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U.S. Unit Shoulders Burden At Police Station in Baqubah
Spec. Richard Dollarhide of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division scans for insurgents from the rooftop bunker of an Iraqi police station in Baqubah. The post comes under fire almost every day, and U.S. forces take the lead in fighting back.
(Photos By Bill Murphy Jr. -- The Washington Post)
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The police showed off their living quarters. In one dusty room, five twin beds took up most of the space. Ten policemen sleep there, switching off on the beds, the men explained. An officer wearing a light sweater and sandals said he wanted boots and a uniform, but cannot afford them. All the officers said they were owed money, and one said he had not been paid for eight months.
A 26-year-old officer gestured at a bullet hole in the window. He traced a line through the air to another hole in the wall above one of the beds.
"I'm scared of any bad guy," the 21-year-old officer said. "I have no ammo."
"But you have me!" chimed in Blair. He struck an exaggerated pose with his M-4 rifle and laughed.
As the men talked, Blair shared his cigarettes with them. He said he feels bad for the officers, and he gives them food and cigarettes because their rations are so meager. But he acknowledged he has another motive. If the insurgents overrun the ERF, he said, he wants to be known as the nice, friendly American.
"They're not chopping my head off," he said.
'Fire Danger Close'
Anderson came down from the roof. He and another soldier had spotted two men with an AK-47 trying to bury something on the road, a classic IED team. He opened fire with an M-14 sniper rifle, hitting one of them. It was the platoon's second suspected kill of the day.
At 4:20 p.m., troops who weren't on guard ate microwave oatmeal from foam plates. There was another loud explosion outside, followed by smaller booms.
"Fire danger close," came a radio report from the rooftop. "We've got our heads down, but it sounds like RPGs," or rocket-propelled grenades.
Two of the platoon's Bradley Fighting Vehicles went out to assist a U.S. tank that was immobilized after breaking a tread. As they returned to the ERF, a sniper opened fire. Brinkley's driver, Spec. Jeremy Mitchell, 26, of Rockmart, Ga., was nearly hit as he started to climb out.
Brinkley returned fire with the vehicle's 25mm gun, and there was no more activity in the building where the shots had come from. He counted it as their third kill of the day.
"Not the first time I've been shot at, and it won't be the last," Mitchell said afterward, though he clearly looked shaken.
Calls came over the radio. The platoon learned it would be given 12 hours back at the forward operating base the next day to do some much-needed maintenance on its Bradleys.
It would be the first such stand-down in three weeks.
"This is all normal, routine stuff," Brinkley said. "Dude with the AK that I shot in the street? That's routine. The dudes digging an IED? That's an everyday occurrence."
"Let's see if we get shot at if we go out to grill," Mitchell suggested. The platoon keeps a barbecue on an outside landing, right off the third floor. On its last rotation here, a sniper fired at Brinkley while he was cooking about 5 p.m., so the platoon has learned to wait until dark to cook.
"It wasn't that close," Brinkley recalled. "Five or six feet away."
