Two air-force friends of mine just returned from Qatar. They are both crew chiefs. They left thinking that they would be left out of the worst of it and remain mostly on post in Qatar. They had a very rude awakening when it turned out 2 months into their tour that they had to leave the post daily to fly missions regularly. Nuemrous times they had to land and repair aircraft onsite while being shot at by insurgents. What was surprising is that while insurgents were firing at them the locals were throwing rocks/etc at the insurgents and then running. It was all they had and they tried to hit the insurgents and dissappear without being recognized so they could avoid reprisals. The Iraqi force did eventually show up and provide protection and the locals actually cheered. Interesting that the insurgents have weapons but not the typical local citizen. It really changed their perspective about the current situation.


>>A friend of mine just left for a year's tour of duty in Iraq this morning. He will be with a unit that will be handling all convoys between Falluja and Bagdad. When he gets settled he will be posting on a blog whenever he can. When its ready I'll post the url for anyone interested.
>
>I'm interested.