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All my gear finally arrived back at the home office in Salina, Kansas. I mailed a lot of back from Iraq.
But I carried all of it to Iraq.
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Somehow I was able to carry all this stuff on and off a helicopter.
TV requires a lot of gear. |
My first stop was OP Omar north of Kharmah and site of some on-going operations.
The accomodations at OP Omar were some of the best in Iraq.
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Inside the squad bay of OP Omar where I lived with the
Paratroopers of Blackfoot Company 1-501 |
Some severe craziness went down on my first day back in Iraq.
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| JD and Corporal Hegland a few days after the truck bomb. |
While at OP Omar I went on missions with 2nd Platoon of Blackfoot Company 1-501. I learned during that time that paratroopers are a special breed.
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| JD with members of 2nd Platoon on the porch at OP Omar. |
The paratroopers even have a super-hero among their ranks--Blackfoot Man.
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Blackfoot man was on hand to celebrate the opening of the OP Omar library.
No one knows who this masked fighter of terrorists is, but a certain
Staff Sgt. always seems to be missing whenever
Blackfoot Man pays a visit. Hmmm. |
From Kharmah I jumped the Euphrates to Habbaniyah and encountered my first sand storm of the trip.
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| Habbaniyah in a dusty haze. |
Camp Habbaniyah is an old RAF base. This video clip is shows some images of the base back in the day.
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From Habbaniyah I went upstream to Khalidiyah with a Police Training Team.
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JD with members of the Khalidiyah police. I'm sure the KOS crowd will
have fits over my wearing the digital cammies complete with EGA.
I'll wear them when working with Marines so I don't sky-line myself or
the unit I'm with. I'm also a big fan of the Nomex jump suit. |
One of my host units in Habbaniyah was the 3rd Battalion of the 6th Marine Regiment. They provided me with a room that has just about everything an embed could want. Cot, work table, electricity and a door to pad lock.
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| All the essentials. |
From Khalidiyah it was down to Baghdad.
One of the best and worst days in Baghdad was when I went with Alpha Company 1-18 on a raid.
It was also a bad day because I had caught a stomach/intestinal virus. A lot people don't realize that all the normal stuff happens in Iraq like colds and illness. When a virus gets into a unit at an outpost it is usually just a matter of time before it works through the whole unit.
Somehow I was able to hold it together for an hour and get the capture of a Jaish al Mahdi cell leader on camera.
(Caution: Takes time to load up.)
Freedom isn't free...and neither is reporting from Iraq.
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