Specialist Hunter Shumard:

Man on a Mission...

This certainly wasn't the first time I've been "outside the wire", but it was the first time I was out and able to take photos (a DV Cam format video camera and a Digital D40 Nikon still photo camera). Sad part is that most of my outside the wire pics weren't focused enough because the dirt on my vehicle's windows kept the auto focus from working, and good luck going manual with a new camera while moving.

Good news is that I took at least a dozen great quality photos with the Nikon camera, including the one on the upper left showing some of my route clearance team joking around. (it's hard enough me getting one person in the middle of an emotion, but six perfectly?) It looks even better enlarged.

As for the strictly mediocre news, we found absolutely nothing of value on our patrol, save for finding an Iraqi Soldier's helmet. It's quite amazing how I seem to deflect any enemy contact by just me being with a patrol. Depending on who you ask around here, that's either a good thing or a bad thing.

Lastly, I did get to see several locals out, including even several children having a soccer game. It's amazing to be in a place where kids keep on playing soccer as a group of heavily armed gunships go by their field looking for bombs, the armed soldiers in them waving at the children, the children waving back, neither really serious anymore about the other's proximity, but rather accepting the other as part of daily life. Through it all, through war and whatever else tries to stop it, life goes on. At the very least, a little part of it somehow finds a way. If that includes a soccer game, let it be a soccer game.

I'll go back to news and commentary hopefully in my next blog.