[below is an email from my son who puts out car bombs in Iraq]Hey dad, here’s some pictures of my day today. Basically you can kind of see the general process of when a VBIED (car bomb) hits the checkpoint on the inbound lane to the IZ. This one was a stolen suburban like from a private security team, it had tinted windows and even with a sign like “keep back 200 feet” tried to sneak in like they do but of course didn’t get very far and blew up. The guy was handcuffed to the steering wheel so I don’t think he was to happy but whatever.So you can see me in a lot of the shots, I’m wearing firefighter bunker pants and a black flak vest and black Kevlar helmet with sunglasses. Well in the beginning I’m not because I’m fighting the fire but later I take my pack off and stuff. So it’s pretty simple, car blows up, army secures the scene and goes far up the road to blow up or shoot any more traffic coming in (they shoot off a lot of warning shots so it’s kinda nerve racking when you’re working and they start shooting like crazy up the road.) then the forklift guys come in and clean up the cars so we can wash the roads down and pretty much that’s it. The rest of the time we’re walking around BSing and helping Army folks look for larger body parts. Of course we’re walking in body parts the entire time because the people are blown to a million chunks but some of the larger ones like limbs and torsos can travel pretty far and have to be accounted for. So beware I’ve thrown in a few gory pics just so you can get a little sense of reality.
This is a pretty usual routine, we were doing this like every day at certain times - like last summer was pretty crazy. But then again nothings really gotten better, as you can see this was just today, atleast 5 people died but I sure haven’t seen anything on any of the news organizations. Ok well enjoy the tour!
Oh yea the big guy is my fire chief, he’s been here longer than anybody and he’s a really great and extremely hilarious guy. The other white helmet is our assistant chief.
Interesting photos. I have a good friend who works for Halliburton and is in Mosul. He assures me that he is quite safe, but I am not convinced of that. Basically we here in Texas/USA do not have to worry about IED or snipers on most days. I pray your son stays safe over there!
ReplyDeleteGod Bless,
Deb/Huntsville
deborah.m.sheffield.ncf9@statefarm.com
... I thought one of the more interesting points here was that the guy was hand-cuffed to the steering wheel.... not exactly the superwilling psycho-bomber that I've always pictured... hmmmmmm.
ReplyDelete... and yes, I pray for my son's safety and am not so convinced as him either.