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Well the CO decided that we should spend the night at Habur so the helicopters left last night. We find our selves trying to get on board a convoy that is escorting fuel tankers back south. A hummer, a 5 ton and 2 PLS's to escort 75 trucks. Of course in our "hurry" to leave Kuwait we are in indian country minus our SAPI plates. The CO didn’t want to wait the 6 hours for our unit to get back with the plates, we had to get to Mosul before the 116th. There is a standing order that everyone in a convoy must have the plates. So the convoy leader is reluctant to have us on board for the ride south. The CO ends up working a deal to borrow plates from folks at Habur and the convoy leader will return them the following day. So we load up the plates into the vest and climb aboard the vehicles. The lead Hummer only had 2 guys in it, so our SAW gunner climbs in the back. The CO, MAJ, and myself climb in the back of the 5 ton with the convoys SAW. The drive down to Mosul was uneventful but hairey at times. Driving through town we ran over a soccer ball, sounded just like a large caliber gun going off. If someone had been standing on the side of the road with a weapon right then I think he would have been wasted. Driving through the mountain pass we were seeing mine field signs everywhere. Wrecks of vehicles destroyed in crashes. Damaged fighting positions. Crazy. Driving through Mosul itself was pretty wild. Impossible to scan everywhere at once. When you hit traffic you drive up on the curb or over the median and down the street the wrong way. You are worried about all of the civilian vehicles racing up behind you. You keep seeing folks not in any sort of uniform with weapons stopping cars. Because of how many civilian vehicles there were in the convoy, all the us vehicles are way out of sight of each other. I find out from our guy in the lead vehicle, he arrived 45 minutes before we did. After the convoy reforms at the airfield they start trying to decide if they will take us to Freedom tonight or in the morning. Decision is to make the run now. We load back into the vehicles and blast through the city one more time. Only this time its with 3 hummers and the 5 ton. Confidence in numbers.

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