An Army First Sergeant discusses Military Police Operations in Iraq and specifically at Camp Bucca. He discussed the deployment, arrival in-country, interaction with other units and the guard duties at Camp Bucca.
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IFIT-35-110 Sergeant
This is Sergeant
Support Command Historian's Office. Today's date is 19 May
2003. The time now is 15:34 local time. I'm here at Camp
[Buca?] in Iraq, and I'm interviewing Sergeant First Class
190.eS -
111111111111111111 And Sir, Sergeant, can you please go
ahead and spell out your first and last name?
Q: with the 377th Theater
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First name is
A: Last name is
Q:
And what is you unit and duty position?
A:
We're the A-22nd Military Police Company, and I'm the
Company First Sergeant.
Q:
All right. I'm going to have a read up a little boiler
plate language here if you don't mind. Do you understand
that the tape and the transcript resulting from this oral
history to be retained in the United States Army Reserve
Historical Research Collection and/or CFLCC Military
History Group, will belong to the United States Government,
to be used in any manner deemed in the best interests of
the United States Army as determined by the Command
Historian or representative? Do you also understand that
subject to security classification restrictions, you may be
given an opportunity to edit the resulting transcript in
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DOD-018234
A: Exactly. You know, you're blocking the whole highway on
them. And, you know, they drive like madmen there, so.
Q: And how about --? On average, I mean, average convoy, how
many vehicles would you send with them and what type of
armament?
A: Usually of the hard-shell Humvees, with or
an mounted on them --
MN
Q: All right.
A: -- with 1111111people in each vehicle.
Q: Good deal. And how about the.. You said they did some
traffic control points and what else?
A: Entry control points.
Q: Entry control points.
A: Onto the port because it's a secure area where they're
unloading all the ships coming in with equipment.
Q: OK. So how many people would you have at the traffic
control points and --?
A: I mean, we'd probably have about But we had a
wholeellindown there, at the time, doing the mission.
Q: OK.
A: They just rotated the through it. You know,
they'd stay down there for, I think it was likeillWays
at a time.
Q: OK.
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A: Six days after we got there. So it would have been the --
Twenty-fourth? Let's see.
Q: So --
A: Somewhere around the 2nd of April --
Q: All right.
A: -- 2nd or 3rd of April.
Q: Let me ask you. Going back, the war news -- I'm sure you
kept hearing about convoys being ambushed. I'm sure
personnel coming into Talil were bringing stories about
that. What's more --? Actually, let me set back a moment.
We talked about the 507th. What could you see in the
surrounding area? I heard that there were explosions or
something?
A: Yeah, there were three nights that they attacked el
Nazareen. They had a front-row seat for it.
Q: OK.
A: So every bomb they dropped, we saw. All the firefights out
there, we heard and saw. And, you know, there were some
pretty hairy nights out there, where the guys didn't sleep
much, and if at all. They didn't sleep.
Q: OK. And what about perimeter security? I mean, were they
--? New soldiers, combat environment. Could you tell they
were nervous by like the call-ins and things like that?
For example, I heard one company, not this one, called in
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Q: OK. And the positions outside, it would be
A: Yes. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMNIIIIMIIIIL nd just fighting
positions.
Q: OK. And about how many soldiers for fighting positions,
how many soldiers to them
A: Well, we there are a
Q: OK.
A: So we had a at each check control point. And there
was tthere. We had III at the main gate. That's ONO
And then they had them at some of the towers.
Q: OK.
A: Because we were short on so we had to
leave a t some of the towers, so they could
communicate.
Q: Use their
A: Use the.radio. Right. And when you've only got
1111.111111 they go fast.
Q: OK. And what about Iraqi civilians coming in? Well, did
you have an Iraqi soldiers try to infiltrate?
A: Well, it's funny. No, we had no Iraqi soldiers try to come
through the perimeter. But we had a couple that, they'd
come up, and they'd try to surrender at the traffic control
point. And there was sort of a criteria. They'd either
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DOD-018278
have to be in uniform or have a weapon on them. So they
were telling us. "No, we can't take you because you don't
the right uniform, or you don't have a weapon." And they'd
be back in a half-hour with a uniform on or with a weapon.
Or a part of a weapon.
Q: And who would tell them? Would it be interpreters? Or the
soldier who --?
A: It would by my specialist for the 2nd Platoon.
Q: When did you start letting interpreters? Or did you?
A: Well, no. We never really; did get any interpreters. fou
know, they claim they're out here somewhere, and I've seen
a few of them, but they're used mostly out at the interment
facility or for processinig.
