More on the Iowa Army National Guard's 224th Engineer Battalion, of which Task Force Ironhawk is a part.. This comes from a blog by a reporter from the Des Moines Register, John Carlson.
:: wed 10.12.2005
Getting from one place to another around Iraq is always a challenge. The convoy or helicopter flight might leave as scheduled. Or not. Things change. Long delays. Sitting around hours, wondering if you’re going to get there today. Or maybe next week.
Tuesday night’s convoy from Ramadi to Balad north of Baghdad was fairly typical. I was hitching a ride with a convoy of Iowa National Guard soldiers from the 224th Engineer Battalion. It was scheduled to depart at 10 p.m. Which it did. On the dot.
Maybe a quarter mile down the road, Wade Warner of Donnelson, a lieutenant with the 224th and convoy commander got a message over the radio. The road between Ramadi and Fallujah was closed. Turn back. Maybe a convoy was attacked out there. Maybe somebody found an IED. It didn’t really matter. We turned back and waited. Started out again an hour later. Didn’t even make it off Camp Ramadi. IED was discovered on the route. We finally got going about midnight and made it through just fine.
Had a great experience with the soldiers of the 224th. They’re X’ing the days off the calendar, waiting until that day in December when they make it back to Iowa. The danger they face is real and is there daily. It’s unlikely to diminish any time soon.
Saw one rather amusing thing today. Spent part of the day at Camp Anaconda, a giant base north of Baghdad. Everybody was walking around either wearing or carrying their helmets and flak jackets. I asked what was up? Heightened threat of mortar attacks, I was told. So everybody has to have the equipment with them at all times. Just in case something happens. Which gave the soldiers who drove up from Ramadi a good laugh. Their base gets mortared almost daily, but people go about their business without lugging around all that heavy
gear. They’ve done both — wearing or carrying it all the time — and living somewhat normally without it nearby every second. Can’t imagine a single person in the 224th wanting to deal with that rule.
Will be doing some reporting from the Tikrit area soon. Thought it might be interesting to be in Saadam’s hometown on constitutional referendum day.
I referred earlier to Lt. Warner. That’s because I didn’t notice if he’s a first lieutenant or second lieutenant. But after getting maybe two hour’s sleep, then getting up and hauling me to the Camp Anaconda heliport, he went above and beyond. If he’s not a first lieutenant, they should make him one. Soon.
One final thing today on the 224th. I spent 13 days with the battalion. During that time, the Iowans searching Ramadi and western Iraq found 78 IEDs, including one 12-hour period when they found and disabled 14 of the bombs. That means they saved a lot of lives. They’re very proud of that.
--John Carlson