5 years ago today

It was 5 years ago that we loaded up our armored vehicles and headed to Baqubah, Iraq. A warm spring day in Iraq and we had the task of going to look at several police stations, District police facilities and a couple potential military facilities. The day was going to be a long one – Easter Weekend in Iraq. We had lived a charmed life so far in the deployment up to that point. On the ground since September 2004 and few exciting incidents other than the daily impersonal bombings, mortar and rocket attacks in the IZ.

That all changed it seems the day I earned the Combat Action Badge. Easter Sunday, 27 March 2005 – 5 years ago. It was that day after an curiously inauspicious day in Baqubah that on our return – someone detonated a large IED aimed at taking us out… suddenly it got to be personal and direct.

Never before that day did we feel like anything other than invincible and immune from attack… after all we had led a charmed life…laughing as we drove past IEDs, charging through the streets of Baghdad, Ramadi, Mahmudiah and other towns with the chip on invincibility on our shoulders. We could not be concerned with the danger as we were completing our often overwhelming job of emplacing Iraqi Military Facilities. Afterall, we started our tour using Nissan Patrol SUVs with the windows down, cruising Route Irish when it was really dangerous…now we were armored. We were American Soldiers with all the answers and swagger we could muster…. until that day someone took it personal.

That day was the first of several ever more direct actions for our members in MNSTC-I. We had 5 months left in country and it suddenly became serious in a manner that I marvel at even to this day.

Ours was not a unique story…many had a far more dangerous task, many had it far safer… we all served honorably from our unit that went to Iraq. What I’m sure of, based upon the experience, is that we also were all changed by the trip and events…. 5 years ago.

Alcohol in the Warzone

In the Marine Times this week is an article by Rick Maze – he describes comments by Senator Jim Webb regarding the alcohol policy in the warzone. The policy – known as General Order Number 1 is a policy of no alcohol, pornography, etc… that has been in force for deployed soldiers everywhere since at least 1991. As noted in the article found here

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., a Vietnam veteran and former war correspondent who now chairs the Senate panel that oversees military personnel policy, seemed to endorse the idea of letting troops in war zones drink alcohol as a way to relieve combat stress.

We know that our soldier are highly stressed. Jim has taken a shot at the military’s sacred cow of moral righteousness – embodied in the general order. As he said

One thing worth investigating, Webb said, is whether a ban on alcohol consumption in the war zones — which he said is primarily a nod to host-nation sensitivities — should be lifted.

Well I agree with Jim to consider lifting the ban, but I believe the ban on alcohol is more an outright effort of the Defense Departments senior leadership to restrict any basic freedom not meeting a highly refined puritanical ideal embodied by a few high ranking members.

Soldiers are men and women - a few drinks in off hours, away from host nation members would go a long way towards reducing the burden they carry

An outsider's Point of View

Sometimes the observations of an outsider speak very eloquently about our soldier. This article was done by a French Soldier stationed with 101st soldiers in Afganistan. He provides an interesting point of view I think is worth reading

“We have shared our daily life with two US units for quite a while - they are the first and fourth companies of a prestigious infantry battalion whose name I will withhold for the sake of military secrecy. To the common man it is a unit just like any other. But we live with them and got to know them, and we henceforth know that we have the honor to live with one of the most renowned units of the US Army - one that the movies brought to the public as series showing “ordinary soldiers thrust into extraordinary events”. Who are they, those soldiers from abroad, how is their daily life, and what support do they bring to the men of our OMLT every day ? Few of them belong to the Easy Company, the one the TV series focuses on. This one nowadays is named Echo Company, and it has become the support company.

They have a terribly strong American accent - from our point of view the language they speak is not even English. How many times did I have to write down what I wanted to say rather than waste precious minutes trying various pronunciations of a seemingly common word? Whatever state they are from, no two accents are alike and they even admit that in some crisis situations they have difficulties understanding each other.

Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins and creatine - they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their muscles remind us of Rambo. Our frames are amusingly skinny to them - we are wimps, even the strongest of us - and because of that they often mistake us for Afghans.

