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Subject: Ben Hoffman’s Emails

November 5, 2004

Hey Everyone,

Well it’s been a pretty busy last 2 weeks!!!!

My Battery finished moving convoys from Cedar to Navistar back to Cedar on the 21st. It was a pretty fun gig but I’m sort of glad its over. The days got long (good and bad thing) but the last month and a half or so has flown by because of it.

On the 22^nd my battery was informed that we were going to be given a mission that heads north and the details hadn’t been worked out but it was going to be a pretty big deal. They really didn’t tell us anything about the mission until the 23^rd. We found out that night that we were helping the Scottish Black Watch move north (15 miles south of Baghdad) to camp dogwood near Karbala. This was a pretty big move because the British/Scottish hadn’t been very far north, and it was suppose to free up the marines so they could make a better advance on Fallujia. Camp Dogwood was occupied for a few months by the marines up to about four months ago ... then they abandoned the camp mainly because it was getting heavily mortared every single night.

On the 25th we started the whole mission, the first thing we did was head south to Navistar to get a convoy of HET (heavy equipment transportation) that same night we made our first night move half an hour north ... which was so awesome/fun (a little rush)...to camp Sheba (a bigger British/Scottish camp). We stayed over night there 2 nights while they loaded the HETs with equipment. We slept under the stars (which was also pretty cool) and we got to check out the British camp ... It was ok. Everything there was so much more expensive.

From Shibah we headed north back to Cedar where we stayed over night. The morning of the 28th we got an early start . . . 3 am. Along the way we made one stop at good old camp Najaf. The convoy arrived at camp Dogwood about 7 or 8 that night so over all it was a really long day. One of the things we do to see if the people in the area are friendly is wave to everyone and see if they wave back. It sort of gives us an idea how aware of the people we have to be, well as we got closer to Dogwood no one waved, and we received a lot of dirty looks!!!!!!!!!! That night in Dogwood a crew “down loaded” all the equipment while we slept under the stars. Also while I was asleep I guess about 10 helicopters flew right over us ... I didn’t wake up for one I was so tired.

The next morning we got our convoy of HETs together and headed out. We made it as far as camp Najaf and we decided to stay over night there. While we were at Naiad someone caught the news and heard that camp Dogwood was mortared that morning after we left ... fortunately, no one was hurt, but it’s just sort of a outlook of what’s to come for that camp.

The morning of the 30th we got back to Cedar. The following day we took the convoy of HETs back to Navistar where we went our separate ways and the mission was over. The mission over all was a lot of fun and sort of gave me the feeling that I actually helped out over here somehow.

The convoys ended up moving 120 Scottish vehicles north and the move made international news (I made it in one of the pictures) plus the mission made it in a whole bunch of newspapers around the world.

The battery received a few days off, so we made the move to Tally. The trailers that we are living in are so awesome . . . I share a 12x12 room with another guy. They’re airtight (no dust) and each room has its own air conditioner. The chow is about the same, the PX (military Wal-Mart) is just down the road ... the bad thing is the internet and phones are about a 2 hour wait ... which probably means I’m not going to be able to use them as much.

We just took over Cedar force protection and I’m on the 7am to 3pm shift. We have to drive to Cedar every morning (10 min drive) to pull tower guard for the camp ... its going to be boring but at least it’s a safe job that we are going to be able to do until we leave.

Like I said, the last 2 weeks have been pretty exciting and they will probably stick out in my mind the most when I think about my time over here.

I’ll talk to you all later.

Benny

 
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