Oerdin's Iraq thread.

[oerdin's sis]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Oerdin
As we were driving we considered going into the shi'a neighborhood to find the three guys but the captain decided engaging in possible urban combat with six men without back up in a shi'a neighborhood wouldn't be wise.


Good decision!!

[Chemical Ollie]

Same shi'it, different day. Just 10 months left, huh? Don't be sloppy with your gear, and let's hope it doesn't turn worse. But I have my doubts about the Iraqi people's attitude.

This morning, there was a terrible terrorist act in Basra, killing about 70 civilians, among them 20 kids on their way to school. The suicide tactics and ruthlessness smells Al-Queda, but the angry crowds on my TV were accusing THE BRITS!

[Auntie H]

Yikes!
Is your humvee uparmoured????

[Duvan]

Just wanted to say thanks for the really intresting reports

[Barinthus]

Oerdin - glad to know you're getting what appears to be at least a competent 1SG and that you folks are alrite despite those mortaring and snipering incidents. Sounds like you have at least a prudent captain.

[Oerdin]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
When you hit the deck, do you take a flying leap or just drop like a sack of potatoes?

Potatoes baby. It's all about the potatoes.

[Oerdin]

Originally posted by Auntie H
Yikes!
Is your humvee uparmoured????

No, but supposedly they are working on it. I can only hope the new 1SG does a better job then the old 1SG.

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I actually meet our new 1SG four years ago when I was mobilizing to go to Kosovo. He was the 1SG for the Psyop company that was going to Bosnia and he was in the infantry during Vietnam where he was awarded a Silver Star with V device for bravery under fire. He was stationed with the Brigade HQ in Baghdad but he will now move to our company's HQ in Tikrit. I think he will be a big improvement.

By the sound of it, a baboon would have been just as effective as your original 1SG - so the new incumbent should be a big improvement.

Originally posted by Oerdin
The whole thing took maybe 60 seconds. As we were driving we considered going into the shi'a neighborhood to find the three guys but the captain decided engaging in possible urban combat with six men without back up in a shi'a neighborhood wouldn't be wise. Especially considering what has recently happened in Sadr City, Fallujah, and Najaf. Instead we radioed the location and "report of contact" into the local infantry company and left the ambush site. In Najaf the Shi'a tried to trick soldiers into a bigger ambush by firing a few rounds and getting the soldiers to move down narrow streets.

SMART MOVE! Brit slang for this is a "come on". Losing your head in combat is the last thing many do.

Originally posted by Oerdin
As of right now I don't know if the infantry has acted on our ambush report.

Almost certainly not... if the Northern Ireland experience is anything to go on.

After a contact, the Reaction Force would loose off at anything - trees, farm animals, each other, all too often the poor buggers that had reported the contact.

It got to the stage where most units where asking for the cops (Ulster Royal Constabulary) to back them, simply because they wouldn't go apeshit and hose down the area.

Can't comment on whether the Iraqi cops are up to this yet - probably not, although for chasing down small scale ambushers they might be competent at least.

Take care Oerdin - I think of you and the rest of the folks in Iraq every day.

[East Street Trader]

Very frightening stuff. Maybe you have taken up your allocation of being fired at for a good long time now.

When you think of all the amazing things human beings achieve by co-operating with each other in friendship it is just extraordinary that we still sometimes find ourselves striving to maim and kill fellow human beings.

Your gunners did well not to fire indiscriminately.

Good luck, Oerdin.

[Oerdin]

Pchang: He will not be demoted but he will get a letter of reprimand which means he almost certainly will never make E-9. As of right now they are moving him to the Psyop over all HQ in Baghdad's green zone where he will shuffle papers and generally be a waste of space. Sadly, that may mean his living conditions may actually improve.

Everyone else: At my father's suggestion I'm going to tell you all about the 1SG at my old Psyop company in Upland, CA. 1SG Herb was (he's now retired) a one of a kind man. He was born in Germany after WW2 to Lithuanian parents. His father fought in the Lithuanian Army against the Soviets during WW2. That meant the Lithuanians had to ally themselves with Nazi Germany but the Lithuanian people were so enraged by the Soviet invasion and occupation of their country that the decided Germany offered them the only chance they'd get to free themselves from Russian occupation. In any event as the German army retreated his family retreated with it and Herb found himself growing up in post war West Germany where the West German government had tried to resettle several Lithuanian refugees.

In the mid 60's Herb joined the US Army as a way to gain US citizenship and because he proved himself to be an exceptional soldier he applied and was accepted into the famed 3rd Special Forces Group as a Green Beret. Herb completed two combat tours in Vietnam where he was wounded and decorated several times (including a Distinguished Service Medal which is only two steps below a Congressional Medal of honor). In any event Herb rarely talked about his experiences in Vietnam but he earned all of our respect though his great leadership and how he put the soldiers first both as our 1SG and through the unit administrator's position (he held both positions).

In 2000 our unit got activated and sent to Kosovo and one day during the deployment we went to see a speech being made by General Sheffield who had been Herb's SF Captain in Vietnam. I walked with Herb up to the General and the two hugged each other like old friends (FYI NO ONE normally would ever be allowed to show such familiarity with a General). They exchanged greetings and Herb called the General "Captain Sheffield" to which the Sheffield asked if that was the proper way to address a General. Herb responded that "To me you will always be the Captain Sheffield who dressed up in a pink tootoo." and they both laughed. Then the General called to his wife and said "Honey, this is the guy I've been telling you about!" His wife asked him what he was talking about and then General Sheffield said "you know" while making stabbing motions at his crotch. His wifes face immediately lite up with recognition and she began to laugh while Herb began to turn bright red.

