Excerpts from Eighty Deuce on the Loose, a blog site that an Iraq-based soldier said will be inactive because of new rules on blogging from the front.
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I know people have nothing but good things about people after they’re dead, but this man truly was a great man. He was loved by everyone in the company, and probably the worst guy to have ever died from our company here. And I truly mean that from the depths of my soul. This really put things in to perspective. There wasn’t much that could have been done in the situation to of prevented this. It was a lucky stray round that had found had hit in a lethal spot. It could have been anyone else. That’s the sad thing about war. There’s never knowing who or when or what or how. It simply comes down to if it’s your time or not. ”
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All I know now is that there is a score to be settled. This now became more personal that it ever was, and I feel sorry for the future SOBs that cross our path. In memory of Sgt. Norman Lane Tollett, you will never be forgotten and will always have a place with us. Watch down from heaven and be proud of your boys as we are proud of you and your sacrifice.
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We ended up pulling security in the EXACT same area where I had the grenade thrown at me. OK, a little unsettling but what can you do. Hopefully if it happens again we can shoot the bastard this time. Well not even 30 mins into sitting there all of a sudden we hear a loud explosion behind us and see a dirt cloud coming from the IA check point about 200m back from our position. They then come under small arms fire and engage them for about 20 mins until things settle back down. Again, no US troops involved. Nothing else ended up happening while we were out there, which is good. Once EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) had successfully placed a charge on the IED, we made sure and had our video recorders out and got an awesome video of the explosion. They set it off inside the other tower, and amazingly the tower is still standing.
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It was utter chaos down there the closer we got. I honestly could not believe my eyes. It was surreal. People were being helped away from “ground zero,” some of them covered in blood and wounds. Windows hundreds of meters away were shattered; glass scattered on the ground. The closer we got, we began to see the damage from the blast. Cars 100-200 meters away were damaged by flying debris. Windows shattered, hoods bent in, blood on the paint jobs. The streets were soaked in the foam/water mix used to put the fires out, which were still going strong when we arrived. The closer we got, to more tainted the water became with an awful red. I could only imagine what it was going to look like the closer I got. We ended up looping around to the west end of the blast site and we were probably about 25-30 meters away from where the vehicle had exploded. The ground was charred and black, and every vehicle in that area was a charred mangled metal mess. People were rushing in, some trying to put out the fire, others to rescue others, and even more simply recovering bodies. The crowds in the area had to be in the hundreds if not thousands.
