Homecoming

Homecoming
Redeployment Ceremony; April 22nd, 2008

In The News

Articles, pictures, and other news about the 2-32 Field Artillery, and the area (Yarmouk and Hateen neighborhoods) where they've been working. For posts older than 30 days, check the archive links on the left, or use the searchbox at the top of the page.

[last update: April 22, 2008]

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Patriot Call: Vol 1, Iss 9

The Patriot Call
Volume 1, Issue 9
October, 2007

CHANGES THEY ARE A COMIN’: LTC Lawson

CSM CORNER: CSM William R. Huffin

ONE DAY CLOSER TO SOMEDAY: CH (CPT) Troy Parson

ORGANIZATIONAL WEEK: SGT MATTHEW WOODBURN

THE INFAMOUS ROUTE POPEYES: PFC Stephen Williamson

THE SILENT FIGHT: CPT George D. Morrison

WELCOME BACK TO PAD 10: CW2 Richard Jones

TOP OF THE TRUCK: Adam Wocjik

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides
Dagger Brigade Combat Team Official Site
Week: Oct 15 - Oct 20
Slides: 21, 22

Alpha Battery Spends the Day Meeting Local Youths
  • SSG Adam Freeman talks with a local man as Iraqi Policemen look on
  • SGT Nathan Vorenkamp greets an Iraqi girl
  • SGT Miguel Rodriguez talks with local children
  • SPC Garth Croft provides security as curious children look on

Alpha Battery Sets Up Hasty Checkpoint With Aid of Iraqi Army
  • SSG Adam Freeman and SGT Nathan Vaughn confiscate two AK-47s found during a hasty traffic inspection
  • SGT Vaughn uses a metal-detecting wand to search local citizens during the traffic stop
  • SGT Miguel Rodriguez and an Iraqi NCO during a break from the operation

Monday, October 22, 2007

Iraqi Emergency Responders Work Together

Iraqi Emergency Responders Work Together
DVIDS
MNF-IRAQ
Pfc. April Campbell
10.22.2007

Emergency Response Training

Iraqi security forces took another step toward self-sufficiency when several Iraqi security elements participated in a civil defense drill in Yarmouk, an area in the Mansour District of western Baghdad, Oct. 20.

Iraqi soldiers from the 2nd Battalion “Falcons”, 5th Brigade, 6th Division, as well as policemen from three Iraqi police stations and firefighters from the Yarmouk Fire Department planned and executed the drill. The different security elements reacted to two simulated vehicle-borne improvised explosive device explosions in a populated area.

The 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division (Task Force Patriot) along with a Military Transition Team (MiTT) with the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, helped to coach the different elements.

“We proposed the idea several months ago,” said Cape May, N.J., native Lt. Col. Michael J. Lawson, the commander of Task Force Patriot. “Then, the Iraqi army took the lead in planning the drill along with the Iraqi police and the local fire department.”

While coalition forces helped guide the Iraqi security forces, the Iraqis were in charge of planning and executing the drill.

“The drill enabled the Iraqis to develop an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem,” Lawson said. “Reacting to VBIEDs is something that they will have to be able to do.”

The exercise allowed the different response elements to understand each others’ roles as well as how they, themselves, fit into the bigger picture.

“The most important gain happened in the area of coordination between all the (security forces),” said Iraqi army Col. Ali Fadil, commander of the Falcon Battalion. “It is not just the work of (the Falcon Battalion). There is a much bigger force involved in controlling events other than just the Iraqi army.”

Different sectors of the local police and fire departments will be interacting with the Iraqi army to coordinate a response to such a terrorist attack, added Fadil.

Emergency response drills, such as this, may also help to increase the quality of life for the citizens of Baghdad. Enabling the different organizations to work together can help them develop a more systematic approach to their emergency planning.

“If (a terrorist attack) happens, (the citizens) can see that the fire department will come here and do this, the police will do this, and the Iraqi army will be doing (its) part,” said Woodbridge, Va., native Capt. Gregory Wooton, MiTT executive officer and civil military officer advisor, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment. “They’ll start seeing who’s responsible for what.”

Through this type of training effort, Wooten said the Iraqi emergency response agencies can learn to coordinate with each other, and Iraqi citizens can gain confidence in the quality of their civil service agencies.

The Joint “Service Station”

The Joint “Service Station”
Dagger's Edge Magazine: Vol 1, Iss 23
Capt. Brad Bandy
October 2, 2007

Being a 63B Light Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic in a Field Artillery battalion serving as an infantry unit is a tough task, but rotating to Joint Security Station Torch makes being a mechanic even more challenging. At any given time, the JSS is manned by two full platoons, the quick reaction force and the force protection platoon, and numerous other patrols use the JSS as a staging point throughout the day. With upwards of 20 HMMWVs coming through the JSS every day, the mechanics have learned that it takes plenty of duct tape and shoelace quick-fixes to keep the trucks going… and this isn’t even the hard part.

