highspeeddirt

I was in the Stryker Unit that you guys replaced (July 06-Oct 07). It seems that many of the most intense battles that occurred this late in the war were not covered. We ended up having to rescue a Special Forces / Iraqi army company that accidentally ran into a weird Cult compound when they were trying to rescue a downed Helicopter. It turns out that this compound had shot it down with an old AA gun. There was about 800 of them entrenched within a bunker system with wire obstacles all the way around. After shooting 50 cal and mortars at them all night about 250 surrendered.
If I remember right this story was a two line bit on the news about heavy fighting near the town of Najaf. I have heard several other stories from people in other units that saw crazy fights and it was never on the news. Makes me wonder what we will see when historians write about this conflict in 20 years.

Ha.. i just read that story for the first time and they had it completly wrong. The helicopter was not attacking the compound and it had no idea that the compound was even there. I dont think US forces knew anything about it or they would have let the Iraqi Army Company stumble into it enroute to rescue the downed helicopter. There was never any air power used against the place because it was getting pounded by mortars and that would have been too dangerous to allow air assets in. It amazing how wrong most journalists are.

A well made EFP will go through a Stryker like its butter. Many are not that well made or aimed though.