A Battlefield Tourist

Back to the Triangle of Death

Sep 16 at 12:12pm by David Tate

Early Saturday, I packed my gear after the short stay at Camp Striker and made my way to the area where the chopper would pick me up and and take me to my new destination:  FOB Mahmudiyah (the Americans spell it, “Mahmudiah”, for some reason).  For those unfamiliar with Iraq, Mahmudiyah is one of the point cities in Iraq’s “Triangle of Death”, located due south of Baghdad.  Once there, I will have visited two of the three anchor points in this volatile area of mixed Sunni and Shia tribes within the past week.  The trip in the Blackhawk would be my first since coming to Iraq and I was looking forward to it so I could get some good aerial shots of the area.

The 3rd ID (who controls this part of the battlespace) runs a shuttle of sorts called, “The Marne Express”, that takes passengers, mostly troops, to the plethora of FOBs, Patrol Bases and COPs that dot the Iraqi countryside south of Baghdad.  Flying overhead, once again, everything seems peaceful.  You can see farmers plowing their fields, women hanging laundry and children running across the rooftops seemingly trying to keep up with the choppers flying overhead.

Occasionally, particularly along the Euphrates River, are the signs of war.  Usually it’s in the form of a flattened home with a bomb crater directly in the middle.  There is also the occasional burned field that could have been the result of anything.  Most likely a result of trying to disallow insurgents cover along the many irrigation canals that come with the agriculture needs.  None of the fields I saw were near an active settlement.  

Seeing the Euphrates for the first time from above really shows off its size.  The deep green waters twisting across the landscape giving life to the fields lying adjacent to it.

The trip itself only took about 20 minutes, which included quick stops at FOBs Falcon and Inchon to drop off other passengers.   The pilots take off fast and seem to keep the birds at full throttle, usually flying in tandem with another.  The lead chopper would go low as we climbed high before dropping sharply down, enough so that I needed to put my hands up as if I was on a rollercoster.  Then before I know it, I’m on the ground again, making my way toward the unit’s s-1 office as I start a new embedment.

FOB Mahmudiyah has a lot of similarities to other FOBs, but also has distinct differences.  The base is the current home for the headquarters of the 2/15 Field Artillery of the 10th Mountain Division and several other added units that make up its population.  That includes Air Force EOD (with the new anti- mine MRAP vehicles) as well as a battery of 155mm guns.  The army gave me a nice, comfortable room to myself with good AC and unrestricted access.  Actually, for the most part, I’ve been treated better than good the entire time. 

Knowing why I’m here (and I cannot say), I know I have time to get around the base picking up good historic footage and enjoying what they have.  That includes an Iraqi restaurant and internet cafe plus the other things these bases have like weight rooms, computer access and so forth.  Much of it (including my room) is based out of an old chicken factory.

I spent most of Saturday just hanging around getting to know people while listening to the big guns fire off every once in awhile.  You cannot believe how loud the 155’s are.  It shakes my door and I’m a good 200 yards away.  Hard not to be attracted to them so I spent much of the night trying to get a shot of them in action.  Of course due to Murphy’s Law I spent all that time hanging out in a tent with the cannon-cockers waiting… and waiting, watching the American Pie series, smoking the hookah, waiting even more.  You get the picture.  I did get the chance to shoot one fire mission, resulting in just one good shot of them in action.  I finally gave up, at 0200, only to be awaken at 0300 by their thunderous roar.

Sunday morning the FOB was expecting the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders.  In my mind I’m thinking it’s gonna be a scene out of “Apocalypse Now”…. not quite, but I did get some nice shots of the ladies getting off the choppers and hanging with the boys.  That’ll fit nice in my archive.  Unfortunately in my haste, I taped over the one good shot I spent 5 hours the night before trying to get.  Not the first time that’s happened!

Later in the afternoon, I was invited down the street to the Iraqi Army base, which is definitely something I could use.  So I armored up and headed out with a small convoy of HMMWV’s into Muhmudiyah.  Being in the city is so much different that what I’d seen earlier in the week.  The infrastructure is such that it’s as if the city is toiling in it’s own filth.  Regardless, life was underway and during the entire trip, I heard just one gunshot or small explosion or something.

We rolled into the Iraqi base where the junior officers I was with needed to touch base with their Iraqi counterparts.  A raid earlier in the day netted some intel that the Americans needed to add to their database.  It included pictures and propaganda involving al-Sadr, whose militia is the main trouble in this area.  The Iraqi officer even gave me a bit of it - a picture of the rebellious cleric that used to be an armband of one of his supporters.  It’s now going into my small collection of things I keep to give to my kids one day from my various travels.

The base itself was in pretty good shape.  A lot of construction was ongoing, even though it appeared as though it had been for some time.  Inside, as we met with the officers, US soldiers had noticed a guy that appeared to be casing our trucks.  One of the guys, who knew a little Arabic, heard the Iraqi (who was in plain clothes) talking into a cell phone about our presence.  Next thing you know, this guy was in trouble.  His expressions indicated he didn’t have a care in the world, but it turned out there was some sort of possible connection to the insurgency that would soon be exploited once we were gone. 

I saw two other men in detention and I took their pictures.  Geneva Convention and American rules prohibit me from taking pictures that identify suspects, so I have to take my images from interesting angles in order to keep in line with embedment and convention rules.  I also got some nice images of an old weapons cache that had been dug up.  The pile of ammo was clearly old, but undoubtedly the propellant in the rounds is salvageable explosives, making even this heap of seemingly useless ordinance dangerous in the wrong hands.

The highlight of the trip came when they (the Iraqis) led a suspect into the office where we were meeting and interrogated him.  The Iraqi officer, just a Lieutenant, spoke decent English and commanded good respect.  As he sat in a chair, he flex cuffed the guy and sat him on the ground in front of him, calmly talking to him, often times running his hands through the suspect’s hair in a seemingly soothing manner.  I’ve seen this before in these cultures, something too macho for an American to do, not the case with Iraqis.  They tend to be a bit more touchy than I would expect in my culture.  Regardless, it turns out the guy’s family has had trouble with insurgent activities every year since 2004.  After a good 20 minutes of talking and questioning, the solemn-looking man (maybe mid-20’s), was led away.

We made it home with no problems (although I wondered what was waiting for us) just after 1500.  By then I was dragging pretty bad, so I decided I really needed a good nap.