Heads Down, Spirits Up!

LT Michael Behenna needs your help!

2009-08-02T17:51:00.001-07:00

http://www.petitiononline.com/MBehenna/petition.html

Also From Our Beloved Nonnie Stearns: A New Picture of Jeremy's Son, Dylan!

2008-07-20T15:45:00.000-07:00

From Our Beloved Nonnie Stearns: Jeremy Stearns and his baby boy, Dylan!

2008-07-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

From Mitzi Sellers: The Scouts of PB Olson!!!

2008-06-29T19:46:00.000-07:00

From Maria Ortiz!

2008-06-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

From Tracy Parillo: Her son Jason and his friend Ryan, from the 1-327. And Jason and his girls, Brooklyn and Hailie

2008-06-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

From Mike and Chris Ryder!

2008-06-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

Back in the Stacks

2008-06-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends of the 101st Airborne Division,
I am back in New York after spending about five months with the 101st Airborne Division's 1st Brigade in Iraq. The soldiers have several months to go, and I hope the rest of their deployment passes very quickly and safely.
In honor of the soldiers, I would like to invite all of you who know someone serving in Iraq to send me your pictures. They can be family photos, photos of the soldiers you miss so much, anything you would like to share. I will post as many of them as I can on this blog and my other blog: http://101dayswith101st.blogspot.com . I can be reached at my e-mail address: shelbymonroe@gmail.com.
My thoughts are always with the soldiers and all of you who care about them.
Thank you all for keeping up with my stories and writing to tell me about your soldiers.
Take care,
Shelby
P.S. Below this message you will find four pictures that were sent to me from Andy in Slovakia. Andy and his friends are big fans of the 101st Airborne Division, and they have organized a group that engages in re-enactments of the 101st's activities. I think it's great that the 101st can count Andy and his group as friends and supporters.

From Slovakia!

2008-06-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

2008-05-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

A Day So Long

2008-05-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

May 9, 2008
There are no holidays for the American soldiers serving in Iraq. Memorial Day is a day like any other, in spite of the fact that every day, on average, at least one soldier will die while serving his or her country. In a sense, that makes every day Memorial Day in Iraq.
When a soldier dies in Iraq, a memorial service is held to commemorate his life. Recently, a service was held at Anaconda, a large base in Balad, for two soldiers from the 1st Squadron 32nd Cavalry Regiment who died when their vehicle, an MRAP (Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected), rolled over, off a narrow canal road and headfirst into the water. The soldiers were Lieutenant Timothy Cunningham and Private First Class John Bishop. LT Cunningham was twenty-six; PFC Bishop was twenty-two. Both were married. LT Cunningham also left behind a one year-old daughter, Abigail.
Close friends of LT Cunningham and PFC Bishop spoke at the memorial service. Soldiers are, naturally, trained to be tough. Both Sergeant Roberto Munoz and Specialist Jonathon Dautremont had to pause in their tributes to collect themselves, to wipe away their tears. There is something very heartbreaking about a soldier so struck with grief that speech is impossible.
Amidst the sea of camouflage, one civilian stood out in the crowd that had gathered to honor LT Cunningham and PFC Bishop. In his dark suit, with his carefully groomed hair and moustache, the mayor of Balad might have seemed out of place, but his attendance at the memorial service was a very meaningful gesture. Two worlds were brought together, worlds that usually experience their grief separately.
Life is short. We all know this, but soldiers and their families are reminded of it every day. At the same time, days can be very long. Any day in Iraq is a long day for a soldier who misses his family, but these days are even longer for the families at home, who can’t just pick up the phone and call Iraq. The days Samantha and Abigail Cunningham, and Diane Bishop, and the rest of their relatives, have to face now that Tim and John are gone will be the longest they have ever known.
Over four thousand soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began, which means over four thousand families have endured some very long days. Four thousand may not seem like a big number, but it is big enough if you are one of the people whose husband or wife, brother or sister, father or mother, son or daughter is one of the four thousand. Abigail is not the only one year-old who has lost her father to this war.
Many of us have the luxury of viewing Memorial Day as a day off from work, a day of sales and fun with our families. We are very lucky. Over the past five years a lot of young families have learned the true meaning of Memorial Day, but what about the rest of us?
After five months in Iraq, I have come home. I met a lot of great soldiers who made me feel welcome at bases up and down the Tigris, soldiers who were doing their best to get through the long days away from home. I think about them every day, and hope they make it through the remaining months of their deployment safely. This Memorial Day I will be having fun with my family, but I will also be remembering the families who are not so lucky. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-05-02T08:36:00.000-07:00

A Full Day (Even Without Lunch)

