Soldiers from Company B, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment at Forward Operating Base Gabe check a bridge in Baqouba on Sunday night for security risks. (Charlie Coon / S&S)
Soldiers from Company B, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment at Forward Operating Base Gabe check a bridge in Baqouba on Sunday night for security risks. (Charlie Coon / S&S)
First Lt. Patrick Hein of Phoenix City, Ala., the platoon leader, maps out a plan of action for Sunday night's patrol with Sgt. Christopher Rogers, right, of Sacramento, Calif. (Charlie Coon / S&S)
BAQOUBA, Iraq — The patrol rolled out of base late Sunday night and onto the dark streets of Baqouba. Its mission: to check security fences that were installed at a pair of bridges.
“To keep people from getting in under the bridge, planting [explosives] and blowing it up,” said Staff Sgt. Douglas Lesh, one of the vehicle commanders.
Another goal was to confront and possibly detain anyone violating the curfew, which is in effect from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m.
“If we see people we would normally detain them and ask some questions,” said Staff Sgt. Hugh Griffin of Bainbridge, Ga.
The soldiers of 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, based at Forward Operating Base Gabe on the eastern edge of Baqouba, conduct patrols such as this almost every night in this city of 300,000 about 40 miles northeast of Baghdad.
They are part of Task Force Liberty, a conglomerate of 20,000 soldiers stationed throughout north-central Iraq whose goal is to help build a functioning democracy in the wake of the U.S.-led toppling of Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003.
Sunday night’s patrol included three armored Humvees and two Bradley fighting vehicles. It traveled with lights off to make it more difficult for insurgents to attack the patrol.
The five vehicles and 20-plus soldiers had far too much firepower for an average band of insurgents to face using conventional means, but insurgents in Iraq have been using unconventional, hit-and-run tactics such as roadside bombs.
On this night, the moon was obscured by clouds, which made the streets darker and made it a little more difficult for the soldiers to see.
“I hate this road,” Griffin said as he steered his Humvee onto a bumpy, pitch black stretch near the Diyala River, which runs through Baqouba.
At one point the patrol using its heat-sensing equipment detected a “hot spot” in a wooded area. It could have been a person, animal or weapons cache, the soldiers said.
The hot spot could also have been a video camera, they said, used by insurgents-for-hire to videotape their attacks with improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in order to collect a bounty.
But after dismounting and wading into the woods to investigate, the soldiers found the smoldering embers of a fire that someone might have been using to keep warm in the chilly night air.
It turned out that one of the two bridges that were inspected had slipshod fencing that could be infiltrated by someone wanting to plant a bomb. Lesh said it would be reported up the chain of command to be fixed.
To finish their patrol, the soldiers drove down what they call Canal Street back to FOB Gabe, re-entering the base at 12:35 a.m., one hour after they had left it.
The battalion sends out patrols most nights, said 1st Lt. Patrick Heim of Phenix City, Ala., a platoon leader. Sometimes their objective is to search for a person or inspect a certain site in Baqouba, a city with a mixture of Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish residents.
On other nights, though, the patrols are simply looking for suspicious activity. They try to avoid sitting in one place for very long.
“During any extended period, the enemy could locate us and drop mortars,” Heim said. “But overall, we’ve had very little direct contact.”
