Patrolling Favorites

the last couple of days I went out on all the patrols my future platoon went on and I was able to really see the different parts of our sector multiple times and also able to see the platoon in action in differing situations.

My perception of the Iraqi people is starting to become clearly defined. I do not dislike these people, nor do I completely sympathize with them either. In the very poor areas in our sector, people have simple concerns, and over the years, many of them have come to think that Americans can get them anything they want (ie money, food, health care, etc). When I went up to talk to some of these people, it was one sad story after another, and they kept asking for things that we could not give them. We have come to a point where we have made them rely on the US for assistance and now we are trying to handover this responsibility to the Iraqis... It is working? In some areas, yes, I believe a sense of ownership is developing from the Iraqis, but for the illegal dwellings in which most of the poor people live in our area... quite a different story, no one wants to help them and they are technically breaking the law...

The National police caught some bad guys the other day in a total mess of a situation. In Iraq, the big law enforcement groups are the IA (Iraqi army), NP (National Police), and IP (Iraqi police or just regular street cops). It seems as though they are competing entities, always trying to get credit for whatever they can at the expense of the other services. No cross talk, not much working together, etc. I guess this may be the same way in the states, but I am unsure. The are all evolving entities, and it seems like much results have come out of them, but it differs from area to area. Well, back to the situation... There were IA and NP on the scene when my platoon arrived at a checkpoint where suspects were detained (have to be vaugue because I do not want to give away any valuable information in this blog). Emotions ran high, and the NP and IA were aruging as too who was going to take the evidence and the suspects. My platoon was able to calm things down for a little while, analyzed the evidence, took pictures, etc. Then, some NP commander arrived on the scene with his posse of 10 other men and started aruging with the IA. The NP then said something to the effect that the IA were incompetent and he was going to arrest the IA commander. The group of IA then became angry and one of them cocked there AK-47 while US forces, IA and NP tried to take the weapon away from the IA soldier. One of the soliders shot rounds into the air in an attempt to calm everyone down, but it only agitated everyone. Soldiers were everywhere, everyone was aruging, it ALMOST became chaos, but one of the MITT team guys (US soliders who are imbedded with the IA who act as a liason and advisor) showed up, and calmed the situation down... One of our Bradleys also ran over a car when providing a base of fire for our element... whoops. Everyone was ok, the NP at the checkpoint waved the car through as a Bradely was headed towards it, caught in the blind spot, and was ran over. Crazy

Got more, but I'll keep it short for now