Mosul on Fire

As I predicted, the wonderful Army pulled the Stryker outfit out of Mosul and moved them to Baghdad and replaced them with a lesser unit.  Things have been out of control while I was gone and still are.  There has been weapons fire and explosions all afternoon.  When I went on holiday, we had 17 operational trucks; we now have eight due to incidents.  The gun truck I normally drive, M-15, is destroyed.  The guys were out on a mission when an IED blasted adjacent to the truck.  They were very fortunate and only suffered a couple of concussions and blown ear drums.  The blast was so forceful that a piece of schrapnel broke the welding of the gun box in the back…snapped it in half.  The tail gunner was the most fortunate.  He had just swiveled the turret to cover a target to the left of the truck when the blast occurred.  Had he been facing the direction of the blast, he would have taken a piece of schrapnel in the midsection.  The funniest thing that I learned of the incident was they had to stop to engage the enemy.  The crotch of Josh’s pants split, and he was ‘free Willey’ on the battle field.  LOL!