Blinkey the death tank, the preferred steed of Lt. Neil Prakash, took friendly fire outside Fallujah in November:
A round exploded 50 meters in front of our front slope. “HOLY SHIT! BACK UP BACK UP BACK UP!!!!!. JUST GO GO GO!!!!!” The concussion knocked the air out of my lungs. I felt the soft punch of the air on my face. I didn’t know if more rounds were coming in but the effective kill radius of a 155mm artillery round is 50 meters. And if it was a V/T round (variable time), then it would detonate right above our heads and liquefy us…The whole back left side of the tank exploded. Grey. Black. Smoke. Dust. Sand. It all happened so fast. I see Langford sitting up on the turret with his legs dangling in the hatch like normal. But against a wall of debris at his back. The image is fleeting. He either fell or got blown forward and down into his hole. Langford and I both fell into our hatches at the same time. My seat went into my back as I looked up at the sky through my hatch…
… where we had just been, my left track was laying out in all of its glory. Broken. With only the right side of track on, the tank could only turn left…like being in a rowboat with just your right oar.
Luckily, Prakash survived to deliver a can of whoop-ass to whomever was calling artillery.
Update: It was an anti-tank mine, not artillery.
Friendly fire, my ass! They just tried to kill the desi dude.
I cant even imagine what must have happened to the poor innocent inhabitants of Fallujah. They got collective punishment for the killings of 4 mecenaries. The lengths to what this military will do to avenge deaths of their hired guns (Blackwater security folks) was reported in detail by Rahul Mahajan of empire notes and Occupation watch.
Nothing good can come out this wrong war. I dont care if it has a desi soldier in it.
So, what even Jalianwala baug was executed by desis.
What happened to all the other comments? Did it turn into some sort of viciousness? (not that it’s really any of my business, this being you guy’s blog and all……)
RC – a lot of the car bomb attacks on Iraqis in Baghdad and other areas were coming from insurgents centered in Falluja, and they didn’t exactly treat the locals like rock stars. Much of the local population was terrorized by the insurgents, and the insurgents that survived that operation have gone onto to other places to set up shop and harrass (that is a nice word for it) the burgeoning Iraqi security forces and innocent Iraqis. If any kind of democracy is to set up shop in Iraq, they have to be dealt with.
From Strategy Page.
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Allright – it is officially time to turn off the computer – the other comments I was thinking of were under the original Neil Prakash post. Sigh. I’m too young for this kind of absent mindedness…..
MD: I agree with your point about the barbarity of the insugents and their fanaticism. Their anti-Shia fanaticism is perplexing Juan Cole’s blog is almost a must read for a preety good explanation on the goings on in Iraq. (Rahul Mahajan went to Fallujah and reported from there On his own expense .. like Dahr Jamail) But these unsavory charactors have come out due to the illegal, imperialistic and religiously motivated policies of US administration. Thats why I oppose it and if Desi soldier is fighting in this imperialistic war I have no favorable things to say. I really HATE to judge someone’s personal situation by saying that a desi fighting this imperial war is like the Jalianwala baug Sepoy …. but I wont praise it by any means.
OOps I screwed up the quote and my comments section … I am a disgrace to my IT related profession 🙂
“Their anti-Shia fanaticism is perplexing”
Hardly – the bigotry practiced by most Sunnis towards Shiites is the rule, not the exception, in the Muslim world. In most Arab governments (dominated by Sunnis), this centuries’ old prejudice is enforced through the law, so there was no need for mass-scale violence. In Iraq, where Shiites are trying to establish the first majority Shiite government in the Arab world, the idea that a group once regarded as sub-human may now rule is too much to bear.