To this point I had just been a spectator to the whole conversation but I was now so curious as to what they were talking about that I asked. What they told me I will never forget. During Herbs first combat repell (which was just inside North Vietnam; the 3rd SF Group often went into the north or to Loas & Cambodia) they came under fire while Herb was repelling down. He was 15 ft off of the ground and Herb decided he'd just jump it rather then stick around to be shot at, unfortunately, he hit the ground right on top of a pit filled with pungee sticks (sharpened bamboo rods)! He said that after he fell the first thing he noticed was that his finger was cut but he heard the gunfire all around him so he tried to stand up so he could climb out of the pit. That's when he noticed he'd been stabbed right through the groin by a pungee stick! Dispite having 1.5 feet of bambo stabbed in his nuts herb climbed out of the hole, took part in the combat (saving one friend's life), and was later flown back to Saigon for medical treatment. That's how herb earned his DSM.

I have many other stories about herb but right now I think you all have gotten a feel about what sort of man makes a great 1SG. Herb really was the best.

[chequita guevara]

OW!

[Last Conformist]

That's something to tell the grandchildren!

[Spiffor]

Too... much... information... :Ouch:

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
That's something to tell the grandchildren!

I think something like that might preclude the ability to have grandchildren.

[Barinthus]

Whoa, definitely a kind of man I would want in my unit if I was in one.

Re: Lithuanians - Romanians were the same. A friend's father was a child during WWII in Romania and I enjoyed hearing his stories. He said that Romanians preferred Germans to the Soviets back then due to their different approaches to civilians (other than 'undesirables,' that is).

[Auntie H]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
That's something to tell the grandchildren!

You are assuming he was able to father children after that!!!

[Oerdin]

herb never had children though he did get married to a nice black woman.

[Theben]

[Chemical Ollie]

That guy had balls (for a while)

[Dr Strangelove]

Fortunately the Iraqis don't use tiger traps.

[Stuie]

Bump for an update, please!

[Hueij]

Maybe a dumb question, but what is a 1SG?

When I was in the army (1975/76) our platoon sergeant (sp?) was a Korean War veteran and he had to put up with all these young career officers, knowing that he would never surpass them in rank. He was the only professional soldier I had any respect for...

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Hueij
Maybe a dumb question, but what is a 1SG?

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Sergeant

[Hueij]

Originally posted by PLATO


http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Sergeant

That site sucks in Opera

But thanks, so the guy Oerdin was talking about was something like the guy I was talking about. A vet that has to put up with career officers for the rest of his professional life. Sad really...

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Hueij

That site sucks in Opera

Sorry.

But thanks

NP

[Oerdin]

Here is the latest news. Last Friday the dinning hall on base officially stopped serving lunch and cut back on what's available for breakfest on the grounds that Kellog, Brown, and Root (a subsidary of Hallburton) was having difficulty getting supply shipments from Europe. You'd figure that since Hallburton is charging $20 for breakfest and lunch ($25 for dinner) they'd want to bend over backwards to keep their facility open, but, I guess not. There are all sorts of rumors floating around some say Hallburton gets paid a fixed amount so if they don't deliver some of the meals then their profit goes up, others claim that Hallburton got fined for over charging the Army and so agreed to provide "free" meals for a certain period to cover the over charge. That means that if meals aren't served during that period or if the meals are smaller then ussual then Hallburton gets to walk Scot-free. I'm not sure I believe any of the rumors but I thought I'd report them just the same.

In other news one of our teams has returned after one month in Najaf. I have no reason to doubt their word but if things are as bad as they say they are then Iraq is much worse off then I've so far observed. The team spent 20 hours convoying to Najaf from Kirkuk with the 1-14 infantry and during that time they hit 6 different IED traps including one trap that consisted of 10(!!!!!) IEDs daizy chained togeather so that they would staff the whole convoy. After they got to Najaf they were involved in a two day long running gun battle with Sadr's militia which is bad enough but the worst is how the politicians handled the whole event. It seems President Bush and donald Rumsfield have taken a personal interest and so they are micromanaging the battle from back in Washington. They over ruled field officers and set up a "red zone" in Najaf where soldiers cannot fire into even if they are fired upon. Of course Sadr's forces quickly figured out where these red zone was and then began shooting at the soldiers from their new safe area. Even if an enemy troop column was spotted outside of the redzone they still had to get the local Marine General's permission to engage before they could open fire.

What the hell happened to Bush's promise that soldiers would be able to defend themselves when fired upon? Why they hell do they need a general to ok a target when it is obviously enemy forces? This whole thing stinks like President Johnson's micromanaging of the Vietnam war. Soldiers need to be free to defend themselves and local area commanders need to take advantage of targets of opportunity as they become available. The politicians simply need to set goals and then sit back and let the military proffessionals decide how best to achieve them. We should not let draft dodgers and people with no military experience condicend that they know better then people who have studied and trained for their whole lives on the subject and who are actually located right where events are occuring.

EDITED

[Barinthus]

Someone posted a quote from Sun Tzu in some other thread which said it all... to win a war, military needs to be free of political meddlings. Too bad battlefield commanders can't say screw you to the administration and do what's best but that's the price we pay for a military that answers completely to our civilian government which is a good thing in the long run. Hopefully Bush will wake up and let right people take over.

[Ted Striker]

EDITED

removed nude pictures of AH

[Bloody Monk]

Oerdin,

I couldn't agree more with what you say. The condition is fubar and it is getting guys killed. But I can say that; you can't. We don't need for you to get court martialed for speaking about the CiC. Please change the wording of your post so you are not subject to UCMJ hassles. And keep your head down. Please.

Monk

[Barinthus]

mmmm I wonder if the first amendment applies to those in military? Surely he can voice his opinions as long it's at an appriorate time (not under fire or whatever) and as long he's still following orders.