Camp Fallujah, Iraq, with Bravo 2/136 - In the Bravo Company motor pool there are two seriously damaged vehicles that I would love to be able to show you, but I can't. There is a very strict policy against publishing photos of battle damaged vehicles or equipment. The point of the rule is to prevent the enemy for using the photos to assess and improve the effectiveness of their weapons. This seems like a reasonable rule, but it does mean you are missing out on some interesting sights.
Currently there are two "destroyed" Bradley's in the Bravo motor pool. One was damaged by an accident (taking pictures of this vehicle is totally fine... uploaded one earlier today). The other Bradley was severely damaged by an IDE, and I can't take any pictures of it, or describe the damage to you. There is also an up-armored HMMV that was hit by an IDE.
Friday, February 9, 2007
The Ugandan connection and international forces in Iraq
Camp Fallujah, Iraq - Those of you that don't know me personally, are probably unaware that I have a brother who lives in Uganda. How is this relevant you ask?
1) Uganda, as my brother pointed out in an email today is in the same timezone as Iraq (GMT +3). Random but somewhat interesting.
2) The facilities guards around Camp Fallujah are all from Uganda. Very bizarre to an outsider...
If I try to get into the Marine Corps Head Quarters I need to show my ID card to a Ugandan soldier who will then inform me that I need an escort to enter the area. I also need to get past the Ugandans to get into the chow hall for breakfast, but in that case I do not need an escort.
Here is a list of all the different nationalities of soldiers and/or police trainers that I have seen here in Iraq in the past few days:
Estonia
El Salvador
Peru
Britain
Australia
Uganda
Spain
Denmark (embassy guards I believe)
1) Uganda, as my brother pointed out in an email today is in the same timezone as Iraq (GMT +3). Random but somewhat interesting.
2) The facilities guards around Camp Fallujah are all from Uganda. Very bizarre to an outsider...
If I try to get into the Marine Corps Head Quarters I need to show my ID card to a Ugandan soldier who will then inform me that I need an escort to enter the area. I also need to get past the Ugandans to get into the chow hall for breakfast, but in that case I do not need an escort.
Here is a list of all the different nationalities of soldiers and/or police trainers that I have seen here in Iraq in the past few days:
Estonia
El Salvador
Peru
Britain
Australia
Uganda
Spain
Denmark (embassy guards I believe)
Fallujah Day 1: Generals and more generals
Camp Fallujah, Iraq with Bravo Company 2/136 - Camp Fallujah is the headquarters of Multinational Force West, and the Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) responsible for Anbar province. Most Army forces in Anbar report to the Marines, and Bravo Company is no exception.
Today marked the official "transition of authority" from the Marine Corps 1 MEF to 2 MEF. At the top of the chain of command that meant that Major General Zilmer was replaced by Major General Gaskin. This change also meant transitions for most subordinate Marine Corps units. This means that the Marine group Bravo Company reports to is now headed by a new colonel, and a new sergeant major.
This also means that a group of Marines that arrived in Fallujah after Bravo Company arrived, is going home before Bravo Company. As you can probably imagine this is a bit of a sore spot with some Bravo soldiers.
As is common with military events like this there was a major ceremony to celebrate this transition, held in the base chapel. Ooriginally built in the Sadam era, the chapel was originally designed as a large auditorium.
The ceremony brought dozens of Army and Marine Corps generals and sergeants major from all over Iraq to Fallujah. There were enough generals in the audience that some of the one star generals were sitting in the third row of seats. There were also quite a few civilian VIP's in the audience, including the US ambassador to Iraq and the Iraqi governor of Anbar province, as well as the most senior sheik in Anbar province.
Most of Bravo Company has been out in the field since before we landed her last night, and so we didn't have much else to do this morning, and so we went to cover the transition ceremony. The ceremony itself was very predictable, if you've ever been to a military change of command, but afterwards I was able to participate in two in-depth interviews with the outgoing Major General Zilmer, and the most influential sheik in the province.
