Today, one of my good friends was shot and killed by an Iraqi sniper.
He was helping one of his Soldier's when he was shot.

His patrol came up on an supposed IED that the Iraqi police were cordoning. But when he got shot, they brought him back here right away, then went back out with EOD(Explosive Ordnance Disposal) to check out this IED.

It was fake. The whole thing was a setup.

Once he got back here it took forty five minutes for Medevac to get here when it's supposed to take five. Ten if there's a delay.
Some new Squadron of blackhawks took over Medevac and they had no idea where our Outpost was.

And then, as if to add insult to injury, we found out that he had been stop-lossed. Which means that his date when he was supposed to leave the Army was within 2-3 months of our deployment date. But since we had this "Emergency" deployment, he had to come with us.

He wasn't even supposed to be here.


I need to ask for your prayers for his family, and also for my Battalion. We're having a hard time dealing with all that happened today and the way it happened.

Thanks.

That is really, very sad. I will definitely put a prayer out for his family, and of course for you guys too.

(This is a side note and I seriously do not mean to derail the thread, but how is it that you can post so often while you are over there?)

I'm so sorry to hear that..you all will be in my prayers.

Because I pull 5-7 hours of radio guard a day and we have a computer here with non-secure internet, basically civilian internet, which allows me to surf while nothing is going on.

Sorry to hear that man, talk about horrible circumstances.

You mean the iraqi police set him up, or the IED was a fake IED setup by the bad guys?

Also, that's very sad to hear, especially considering the stupid circumstances. Sorry to hear.

I mean the Iraqi police are corrupt, they set up the "IED" in order to bring our guys close in to the Sniper.

Yet the brilliant people who command this Army say we should keep working with the IP's and Iraqi Army(who are starting to get better) to help them rebuild their country.

D:

****.

Good luck.

I prayed for his family and every one of the soldiers over in the Middle East, including your Battalion.

I don't pray, but I will offer hope...whatever that may be to you I don't know.

Hope that this **** ends soon so that we americans can get back to basics and stop poking psychopathic killers with really really long sticks.

Thanks for your prayers guys. We're supposed to have a memorial service in a few days, I'll see if I can get a few pictures.

Was the sniper located?

I'll pray.

Nope. And the bad part is the guy who shot Vanek has the same MO as the guy who shot Tomzak and Ford. It's the same damn sniper. He's hit the Stryker guys, too.

But higher isn't smart enough to send out sniper/spotter teams to catch this guy.

That sucks. ill pray.

My condolences to his family and yourself.