2008-05-02T08:35:00.000-07:00

May 2, 2008

FOB (Forward Operating Base) Paliwoda is located in Balad, in an area that has seen its share of trouble but has recently been working towards a kind of calm. This doesn’t mean all of the bad guys are gone, but, thanks to the work of the 1st Squadron 32nd Cavalry Regiment and the increased efforts of the local population, the good guys are gaining ground.
The 1-32’s Bravo Troop gets around. In a country where no one appears to be burdened by a great sense of urgency, Lieutenant James Blackburn and his soldiers must seem strange, running all over the place, trying to get things done.
In one day, spent in a town called Ad Duluiyah, Bravo Troop and their interpreter visited two gas stations, two schools, several local businesses, a sheik, an Iraqi police station, where some cops were asked to join us on our patrol, a gravel pit, a canal, and a home, where they were almost served lunch but there were not enough hours in the day.
The soldiers will be visiting gas stations until the fuel situation in Iraq is sorted out. So possibly forever. The purpose of these visits is to see if the stations have fuel, and if they are selling it at the price set by the government, which is very difficult to determine without watching individual sales. The results were mixed. The first station was open; the second closed. A closed station can signify several things. The station owner might willingly allow his fuel to be diverted to the black market, or he might not be getting his fuel for reasons beyond his control. Lieutenant Blackburn urged the men managing the station to work harder to make sure their fuel deliveries arrived as they were supposed to. Black market products are harmful chiefly for two reasons: the profits may help finance terrorism, and the cost of black market fuel is higher, adding to the burden of people who are already struggling financially.
During the first of the school visits, the soldiers dropped off supplies, some of which were sent from a soldier’s family to be distributed among the children. The headmaster was grateful, but also took the opportunity to point out the condition of the building, which was dark and showed signs of deterioration, and also to ask for help improving the grounds around the building. Requests have a way of multiplying when the soldiers are around.
After leaving the school, the soldiers patrolled the business district. With the introduction of a CLC (Concerned Local Citizens), or SOI (Sons of Iraq) chapter, the business district is safer and there is increased traffic and development. New shops are being opened; new retail spaces are being created. Lieutenant Blackburn made note of the new additions and talked with the shopkeepers and workmen while his soldiers helped the SOI secure the area.
Lieutenant Blackburn also paid a call on a local sheik, and discussed their shared responsibilities, which included the school we had visited. While the sheik and the lieutenant talked, the medic of the squad was approached by a boy who was limping on a bandaged foot. The medic did what he could to treat the boy, and then it was on to the gravel pit.
The headmaster and Lieutenant Blackburn had decided the simplest and most affordable way to clean up the grounds around the school was to cover the hard dirt and worn grass with gravel. The gravel merchant saw the American soldiers and dollar signs shone in his eyes. The lieutenant had anticipated the possibility of being presented with an inflated price, and had come armed with numbers of his own. After a successful preliminary discussion, the convoy moved on to the second school.
The second school was very much like the first. The building was showing its age, the students making do with few supplies in stripped down classrooms. In addition, this school had no running water. Lieutenant Blackburn had reached an agreement with a local SOI member to repair the existing plumbing system. He had not finished the job, and both the lieutenant and the school leaders showed their exasperation.
The SOI member had also been hired to clean out a dry canal that had become a dumping ground for garbage. The lieutenant was working on getting a pump repaired so this canal could be filled with water, thus greatly improving the lives of the residents in the area. Some progress had been made, but, as with the project at the school, the job had not been completed.
Lieutenant Blackburn and his soldiers had been invited to lunch, and, with the business of the day taken care of to the extent that it could be, a local meal sounded good. The soldiers arranged to guard the trucks and our host’s house in shifts. Unfortunately, as soon as the lunch party had sat down in every available chair, as soon as PFC (Private First Class) Rick Fassett had settled himself on the living room floor, propped up with brightly colored pillows to help counter the weight of his body armor, the lieutenant was alerted to a scheduling problem. There was work to be done back at the base, so, after a quick apology and a promise to return the following day, the convoy returned to Paliwoda.
It took some time for the 1-32 soldiers and the Iraqi civilians to get acquainted, but now they understand each other better. There are still those who regard the Americans warily, but trust is building, and more progress is being made. The soldiers make every effort to deliver on their promises, and they are trying to persuade the Iraqis to do the same. The revitalized business district is proof that good things happen when Americans and Iraqis work together.
The residents of Ad Duluiayah have become used to the presence of American soldiers. They recognize the digital camouflage pattern of their uniforms, and they recognize that every twelve months or so a new group of soldiers will arrive to replace the old ones. They may not have realized right away that the soldiers of the 1-32, of the 101st Airborne Division, would be working so tirelessly on their behalf, but they know it now. And they are lucky enough to have them for fifteen months, instead of twelve. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-05-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

2008-04-26T01:53:00.000-07:00

Paint by Numbers

2008-04-26T01:51:00.000-07:00

April 25, 2008

Soldiers in Iraq are called upon to do some pretty thrilling things. All of the dangerous, exciting stuff—dropping from the sky, raiding buildings, chasing bad guys—that is what they trained for. And maybe even what they signed up for. That is the stuff they look forward to. But most of the tasks soldiers are called upon to carry out are not dangerous or exciting, not the stuff of Go Army commercials.
Sergeant Jonathan Fondow settles claims. Although he may spend a lot of time sitting at a desk, Sergeant Fondow has a deep and unique understanding of the consequences of war. As a member of the JAG (Judge Advocate General) office, Sergeant Fondow works with soldiers, providing them with assistance in legal matters, but he also spends one day a week working with the Iraqi people, processing their claims. He meets the Iraqis at a building called the CMOC (Civil Military Operations Center) at Anaconda, a large base in Balad. He listens patiently to their stories, and treats everyone with respect and courtesy.
The nature of the claims varies. Some people come to the CMOC because a member of their family has been injured or killed as the result of American operations. A condolence payment of $2500 for the death of a relative will be awarded to a family if the claim is approved. The rules and regulations governing the claims process are complicated, and do nothing to explain why a life is valued at $2500, but the 101st Airborne Division does what it can within these parameters to help the Iraqi people.
One visitor to the CMOC had been approved for a condolence payment, and she was given a specific day to come back to receive it. All payments are made in cash. Two other claimants were seeking compensation for damage done to their homes during combat operations. Sergeant Fondow cannot just take their word for what has happened. He has to conduct an investigation, which includes determining whether or not Americans were working on that day, in that area. This is not easy to do, and sometimes claims are filed months, even years, after events happen. It would be tempting to deny these claims immediately, but Sergeant Fondow gently persists with questions that often unearth details that make a claim easier to substantiate. Both homeowners remembered that the Americans had detained their neighbors, an odd coincidence, but, with the names of the detainees, it would be much easier to prove that American forces were in the area.
Paying Iraqis for losses or damages that occur while we are fighting a war against their bad guys may seem strange, even wrong. But the philosophy of the soldiers who work at the CMOC is that this is a relatively small group of people, and the payments, in the scheme of things, are also relatively small. By meeting with people, the soldiers are building goodwill. Even those whose claims are denied feel better knowing that they were heard by the Americans.
Lieutenant Brian Reynolds counts people. He does a lot of other things too, but one of his missions is to conduct a census of the people living in the area the HHB (Headquarters and Headquarters Battery) of the 2-320 Battalion is responsible for. There is something quaint about a group of soldiers wandering door-to-door, avoiding angry, barking dogs, the lieutenant shuffling through forms on his clipboard, all so they can collect data.
In addition to learning how many people live in each house, Lieutenant Reynolds gathers information about how basic needs are met. Electricity is only available for part of the day. Water is fetched from the canal. Fuel is usually bought on the black market. Some families have no phone or car. This is the simple life.
The most complicated aspect of census-taking is, it turns out, turning down offers of hospitality. If every offer of lunch had been accepted, the soldiers would have enjoyed several meals, but with the temperature already over one hundred degrees, and the desire to finish the task pushing everyone forward, most offers were politely declined. Iraqis are very serious when it comes to sharing their food and opening up their homes. They had a hard time taking no for an answer.
It began to seem unfortunate that the soldiers couldn’t stop what they were doing, fan out all over the village, and break bread with all of these generous people. But they are soldiers first, diplomats second. A very close second. They can’t let down their guard because it is always possible someone is watching, waiting for an opportunity.
At one of the homes the soldiers entered, most of the family was present but one of several brothers went to collect another from his shop. The soldiers knew this man when he walked in the room. They considered him a terrorist. Did he know how the soldiers felt about him? Did his family know about his reputation? He joined his family in trying to persuade the soldiers to stay for lunch. Would having lunch with him have changed anything?
A civilized and meaningful interaction with an Iraqi citizen, whether it is a widow filing a claim, or a farmer reciting the number of people in his family, has to be considered a small victory. An Iraqi who has had a positive experience with the Americans is an Iraqi who might think twice about turning a blind eye to insurgent activity.
Sergeant Jonathan Fondow and Lieutenant Brian Reynolds, and all of the soldiers they work with, do their best to treat the Iraqis they encounter with courtesy, even if some of them might be terrorists, even if the task at hand is sometimes tiresome. They know everything counts. Everyone counts. The work they do, assigning numbers or values to people and events, may not be what they signed up for, but they are helping to paint a very detailed picture of Iraq today. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-04-26T01:41:00.000-07:00

