From: Michael Mabee
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 11:51 PM
Subject: 20 August 2004 FRG Update


20 August 2004
FOB Speicher
Tikrit, Iraq


For HHC 167th CSG, August 19, 2004 marked the halfway point in our “365 BOG” (Boots on the Ground date). This means that we are officially halfway through our tour in the Middle East. We have been mobilized since December 7, 2003 and arrived in the Middle East on February 19, 2004. I want to again caution everybody about rumors. It is way too early to be speculating about our return date. I doubt that even the Pentagon knows for sure yet what date we will be home. There are just way too many variables. A rumor was recently floating around some of the families that we would be home by a certain month (earlier than our 365 BOG). There is absolutely no truth whatsoever to any date the rumor mill is generating right now. The time frame to think about is at the end of February 2005, but remember, many things can happen between now and then. It could be shorter or longer and I don’t believe that we will know until months from now. Don’t believe rumors. I will personally believe we are coming home when we are on the plane with the Atlantic Ocean underneath us and not a moment before then.

The Olympics in Greece has been one of the major news items lately and even here in Iraq we have seen the effects. On August 15, 2004 we were on a mission up in Mosul. The Colonel and I were sitting outside of our “trailer park” guest rooms at about dusk, enjoying the surprisingly pleasant evening air when we began to hear small arms fire on at least two sides of the base and saw lots of tracer rounds flying up in the air. As it turns out, Iraq had just defeated Costa Rica in Soccer at the Olympics. In this culture, when they’re happy, they start shooting. (The Iraqis were very happy that night!) It would be very good for the Iraqis if they won the Olympics in Soccer. Something like that would be a boost for their national pride and give the people some Iraqi heroes. Soccer is much bigger here than in the United States. During a recent sports day up at FOB Diamondback in Mosul (where the 44th CSB lives) the Iraqi ICDC (now known as the ING – Iraqi National Guard) fielded a soccer team that creamed all the other teams. The only serious competition they had was from the Albanian soldiers. I’ve seen Iraqi children playing soccer barefooted by the side of the MSR as we pass through villages in our convoys. Ouch.

The Airmen of the original 494th Aerospace Expeditionary Force – one of our two Air Force truck companies – went home this month and were replaced by a new group of airmen. The 494th is a “gun truck company” that supplies security escorts for many of our convoys out of Mosul. On August 3, 2004 I went on a night mission with them. It was a round trip from Mosul to Tikrit (about 165 miles each way), escorting supply trucks. I had ridden with the 494th on several other convoys in the past, but this time I decided to ride in the back of the gun box with the machine gunner to get a feel for what they go through. That sounded like a great idea at the time, but like many of my great ideas I would soon temporarily regret this decision, at least while the mission was going on. (I’m always glad I did it after the mission is over.) After the convoy commander gave us the briefing, we got in the trucks and headed over to the staging area where we picked up the trucks we were to escort to Tikrit. We rolled out of the wire and on to the MSR just after dusk and within a short time, it was dark.

The truck we were riding in was a 5 ton cargo truck that had been converted in to a gun truck. There is a ballistic steel box (or “bathtub”) built in the back of the truck which surrounds a pedestal mount for an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW). The gunner rides in this box the back and is able to hold on to the gun as the truck bounces up and down the MSR. I should mention that the suspension system on these trucks is not built for comfort. Every little bump in the road is amplified and standing up in the back of a bouncing truck for hours at a time is very physically draining. For me, this was exacerbated by the fact that there is nothing else to hold on to for a passenger other than the side of the box. Did I mention that I’m getting old? The airman I rode with to Tikrit was 19 years old and the airman I rode with back to Mosul was 21 years old. It’s a hard job to be bounced around in the back of a gun truck when you’re 19 or 21, but at twice their age I was really admiring their youth and cursing yet another one of my bright ideas.

Speaking of bright ideas, one of the airmen on another gun truck offered to let me carry his M4 rifle for the mission since he was manning a .50 cal machine gun in his truck. It sounded like a good idea at the time since the M4 rifle would certainly be a lot better than my 9mm pistol in a fracas. Makes a lot of sense, right? What I didn’t consider at the time was that now I would have to hold a death grip on the rifle with my right hand, the barrel cradled in the crook of my left arm as I held on the metal box for hours with my left hand as we bounced over the MSR. Since this was a night mission, you have night vision goggles hooked on to your helmets and they swing down on a hinge over your eyes and nose. As we bounced up and down the road, the goggles bounce up and down on your face. This is a problem when you have a beak as big as mine. Hours of the goggles bouncing up and down on my nose didn’t help the comfort factor one bit.

