January 18, 2005

• I really dont feel like being on the computer these days .Maybe soon again. But i wanted to post this up date from the boys and girls in Iraqi.This post come to me from my friend Barb. Joshua’s and bj’s Mother

  
  

  
  Treasure hunt turns up mines, machine gun
  By Edward Lee Pitts
  Military Affairs
   
  CAMP CALDWELL, Iraq — Under the shadows of snow-capped Iranian mountains,
  the 278th Regimental Combat Team’s Deacon Company digs for hidden weapons
  caches with the help of the Iraqi army and U.S. Special Forces.
   
  Iraqi soldiers shovel at the bottom of a man-made 15-foot crater in farmland
  as U.S. troops peer anxiously down at what once may have been a well but now
  holds weapons instead of water. Iraqi police and National Guard soldiers in
  the 278th’s sector long have gone out on patrols with U.S. forces.
   
  “I feel like Indiana Jones,” said one of the Special Forces soldiers.
  Special Forces soldiers do not wear name patches or ranks to keep their
  identities hidden.
   
  The men are looking for explosives because a local informant said insurgents
  are hiding weapons in sink holes. Soon an Iraqi soldier uncovers a mud-caked
  anti-personnel mine and slowly brings it up, balancing it on the end of his
  shovel.
   
  “Careful, it’s about to fall off of your shovel,” said Lt. Joseph Minarick,
  forgetting the soldier doesn’t understand English.
   
  The U.S. soldiers gather around to identify and photograph the mine and call
  in its map coordinates so members of the Explosives Ordnance Disposal unit
  can destroy it before it becomes the key ingredient in a roadside bomb.
   
  In its largely rural sector near the Iranian border, Deacon Company has been
  busy putting a dent in the materials insurgents use to kill U.S. forces and
  pro-election Iraqis.
   
  In less than a month in Iraq, Deacon Company already has found more hidden
  weapons caches than its predecessors did in almost a year of searching.
   
  The company has uncovered two mortars, one heavy machine gun, 115 mortar
  shells, 28 grenades, 25 rocket-propelled grenades, 45 boxes of ammunition
  and nine artillery rounds.
   
  “We want to find the stuff and get it out before somebody else grabs it,”
  said Spc. Matthew Shipp, 25, of Knoxville. “We would rather dig it up and
  explode it than have it sitting on the road someday.”
   
  The Deacon Company soldiers said they are in a treasure hunt race against
  the insurgents who craft the improvised explosive devices, often called
  IEDs, responsible for most U.S. deaths on Iraqi roads.
   
  “Anything they can find that has explosives in it, they can use,” said Sgt.
  Walter King, 25, of Jefferson City, Tenn.
   
  Sgt. King said the company has succeeded by checking areas other U.S. forces
  have not explored in a while.
   
  The company’s vast sector is littered with dated unexploded munitions from
  the Iran-Iraq war. But the company is finding newer explosives mixed in with
  the war leftovers — a sign the insurgents are using the area as a
  collection point for their tools of destruction.
   
  The rural landscape offers unlimited hiding places for insurgents who don’t
  want to get caught with the bombs inside their homes.
   
  “This is the harvest ground for a bomb maker,” said Maj. Tim Cleveland, the
  First Squadron’s operations officer, as he looked out over Deacon Company’s
  sector of mountains, date palm groves and fields. “The enemy is getting
  really good at hiding stuff.”
   
  The proximity to the border means the company’s area is a breeding ground
  for black market weapons activity. Struggling farmers often risk jail by
  selling weapons to put food on the table. Weapons brought over the border
  can be shipped all over Iraq.
   
  “These guys make $300 a year in average annual income,” said Spc. Shipp.
  “You can get way more than that smuggling weapons.”
   
  The biggest bounty for Deacon Company occurred two weeks ago when a convoy
  pulled over to investigate a possible roadside bomb.
   
  The more the soldiers spread out over the area, the more explosives they
  found, including leftover mortar rounds, boxes of ammunition and grenades.
   
  To reach these hiding places, Deacon Company must navigate unmapped goat
  trails and abandoned fighting positions where decade-old armies left
  everything behind when they fled during the border war.
   
  “Walking around in a minefield is not something I like to do every day,”
  said Sgt. John McHugh, 35, of Knoxville.
   
  Unsatisfied with the single uncovered anti-personnel mine found in the old
  well, Deacon Company and Special Forces continue searching. As they peer
  into sand dune crevices and ditches built both by erosion and by fighting
  soldiers, nearby sheepherders tend their flocks and children play.
   
  In another crater several hundred yards away, the Iraqi diggers soon uncover
  a second mine, this one so old its paint has peeled away.
   
  The Iraqis take pictures of themselves holding the mine, and a few toss the
  small white disc around, forcing most of the U.S. soldiers to take several
  steps back.
   
  “It is kind of like mine Frisbee,” Lt. Minarick said.
   
  The Iraqis are more used to explosives in their midst and show less fear.
   
  But the unpredictable nature of these mines has Sgt. 1st Class Clay Rader
  glad they will be removed for the protection of the local population as well
  as U.S. troops.
   
  “You could just touch it and it will go off, or you could drive a semi-truck
  across it and nothing would happen,” Sgt. Rader said.
   
  Before the end of the day, the U.S. soldiers drive closer to the Iranian
  border and uncover 10 mortar rounds and some machine gun ammunition among
  long-abandoned bunkers.
   
  The hardest part of the weapons hunt for Deacon Company is having to leave
  the newly discovered caches behind.
   
  So many bombs are uncovered here it takes several days for the overworked
  Explosives Ordinance Disposal to show up at a new site.
   
  The soldiers have a joke that EOD stands for Every Other Day. They fear
  leaving the bombs unguarded will give insurgents more time to pick them up
  before they are destroyed.
   
  “It is pretty frustrating when you have to leave a bunch of stuff that could
  wind up killing you,” Lt. Minarick said.
   
  The payoff for Deacon Company’s work is when its soldiers get to accompany
  EOD to detonate the explosives.
   
  Soldiers in the company proudly display on their laptops before-and-after
  photos of a pile of explosives wired for destruction.
   
  “It rattles your teeth, but in a good way,” said Lt. Minarick, adding that
  the best spot for watching the fireworks is at least 300 meters away from
  behind a sand dune.
   
  
   

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