2008-04-19T06:36:00.000-07:00

2008-04-19T00:21:00.000-07:00

Three Days with Automatic

2008-04-19T00:19:00.000-07:00

April 18, 2008
FOB (Forward Operating Base) O’Ryan is a small patrol base located a short distance from Anaconda, a very, very big base in Balad. Huge. But the soldiers staying at FOB O’Ryan know a lot more about the Iraqi people and its countryside than most of the soldiers at Anaconda ever will. A base doesn’t have to be big to have an impact, and the soldiers of Alpha Battery, also known as “Automatic,” of the 2-320 (“Balls”) Battalion, work hard and log a lot of miles in their humvees and MRAPs as they try to make a positive impact on the villages that they serve from FOB O’Ryan.
The territory Automatic covers is quite lush. Canals run through farmland, creating a landscape that suggests a calm and purposeful life, quite a contrast to the Iraq of the evening news. Of course, anything can happen anywhere in Iraq, and nothing is ever quite as it seems, but it did appear that the soldiers of Alpha Battery had crossed over to the sunny side of the street. Or maybe it was just that the temperature had climbed to over one hundred degrees.
Day One brought Lieutenant William Hale II and the Alpha Battery soldiers to the home of a sheik who was responsible for a Concerned Local Citizens (CLC) group, who in turn were responsible for operating checkpoints around their village. The soldiers had hoped the sheik would lead them to each of the checkpoints, so they could see if they were being properly managed. The sheik was not at home, but his brother and several of his workers were. The sheik’s brother offered to guide them to the checkpoints, but first the soldiers enjoyed a leisurely visit with the men.
The Iraqis gathered around the soldiers in the yard, and discussed the issues that concerned them, one of which was downed power lines. In Iraq, power lines hang low, and our MRAPs (Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected) ride high. MRAP antennas have taken down more than a few power lines. A soldier suggested they try to raise the power lines. There is no way to lower an MRAP.
Chai was served and pictures taken, and it seemed as though the meeting could have turned into a barbecue or a garden party celebrating the peace found in the shade of the sheik’s trees. The war seemed worlds away. But the soldiers can never relax for too long, and after the chai glasses had been emptied, the convoy was back on the road, following a small white pickup truck on a tour of the checkpoints.
Each of the checkpoints was properly manned and functioning efficiently, which served to increase the soldiers’ faith in the CLC’s ability to do its job, and decrease the threat of violence to the village. The soldiers still felt responsible for the Iraqis, however, and had brought water and packaged meals to distribute among the CLC workers.
Day Two consisted of another peaceful and meandering drive through the countryside. The soldiers were paying a visit to a village they had not been to before, and the convoy pulled up in front of the largest house in the area, knowing this would be the home of the local sheik. Lieutenant Brian Reynolds and Sergeant Carl Pulver sat across from the sheik under the ceiling fans of his large tiled living room, and Lieutenant Reynolds asked him a series of questions designed to help assess the needs of the village.
It became apparent from the sheik’s answers to these questions that the village was quite self sufficient. The sheik explained that the village tried to fund and complete projects on its own, having little faith that the city council would step in to help, and he also seemed reluctant to request any help from the Americans, which was unusual.
Lieutenant Reynolds assured the sheik he could speak honestly, fearing he might only be saying what he thought we wanted to hear, and he tried to joke with the sheik to show that he could breathe easy. The lieutenant suggested the spacious living room might be a good location for a ping pong table, and the sheik smiled. He was unflappable. When the lieutenant asked his interpreter to tell the sheik he didn’t seem like a person who liked to joke around, the interpreter said, “I’m not going to tell him that. He’s a sheik.”
But there was a twinkle in the sheik’s eye, and maybe his steady demeanor came from knowing he had it all figured out. His village was a mix of Sunni and Shia, and he said everyone got along, that, in fact, two of his wives were Sunni, though he was a Shia. He had vineyards where four kinds of grapes grew, and a gravel business that provided gravel to Anaconda, our enormous military base. There’s nothing an American military base loves more than gravel. He did have it all figured out.
Day Three revealed that all villages are not created equal. Lieutenant Reynolds and his soldiers visited another village, this time on a humanitarian mission. The soldiers had filled an MRAP with clothing and toys and other treats which they gave out to several families that quickly assembled around the truck. These families had fled their own village to escape the threat of violence connected with insurgent activity.
It was hard to tell how much their flight had cost them. Most had probably lived in simple mud and straw huts with few possessions, but home is home. The gifts from the soldiers brightened their day, but what would tomorrow bring? With time, perhaps these displaced families will be able to make their way back home. They may be able to help the soldiers identify the insurgents in their village. The soldiers would love to increase the peace, and, in Iraq, this is done one day at a time, one village at a time.
FOB O’Ryan has none of the amenities of a big base like Anaconda. In fact, every day the soldiers of G Company, a support company, have to make trips from Anaconda to FOB O’Ryan so the soldiers of Alpha Battery have what they need in order to do their job. This is a lot of work for G Company. But it is important work. It is important to support a patrol base like O’Ryan because it provides support to villages that might otherwise be overlooked. Villages that need our help and villages that don’t.
Alpha Battery works hard every day to try to help the residents of each village they visit feel safe and secure. They don’t get to dive in a pool at the end of a hot day, or go to a movie, like the soldiers who live at Anaconda do, but they do get to enjoy the feeling of building relationships. The people of each village they visit will always welcome them back, and that must feel pretty good. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-04-19T00:07:00.000-07:00

