17

Original post date:
Thursday, June 14, 2007

Today, the IZ got hit with indirect fire three separate times with a total of 17 rockets. It started out pretty slow. Baghdad has been on a curfew every since Al Qaeda blew up a Shite Mosque. So traffic was non-existent and nobody was walking around. However, around 1500hrs we had about six rockets hit. We responded to one that cause a fire, we contained it the best we could with our fire extinguishers. My patrol was ordered to stay and wait for EOD. At 1530hrs, we got hit by 5 more rockets, which two of them hit adjacent to us and one hit within 300 meters. We jump in the vehicle to drive to better cover. I know that this was going to happen sooner or later. When the insurgents would try to target the responding forces to rocket attack with another volley to hit the same spots the first volley hit. We got our vehicle stuck in a mud hole and took cover in an abandoned building.

Then another 6 rockets the IZ. We jumped into our vehicle and I had to respond to a part of the International Zone that is recognized as the "Yellow" zone. Which means the security there is almost as bad as being in the rest of Baghdad. I only had my Alpha and my interpreter. I tighten the security around my patrol and briefed what we would do in event of an attack on us. There is a price on soldiers head of over 40,000 dollars if captured alive. I ask my interpreter if he can fire pistol. If it came down to it it wouldn't have been only the three of us.

Today my fellow security forces members witnessed probably the worse barrage of indirect fire into the IZ to date, with chaos, death, and destruction. We have past my last deployment in number of IDF attacks. I hope somehow all this we are going through will amount to something.