Mitch – U.S Soldier serving in Iraq

"My platoon was also in on the action. One day, we set out on a “routine” patrol when we were shot at by an RPG. We returned fire and called the birds to help us find the bad guy. We had gone over a month without being directly attacked by the enemy. The birds spotted him running away and we mounted our vehicles and moved to the location of where they had last seen him. When we dismounted, we had to sprint past 48 houses before we finally caught up to this guy. Once we caught him, we moved back to the scene of the attack and began to talk to the locals. As we were doing so, our IA counterparts were called to assist. As the IA moved to our location, they were hit with an IED. No one was injured and they caught up to us and helped as we moved through the neighborhood. When we began to leave, we were shot at from where we had just come. We turned around and ended up catching the bad guy hiding under a car. We began to leave and once more the IA are hit with an IED.

One of my Soldiers had noticed two guys that seemed to have been watching us for a long time as we were searching for the dude under the car. He gave a description of the guys to the birds and they spot them immediately. As I maneuver the platoon, the two “suspects” split up and began to run. I split my platoon in half and gave chase to both. The section that I was with quickly caught up to the suspect and detained him. As we were approaching, we saw him through a small black bag over a fence. We recovered the bag and inside it was a camcorder. He had been attempting to videotape the IED attack on us and use it for propaganda, recruiting and fund-raising. This scene played out like an episode of COPS. Meanwhile, my other section is in hot pursuit of the other guy. This guy is running into houses, changing shirts and then running to another house and doing it again hoping we loose sight of him. It seemed like we were going to lose him about four different times, but my guys were relentless in pursuit and finally caught him. All told, it took seven hours to finish the patrol and we had eight significant activities occur.

Three days after we caught the guys with the camcorder, we moved undetected (thanks to the [Dog Silencer Pro]) through the night and set up our “deer stand.” Moments later, we watched two bad guys attempt to emplace an IED. Not to go into detail, but let’s just say they never knew what hit them. Afterward, we found a cache of IED making material nearby. Two days later, our sister platoon was able to do the exact same thing and now there are two less IED emplacing cells in our area.

Like I said earlier, it was a big two weeks for us and we can actually say that we are making a real difference in this country. We are taking it to the bad guys. The locals can see progress and, slowly, they are turning on the insurgents. They are beginning to give us information that leads us to the bad guys. Last night I was thinking back to when we first arrived. Al Qaeda had a safe-haven. Terrorists openly roamed the streets. People were terrified to leave their homes. Not anymore."
Later, Mitch

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