Posted: 19 December 2009 Updated: 19 December 2009
Of all the months we spent in country, seeing camels never happened until the very end of our tour. We payed the locals in food and school supplies in exchange for messing around with them. The camels didn’t mind us until we took turns riding. Boy did they vocally object. Here are two videos of our adventure. You can also see pictures from the event here. There’s about 27 in total.
For many of our longer company run missions, we’d setup at a JSS. Here are my videos from within that JSS. Once again (even though I was told I’ve made my point), thank you to my step-mom for uploading these videos. :)
Having already brought out some gloves and a ball, we scoured around for a bat. Worked out…okay. Gumby then jests about donating baseball bats to you the viewers.
Just me walking around filming our lunch break out on the JSS. Ended up being an 16 hour long mission. At the last few seconds of the clip, Helbert does some comical jog right past my camera. He had no idea I caught it on video.
This is a little football game our platoon came up with. Basically you have two courts with a team in each court. The objective is to throw the ball and hit the other teams court. We never gave it a name. At night we use chem sticks.
This one is for Woody’s parents whom I know is on my emailing list of readers. He messes up the first pitch but throws a good one the second time around.
Another round of videos. This time with more personal interactions of me with the kids. There’s a couple cute ones here, a couple demonstrating the gathering phenomena, and one that a child took himself. Once again thank you to my step mom for taking the time to upload these. Enjoy everyone!
Despite not really understanding what either of us were saying, conversation seemed to flow pretty well. Ali baba means bad guy and I believe he was trying to get me to arrest his friend standing behind me. Its a common joke the kids like to play.
A few kids showed up carrying with a cute toddler. She wore thick glasses which were probably corrective lenses for her lazy eye. At the very end, one of the boys takes the camera from me.
Whenever I bring out my camera, kids love playing with it. They get the photo portion easily, but understanding video is a bit more confusing. Here a child tries to take a photo and ends up recording a video instead.
Another example of kids gathering around our vehicles. This time they run after us as we leave. Video is shaky because someone else did the taping. Towards the end, take notice to the left and ride sides. You’ll see the typical trash found in this town.
More videos courtesy of my step-mom. No specific theme with these. Just a bunch of randomly selected videos. FYI, that first video gets pretty vulgar however note thats normal convo for soldiers. Anyone with a soldier in the family will understand when I say our language deteriorates the longer soldiers are around each other.
One of those days where everyone got ready to head out on mission only to wait because of some delay. Vid is more for the convo then the visual happenings. As usual everyone starts busting on everyone else. Be warned as there are a lot of sexual jokes.
Dusty the cute little puppy lives on an Iraqi Police station. The American’s there take care of him as the Iraqi’s themselves are not big dog lovers. He’s received all his shots and is extremely friendly and playful. Rusty already has a family picked out and they are trying to get him shipped to the states.
During JRTC, every town seemed to have goats but week after week, I never saw any here in country. Finally, at an abandoned JSS, the goats have been discovered.
No this video is not from my camera. SSG Wentzel aka Guitar Hero bought this expensive Nikon camera which supports HD. Select the fullscreen button (those 4 little arrows at the bottom right) to get the full HD effect. Also, thanx to my step-mom for uploading this vid.
A short clip in HD that shows one of the lakes found here on Camp Victory. Not quite what one expects when you think of Iraq. Thanx to Guitar Hero for the video.
These kids started horse playing with each other. Unfortunately, by the time I got my camera out they had stopped. This neighborhood is in fact very well off and the richest area I’ve seen to date.
SFC Plummer lines up the kids in order to hand out candy. Short vid but good example showing how the kids swarm around a soldier. This town’s kid’s have been known to get very aggressive in taking candy. That noise is the Stryker. I shot the vid from on top of it.
More videos for the showing. Thanx again to my stpe-mom for uploading these. Just some random vids. First one is from Camp Taji, the rest are from Liberty. Getting closer to the videos I’ve taken out in sector.
While conducting a mission, the ATGM Stryker got stuck. We used our ICV Stryker to pull it out, but in the process broke one of the axels. It caused the wheel to drop and to stop turning. Our return home was slow as we drug the tire for several miles. The rubber and metal burned away pretty bad. This vid is from on post. Was heading to the repair shop.
From a standing position, this soldier successfully fires the M240B. Pretty impressive. To those who are unaware, it was not designed to be fired like this.
