Letter From A Soldier Vol. II

Mr. Jim Vicevich has decided to brighten our day with more news from a soldier in Iraq. He confirms the rumors that the surge has actually changed conditions on the ground in advance of itself.

Good Afternoon all, I hope you are enjoying your four day weekend. I am now over the hump and have less than half the deployment to go, as long as we are not extended.

As you would expect, we have continued to kick butt here and are still flying 24/7 with probably even more hours than before. We are moving many of the surge troops to the enemy, doing nightly air assaults and movements.

Some of our air assaults are over 400 soldiers in one assault. Pretty awesome to see in the pitch darkness, with Blackhawks, Chinooks and Apache gun ships all flying in formation. The soldiers for the surge are in bound, and have been since before it was announced.

The strategy is to segment Baghdad into zones, each owned by a division of soldiers. They then set up joint security stations in the neighborhoods they are there to protect. Its amazing, but this is how we secured Baghdad a few years ago until some smart general decided we all needed to be inside huge bases.

Of course with an insurgency as soon as you leave the streets, they are back. So we are now "back to the future" so to speak and figuring out the age old tenant that any infantry officer knows. You cannot win a war unless you hold terrain.

You may wonder what the initial signs are of its effectiveness? Well Al-Sadr ran away and is now in Iran. His followers have become silent. The insurgents and Anti-Iraqi Forces are scurrying about like roaches trying to find a hiding spot. My opinion is that this will work... IF... We are willing to see it through to secure the city. All indications I see from here are very positive.

There is more Iranian influence now as they attempt to finance and train the insurgents. This is because the Al-Sadr's of the world are losing, dying and hiding. The money is drying up for the insurgents so Iran, being the peaceful sort is there to help them out.

Here are our current Statistics:
Over 32,000 flight hours
Over 117,000 PAX (soldiers) moved
Over 9,900,000 lbs of cargo moved
91 Armed Escort Missions
379 Counter Man Portable Missle/mortar recon and interdiction missions
162 Convoy security missions
38 Hasty Troops in Contact missions
58 Air Assaults
353 Direct Support Missions (mostly in Baghdad and Ramadi)

Emphasis mine.

Mwa ha ha haa!
Our old pal Mookie could sense a change in the air, but the MSM can't seem to detect it, even with their highly calibrated sense of nuance. Funny, he didn't seem like such a sensitive chap.

I can't thank Mr. Vicevich enough for sharing these goodies with us. May you live to a hundred sir, and in your dotage be borne upon a golden litter carried by six Colin McEnroe clones.

Everybody, please take the time to send a few good words out to the troops in the comments, because they do visit here.

posted by Laura. at 11:05 AM

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