With a notoriously unreliable, 20-plus year-old 100KW generator powering the lights, air conditioners, radios, computers, televisions, and security cameras at the JSS during its first six months, the mechanics quickly found themselves cross-trained as MOS 52D, generator mechanics. Of course, several field grade officers were always there to inspire and motivate them, since the generator always seemed to break during important security meetings.

Repairing generators is only one half of the 52-series’s training, so the mechanics figured why not go all the way and qualify as a 52C Air Conditioner Repairer. The JSS boasts no less than fourteen split-unit air conditioners haphaphazardly installed with as much as thirty feet of tubing and wires running between the condensers outside and the cooling units inside. They provide endless opportunities to learn how to recharge Freon and re-do the electrical wiring.

Speaking of wiring, the mechanics have become part-time electricians as well. The eleven perimeter flood lights mounted on the JSS’s concrete barrier walls are connected by hundreds of feet of cable to a switch panel featuring a combination of European, Asian, and Middle Eastern plugs and outlets, each with its own peculiar amperage and voltage. Somehow, the mechanics have made them all work together on a nightly basis.

Welding often comes into play, too. Whether it is constructing a man-size security gate, fabricating brackets to mount anything and everything imagin-able, or re-sealing the metal rooftop water tanks that constantly develop leaks, the mechanics have become artists with a welding arc. By the way… those water tanks have a whole lot of pipes running throughout the house, and a good plumber goes a long way too!

While the HEMTT wrecker dedicated to the JSS has not been used to recover any disabled vehicles yet, the wrecker and its crew of mechanics have certainly gotten plenty of work as a heavy lift asset. Whether it is repositioning barricades at the entry control point, downloading pallets from cargo trucks for the twice-a-week logistics push, or going out with the distribution platoon to emplace concrete barriers in the middle of the night, a ten-ton capacity crane with a skilled operator at the control levers is never short of work.

The mechanics’ trips back and forth from JSS duty are usually a quiet half-hour ride… usually. However, one maintenance team can boast of a slightly more exciting experience. When their escort platoon halted to conduct a dismounted inspection of a wire obstacle, AIF engaged the platoon with heavy small arms fire from the opposite side of the highway. In the twenty-five minute engagement that ensued in the early morning darkness, the mechanics-turned-gunners fired 70 rounds from their .50 caliber machine guns at enemy muzzle flashes to provide covering fire while the dismounted personnel maneuvered back to their vehicles.

This group of maintenance specialists has truly given new meaning to the term “multi-functional logistics,” and has demonstrated that every Soldier is a rifleman first. When it comes to getting the job done in, on, or outside of the JSS, you can count on a couple of good mechanics to be your one-stop service shop.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

THE INFAMOUS ROUTE POPEYES

THE INFAMOUS ROUTE POPEYES
Dagger's Edge Magazine: Vol 1, Iss 24

Pfc. Stephen Williamson
Oct 16, 2007

It was early evening in late September and I found myself appreciating the chill in the air for the first time in a long time. I sat in the gunner’s hatch scanning the rooftops as I swiveled to the right and to the left. This was our first mission since the later Ramadan curfew had gone into effect, and I was shocked to see so many people out so late. I adjusted quickly to the crowd, however, and kept a vigilant eye on them. Our mission that night was to provide security for barrier emplacement along Route Popeyes, and as I scanned my sector I noticed the huge billboard from which the road derives its name.

Popeye the Sailorman, a character created by the American cartoonist Elize Segar in the late 1920s, adorns the front of Popeye’s Coffee Shoppe, one of the most prominent structures on the road. I always found it ironic that this stretch of road was named for the rough seaman because just as he was always ready to take the fight to the bad guys with a can of spinach and his arms a-swinging, it was on this road that the men of Bravo Battery so often had to face the IEDs of the enemy in the early stages of our deployment. I will never forget hearing things like, “When we turn onto Route Popeyes the mood just sort of tightens up,” or “We just cross our fingers and push through.” Remembering these eye-opening comments as I sat in my turret, often made by hardened veterans, I looked out at the crowds of people and thought of how far this area had come in the past seven months.

Thanks to the steadfast commitment of the Bravo Battery Bulldogs and the rest of Task Force Patriot, the Yarmouk neighborhood of western Baghdad has experienced a myriad of successes since our arrival here in March. From the countless reconnaissance patrols to combined training operations with the Iraqi Army personnel who man checkpoints along Route Popeyes, we have all put in long hours in this area and many others like it throughout the Patriot sector.

Whether you work in the motor pool maintaining the vehicles, in the TOC tracking the battlefield, at the Aid Station providing for the health and welfare of the Soldiers, or on patrol providing security for the Iraqi people, we must all remember that successes like the crowd along Route Popeyes are the reason that we are here. Thanks to us, the Iraqi people can sit at their coffee shops enjoying a cup of chai. Thanks to us they can come to their businesses to work and shop without fear. Thanks to us they can move to and from the Al-Showaf Mosque, a prominent mosque on Route Popeyes, in safety. And for giving the Iraqi people the opportunity to do all of these things, we members of Task Force Patriot can all truly feel like Proud Americans.