Here we discover America as it is often depicted : their values are taken to their paroxysm, often amplified by promiscuity lack of privacy and the loneliness of this outpost in the middle of that Afghan valley. Honor, motherland - everything here reminds of that : the American flag floating in the wind above the outpost, just like the one on the post parcels. Even if recruits often originate from the hearth of American cities and gang territory, no one here has any goal other than to hold high and proud the star spangled banner. Each man knows he can count on the support of a whole people who provides them through the mail all that an American could miss in such a remote front-line location : books, chewing gums, razorblades, Gatorade, toothpaste etc. in such way that every man is aware of how much the American people backs him in his difficult mission. And that is a first shock to our preconceptions : the American soldier is no individualist. The team, the group, the combat team are the focus of all his attention.

And they are impressive warriors ! We have not come across bad ones, as strange at it may seem to you when you know how critical French people can be. Even if some of them are a bit on the heavy side, all of them provide us everyday with lessons in infantry know-how. Beyond the wearing of a combat kit that never seem to discomfort them (helmet strap, helmet, combat goggles, rifles etc.) the long hours of watch at the outpost never seem to annoy them in the slightest. On the one square meter wooden tower above the perimeter wall they stand the five consecutive hours in full battle rattle and night vision goggles on top, their sight unmoving in the directions of likely danger. No distractions, no pauses, they are like statues nights and days. At night, all movements are performed in the dark - only a handful of subdued red lights indicate the occasional presence of a soldier on the move. Same with the vehicles whose lights are covered - everything happens in pitch dark even filling the fuel tanks with the Japy pump.

And combat ? If you have seen Rambo you have seen it all - always coming to the rescue when one of our teams gets in trouble, and always in the shortest delay. That is one of their tricks : they switch from T-shirt and sandals to combat ready in three minutes. Arriving in contact with the ennemy, the way they fight is simple and disconcerting : they just charge ! They disembark and assault in stride, they bomb first and ask questions later - which cuts any pussyfooting short.

We seldom hear any harsh word, and from 5 AM onwards the camp chores are performed in beautiful order and always with excellent spirit. A passing American helicopter stops near a stranded vehicle just to check that everything is alright; an American combat team will rush to support ours before even knowing how dangerous the mission is - from what we have been given to witness, the American soldier is a beautiful and worthy heir to those who liberated France and Europe.

To those who bestow us with the honor of sharing their combat outposts and who everyday give proof of their military excellence, to those who pay the daily tribute of America’s army’s deployment on Afghan soil, to those we owned this article, ourselves hoping that we will always remain worthy of them and to always continue hearing them say that we are all the same band of brothers”.

Well said - happy Thanksgiving to US troops stationed wherever in the world

Old article about Wingnut and Stinky

Wingnut and Stinky were two soldiers assigned to the MNSTC-I J-7 convoy team that provided their services to the team doing missions throughout Iraq. This team and I spent a lot of time together going to virtually every corner of Iraq looking to put in place Iraqi military installations. I read this article when it was done by one of my fellow officers during our assignment to MNSTC-I. He was a published author before arriving in country and based on what I read, a hell of a writer - Bob Bateman.

I thought I'd share the article which reflects another person's observations of what a typical day in country was like for all of us... it is still fresh in my mind... but brings smiles in a silly kind of way when faced with the stress of civilian life

• April 25, 2005

Name: Maj. Bob Bateman
Dateline: Baghdad, Iraq

Riding with Wingnut and Stinky

“Whaddya see?! Whaddya SEE?!” shouted the driver of the HMMWV.

We were traveling at ‘best speed,’ which in this particular vehicle meant about 55 miles per hour. Not exactly a screaming top-end, but still about 5-10 mph faster than the majority of the cars around us. Ahead we could see traffic was at a standstill. On the highways of Iraq, for Americans, coming to a stop on the road can become permanent.

“Hey! Stinky! What do you SEE?!”

‘Stinky’ responds, “Looks like…looks like, yea, it’s a convoy or something. They’re stopping traffic.” The reply was barely audible. Shouted down through the gunner’s hatch in the roof of our gun-truck, it competed with the road noise of a fully-loaded HMMWV. Stinky’s head is a full nine feet above the roadway. He can see obstacles beyond what the driver can pick up from his seat at road level. Already we were slowing.

