Veterans

Sorry for the war story and bringing everything back to my experiences in Iraq, but I'll post this anyways.

The above excerpt from the article reminded me of a firefight I was a part of in Iraq in 2004. I was a part of a company sized element that was occupying a cluster of government buildings in a suburb of Baqubah during a 3 day firefight. On the second day of fighting my platoon was providing security for the buildings and engaged with fighting enemy forces just outside of the cluster. As noon approached a group of Iraqi police officers emerged from one of the buildings, approached my Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and asked to leave to go get some lunch. They loaded up into a pickup truck, sped off, and about 30-60 minutes later, returned with lunch for their police station. Meanwhile, one of my squads was around the corner engaged by sniper fire and one of my tanks was in the process of leveling a building that housed the enemy element that was engaging us.

These Iraqi police officers thought nothing of the fighting going on around them. It was time for their lunch break and they had to go.