What Is An Expat?

Last night I was talking to my fiancee and happened to have my window open. There were several small bangs and a bunch of small arms started up. I told her I’d call her back and meandered to one of the bunkers in true “this ain’t necessary but it’s the game we have to play” fashion. Nobody else seemed to notice except my neighbor, which was not surprising, but still…they were shooting at our watch tower about 100m away. I watched a tracer bounce off the tower and head off away. Terry and I talked for a couple of minutes and gave up. I walked back into my container and started the long and drawn out dialing process again, trying to think of something innocuous I had to do so she wouldn’t be scared — folks back home always have a strange concept of the danger. Anyways, I’m dialing

BOOM!!! (more…)

Here are a few pics from the other day in Mosul, same day as all the fun stuff was going on.

These folks are with the MPs. They had set up a new position on our roof for observation during the evenings. They have a SAW in front of them that you can’t see. I talked to them for a while. One guy in their unit had been killed in the morning with the car bombing of the police station, a couple critically wounded, and some others wounded also.

The area between the building at the horizon and the tower is where one of the car bombs went off.

I’m not sure what this one is, but something is obviously burning. I don’t recall hearing anything that evening though. Usually pretty much anything going off can be heard if you are not asleep, and depending on the size and distance, that might not be a factor.

A later shot where you can see the smoke better. There was a whole lot more in the morning. I didn’t go up on the roof then. When they gave the all clear, there was some small arms fire not too far the other side of the wall, but it wasn’t very motivated. Still, rooftop not a good place to be at that time.