Just got off the phone with our soldier. Kyle is doing well, but it was 12:05am when he called and he was just heading to bed. They had just finished a "night op". It seems that they were sitting in their room getting ready to bed down when someone came running in to say, "Be in full Battle Rattle at the vehicle in 5 minutes." That was all they needed in order to spring into action.
They were being sent out to check on some civilians who were digging alongside the road. That often spells IED. They had deployed 4 trucks of 5 men each to investigate. They call this a QRF mission (Quick Response Force). Kyle said the road they were traveling was very small and they were traveling blacked out (that means they are using inferred headlights and NODs (night vision) to navigate. One of the characteristics of this technology is that it is bereft of bas-relief (its hard to see the bumps). That would explain why his gunner told him that the hole he was about to enter was "real small". It was not! It was, instead, big enough to bend up the Rhino guard on the front of the Humvee and stick the rig. This puts a real crimp in the "Q" part of "QRF".
He said it was exciting yet uneventful. The two men they were sent to investigate were actually digging a canal as a part of an irrigation project (in the middle of the night?).
Kyle said they had a nervous patrol a couple days ago. They pulled into a town that was busy with activity. By the time they had been there a few minutes, the streets went empty. This was enough irregularity to cause the hair to stand up for all the guys in Kyle's squad. As it turns out, they did receive some intel which they turned over to the IP (Iraqi Police). I asked if they had found the intel to be credible. His response, "If we get hit, it was credible."
On a purely positive note, he said that he had received another of the bags he had shipped from Colorado. In it was his Bible. He said, "I dived right in ... looking for some good word, nothing in particular. In case you didn't know it, there are no 'F-bombs' in the Bible." Good to know! Apparently that word is a regular part of military vocabulary.
More to come ... Continue praying!
They were being sent out to check on some civilians who were digging alongside the road. That often spells IED. They had deployed 4 trucks of 5 men each to investigate. They call this a QRF mission (Quick Response Force). Kyle said the road they were traveling was very small and they were traveling blacked out (that means they are using inferred headlights and NODs (night vision) to navigate. One of the characteristics of this technology is that it is bereft of bas-relief (its hard to see the bumps). That would explain why his gunner told him that the hole he was about to enter was "real small". It was not! It was, instead, big enough to bend up the Rhino guard on the front of the Humvee and stick the rig. This puts a real crimp in the "Q" part of "QRF".
He said it was exciting yet uneventful. The two men they were sent to investigate were actually digging a canal as a part of an irrigation project (in the middle of the night?).
Kyle said they had a nervous patrol a couple days ago. They pulled into a town that was busy with activity. By the time they had been there a few minutes, the streets went empty. This was enough irregularity to cause the hair to stand up for all the guys in Kyle's squad. As it turns out, they did receive some intel which they turned over to the IP (Iraqi Police). I asked if they had found the intel to be credible. His response, "If we get hit, it was credible."
On a purely positive note, he said that he had received another of the bags he had shipped from Colorado. In it was his Bible. He said, "I dived right in ... looking for some good word, nothing in particular. In case you didn't know it, there are no 'F-bombs' in the Bible." Good to know! Apparently that word is a regular part of military vocabulary.
More to come ... Continue praying!
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