More photos from my deployment to Kirkuk Regional Airbase, Iraq, with the 506th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron.
That first beer after more than six months of sobriety and serving in a combat zone. That was the best beer of my life and will likely remain that. The taste of Freedom!!!
I lost 70 pounds on this deployment. I was also dieting and going to the gym daily, aside from wearing about 100 pounds of gear on my body daily, working over 12 hour shifts with limited days off. All of these factors helped me lose the weight I needed to lose. Several of us lost quite a few pounds. Not too bad for the “Chair-Force,” huh?
I had a pretty big culture shock hit me when I arrived. I was very stoic and did not know how to feel about it. It was used to seeing nothing but sand for so long that I had a bit of sensory overload. Oh, and I was also massively hungover from drinking the night before, when we arrived in Baltimore.
These photos also capture the good time we had at the airport terminal in Shannon, Ireland. We were there for three and a half hours in transit back to the United States. Upon arrival to our hometown, we were greeted with family, friends, patriotic strangers and news cameras. My father and cousins were there to welcome me home.
The history of Kirkuk Iraq is interesting:
According to Britannica.com
Kirkūk, city, capital of Kirkūk muḥāfaẓah (governorate), northeastern Iraq. The city is 145 miles (233 km) north of Baghdad, the national capital, with which it is linked by road and railway. Kirkūk is located near the foot of the Zagros Mountains in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The oldest part of the town is clustered around a citadel built on an ancient tell, or mound. During the period of Assyrian prominence (9th–10th century bce) the city was called Arrapha. Local tradition holds that a tomb in the old quarter is that of the prophet Daniel; it has served as a synagogue and church and is now used as a mosque. The city’s population is of mixed Turkmen, Arab, and Kurdish stock. Kirkūk is a trade and export centre for the surrounding area’s agricultural produce and cattle; textiles are manufactured there. It is also a major centre of Iraq’s petroleum industry, with oil pipeline connections to Tripoli, Lebanon, and to Yumurtalik, on the Turkish coast. The crude oil production stimulated sustained expansion in the city. Pop. (2003 est.) 600,000.
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According to The Kurdish Project:
Kirkuk is a central component of the Kurdish story in Iraq. Historically, it is one of the oldest sites of continuous occupation in Iraq, dating back over 5,000 years.[1]
According to the Encyclopedia of Islam, the Kurds predate other ethnic groups in Kirkuk, the second oldest ethnic group being the Turkomans. For decades, the various ethnic communities were known to peacefully coexist in this city. In 1957, the last official census reported a total of 178,000 Kurds, 48,000 Turks, and 43,000 Arabs living in Kirkuk.[2]
Oil in Kirkuk
Kirkuk is known for its rich oil reserves, producing almost half of Iraq’s daily exports, and has been one of the most highly disputed areas between the Kurdish people and the Iraqi government in Baghdad.
Oil has been difficult to transport through the war-torn region, but Iraqi Kurdistan is managing to export nearly 500,000 barrels of oil per day. Most of this oil is being sold to Turkey.
Modern History of Kirkuk
When the Ba’athists took power in the late 50’s, the new government began systematically destroying Kurdish villages and relocating Arabs to Kirkuk, in an attempt to bolster the Arab claim to the city’s vast oil fields.[3] One of the many consequences of this forced relocation is that the Kurds lost their majority population in this area.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein, however, the Kurds began to return to Iraq, and Kirkuk in particular.[4] Today, the Kurdish presence in the city is greater than ever, as the Kurdish Peshmerga defend the city from the self-styled Islamic State or “ISIS.”
As thousands of Iraqi soldiers fled the city in June 2012, the Peshmerga stepped up its positions from surrounding towns to protect and defend the Kirkuk oil fields.[5] They remain there to this day.