Golden Dragons: Junkyard Dragons

Baghdad Troops Sweep Junkyard for Potential Munitions

By Sgt. Jerome Bishop
2nd Striker Brigade Combat Team Public Affairs,
25th Infantry Division,
Multi-National Division - Baghdad

CAMP TAJI, Iraq – Soldiers from 4th Platoon, Company B, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, “Warrior,” 25th Infantry Division, Multi-National Division – Baghdad, along with members of the Iraqi army, began a five-day operation, March 11, near a vital route to secure all possible improvised-explosive device parts from a junkyard.

The goal is to remove munitions available to enemy forces.

“The bad guys tend to go to the junk yard and take a lot of empty rounds along with them,” said Staff Sgt. Ralph Haney, a native of Syracuse, N.Y., who serves as a squad leader for 4th Pltn., Co B. “It makes it easy for them to grab a couple, take them back to their houses, pack them full of explosives and put them back on the road.”

Because of the danger that the empty canisters pose, it is the job of the MND-B and IA soldier to “grab the majority of the ones that are easily accessible so it makes it more difficult for them,” Haney said.

Along with the IA, the Soldiers of 4th Pltn. took off into the junkyard, along with Explosive Ordinance Disposal technicians and K-9 teams, to locate, sort and remove the mostly empty munitions from the dump. While the majority of the rounds found didn't contain any explosives, they still present a danger to MND-B Soldiers and Iraqi security forces.

It was probably 95 percent empty rounds, said 1st Lt. Samuel Adam Miller, a Cameron Park, Calif., native who serves as the platoon leader for 4th Pltn., Co. B.

“A lot of it is empty stuff, but there's still some live stuff in there. The main goal of this is to get this empty stuff so they can't take it and pack it full of explosives and use it against us,” he added.

What set this mission apart from similar missions, where raids and searches produce weapons caches, wasn't the amount but the content of what was found.

“This is much more significant than a cache find because this junkyard has a lot of ordinance that's been produced but not filled,” said Miller. “It's mass quantities of empty ordinance, whereas in a cache, you'll find much smaller numbers of rounds full of high explosives.”

In the junkyard, he explained, there are a lot of empty rounds that were produced and just dumped out. However, some of the munitions were dumped with full rounds as well.

While the mission marked the first day, it is expected to last to the end of the week. The Soldiers of 4th Platoon said they are confident of the impact their actions will have in helping save lives in the future.

“Our battalion has done a great job of locking down the roads so they can't hit us with IEDs, but we're in a lull right now in terms of (al-Qaida in Iraq's) actions. Right now, while they're being passive, we can start taking away their resources so if they become more active, we've taken away a big chunk of stuff they could use against us.”

Miller called the first day of the mission a success.

“Overall, we've located the big dumps of ordnance, which was one of our main goals today. Find out where most of the stuff is at, and then we can start pulling it out on day two, day three and day four. I call it a success,” said Miller. “We've located all the major stuff and we've taken a little piece of it away with us today as well.”

At the close of the first day, the Soldiers of 4th Platoon left with a little more than they arrived with. They took more than just a haul of empty, rusted munitions, they also took with them a resource used by those who would use them to disrupt the growing security in Iraq.