Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Dago on January 02, 2006, 07:33:04 AM
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Yes, my son is now out of Iraq and will return to Ft Bragg this week. For this my wife and I are very thrilled and relieved.
This was his third deployment to a combat zone, and while a comparitively short one, it has been the most dangerous to date due to the operations his battalion has been involved in. This whole deployment was spent in the area west of Baghdad out to the Syrian border. As I have proudly mentioned before, he is a Paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division.
He earned a purple heart this deployment due to a close call with an IED. I will post his note about it here.
We were walking to the pickup site after a 3 day mission that was going pretty good up to that point. We stopped to do a map check and cross a road. We saw 2 man walking along to our right side about 200 meters off. We started walking down the road to a crossing point near the river when we got hit by a IED (Improvised Explosive Device) buried in the road. It went off about 5 to 7 feet behind me to my left side. All I remember it feeling like I was shot by a 12 gauge shot gun and feeling really hot. Not having any idea of what just happend to us, I came to in the ditch next to the road. The air was full of dust and falling rocks and sand. I could not hear anything at all and was really dazed. I just sat up and was looking around to try to figure out what had happend. Across the road I saw one guy laying face down, and my buddy was to my left face down. I crawled over to him and pulled him off the road into the ditch to get him off the road as fast as I could. The rest of the guys I was with were running around and yelling but I just sat next to my buddy. Some one came over to us and checked us out, we were both still alive but could not hear a thing. The other guy across the road was all bloody and deaf as well, he caught alot of gravel in the face but he walked out ok. After looking at the blast hole we found it to be a shaped charge the blows straight up and not out to the sides. That's the only reason we made it out alive. We called in air support and they saw 5 more IED's within 100 meters of us. We pulled off the road into farm fields and walked out. I could not hear at all for about 4 to 5 hours. We got back and checked out, I walked away with a badly blown right ear drum and thats it. Luck was on our side that night. All three of us are getting the Purple Heart for this.
The Battalion Commander sent out a Christmas note and I am enclosing a part of it here.
As you know already, the Blue Devils have completed the mission here in Iraq. I can not tell you how proud I am for what they have accomplished. This Battalion truly contributed in an important and measurable way to the fight for democracy. As I said in my first letter, no easy missions went to the Blue Devils, every moment spent outside of the wire was spent forward in areas where other units would not go, areas where the insurgents had taken control of the local government, controlled the people through terror, kidnapping, and murder, cashed weapons, and planted IEDs on all roads in large numbers to keep the coalition out. Despite 160,000 troops in Iraq, thousands of separate units all doing great work, Gen Casey, the commander of all forces in Iraq, individually recognized the Blue Devils for setting the example on how to fight the insurgency. This is in addition to the praise received from our headquarters. The enemy has even weighed in (unknowingly) with praise by saying of our troopers "...these guys are special, they aren't Marines, These are crack troops, you cant get close to them, they are everywhere...they really have us by the ba**s here...they are merciless". I take exception to the characterization "merciless", but I am sure that is what it appears to be when he is confronted with an aggressive, determined, and unflappable force.
The Commander also included this note from an Iraqi Interperter working with them during this deployment, understand the spellings and phrasing may not be perfect, but the message comes accross.
favour
in fact, we cant desicribe all you did for us, but all we can do is to say to you thank you and we really appriciate all you did for us specially the bloods wich flow for the Iraqi people and his freedom and democrecy and for liberating him from the oppression and repression and tyrany.
and I would like to pay my respect to those families who lost their sons for us and we owe them with all we have and I would like to say to those families that their sons stood for the real symbol of courage and dignity and that they had really honerble death, that is how is the A. ARMY and here we are feeling freedom and democrecy we did not have long time ago and here we are having a Government elected by us and finally our dream has come true and we are proud of being the second democratic state in the middle east, and inspite of all that, there are a lot of people around the world specially arab people who are saying that there is no point of this war and all what happened was in vain, so to hell with them and what they talking about and go head american army.
and I wish you the best and hope you to get to your home in safety
We can debate forever the reason we went to war, the good we may or may not accomplish in the long run, but I do not believe anyone can debate that our military forces have and continue to be the best military force in the world and we should be very proud of them.
dago
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YOu must be a very proud father! Congrats to your kid coming home in one piece.
to his service done for our country.
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That's wonderful news and what a great way to start a new year!
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Congratulations, what a joy that your son stepped up to the plate and that he is returned to you and your family. Thank you for your service and thank your son for his.
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glad to hear your son will be coming home safely. Tell him thanks for me ok?
lazs
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Thanks Dago, for serving and thank your son too. <
>
Karaya
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Glad he came home in 1 piece .
I hope he wont have to return back.
My thoughts are with the parents who werent so lucky as u.
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Good deal Dago. Please tell your son thanks for myself and my family as well.
Those clips you posted were a good read.
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Forward a big ole Texas Thank You from me and my family to your son please.
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Originally posted by Jackal1
Forward a big ole Texas Thank You from me and my family to your son please.
Make that a double :)
culero
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Congrats Dago!
to your son too.
asw
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Glad to hear you are getting him home and that he is OK :)
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Glad to hear it Dago,
to your son.
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Very Very good news!
to your son and the rest of the all americans:aok
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You should be very proud. Tell him thank you for his bravery and service.
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kik ***..tell him thank you..
Whats he going to do back here now?
Did he bring back any interesting things?...AKs??: )
A friend of a friend..was in the first group into bagdad.....He had Saddams rolex;s..gave his brother one for a wedding gift
HAd them apraised....guy told him he should of engraved Saddams initials in them
reminds me of the Gold AKs they were finding
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Tell your son thank you, and thank you, Dago, for raising such a caring man.
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Good to hear Dago, give him a hearty Welcome Home and Thank you from all of us out here in California who still get it :)
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Good to hear, thank him for me
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Originally posted by Dago
We can debate forever the reason we went to war, the good we may or may not accomplish in the long run, but I do not believe anyone can debate that our military forces have and continue to be the best military force in the world and we should be very proud of them.
Yes, that's the beauty of the Iraq situation. When the original case for going to war turns out to be a patent falsehood, there are plenty of other reasons that can be invented for having gone to war.
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There were some other than WMD things listed in the joint resolution beetle...
Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;
Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;
Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council;
I think that these have proven out... even the WMD thing sited above.
to you and your son Dago
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Tell him I said welcome home.
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Big
to your son.
Beetle, go crawl back under your rock now, or where ever dung beetles go.
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Wow congrats. I can imagine how horrible it is to a parent to have a child running in a warzone. In fact not so long ago I was thinking about it and wishing I'd never end up in that situation.
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that is good news !
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Glad you son is coming home. Add another thank you to him and his buddy's for the job they are doing.
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Dago
Thats good to hear! Must be a huge weight off your shoulders.
Thank you Son for me as well.
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A thankyou from myself to the father who raised a son that is serving for his country. And a big thankyou to your son and his buddies who are fighting for their country.