[Kat]
I've been promising to hook up this new blogger with a link and today seems like a great day to do it. Plus, you know, he's a major and we are very fond of majors around here.
Most milbloggers know Colby Buzzel out of a Stryker company in Mosul. He wrote the book "My War". Well, I don't know if the Major was in the same Stryker Co, but he was up in Mosul at about the same time as Buzzel and at the time that Yon was up their reporting on Duece-Four - The Punishers in Gates of Fire.
Before Gates of Fire, there were Three Days in November
We had been on the ground in Tall Afar for approximately 48 hours when we received orders to move to the west side of Mosul and station out of Forward Operating Base Marez. Two days after receiving these orders we were on the road heading for Mosul. The company had completed a replacement in place with our outgoing counterparts in just under 72 hours, a feat in itself to be proud of, but we had not heard our first shot fired in anger yet. That was about to change.[snip]On the morning of November 8th that changed. We had received orders to escort a humanitarian assistance convoy of back packs and school supplies for the local schools to an area that we had just completed a cordon and search the day before. We suspected that it was a hot bed of insurgent activity but hadn't been able to pin anything down. Luckily we brought three platoons with us on this mission. Thirty minutes after departing the FOB we made first contact. The enemy forces had set a detailed complex ambush within Yarmouk Traffic Circle. They had heavy and light machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, car bombs, IED's, and small arms all trained on the kill zone. The company courageously fought through it, and safeguarded the supplies in cargo trucks back to the FOB. No casualties, nothing lost. November 8th had been a draw, November 9th was our turn..
Check out Majors Perspective. He's currently doing time up at the Ft Leavenworth.
My name is Major Bryan Carroll. I'm a United States Army Infantry Major currently attending the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. This is the United States Army's equivalent of going to a Masters Degree program at a civilian university. I have served a tour of duty in Iraq as a Stryker Rifle Company Commander, and a tour in Afghanistan as an advisor to the Afghan National Army.
Lt Nixon said LTG Caldwell gave his blessing on blogging. I think it was more like, "Blog! That's an order!"
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