The movie in the link to the right is related to an incident from my book, "Messages from Babylon," which is excerpted below:
Yesterday we drove up MSR Tampa to Baghdad. I have made the trip dozens of uneventful times, but this was eventful because things I see in Iraq continue to amaze me.For example, traffic on the six lane, divided highway was brought to a crawl by a herd of at least 100 camels moving AGAINST traffic and occupying almost all the space in both lanes. Imagine the scene – I am in the lead vehicle of two, and we are tooling down the highway at 100 MPH, stupefied by the barrenness of the scenery, when a camel herd materializes in front of us. Mind you, anything unusual on the highway has me sitting up and tightening my grip on my pistol. You know how your mind works – those sneaky Iraqis, they're using a camel herd to trigger an ambush. Instead we stare in amazement as we crawl along in our vehicle, watching the camels and the half dozen barefoot men and boys with sticks trotting along with the herd. A newborn camel is strapped to the side of its mother. Other little babies are trotting along trying to keep up with the long legged adults. Evidently, the only way the herders can get their animals across a canal is to go on the road.
This movie clip was made as we approached the small town of As Shumali, in south-central Iraq. We were traveling, as we normally did at that time, in a Sport Utility Vehicle. You can hear the song, "Feel like Making Love", playing on the CD in the background. The standing water on the ground indicates that this was filmed in the winter time in Iraq, the very brief period when it rains. Notice the bright, yellow, recently harvested corn piled in front of one of the houses. Also notice the dirt streets, which are very common in the poorer Shia south. The big difference that I noticed when I visited Ramadi, in the Sunni Triangle, was how much richer that town appeared: the street were paved and had curbs.
This movie is night gun camera footage from an Apache helicopter taken during during the first year of the war in the area near Tikrit. According to members of my unit who were working with the 4th Infantry Division during the second half of our tour, the individuals involved in this movie were members of the 4th ID. Although the movie is taken with night vision cameras, the violence of this combat action is clear and unmistakeable.
MICHAEL WHITEHEAD, Author & Writer Web Design: Sara Whitehead Technical Consultant: Lindsey Whitehead Copyright 2010