Most of the questions were asked by Tom Bowman from NPR, and a reporter from the Associated Press, but I managed to ask a couple of questions too, and shot the only video of both interviews. Very in depth stuff, with some decent potential for national news interest, in my opinion.
I was also able to ask General Zilmer the outgoing commander if he would be willing to make an on camera comment about the Minnesota National Guard's contributions to his command, and he had some VERY complimentary things to say. I'm sure you'll see that clip on KSTP in the next week.
Later in the day there was a separate transition of authority ceremony for the Marine Corps Group that Bravo Company reports to directly, and the outgoing Colonel Bristol gave a very stirring and colorful talk to the troops, which included glowing compliments for Bravo Company. You'll be seeing these on TV also I'm sure.
Meanwhile the majority of Bravo Company was out in the field hunting terrorists, and missed all the ceremonies and the glowing compliments from their outgoing chain of command. That probably has a lot do with why they deserved the compliments.
The Bravo company mortar section, which is permanently emplaced here on Camp Fallujah fired multiple HE (high explosive) fire missions through the day in support of the Bravo troops in the field. And the Marine Corps 155mm howitzer battery also ran a fire mission in support late in the afternoon.
As I was finishing typing this, CPT Rankin, and LTC Parks, the battalion commander just walked in. It is 10:15 pm here, and they are just getting in from well over 24 hours on a mission. The short situation report was no Bravo casualties, and lots of IED's and small arms fire. CPT Rankin is going to give me a full briefing on the mission in the morning, and I'll hopefully have time to post it later in the day. LTC Parks is staying across the hall from me tonight, and I'm going to interview him tomorrow also.
Today marked the official "transition of authority" from the Marine Corps 1 MEF to 2 MEF. At the top of the chain of command that meant that Major General Zilmer was replaced by Major General Gaskin. This change also meant transitions for most subordinate Marine Corps units. This means that the Marine group Bravo Company reports to is now headed by a new colonel, and a new sergeant major.
This also means that a group of Marines that arrived in Fallujah after Bravo Company arrived, is going home before Bravo Company. As you can probably imagine this is a bit of a sore spot with some Bravo soldiers.
As is common with military events like this there was a major ceremony to celebrate this transition, held in the base chapel. Ooriginally built in the Sadam era, the chapel was originally designed as a large auditorium.
The ceremony brought dozens of Army and Marine Corps generals and sergeants major from all over Iraq to Fallujah. There were enough generals in the audience that some of the one star generals were sitting in the third row of seats. There were also quite a few civilian VIP's in the audience, including the US ambassador to Iraq and the Iraqi governor of Anbar province, as well as the most senior sheik in Anbar province.
Most of Bravo Company has been out in the field since before we landed her last night, and so we didn't have much else to do this morning, and so we went to cover the transition ceremony. The ceremony itself was very predictable, if you've ever been to a military change of command, but afterwards I was able to participate in two in-depth interviews with the outgoing Major General Zilmer, and the most influential sheik in the province.
Most of the questions were asked by Tom Bowman from NPR, and a reporter from the Associated Press, but I managed to ask a couple of questions too, and shot the only video of both interviews. Very in depth stuff, with some decent potential for national news interest, in my opinion.
I was also able to ask General Zilmer the outgoing commander if he would be willing to make an on camera comment about the Minnesota National Guard's contributions to his command, and he had some VERY complimentary things to say. I'm sure you'll see that clip on KSTP in the next week.
Later in the day there was a separate transition of authority ceremony for the Marine Corps Group that Bravo Company reports to directly, and the outgoing Colonel Bristol gave a very stirring and colorful talk to the troops, which included glowing compliments for Bravo Company. You'll be seeing these on TV also I'm sure.
Meanwhile the majority of Bravo Company was out in the field hunting terrorists, and missed all the ceremonies and the glowing compliments from their outgoing chain of command. That probably has a lot do with why they deserved the compliments.
The Bravo company mortar section, which is permanently emplaced here on Camp Fallujah fired multiple HE (high explosive) fire missions through the day in support of the Bravo troops in the field. And the Marine Corps 155mm howitzer battery also ran a fire mission in support late in the afternoon.