2008-04-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

Balls in Balad

2008-04-11T09:56:00.000-07:00

April 11, 2008

Task Force 2-320, aka “Balls,” a Field Artillery Battalion stationed in Balad, is full of experienced soldiers who have been to Iraq before and know how much things have changed and how much they have stayed the same.
During their last deployment, the soldiers of the 2-320 were in Kirkuk where they were responsible for, among other things, keeping the Northern Oil Company (the NOC) secure. Needless to say, the NOC is very important to Kirkuk, very important to Iraq, so protecting it, working with Iraqi security forces to ensure its operations would not be interrupted, was essential work, if perhaps a little boring.
Nowadays oil is not what Balls is about. In fact, water is more likely to be the topic of conversation. Water and a host of other issues, including, of course, bad guys. And sometimes bad guys and water, bad water. But change is good, right? Keeps it interesting, doesn’t it? Sure.
This time around the soldiers are focusing on protecting the people. From themselves, each other, and their dirty water. All in a day’s work. And one of these days began with a city council meeting.
The Ad Dujayl City Council had apparently decided to meet to discuss everything and nothing. With no agenda, it was difficult to determine whether or not anything was accomplished, which was probably why there was no agenda.
One of the men present in the room was rumored to be a terrorist. He sat close to the city’s leaders, who didn’t seem bothered by his presence, nor he theirs. Like the chief of police, who sat across the room from him, the man appeared to be struggling to stay awake.
In an attempt to prevent the meeting from turning into a complete waste of time, a doctor mentioned that he had discovered one of the shops in the city was selling a powdered juice mix which he said was cancer-causing. Until the water situation in the area is resolved, it is probably not a good idea to use juice mixes anyway.
The water issue is an ongoing problem throughout Iraq. Even though there are water treatment facilities in many villages and towns, many have fallen into disrepair, so they sit idle and the population struggles to gain access to clean water. One of the councilmen, in a private meeting after the city council meeting, told Captain Doug Houston that the Iraqis felt since the Americans had installed some of these water treatment plants, it was up to the Americans to maintain them. Captain Houston thought otherwise. The reluctance on the part of the Iraqis to take responsibility for anything beyond their personal survival is another ongoing problem.
After the less than satisfactory meeting, the convoy headed into the farmland to pay a visit to a pair of brothers. One, an imam at a nearby mosque, has a good relationship with the Americans. His brother, who also appeared cooperative, is suspected of working against the Americans, and Captain Houston warned him that there was a case building against him. While the imam sat quietly, the accused brother, who is a teacher by day, recited his work schedule as if to say he had no time to be bad. A third brother had already been arrested by the Americans.
Captain Houston urged the brother with the full schedule to keep it filled with teaching and farming. His brother the imam was clearly listening to the conversation but kept his thoughts to himself. How well did these brothers know each other? Iraqi families are generally very close-knit, but is it possible for them to be close while at the same time maintaining very different agendas? And could those agendas change? Was a warning from Captain Houston enough to persuade the wayward brother to be content making an honest living? What was he teaching his students?
Many Iraqis are not entirely good, but they’re not entirely bad either. This goes for people everywhere, but in Iraq the stakes are higher so it becomes important to know just how bad a person is capable of becoming. It is also important to figure out what motivates a person. A man who has no job and a family to support could turn bad simply because he needs money. A man with a teaching job and a farm to work might not care as much about the financial rewards that come with joining the bad guys; his motivation might come from a different place, a more complicated place, which makes him more difficult to reach.
In some ways the last deployment was simpler for the soldiers of the 2-320. For one thing, that was a twelve month deployment, and this is scheduled to be a fifteen month deployment, so mentally it is harder to stay engaged in the struggle here. It is harder to keep up with life at home.
This deployment is also more challenging because although the city and the streets have changed, the obstacles remain the same. Of course it takes time to build a working relationship with a population that is used to life under a dictator, but the soldiers are asked to give an awful lot of their time, and they would like to see more change, to know that their time has not been wasted. After all, this is time they will never get back. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-04-11T03:36:00.000-07:00

2008-04-11T03:33:00.000-07:00

2008-04-04T04:15:00.000-07:00

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? What Chicken?

