List of improvements needed (Battlefront please read)

[SGT_P]

Bradley Dick-

Never been north of Baghdad. The only places I "visited" in Iraq were Ramadi and Fallujah. So I spent my entire tour within a 30 miles radius. 90% of it on the 15 klicks of MSR Michigan from the Ramadi arches to TQ airbase. That is also where we made 90% of our contact. Pretty much towns on both sides of the MSR for the whole strech, so all of our engagements were within 400m. Most within 150m.

Like you said 90% of the time our engagements were <60 seconds. We had 1 week of pitched battles during Phantom Fury when several truckloads of very determined Muj who came down from Fallujah to try to draw off the main assault. My company had 2 KIA and 17 WIA including our CO in that one week, mostly to VBIEDs. We had a handful of other firefights that lasted maybe 10 minutes but for the rest of the year but mostly it was just cat and mouse.

The 3rd ACR memorial was right behind our BN HQ at Carson. I heard some about your tour in Tal Afar while I was still at Carson, as some of the 3rd ACR wounded that had been sent back used the same gym as I did. The one guy I used to work out a lot with told me that he had to patrol a lot of elevated berm roads and he got wounded when his Brad got hit with an IED made out of an old 500lb bomb!!! It was amazing that he still was in one piece, although obviously he was ****ed up.

I always felt pretty safe when I was in the back of a Bradley. My asshole was puckered shut when I was in a Humvee.

I miss Colorado. Plan on visiting next spring when 2 BCT gets back.

[Bradley Dick]

I meant north of Tal Afar was where the mountains were, sorry for the confusion.

Cat and mouse is definitely the name of the game over there and it gets frustrating.

Do you remember the soldier's name ?

I LOVED the uparmored Hummers. So much less maintenance than the Bradley after mission. And I always insisted on being in the gun position. I know the gunner was always the one dead if anything happened on an 1114, but he's also the one who gets to shoot. Definitely was an asshole puckering job though. We lost a damn good soldier to that position on MSR Tampa and had a good friend of mine wounded along with our PSG.

Colorado is cool. I'm still about 10 minutes from Ft. Carson

[SGT_P]

Can't remember his name. He was either an E-3 or E-4. White guy with dark hair, still on crutches. He was a Cav Scout, M3 driver. Very pleasant upbeat guy. Like that narrows it down!

Here's my M1114:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/82886048@N00/317051996/

[Bradley Dick]

I have pictures taken the day after our 1114 was demolished on Tampa. It flipped into the air, on fire, and landed on the roof. It's just a pile of burnt 1114 parts, upside down. But two men walked out of it.

[SGT_P]

WOW. Were you in that??? It's incredible how much damage some of these vehicles could take and everyone still be relatively uninjured. I was RTD after two weeks.

With that particular IED, it was 2 x 155 but they just buried it too deep I think. Any idea what hit you?

The funny thing is that we had a beat up old M1025 which we had dubbed "the Punisher". Had the skull logo painted on it and everything. It had bullet holes, shrapnel holes, barely ran etc. It kept getting hit or breaking down and going to the motor pool every week it seemed. The mechanics would be funny and write nasty things about our truck in chalk on it everytime.

Well we finally get this nice new M1114. With A/C and the extra armor package. Sure enough, it got blown up a week later. Saved all of our lives although everyone inside was wounded. No limbs lost. Best use of tax payer money ever IMO!

[Bradley Dick]

Hell no I wasn't in it, thank god. I say "Our" because it was our platoon's 1114. The gunner died, but the driver and TC got out of it while it was upside down and on fire. The TC is doing pretty well and the driver is on the long road of recovery, both suffered burns and shrapnel injuries.

We never did hear what it was that got the truck. It left two 3.5 ft diameter holes in the ground, about 1.5 ft deep, and 1 foot apart. It was a pretty good one, and I think it would have done some damage to the Bradleys too.

They actually got quite good at taking out armor by 2005. We lost a few tracks, M1's, M2's, and M113's over the tour.