"...On 29 June, American and Iraqi soldiers were again fighting side-by-side as soldiers from Charley Company 1-12 CAVâ€"led by Captain Clayton Combsâ€"and Iraqi soldiers from the 5th IA, closed in on a village on the outskirts of Baqubah. The village had the apparent misfortune of being located near a main roadâ€"about 3.5 miles from FOB Warhorseâ€"that al Qaeda liked to bomb. Al Qaeda had taken over the village. As Iraqi and American soldiers moved in, they came under light contact; but the bombs planted in the roads (and maybe in the houses) were the real threat.

The firefight progressed. American missiles were fired. The enemy might have been trying to bait Iraqi and American soldiers into ambush, but it did not work. The village was riddled with bombs, some of them large enough to destroy a tank. One by one, experts destroyed the bombs, leaving small and large craters in the unpaved roads.

The village was abandoned. All the people were gone. But where?...

...There were bodies of men, women and children. Al Qaeda slaughters families everywhere: as these graves were being unearthed, more bombs were found in London.

By the time I arrived, 5th IA had uncovered parts of six bodies. But from what I could see, they did not all appear to have been murdered at once. In one grave, there were exposed ribs and other bones, although there was still flesh on the bones.

Soldiers from 5th IA said al Qaeda had cut the heads off the children. Had al Qaeda murdered the children in front of their parents? Maybe it had been the other way around: maybe they had murdered the parents in front of the children. Maybe they had forced the father to dig the graves of his children.

Iraqi soldiers were barely talking. All had grim looks and everybody seemed to want to be a million miles away. Yet these Iraqi soldiers helped me do my job.

Later in the day, some of the soldiers from the unit I share a tent with, the C-52, told me that one of their Kit Carson scouts (comprised of some of our previous enemies who have turned on al Qaeda) had pointed out an al Qaeda who had cut off the heads of children. Soldiers from C-52 say that the Kit Carson scout freaked out and tried to hide when he spotted the man he identified as an al Qaeda operative. Just how (or if) the scout really knew the man had beheaded children was unknown to the soldiers of C-52, but they took the suspected al Qaeda to the police, who knew the man. C-52 soldiers told me the Iraqi police were inflamed, and that one policeman in particular was crazed with intent to kill the man who they said had the blood of Iraqi children on his hands. According to the story told to me on 30 June, it took almost 45 minutes for the C-52 soldiers to calm down the policeman who had drawn his pistol to execute the al Qaeda man. That same policeman nearly lost his mind when an American soldier then gave the al Qaeda man a drink of cold water.

While that was happening elsewhere in Baqubah, we stood around the stinking graves of people who had gotten a close-up view of al Qaeda-style justice. The villagers’ bodies were rotting in the heat before us.

The blade of the shovel struck more fingers, and the Iraqi soldiers stopped and pointed to the fingers so I could film them. But I had seen enough and pulled back into the palm groves.

Captain Baker gave an important interview on video. Captain Baker, who in Captain Combs’ words is “an excellent soldier,â€쳌 is from the Kurdish north, but Baker said he is Iraqi first, Kurdish second. He told me American Special Forces had trained him, and he shared some interesting details about the killing of Zarqawi which occurred back in 2006. Zarqawi had been the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, until he was killed nearby by U.S. bombs.

Soldiers from the 5th IA continued with their task as Captain Combs and I departed, heading back to the M-1 tank.

Along the way we passed fresh craters. The bomb that made the water-filled crater above would easily have destroyed the Bradley in the photo.

LT Baxter, the tank commander, was concerned that the heat was getting to me, and checked my uniform for sweat, asking several times if I was okay. They always watch out for me. But I was okay from the heat; I can take the heat as well as our soldiers can. Still, I felt very sick, the kind of sick that no amount of cool water can fix. I put on the comms in the tank, then ripped them off and left off my helmet and held the jet hose of the air conditioner on my face as the tank rumbled back to base..."

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/bless-the-beasts-and-children.htm