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COURTESY SPC. SEAN KIMMONS First Sgt. Robert Jennings took time to say hello to a little girl during a dismounted patrol.

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Soldiers think calm
precedes a storm

For the second straight week, it has continued to stay fairly quiet. You can still hear the nightly gunfire ringing across the city, but overall it's been calm, kind of scary quiet. We still believe the enemy is lying low until later in the month.

As we go through the month of January, new units are arriving in the area. The units will reinforce the current units and then assume the area after the elections. The unit scheduled to relieve us was relocated to the central part of the country.

This week we were also able to break ground at two schools we have been targeting for repair. The work started on Monday and should be complete by the middle of February.

» 6:40 p.m., Jan. 3: A rocket is heard impacting to the south of the patrol base. Reports across the radio inform us that a rocket landed in a field just outside the air base.

» 8:16 p.m., Jan. 3: An explosion and a rocket just zipped through the air over the patrol base. About 20 seconds later, an explosion was heard from the direction of the airfield. Two soldiers from the incoming unit were slightly injured.

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COURTESY CAPT. DEREK BIRD The village mayor and the primary school principal broke ground on the site of two new classrooms. The work started on Monday and should be complete by the middle of February.

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» 9:35 a.m., Jan. 4: An international security company we work closely with reports that two men were trying to launch a rocket at the airfield when it exploded still on the ground. The security company notified us that one guy was killed and the other was taken to the hospital.

This is the news we like to hear. It is so much easier to catch or kill the enemy when he's doing it to himself. The police were notified and are standing guard on the one that survived.

» 8:20 p.m., Jan. 6: A joint patrol consisting on Iraqi national guard and coalition troops discovered a roadside bomb consisting of a 152 mm artillery round. The Iraqi bomb squad was called and the bomb was defused.

The best part about this event is that the ING were walking point and discovered the bomb. Talking with personnel that were on the ground, they went into a security battle drill without being told or guided. This is proof that the training our soldiers are conducting with these Iraqi soldiers is paying off threefold.

As we move deeper into the month of January, you can feel the tension in the air. We have been here just short of a year, patrolling the same streets, seeing the same problems. Soldier focus is priority at this stage. The leaders of Alpha Company are getting the soldiers focused on the task at hand and the problems we will face over the next three weeks. These young men are battle hardened and ready to accept any challenges proposed to them.

God Bless and Aloha.

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Soldier enjoys improving Iraqis' lives

Spc. Stephen Koziol

This week meet Spc. Stephen Koziol from Lisbon, Conn. He is a M249 SAW gunner in 2nd Squad, 1st Platoon, and has been in the Army for two years.

Koziol said that when he found out he was deploying to Iraq, he felt a lot of uncertainty. He explained, "We really didn't know the mood of the people, what accommodations we would have, or how active the enemy was in our area."

Koziol went on to say, "When we got here I was surprised at how good the accommodations were. We took over security at the Government Building for the first month, then went into the patrol schedule." He added, "Now that I've been here a while, it's really nice to see the improvements we've made. Working with the schools, and helping the underprivileged areas, makes you realize not to take even the smallest things for granted. I don't think people realize the dangers we face every day. When you leave the walls of the patrol base, there are a lot of people that just want to kill an American. When you're out on a patrol, you have got to be ready for anything. You can't trust anyone, and you always have to be suspicious."

I asked Koziol to tell me the most memorable thing that's happened to him here. He said, "We were woken up in the middle of the night to conduct a raid across town. Twenty minutes after waking up we were meeting with the informant and intelligence. We had no rehearsal time, no map, just a guy in a ski mask in the lead vehicle."

He added, "When that gate was ripped off, I was the second guy in the house. I don't remember too much of what happened, just that it was fast."

Koziol finished his interview by saying hello to his wife, Tina, and daughter, Kaitlyn, at Schofield Barracks. "Don't worry about me. I'm doing fine, and I hope to be home soon. I love you both."

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