Speaking into the radio my driver checks behind us, “Wingnut, what do you see?” “Wingnut” is the gunner in the second gun-truck. He is in the Air Force.

“Nothing back here,” comes the reply over the hand-held.

Decision time.

Not just one decision, but a host of them, had to be made. In sequence. Fast.

Drive onto the median or push towards the center lane? Nudge that red car out of our way? Right or left? Force the car that has now reversed track and is heading towards us to the right or the left? Can he make it on the left? If we shove this next white car, will he be pinned against that truck beside him, or will he give way and create a hole for us to slip through? Doesn’t that guy hear us? Warning shot from the gunner’s M-4 or throw a rock? (The horns on HMMWVs are lame so sometimes drivers do not hear us coming up from behind. Stinky has a bag with small rocks up there on the roof for this purpose. We prefer not to shoot into the sky. What goes up, must come down after all.) Shit, that one was a wedding. Give them room. Give them that much. On and on. Another wedding caravan. Another rock thrown to get a black mini-van blocking us to move aside. Are they doing it on purpose? Are they running a ‘post’ on us for somebody else? Look left. Right. Rear. One thing overrides all. We must keep moving.

Our lead driver is aggressive. A few times I think about telling him to slow, to give these Iraqis all around us the chance to get out of our way, to stop if need be and let them make room. I think better of it.

The day before, a few miles from here, a friend of mine found himself in a similar situation. My friend is one of the best combat leaders I know, a soldier and a scholar. He is also one of the most intelligent, most humane and caring men that I know. He stopped his convoy. Seconds later the gunner of the HMMWV ahead of his was blown out of the hatch and into the roadway, bleeding to death from an IED planted to take advantage of exactly that situation. His Sergeant Major was wounded too.

I think of them and I keep my mouth, mostly, shut. This platoon I am riding with, a platoon nobody ever imagined might exist, is working just fine without the Major opening his big mouth. It is a platoon with a Marine Master Sergeant, and enlisted men from the Air Force and the Navy, as well as the Army. I am an Army officer, the senior officer on the patrol. Ultimately, if something goes wrong, the responsibility is mine. But this conglomerate platoon, created of necessity and welded by reality, works well as a team. We move. We do what we can to not to cause harm, but we move. I bite my tongue.

Sometimes, to be a good officer, all you need to know is when to shut up.

BAGHDAD WITHIN EARSHOT:

This past weekend the temperature was the end of what I think of as “human hot.” After this it becomes “animal hot.” Around about July we’ll hit “Satanic.” It was 105 degrees in the shade, and about 120 in the sun today.

A single mortar came in nearby as I went in to work the other day. Car bombs are obviously still climbing, but I read about most of them the same way that you do. I would personally very much appreciate it if the Iraqis would form a government. I am willing to be patient, however, since I realize how long it took our own first government to get its act together. Given that that process was measured in years, though it was done by men we consider today to be our nigh-unto-godlike “Founding Fathers,” I would be ungenerous to complain about the pace here.

Where in the world is the B?

To continue updating my few readers on the status of my daughter I can offer the following details. BB is her nickname and I will use that from here forward to identify her status.

B is in Kuwait as of this writing – with her unit in additional training (she says for the 3-4th time they have been doing these tasks). The routine is tedious and “boring” and there is a lot of “lets get to the job” sentiment in the unit. She has been a nomad for the last several days. As she put it “she would like to sleep on the same cot twice in a row” She is living thru a very transient period that most everyone going to or from Iraq has to endure.

I expect that she and her unit will move to their final assigned location shortly and there will be a little bit more stabilization in the routine. The sleeping on cots may not change much over the course of the next year – the living conditions are Spartan in country. She continues to participate, as all of the soldiers in her unit are, in a great sacrifice of personal comfort and freedom to contribute to the Army’s mission. Many don’t realize that in addition to the dangers of the task that soldiers must endure a standard of living and conditions for 12-15 months that are akin to imprisonment in this country.

A loss of personal freedom to meet the tasks of our democracy, freely taken up by a volunteer force of a few, for the good of all.