THE TENSION: Combat Camera: Too Hot for Mission

Sgt. Nathan Reider, a radio operator and communications specialist with Company C, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment searches a car during an operation in a southwestern Baghdad neighborhood, May 10. Reider, from Wabash, Ind., was investigating a “squirter,” or a person who tried to leave a cordoned area of the city. Photographer: Sgt. Nicole Kojetin.

Spc. Erik Gonzalez tries to cool off during a clearing operation, May 10, in West Rashid, a southern district of Baghdad. The Sun Valley, Texas, native and his comrades from Company C, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment spent the day searching for weapons caches and insurgents. Photographer: Sgt. Nicole Kojetin.

Soldiers with Company C, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment search a palm grove in Baghdad’s west Rashid District, May 10. Photographer: Sgt. Nicole Kojetin.

Spreading out the contents of a suitcase found in an insurgent’s home in the western Rashid District of Baghdad, Soldier’s with 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, evaluate military clothing and papers during Operation Arrowhead Strike 10 in support of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division’s Operation Dragon Fire – West, May 10. Photographer: Sgt. Nicole Kojetin.

Soldiers with Company C, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment make their way back to the street after searching a palm grove in west Rashid, a southwest area of the Iraqi capital, May 10. The Soldier’s were able to detain an insurgent after the long day in the sun. Photographer: Sgt. Nicole Kojetin.

Too Hot for Mission: Stryker Troops Keep Clearing
By Sgt. Nicole Kojetin
1st Cavalry Division Public Affairs

BAGHDAD – “Ugh! It’s real hot. It’s like being in an oven,” said Spc. Erik Gonzalez from Sun Valley, Texas, May 10, in a brief pause from guzzling water.

He was tucked under a little tree taking advantage the small amount of shade, not caring that he was kneeling right next to a thorn bush. Gonzalez and his comrades from Company C, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division were on hour five of a clearing operation in Baghdad’s western Rashid District and were trying to take a break from the sun.

“(You have to) drink a lot of water and put water on your body to keep yourself cool,” Gonzales said. “It doesn’t really work that well, though.”

Their eyes were focused, searching for any threats, but no one could deny the constant pressure of the 100-degree weather, especially since they were on the last day of Operation Arrowhead Strike 10 in support of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division’s Operation Dragon Fire - West.

“Let’s go!” someone yells in the distance.

Gonzales sighs and pours some more cool water down the collar of his body armor and moves out.

“Did you go into a coma last night?” a Soldier asked in passing as he walked. “I know I did. I will tonight, too. It sucks out here.”

All of them would rather be operating in the palm groves, where they started their day, as they trudge across the field with the sun on their backs.

“It’s actually a lot cooler because you are walking in the shade all day,” said Capt. Isaac Torres, the commander of Comanche Company. “It is just a lot of intensive searching with metal detectors and poles in the ground and having to clear little by little.”

Lt. Col. Fred Johnson, the deputy commander of the brigade originally from Centralia, Ill., asked Torres what he could do to help when he was checking on his Soldiers.

“Keep pushing the purchases of the (air conditioning) for the vehicles. We currently only have four vehicles with A/C right now,” Torres said.

The Soldiers jokingly call the Strykers the “green oven” because of how hot it is inside. Torres knows first-hand how bad it is. He is in the same boat.

“The guys are physically and mentally done at 12 p.m. in these temperatures. After that, I tell them to take a lot of breaks and to take your time,” he said. “Towards the end of the day yesterday, we had contact and were maneuvering on someone and almost had two guys fall into heat exhaustion.”

The Soldier’s won’t stop until the mission is done, though, leaving no drawer unopened or leaf unturned.

In the middle of the afternoon, an hour prior to the scheduled time to go home, they receive the word that there is a “bad guy” in the area and the current operation comes to a screeching halt.

The Soldiers wait patiently in their “green ovens” for their moment to strike. When they get the word, the sun is forgotten and Soldiers sprint from house to house searching a four-block area until they find the man they are looking for with some of his associates.

Cheers echo off the desolate street as the sweat covered Soldiers learn they got their man.

“We did really well. It was a combined effort,” said Torres.

“We would have knocked off a few hours ago if it wasn’t for these guys,” said Col. Steve Townsend, the 3rd SBCT commander from Griffen, Ga., as he pointed at the flex-cuffed insurgents. “I am very proud of my Soldiers today … they were so determined to not let this guy get away.”

With a renewed sense of purpose and a new disregard of the heat, his Soldiers asked, “What’s next?”

With a big smile, Torres replies, “We are going home.”

And after 13 hours of searching, they headed back to Camp Liberty for a much-needed break.