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Friday, May 27, 2005
Chemical Ali's Palace
The only other patrol base in town, the home of Echo Troop from Montana, was located in ‘Chemical Ali’s’ old summer home. Ali earned his nickname being the one responsible for gassing thousands of innocent Kurds in the 90’s, using chemical weapons. As they were moving out, we had the opportunity to guard their base (lots of fun), which sometimes meant sitting for eight hours in a shed-sized rooftop bunker (or ‘observation post’) alone in the middle of the night.
After a few days of pulling late-night guard duty there, we returned to our own patrol base to… you guessed it, pull late-night guard duty here! Fun! Yeah… wait, didn’t I go to college? Can I go to Officer’s Candidate School yet? (I’m in the process of applying now.) The place, often called a palace, was certainly not palatial by our standards, but was definitely much more ornate and massive compared to most Iraqi homes.
Posted by: Unknown / 11:00 AM 