In a small convoy of Humvees, you can make the trip from Mosul to Tikrit in about 3 hours. However, in a long heavy convoy of supply trucks the trip can take 4-6 hours depending on what happens. This trip took us about 5 hours each way. So for ten hours, we bounced around in the gun truck. The first challenge is just balancing and staying on your feet. The truck bounces both up and down and from side to side. This requires your knees to act as shock absorbers and, in my case with no mounted machine gun to hold on to, it requires a constant grip with my left had on the gun box while the M4 slapped up and down on my arm and the night vision goggles slapped up and down on my face. There were several times that the potholes were so big that our feet actually bounced off the floor of the truck. It is exhausting work. And while all this is going on, you are scanning the sides of the road with your night vision for signs of trouble. That gives the experience an even more surreal edge. Everything is a strange shade of green through the night vision. Also, remember that wearing all the additional weight of the body armor, helmet and equipment while trying to stay on your feet and scanning the sides of the road contribute to a really oppressive feeling that the ride will never end. Over and over, I kept thinking to myself, “this was a really bright idea, Mike” (only there were a few choice swear words mixed in). But the troops usually appreciate seeing the senior people out doing the same job they’re doing and enduring the same conditions. Well, either they appreciate it or just like seeing me suffer. Either way, it’s good for the troops. When the mission was over, I was really glad I did it, but for the ten hours we were riding in the back of that truck, I didn’t have a lot good to say about my bright ideas.

One interesting thing you see at night is the long florescent lights on the outside of the houses, huts and buildings. Sometimes they are vertical and sometimes horizontal and sometimes a combination of both. Almost every building (at least the ones with electricity) has them. In the dark, it must make it easier to identify which building you live in, I guess. The lights definitely make Iraqi towns look different than U.S. towns at night.

By the time we got back to Mosul, it was daylight the next morning. I had bruises on my arm from the M4, my nose felt like it was broken and my legs were stiff. I gave a Command Sergeant Major’s Award coin to the two airmen I rode with. As hard as I found this mission to do for one night, they do the mission every day and will rack up tens of thousands of miles bouncing around in the back of the gun trucks over some of the most dangerous roads in the world. I have a huge respect for these young airmen and soldiers who endure this job day after day and are always there to protect their fellow troops. Somewhere during this mission, I crossed the 10,000 mile mark myself, but that is nothing compared to what the average soldier or airmen in one of our truck companies will do during this deployment. After this mission I felt every one of my 41 years. I had a heck of a time getting out of bed the afternoon after that mission and could barely move my left arm. I also found that even my chest was bruised just from the buttons on my uniform being bounced upon by the body armor plates. But I can’t complain because the next night the 19 year old airmen and the 21 year old airman would be back on the road doing the same mission.

We’ve been out with several of our other units this month. Among them, we did a mission to Kirkuk with the 454th Truck Company and a mission to Balad with the 66th Truck Company. On one of these missions, we got to see the engineers in action. They found an IED (roadside bomb) near Samarra just before we drove through. We stopped and after a while the Ordnance team came out and blew the bomb in place. It was a spectacular explosion. We are all thankful for the engineers who comb the roadways every day looking for bombs. They have saved a lot of lives over here.

On our latest trip to Mosul on August 15, 2004 an Iraqi pedestrian was struck by a southbound Iraqi car as we drove by northbound. We stopped and the victim was very lucky. The windshield of the car that struck him was completely destroyed. The victim had a head injury and a lot of scrapes and bruises, but appeared to be doing okay (a bit of a language barrier, so it is hard to fully assess them sometimes). Our soldiers who had Combat Lifesaver training gave the victim first aid the Iraqi Police showed up, but there are no ambulances in the particular area we were in. The driver of the car that struck him offered to drive him to the hospital. I guess it was the least he could do. There were a lot of people around and no matter what they hear on the Arab news stations; at least they got to see the Americans stopping to help out an Iraqi citizen that day. Hopefully, it gives them another data point on which to form their opinions about what’s going on over here. So much of the media (both Arab and American) doesn’t always seem to get the whole story – just the shocking parts. You don’t tend to see that much about the humanitarian missions or soldiers stopping to help somebody out.

The temperature seems to be cooling down now that we are into late August. There were a few days this week where the temperature barely broke 105 degrees. That’s a chilly spell for summer over here. It will cool down throughout the fall and then we have the rainy season to look forward to. Still, any possible weather this country can throw at us will still be better than January at Fort Drum. Personally, I’ll take 120 degrees over negative 20 any day. But you probably won’t hear us complaining when we’re back at Fort Drum 6 months or so from now.

The attached picture is of a 167th CSG convoy (HHC 167th and 498th Truck Company vehicles) crossing the Tigris River on a floating ribbon bridge near Ba’Qubah, Iraq. The soldiers, airmen and seamen (yes, we now have Navy personnel with us) of the 167th CSG continue to work hard everyday in dangerous and demanding conditions. You should be very proud of your family members and friends in all of our units.


"Granite 7"

Michael Mabee
Command Sergeant Major
167th Corps Support Group
OIF II, FOB Speicher
APO AE 09392