MC, back to Balad

This was my last day and these are some of the officers of the Regiment that came over to say good-bye. They’re a good group of people and it was nice to be able to get them all together and thank them for their work and for taking care of us. I didn’t get to say good-bye to all of them, Major Saad wasn’t there and he was one of my favorites. He’s the one with heart problems; I don’t think he’ll live much past this year. He has small children; I hope they’ll be OK.

I’ve been working with the new MiTT but I’m worried about them. There are 10 of them and they’re getting totally thrown into the fire. We came in with a distinct advantage having been in country for 6+ months and at least we understood the concepts of support before we had to live them. They have to work quickly to understand where to get fuel, how to get munitions, the minutia they’ll need to survive. They’re rank heavy which means they have high level officers and NCO’s. I suppose they feel the rank is necessary to work at division level, but there’s too many chiefs in this group and not enough indians. They also sent one female, a MSG who seemed pretty sharp but could be an issue down the road.

They signed for their three HMMWV’s but had to use Majors as gunners for the turrets. That’s not a very efficient use of rank but they’re on their own out here and dependent on each other to both train and travel around. In truth, they’ve had some training for this, but it’s been from the states, actors dressed up who jump out at you from behind a tree with a sign that says, ‘insurgent, shoot me’. Its different here, more dangerous. It’s worse now than when I first got here.

They have their first long distance mission tonight with the Iraqi’s. They’ll be going about 250 Km south into some dangerous country and I hope they don’t run into trouble. We gave them a week of RIP/TOA (Relief in Place/Transfer of Authority) training and they got all the information we could cram into them, all the memory sticks and continuity books they could carry. I hope some of it sticks. I know after the convoy this week they’ll be seasoned but that’ll be a harrowing journey for them.

I caught two of the Major’s coming to blows on the third day and they had to be separated. They were coming out of a meeting and apparently didn’t agree on something. That won’t go over well if the Iraqi’s see them, so they were warned to work out the differences. They’re in close quarters and the egos will have to be checked, plus it’s hot here and they’re newly formed performing a challenging mission in a foreign country.

They scared me pretty bad on the day I left. I was their first passenger during their run outside the gate. It was a short ride, only 20 Km to the airfield to catch my plane, but I just didn’t feel safe in their hands. But, they got me there safely and I made my flight back to Balad. I would ask that if you prayed for me before that you not stop just because I return home. Don’t forget the soldiers taking our places. I won’t.

I’m back in Balad and ran outside twice already, woo hoo! I stepped outside early this morning for my run and relived the differences between the two bases. Balad has jets taking off, ambulances in the distance, helicopters coming in at all hours and convoys raising dust compared to the relative quiet of Kirkuk. Balad gets mortared almost every day; K-1 didn’t have a single attack while I was there. I mingled daily with thousands of Iraqi Soldiers and ate with them in their mess hall. In Balad, an Iraqi soldier is a novelty.

I’ve already got a new mission. I’m going to work with all the different MTR’s in the country and try to get them grouped together one last time before our unit leave. It’s totally a PR mission and if it doesn’t come together, no problem. If it happens, it’ll be fun, but looks like I’ll be traveling right up until the end. I suppose that’s better than lying in my bunk, reading a book and looking at the clock...tick

Best wishes from Iraq.

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

What the

This is the ‘whatthe’ guy, as in “What the…?!?”. That’s what the CF call him and I’m sure we’re just being ugly Americans by not asking the local population what he’s famous for, but we were so eager to get down the streets and shopping that nobody took the time to ask. He makes a great picture, though.

I was in As Sulaymaniyah on the eastern border of Iraq for a mission to deliver cargo to an IA Brigade. We took our Iraqi counterparts downtown to visit this great city for a couple of hours and let Iraqi’s mix with Kurds. I would have never guessed I was in the same country.

Iraq is governed by either Iraqi Army or Iraqi police and they fight constantly amongst themselves, one being Shi’a and the other being Sunni. This province is governed by Kurds and patrolled by Peshmerga. They ‘loosely’ consider themselves Iraqi’s.

We got to meet the commanding General (a Kurd) of the unit we were delivering cargo to. We spent a good hour with him and he treated us like royalty. Of all the factions in Iraq, the Kurds have been our best friends even though the promises the U.S. made to them to overthrow Saddam went unfulfilled.

One of the interpreters on this trip (Al, also a Kurd) was 9 when this happened. He remembers leaflets dropping from U.S. planes that encouraged them to rise up against Saddam. They did and the U.S. never arrived, the Kurds were crushed. They ran for the border and Al told me about stepping on dead bodies as Saddam’s helicopters fired at them. He had some pretty graphic accounts that no 9 year old should have to remember. This was the time the world saw the pictures of dead Kurds killed by mustard gas in Halabja, Saddam's WMD. I asked him why they were still our friends and he didn’t have a good answer for me, just that Kurds were very western oriented and liked the U.S. I was glad we had him along, mainly because he speaks both Arabic and Kurd.

We crossed thru Peshmerga controlled checkpoints and the interpreters took off their body armor. There hasn’t been an attack in this area all year, mainly because Iraqi Police and Iraqi Army are not in control here. People without papers are not allowed in or shot and automobile registrations are collected and returned only when the vehicle leaves. Al had to act as a translator for both me and my Iraqi Colonel because the General spoke Kurdish, not Arabic. My Colonel doesn’t speak Kurd.

I’m enclosing some pictures of the trip; the place was remarkably unlike anything I’ve seen in Iraq. The countryside reminded me of the rolling hills of South Dakota, like the badlands with prairie grass and no trees, mountains in the distance. Stores were open and bustling and we walked safely down market streets. We had kids following us. I had people take their picture with me. I had old men come up and show me military photographs of them and shake my hand. All of the citizens were either dressed western or in traditional Kurdish tunics. I walked thru a great park with manicured grass, at the end of which was a very nice hotel. I asked the front desk clerk if he spoke English and he said, “of course, why wouldn’t I”? Room rates were $78/night which included breakfast and went up from there. It is one of those places that you know will be commercialized by the west in a couple of years, the safest place inside a war torn country. Your trip will include a nice hotel and shopping with the locals, dates and fresh vegetables in season. The airport was nearby; we rode around safely in taxi’s. Someone will charge thousands…

It was tough driving back to Kirkuk with their daily car bombs, dirty streets and abject poverty. It’s no wonder the Kurds guard their borders so ferociously, I wish they'd take over the rest of the country.

Best wishes from Iraq.
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Saddam Hussein launched chemical attacks against 40 Kurdish villages and thousands of innocent civilians in 1987-88, using them as testing grounds. The worst of these attacks devastated the city of Halabja on March 16, 1988.
Iraqi soldiers in protective gear returned to Halabja to study the effectiveness of their weapons and attacks. They divided the city into grids, determining the number and location of the dead and extent of injury. Halabja helped Saddam Hussein gauge the ability of his chemical agents to kill, maim, and terrorize population centers. 5,000 civilians, many of them women, children, and the elderly, died within hours of the attack. 10,000 more were blinded, maimed, disfigured, or otherwise severely and irreversibly debilitated. Thousands died of horrific complications, debilitating diseases, and birth defects in the years after.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/18714.htm