Going north...

Welp, it looks like its going to happen. I’ll be moving from here (Balad, LSA Anaconda) to go up north and join a MiTT.

I’m pretty excited about it, so first let me tell all the people I owe emails to that I’ll put as much news into this as I can, and then we can go from there. I’ve been really bad responding lately to emails, so if I write it out just once it’ll probably be coherent. Suffice it to say, it’s pretty busy here.

There are two groups here, the killers who go out and kick in the doors making the towns safer because of their presence (Paul) and then our embedded soldiers (MiTT’s) that work and live with the Iraqi soldiers and teach them soldier skills. Both jobs are huge and both expose the Iraqi’s to all of our best traits as Americans. It also exposes us to the Iraqi’s so that we can understand what they need to do to be successful, the kinds of training they need as well as the tools.

MiTT stands for Military Transition Team. They live with them, eat their food, train them, work with them and sleep in the same areas as they do, mostly. This is much like the Green Berets did in Vietnam. There are hundreds of US teams here in Iraq and they’re embedded at every level to include the Iraqi Divisions, Brigades, and Battalions of the Army. There’s Air Force MiTT’s that are teaching them how to fly their C-130’s and Huey helicopters. There’s BiTT’s which are Border Transition Teams, SPiTT’s for Special Police, LiTT’s for Logistical transition teams, thousands of different US soldiers and police embedded with the Iraqi infrastructure.

Standing up these forces is a daunting task. The police forces in the west are struggling to stand up enough police because a) it’s a dangerous place and police get shot, and b) they can’t pass the literacy test. There’s plenty of brave Iraqi’s that have applied, they just need to be able to read and write. So each of these teams are tailored to the mission and vary between 12-20 U.S. soldiers. They’re issued their own vehicles, weapons, supplies…everything they need to get the job done.

I’m joining one of the Motorized Transportation Regiments, also called an MTR. This is a regimental sized unit (just a bit bigger than a U.S. Battalion, about 300-400 Iraqi’s) headed by an Iraqi Colonel who’s responsible for transportation, maintenance and support to the division in his area. This unit provides the trucks and fuel tankers, major mechanical support, supply, etc. This is a brand new unit training to be logisticians, or more correctly, transporters.

Because the elections are coming and we need to get out of here, we’re accelerating all of the units that still need to be stood up. Most of this unit just graduated from basic training except for the officers. There’s plenty of training that we can do without really getting them out and into the fight for a while. They won’t be cut over to the Division until this fall, so we have them to train as we need.

There's a gap in their coverage because the MiTT that was supposed to be assigned aren’t shifting in early (they’re coming from the States) so we have to cover that gap. I’m very familiar with Iraqi logistics which was one of the reasons I’m going. We’ll fill it in with me and 2 Sergeants from this unit and some soldiers from the 101st stationed up north, a hodge podge of logisticians that can hold the fort for two months. We’ll be going up there around the 1st of June.

The north in a relatively safe area compared to Ramadi or Fallujah and I’ll be there for about two months. The good news is that it should be cooler by 5-10 degrees over these next summer months. The time is going to fly by because there’s so much to learn when I get there. They traditionally stay with these units for 1 year terms. When I get back I’ll have less than a month to go and I’ll be a short timer. I’ll be so short I can repel off a dime. I’ll be a two digit midget.

So that’s the news. I’ve got a lot of paperwork to get done before we go in a couple of weeks, we’re already starting to plan the redeployment back to Ft. McCoy.

Stop sending packages, I won't have a new address and probably won’t have time to get an address. I’m going to take my laptop with me and I believe there’s connectivity, so the emails can probably continue. We shall see.

More later! Best wishes from Iraq!