2008-04-04T04:13:00.000-07:00

April 3, 2008

Most soldiers who have spent time outside the wire have been involved in a close call or two, usually a near miss with an IED or possibly an exchange of small arms fire. These experiences are to be expected in a time of war, and sometimes an encounter with the enemy becomes a good story, a story that makes a long deployment a little easier to endure. But the war in Iraq has entered an awkward stage. Soldiers don’t find themselves engaged in combat very often, which means they are busy doing other things. And stories about sniffing out insurgents have been replaced with stories about sniffing out, uh, chickens.
The soldiers at Patrol Base (PB) Woodcock, like soldiers all over Iraq, have had to adapt to a changing role in the war. At one time, their primary goal was to stop the enemy, but now there are other goals which are equally important. Now they are trying to do more to help the good guys. Lieutenant Adam Browne and the soldiers of the 1st Battalion’s Charlie Company, in addition to trying to keep their sector south of Tikrit safe, would like to see local businesses thrive, thus creating job opportunities for those looking for work.
One of the projects undertaken by the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in the area was the construction of a garment factory, which had been completed. Lieutenant Browne and his soldiers visited the factory to see how business was progressing.
Anti-American graffiti covered a nearby wall, and maybe that told the story. Inside the garment factory, a guard greeted the soldiers stiffly and watched as they toured the premises. The factory was operational but it was obvious no work had been done there. Rows of new sewing machines sat under plastic covers collecting dust. The only rooms that weren’t enveloped in dust were the bathroom and the kitchen.
Lieutenant Browne asked the guard where the manager of the factory was, hoping to discover why the factory was sitting idle. The guard said the manager was not there, as if as long as we were looking for him, he would not be there. A woman who had been watching the exchange stepped forward and said the manager would prefer to meet the Americans elsewhere. She explained that the Americans were not safe visiting the factory. It seemed what she was trying to say was the Iraqis were not safe when the Americans were around. American-initiated projects are tempting targets for insurgents, so it is understandable that locals would be reluctant to associate themselves with one of these projects. On the other hand, the people have been given a building full of possibilities, if only their imagination could triumph over their fear.
After the disappointing silence of the garment factory, it was time to look for some chickens.
A chicken plant near PB Woodcock had been recognized by the Provincial Reconstruction Team as a business that could potentially employ two hundred workers, not to mention thousands of chickens. Lieutenant Browne wanted to visit the plant to get a status report.
The convoy pulled into the parking lot of a sprawling establishment, and we were ushered into an office by the plant manager. The lieutenant asked how many chickens were on the grounds. The manager said none. There were some posters of chickens on the office walls, and a 2006 chicken-themed calendar, but no live chickens. Or dead chickens for that matter.
The manager of the chicken plant sat quietly, allowing the lieutenant to come to terms with the lack of chickens. He lit a cigarette and stared at the thin trail of smoke.
“I had really been looking forward to some fried chicken, “Lieutenant Browne joked.
The manager laughed as if laughing were a very painful exercise, and returned his attention to his cigarette.
Apparently the owner of the chicken plant was in Baghdad. It was unclear whether he intended to re-open the plant or not. It had fallen into a state of disrepair and would require a lot more than the introduction of chickens at this point. The owner had no doubt learned of the Americans’ interest in the plant, and maybe he was waiting for us to finance the improvements required for re-opening.
The manager didn’t pretend to know what the owner’s plans were for the chicken plant. He said he hoped it would re-open so he could do more than just smoke cigarettes all day. He said he appreciated the soldiers’ visits, that he felt safer with them around. Why he felt differently from the people at the garment factory wasn’t clear. He was in his seventies, and maybe he had learned the importance of picking one’s battles. Or maybe he just didn’t have any fight left in him. But he knew the soldiers were not there to do him harm, and maybe they would be able to help get the plant running again, so why not welcome them?
Maybe the manager of the chicken plant should have been put in charge of the garment factory.
The visits to the garment factory and the chicken plant could not be called encouraging. But the soldiers had survived another day. They had not encountered any bad guys, but not too many good guys either. The story could be told in pictures. A silent factory. Dusty sewing machines. A poster of a chicken. The soldiers would have preferred a different story, but it is up to the Iraqi people to bring the pictures to life. The good guys have to step forward and let their story be told. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-04-04T04:08:00.000-07:00

