Iraq War Video

This video gives a new meaning to the name "Bullet Cam"!

It was a surprise early on to learn where people were using our equipment. Turns out that a lot of the mounts and cameras we sold ended up in Iraq in 2004 and continuing in 2006. This is one anonymous sample video that was taken with our ChaseCam Hi-Res bullet cam (helmet mounted) in almost total darkness.

We proudly support our troops in battle and think this helps to illustrate what they are going through. As we sit at home in our recliners... or at work at our desks...as we eat lunch at Olive Garden or where ever... these men and women are over there fighting for us. A real firefight at night, is not as clean and clear cut as often the movies make it appear. In fact, it can be downright chaotic and frankly... insane. Credit to these brave soldiers.

Video is 45 megs in size and of course compressed digitally which adds to the overall graininess. The video is a just under 5 minutes long. Please note that all video cameras do their best work in lots of light. Very low light such as this will make the video very grainy, even for this Sony EX-View 480 line, low light camera. That is normal. Check out the difference in the two screen captures below. The first with the rocket explosion adds enough illumination to demonstrate the camera's resolution. The second pic which shows a bullet firing towards a fellow soldier on the road, is much harder to make out.

Timeline of the video-

We start the video right after the lead truck was hit directly on the driver's door with an enemy RPG. The driver was lucky as the RPG was a dud and did not explode. He puts the truck into reverse, hitting the truck behind him. You can hear the soldiers in the second truck yelling for the second truck driver to back up. At this point, the soldiers start firing out towards the source of the RPG.

The soldier with the camera turns around and sees an RPG hit the truck right behind him.You can see it illuminate a very lucky soldier who was only a few feet away from the blast.

You can hear the soldier (or another soldier) screaming for a medic. He survived.

After a steady steam of pouring fire back at the enemy, they call a cease fire. After a moment of silence, another RPG explodes on the roadway. The stream of fire starts right back up, but with soldiers also directly in the line of fire. One soldier is standing on the road with bullets going by both sides of him, just missing him by inches. He is very lucky. One soldier is trying to get the troops to cease fire since he sees the soldier standing on the road. He yells at him to get off the road.

There are many ways that video can be a valuable tool. Often we use it in motorsports to instruct or learn. I would like to think that this video can help us understand, even if only in a very small part, what these soldiers are going through.