Well, now then fellas I had an exciting wee trip around former land of Sadam.
Left Tuesday and flew up to Baghdad on the C130 Hercules, my second flight to Baghdad and just as good as the last, a vertical take off and a mental corkscrew descent into Sadam International Airport. Picked up by our escort and driven to the CPA at Sadam’s former residential palace. Had some meetings then found a bed in the throne room (the room with the big mural of Scud missiles with Iraqi flags going into the heavens). Then to the pub at the Al Rasheed hotel, the last time I was there the hotel was bombed the week after and has just reopened with a new bar in the basement. So I had a couple of rum and cokes and got chatting to some Brits, turns out there’s a big party going down at one of the Brit compounds.
So it’s off we go on the night bus to find the party, we get to the British house, guarded by wee Johnny Gurka. Walked into the compound past all the Para’s and walked into the house on the banks of the Tigris river in the middle of Baghdad and it was party central, free bevvy, birds, guns, rockets, all the good stuff. So I got fired in to the punch and got the banter with the Baghdad boys and girls. Got pretty wasted and ended up swapping clothes with this bird who was wearing some Arab type fancy-dress dress and dancing about like a right dickhead, Banter. The wall was covered in AK’s and RPG’s, sweet as like. Think we (me and colleague Brian #2) left about 3am and staggered back to the palace along the streets of Baghdad, helicopter over my head as I piss behind a tree, check points all the way back with Yank soldiers all around while I stagger and sway back into the palace. Got into the throne room and into our bunks, then about 30 minutes later, old boy Brian #2 falls out his top bunk with a huge bang, stands up and starts pissing on the floor! So I started pissing myself laughing and couldn’t stop which woke everyone else who hadn’t been woken up by him falling out of bed as Brian’s staggering around trying to climb back into bed, think the last whiskey he had!!
So, morning comes, a few meetings and then finish by 1300hrs when we are supposed to leave for the Airport, but flights delays so we’ve got 3 hours to spare. So I thought I’d go for a donder around town, Brian #2 chickened out half way down the road out of the palace thinking it was unsafe, where as I thought phuket I want to see the sights. So I donder about 20minutes down the road and come across this huge monument. Turns out to be the monument to the Iraqi soldiers who fought in the Iran Iraq war. It’s wicked. I was there myself so I paid these two Iraqi boys 5 dollars to show me round. Just as well as inside it was pitch dark, pretty scary. In side used to be a museum but it was looted after the war. Just empty display cabinets. Then around the inside the marble walls look solid, but if you tap along then you find hollow bits which when pushed reveal doors to cells, and there’s cells in the floor too. All dodgy stuff, they claim it was a prison in disguise, you never know, it’s well weird like.
Then I went on and saw the huge cross swords entrance way to the Iraqi Army parade ground. These swords are unbelievable, so cool and I hope they are never removed as the parade ground would make an excellent venue for a run in at a Park World Tour event. Big flood lit arena the works. Paid another wee Iraqi a Dollar to show me inside the swords, there is a ladder network inside the hands of sadam (the hands holding the sword were modelled on Sadams hands) so I got to climb to the top of his hands, nice.
Then left and went back to the palace then to the airport. There had been a few planes targeted by surface to air missiles that day so we couldn’t leave until dark. We ended up leaving at 1245am. Then had a incredibly vertical take off while flying up staying within the airport area. Unreal. Flew to Kuwait to drop off some stuff and then back to Basra. On approach to Basra the plane was blacked out, no lights then Phumph, phumph the pilot ejects flares, then more and we bank of pulling some serious G’s circling up and away then round and back into a drop out the sky landing causing almost total weightlessness, CRRAAAZZZAAEEEE.
So got to Basra airport at 4am then up at 7 to get a helicopter to Samawa for another meeting. 11 of us got into the Chinook and flew the hour to Samawa with the tail gunner hanging out the back. Got to Samawa and went out to look at a site. Four of us were standing around this rubbish tip when firing started not too far away but we didn’t take much notice of it. Then about 20 minutes later these two Landrovers come along the track we were on and eight SAS guys jump out for some banter, they’d been out in the desert shooting targets, random as.
Then we got back to the CPA building and we had missed our transport back to the helipad. So had to get one of the Dutch guys to drive us there in his jeep at full pelt flying through the traffic and got to the heliport just in time for the flight back to Basra, QUALITY
Putting some photos on http://www.picturetrail.com/thelegendliveson
the adventures of Asian McCarthy
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the adventures of Asian McCarthy
You can't expect to reach the top without a little climbing!
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Asian - light green
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- Joined: Fri Oct 24, 2003 8:39 am
- Location: Here there and everywhere but mostly Iraq
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