2008-03-28T05:34:00.000-07:00

More Money, More Problems

2008-03-28T05:31:00.000-07:00

March 28, 2008

A Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), made up of soldiers and State Department representatives, would appear to have one of the more fun and gratifying jobs in Iraq. They initiate or lend support to projects throughout a particular province, the goal being to make essential and lasting improvements to that province. I spent a day with the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) based at COB Speicher , their territory: the Salah ad Din province, and was reminded that no good deed goes unpunished, especially in Iraq.
The PRT was scheduled to meet with the mayor of Tikrit, and some of the local business people interested in being involved in the projects under discussion for the area. Many PRT projects are developed to help local workers, or provide jobs to those out of work, to strengthen the local economy. Good honest work. Who wouldn’t want to get involved?
As the meeting got underway, the mayor asked Joseph Pinon, of the State Department, what he had been up to, his tone suggesting he thought maybe Joe had been floating up and down the Tigris on a raft, working on his tan instead of on rebuilding Tikrit. Joe produced a stack of folders, each representing a project in some stage of development. It seemed strange that he should have to appease the mayor. All of these projects would benefit his city. And one could just as easily ask him what he had been up to. Would he have been able to produce as thick a stack of folders?
After this awkward start, the focus shifted to one of the projects that was, as of now, just pages in a folder. A farmers’ market.
A farmers’ market would obviously be an asset to local farmers and people shopping for fresh produce, but its construction was an opportunity for local contractors to make money. It would cost money to construct the market, but how much? The discussion went back and forth across the table. American dollars would be funding the project, but what would the city of Tikrit contribute? The mayor said the land will be donated, as if his generosity knew no bounds. But did the land in question really belong to the city, and who would take care of the maintenance of the property? How much would construction actually cost, and were we being quoted a fair price or were we being taken advantage of?
As enthusiasm for the discussion faded--not enough concrete figures for the Americans, too many for the Iraqis--three more businessmen joined the meeting. One sat beside Joe Pinon. He was the chairman of an investment committee. It benefitted him to attend a meeting with the PRT because then he would know which projects the Americans were initiating and funding, and he could send the investors he collaborated with in other directions. He was being given access to very useful information, but rather than appearing grateful, he, like the mayor, seemed annoyed. He too turned to Joe and asked what the PRT had to show for itself. It was almost as if he and the mayor had talked to each other before the meeting, and decided to have a little fun with the Americans.
An awkward silence filled the room and I waited for the soldiers to fill the man with bullets. They were too disciplined for that and instead shifted in their seats and watched to see where this is going. Joe mentioned a figure, a very large figure, which represented the amount of money the United States has poured into Iraq to help with the rebuilding process. The man laughed, and asked again to see some evidence, some proof that the money arrived and went where it was supposed to go. I had to give it to this guy; he knew how to make a meeting interesting.
A lot of money has gone missing in Iraq. Give piles of cash, yes cash, to anyone, anywhere, let alone Iraq in the middle of a war, and tell them to make sure the money makes it into honest hands, to legitimate projects. How much of that money will actually make it to its intended destination? There is proof that at least some of the money was used in the way it was intended. There are water treatment plants, clinics, schools, and numerous other developments across the country, but there should be more. We are to blame and the Iraqis are to blame. It is difficult for either side to trust the other at this stage because patterns have been established.
The State Department workers and the soldiers of the Provincial Reconstruction Team did their best to stick to the agenda of the meeting. They really did want more of the folders to represent actual finished projects. They wanted to be part of the solution and not part of the problem, but they needed some help from the Iraqis at the table. More assistance and less attitude.
It was hard to listen while hard-working, honest people were being belittled by the very people they were trying to help. At the same time, the Iraqis raised a question that deserved an answer. Where did all the money go? The meeting took place on the grounds of one of Saddam’s old palaces. The Birthday Palace. Apparently, he only spent one day out of the year here, his birthday. Iraqis are used to greed and corruption from the top down. Maybe they miss the old days, when all of that misdirected money at least resulted in a palace. A palace is a lot more impressive than a pile of folders. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-03-22T01:35:00.000-07:00

The 56 MPs, the CLC, and an MP3

2008-03-22T01:33:00.000-07:00

March 21, 2008

The 56 MPs, a Reserve Unit based in Arizona, have become very familiar with the area around Tikrit. They have worked closely with the Iraqi Police (IPs), helping them establish themselves at several stations around the city, and now they are doing the same with the CLC (Concerned Local Citizens, also known as the Sons of Iraq).
CLC groups are being formed by sheiks throughout Iraq as a way of increasing security in their communities. The American soldiers do their best to support these groups because they want the Iraqi citizens to play a part in policing each other. This should be what the Iraqis want also, but it will be some time before the citizens of Iraq fully trust the Sons of Iraq.
Because the development of the CLC groups is a work in progress, there is a sometimes a looseness about these groups. There is no agreed upon uniform used nationally, so some CLC members are more difficult to pick out of a police line-up than others, and some of these guys have done things that would land them in a police line-up. The lack of a standard uniform means it is possible for imposters to pose as CLC members and take advantage of innocent citizens.
When it comes to CLCs, there are two fairly safe assumptions that can be made: 1. Each chapter has some bad guys among its members, guys who may or may not have shed their criminal ways, and 2. At least one member in each chapter has some hip hop, probably Usher, downloaded on his cell phone.
The MPs had an appointment at a CLC headquarters where some weapons and explosives had been collected. This meant that theoretically the CLC had been on the job and found some bad stuff. Good for them! Or maybe it meant one of the CLC members had grown tired of having a pile of rockets and explosives in his living room, so he had pretended to discover the stuff in an abandoned house. No telling. Either way, the materials needed to be disposed of.
The sheik of the chapter arrived shortly after we did. He looked very young, but apparently had more money than anyone else chasing after the sheik title, so he won, sort of like Mayor Bloomberg. We enjoyed some chai in his office and everyone had a chance to say inshallah at least once.
The sheik wore an Iraqi Army uniform, as did many of the men in his group, which gave them perhaps a more legitimate air than they deserved because as soon as they noticed the female reporter traveling with the American soldiers, they fired up the Usher and there was some dancing. How pleased Usher would be to know he is helping the Sons of Iraq stay limber. And one American soldier. And the female reporter.
While we were cooling down, some of the more mature local citizens laid the accumulated weapons and explosives out on the ground, and Sergeants Shawn Peterson and Danny Schrader cataloged them. Among the materials was a length of clear, narrow tubing attached to a switch. These devices, called pressure switches, are filled with water, and when a vehicle drives over the tubing, the water gets pushed to a switch, tripping it and causing an explosion. American soldiers are very familiar with pressure switches.
The EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) team had been called, which meant we would be witnessing a large explosion. These controlled blasts can be a boost to morale because they are visible and audible evidence that another potentially deadly attack has been avoided.
The CLC members mobilized when the Americans explained it was time to get rid of the dangerous materials. They carefully loaded the weapons they had collected into the back of a Chevy truck, and followed our convoy and the EOD team to an area where an explosion of the size we were about to witness would not damage any homes or property.
After a tension-filled countdown of the final seconds, a loud boom followed by a cloud of smoke filled the air. Very satisfying. The CLC truck returned to its headquarters, and our convoy made its way back to COB (Contingency Operating Base) Speicher, weaving through the busy streets of Tikrit, and then onto the open road leading to the base, the soldiers always watching the roads, the cars, the people, for signs of danger.
If the CLC chapters throughout the country start to clean up their own backyard, the American soldiers will be their biggest fans. The 56 MPs want to take the CLC seriously and believe if they set a good example, the CLC will learn to follow it. Maybe the explosion we witnessed was a sign that this chapter is ready to take out the trash, ready to step in and do the job these MPs have been doing for months. That would be cause for celebration, with some dancing of course. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-03-22T01:22:00.000-07:00

