Ever wonder if women and children are actually getting shot in Iraq, and if so, why? Here’s an account from a soldier engaged in convoy protection in the Sunni Triangle (courtesy of Don Sensing’s website):
We were in the middle of Baghdad on a main highway being attacked; there were buildings all around us, and people in the buildings firing weapons at us. I looked off to the left at a frontage road and I saw nine cars in rows of three. There was a line of women in front of all the cars, and some of them had children with them. I thought they were just watching us get attacked, and then men started popping up behind them firing at us - they were using the women as shields!! It took me a second to realize that. They were standing on the hoods of the cars behind the women and children; it shocked the hell out of me. Then we started getting hit with small arms fire, which sounded like golf balls hitting metal. I started firing back at them but I couldn’t get passed the women; they were all I could hit, and they started falling down. The men turned around and ran back behind the cars to fire...
I looked over and saw the two little kids that were on the bridge earlier, they were firing at me again. The older one, who had shot me earlier, was firing at the trailer and the semi, and the younger kid was firing two to three rounds at a time directly at me. I fired another round over their heads but they didn’t budge, and apparently they were not about to. Then I aimed at the younger kid’s chest and fired the round. It went into his throat and out the other side, and he dropped to the ground dead.
The older kid looked down at him, then up at me, and started laying into it; firing twenty to thirty rounds at a time at me. I rolled over, trying not to get hit, then I aimed at his head and shot, but I missed and it went over his head and hit the wall. Luckily it knocked enough debris down on him to drop him. I knew he wasn’t dead, but he was down on the ground and that was good enough for me. These terrorists are really something - using their own people (probably not their family members or friends) to shield themselves from attack. This is Muslim honor? The only problem I see with Abu Ghraib is that our boys aren’t tough enough on captured terrorists. There are innocent civilians getting killed because of these Baathist/Islamist thugs. The only way our boys will be able to stop them is by finding out who they are, where they are and where they hide their weapons. Getting information from terrorists without coercion is a lost cause. |