Happy New Year!

After reading my last missive, I think I ended it a little abrupt. I’ll try and make it a complete post before I log out, maybe I can make this one more winded.

Emails - I do have to say I’m usually pretty good about returning emails unless I’m traveling. If I’m traveling, I can’t announce it before I go because of the security issues, but once I’m back, I can talk a little about where I go and what we do. If I’m not returning an email promptly, I’m probably away from my ‘puter. Yesterday I was out of the office in Baghdad and had a fascinating trip.

This country is so cool. I visited Iraqi Generals and their staff in their own building who are responsible for rebuilding the country. They are designing, coordinating, planning, directing and orchestrating a million details on how to stand up the ISF. Now, when you picture this endeavor, you might envision the Pentagon and all its mystery and floors and endless hallways and Generals and support groups and meetings…but that’s not how it’s being done here.

The building I was in has small crowded offices with all kinds of Iraqi’s. Everyone’s smoking; everyone’s getting ready to see someone, and anyone not in an Iraqi uniform is in a suit, trying to get in to see someone important. I was with an Australian officer who was giving me the tour. He had some questions on food services, so we combined the mission into one.

We went in to see this General in charge of getting food to Iraqi troops. He didn’t have his own office. In fact, he shares the office with about 4 other Generals AND all their staff who are each working different issues within the country . There were about 20-25 people in this small room, everyone talking with their hands, smoking, drinking tea and cutting deals, deals, deals. Iraqi handshakes are how they get business done and even though we think we’re above the “deal” in the west, we’re just more sophisticated in our payouts. We bury our kickbacks in the contracts and fees and call it the cost of doing business. At least they’re up front on how they do business. And as a history lesson, they invented world commerce; this area is the birthplace of civilization (Babylon). They have negotiations down to a fine art and you never, ever pay face value. A contract is nothing more than an introduction, we’ll work on the details after we sign it.

Unfortunately, some times it gets in the way of the reconstruction and we have to step in. The issue the Aussie was addressing was the $16/day allocated to feeding one Iraqi soldier. After the contract is cut, and the subcontract is let to the subcontractor and then re-subcontracted down to the Nth level, the soldiers is getting about $3/day in actual food, and he’s hungry. The Aussie I was with was trying to get it back up to at least $7/day and maybe cut out some of the fat. They were talking fast and gesturing and smoking and drinking tea…it felt like I was in the marketplace buying tomatoes. The other bad news is that contracting is regional which meant that these little deals were being cut all over the country for different prices, different fixes…it’s a mess. Actually, it’s en’shalla which is God’s will, and that’s how they work. God willing, en’shalla. Very Middle Eastern.

OK, a little Army story…

One time a long time ago, I was a Specialist in the Army stationed in Italy. We were jumping into Sardinia off the coast of Italy. I was part of the advance party and assigned to this 2LT as his jeep driver, me being enlisted at the time. I think I was there because I’d picked up enough Italian to get my face slapped which was probably enough to get around the smaller towns and villages when we deployed, with language skills being always in demand. Anyways, I’m with this 2LT at the drop zone waiting for the 1st Bn., 509th Airborne Battalion Combat Team, (the 1st/509th for short) to fly over the drop zone and jump out. This is sometime around 1977.

Sardinia is rocky, it’s a great big rocky island suitable for growing olives and grapes and goats. We’re standing at the end of the drop zone on a hill and our field of vision is probably a good mile out or even more. It’s a great drop zone because its so large and the aircraft have time to get all the people out. If you’ve ever seen pictures of a “combat” jump, it’s just awe inspiring. The sky is filled with parachutes that drift lazily down to earth, 100's of them. Only this day, it was breezy and the 2LT’s job was to make sure that it wasn’t too windy to jump, to signal the aircraft to release the jumpers if the ground conditions permitted.

In one hand he held a wind gauge to make sure it didn’t exceed 15 knots (I still remember that number, but not sure if the standard has changed) and in the other hand he had a green smoke canister that he’d blow if all was good. The lead pilot sees the smoke, turns the red light to green at the jump door and out they go. At the 2LT’s feet is red smoke to wave them off if weather conditions aren’t favorable.

The planes were coming in and I remember counting 16 large C-130’s in formation, holding over 1000 soldiers getting ready to jump. They’ve already been flying for hours in a hot cargo plane, strapped to parachutes with all their equipment. Even though it’s scary to jump, if you’re in this kind of flight, you really want to get out of that plane and into the cool of the airstream. It’s freeing. Once you’re all suited up to jump, nobody wants to land and walk off, that’s just not the way to do it. There’s lots of pressure to get them to jump, as long as it’s done safely.

