IED - Iraq

[Curtis Baillie]

My son, who is on his second tour in Iraq sent me this video. This is about as real as it gets. Ride along with the troops - can you spot the IED before it explodes? Make sure your audio is on.

http://s247.photobucket.com/albums/g...=IEDHAWIJA.flv

[JB diligence]

First off, I'm glad your son wasn't hit and hope the rest of his crew were in the same fait.

As for seeing the IED; I didn't really see anything but I have 2 guesses,
1. I'm guessing it had something to do with the "rock" that the little F*ck" threw in the air. OR, 2. The dark vehicle infront of the vehicle he was following.

Hope he makes it home safely Curtis!

Thanks fo the vid.

[LPAjh9558]

First let me say thank you for your son's service to our country I'm glad the he made it through the explosion without being injured and hopefully the rest of his buddies are doing well.....

Thanks for the video & God Bless the USA

[NRM_Oz]

I agree with JB but believe the rock was a distraction to enable the focus to be take off the upcoming parked motor vehicles.

Curtis - I am also pleased to see that your son and his squad were not injured in this incident and from the Pacific thank him and his comrades for their hard work in this human hell-hole.

[Bill Warnock]

Curtis, that was an awesome clip to watch. The sentiments expressed by the other responding forum members is well deserved. It is my prayer and that of so many of us that your son and all his squad return home safely. It is hard for those who have not felt the sting of battle to understand what goes on and the experiences are relived in some way every day of the remainder of our lives.
Enjoy the day,
Bill

[Curtis Baillie]

First of all - thanks everyone for the well-wishes for my son. This second tour is harder on my wife than the second.

Second - My son was not in the vehicle that was hit by the IED. The video was taken by another solder who is in my son's unit. We did find, upon the return from his first tour, that his vehicle, a Hemet wrecker named 'Shirley' was hit by 3 IEDs. According to him, in all three instances, the only injury sustained was having his 'bell rung', very loudly. After the third hit the wrecker had to be junked.

I do have a picture of him and his wrecker towing the vehicle that was hit in the video. I'll post that - very remarkable, when you look at the hum-vee, that none of the solders was injured.

Again, thanks for all of the well wishes.

[Curtis Baillie]

Here's photos of the hum-vee, my son and his Hemet wrecker, Shirley.

[Don of the Dead]

God bless your sone and all our men and women over there!

[Guest]

Curtis

My little brother just got back from that cesspool a few months ago. My prayers and thanks go out to all servicemen and women and their families daily. I appreciate the risks and the sacrifices that all are taking in this horrible mess. May God keep him safe and bring 'em all home...

Doug

P.S. Maybe he'll be the lucky recipient of some of our school's donations via The Girl Scouts. We sent like 200 boxes of cookies in their "Operation Cookie" this year...

[JB diligence]

I looked at that picture and thought about the Canadian troops killed in Aghanistan by IEDs due to there vehicles the, Iltis (a Jeep like vehicle) being unarmored, Canada has sinced purchaced and is using a new and armored verhicle, so at least that helps a bit.

[SpecialAgentKC]

IEDs suck....

...but, occassionally the intended recepient gets lucky.... --K.

[flashlightcop509]

...but, occassionally the intended recepient gets lucky.... --K.

Dammit, and my phone's a Nokia!

Seriously though, at least in my initial thoughts regarding Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc., were that they were going thru life as though they were still in the 19th century, replete with harems, tribal rulers, scimitars, and the like... Which they still adhere to, but the whole cell phone-to-IED thing is astoundingly worrisome at the least...

[Alaska Security]

its easy to negate though... there's toys out there that render things like that absolutely useless if not detonated well before a coalition vehicle comes within the killzone...

[SpecialAgentKC]

its easy to negate though... there's toys out there that render things like that absolutely useless if not detonated well before a coalition vehicle comes within the killzone...

Yup. I played with some of these "toys" in country as you probably did. But, those outside of certain types of units didn't have that in their tool box, unfortunately. --K.