As I was finishing typing this, CPT Rankin, and LTC Parks, the battalion commander just walked in. It is 10:15 pm here, and they are just getting in from well over 24 hours on a mission. The short situation report was no Bravo casualties, and lots of IED's and small arms fire. CPT Rankin is going to give me a full briefing on the mission in the morning, and I'll hopefully have time to post it later in the day. LTC Parks is staying across the hall from me tonight, and I'm going to interview him tomorrow also.
New pictures posted from the day in Fallujah (February 9th)
Here is a link to a few of today's pictures taken in Fallujah today: http://photos.scrappydog.com/gallery/2450921
We're having some serious internet issues here today, and so I'm using my Bgan satellite internet modem to upload these. Bandwidth on the Bgan costs $12/megabyte, and so I'm having to severely limit the amount of stuff I upload, and the amount of time I spend on email (your donations welcome to support this).
I'll have an article about the days activities in a few hours...
We're having some serious internet issues here today, and so I'm using my Bgan satellite internet modem to upload these. Bandwidth on the Bgan costs $12/megabyte, and so I'm having to severely limit the amount of stuff I upload, and the amount of time I spend on email (your donations welcome to support this).
I'll have an article about the days activities in a few hours...
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Helicopter ride to Fallujah
Fallujah, Iraq - At about 6:00 pm a guy in civilian clothes walked into the heliport where we had been waiting for a ride to Fallujah all day, and figuring me for a press guy, came over and introduced himself as Tom Bowman, the National Public Radio Pentagon Corespondent.
Well it has been quite a day for me and NPR. It turns out that Tom was also on his way to Fallujah, because of a fairly major news event that will be occurring HERE in the next couple of days. I'll post the details as soon as we confirm them in the morning.
Tom is going to be staying here in Fallujah the next week also, and so I'm looking forward to spending some more time with him, and learning about military reporting from one of the true experts in the field.
At 7:15 pm we were lounging around in the heliport office watching "Finding Nemo", and chatting with Tom Bowman when the specialist running the desk announced a little excitedly that his computer was showing that our helicopter was already on the ground (15 minutes early) and we should grab our gear and hustle out to the helipad.
We threw on our body armor and picked up all our gear, and trotted out to look for our helicopter. I turns out that there were 2 Marine Corps Sea Stallions (? need to confirm designation ?) sitting out there on the pad with their rotors spinning.
We hustled over to where the loadmasters were forming up some other passengers who had been waiting somewhere else, and I proceeded to listen in on the coversation/negotiation going on between the loadmasters, one of the specialist from the heliport office, and a Iraqi man. The Iraqi man had 4 men that he was trying get on the flight to Fallugah, the specialist from the heliport office was trying to get us on, and it wasn't quite clear how many spaces there really were available.
Some passengers, like Tom Bowman, had what amounted to confirmed reservations, but CPT Lappegaard and I and two well armed serious looking guys who weren't wearing any military insignia on their nomex flight suits were all on standby. Apparently the 4 Iraqi's were also on standby, and their manager was getting pretty heated with the crew about getting his guys on. I think he was irritating the loadmasters pretty severely because one of them finally just grabbed the 4 of us ambiguously military looking guys, and took us out to his helicopter leaving at least 2 of the Iraqi's on the pad.
We got to talking to our other 2 mysterious standby passengers after we landed in Fallujah, and it turned out that they were NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigation Service) Agents on short term assignment to Fallujah. One of them said he normally works on cold case murder investigations. Sometimes life really is like TV.
Back to the flight to Fallujah: We loaded up on the helicopter and I got to sit right behind one of the waist door gunners. There was another machine gun setup on the ramp, and we flew the whole way with ramp down and the tail gunner perched out there on the edge.
The gunners all charged their weapons as soon as we took off, and we flew totally blacked out over the city. The view with the side windows open and the ramp down was pretty spectacular as we flew out over the city. I was surprised by how many lights there were. It really looked a lot like flying over any smaller American city. Tons of street lights and some cars driving, but no obvious city center.
