From: Patrick Jankowiak (eccm@swbell.net)
Date: Fri Jul 04 2003 - 23:50:55 PDT
My brother just came to Dallas for a visit, by way of Iraq.
He told a few stories, but the best ones were:
- He went undercover in kuwait, to find bad guys. The iraqis had no
air force any more, but were using ultralights to fly to within a few
miles of the city, and then landing and burying them, and walking into
town. He said you could hear the ultralight engine's coming in, but
not see them because they flew very low and were so small.
- He and his SF team were the first into Iraq, secretly and well in
advance of the main forces.
- His team 'accidentally' established the first pow camp a couple days
into their first mission. Apparently they had some iraqi's surrender
to them out in the middle of nowhere, but they had to continue the
mission so he put soldiers on them right there on the spot, and
continued the mission.
- His team designated 53 tanks, for the guidance of our smart bombs.
all blowed up, sir. He called this work 'preparing the battlefield'.
Apparently, alot of this kind of work was done well in advance of the
actual invasion. I am no military tactician, so this was all very
interesting to me.
He's supposed to get the Bronze Star for all of this.
Strangely, he did not know of the incident where that disguntled
moslem U.S. soldier threw the grenades into the officers tents in the
army base camp. He was suprised to hear of it. maybe this was not
reported to the Troops, just by the media. He said he hopes the guy
gets life in Leavenworth, hard labor.
He told me about some other interesting things, but I won't repeat
them here. All in all, it's really surprising what our forces can do,
may God bless them.
He did bring me back a pack of the real playing cards.. yes they are
from iraq. and coolest of all, a special map. very cool. Best of all,
he's back in the states and I am darn glad of it. I told him,
"remember I said I'd fly the flag 24x7 till you get back", and also
"till Mike (his son/my nephew) comes back". I am going to have to
replace that flag though, as it is so faded, it's starting to look
like a french army battle flag (a white sheet). I think my nephew is
going to be abroad for some time yet, however. I guess the old flag
will just have to keep on flying. It's lit up out there right now, it
being night time here.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat May 07 2005 - 20:22:45 PDT