CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE DELTA, Iraq — It’s late here, 2 a.m., but I wanted to pass on some quick reactions to the news spreading by word of mouth between soldiers that Defense Secretary Gates told Congress he was “interested” in keeping “an additional presence” in Iraq past 2011. The U.S. signed a 2008 agreement with Iraq saying it’s troops would leave by Dec. 31, 2011. Gates is now saying he wants a few more to stay than the 150 who will help Iraqis with Foreign Military Sales. “There is certainly on our part an interest in having an additional presence,”…
Author Mike Hoffman
JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq — Sorry, but all those T-walls that soldiers have spent countless hours decorating with unit designs can’t come home from Iraq, said Brig. Gen. Mark Corson, commander of the 103rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command. The T-walls must stay here because of the dirt and sand that has built up on the concrete structures, some of which have stood in Iraq for eight years. “They won’t clear customs so they have to stay,” Corson said. U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and contractors have already started the massive task of taking down the thousands upon thousands of T-walls that line…
Drowning in fiction, soldiers deployed to Iraq have to rely on the Internet or family and friends to send them non-fiction books because AAFES books shelves at Iraq Post Exchanges have few non-fiction options. Photographer Chris Maddaloni and I have taken an informal survey of the five AAFES BX/PX we’ve visited during our embed in Iraq. Look at the picture to the right because it features the one non-fiction book we’ve found so far. That’s right, the Oprah biography written by Kittey Kelly is the one and only non-fiction book we could find. Not a biography on any former soldiers,…
COMBINED CHECKPOINT 3 — Liquor stores and Christmas trees might be the last two things you’d expect to see in Iraq, but the soldiers with Nightmare platoon have come to expect each when they patrol through Qara Qosh, Iraq. A moderate Christian town, the U.S. soldiers walk the streets with Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers at least twice a week. Iraqi Christians flooded the town after the December bombings in Baghdad targeted the minority sect.
When the tanker platoon with 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry showed up in September to Patrol Base 3 on the eastern outskirts of Mosul the 30 soldiers all lived in one Alaskan tent. One rack next to each other. That didn’t sit well with Sgt. Brian Reed. He built barn frames before joining the Army and told SFC Henry Eldridge, the platoon sergeant, he could build better barracks for Patrol Base 3 if brigade could ship wood to the rural patrol base.
An Army spokesman giving a press tour around Baghdad said this mural, which stands at Camp Slayer, is one of the only last ones of Saddam Hussein throughout Iraq. The rest of the self aggrandizing portraits of the former dictator have been destroyed or vandalized beyond recognition. Somehow I feel there are a couple still up in his former hometown of Tikrit, but we’ll take the sergeant’s word for it.
BAGHDAD — Photographer Chris Maddaloni and I arrived in Iraq this week. We’ll be spending the next three weeks traveling around the country trying to get a sense of how the mission has changed and how Iraq will look once U.S. troops leave in December. Our agenda will include stops with the 148th Field Artillery Regiment in Baghdad, the 4th Infantry Division in Mosul, the 103rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command in Balad, and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Kut. If you are deployed to Iraq now and see us, say hi. We’ve spent the first few days with Idaho National…
BAGHDAD, Iraq — And we’re not talking about any of that crappy near beer, either. Combat operations might be over, but the two beer allotment for soldiers during the Super Bowl will continue Sunday. Two soldiers in the Idaho National Guard’s 148th Field Artillery Regiment said soldiers delivered three pallets of beer to the International Zone for soldiers to enjoy during the Super Bowl. They couldn’t confirm which brews the soldiers will have to choose from, but said Bud Light and Miller Light will most likely be included. The two beer tradition continues a year after Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va.,…
You could bid on two nine-foot decorative urns from the Arlington National Cemetery at public auction unless the government steps in and prevents the sale, according to a report in Sunday’s Washington Post. The Army has launched an investigation to figure out how these historic urns found their way into the hands of an antique shop owner and were scheduled to be auctioned next weekend at an Alexandria, Va., auction house. The newest controversy comes just eight months after an Army investigation and Washington post reporting found wide-ranging problems at Arlington that included unmarked graves and veterans buried under the…
The Army is so often criticized for not responding quick enough and then questioning why no one is paying attention when they issue a response well after everyone stopping talking about it. Not this time. Lt. Col. David Flynn, the commander of the Combined Joint Task Force 1-320th in Kandahar Province, responded immediately to critiques of his tactics in his AO. The critic is Joshua Foust, who blogs on Registan.net. He ripped the Army lieutenant colonel for arming a militia in southern Afghanistan and his decision to destroy the town of Tarok Kolache, which the Army says was empty and riddled with…
