Mortaritaville

FlyBoy made it safely to Anaconda, his new base in Bahlad, (pronounced Buh-lawd) Iraq. Anaconda, affectionately known as "Mortaritaville" is the largest support base in the country.

According to an article in the Seattle Times, Anaconda, north of Baghdad (not shown on map), is reportedly nicknamed Mortaritaville because of the frequency of mortar/rocket attacks on the base. As of mid-October 2004, the article reported, the facility is home to roughly 22,500 US troops and an additional 2,500 contractors, had been on the receiving end of roughly two attacks daily since July.

FlyBoy experienced this for the first time yesterday, when they were hit several times causing the air raid siren to blare for about 5 minutes. Apparently the mortars have a very distinct sound when they fly by and then hit with a "thud" and the first one he heard definitely got his attention! At the time of his call he did not know if there were any injuries or casualties as a result of that attack which happened shortly before he called me at work. As we were talking about the base being attacked, the telephone went dead and I began to PANIC. Fortunately, he called back to let me know everything was fine and he had accidentally unplugged the telephone line from the handset!

He told me that he has flown two missions so far. One night they flew without any lights to avoid being hit in flight. Besides the weaponry, he said wires and poles are a significant concern when they are not using lights.

He said that it was the first time that he really got scared, realizing that there were people there planning to shoot them out of the sky! I told him that kind of fear is healthy and what will keep him alive! Especially since that kind of flying is a lot different than his war games training in the States!

During one fight recently, he said they spotted an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) that the insurgents had stuffed inside a dead dog and left along the roadway. Ewww. He said that it’s not uncommon for them to violate human bodies that way as well. Yuk.

I asked FlyBoy what I could send him in a package and he said, "Don’t send any soap or all that other stuff they say we need! We’ve got tons of that!" He said that the kids love the soldiers because they fill up ziplock bags with various overstocked items and drop it down to them out of the helicopters! He mentioned that one guy received a nice Hickory Farms package that they’d all enjoyed for dinner the night before and that he’d like something like that, or beef jerky.

So, I am off to go shopping to fix that young man up with whatever he wants!

Be SAFE FlyBoy!