jealous.
But it was all good, because when they put their posters together
and
made one of me, they used his photo instead of mine. I was
more than happy to let them make that mistake.
The bounty went up as the battle went on.
Hell, I think it got so high, my wife may have been tempted to
turn me in.
P
ROGRESS
W
e helped set up several more COPs,
and meanwhile our sister
platoon did the same on the eastern side of the city. As the weeks
turned into months, Ramadi started to change.
The place was still a hellhole, extremely dangerous. But there
were signs of progress. The tribal leaders were more vocal about
wanting peace, and more began working together
as a unified
council. The official government still wasn’t functioning here, and the
Iraqi police and army were nowhere near capable of keeping order,
naturally. But there were large sections of the city under relative
control.
The “inkblot strategy” was working. Could those blots spread
over the entire city?
Progress
was never guaranteed, and even when we succeeded
for a while there was no guarantee things wouldn’t go backward.
We had to return to the area near the river around COP Falcon
several times, providing overwatch while the area was searched for
caches and insurgents. We’d clear a block, it would be peaceful for
a while, then we’d have to start all over again.
We worked a bit more with the Marines as well, stopping and
inspecting small craft, going after a suspected weapons cache, and
even running a few DAs for them. A few
times we were tasked to
check and then blow up abandoned boats to make sure they
couldn’t be used for smuggling.
Funny thing: the SBU unit that had blown us off earlier heard
about how much action we
were getting and contacted us, asking
now if they could come up and work with us. We told them thanks
but no thanks; we were doing just fine with the Marines.
W
e got into a certain rhythm working with the Army as they
continued cordoning off areas and searching them for weapons and
bad guys. We’d drive in with them, take over a building, and go up
on the roof for overwatch. Most times there would be three of us—
myself and another sniper, along with Ryan on the 60.
Meanwhile, the Army would move out to the next building. That
taken, they’d work their way down the street. Once they reached a
certain spot where we couldn’t see to provide them security, we’d
come down and move to a new spot. The process would start all
over again.
It was on one of these ops that Ryan got shot.