I have more pictures of the mission you can view at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65688209@N00/sets/72157594185726883/

I'll continue to update this post as more pictures become available.

HA Mission: Conducting the Mission

When we came to the village we setup to support distribution of clothes, personal hygiene items, and toys for one thousand of the local Iraqis. As soon as we arrived Iraqis of all ages came toward the school to see what was going on. While we wanted to interact with them, we had to ensure security of our vehicles and personnel as a number one priority.

Above is a picture of when we are approaching the school, the security forces there are the Iraqi Highway Patrol, they held positions outside as well as crowd control in the building. Below is a picture of me helping to hand out clothes to the locals. At times we had to control how much stuff they took because they just wouldn't stop - and it can cause some problems within the community if it looks like one family was favored over another.

Below is a picture of the Iraqis in and around the distribution line, typically the Iraqis wearing black and white or red and white checkered head dresses were local officials such as the City Council.

This experience was tremendously rewarding for me. It really showed and let me experience a culture that I would never otherwise even fathomed. The people were very nice and appreciative to us and to what we were doing to help out their people.

HA Mission: Convoy

When we left base we moved in a convoy with full security elements such as gun trucks which you can see in the picture below.

Here is me inside of the Humvee we took.

Mission Assignment

On June 21st, a new mission assignment came down to me from our Company Commander. The mission was for about 10 people to include myself to execute humanitarian operations in a village near our base, after receiving this information I had about 5 hours to get all my stuff together for it, but as quick as I found out about the mission, I then found that it was posponed.

The new date came down a couple days later and was planned for the 27th of June.

On June 25th, I had a mission briefing and planning session, and then PCCs or Pre-Combat Checks which ensures everyone has all the proper gear needed to go "outside of the wire".

I woke up at 4am on the 27th so I could get my stuff and make my way down to the office. I had to stop there first to turn in the daily personnel reporting. We gathered outside of the Battalion headquarters at about 6am to have additional briefings on safety and intelligence.

We left the gate at around 7am and were in route to our destination (which will go unnamed for security reasons.)

My next few posts will cover the main phases of the operation...

26th Birthday

Yes, on June 25th I turned another year older, 26, however this is one Birthday I won't forget.

I appreciate and send my thanks for all the cards and packages that were sent for this occasion. It really helps make a rather ordinary day in the sand box "special".

Speaking of ordinary day in the sand box, it wasn't. I talked to some of you and said it was just another day - but what I couldn't tell you is that I spent a portion of the day prepping for a special mission which I will detail in my subsequent posts.