Operation Big Arrow

Recently the high command in Baghdad ordered some pretty curious missions, a lot of searches on the fringe of the city, and we are definately on the fringe. The brick factory search was the first in our area, Operation Big Arrow was the second one. Basically, the high command put a big arrow on the map and said" . . . . we think you should search, umm, around here . . . . ". BG E being a good soldier said yes and came up with a plan that kind of made sense. See graphics below:

I say kind of, because he, I and all of the other commanders pretty much knew that there wasn't too much in that area, except for a lot of empty desert, but search it we did. When I suggested that he search the smaller villages in the area and call it a day, he said no, the high command wants that area searched and that is what we are going to do. I asked him what he thought he would find in the area, he had a pretty good answer: The area is a fault line between several Sunni villages on one side and several Shia villages on the other, so there may be a few caches there. If you remember back to OCT/NOV 08 the NP found a HUGE cache of home made explosives and C-4 (military version of plastic explosives) in a cemetary, well the cemetary was about in the middle of the search area. So, search it we did.

The cemetary at Um Al Bid:

Being total pro's, the brigade staff put together a pretty good operations order, that covered most of the details, including how to logistically support the operation. The logistics portion of the order was towards the end of the order, so we had to sit through a lot of arabic and translation. During a long meeting we will rotate interpreters through the duty, so you get some really good interpretation and some not so good. By the time the logistics got briefed, we were on our third interpreter, Shadow, who is ok, but misses some words. So, you will hear (arabic, sounding a lot like Charlie Brown adults): WawaaaaawaaWa . . wa wawawaaaaWa . . waaaawaaaWa. . . . wawawawawaawaa WaWaaaaawa wa . . followed by Shadow trying hard: Ok, he said this will be a long operation, ahhhh, I missed that part, the soldiers should bring some water and something else and the soldiers should bring cookies . . . .

BG E in charge, checking the map:

When we all heard bring cookies, we all snapped out of the daze and looked at each other to confirm that we had heard "they should bring cookies". Kind of funny thing to hear, but it made us all giggle on the inside. True to the order, all the soldiers deployed with a little packet of cookies for snacks.

National Police moving out:

The mission went off without a hitch, except for our MRAP's AC did it's disappearing act, AGAIN, so, 11 hours in a steel sauna. About halfway through the mission, BG E called a pause and issued a FRAGO: Just check the two small villages in the remaining area and we will call it a day. The cows were deemed "safe and clear" so, no further searches of cows necessary.