Big Time Fear

[phuloi]

I see on the news this morning that Saddam loyalists knocked a CH47 Chinook down.

First,my prayers to the brave young men and women who lost their lives,and to their families-May God bless you and bring you peace.

I HATED flying in that big,lumbering boxcar!Always felt like a slow-moving duck in a shooting gallery.Anyone else?

[frisco-kid]

I saw this, also. At least 15 dead. This was one of two Chinooks taking some guys to hook up for their R&Rs. Both Chinooks were fired on, luckily, only the one hit. My prayers to the families of these warriors.

Is this the way it really is over there, or are the media only reporting a one-sided war? I mean, do we ever get any of the bad guys, or is it considered too barbaric these days to give a body count of them? Are we running patrols? Do they ever make contact? Since Bush prematurely declared this war over and won, there's been over 100 American KIAs. As most wars go, this is relatively low. In VN it was higher than that per week at times. I hope these kids are giving as much as they're taking and if so, this Barbarian would like to hear about it.

Griz, I only rode in those things a couple of times and had the same feeling...SITTING DUCK.

[Beau]

The feeling I get is that Baghdad is one giant equivalent of the DC "Beltway" killings ... or something slightly outside the kindS of Guerilla Warfare we have experienced in the past ... just something of a longliving, unsolvable and massive "Beltway" sniper feel that I get out of it ... just my impression. And, we know the awful ratio behind that thing.

As a boatie on a slow boat in Indochina, I guess I should've felt like a Sitting Duck .... but ditint ... felt a bit spooky by the bridge at night sometimes though. I guess I had no idea of who, or what was really out there.

Beau

[Packo]

Griz,

Shithooked in Cav in-country training. Had to do rope ladders in and out. Hated it and them. You and Frisco got it....one huge slow moving Duck.

Returning Sailors and Marines paint a different picture here. The ones I've talked to state that they are getting along fine with the Iraqi's and that they are quite happy we are there. They want our part to end soon and want to provide for themselves...but until things are stable....they are glad to have us. The "insurgents" are left over Sadammist and don't want the country to be free and want it back the way Sadamm ran it. Also tell me that there are many "foreigners" carrying out attacks. One guy I just saw recently, his wife left him while over there....yep, still happens, gave me a lot of inside stuff like that. He states he'd have no problem going back. He is now going to the Drill Field.

This sounds corny guys and gals, but we all know that freedom isn't free. Not trying to be cliche' but, as Normandy showed us, the cost to free a people is enormous.....but look at the reward. We are a good people who will just about sacrifice for anyone if they want to be free.

Tom, I just don't think we're getting the whole picture and your probably right, no body counts....would sound too much like VN and the media is loving using the words "Vietnam, Quaqmire", etc. This war is about as close to the Vietnam War as Thermopolie Pass was to Gettysburg.

Airborne!

Packo

[MontanaKid]

It was only a matter of time before a bird went down with passengers aboard. The chinooks are big slow targets, as we well remember from 'nam. We had a Chinook shot down by an rpg as it was trying to deliver a sling load to our logistics pad. Hit amidships, crew got out safely. Burned right down the to engines and rotors on the log pad. If you rememember, Somalis shot down two quicker, better armored Blackhawks with improvised rpg's in 1993 ("Black Hawk Down" With a trained operator, a Chinook is an easy target for a shoulder-fired SAM. My son (who is in Iraq) knows this, That's his primary training, shooting down aircraft with stingers, though his ADA battalion is now used as infantry and is charged with guarding Baghdad Internation Airport, where that Chinook was headed. Jeff commands a Bradley and divides his time betwen, manning checkpoints, patroling, and sitting on standby "Quick REation Forces."
We don't get as many reports of enemy dead. That's because the Army has consciously gotten away from the "body count" statistic keeping of the Vietnam War. So it's not the fault of the press, really. I think they are reporting what they get and see. Our guys are socking it to them, my son reports. They are good troops, they respond to these ambushes with aggressive tactics. And many a "martyr" has had his wishes fulfilled when trying to mix it with our boys. We really do have a very good Army now, with well-trained and motivated soldiers.

Our casualties are a bit lower per capita in Iraq than in Vietnam for a couple of reasons. One is the ceramic vests which guard against penetration of the trunk area, saving many lives in this dirty little war. The other is the advancement of medical science. We pioneered modern trauma care in Vietnam, but today's docs and hospital staff have so much more to work with. Much more advanced life sustaining equipmnt in the field. And this new world of micro surgery, MRI's etc, stuff we didn't have in nam.

As jeff says, the enemy isn't fighting in any kind of concentrated force -- not even as much as we saw from the local guervrilla's in Vietnam. It's mostly hit and run and a lot of casualties are caused by command-detonated booby traps, usually fashioned from Irari army ordinance.

[BLUEHAWK]

Why enemy casualities/KIA are not reported, or even estimated, probably goes back to how figures would get exaggerated or miscounted during VN... so DOD (or maybe even broadcast news editors/producers?) simply will not report or let reports be made... but from what little I have been able to read (NOTHING is ever reported on TV or radio that I'm aware of) Iraqi/terrorist/guerrilla casualties are high and constant since February.

Though some talk on PF earlier in the war about troops NOT getting enough good ceramic vest protection gear, maybe things are improving. Same was being said about ballistics blankets for HumVee floors not being issued or available... supply SNAFU was blamed on both counts. Dunno the outcome yet, and sure would like to know. At first news of this, a bunch of us raised hell with Congress... maybe it helped.

I have no way of being certain, but having more patrols out means having more troops in theater, and if it would stop the kind of thing with the Chinook today, then I'd say send some more guys.

I hate to think of them getting taken down on their way home, of all possible times and ways... damn it.

[blues clues]

Mike it's all pc they don't want to talk about any step-on like we did in the nam like you why not tell us just how many we've let go meet Ali.
razz

[BLUEHAWK]

Yeah Razz, and it ticks me off...I don't expect DOD (or whoever!) to bloodthirstily keep everybody up to date every time an enemy falls, but it sure would offset some of the other pc reporting we get if we could see from the numbers that our guys are giving BETTER than they get, and for the figures to be honest. They sure don't hesitate to give us the weekly toll on our own boys.

SOMEBODY over there is damn well counting enemy bodies or their remaining parts, on a routine basis, and recording their findings.

Just seems to me like there are an X number of those enemy, and we oughta know roughly how progress is coming along at reducing that figure.

What the hell do I know...