A Battlefield Tourist

Reclaiming Ground

Sep 19 at 3:03pm by David Tate

Tuesday afternoon I picked up a real short flight to FOB Falcon to begin my third, and last, embeddment.  This time I would be hooking up with 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, Third Infantry Division (Mechanized).  These guys are currently operating southeast of Baghdad in an area that hasn’t had a sustained coalition presence for the past 18 months and is said to be filled with Al Qaida in Iraq.  Since I didn’t get to Falcon until the afternoon, I was in no hurry to get out that same day, so I took advantage of the time to get some laundry done and catch up on some rest. 

Embedding poses a ton of different challenges that are rarely seen or talked about, including how to get clean clothing.  These FOBs have laundry services, problem is, they have a 72 hour turnaround, which in my case, is impossible to do.  I usually just wash my clotes in the shower, but as you can imagine, that can get old and rarely does it get your clothes clean.  So I have to give a “shoutout” to the nice lady from KBR who listened to my plight and got my stuff done in four hours!!  Must’ve been a record!!

I got a good night’s sleep and was up early Wednesday to get on a logistics convoy heading out to 1/30, which is the area directly southeast of Baghdad.  To get there, our convoy of HMMWV’s and large trucks (I do not know their designation) had to make our way through a portion of southern Baghdad that has cost this unit some casualties.  As always, any sort of ground transportation is a scary venture.  In fact it can be so scary, that ABC News is no longer allowed to do them.  IED’s are frightening not only because they are killers, but because they always make you fear for your life, whether you get hit by one or not, and here I am in a large convoy heading through an area that is just coming under US control.

Fortunately, the trip was eventless and we made it to our first stop of the day, a brand new base called Patrol Base Hawkes.  Engineers have been working hard to stand the base up for the past five days and it’s going up rather quickly.  The area originally had a base, 18 months ago, that didn’t last but three weeks once the upper brass realized the supply lines were not sustainable.  With the surge in effect, things have changed a bit and 1/30 was making plans to stay.

This is important as the Iraqi Volunteers, now called “Concerned Citizens”, started taking off in the area as it has over a number of areas in Iraq.  People are just getting tired of the thugery handed out by Al Qaida and are looking toward the US for help.  You cannot get people to cooperate on a regular basis if you don’t have a sustained presence to  instill confidence.  So 1/30 stood up Patrol Base Murray a few months back and are now working on PB Hawkes.

 There really isn’t much to PB Hawkes just yet, but that’s quickly changing and will be operational by October.  This is helping to convince locals to take their futures in their own hands and help the coalition.  Win, win situation.  Actually, the Americans have already handed an 8 sq/km area over to the Concerned Citizens who have literally been taking the fight to Al Qaida.  Not only that, but the intell provided by these people is proving invaluable.

I spent most of the day at PB Hawkes taking pictures and hanging out with the troops before backtracking to PB Murray, where I’ll be staying for the rest of my time.  At both Patrol Bases, the dust is just incredible.  They call it “moondust”, but you mightas well call it seven inches of baby powder; as fine as I’ve seen it since Oruzgan Province, Afghanistan.

The soldiers here say PB Murray used to the Usay or Quday’s summer retreat.  Whether that’s true or not, I can’t confirm, but whoever used to own it was certainly rich.  It’s a large mansion located right on the banks of the Tigris River.  You can tell there were once lush vegetation gardens here as well as elaborate rock gardens that included waterfalls, a dock and a swimming pool.  The remnants are still here, but the feel is long gone.  Now it’s home to Bradley Fighting Vehicles and infantry that are itching to take on Al Qaida.