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    More Pages on Rockhounding in an Iraqi Combat Zone »  1 2 3 4 5

    Rockhounding in an Iraqi Combat Zone

    (Rockhounding at its Extreme)

    By Sergeant Yonis Lone Eagle

    Sgt Yonis Lone Eagle, Mosul, Iraq, Jul 2005

    PART 3 of ???

    June 2005

    Howdy fellow Rockhounds:

    I hope everyone is doing all Hunky-Dory and finding lots of good stuff on yalls local fieldtrips. I'm now reporting to yall from FOB Diamondback up in Mosul, Iraq. I've been transferred up here to help them out with their workload with all the medical equipment. Between working my job, pulling guard duty, surviving the extreme heat and working with all my rocks, life around here keeps me pretty busy. Lately, the temps here have been around 125 degrees during day and in the 90's at night. Over the next couple of months, the temps will be getting over 135 degrees with the nights in the 100's. Yall folks are missing so much fun.

    As for the War on Terrorism, all the casualties are keeping everyone else very busy. Currently with all the wounded soldiers coming through our hospital doors, about 80% are wounded Iraqis, either local civilians, Iraqi National Guard troops (ING's), or Enemy Prisoners of War (EPW's). The other 20% of the wounded are U.S. troops. It is very unfortunate that all the Terrorist Insurgents that come into Iraq to disrupt, destroy and kill don't give a damn about human life. Besides trying to kill U.S. and coalition forces, they end up killing a lot more innocent civilians. Local men, women and children are being maimed or killed at an increasing rate.

    Working in the medical field for over 25 years now, I've seen more than my share of Life, of Death, and of bloodshed. During the Gulf War, I saw enough death, destruction and carnage for two lifetimes. This War on Terrorism is a war of more of the same, but much worse. A while back, we had a U.S. female soldier flown in to our ER severely wounded from an accident. Our trauma team work vigorously for over half an hour trying to save her life, but her injuries were too severe. As her spirit left her body to be with the Great Spirit, the entire ER staff bowed their heads as our chaplain prayed for her departing spirit. You could hear a pin drop. As the staff exited the ER, there was not a dry eye in the room. We have seen several severely wounded male soldiers that did not make it but this was the first female soldier that died. It hit very close to home for everyone.

    Then couple of months ago, there were two U.S. soldiers in town handing out candy to a group of young Iraqi children. There was a group of more than fifty of them between the ages of five to fifteen. They were so happy to be getting a sweet treat for a change. Candy is something that has been very scarce, especially during the Saddam regime. A suicide bomber drove up and killed the two soldiers, but in doing so, killed over twenty of the children and wounded over thirty others. When all those wounded children came into our hospital with missing hands, arms, feet, legs and burns, the staff went into action and did their jobs to the highest standards of the Army Medical Corps. But you still could still see the pain and sadness the their eyes as the staff worked feverishly to save and comfort as many pf these innocent young lives as possible. When you looked into the eyes of these innocent young children that were badly burned and/or missing a limb, they would look up at you with their trembling bodies and their scared eyes asking "Why". Your heart sank and went out to them. When you work in the medical field and deal with death on a daily basis, you have to have some sort of wall between you and death. If not, death can and will tear out your heart and soul. The saddest part of all this is the innocent lives that are taken away for no reason, especially the children.

    While there is a lot of bad news and negativism about this war in the media, with all the daily murders and killings and destruction, there are a lot of good and positive things that have come out of the ouster of Saddam and the fall of his regime. In my next report, I will be telling yall of the positive news you won't hear in the media.

    And now for the "Rock News":
    First, I want to thank the Alamo Rock Shop of Boerne, Texas, for sending me over a Twin 6 lb. Barrel Rock Tumbler. When I moved up here to Mosul, I brought about fifty pounds of the best rocks I found with me. (I had to leave at least another thirty pounds behind.) And I've put it straight into operation tumbling the great pickins from Tikrit. The rocks I collected down at FOB Speicher were great, with less than 20% limestone. There wasn't a day that did not go by that I didn't pick up one or two dozen rocks. But up here in Mosul, the pickins have been very, very slim. I've been up here for over six weeks now and collected only about a dozen rocks. The rocks up here are over 90% limestone.

    I recently found a very good, more detailed map on the Internet, of Turkey, northern Iraq and their rivers. This has lead me to another conclusion and gave me a more accurate source of the origin of the rocks. There is a major lake and two dams north west of Mosul. Therefore, with all this man-made stuff in the way, not much in the way of rocks is coming from that direction. South of Mosul, there are two major rivers that flow into the Tigris between here and Tikrit, the Great Zab and the Little Zab rivers. The Little Zab has at least two dams and another lake. The Great Zab, which flows into the Tigris further north and the Little Zab, flows freely all the way from the extreme southwestern tip of Turkey. Therefore, I would say the majority of all those wonders I found down south evidently came down the Great Zab River.

    So what are Astronomy Rocks, Diseased Rocks and Finger Rocks? Astronomy rocks, the name I gave them for what they look like, are black igneous rocks with small white spherical dots and swirls in the matrix that look like stars in the nighttime skies. Diseased rocks, again the name I gave them for what they look like, are different colored rocks with spots or feldspar crystals that look like blotches or rashes or a disease on the surface. And Finger rocks, same form of naming, are long skinny rocks about one-half inch in diameter and three to five inches long, about the size of your finger! What's amazing about these rocks is that they tumbled and traveled such a long distance without getting broken.

    Folks around here have really got their curiosity up when they walk into my shop and see this thing with two barrels rolling over and over. "What is that?", I'm asked a couple of times a day. And, once I explain what a Rock Tumbler is and what it does, a dozen more questions pop up. What kind of rocks do you tumble? Where do you find the rocks to tumble? When will the rocks be ready to see? How do you tell a good rock from a bad? Why would anybody want to tumble rocks? I got a lot of folks very, very curious and anxious to see the final results of the tumbler. I tell them one of the things you have to learn about being a Rockhound is "patience".

    The good news is, that coming in my fourth report sometime in early September are "Pictures, Pictures, Pictures". I will be including several colored photographs of all the unique wonders that I have found over here. They will include photos of the Astronomy rocks, the Diseased rocks, the Spotted rocks, the Banded rocks, the Abstract Art rocks, and my new "Pet Rock" I found I call Cyclops.

    Now, something for any Jadeite and Nephrite experts reading this. Does anyone know of any Jade that comes from southeast Turkey or northern Iraq??? I found some green rocks I strongly suspect are a type of Jade. All the research that I have done on the Internet tells me that the closest Jade found in the area comes from the region far to the northeast of Turkey toward China. Too far for these rocks to travel! If anyone has any information, please contact me through Rockroost.

    Well folks, six months down and six months to go! Everyone please take care and safe and happy hunting. Yonis "Rock Pockets" Lone Eagle

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