Heating Up

Just wanted to stop in and get my first post written since coming back off leave. It was awesome to be home for those two weeks. For the most part I was able to see everyone I wanted to see, and even though I was spread pretty thin, I really enjoyed it. But to be honest, I never really felt "at ease" the whole time...I really felt out of place. I mean, how are you really supposed to adjust to a "normal" life in such a short amount of time? One day I'm driving through the downtown streets of Kirkuk, scanning around waiting to get ambushed or get hit by an IED, and then two days later I'm back in the States where the grass is green, there aren't bombs buried in the roads, and no one is trying to kill you. But they say no-one really adjusts over their R&R leave mostly because it's only a temporary time home, and for those two weeks your mindset is still stuck in Iraq. The true test will be when I come home for good.

So the title of my blog post really has two meanings to it. For one, as most of you could probably guess, the temperature is skyrocketing. It's reached about 115 degrees so far, but each day feels hotter than the previous. It'll keep climbing all the way into August where it'll get between 120-130 degrees fahrenheit. The heat is unimaginable, and the only way you're gonna know what it feels like is if your experiencing it yourself. But here, let me see if I can try and give you a situation. First off, wait until the hottest day of the summer, where it must be in the 90's. To start off with the clothing, put some nice jeans on that don't breathe well, and a T-shirt. Over the T-shirt, find a light jacket...a windbreaker should do. For shoes, go find some good boots. Now you have your initial uniform. Next, we need our protective vest and all the cool little toys and trinkets attached to it. Go find the heaviest winter jacket you have and throw that on. Proceed by stuffing all the pockets with the heaviest items you can fit in there, and fill them completely. Our frag vest weights 35 lbs. by itself. But add on all the extra items and tools of the trade, plus 7 magazines, or 210 rounds of ammunition...and we're talking some serious weight. So after you've stuffed your coat, find yourself a nice heavy pot to stick on your head as a helmet. But you can't go out in sector without a weapon! Go and find some type of metal rod or so that weighs at least 5 lbs. But with an optical sight, a flashlight, and a 30 round magazine, we're talking nearly 10 lbs. Now you're ready to go soldier! Now, wearing all of this, go outside and walk around for about 5 or 6 miles, doing an occasional jog, or more likely, a sprint. Also, make sure you have on some good gloves, and sunglasses. So, if you can do this, you'll have a small idea of what patrolling in Iraq is like.

The second meaning behind my title, can be taken in the form of "activity" heating up. Iraqis hate the cold, so for the first few cool, rainy months we were here...activity was relatively low. But now that the rainy season is over, and it's hot, and sunny every single day...a lot more is happening. While I was on leave, our company created a new "Blue" platoon (We have a Red, White, and now Blue platoon in our company, making 3) with the sole mission of doing foot patrols throughout various cities and towns. In my old platoon our mission was primarily route clearance, in which we would sometimes do foot patrols and such...but the majority of the missions were in vehicles doing route clearance. Now, we're on the ground 100% of the time, walking for hours on end patrolling the streets. It's completely different on foot. You're so much closer to the action, and much more vulnerable. Last week while we were doing a joint patrol with one of the actual infantry companies in our Battalion, one of the guys was shot and killed by a sniper. He died only moments later. We were not able to find the shooter. The next day they had a ceremony for that soldier, and afterwards we all stood in a formation as his coffin was loaded onto a C130 plane, and then saluted as he took off, making his trip home, to his final resting place. It was hard, as most of the guys knew him pretty well. But you gotta suck it up. You gotta take those feelings and shove them deep inside you. Lock them away. Because if you let those feelings get to you, you compromise the mission.

Anyways, I need to head out and get some sleep. I'll try and get the next post in sooner.

-Out here-

DA03