Personal Iraq Diary, 25 June 2004.

When you think of war you are thinking about what happened yesterday. Funny about the whole thing is about 15 minutes before it happened I was in the shitter with SSG O.... and we were discussing how the Hajj doesn't have it in him to launch an offensive. One car bomb went off and I got into bed since it happens all the time. The second one almost knocked me out of bed. I swear to god I felt the conex flex from the blast. Just before rolling out Little E came by bitching about it being our day off...it was. On the road the BC came over the net saying he wanted everyone on a one minute leash meaning sit at your truck ready to roll. There were about a dozen enemy alerts come over the FBCB2 in that creepy female voice. It seemed that each enemy icon populated on the screen was either next to us as we passed or just ahead of us. There was an IED that hit the MPs and killed three while we were en route to meet with he IPs. About a mile from Sheik Fatih station we met with the cops who abandoned the station. There were three trucks loaded inside and the bed with cops. Some had been wounded slightly and they had no intention of going back.

I was sitting on a corner pulling security after treating s few IPs and SSG C..... puts his hand on my shoulder and says "Sheik Fatih has been overrun and we have to take it back." In every lesson, every book, every movie the words overrun have always meant someone was going to die. For the first time I thought one of us, maybe me, was going to die. Once the IPs left we rolled to the station and got our first look. The street was covered in rubble and car parts from both the bomb and the surrounding buildings. They started shooting as soon as we rolled up. We had three platoons of Strykers there (aprox 12 vehicles) from the sides, front, and the cloverleaf next to the mosque. We moved our vehicle around the corner after they fired the first TOW into the building and we had a lull in the shooting of about 5 minutes. They called on the radio for someone to go over to B21V to pull security since the whole squad dismounted to go into the mosque. When they dropped ramp I ran over. In usual Ernie tradition I began to receive fire as soon as I started running for the truck. I think rounds were pinging off the street behind me but I wasn't going to stop and check. After about 2 minutes of shooting back they called for a second person to come over so each vehicle would have left and right security. They sent Beni over.

I don't know what was worse the fact that he had the M240 in his right hand and the M-4 in his left, the fact that he kept telling me to scan my sector while he jump from one weapon to the other without letting go of the other, or the fact that when the shooting started again he dropped into the hatch and left me alone. After the third time the Platoon SGT came over the radio and said if whoever it was did that again he was going to pull them out of the Stryker and smoke them in the middle of this firefight. After a while they called me into the mosque to treat a casualty. One of the insurgents was shot and we wanted to go in and get him. The guy was about to get a frag thrown at him by the First Sgt when he fell down the stairs. Some of the guys wanted to claim their shots hit him but the wall was to tall.

In the end we reclaimed the police station and the mosque. I treated the Imam for a heart attack and the insurgent died of wounds. We later found out that there were coordinated attacks on 5 cities and 200 were killed. We had around 90 of those dead. All that for 3 soldiers. They say they're fighting for Iraq, the people or the land. The worst thing was that Speedy the interpreter was shot by one of our guys after Speedy charged the Stryker. The guy didn't know who he was. He's fine though, he's in Germany now.

We handed Hajji his ass. Even the AP says we're the only unit keeping control of their area. It was funny seeing the IP show up and claim they were there with us the whole time. CPT R....... told them to hang it their ass and called bullshit on them. Unfortunately the press said the IP and ICDC did it all. not even so much as a mention.

Oh well, now for 30 June and the handover of power.

UPDATE.

This battle gave us some no shit street cred in the eyes of the insurgents. Mosul was not as active but the surrounding areas heated up so we were tasked out to move all over the country to secure or take back other towns and cities. More on that later.

They even made a video game about the battle...
http://www.kumawar.com/BattleforMosul/overview.php

More to come.