A few steps forward, a few steps back

We were called outside the wire a few days ago after another unit conducted a raid on a village not far from here. They had found a weapons cache hidden in a field and needed us to escort some explosives guys out there, as well as secure the area to make sure no one got in or out. When we arrived on the scene we were surprised by the sheer number of weapons that had been found. By the time each piece was inventoried and laid out on the ground there were hundreds of mortar rounds. Unable to leave them, and sure as hell not wanting to haul them back with us, the only thing left to do was blow them up. The explosives experts prepared a charge and we moved our trucks a few hundred meters back to wait and watch. When that thing finally blew it launched a fireball hundreds of feet in the air. I’ve seen plenty of explosions since I’ve been here, but this was by far the largest. It created a mushroom cloud of smoke like the ones you see on high budget action movies.

Finally I had the feeling that we’d dealt a blow to the local insurgency. Sure they still had thousands of weapons at their disposal, but surely a couple hundred mortar rounds took a decent chunk out of their arsenal. I suspected that we’d have a few days or weeks without hearing the mortar alarm, as the terrorists reorganized and worked o restock what they’d lost. But apparently I haven’t been here long enough to make accurate assumptions. The day following the raid our camp was mortared several times with in a very small time frame. I don’t think they’d performed an attack this relentless since we had arrived. It was as if the insurgents were thumbing their noses at us, letting us know that they weren’t so easily defeated.

Some time has passed now and things have calmed down some. We aren’t discouraged and at least enjoyed the fact that our actions may have touched a nerve. If we continue doing what we’re doing we’ll inevitably make it more difficult for these bastards to operate in this area. It can be a daunting task, but we’ll take this insurgency apart piece by piece.