Letters from the Desert

A mobilized Army Reserve Chaplain from Atlanta, currently stationed in Balad, Iraq at LSA Anaconda shares his thoughts on life and ministry in a combat zone.

The 2/7 Cav had not conducted an air assault operation since Vietnam--where the battalion first got its feet wet with a helicopter assault into the Ia Drang Valley in November of 1965. That operation was depicted in the bestseller We Were Soldiers Once...and Young by Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and war correspondent Joe Galloway.



On the morning of 12 January 2007 troopers of 2/7 Cav, and this correspondent, loaded aboard four Blackhawk helicopters in Mosul for a simultaneous air-ground operation east of Mosul, in conjunction with the Iraqi Army. LTC Eric Welsh commanded. Unlike the Ia Drang Valley this 7th Cavalry air assault succeeded without resistance or casualties.



This mission and what it says about the competency of Iraqi Security Forces in Mosul is the focal point of Michael's next dispatch.

The 2/7 Cav had not conducted an air assault operation since Vietnam--where the battalion first got its feet wet with a helicopter assault into the Ia Drang Valley in November of 1965. That operation was depicted in the bestseller
>
We Were Soldiers Once...and Young
>
by Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and war correspondent Joe Galloway.
>




On the morning of 12 January 2007 troopers of 2/7 Cav, and this correspondent, loaded aboard four Blackhawk helicopters in Mosul for a simultaneous air-ground operation east of Mosul, in conjunction with the Iraqi Army. LTC Eric Welsh commanded. Unlike the Ia Drang Valley this 7th Cavalry air assault succeeded without resistance or casualties.
>




This mission and what it says about the competency of Iraqi Security Forces in Mosul is the focal point of Michael's next dispatch.
>