A day of excitement!

Well today started off like any other day. Just a day of patrols, both dismounted and mounted elements. Today I was to be a TC (Truck Commander) which was my 2nd time ever doing it. Basically as a TC im the one in charge of the Humvee and directs the driver and gunner and whatnot. On top of that, I was to be the lead vechicle in the convoy so I was basically the one responsible with getting around and getting us to where we needed to go. This is no easy task in Baghdad. Many roads are closed or you need to go to the other side to get places. Its complicated and to make it worse Im usually in the last vechicle and sit in back so all I have is a small side window to see where im going. Even with that I've managed to learn the streets pretty good.

Well anyways, it was different but I was able to get around just fine, but the best part is the lead vechicle has this siren on it. Theres like 6 siren settings plus a lever that has a manual siren and this horn thing. Even better than that is that it has a microphone that you can say shit out of it too! Needless to say I had a blast! The siren definatly gets people to stop, but the best was having fun with the microphone. I decided to immitate the built in siren noises myself and it took everything to contain myself and not bust up laughing while I did it. We were all laughing our asses off. Pure fun I tell ya.

The day was pretty uneventful. Just a lot of walking around. But at the end when we were getting ready to leave there was a loud explosion and a shit ton of gun fire. We found out it was at this IP (Iraqi Police) station in our sector so we headed over to check it out. Well when we got there (about 30 mins after) there were a shit ton of IPs around and we stopped to see what happened.

Apparently it was a VBIED that had charged the gate and went off. The truck was still where it exploded, burt out along with an IP truck at the gate. Apparently some IP Luitenant risked his life by driving one of their trucks in the way to block him from coming in. If It wern't for the fact that it was a pathetic car bomb and didn't do much damage, he probably would have died. We ventured inside and were taking pictures of the truck and everything when some IPs motioned for me to come around the corner. I went around and as I did this mass of 30 IPs opened up and i saw this mangled body. He was laying there motionless and covered in blood, burns and bruises. My first thought was... Oh shit theres a dead dude. I went up close to check him out and then as I got close he attempted to breath. His body ended up jerking colvusion thing as his one functioning lunch attempted to get the air so necessary to continue his pathetic existance. That caught me off guard and I immediatly asked if they needed some medical help. They then proceed to explain to me this was the guy that drove the VBIED into their police station. At that point my panic to help went away and I said to them... "FUCK HIM THEN!" As we were there, IPs would come up take a picture of him, and then spit in his dying face. Wow! We ended up leaving and going back to our truck. After being back in the truck for a couple minutes a firefight broke out just up the street with some IPs. I thought we were going to go up and help out but it didnt last very long. God damnit!

Just before we left I guess the suicide bomber died and they threw his corpse onto some truck to get rid of it. It was weird. In the past I've seen dead people in the streets of New Orleans after Katrina, but I've never seen someone that was literally barely holding on to life, minutes from dying like that. Oddly it didnt really bother me. Am I crazy? Who knows. I felt no sympathy for the guy. Thats what he wanted and he got it. Thankfully no one else was hurt. No one else was killed.

After that we headed on back in with a story to tell the guys that didnt go out and that was that.