 26, 2007
Photo Story Monday - Groundhog Year

After a year, the days began to melt together. Notable firefights, deaths and strange happenings were the only vivid memories used to recall particular dates. June 12 was symbolic throughout winter and early spring. It was the day the worn and battered would escape. The day that would mark a new beginning of our lives. The day we would return home.

With a clear conscience, Secretary Gates had us extended for three months. June 12 went from a daydream to the Tuesday between June 11 and June 13.

We set out in the early morning toward Chibernot, a small neighborhood in northern Baqubah bristling with mud huts and dense palms. We arrived a little past dawn and already felt the terrible strain of the weight we carried. Instead of driving on roads crammed with IEDs, we walked a good ways through the night, tripping in holes and stepping into streams tainted with septic waste. At one in particular, I heard the guy in front of me miss the jump across a tiny creek, sliding his foot deep into the mud. I put my night vision goggles up and leapt with all my might. With a thud I landed off-balance, my backpack pushing me forward almost onto my face. You know you're miserable when falling knee deep into diluted human shit is marginally worse than the morning you spent walking across open fields in the dark, twisting your ankle and reflecting on how your early 20s were working out.

At nearly seven in the morning we walked down a neighborhood street flanked by the occasional house. Someone spotted spent shell casings from an AK47 along the road. We spread out in the ruins of a destroyed building, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Walking along the wall, I noticed a groove cut out with bright splatters of blood covered on both sides and running down the back into the grass. It looked as if someone was bent over the groove and executed. A few more shell casings were cluttered next to the bricks.



Not a good day for some of us


After this find, we decided to look at the area more thoroughly. We headed for the one room cinderblock house across the street. Nothing seemed suspicious until Dozer began to kick around the dirt floor. Sending a cloud of rocks and soil into the air, he exposed a flap of buried plastic. He dropped down on his hands and knees and began to shovel dirt. We quickly realized it was a huge bag full of homemade explosives, a simple powder mix used to amplify air tanks and landmines in the deep-buried IEDs that had been destroying our Strykers with ease. More digging found another bag, at least twenty pounds. Then another. Then some landmines wired together to form a daisy chain explosion. Bags just kept on coming out of the ground. Binoculars. RPG sights. Grenade fuzes. Even more bags of homemade explosives. Hundreds of feet of wire. Batteries. AK magazines. Ammo boxes. A Motorola radio. An American 40mm grenade. Mortars. Dishwashing machine timers. Every insurgent weapon under the sun.



More, text, pix at link~

http://armyofdude.blogspot.com/2007/11/photo-story-monday-groundhog-year.html

[unhappycamper]

1. I've been reading Army of Dude for a while now.

It is an excellent blog.

[babylonsister]

2. Yes, it is, and I think you introduced me to it, so thanks - again! nt

[ray of light]

3. thanks ! (For the story and for reminding me to bookmark him.)