Guys,
Total insanity today! And yesterday. Ad-Diwaniyah has had protests the last three days, actually now that I think of it, my life has been insane since Wednesday. Yesterday we hired the five hundred FPS [force protection security] out of a crowd of 2000, they were pissed, we started out talking with the crowd, who were lined up 50 meters from the gate, nice and quiet. As soon as me and CPL S got out there and sent in two groups of ten, we were bum rushed.We tried to hold them back, but eventually we were literally carried in front of the crowd into the gate, which the FPS had closed, trapping us outside. Well, we got it opened before we were crushed, and eventually pushed them back about ten feet, and spent the next 2 hours getting 500 guys in to the hiring site. Sometime during that time I got hit in the head with a rock, luckily it skimmed me, a good foreshadowing for today. Day ended when we ate breakfast with the FPS, finished the 500, dispersed the crowd finally by sending all the Arabic speaking guys back inside the hiring site and being mute, then I took our megaphone, set the siren on, and just let it blare until they all got annoyed enough to walk away. It took them about 3 hours to disperse, with a few attempts to crash the gate.

Ok, then today we start the FPS academy, just got it started, when we hear tons of gunfire, some snapping pretty close above our heads, or at least in our direction. Across the river about 300 meters away, there is a riot going on around the police station and the governor's office. There are about 100 people throwing rocks at the police and receiving poorly aimed warning shots from the Iraqi police. There were also about 1000 guys throwing rocks at the governor's office, and then a police car is lit on fire. Wow. Ok, so us being dumb and unafraid, we decide we'll get closer and separate the active violent guys from the rest of the 700 guys milling around on both sides of the river. We get out there, 3 marines, 2 Iraqi police, and a translator! And start setting up a little wire, and generally drawing people away from crossing the bridge to get to the violent part of the protest. We're out there for a half hour with out comm., telling ourselves that someone must have reported this on the radio, and Marines or MP's will show up anytime.

Well, the battalion commander shows up with 2 vehicles doing a recon of what's going on. I give him the sitrep [situation report], and he walked across the river, and we went with him. We cut off more traffic, but with the 8 marines we had, we were stretched all over the place unable to control the crowd. So the BC looks at me and says 'lets go dunk' and he turns towards the governors bldg. I turn to tell CPL S that we'll go to the protest with the BC, expecting him to walk up and talk to them. I look back and see the BC running at the crowd yelling, actually sprinting and screaming. So we took off after him, and the crowd panicked and ran! Except for a group of ten IP's (Iraqi Policemen) which I mistook for looters and slammed into and began hitting until I was pulled back by CPL S telling me they're IP's! Then, the governor's bldg and police academy secure miraculously!, the BC turns towards the crowd gathering 100m's away that we had just dispersed, and charges them again, this time they flee in several directions, and me and CPL S take one way and the BC and his driver and one other Marine take the other. 5 on infinity. Nuts. Well, CPL S and I clear a big market street, alternating charging and yelling, back about 200 feet or so. Then we stalled, and the rock throwing began. I took several hits, and CPL S got hit in the neck. We were at times getting blasted, it was scary... never thought I'd say this, but thank god for flak, Kevlar, and sunglasses! I've got a couple contusions! And CPL S got hit with broken glass, but we're fine. We found that if we kept the crowd off balance or moving around, they didn't have time to think about rocks. Good lesson, but it took too long to learn. We held this position for about 20 LONG minutes, we were split by about 50-100 feet both trying to hold off pissed off crowds on opposite sides of the basic 4 lane road with a 2 lane median! Huge area. Plus dodging the whole time.