So here they come, the horizon is filled with planes and the 2LT is watching the wind gauge closely but its fluctuating…first its 13, then up to 17, then down to 10, then back up to 17 again, then down to 14 and he pops the Green smoke.

Second’s later, jumper’s start filling the skies and all the aircraft start disgorging their troopers. It’s an amazing site and for a while we just watch them come out. There are a couple of heavy drops mixed in and you can see 105mm artillery cannon opening up under 3 canopies and floating to earth. There’s not many of those because they don’t like to mix jumpers with equipment, but enough to practice on. They all come down really smooth until the first people start to hit the ground and try to land. I can see these guys bouncing hard and then being dragged across the rocks. Both the LT and I start panicking as more and more soldiers are struggling to get released from their harnesses and they’re being dragged across the rocky ground. I saw the 2LT look down at the wind gauge and then he told me it was 18 knots, way to fast to have let them jump but it was too late now.

There were a lot of injuries on that jump, lots of broken bones and I can remember calling home just after we’d gotten back and telling my Mom to watch the TV and newspapers for this horrendous accident we’d just been thru in Sardinia. Guess what? Not a word. Not a peep, not a mention, nothing.

The 2LT disappeared from the unit, nobody saw him in or around the area after that. It was a big enough preventable accident that he went elsewhere. I learned then that the Army usually takes care of its own little problems. Even when the civilian media finds out about the “issue”, if they ever do, its usually already been taken care of by the chain of command. I can tell you about a certain high ranking NCO here that should have stupidity tattooed on his forehead for what he did, but that’s another story for another time. I want to make sure I highlight some of these other "characters" so I'll remember them as well as all the good ones here like General H.

And on top of all that, it’s New Years Eve this weekend. I hope everyone has at least a couple of toasts for all of us over here.

Best wishes from Iraq.

General H.

It was a good Christmas. No pictures this time, though.

It sure is different being away during Christmas. The Army does a good job over Thanksgiving because that’s a generic American holiday, but Christmas is more personal. Lots of people over here have a tough time being away from their families over this holiday. I spent this Christmas with my new Army family and managed to get thru it, including a visit from the General herself!

I was on the phone on Christmas Eve talking to my family and in she walked. That’s surprising because she’s never been in this office before and you’re suppose to jump up and yell something (I always forget what) and here I was on the phone taking personal time on Christmas Eve when I should be out kicking in doors of insurgents or at least talking to people on the phone who were, supposedly, kicking in said doors.

Anyways, she just said “keep talking” and walked around dropping off little Christmas cards with a small gift on our desks. I thought that was nice. She dropped mine off, we mouthed Merry Christmas to each other and off she went. Some might say she left by “laying her finger aside her nose, giving a nod and up the chimney she rose”. Well, not really, but you could make a case that she’s got the power. 

She’s the first female graduate of West Point to reach the rank of General. That's pretty good, those were tough years for women at the Academy. She’s one of the brightest leaders I’ve ever met and don’t be trying to snow her. If you’re briefing her and she asks you a question and you don’t know the answer…say so because she probably knows and just wants to confirm it.

I’ve been in meetings where she’s ripped into briefer’s who were either a) unprepared or b) lying. If you’re unprepared once, you’ll never be unprepared a second time and if you’re lying you’ll never be briefing her again, so you really only get one chance. She’s very deceiving because she’s petite, but I’ve watched senior male officers who normally run meetings suddenly abdicate the floor when she speaks because her command is overwhelming. She has the charisma to take over the room she walks into.

It’s a pleasure working for someone with that much dedication to this job. I’ve been involved with the planning aspect and since that’s her favorite part of the “fight”, she’ll often spend hours going over briefs on what the drawdown will be for Iraq and how we’re going to support it. When Rumsfield or the President start announcing we’ll have “so and so” forces in Iraq or this is the plan…we’ve already been working that plan and been briefing her. So when the President announces it, she’s working on the next level.

If there ever was a role model for women in the Military, she’d be it and I don’t think she’s done with her career yet…

More personalities later, I want to make sure I capture the key people.

nuggets..

I use to have a swirled-peas mouse pad and feel unprotected without it...anyone going after Christmas shopping?

Thank you for all the holiday greetings from many people, your support was overwhelming.

Best wishes from Iraq..

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas all!

It’s been a quiet couple of days since the election and that’s good. This could be Iraq’s present to our soldiers, and if so..its very welcome.

A lot of us listened to the President the other morning (night for you) and heard what he had to say. I thought he was very forthcoming, finally. And then his approval ratings went up, now what’s up with that?

