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Posted on 10/11/2007 4:41:14 PM PDT by SandRat
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2007 – U.S. soldiers are sweeping through a Baghdad neighborhood to clear out explosives and extremists, a coalition commander said today.
“We've been working in the East Rashid district going after the bad guys and doing very, very well and trying to give a little hope to the Iraqis … so they don't have to live in fear any more,” Army Col. John RisCassi told online journalists and “bloggers” during a conference call from Iraq.
RisCassi commands 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, a rapid response mobile force deployed from Vilseck, Germany, and assigned to Multinational Division Baghdad. He and his soldiers are tasked with detecting and diffusing improvised explosive devices and destroying terror cells in a troubled community near Baghdad’s heavily fortified International Zone.
“We have a populace down there that is basically being bullied into doing things they don't want to do, harboring al Qaeda or thugs or bad guys, whatever you want to call them,” RisCassi said. “I talked to an older gentleman a few days ago, and he's been living there for 25 years, and he just called them bad people, and this was a bad place with bad people in it.”
Those bad people have planted plenty of IEDs, the colonel said. In just their first 72 hours on the ground, he explained, 2nd Stryker soldiers located 30 such explosives. “That is a weapon of choice around here, … and we take it very serious,” RisCassi said. “We go as slow as we need to to figure this out.”
Part of that figuring process comes from thinking like a terrorist, the colonel said. “First of all, we do a good analysis by saying, ‘Hey, if you were the bad guy, where would you put these things?’”
The second part comes from befriending and enabling Iraqi citizens, the colonel said. “We're working hard with the local nationals, the people that live there. They don't want these things on their streets, either. So we have tips lines. We have sources, and they come forward, and they tell us where they are.”
While roadside bombs are familiar foes, RisCassi said, the recent advent of houses rigged to explode keeps his soldiers on constant alert.
“You know, we look for wires. We study it very, very hard to see if there's any indicator where these may be,” he said. “We've got working military dogs, explosive-sniffing dogs, to try to determine where these houses are.
But the best intelligence about “house-borne IEDs” comes from Iraqi citizens themselves, RisCassi explained. “The most telltale sign is someone tells you, ‘That's a bad house, and there's something in there,’” he said.
While 2nd Stryker soldiers are barely one month into their mission, they already are preparing Iraqis to take over, RisCassi said, starting with local citizens who have volunteered to assist coalition forces.
“First, we had to secure East Rashid, … and we're just now getting into the Iraqi security volunteers,” the colonel explained. “We just started working with Iraqi forces as of yesterday.”
Completing their strike force mission as quickly as possible will help pave the way for lasting security, RisCassi explained.
“That's the big key of success here, doing what we do and then turning it over as quickly as we can to put an Iraqi face on it so the Iraqi people can see their own securing and taking care of them,” he said. “And that seems to go a long way.”
(David Mays works in New Media at American Forces Information Service.)
FR WAR NEWS! Stryker!
The Surge has Worked and the War is Ending, no thanks to the TraitorcRats
Pray for W and Our Stryker Brigades
http://www.mtekweaponsystems.com/Images/G1_SPC_THOEN3.jpg
A Marine started up a company , designed a product to reduce face injuries from IED’s. Saw one a few weeks ago first hand. It lighter than it looks ......
http://www.mtekweaponsystems.com/Images/G1_SPC_THOEN3.jpg
A Marine started up a company , designed a product to reduce face injuries from IED’s. Saw one a few weeks ago first hand. It lighter than it looks ......
DOH DOH !
A Marine started up a company , designed a product to reduce face injuries from IED’s. Saw one a few weeks ago first hand. It lighter than it looks ......
I've seen worse ideas. It'd seem to be a real useful item during *urban disturbances*/riots, too. And I'd thinkit could probably soak up birdshot from a shotgun at other than point-blank distance.
Posting HTML This forum allows optional use of most HTML tags. If your post does not contain HTML, it will be converted to HTML when posted, retaining paragraphs as typed. This conversion is not performed if you have anything resembling an HTML tag in your text. 
I post links vs the pics off others sites as much as possible.....I intended to post just the link. I also like to see what the link is too vs smashing some cute PUSH HERE thang so I just copy the addy from where I see the story and let folks see what they are getting vs having to check properties etc or using someones bandwidth without asking......
That’s why I don’t do the HTML than of <img src=” etc etc much these days ......:o)
Thins are still looking up.
Does it come in black, with a Darth Vader voice generator?
LOL...albeit I was impressed as to it’s intent, it’s design and how light it it was it seems that it has too MUCH surface area that if struck by even the smallest piece of frag it would multiply the injury with a lever effect per se.....
Kind of like wearing a big box on yer noggin that amplified every small force placed upon the parts of it farthest from the center etc etc .....
I didn’t meet the Marine that made it as he’s back in country I was told but it was / is a great idea from my initial observations.
Seems like it would build up a lot of heat and CO2. Running down the street in 100lbs of battle rattle while breathing into a paper bag can’t help.
It’s big but really thin, lots of open space at the bottom and top....actually cooler w/ the shade it provides etc..... Light weight. I put the rig on and it was still very comfortable. Great for a gunner exposed in a turret against IED’s etc . But a real hazard for a door kicker. Think of the control a aggressor would have . Like a face mask penalty in NFL. You can control the person wearing it in a CQB environment.
Vehicle borne use only is what I would allow were I making such a decision for my team.
http://www.mtekweaponsystems.com
Heres the site with more data for ya....... worth a minute to see the effort a lone troop took to try and make his guys safer.
Click on the pic on main page to skip intro...
Imperial storm trooper?/s
It even SOUNDS like Darth when ya wear and speak in it......LUUUUUUUUUUUUUKE !
There are some really cool designs for other, similar devices.
One helo gunner ahs one with a skull airbrushed on it.
Nothing but a skeleton grinning back to you.
Blackwater doorgunners have one that looks like an Imperial Stormtrooper helmet in black. Very cool.
Cool !
They work for their intended mission of being exposed in such a manner to random IED or sniper fire while underway.....
We used to hang 2 layers of bomb blankets in our M113’s in addition to bomb blanket, layer of sand bags, bomb blanket, layer of sand bags in the floor. Sand bagged the top in same manner and added improvised RPG screens on sides.
Troops in the field will always find solutions to problems given time and materials .
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