Update on life in IRAQ! "UNCLASSIFIED"

Hello friends and family,

I am emailing you for the first time since I have been here with a in-depth and detailed page of my life in Iraq (so far), and for those of you who have been here – bare with me.

Well I am living in a trailer, kind of similar to the ones used for hurricane Katrina. It's a two man room but I had two other people in here also because we are still waiting and sharing space with the brigade that we took over for (101st). They are leaving between today and the next several days, so my two 101st roommates just left tonight, and I will be moving into another trailer as well soon.

So I started out as a command staff driver driving for a colonel but that wasn't good enough. So the action, adrenaline run, junkie that I can be, I asked to do more and what a mistake! God showed me differently. I got moved to a MP platoon where we have been going out every other day with little or no sleep as well as not much of a life for down time – it sucks.

So up to today I awoke at 0430hrs used the restroom brushed my teeth, and shaved then finished getting dressed. Now I was not supposed to go on mission today, I was just helping my squad out, but at the last minute another squad needed some help so I got tasked to them. Now this was just supposed to be a simple mission pretty much up the street about 10 minutes to the airport, that all changed in the next half hour; I latter found out we are heading to a sensitive area, a busy area. We were briefed of the current intel in the area that consisted of reports of sniper fire and VBIED and RKS mortar rounds that are being thrown at our convoy's as we pass. So after finding that out I got a little nervous but then I stopped and did what I knew was right to do – I prayed to God for my safety and the safety of all my crew. So the mission started as we head out the gate. There was a lot of traffic which sometimes can be good as well as bad… good because a lot of times the insurgents won't hit us with all the community out and about, but other times they don't care who's out, then it’s bad because a lot of times the people are holding us up from moving and we become perfect targets for the insurgents. Well we made it along. Now I am the gunner in the last HUMVee I have a 249 SAW as my weapon. As we start getting closer to our destination, I have a vehicle who starts to follow us he followed us for awhile until we made a turn down a alley . As he (the driver of the other vehicle ) passed he stared, so I let my Sergeant know. So now we make it into the base where we were headed and mind you we have two HUMVee's and two MRAP's in our convoy, so we have some big vehicles. As we are leaving the base, going back into the neighborhoods, our antenna's on the MRAP's start to grab all these low electrical lines and we start to rip them out. Ok try to picture this there are power lines on top of those people run everything else so it adds weight to the power lines and when we drive through we snag them, so then we have to stop and unscrew everything. Now all time that we are STOPPED, we are perfect targets – but nothing happened thank God. Then we go a little more and we pass by a brand new playground that our government supplied all of the equipment for; so the kids know this and when we stopped at the clinic to drop off our goods, two kids jump up on the wall and start talking to me asking me if I have a futbol. I said no sorry. So then they come running out and come next to the HUMVee and still asking for a fotbol. Again I said no but this time I gave them a piece of gum each. So they looked at it , put it in their mouths an starting eating it. The boy swallowed his, the girl kept hers in her mouth. They left but a few minutes later they returned with another boy who now wants gum as well. I had to laugh I was trying to get rid of them so I was able to stay focused – but they came back with more kids. So then we pulled away from there and I just wanted to take all these kids with me back to the states I felt kind of bad even though they had no real clue of what all these big trucks were doing in their neighborhoods I knew, and I had to wonder what all these kids were going to think of us 20 years from now – but that's above my pay grade. So into another community and again we get there and all the kids and adults are out in the streets to greet us now this time I saw this little boy who looks like he was about 3 or 4 years old he waved to me . . . . . . Then signaled with his hands to take him with me . . . . . . . Then it kind of made me sad because he reminded me of my son (Dominic, who is two) so I felt so sad that I could not even stop… he just kept waving as we left.

Now as we headed back home we ran into two problems; the first one was the MRAP in front of us made a right turn coming out of a IA control point and they have Constantine wire and the driver missed it and the right front wheel hooked around the wheel well - so we yelled on the mike Stop!! So he did and my Sergeant got out and went to the MRAP. The wire had wrapped around several times and had cut a few lines which include the power steering line, which was now leaking – so we end up staying there for about 30 minutes. In that time I got real nervous again because all the people who were walking around on the streets dispersed… so now it looks like a ghost town and all of a sudden we were like “Hurry up! We have to go now!” So we cut the wire, undid it, hopped back into the trucks, and left.

Now were about 2 clicks from home and I get this blue car who wants to keep speeding up and getting close to the vehicle so finally my Sergeant said point your 249 at him, see if he stops so I did and yes he stopped right away because my next move would of had to be shoot out the engine then SHOOT TO KILL. I did not want to have to do that so again, I thank God that He was there in the midst. So finally we made it home and now all I have to say is through all that it was a lesson to me: that things can change in a heartbeat from simple and easy to complicated and unsafe but as long as you have God on your side you will always come out on top. These situations as well as the whole mission could of turned out a lot worse but I believe that when I prayed that it was heard and God protected all of us. So life, at times can throw you for a loop, but you just have to catch it and give it up to God - He will straighten it out and then give it back.

I thank you all for your constant prayers and emails they are important to receive because they are encouraging and they let us know that we’re still in the thoughts of those we love, so thank you all.

Also God is moving me to a office job, so I have realized that life is more important than this combat stuff and that I have a family at home to stay alive for. Thank you God for this move.

Also I want to end like this for all of you who want to know how things really are over here – well I’ll say this: the military here are taking their country back, they (the military) run most all of the checkpoints now as well as doing their own missions, Also the people are rebuilding their stores and businesses as well; as we were driving I saw a lot of owners painting and remodeling their stores – so that's good news. You may have heard the people are out in their neighborhoods ,where they used to be afraid to go. So we have made progress and its coming to the point where they are self sufficient enough to take care of themselves.

P. S.
Please email this to friends and family who might care to know what’s going on over here.
With love and peace from over in the sandbox; I will miss you all, and see you in a year.
Please continue to keep in touch. Also you can get my address from my wife and/or mother.
Chase

Send Letters to:

Bernardi, Chase SPC
2/1 BSTB
HHC
APO AE 09344

email: chasenjulie03@yahoo.com

Acronyms:

HUMVee - High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle
MP – Military Police
MRAP – Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
SAW – 2squad automatic weapon
VBIED - Vechicle born improvised explosive device