One of Ours

In the late morning we took part in one of our ongoing detainee release missions. I remember reading some newspaper articles when we first started the large releases from Abu Ghraib but you don't hear too much about them anymore.

Our convoy left FOB DAGGER and drove to a link up point on the outskirts of Tikrit. There, after a short wait, we met an Iraqi bus carrying about 25 Iraqis that were being released from Abu Ghraib. We escorted the bus to a more secure location and then started to process the detainees. As we drove through downtown Tikrit the detainees on the bus were leaning out of the windows waving to everyone on the street. And everyone on the street was waving back, police men, iraqis on bicycles, kids, they were all waving smiling and yelling encouragement. Cars were honking their horns. They must all have known what was going on.

All of the detainees had been detained by 4ID before we had arrived in country so we didn't know too much about them. We were only supposed to release eleven individuals here in Tikrit and the rest were going to go up to Kirkuk...

After getting the bus sorted out we sat our eleven guys in some bleachers, gave them water and a new dishdasha (the robes that are popular here) and an Iraqi National Guard major welcomed them back to society. The speech wasn't translated into english but I imagine he told them that, now that they are free again, they needed to keep out of trouble and help support the new government's efforts at establishing security.

At previous releases we've had Al Jazeera and CNN reporters present and filming the release. Yesterday we had two Iraqi reporters for Agence France Presse. They were videotaping everything and got to interview a number of the released detainees. I would be curious to see if it makes it on the air and what kind of angle they put on it.