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Troops take root in Iraq

Feb-20-2005 » Filed Under: TF Freedom

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By Steve Walsh, Post-Tribune staff writer

Two booms sounded in the distance, before a third explosion was close enough to shake the metal compartment where I slept in Mosul.

Entrenched in the rainy season, Mosul is a dreary, dangerous place.

In the days after the Jan. 30 Iraqi elections, the level of violence picked up steadily. The men and women of the Indiana National Guard 113th Engineer Battalion had cut down on their nightly runs into Mosul, when they would remove the barricades they helped install at polling places and broke down outposts created for American troops.

My reaction to the explosion was to listen for yelling and screaming. Someone on the other side of the row opened a door and asked, “What the hell was that?”

A minute after the explosion, a guard at one of the towers began firing a .50-caliber machine gun. I didn’t hear yelling, but the explosion had aroused the Apache helicopters. Two flew low over the barracks toward the main gate. It was a sign that the blast was not one of the controlled explosions of undetonated car bombs or ammunition that rattle Forward Operating Base Marez day and night.

Sitting on my bed in my sleeping bag, I listened to the machine gun fire. It stopped. The Apaches continued to circle just outside the base. I lost interest and fell asleep.

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