Attack on Base???

What A day today was! I just got off work.  3 1/2 hours later then I was suppose to.  It all started about 11pm.  We got A call through the radio.  They told us to be extra watchfull of whats going around our towers and that someone would be around later to let us know what was going on.   I sat there and started thinking about the 100 possible situations that could of happend.  Did someone get shot? Did one of my friends die?  Did North towers get A suicide bomber?  (we are in the south towers and my friends are in northtowers)What was the sudden excitement about?  Well, our   COG (Corporal of Guard) came around about an hour later and told me what the fuss was all about.

They had raided  A small village somewhere in the outskirts of the city.  The iraqi’s they captured gave up some good information.  They said that there was A small band of insurgents, heavily armed vehicles,and suicide bombers  coming toward our towers.   They also said, they had mercedes benzes with anti aircraft rockets mounted on the benzes. The news was then relayed to our higher uppers at about 11pm.  They told us at about 11:20pm.   At about  4am this morning, they had Bradley Tanks set up near our front gate.  They also had humvees full of Army soldiers waiting by the front gate for an attack. 

My shift was suppose to end at 3am.  As I was leaving A 50 truck TCN (Third Country Nationals) arrived.  These are truck drivers from third world countries.  They drive trucks from Kuwait and other places on to the base to bring supplies.  But before they can come on base, they must be searched, the trucks must be searched and go through A screening process.  Well, we are short on personnal so, I ended up going to the front gate to provide security.  Turns out, one of the truck drivers is A malayalee.  They are everywhere!!  I ended up chit chatting with him for A few minutes. 

Back to the attack.  The informants said, they wanted to take our pumphouses out.  They have been doing or trying to take out our pumphouses for months now.  We have two major pumphouses.  These pumphouses provide water for the whole camp.  Without these pumphouses, we wont have water on base.  They have been sending mortors and placeing IED’s at these pumphouses to take out our water system.  Those pumphouses are an essential part of this camp.  

The last few days have been pretty busy.  We had mortor rounds hit inside the wire everyday for the past three days.   I finally heard an impact.  Usually, the loud speaker comes on and says “INCOMING, INCOMING, INCOMING” and you would hear nothing else.   Two days ago, I stood outside my room and we heard the same sound we always hear, “Incoming, Incoming, Incoming”. So, we were like okay, whatever.  Then suddenly, after the word of incoming came off the speaker, we heard “BOOM”. or what sounded like A big Thud.  Turns out, the rocket had landed very close to us.   First time I heard the impact. 

Some of you asked, how do they know when there is incoming?  Well, its called advanced technolgy.   As soon as A rocket takes off the ground from the enemy, they have Satellites that dectect the exact location from where those mortors took off  from. We get A signal on base letting us know there are mortors coming in and  In return, all the speakers on base, repeat the same recording, “INCOMING,INCOMING, INCOMING”. Everyone runs inside for saftey.  Then you hear lots of booms . Those booms are us, sending out mortor rounds to the location where it came from.