If you read the reports of Dick Cheney coming to Iraq, you’ll also read that some of the hardest questions he fielded came from the soldiers on the ground. They’re the ones putting their lives on the line and I don’t blame them for asking what the plan is from our civilian managers. That’s unprecedented in “military’s” around the world, where we can challenge their authority and not worry about repercussions. Well, worrying about what you say would be an understatement, you certainly don’t want to open your mouth and ask a stupid or embarrassing question of the VEEP, like what style underwear he prefers.

Back at UpNorth, I remember interviewing a retired Navy Captain (equivalent to a full Colonel in the Army) who was looking for a job and we were talking about “speaking up” at briefings with our personal opinion or a differing opinion than the officer giving the briefing. He told me that the Army was unique to all the services, and that if a junior Navy or Air Force officer spoke up and corrected a senior officer during a briefing, in effect embarrassing him, his/her career would be over. He complimented the Army on their ability to listen to the junior ranks even at the expense of some personal ego. Then he went on to remind me that our food sucked and we slept on the ground and so I think we came out about even, with each service having their strengths, I guess.

I will eventually get around to telling you about the characters of my new “family” here in Balad. For the most part, they are all volunteers in one form or another. Most of them are just trying to get to 20 years active duty so they can retire or they’re Reservists/National Guard members who’s number came up. :) All of them have a story and some of them I know I’ll be in contact with for the rest of my life.

One of them is up in Mosul and his name is LTC John H. I got pictures from John showing how he spent the Election Day driving around in Stryker vehicles with a two star General. They were visiting the city and towns and observing the election process. He also has pictures of him with Condoleeza Rice when she visited Mosul earlier. He was very proud to be a silent observer of a historic event and he commented on how courageous the people were for exercising a process that we take for granted. Next time we vote, I think we should get our finger dyed like the Iraqi’s instead of some dumb sticker.

There are other people here who believe the same thing and as we listened to the President’s speech we all critically assessed his every word. These are the soldiers who will be carrying out his orders and when you have an election in a newly freed country with this many people showing up to vote, you know there’s something different going on. You hate to say that the ends justify the means, but sometimes you just have to take charge and do the right thing. I think we’re doing the right thing here.

So please forgive how un-PC it is to say Merry Christmas and God Bless America in the same sentence, but I believe the two are inseparable no matter your faith, as long as you believe in their spirit.

Best wishes from Iraq..

Iraqi Election Day

Everybody’s holding their breath for this election to go off smoothly. So far, so good. We’ve taken all of our convoy vehicles off the road for the day; everything’s been pre-stocked at strategic locations around the country to get thru the day. Only emergency travel. We do have our combat units out, that hasn’t stopped, but for the most part they’re pulled out of the inner cities and taken up overwatch positions away from the polling stations and view of the public. The Iraqi Army and Police are pulling front line duty and doing well.

This is huge. They had 70% turnout for the referendum vote in October and this one is even bigger. We’re hearing that even some of the hard-lined leaders are urging their people to vote having learned quickly that’s it better to be working from the inside instead of scratching on the door from the outside. That’s a step, maybe a leap.

We had two rocket attacks yesterday, haven’t heard if there was any damage but again this is such a big base that unless it’s a prominent target we don’t really hear the end result. It had been pretty quiet up here the last 2-3 weeks and then all of a sudden the attacks in the last couple of days happened. We are in the middle of the Sunni triangle and we do track the attacks up and down our supply routes. Overall the attacks are down but they are more lethal. All of our vehicles on the roads are heavily armored, a byproduct of the outrage last year when un-armored HMMWV’s and trucks were taking a lot of hits. Now when they get hit, we get reports of them rocking the vehicle and getting shook up inside, but no major injuries. That’s extremely good news.

I guess it’d be even better news if they’d quit altogether. We're hoping that the elections calm everyone down and give them an opportunity and a reason to focus their energies elsewhere.

Seems appropriate over this holiday season, we certainly hope they get the spirit...

Thanksgiving Pictures...

UPDATE: Tim sent new pics 12/6.

New Thanksgiving pics now ready for your viewing pleasure.
click here

Working the ISF

This is one of those I’m so tired posts I shouldn’t be writing it, but when even Brittany demands something new to read (my fan base really LOVES me), I guess its time for an update.

First, I’ve been meaning to respond to all the negative publicity that this war is getting from certain left-leaning liberals. You know who you are, please stand up and raise your left hand. I read the papers and think, damnit! I should write a letter to the editor and give them what for and who’s who, but then I’d have to keep writing back and forth and getting into the forums which take time and I don’t have that kind of time. So, before I post the Thanksgiving pictures (hello it’s almost Christmas), maybe it’s time to tell people what we’re doing over here.

