IZ 13

Original post date:
Friday, May 04, 2007

That last few days have been pretty active with rocket attacks. However today was pretty slow, until the end. Since nothing was going on, my patrol decided to give candy to a bunch of Iraqi children that live in this abandon section in District 13. First it was going pretty well, until the end when 3 to 4 older teenagers started to assault each other and the parents started to get involved. I asked my translator to tell them to stop or we were going to call the Iraqi Police. The whole situation got extremely worse when the two families started to throw bricks and hit each other with sticks. I was trying to call for backup, which my partner's radio wasn't working. I got my patrol members back to vehicle and stood by for back up. The radio operator said to stand down and leave. I took some flak from higher ups for not leaving as soon as the fight happened. Personally I felt since we are the IZ police. We at least needed to stand by until the Iraqi Police came. The only thing I regret was asking my translator to tell them to stop or we were going to call the IP's. It wasn't her fault for her going to try to help.