"One Soldier" is in Iraq, writing about his experiences there searching for IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices.) This is from his blog. We'll post entries from it now and then, to help us all see at least one person's view of the situation over there.

So I've been spending the past two weeks in Baghdad, doing some work with the Army. Now, I know many people will often lump all armed forces together into the big group called "Army" but there are significant differences between the Army and Marines. Don't get me wrong, the Army is a great tool. But even the best hammer is fairly useless when all you have are screws.

Example: I am out on a search mission with the good old 4/101, looking for artillery shells that we think are being hidden in a guy's house. And we can't find them. Surprise, surprise, huh? He has hidden them. After an hour or so of Army guys running around, blasting locked doors with shotguns (because they can, I guess), breaking windows to search cars and causing general mayhem and destruction to this guy's home, they decide that he has hidden the shells in a chicken coop, under a bunch of reeds, hay and rags. Do we carefully clear out the material, watching for booby traps while searching? Noooo...that would take time and intelligence. Instead, the leader of this band of geniuses decides that the best way to clear out this flammable material is to LIGHT IT ON FIRE.

I am not kidding. We are looking for multiple artillery shells packed with over 100lbs of highly explosive material each and their preferred search technique is to burn things. I saw the smoke and it took me literally 30 seconds to realize what was happening because I never imagined individuals could be quite so ... what is the word for insanely stupid? Needless to say, as soon as I realized they were intentionally burning things, I took off while shouting to the Darwin Award candidates all standing around the fire to get away quickly.

Today, I am back in Fallujah with the Marines, and I breathe easier. We may take more incoming fire out here in Al Anbar province but that is a risk I would rather take in order be around a more deliberate, precise group of people.

I've posted some pictures from my trip. Mostly innocuous as there is something of a crackdown going on over here on any work-related pictures or postings. Not that they are illegal, but taking pictures is frowned upon.

http://www.onestepforward.org - Reprinted with permission