While embedded with the 172nd Stryker Brigade, reporter Margaret Friedenauer kept a Web log of her observations. This item was filed Jan. 20, 2006.
With four hours’ notice, my time in Iraq was over.
I was scheduled to leave Sunday from Mosul to begin my journey home. Further investigation revealed that in order to make my commercial flight on Tuesday from Kuwait I had to take a military flight TODAY. It was hustle and bustle and a quick goodbye.
It happened so fast.
Luckily I was able to spend my last morning on patrol with the very first soldiers I met when I arrived, 3rd Platoon of Charlie Co. 2-1 Infantry. We walked some neighborhoods in the rain and I actually recognized parts of it from when I patrolled with them on Election Day in December. We talked about how things have changed, or really, not changed that much in the five weeks since I first met them. This platoon hasn’t been shot at or encountered any Improvised Explosive Devices in about a month and a half. It’s all pretty much a familiar routine punctuated by the occasional varying operations or encounter with an enemy.
Mostly the soldiers are talking about and looking forward to their upcoming leaves. They were playing Lynyrd Skynyrd and Eminem in the Stryker. They were quoting excerpts from the “Arrested Development” TV series, literally slapping their thighs laughing at the hilarity.
It doesn’t escape me that as we walked the quiet, sloppy neighborhoods on a gray day, joking around and keeping an eye out for trouble, there were several deadly attacks in other parts of the country this week, namely in Baghdad. There is still a female reporter being held hostage. Three helicopters have crashed in the last two weeks, two near Mosul and one of them killing four Alaska Air National Guard members. There are elements of the brigade that moved to Rawah, giving up their mattresses and chow hall food up for tents, cots, Army cooking and a more dangerous battlefield near the Syrian border.
All of this is happening along with continued patrols, soldiers missing families and waiting to go on leave, talking about their girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husband and kids. Talking about how the rain sucks. “But hey, did you see how cold it is in Fairbanks this week?” they say.
It’s chaos and death, daily routine and laughter, and everything in between. Still.