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Time to once again open my life up a little in order to share the plethora of wealth I'm about to absorb. I'm going to be back in Iraq through September, so hop on board and check back every couple of days, I'll do my best to update as much as possible. Questions? dtate38@cox.net And check out the site I'm working with: http://www.billroggio.com Support independent journalism!
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
What a day. Started early, ended late. Actually went out in force today to recover a weapons cache that was found a few weeks ago. About 70 soldiers in all headed 100km south tyo a place where the "governor" of the province of Ghazni was hiding weapons. After some persuasion, he agreed to give them up.
The weapons were being held at an old Soviet airbase that actually looked like nothing but a desert. There were some burned out vehicles and unexploded artillery shells all over the ground. Inside the one building left on the base was bags of wheat or grain, stacked to the roof. Looked benign enough. In the back part of the building, stacked just as high, was ammo of all types: Anti-tank rounds by the hundreds, more than 75,000 mortar shells, 800 rockets, sauger missles, and of course, mines.
It took the soldiers all day to remove the just the important stuff (things that can easily be made into Improvised Explosive Devices - IED). Three truckloads of stuff. We also went through some old vehicles that were stacked to the hilt with AK-47's and Lee Enfield rifles; most in horrible shape. Suprisingly, we found three US M1 Garand rifles (WWII era) and an old STEN machine gun. The Sten was the type issued to the OSS (very first CIA) during WWII. This thing was just awesome.
Anyway, we took the stuff about 3 km away to an old riverbed, packed it with 500 lbs of C4 explosives and set a 15 minute timer. The explosion was awesome: rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air....
On the way back, the major I was with called in all the details. HQ told him they wanted the M-1's recovered. Earlier I told the major the significance of the Sten machine gun, so we grabbed that as well. I suppose they will end up in someone's collection. Better than rotting in an Afghan locker. Personally, I found an old Soviet canteen with it's cloth case still in good condition, so I added it to my growing collection of war trophies.
All in all, it was a great day of video and I had a good time. Turns out the cache was the second biggest to be recovered from that province, so that worked out well. A lot of stuff the enemy no longer has access to.
The past few days I haven't had a lot of time to write and today is no different. It was just a good day all around and I wanted to let you know that.
The weapons were being held at an old Soviet airbase that actually looked like nothing but a desert. There were some burned out vehicles and unexploded artillery shells all over the ground. Inside the one building left on the base was bags of wheat or grain, stacked to the roof. Looked benign enough. In the back part of the building, stacked just as high, was ammo of all types: Anti-tank rounds by the hundreds, more than 75,000 mortar shells, 800 rockets, sauger missles, and of course, mines.
It took the soldiers all day to remove the just the important stuff (things that can easily be made into Improvised Explosive Devices - IED). Three truckloads of stuff. We also went through some old vehicles that were stacked to the hilt with AK-47's and Lee Enfield rifles; most in horrible shape. Suprisingly, we found three US M1 Garand rifles (WWII era) and an old STEN machine gun. The Sten was the type issued to the OSS (very first CIA) during WWII. This thing was just awesome.
Anyway, we took the stuff about 3 km away to an old riverbed, packed it with 500 lbs of C4 explosives and set a 15 minute timer. The explosion was awesome: rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air....
On the way back, the major I was with called in all the details. HQ told him they wanted the M-1's recovered. Earlier I told the major the significance of the Sten machine gun, so we grabbed that as well. I suppose they will end up in someone's collection. Better than rotting in an Afghan locker. Personally, I found an old Soviet canteen with it's cloth case still in good condition, so I added it to my growing collection of war trophies.
All in all, it was a great day of video and I had a good time. Turns out the cache was the second biggest to be recovered from that province, so that worked out well. A lot of stuff the enemy no longer has access to.
The past few days I haven't had a lot of time to write and today is no different. It was just a good day all around and I wanted to let you know that.
