Retelling from My journal: 4 April, 2009 A lot has happened since I last wrote. I promised I would never talk about operations but this is a story I need to tell. Its not the worst thing that has ever happened to me in Iraq, just another day really but it shows how everyday here is uniquely dangerous. We work on the border with Iran. The previous team had never visited all of the border forts and we needed to in order to know our battle space and affect the situation. On the map, one castle which I cannot name, had a route drawn to it, as if the previous team had actually been there. On my on-board computer called the Blue Force Tracker or BFT a straight line route was drawn right over mountains that obviously curved and winded. It would be a trip. We set off to the unseen fort, some of our Iraqi counterparts are there so it can’t be too bad I thought. It was in the mountains were Iraq, Kurdistan, and Iran collide. This had been the final lines of the Iran-Iraq war (1979-1989). All over the area are abandon mine fields, old trenches, bunkers, and rusted wrecks of vehicles and artillery. The ground in some places is a former impact zone of thousands of artillery rounds, pock marked with craters. As we proceed up the mountains, the environment changes. There are meadows, with water and wildflowers. It reminded me a lot of the climb up the mountains on the way to Ruidoso. The road begins to be smaller and smaller the further we go. Our massive trucks, called MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles) can barley fit into the two tire tracks that is now the road really just a turn-row. Any oncoming traffic had better get back up the mountain. There is no room to turn, there are 400 ft. drops on either side and we are bigger and have guns. But there is no one. We haven’t seen anyone for miles and that is never good in Iraq. The route on my BFT is imaginary. I plotted the position of the castle on my map then looked at satellite imagery to plot my own route. The old route is as the crow flies so it can’t help me. We come to a meadow, a flat area on the saddle of a mountain. The road divides in two. The split is not on my map nor is it on my satellite imagery. I order the two trucks behind me to stop while I recon the route. I zoom in on my BFT. There is a spot near me that shows a line going north, but it’s a contour line, a line that shows changes in elevation. My road seems to curve to the right. This is certainly not the time to remember Robert Frost’s Road less traveled garbage. A road less traveled means its dangerous; people don’t travel on roads with bombs. Now, I always feel better in the mountains. Its prettier than the desert flatlands of Iraq and Al Qaeda doesn’t really go up there. Here we are still in danger because of our mission. We are targeted by Iran and their supplicants JAM (Jaysh Al Mahdi), the Badr Corps, and Iraqi Hezbollah and we are meters, not miles from Iran. The wrong turn might land us in Iran, into a mind field, or into a trap that JAM has constructed. I see my road on the map going right, plus the road going left looks less traveled so I take the road on the right. As soon as we moved up the road my ICON on the BFT went off the road to the right. It was a wrong turn! I tell the rest of the truck, “It’s a wrong turn”. My gunner a Lieutenant from Illinois named Erich says “its ok I see a place where we can turn to the other road through the field”, I waited until I could see the turn-row. It seemed like it had been traveled on in the past few years so I said “alright do it but Steve (our driver a Captain from Florida) keep our tires in the tracks”. We turn into the field. We go about ¾ of the way through when Erich says “we’re in a mine field” then I see that the road is cratered in the last ten meters of the road. The wreckage of a truck still there and cratered so deep we cannot go around it. We pull to a stop. I radio to the other trucks and tell them “don’t come into this field”. I look out my window and see the small rusted metal fans of an exposed Anti-personnel mine. Oh God, I have heard about idiots who lead their troops into mine fields but now I’m that guy. I look further and I see small piles of rocks spray painted red, the UN symbol for a minefield. “We gotta back up” Steve says. Right “Erich you gotta watch our tracks” I said. “Alright, I’m watching” Erich replied. “Damn it!” I said. I radioed the rest of the team “We are going to back up…everyone button up and gunners stay down” (this is to keep them from getting wounded in case my vehicle gets hit). Our Master Sergeant, who I will not name, comes over the radio “I think ya’ll are in a minefield” he drawls. “Yea we are” I said as I simultaneously prayed and looked in my rear view and watched.
![]()
Latter that night I had stir fry for supper!
| Tag: combat transition-teams advisor iranian-border iraqi-forces | permalink — 6 comments |

