My trip to Baghdad

I returned yesterday from my Trip to Baghdad. I left late Wednesday night/ early Thursday morning. The Chinook came in about 1230 or so and picked us up with about 50 other people. All helicopters fly in pairs just in case they have problems. We landed at a couple of other places before we made it into Liberty pad which is one of the landing spots for camp Victory. The flight was pretty uneventful for the most part except for when they decided to dump some flares. Now as I understand this is a fairly common practice. They use flares to fool heat seeking missiles. Now no one shot at us but sometimes when they fly over certain areas they use the flares just in case. Anyways it was a surprise to most of us on the helicopter.

So we made it into Bagdad pretty late and went to bed not long often getting settled. I should add that we (one of the other members of the team) stayed with some of our Ukrainian acquaintances. That was very convenient otherwise we would have had to worry about a vehicle and getting around. They took care of us for the duration of our stay. Now camp Victory is one of if not the largest military Camp in Baghdad. There are at least 2 other large camps in Baghdad not to mention the green zone. It is huge compared to my little camp Echo. Camp echo is about 1.4 miles around camp victory is 29 miles around.

While I was there I got visit the big PX (think Walmart) but didn’t buy much. I bought some body soap for one of the guys since our little PX (think convenience store). I couldn’t really buy a whole lot since my whole purpose for being there was to get new armor plates for our new bullet proof vests. Each plate weighs between 6-9lbs and I had to carry 10 of them home plus all of the clothes and stuff I already had.

While I was there I got to visit Saddam’s Palace. The Military has turned it into a very large office building. In the hallways they have built 8 foot walls and made office space out of those because the hallways themselves are almost 30 ft wide. My pictures just don’t do anything there justice. I needed a wide angle lens because everything is so huge. There are only 3 floors but each floor is double the average floor of any building.

So nothing else was to spectacular I hopped on a Blackhawk for the ride home at about 1030 last night the ride was only 40 min but it was kinda of hellish. Metal seats with canvas strung between the bars, but that’s typical of almost all cargo type aircraft. The seats are meant to be stowed so they can carry stuff if need be.

So I made it home in one piece not that I expected any issues.

On another completely different note. My picture of what is this. Well I was told the wrong thing so my clues are a little off. It is a big tower that they use to look into the city. It’s stuck and not working right now lol.

Later for now,

Brent