Q: OK. And what about establishing internal security? Did
you get a berm placed around your living quarters or --?
A: No. No, in fact tHiat pissed me off a little, to put us in
this position. And we were just a berm away from the
$holding ares. And they didn't man the holding area very
well. And one night, we had 40 of them come over the berm,
right into our housing area. So then everybody had to come
out of the tents and tackle these guys down and return them
to the holding area. And another time, about ten of them
came over. We caught them over in the corner. And, you
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A: -- especially the females. But we did have some
portapoties that were found at Coyote that had been run
over by a truck, but the faces weren't in place so they cut
out the tanks, just the top part, so we were dragging those
all over Iraq with us, that's when we were digging the slit
trenches, the little face with the toilet seat on it for
the port potty, in fact they want to bring them home with
them.
Q: Oh no, you can't bring Iraqi weapons home.
A: I don't know if we can bring home Iraqi toilet seats or
not.
Q: All right we talked about bombs and we had to use your cell
phone, other troops use cell phones, what about mail?
A: Mail has been another pain in the butt. Again, '91, the
minute I hit country I have one zip code, never changed it,
never had a mail problem. Here, every time we move, we get
a new zip code and then when we move for a week and come
back, like when we went up to Pulel (sp?) the S3, or the S4
is closer to the 293rd, thought he was doing us a favor and
had our mail transferred up there. Well I call this a
major hassle, because we had to march half a dozen troops
back up to Pulel to retrieve mail, that's been a huge, huge
problem.
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A: Well, sure, there was always concern, but they really have
a lot of sympathy for these people because they have
fathers and mothers and brothers from all over Iraqi coming
here to look for their loved ones and we couldn't give them
any information, we had to keep them at arm's length and.
But once we got somebody out there that spoke the language
and found out what was going on, you have compassion for
these people. So it's tough. It's really tough here.
Have compassion for somebody and also treat them as a
danger. And one day there was an explosion in In Kazar,
and a little girl was killed and they brought her here
looking for medical help. She had third degree burns on
70% of her body. And we couldn't do nothing for her, we
couldn't do shit for her. Finally after like three hours
of this girl laying in the back of a car, they got a
Medivac out to the U.S.S. Hope, but that was all my guy's
doing.
Q: And, all right, do we have facilities here to help handle
third degree burns?
A: I don't believe so.
Q: OK.
A: Especially at that time, I know they didn't.
Q: OK.
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get tired of telling them same old thing every day,
especially with some of the bigger whiners, you know? I
mean, I have guys two or three times a day come up to me,
"I heard the 19th of May we're leaving". No. No. Do you
think we'd be sitting here putting a new generator in if we
were leaving on the 19th? Do you think we'd be dropping
portapoties if we were going home next week. Although
that's another big joke. As soon as they start serving
lunch at the dining facility, we'd be out of here in two
days.
Q: That's probably true.
A: Some of them say we'll get another mission some say no, I
know, I know for a fact we're not getting another mission,
we're going home. I know from experience that we could get
two more missions.
Q: What about the family support group? How has that been?
A: Well, they've been wonderful. Our new commander,
(inaudible) on a regular basis. The Emails do wonders.
The Email has taken the place of phones for a lot of
people.
Q: OK.
A: And we were fortunate enough to get to have a bunch of
computer geeks in this company and we got Internet access
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Q: And you know, this path traveled just a little in Baghdad,
a couple of other spots, and this is the first time I've
heard anyone trying to cut back on the bottled water. What
would be the reason for that?
A: All I can think of is either cost or logistical problems
with the transport. That's the only thing I can think of.
I don't even want to think about them trying to cut off the
bottled water.
Q: Well, you mentioned morale problems later on. Let's go to
the end result, six months, a year down the road, what do
you think the retention is going to be for this company and
what can be done to improve it?
A: I think retention for this company after we've redeployed
will be horrible. But I anticipate losing 50% if not more.
And I think what they should do is use some of that
recruiting money and spend it here on the soldiers that are
here. What do they spend on recruiting every year $150,
$200 million dollars. If that's what why they don't have
stuff here for the soldier's it's money, and that's where
they should take the money from. Because, I mean, why
would you want to bring new people in and disregard the old
ones? We have a whole new era of experienced soldiers in a
war time environment. Why would they just want to
Q: That seems like a good way to conclude this interview. The
time now is 17:10 I'm going to conclude the interview, Sir,
thank you.
A: Thank you.
(END OF TAPE)
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