The Candy Guy - Part IX

Well, it's been a while since we've posted something from Richard, and we've got quite a bit to catch up on. More in the coming days.

Hey ya'll, not much going on here - thankfully. For the most part, where I am located, has proven to be peaceful, and our missions consist chiefly in training Iraqi forces and humanitarian operations. But I have done missions elsewhere, like around FOB ---, and at ---- .

There we rode through places so full of IED holes you could literally hold your breath between holes, and never go blue in the face, for miles and miles. These holes ranged anywhere from small holes, big enough only to blow a human being into little tiny pieces, to holes large enough to fit a full sized hum-v in.

We went out with the EOD crew, to blow up IEDs. The explosions set off by the IED we found would have been enough to have taken out a fully armored track.

Needless to say, me and the scouts, that entire trip, stayed so puckered up you could not have driven a sharp sewing needle up our @$$%$ with a steel hammer.

But that is there.... here, like I was saying, it has been relatively nice and quiet. Last August, now, they had a serious battle here; but the Marines whipped the insurgent forces so bad they have not given us much trouble.

That all changed last week, to some extent. All of us medics were awaken at around one in the morning. It seemed that they had started a fight, and our sergeant major, that woke us up, was carrying on like they had personally invaded the FOB.

Several of us went out to the city, on patrols, and some of the medics ended up treating injured Iraqi National Guardsmen, that had been wounded by IED's, coming down from Baghdad. There were shots fired in downtown, by the mosque, and several mortar rounds went off. But outside of that, nothing materialized, and the insurgents’ leader backed down and plead for peace - despite calling his mighty militia up, from all over Iraq, to wage his holy jihad.

And now, all is at peace, once more, here.

Check ya'll later,
Richard...

If you would like to send some hard candy to Richard and his buddies for them to hand out please email me.

Contributed by:
Sara of Soldiers' Angels USA and "her" soldier Richard from Iraq