Camp Danger in Tikrit

I took a trip to Camp Speicher and Camp Danger, which are bases in Tikrit in December of 2005, just after Christmas. For those of you who don't remember, Tikrit is the hometown of Saddam Hussein so it is filled with anti-American Iraqis who are still angry with us for capturing Saddam.

Our company got a convoy together to ride with the Army. We brought along three of our big rigs to pick up some major supplies for the warehouse back at Camp Warhorse.

Those responsible for getting supplies to us were not getting the job done. Our materials were stacking up at Camp Speicher in Tikrit. So we had no choice but to go up and get them ourselves.

On the convoy up to Tikrit, there were no problems. We arrived at Camp Speicher late, checked in at billeting, and went to the food court. We got pizza at the base Pizza Hut. Yum! I don't know why, but the pizza served by Pizza Hut in Iraq tastes a lot better than the pizza served by American Pizza Huts.

Did you spend some time at Camp Danger? Do you have stories to tell about incoming from Tikrit? Share these experiences here. Keep in touch with your buddies from Camp Danger through this page. Comment on each other's memories. Add a photo of the gang.

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Speicher 
I have spent time at Speicher. My first night there my company put me in a room that had just been painted with an oil base paint. Then someone started ...

Why Camp Danger? 
It is called Camp Danger for a reason. It sits pretty much in the center of Tikrit which was Saddam's birthplace. Becasue of this the insurgents were ...

The next day, we loaded up and were ready to leave at 14:00. The Army guys we were with were tasked with dropping a busload of Iraqi recruits off at Camp Danger, also in Tikrit. This was sort of on our way back.

We were just supposed to drop the recruits off at the camp and be on our merry way. But, of course, that is not how it happened.

When we arrived at the camp, we had to wait while the Iraqi recruits and all of their possessions were searched. It took so long that we had to spend the night there.

We went to the MCT yard, where the supply trucks from all over are parked and we hooked up with our company people there. We set up camp in one office and watched movies before going to sleep. The guy running the MCT yard told us about his close call with mortars.

It seems there was incoming one day at Camp Danger and this guy headed out the door for the bunker. As he opened the door, the mortar landed. Shrapnel came for him. But the concussion from the blast knocked him to the ground. The shrapnel passed over his head and into the wall behind him. Sure, sure, we thought. He then showed us the holes in the wall and the doorway. At that moment, we became believers!

As we were getting ready to leave the next morning, there was another slight change of plans. During the night, the Iraqi police in Baqubah had a long firefight with insurgents. This left them short on ammo.

So we had to go back to Camp Speicher, drop one connex of our stuff back there and pick up more ammunition. This was a major concern to us because there was no way to hide the ammo. We knew we were a big target all the way back.......to find out what happened on the way back read about our adventure in Balad.