The Ghosts of Tal'Afar

In this week’s edition of Pages From My Pocket: The Print Shop

There were a lot of anti-Iraq force (AIF) support networks and facilitation cells in Tal’Afar. I remember that there were a lot of ‘shops’. A lot of businesses got used to disguise locations to build IEDs or car bombs. A lot of businesses were required to fabricate a number of things associated with conducting their counterinsurgency. Back in these early days of the war, a lot of things were ‘tell-tale signs’ of insurgent activity or threats. A car that had a bunch of munitions thrown into the trunk would make the back end ‘ride low’ due to their weight. SO, we looked for a lot of vehicles that ‘rode low’.  I think that once this technique was discovered it was quickly remedied. Cars that were to be used as Continue reading →

In this week’s edition of Pages From My Pocket: Intel

Every soldier is a sensor. That aside, there are a number of ways that battlefield intelligence can be collected. The very nature of our Cavalry Squadron was RTSA: reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition. That doesn’t just include spotting enemy artillery positions, armored columns, and reporting the grade and slope of roads in unfamiliar territory. Those are all great scout tasks but the war on terror was seeing us increasingly gathering more human intelligence. Each platoon had an intelligence soldier Continue reading →