Kurd control

Col Muad went home for leave. He’s killing me; I can’t believe he left his unit here like this.

I fought pretty hard to keep him. When I first arrived he wasn’t here, he was at Law school in Bagdad. He’s the Regimental Commander, a full Colonel and my counterpart in training. It’s rare for someone to get into those schools so when they offered it to him, he grabbed it. In the meantime I met the junior officers and bonded with them. Col Muad eventually returned and I got the chance to meet him. He stayed for a couple of days and then left again to go back to school with the promise on his death bed that this was the last time, promise, En’Shalla, when this year was over he’d be here full time, this was finals and he had to take them or it’d be a wasted year. College students...

A couple of days after that, the unit got a phone call from Col Muad imploring them to get LTC Murphy to intervene with the coalition forces. Bagdad was going to replace him with another Colonel from down south. The replacement was Kurd and the story went that Col Muad wanted to be closer to his family in the south (Arab) and the Kurdish Col wanted a northern post (Kurdish), hence a match made in heaven. Not so, claimed Col Muad and the officers of the MTR. The Jundee threatened to demonstrate and go AWOL, we almost had a small riot going. So I went to bat for him. Bagdad has more drama and intrigue than any soap opera, I swear.

Col Muad has been with the unit since the first Jundee arrived and is portrayed as a father figure. The rumors got worse and Col Muad came back to quell them. In the meantime, I’d been putting all this into my daily reports and they go up pretty high. When Col Muad returned, he told me that some U.S. General had talked to an Iraqi General in Bagdad and got them to keep Col Muad as the commander. LTC Murphy was a hero. I was hailed, crisis averted...but not the end.

This is the fault line of the Kurds in the north and the Arabs in the south. For some time (count 500 years) the two have never gotten along. But we look beyond that and make them work together wherever we can. Our Regiment doesn’t have any Kurds in it and when we return from a mission thru the gates, if there are no coalition forces with them they’re hassled and searched. I’ve been down there once to help get them thru and I think its only because the CF is here that open warfare hasn’t broken out. The Regiment is the only unit on post without any Kurds in it and they’ve already told me they don’t know what will happen to the unit when the coalition leaves.

Then we got the war hero. This officer showed up the other day that previously had been a Captain, was carrying orders for Major and now wore the rank of LTC. He told Col Muad that one of the Generals had promoted him and that the paperwork would be following. So he took the position of XO, 2nd in command of the Regiment and the first Kurd assigned. As we see it, since they couldn’t get rid of Col Muad thru Bagdad, they placed this guy here to work from the inside.

He’s not making friends. He brought over 3 personal body guards that go wherever he goes. The first time I met him he belted on his sidearm. I guess that’s fair, I wear mine everywhere but somehow I feel safer than he apparently does. He’s also infantry and infantry officers are not always suited to lead service and support units or transportation units, especially when his vision is to make sure the unit can march in precision and fall into formation correctly. I don’t think he gives a rip how many missions they’ve run in the past 2 months. I going to hope his vision is deeper than that, but there’s definite resentment from the other officers as this new guy makes his mark.

Now here’s my conflict. The Kurds overall are more friendly with U.S. forces that either the Sunni’s or Shia’s and the Kurds have provided more support over the years to U.S. forces than either of the other two tribes. I've also already bonded with the officers of the Regiment and really believe they’re doing a good job. Our Kurdish XO hasn’t been the friendliest to any of them and has no desire to get to know them. Col Muad leaves us to deal with this guy and the whole place is in an uproar while he's gone.

We’re trying though. I brought in all the missions the MTR conducted and he and I sat down and went over them. We talked about future missions. I think he thawed a bit when he realized how much the Regiment has already accomplished. I know he wants to make his mark like all new leaders, but its an issue. I put a phone call into Col Muad to get his ass back here before he loses his job for good. We'll work it thru, day by day.

That’s the latest from up north. Weather is July-ish today, 113 degrees. No humidity though, doesn’t feel higher than 108.

Best wishes from Iraq.