hey all

life here got a littl ebit more interesting over the past few days. last week an IED went off right outside our building injuring 4 soldiers. They went part of our company, military police from another base. Our platoon was on a patrol right in the area of the blast. They ran towards the blast site and assisted with security and first aid to the wounded soldiers, one of which had massive blast injuries to the right foot and another with shrapnel injuries to the nose and face. The men were evacuated to our treatment facility about 2 miles away and were flighted out to recieve surgery in the green zone in baghdad. My platoon did an amazing job. I wasnt there due to other missions, but they all stepped up and acted very swiftly and did exactly what they were trained to do.

The other night at about 430 am we were all woken up by explosions...and they were close. no one knew what was going on. we thought we were being attacked by rockets, which is common as well as very destructive to the other bases in our area. we threw our gear on and maned the different guard posts for our base, increasing security. I prepared for causalitys comming in but there were none. turnes out the enemy had fired several morters at our building but their aim sucks so they fire one wait for to hit then make adjustments. well either satalites or someone in the area knew where they were firing from and called in apaches and an AC130 gun ship. the AC 130 is a cargo plane loaded with advanced weaponary and imaging equipment. 2 30mm gatling guns, 40 mm cannon and a 105mm howitzer cannon. its been described as "the closet thing man has created to the fist of god" we heard explosions all around us we had no idea what was happening. it delievered somewhere between 50-75 105mm shells to the ground destroying alot on a neighborhood across the street. The airforce saved our asses.

daily life is normal lots of patrols with a hightened sence of awareness...we know their out there now. theyve just been waiting. on another note my computer died so i havent been able to post any pics but heres one off my buddies site and a picture of the AC130. enjoy!

some time off in the green zone

yesterday we were able to go to the green zone, a secure part of bagdad and the heart of iraq. we were able to get a decent haircut, eat good food and yes we even went swimming. 2 years ago if you would have told me i would be swimming in a war zone much less be in a war zone i would have laughed at you. evrything in this palace was amazing...huge 60 foot vualted ceilings with amazing designs, gold and marble everywhere. one of the pics is us in one of his rooms. gold couches and a copper like mirror room. i felt like i was at a disco haha.

I saw a poster on a wall about an art exhibt in new york where local iraqi artist's painted their version of the "shock and awe" in the kick off of the war in iraq. it would have been kinda cool to see that. i thought about christie, she would have liked to see that, but shes too busy saving the world in burma haha.

passing time around these parts

4th of july was pretty borring. nothing exciting happened except for our interprater slaughtered and cooked lamb for us all and i helped... 3 hours in 115 degrees cooking over a grill is not fun at all. this terp is the same one that we cut the infection out of when we were still at camp taji.

We recently just went out to forward operating base Shield for our range day to zero our weapons and make sure they are still accurate. Bouncing around in Bradleys and constantly bumping and banging can sometimes throw out sight systems off a little bit. Its funny but this platoon will just about make anything fun. you have to find the bright side of things when theres nothing to be excited about. thank god for awesome sences of humor! this is Breazeal or blue as every one calls him. and i swear to you i dont have any pictures of him not flipping off the camera. And Mancini is a riot always making us laugh. right up untill the point where he got knocked out. im just kidding about that actually

Things are good out here lately. now that its not enough that we have to worry about the madahi army which in approx 60,000 strong now we have gangs to worry about... the leader is some 20 year old punk bitch that likes to terrorize people and really makes alot of civilians fearful for their life. so that really our mission right now. once the wall in Sadr City went up the Milisha became scarce but now we have this punk kid to deal with. Makes you wonder how much of an impact your making out here. ?