Flying at night with all the doors and windows open is COLD! Next time I'm definitely putting on my long underwear first.
We made one stop along the way to drop off some people at another airfield, and then on to Fallujah. Fallujah was very dark, and jogging off the helicopter carrying a ton of gear toward somebody waving a chem-light definitely felt a little tactical.
And so 65 hours after walking out the door of my house in Minneapolis I'm standing on the side of a dark LZ (landing zone) in one of the more notoriously dangerous cities in Iraq.
Happily the LZ is in the middle of a large and well secured base, and so we gratefully take off our body armor, and start looking for a place to sleep for the night.
We can't get Bravo Company to answer the phone, and the Marines we are with don't know where they are, and so we head to the Marine Corps transient billets (another big tent on a concrete pad) to get some sleep. We'll figure out where Bravo Company is in the morning.
Well it has been quite a day for me and NPR. It turns out that Tom was also on his way to Fallujah, because of a fairly major news event that will be occurring HERE in the next couple of days. I'll post the details as soon as we confirm them in the morning.
Tom is going to be staying here in Fallujah the next week also, and so I'm looking forward to spending some more time with him, and learning about military reporting from one of the true experts in the field.
At 7:15 pm we were lounging around in the heliport office watching "Finding Nemo", and chatting with Tom Bowman when the specialist running the desk announced a little excitedly that his computer was showing that our helicopter was already on the ground (15 minutes early) and we should grab our gear and hustle out to the helipad.
We threw on our body armor and picked up all our gear, and trotted out to look for our helicopter. I turns out that there were 2 Marine Corps Sea Stallions (? need to confirm designation ?) sitting out there on the pad with their rotors spinning.
We hustled over to where the loadmasters were forming up some other passengers who had been waiting somewhere else, and I proceeded to listen in on the coversation/negotiation going on between the loadmasters, one of the specialist from the heliport office, and a Iraqi man. The Iraqi man had 4 men that he was trying get on the flight to Fallugah, the specialist from the heliport office was trying to get us on, and it wasn't quite clear how many spaces there really were available.
Some passengers, like Tom Bowman, had what amounted to confirmed reservations, but CPT Lappegaard and I and two well armed serious looking guys who weren't wearing any military insignia on their nomex flight suits were all on standby. Apparently the 4 Iraqi's were also on standby, and their manager was getting pretty heated with the crew about getting his guys on. I think he was irritating the loadmasters pretty severely because one of them finally just grabbed the 4 of us ambiguously military looking guys, and took us out to his helicopter leaving at least 2 of the Iraqi's on the pad.
We got to talking to our other 2 mysterious standby passengers after we landed in Fallujah, and it turned out that they were NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigation Service) Agents on short term assignment to Fallujah. One of them said he normally works on cold case murder investigations. Sometimes life really is like TV.
Back to the flight to Fallujah: We loaded up on the helicopter and I got to sit right behind one of the waist door gunners. There was another machine gun setup on the ramp, and we flew the whole way with ramp down and the tail gunner perched out there on the edge.
The gunners all charged their weapons as soon as we took off, and we flew totally blacked out over the city. The view with the side windows open and the ramp down was pretty spectacular as we flew out over the city. I was surprised by how many lights there were. It really looked a lot like flying over any smaller American city. Tons of street lights and some cars driving, but no obvious city center.
Flying at night with all the doors and windows open is COLD! Next time I'm definitely putting on my long underwear first.
We made one stop along the way to drop off some people at another airfield, and then on to Fallujah. Fallujah was very dark, and jogging off the helicopter carrying a ton of gear toward somebody waving a chem-light definitely felt a little tactical.
And so 65 hours after walking out the door of my house in Minneapolis I'm standing on the side of a dark LZ (landing zone) in one of the more notoriously dangerous cities in Iraq.