2008-03-14T03:31:00.000-07:00

2008-03-14T03:29:00.000-07:00

Out All Night With Delta Company

2008-03-14T03:25:00.000-07:00

March 12, 2008

It is a sad fact that some of the hardest working people in Iraq are the insurgents. But the American soldiers wrote the book on hard work. During a deployment there are no days off. And when a convoy rolls out at 8:00 pm, it isn’t to go clubbing.
Led by Lieutenant Eric King, the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion’s Delta Company left JSS (Joint Support Station) Love to see what the farmland south of Samarra might produce at night. We would be visiting four houses--one, the home of a good guy, and three that had been identified as locations where bad guys were staying.
In some cases it is easier to sneak up on a target at night, but when you are talking about moving three huge diesel-powered MRAPs through country that might see only the occasional pickup truck or car in the course of a day, the element of surprise is probably lost as soon as the rumble of the engines grows louder than the sound of sheep breathing.
There is always an awkwardness that accompanies a surprise visit to a house. This is compounded after dark, when everyone has settled in for the night. While Lieutenant King talked to one member of the first household privately, the rest of the family was gathered in the living room and watched over by the soldiers, and no one knew what to say or do.
In the dim light provided by a lantern, the stark living conditions were impossible to ignore. There was no furniture in the living room. Blankets and padded mats were all that separated the residents of the house from the cold ground.
To ease the tension in the room, a baby was produced from the shadows and presented as some kind of proof that life was not so bad here. A cell phone rang, out of harmony with the simplicity of the setting. The phone belonged to an older man who ignored the ringing and showed the phone to the sleepy baby in an attempt to extract a smile.
Two other houses produced no obvious bad guys. The inhabitants were questioned while dogs barked outside, angry at having to work harder at guarding the sheep due to the arrival of the late night guests.
The fourth home appeared to be empty. The soldiers gathered at the metal door, but no one responded to the loud knocking and then kicking. The door was jammed shut so a second door was tried. This one opened, revealing a woman and several children gathered together under several blankets, huddled together for warmth, and probably out of fear. A kitten poked through some dishes at the edge of the room, then snuck past the soldiers and out the door.
The soldiers reassured the woman she would not be hurt. They explained that they only wanted to ask her some questions. Where was her husband? She said he was in jail. How did she support her family? She gestured to the land around her, but how much food could be produced in packed dust? And her children did not look capable of helping, both because they were too young and clearly not thriving.
The soldiers were saddened by the situation. They had not wanted to scare innocent people or add to their suffering. One soldier, Sergeant Joey Schuett, dug into his wallet and gave the woman what he could. The interpreter followed his example. Who knew what she thought of this strange turn of events. She seemed to believe the soldiers were only trying to help. It was impossible to tell how the children felt about the late night disturbance; their expressions ranged from vacant to listless.
The night out had been revealing, not because it exposed any insurgents but because it exposed the vulnerability of the people who lived out in the farmland. Anyone passing through could take advantage of their isolation. How easy it would be for someone to force his way into the last house, where the woman was alone with her children, and take cover until he was ready to move on. And the cell phone in the first house. Why was it ringing at that late hour?
The MRAPs made deep tracks in the soil as the convoy slowly distanced itself from the huts that were claimed again by the darkness. The heavy trucks fought against the uneven terrain. After what seemed like hours, I glanced out the rear window and saw a flash of light which was followed by a deep and convincing boom. The second truck in the convoy had run over an IED (Improvised Explosive Device).
The soldiers quickly assessed the damage to the vehicle and themselves. The MRAP had done its job; no one was hurt. A wave of relief swept through the trucks. It appeared the IED had been triggered by the weight of the MRAP when it rolled over the device. A tire was destroyed, and there was some internal damage, but overall the truck had done well. The explosion had created a crater that was about 4’ x 7’ wide, and, had the soldiers been in a humvee, the results would have been devastating.
The IED had halted the convoy just after midnight. When the dust settled there was nothing to do but wait for another convoy to arrive with a wrecker that would tow the disabled MRAP back to the base. How long could that take?
At 2:00 am the thrill of witnessing an explosion that had not hurt anyone was gone. And though the MRAP gets high marks for withstanding such attacks, it fails miserably in the passenger comfort department. The rear seats were not designed to accommodate adults wearing body armor. At best, they might comfortably hold young soccer players wearing shin guards. A soldier named Brian Castro, who had told me all about his little boy at home, gave up trying to get comfortable in his seat and slid to the floor.
Hours passed and still we waited. The road was not easily accessible, running between two canals. But still. At some point the waiting turned into something more cruel. Minutes were being stolen from future days.
Finally, as the sun came up, the second convoy arrived, and after much maneuvering the journey home resumed. By 8:00 am we were safely home. Somehow spending the night in an MRAP had been more exhausting than a night of clubbing.
The people of the farmland had their night interrupted thanks to our late visit. Our night had been interrupted thanks to an IED. Interruptions are hardly ever welcomed but sometimes they are a useful reminder of what came before, and how things can change for the better. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-03-14T03:21:00.000-07:00

