'I Thought I Might Lose It'

Nathaniel

Nyren, 31, of Pittsburgh, was killed on Dec. 28, 2004, when an Iraqi car slammed into his military vehicle in Baghdad.

Army First Lt. Ashley Henderson Huff

Feb. 3, 2006

Hey everyone,

Well, things have settled down for my company now that we've got our mission figured out and a semi-routine started. I'm in charge of 11 police stations in two different districts ... Everything that you imagine a police station to be in the US is probably the exact opposite here. Most have a generator with power for about three hours each day. Paperwork is actually on paper (forget about computers!) and usually kept in a notebook. We've been doing a lot of joint patrols where the Iraqi Police lead with three or four of their trucks and we follow. Sometimes we'll get out and do joint checkpoints at intersections or walk through the neighborhoods and markets. I'm trying to work on them developing some sort of system for tracking information on "bad guys" because they can't just fingerprint guys and type their info into a database! What's really crazy is that they don't have armored vehicles like we do, they just drive around in little Chevy pickups with a machine gun mounted in the truck bed and a guy with a turban holding on for dear life! They drive like maniacs because they think speed = safety so we're working on getting them to slow down.