We’re building an Army. From scratch. And we’re doing it really, really fast because that’s what congress and the American public wants. And we’re trying really hard because nobody over here wants to stay here and nobody from home wants us to stay here either. So, we’re building an Army as fast as we can to get the hell out.

But, we’re not using anybody from the old army because they were not invited to apply. That makes it doubly hard. We’ve come to regret that decision and they’re now letting some of them back in. That’s key. There’s so much institutional knowledge in any organization that if you truly start from scratch it takes generations to catch up.

We’ve had Iraqi soldiers show up for units that hadn’t even been to boot camp, but they show up and our embedded U.S. trainers teach them how to march, put on the uniform, the whole bit. That takes time. We’re building Infantry Divisions (not too much Armor please, we don’t want to come back and face tanks) in order for them to stand up and fight the insurgents.

The previous US General here had the task of building the Army which he did. He built divisions very quickly and got them up and running but he didn’t create the supply side to support them. That’s what we’re doing. We’re the supply and services people.

We’re designing how to get theater level supplies to the Iraqi Security Forces, the ISF. Theater supplies mean ALL the boots an Army needs, the clothes, all the food, the water, the bullets, the trucks, the parts, the gas, the medical supplies…everything an army needs to move, shoot and communicate. You can stand up all the Divisions you want, but an army moves on its stomach and right now…them hungry. That’s our challenge, how to get the Iraqi army a supply system they can use and that will survive when we leave.

I went to a meeting this week that included coalition forces, Australian, British and we’re talking at a high level how this concept should work for the Iraqi’s. It’s very interesting and truly a national concept. The deal is, the U.S. Army knows how to do it, we’ve been doing it for centuries. The coalition knows how to do it, too. But today we’re so automated; we’ve reduced the number of bodies that support our supply system. But we can’t do that with the Iraqi’s, they don’t have computers, they don’t have the training or the schools. We’re not going to give them our systems, so today we control most of their supplies and their systems. There are suggestions that we just leave and throw the keys to the gate over our shoulder as we run out of the country. But to do a good job it’s just going to take time, and training.

Now, the bad news. In some areas, if the ISF is caught outside the protective forces surrounding them, they're executed. They usually try and kill new people joining units to discourage the community they’re recruiting from. It works. We’ve found Army soldiers on leave rounded up and killed by insurgents. We’ve had villages turn away the ISF who came to protect them because the previous ISF (during Saddam’s reign) killed them; those uniforms can still retain terrible memories. Sometimes we’ve moved units with Kurds in them to Shia area’s because locals could be recognized and families murdered. In the same breath, there are stories about citizens turning in insurgents or people hanging around that the locals don’t recognize and they turn them in to us. That’s the good news and that’s happening more and more.

By and large, I really couldn’t be prouder of the U.S. and coalition forces that have the day to day contact with the Iraqi’s. It’s a professional force and the average Iraqi has come to trust the U.S. flag and to support us, I’m convinced of that. You don’t see a lot of the good news, but we see it over here. It’s the changes that have come about over the couple of years we’ve been here, on the roads and in the cities. Yes there are pockets where we don’t venture without a lot of firepower but you could say the same thing for parts of Detroit I would imagine, no? It's working but it's not going to be done next week. We'll be here for another couple of years at least.

There is a strange part to all of this. As I’m walking in the IZ, downtown Baghdad’s green zone, there are civilians working as contractors or for the State Department, embassy personnel in suits and dresses going about their business like any other denizens in a big city, but they’re all packing a weapon. It just strikes me in the weirdest way like you could be walking into an elevator at Wells Fargo and the lady in the suit next to you has a little snub nose in the small of her back with the very latest Gucci holster. It’s a bit surreal for me, but possibly a fashion trend we could export to the states? Anyone?

Here's another little tidbit. I was flying home Tuesday and both pilots were crusty old CW4’s with a combined 70 years of experience between them. Both were pushing 60 and both had spent way too much time at the dessert bar. We took off and started to head the wrong direction out of town until the whipper-snapper in the second helo turned them around. I had found an extra head set and was listening in on the cockpit chatter, laughing all the way home. One of these guys had pulled two tours in Vietnam. There are these kind of humorous times here as well. This was like sitting on the porch talking about the old war with Uncle Ed, but Uncle Ed was at the controls of a blackhawk helicopter flying low and fast over Baghdad and you were holding on very hard with your life in their hands...

So we’re very pretty busy here. I don’t get a chance to sit in Saddam’s chair very often and eat bonbon’s. The days start early and the requirements make the days go by pretty fast. Here it is Friday again and another weekend facing me, woo hoo! what to do, what to do… (That was a joke, we don’t get weekends off)

Love to all and thanks for all the well wishes we get over here, your support for our troops is invaluable…