Flat Tire Attack

Yesterday was a short day but not an uneventful one.

A road trip from Tal Afar to Rabeea and back turned out to be a little bit more than they had anticipated. First, a little background information. The Stryker has run flat tires, eight of them. You don't want to have a crew outside the vehicle changing a tire when there's a battle going on so the tires each have an air pump that keeps the tire inflated until it's convenient to change it. But when you're not in battle and there's no apparent danger to the crew you stop and repair the tire.

A Stryker in their little convoy running out to Rabeea blew a tire. Generally Soldiers, and Scouts specifically, don't like to be in a stationary position without protective cover but you do what you have to do. They all pull over to the side of the road and everyone prepares to fix a flat. It's not simply pull out the jack and the spare, twist off the lug nuts and throw on the replacement. It's much more complicated - set up a defensive perimeter, acquire the parts and then man handle the table size tire off the Stryker and replace it.

The tire replacement went smoothly - no problems. But as the Strykers pulled back onto the road and started on into Rabeea mortar rounds impacted into the site where they had just been sitting.

Road Repairs


"They were 'pop-cans' - 60 millimeter. They have to be dead on to do any damage."
"How close were they?"
(Laughs) "About a mile away. But they were very, very close to where we changed the flat."

Thankfully, the coordination and communication between the attackers and their forward observer wasn't very good. They were "an hour late and a mile short".

Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) tell them that when you are attacked you don't go on the defensive. You go on the offensive. You attack back. A search for the attackers is started immediately but everyone knew that there was little chance of finding anybody or anything. And they were right - nothing is found. The attackers shot from the edge of town and melted into the population before the Strykers got there.

The officers take care of their business in Rabeea quickly and the Strykers head back home to Tal Afar.