Happily the LZ is in the middle of a large and well secured base, and so we gratefully take off our body armor, and start looking for a place to sleep for the night.
We can't get Bravo Company to answer the phone, and the Marines we are with don't know where they are, and so we head to the Marine Corps transient billets (another big tent on a concrete pad) to get some sleep. We'll figure out where Bravo Company is in the morning.
Why no "real" photos yet?
Some of you are starting to wonder why you haven't seen any "real" photos on the blog yet of soldiers and helicopters and military stuff in general?
I have been working under a very specific, and very limited, set of rules of engagement over the first few days of the trip. Basically, I was not allowed to take any pictures of military stuff, or do any other military "news gathering" until I arrive in Fallujah, and connect up with the unit I'm embedding with. This means I've seen some great shots, and been forced to leave my cameras (all 3 of them) in their hard cases.
I've made a judgement call that the few photos that I have taken are purely autobiographical, and don't violate the letter or the spirit of the Embed Rules that I signed and initialed in over 30 places this morning. At worst violating these rules could get me immediately kicked out of the country, and I'm taking them very seriously.
Happily, I just arrived in Fallujah this evening, and I should be free to start taking real pictures tomorrow morning!
I have been working under a very specific, and very limited, set of rules of engagement over the first few days of the trip. Basically, I was not allowed to take any pictures of military stuff, or do any other military "news gathering" until I arrive in Fallujah, and connect up with the unit I'm embedding with. This means I've seen some great shots, and been forced to leave my cameras (all 3 of them) in their hard cases.
I've made a judgement call that the few photos that I have taken are purely autobiographical, and don't violate the letter or the spirit of the Embed Rules that I signed and initialed in over 30 places this morning. At worst violating these rules could get me immediately kicked out of the country, and I'm taking them very seriously.
Happily, I just arrived in Fallujah this evening, and I should be free to start taking real pictures tomorrow morning!
Waiting for a helicopter
Washington Army Heliport, Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq - This was the point where our little journalistic band of brothers separated, with CPT Lappegaard and I going one way, and the Fayetteville reporters and the cartoonist that I have been traveling with since Amsterdam going some others.
Our ride to the heliport was with CPT Kunkel, who showed up half way through lunch, and radiated a strong unspoken sense that we shouldn't keep her waiting. We threw the rest of lunch in the trash and scrambled into our body armor, and loaded our gear in her SUV for a short ride across the Green Zone to the heliport.
Once again we are low priority, space available, passengers. Fighting the war is more important that giving rides to journalists...
There are rarely direct helicopter flights from the Green Zone to Fallujah, and so our plan was to catch a ride to Al Asad Air Base, and then catch another flight from there to Fallujah. As it turns out there is direct flight to Fallujah tonight leaving at 9:30 pm. We're manifested for it, and hopefully we won't get bumped. CPT Lappegaard thinks this flight has a better chance of getting us all the way to Fallujah today than the Al Asad route.
Waiting for this flight means we have 9 hours to kill at this heliport which is really just a couple of hard wooden benches under a camouflage net, with a lot of really loud helicopters coming an going. Fortunately the main PX is just across the street, and so we have a good supply of snacks (aka "pogie bait"), and I bought some souvenirs including some stickers to put on my hard camera cases.
The stickers are smaller versions of the big red and white Arabic and English signs that appear on the back of US military vehicles at the ends of convoys, and at the front gates of military installations here.
The first one says:
"PASSING IS NOT ALLOWED
AMERICAN CONVOY AHEAD"
And the second one says:
"NO CIVILIAN TRAFFIC BEYOND THIS POINT
STOP AND TURN AROUND"
There were other signs with phrases that included things like: "DANGER EXPLOSIVES" and "DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED", but I decided I should avoid stickers that could be misconstrued to be referring to the contents of my Pelican cases.
Sitting here is good people watching, just like any other airport. I've seen well dressed Iraq civilians (Iraqi government officials presumably). There are Peruvian (yes you read that correctly) soldiers pulling security around the heliport, and checking ID's when you enter the area. There was a group of Australian soldiers earlier. And there is a steady flow of civilian contractors, mostly slightly overwieght American men in their 40's with long hair or beards.
