Other than that we are safe. Our truck has already been fixed and is ready to go out again with just some dents and scratches in the bottom. If we are lucky, we won't break it any more!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
We Broke Another Truck!
Well, last night was exciting. We had a short mission, but it was a full one. We guarded some more construction work including some work on a police station right in the middle of Sadr City. It was the first time that we got off the major roads and went deep into the neighborhoods. We were guided by the infantry guys who work there everyday. There were lots of bombed out buildings and places to hide bombs everywhere. We got the job done and then things got a little exciting. Just as we were leaving we ran over a kind of manhole that was at least 15 feet deep that was covered up by a piece of metal. We didn't see it because the metal was covered up by dirt. We were also driving without our headlights on for security reasons. The two trucks in front of us passed over it without anything happening but we were not as lucky. The piece of metal, which turned out to be a smashed up CAR got caught in our front tire and sucked under our truck. We noticed the sound immediately even though we couldn't feel anything. It took my truck commander (TC) 4 Iraqi crane operators and about 4 KBR workers to pry the car out from under the truck. After about 20 minutes they got it free and I got to see it for the first time from my gun turret. It WAS a car, or at least part of it, just like my TC had told us. It damaged our front brakes, completely ripping open the front brake chamber on one of the wheels, and dented up some of the protective plates on the bottom of the truck. We made it home without brakes in one wheel. It was quite a trip!
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4 comments:
Every day is exciting in your part of the world. I'm just spending hours watching kids take benchmark tests this week. I can't really think of anything less exciting than watching someone take a test. I can't even read or write while they do it; I'm supposed to be actively monitoring. So..... Luckily, tomorrow I get to go to an English teacher's convention in Fort Worth, so I get to skip out on the last day of testing. Yea!
Hope your next mission goes more smoothly....for you guys and the truck!
I cringe at the sound of a pebble hitting my windshield or when I run over something small in the road. You're all like "Yeah, we ran over a car today". Mind-boggling.
I forgot to mention that on the way home we were delayed because the Iraqi army had a gun fight with some insurgents at one of the checkpoints on the road that we needed to go down. We were stopped about 1 1/2 kilometers from the checkpoint and had to wait for clearance to pass through. I guess the Iraqi army won, because they were still there cleaning up the mess when we passed by!
So, there was no chance of somehow falling into the 15 foot hole? And this "piece of metal" didn't have any remnants of carbon based bipod life forms inside, did it?
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