Ramadi '04'

[bnz506]

This is my first (2nd if you include my intro) so I wanted to post something somewhat interesting. I hope you enjoy it and comments on the pictures are appreciated.


This was our first mission to Ramadi we woke up at 2-3am to prepare for this mission. I can honestly say this was the only time during my deployment I was actually nervous. In our mission statement the thing that got me was that they threw grenades from roof tops into the turret normally it wouldnt bother me because I was normally on the assault team which meant I would be dismounted but I got stuck on driver rotation so this little tidbit bothered me.

The mission was to go through every house in our lane looking for certain people, weapons they shouldn’t have, IED materials, etc. I just drove the platoon sergeant around so my only worry was car bombs, IEDs, and Basketball grenades.

Our convoy was hit with an IED on the way to Ramadi but we did not take damage or casualties. Upon arriving at my assign location we took fire from an alley which was met with return fire. The rest of day was mostly uneventful because this was a brigade mission so we had nearly a thousand combat and support troops combing the city from house to house so the insurgents pretty much stayed low. The part of our unit that had their FOB in the city got attacked in someway every day for a year. I was injured 3 months in so I met many injured from my unit back in Colorado. (our unit had special circumstances which is why all our injured was in a single location but thats a story for another time)

The alley we took fire from (which happend to be where we were going anyway).

Nice little greeting spray painted on the wall from our friends.

A long day (nearly 14 hour mission). This is my platoon sergeant.

Observing.

 

[Lol999]

you've got an opportunity to take some great shots, which I envy you for. Idiots with AK's I don't envy you. The last shot of the helicopter is the best one, could be straight from 'Nam. Keep your head down.

Cheers, Lol

 

[Ripnowell45]

These are great photos and I really hope that you keep them coming... Also I truly respect what you guys are doing and cannot correctly express my thanks for what you do for this country.

 

[Chase]

Very good series, especially along with the commentary. Please keep posting and stay safe out there.

 

[mysteryscribe]

you've got an opportunity to take some great shots, which I envy you for. Idiots with AK's I don't envy you. The last shot of the helicopter is the best one, could be straight from 'Nam. Keep your head down.

Cheers, Lol

Except for the sand of course... ditto on the keep your head down and shoot with the long thing to kill and the short squat one to record. And please don't get confused.

 

[Lol999]

they had sand in 'Nam it just wasn't very well documented
I bet even the VietCong had sand pits :mrgreen:

 

[bnz506]

Thank you guys for the comments. I would like to add that I am no longer in the military I have been out for close to a year now because of my injury. I could have done another job but If I cant do Infantry I dont want to do it at all. I am currently a student working on getting into med school.

This picture was actually taken with a disposable camera in South Korea during an air assault training mission.

I’m actually posting older pictures and working my way to the newer stuff because that is just my dysfunction I have to do things in order. I guess you can say it’s a curse (or disorder… whatever).

 

[mysteryscribe]

I never got to the beach, so I missed the sand, but I saw one hell of a lot of dust and dirt on those landing strips.

Glad you made it home. Sorry you were injured. Good luck with your school...

 

[JonK]

cool shots and i dig the commentary too...a question tho....is any soldier allowed to carry a camera and shoot pics of whatever, whenever?
jus wondering how you were able to get the shots.

 

[bnz506]

Thank you. On the rules of photography I have only heard a limited amount of rules about it. As far as I know any soldier can carry their personal cameras. On camp there are certain things you cannot photograph anything that would compromise “operational security”. Things like observation/guard towers, gates, maps, etc should not be photographed.
When we go out into sector I haven’t heard any rules on what we can and cannot photography so I shot anything and everything I can (even dead people). Out of respect I would never photograph killed/wounded soldiers.
If you keep your camera on you then you can pretty much keep all the photos you take but from what I hear if you leave your camera over in Iraq and you were sent home because of an injury or something and they send your stuff back to the states before the end of the deployment they will delete pictures off your camera they feel compromises operational security (I guess that could include the outside of barracks which if found could give enemies an idea of where they should be aiming their mortars/rockets if they know the area.).
I honestly can’t say I know for sure because we never got briefed on the subject of photography. They pretty much left us to our common sense.


--edit

I try to sneak a shot whenever I can but many times its hard because youre doing things and if a comander or some higher up sees you out on mission with your hands on a camera rather then your weapon you can get in deep **** unless of course your job was photographer.

 

[cgratti]

Funny how uneducated those people are, maybe if they learned to read and write they could learn about peace.

"We will cutting head's of Amercan soldurs" WOW!

Instead of giving kids a gun, maybe a book would be better...


Great series of photos. Thanks for doing what you do for us.