Al Kut, the airfield and the restaurant and ba'ath headquarters

I was with Charlie Company 4th LAR in Al Kut in March and April of 2003. I was at that same airfield and it was my platoon that first secured the Ba'ath party headquates that was next door to the hotel with the restaurant. I did have the chance to eat there once after we had been in the city about 7 days and the food was quite good and the cold soda was heaven compared to the ham slice MRE's we had so much of. In my experience the people were very friendly and inquisitive. I don't believe most of them had any hostile feelings towards us whatsoever. Sure there were a couple but that is true anywhere. I must admit I was a bit nervous our first night at the ba'ath party building when a large crowd of demonstrators (more than 2000+) marched infront of the building and started chanting and yelling. We did not have a translator at the time so we had no idea what they were saying or what their intentions were. There we only 24 of us so had things gone south we would have been very much outmanned. We did take some fire at night, but most of it was from the tower on the other side of Tigris or from just North of that dam/bridge and was far enough away that there never was a clear target to return fire at. I like Badrah more than Al Kut.

(Posted by guest: Sand Flea) posted to Al Kut, Iraq. at Fri Mar 26 18:12:07 EST 2004.