New MiTT arrives

Sunday night, Kirkuk Iraq. It hit 122 in the shade today…

I was sitting out back just now finishing up my cigar. I haven’t had one in a while and thought I’d better get one in before the world changes tomorrow. The new MiTT comes in tonight, we’ll go get them around 1am when their flight lands. There are 10 of them. They're fresh from the States having been in country for about 3 weeks training.

I spent most of this morning with Col Maud, this’ll be the last time I get him to myself and both of us just kind of talked about the changes coming up for him, me, my team and the new guys coming in.

Yesterday he brought in a box of dates for me, and a huge bottle of Laban. It was a joke between us. When I first got here we were making small talk and I found out he was a part time farmer. The only crop I knew Iraq had for sure were dates and since I had expressed an interest in them, he promised to bring some in when they were in season. He laughed pretty hard when I told him I didn’t like dates, that I was just making small talk. He promised to bring some in anyways, for me to try.

There was a group of officers in his office and we all sat around while the heathen (me) tried dates and Laban, served cold. Laban is a drink made from yogurt and milk and sometimes a dash of salt. Everyone else gobbled up dates and chugged the drink. I think it’s their version of milk and cookies but the drink was really bad, sour, and I only took a sip from the tall glass. He produced another bottle and I took my dates back to the compound where the rest of my crew tried them. Nobody liked the drink, the terps polished off the bottle; I think there’s still some dates left.

The Col’s putting a dinner together for the new crew and us for Wednesday night. These two and a half months have gone by really fast and again, I envy the teams that get to spend the whole tour here on these kinds of missions. It’s an amazing opportunity and the best thing the U.S. Military can possibly do to help this country. I’ve been preparing briefings for the new team and trying to keep the information at very high levels. There’s so much detail here that they can be overwhelmed and retain nothing, but some of the figures are pretty amazing. This unit has conducted 23 missions with 13 of them totally independent of CF. That means the IA did all the planning and execution and we supported them as needed, except convoying with them. They convoyed over 4300 miles in two months across the upper quarter of some pretty dangerous country in support of Iraqi units. That’s the key part; Iraqi’s helping Iraqi’s. That’s the ticket of how we get out of here.

I’m very proud of what they’ve done. I went over some of those numbers with Col Maud and we talked about how professional the unit was, how capable the officers were and what an asset the MTR was going to be to the Division. I told him that the new MiTT would be taking on an even greater supportive role and would look to him to lead the Regiment. He’s the one that’s going to set the pace and the new MiTT’s would only be there to smooth over speed bumps. We had a good talk and I’ll miss the work that we did here. I think we’ve earned their trust in the short time we’ve been here and I'll miss many of the officers, they're good people.

We have a tight schedule for the next week. The new MiTT’s will be inundated with briefings about operations, supply systems, payroll and personnel, sectarian violence, Iraqi Army politics, IED's, FOB life, dangerous routes and much more. The first thing I’ll do in the morning is take the new MiTT Chief over to meet Col Maud and that’s the last time I’ll be in the lead. From then on it will fall to the new team to assume their duties for the next year and start building their own trust with the IA Officers and soldiers.

My team starts heading back as early as Thursday, I’ll only stay for a couple days after that. The new MiTT chief is an LTC like me and he’ll want to set his own style with the Regiment. That’s OK with me, that’s how this system works and I’m proud to have been able to do a small part while I was here.

Best wishes from Iraq