At the beginning of my last post I made a pledge of sorts to update this blog more often and I am sorry I failed to keep my word. While the army has instilled in me a great disdain for excuses, I will go ahead and catch you up on what has been going on, which I hope will explain the lack of updates. With the elections in Iraq approaching, most people have been anticipating a spike in violence around the country. Unfortunately this has turned out to be much more reliable than most speculation coming from soldiers. Rocket attacks were sporadic throughout our first four months at FOB Delta, but a couple of weeks ago the insurgents really started increasing their diligence. Attacks started coming every other day at first and then during a six day stretch we received 5 separate rocket attacks (each attack consisting of 2-5 rockets). The rockets themselves are mostly remnants of the cold war and are hardly precision munitions when employed by under equipped and under trained insurgents, however, if you throw darts while blindfolded at a dartboard the size of a wall, you are bound to hit something and that seems to be good enough for these guys. The worst attack came one night about a week ago while I was at the FOB chapel during our praise and worship practice (I play guitar and sing for our Sunday morning protestant service). I was teaching “Song of Hope” by The Robbie Seay band to one of the vocalists when the pre-chorus was rudely interrupted.
“In my darkest night, you brighten up the skies. A song will rise”…[explosion]…
The irony didn’t occur to me until long after the adrenaline wore off that night. [Context: during the numerous rocket attacks prior to this one all I would hear was a dull thud in the distance and if I wasn’t already in the concrete building I live in would dutifully (and slowly) make my way to a nearby bunker in an effort to obey orders and keep my promise to my family and Molly to be careful. But this night was different. The first impact was fairly loud. Loud enough that I immediately knew Robbie Seay’s chorus was going to have to wait. The second impact set all of us running down the aisle towards the door of the paper thin chapel’s front door and taking cover in safety of the small bunker outside. My sprint was only briefly delayed by a moment to stop and gently set down the new Martin guitar I ordered and had shipped to me out here. I mean, it’s a Martin for heaven’s sake. In the past I have brought my guitar into a bunker during a rocket attack for a little sing along to pass the time until the “all clear” was sounded over the FOB loudspeakers but I knew no one including me was in the mood for a sing-along during this attack. As I ducked my head into the bunker I heard the third impact. It sounded like a quick crack of thunder and it sounded like it was close. I looked up at my friend and fellow 1st Lieutenant, Matt Parker and asked rhetorically (in what I am sure was very cliché “we are getting shot at” yelling voice) “how close is that?” Much to my surprise he laughed and pointed over my shoulder and said “its right there”. I turned around in time to see a smoke cloud and ball of sparks filling the night sky. We later found out the impact was somewhere between 50 and 100 meters from us. 5 rockets hit the base that night, all in busy areas full of soldiers walking around and miraculously only 2 soldiers received minor injuries from gravel thrown by one of the impacts. I fully realize that this experience is very tame compared to the firefights and IED ambushes other soldiers have dealt with throughout this war, nonetheless it quickly put my over glamorized view of war to rest for good.
The elections are coming up this Sunday and we will be working alongside our Iraqi Army counterparts conducting stability operations which hopefully will keep citizens of Al Kut safe while they head to the polls. This week is crucial for Iraq and consequently for our mission here as well. I will put together another update after the elections are over and everything settles back down.
