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Paul McLeary Dispatch

Mar- 5-2008 » Filed Under: 2/25 SBCT

Paul McLeary, embedded with the 2/25 SBCT, has published a new dispatch on his site titled, "Forgiveness for the greater good." Excerpt:

After a few days at combat outpost Courage embedded with C company, I was able to hitch a ride a little bit further north and west to another company-sized combat outpost, named Warrior (it has since been renamed combat outpost Ibrahim Bin Ali—IBA for short—which is the name of a town a few kilometers south of the base.) Manned by the men of company B of the of the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, in many respects Courage and IBA are similar in setup and in the Spartan lives the soldiers live. They’re each ringed by high blast walls that enclose a large farmhouse converted into a headquarters, the soldiers live in large communal tents, and each outpost has a mobile mess unit for hot meals, a couple of shower and toilet trailers, and a handful of computers for Internet use and phones to call home. In total, it’s maybe two city blocks large, if that. Also like Courage, IBA is situated out in the flat farmlands of rural Iraq, where farms are cut into squares by irrigation canals overgrown with high reeds, making excellent hiding places for insurgents to hide weapons and explosives.

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