Mosul III; also, Tikrit

After last night’s emotional whirlwind, it was kinda nice to have a project to focus on today. That project: waking up really early to fly to Tikrit. Tikrit was – I guess still is – Saddam Hussein’s hometown, and it’s where Donald Rumsfeld told us the weapons of mass destruction were located (“and to the east, west, north, and south somewhat,” he added). In addition to being bleak and depressing, Mosul was highly militarized. There were sandbags and barbed wire and dudes in helmets brandishing assault rifles everywhere. We waited for our plane in what looked like a very old and legitimately Iraqi building. And waited. And waited. That’s where I was when I wrote my last post. As we left, they told us to don our flak jackets and helmets.



It’s hard not to look ridiculous that way, but nobody minded, especially after we heard automatic weapon fire in the middle distance, punctuated by a gigantic BOOM. Later, a Sar’n told us that a Humvee heading out of the base had spotted some insurgents setting up an IED. The Humvee stopped, the soldiers got out, and that was the end of the insurgents. And, I guess, the IED. Good for us.

We also briefly visited a post office and a hospital (that’s where I met Rich Goodman, New Englandah). In one room of the hospital, we met a few guys who’d been the victims of IEDs. They ranged in condition from “generally okay” – one intense-looking guy had his arm in a huge cast, but was busily working on some sort of writing project on a legal pad – to “not so okay” – one guy’s face was all beat up, and while he was covered with a blanket, it seemed like something was very wrong beneath it, especially once we got a look at the fear and misery in his visage.

Then a nurse came past leading a young, scrawny man in white with a beard and gauze completely wrapped around his head, covering his eyes. He was walking very slowly and hesitantly. Which you would expect if you had suffered an injury that required completely wrapping your head in gauze. The nurse isn’t being terribly gentle with him, I thought, and then I saw the two MPs with enormous rifles pointed at the ground immediately behind him. I turned to one of the other nurses.

“Insurgent,” she said calmly.

So, get this: his hospital bed was about ten feet away from the three guys who’d gotten “blowed up.” For whom do you think that’s more awkward? For the three guys who’d ended up in the hospital, victims of enemy fire, only to share a room and a nurse with one of the bad guys? Or for the insurgent who’d tried to take down the Great Satan, only to be blinded, put in a room with three guys he’d tried to kill, and treated with incredible professionalism and at least some degree of compassion?

Al had been walking around the room meeting with the guys and giving them his coins (military brass hand out personal coins as a sort of token of appreciation to people who come to visit them – I’ve collected a few so far – and Al thought it would be neat to make his own; they’re actually very cool and I should remember to post a picture of them) when he found out that the gentleman in white was actually on the other team. “Well, he doesn’t get a coin then,” Al decided.

Anyway, all that happened in Mosul, and then we got on the C-17 (the big transport plane we used to get over here from Maryland) for what was a very quick flight to Tikrit. I love those C-17s. It’s like they don’t bother with the actual plane and just move the hangar from place to place.



Our descent into Tikrit was a no-fooling-around DESCENT. We just dropped out of the sky (they call it a “combat drop”). I think I’m going to make a playlist called “Combat Drop” – it was quite a rush and I was glad for my iPod so I could set it to music. We landed and it was really just as dusty and ugly as Mosul, except probably more so because it was just flat in every direction as far as you could see, which wasn’t very far due to the incoming sandstorm. Al told me that when they went to Tikrit last time, they staying in Saddam’s personal palace, which is in the city itself on the bank of the river and is apparently absolutely beautiful. But we gave it back to the Iraqis, and now here we are at Camp Speicher (“Spiker”).

Speicher houses about 16,000 people, including civilians. And it’s big enough that I really have no idea what’s here – all I can see from my little hooch is more little hooches and Bremer walls, the giant concrete barriers that turn these bases into a maze of impenetrable sand-colored concrete that would be awesome for a game of paintball. We did some more hurrying-up-and-waiting and then headed to our hooches for a little R&R, which I think may have prevented an insurgency from starting within the group. I’m really hoping this sandstorm kicks into high gear. Foul weather fan that I am, this one would be a nice one to add to the collection.



Still trying to find a menorah, by the way. But how would this be for a holiday card?