Camp Liberty

We rode the daylight Rhino back from the IZ to Camp Victory last night. I ended up getting to visit with Joe in his office at the Al Fawal palace last night.

I walked pretty much right in and had a specialist escort me up to his office. He’s got lots of plaques from his Iraqi counterparts and some coffee-table books that attest to his travels undertaken in the name of the coalition. He’s looking forward to seeing Mike on his trip to the UK.

Jocelyn Alberle was there and remembered me from my ill-fated 4th ID OIF I embed slot. She was happy to see me and even remembered my kidney stone episode. I got a chance to ask her about the EOD embed and I think she’ll have it straightened out for us.

In the meantime, we are embedding with the AF MPs that are out training and working with the IPs. We’ll be out on patrols in south Baghdad with them this week. We got to see one of their vehicles that was hit by an EFP. The gunner took some shrapnel to the head and is in rough shape, and another Airman got a little piece in the leg, but no KIAs. The copper spall was evident and you could see where the jet went right through the armor plating.

So, we roll out tomorrow morning to talk to the IPs that were supposed to be at a nearby checkpoint, but were mysteriously absent at the time the patrol was hit by the EFP…