The US soldiers have been heavy on colonels and command sergeant majors over the last hour, although all ranks have been represented. Surprisingly, (to me) it has been almost an even 50/50 split between males and females.
With 6 hours to go, there will probably be more to this story before we catch our flight...
The flight has been moved up to 6:30 pm (good), but there are more people trying to get on it (bad). If we don't make this flight it could mean an extra unproductive day. I'm hoping for the best.
We just had a flight of British Puma helicopters come in and drop of a bunch of British troops. I used to ride on British Pumas occasionally when I was on active duty in Europe in the 80's, but I haven't seen one since. Peacetime Puma rides were a lot more fun than peace time American Blackhawk rides. The British forces were strong believers in "train like you fight", and Puma rides were always VERY low and VERY fast.
We just had annother gaggle of American colonels (various branches of service) come through, all catching a helicopter to BIAP, to catch a flight to Qatar on a 4 day pass.
Our ride to the heliport was with CPT Kunkel, who showed up half way through lunch, and radiated a strong unspoken sense that we shouldn't keep her waiting. We threw the rest of lunch in the trash and scrambled into our body armor, and loaded our gear in her SUV for a short ride across the Green Zone to the heliport.
Once again we are low priority, space available, passengers. Fighting the war is more important that giving rides to journalists...
There are rarely direct helicopter flights from the Green Zone to Fallujah, and so our plan was to catch a ride to Al Asad Air Base, and then catch another flight from there to Fallujah. As it turns out there is direct flight to Fallujah tonight leaving at 9:30 pm. We're manifested for it, and hopefully we won't get bumped. CPT Lappegaard thinks this flight has a better chance of getting us all the way to Fallujah today than the Al Asad route.
Waiting for this flight means we have 9 hours to kill at this heliport which is really just a couple of hard wooden benches under a camouflage net, with a lot of really loud helicopters coming an going. Fortunately the main PX is just across the street, and so we have a good supply of snacks (aka "pogie bait"), and I bought some souvenirs including some stickers to put on my hard camera cases.
The stickers are smaller versions of the big red and white Arabic and English signs that appear on the back of US military vehicles at the ends of convoys, and at the front gates of military installations here.
The first one says:
"PASSING IS NOT ALLOWED
AMERICAN CONVOY AHEAD"
And the second one says:
"NO CIVILIAN TRAFFIC BEYOND THIS POINT
STOP AND TURN AROUND"
There were other signs with phrases that included things like: "DANGER EXPLOSIVES" and "DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED", but I decided I should avoid stickers that could be misconstrued to be referring to the contents of my Pelican cases.
Sitting here is good people watching, just like any other airport. I've seen well dressed Iraq civilians (Iraqi government officials presumably). There are Peruvian (yes you read that correctly) soldiers pulling security around the heliport, and checking ID's when you enter the area. There was a group of Australian soldiers earlier. And there is a steady flow of civilian contractors, mostly slightly overwieght American men in their 40's with long hair or beards.
The US soldiers have been heavy on colonels and command sergeant majors over the last hour, although all ranks have been represented. Surprisingly, (to me) it has been almost an even 50/50 split between males and females.
With 6 hours to go, there will probably be more to this story before we catch our flight...
The flight has been moved up to 6:30 pm (good), but there are more people trying to get on it (bad). If we don't make this flight it could mean an extra unproductive day. I'm hoping for the best.
We just had a flight of British Puma helicopters come in and drop of a bunch of British troops. I used to ride on British Pumas occasionally when I was on active duty in Europe in the 80's, but I haven't seen one since. Peacetime Puma rides were a lot more fun than peace time American Blackhawk rides. The British forces were strong believers in "train like you fight", and Puma rides were always VERY low and VERY fast.
We just had annother gaggle of American colonels (various branches of service) come through, all catching a helicopter to BIAP, to catch a flight to Qatar on a 4 day pass.
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