2008-03-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

Starring Colonel Faisal

2008-03-07T21:34:00.000-08:00

March 8, 2008
Maybe all wars breed impatience. After all, who wouldn’t want to get to the part where peace breaks out? The war in Iraq is not unlike a big budget movie, a movie gone straight to DVD because it went a little long and dragged in the middle. If this were a movie, it would be hard to resist the temptation to hit the fast forward button to see how it turns out.
And like a major motion picture, the war in Iraq has a cast of characters, some of whom are so compelling, they steal the show.
Colonel Faisal, commanding officer of an Iraqi Army (IA) battalion located next door to the 2nd Battalion’s Delta Company at JSS (Joint Support Station) Love, is center stage in the drama taking place in the area south of Samarra. Colonel Faisal is the sort of character actors would be fighting for the chance to play.
Any Iraqi who works with the Coalition Forces is putting his life in danger. The people who know this and continue to work with us are exhibiting a rare kind of courage. Colonel Faisal is working with American soldiers to build the Iraqi Army into a formidable force. His relationship with the soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade extends back to their last deployment, in Kirkuk, where he worked with Major Chris Kidd, then of the MiTT (Military Transition Team) Team.
Colonel Faisal spends a lot of time these days with Captain Nathan Hicks, commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion’s Delta Company. They share many goals and responsibilities. Recently, both men attended a memorial service for a member of the CLC (Concerned Local Citizens) who was killed in the line of duty. Local sheiks organize and supervise CLC groups, which provide security to their communities. The loss of one of their members brought many sheiks from the area together. By taking the time to pay their condolences, Colonel Faisal and Captain Hicks were doing their part to promote a sense of solidarity between forces, and to further legitimize the CLC as a vital component in Iraq’s security system.
It might seem as though the days in Iraq are filled with nothing but violence and sorrow. The country does have more than its share of both, but there is also a lot of laughter, especially when Colonel Faisal is in the room. The smart person knows the importance of balance, and Colonel Faisal is very smart. He knows when to put aside his burdens and have some fun.
During my stay at JSS Love, Captain Hicks and I were invited to dine with Colonel Faisal three times. Our first meal included kabobs, a popular meat dish, several vegetable dishes, and bread. Colonel Faisal noticed I wasn’t eating the kabobs. I explained through Jerry, our interpreter, that I was a vegetarian. Colonel Faisal was devastated by the information. He didn’t want me to go hungry, which wasn’t really a possibility, there was plenty of food, so he sent one of his soldiers out for falafel. The meal was as good as the company, and I was happy to hear we were invited back the following night.
Our second dinner was more impressive than the first, and this time Major Chris Kidd, Colonel Faisal’s old friend, joined us. The table was filled with vegetarian dishes. I was touched by Colonel Faisal’s thoughtfulness. During the meal, the men talked about soldier stuff, but they also talked about cooking. In Iraq, it is considered shameful for a man to help his wife in the kitchen. Colonel Faisal teased Captain Hicks when he admitted to occasionally helping his wife, but it was hard to take the Colonel seriously when he gone to so much trouble to make sure I, the only woman in the group, had enough to eat.
It is a privilege to break bread with our Iraqi friends. They are generous and warm, and want nothing more than to make their guests feel welcomed and cared for. Colonel Faisal embraced his role as host in the same way he embraces his role as a commanding officer.
A veteran of the Iraqi Army under Saddam Hussein’s rule, Colonel Faisal has endured some challenging times, but he has clearly not let those years get the best of him. At forty-five, he is the father of three young children and is obviously invested in the future of Iraq. During our third meal together, Colonel Faisal asked some hard questions, questions that revealed the depth of his concern for his country and its people.
What would it take to make the children of Iraq happy? Colonel Faisal waited patiently for a reply. I had often wondered about the children. How do they cope in a time of war? How much of the violence touches them? Is happiness even a possibility? There are children all over Iraq—often all it takes is an American convoy to draw them out. They might be barefoot in the cold. They might ask for a football. Would shoes and footballs make them happy? They might smile for a picture. When they smile, are they happy?
Captain Hicks pointed out an advantage Iraqi children have over American children—strong family ties that extend far beyond one household. It must be reassuring to have a place at more than one table. In spite of harsh realities that find them at far too young an age, the children of Iraq seem at least to experience moments of happiness. The challenge is to help them maintain a sense of hope for the future, their future.
Colonel Faisal also wanted to know why the Democrats were not interested in pursuing the terrorists in Iraq, alluding to discussions on the campaign trail in the United States regarding the reduction of troop levels in his country. People like Colonel Faisal, who want to clean up Iraq, and who understand how useful a partner the American forces can be, also understand how hard it will be to continue the fight alone. From his point of view, if the United States significantly cuts the number of troops in Iraq, the terrorists will be free to go about their evil business. And he will be forced to attend more memorial services.
Iraq is a country full of people who deserve a safe and fulfilling life. Just as we don’t always think of the lives our soldiers are putting on hold while they are deployed in Iraq, we don’t try to consider the lives the Iraqis have put on hold until their country becomes more stable.
Laughing over falafel with Colonel Faisal was more fun than winning a date with a movie star. He makes it very difficult to imagine how we can walk away from all of this. If only this were a movie. Then Colonel Faisal and all of the good people of Iraq would find a way to triumph over the bad guys, because in movies the good guys always win. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-03-07T21:30:00.000-08:00

2008-03-07T21:26:00.000-08:00

2008-03-01T04:52:00.000-08:00

2008-03-01T04:49:00.000-08:00

Down on the Farm

2008-03-01T04:47:00.000-08:00

March 1, 2008
In a war like the one our soldiers are fighting in Iraq, looks can be deceiving. An American soldier with the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade is generally pretty easy to identify. He wears a digital camouflage uniform and he travels in a dust-colored humvee or MRAP (Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected). The enemy, on the other hand, could be anyone.
The bad guys have plenty of uniforms to choose from. Every organized security force in Iraq harbors some insurgents. And just as many wear no uniform, blending in with the civilian population, both the guilty and the innocent. Try studying a face, any face in Iraq, and determining whether the person you are looking at is a friend or an enemy. It isn’t easy.
The farmland outside the city of Samarra looks peaceful and calm. Our convoy doesn’t make sense here. Cows shift an eye toward the MRAPs. Chickens scatter nervously. It would appear our arrival, with Scouts dismounting from each vehicle and fanning out to secure the area, has shattered the calm. What could the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion’s Charlie Company possibly want with the people living in these modest houses and huts? Life must be hard enough without having to put up with armed, uninvited guests.
Uninvited the soldiers may be, but unexpected they are not. An Iraqi male on a motorcycle has been following the convoy during the week, and has no doubt been informing others of the soldiers’ whereabouts. A source has told the soldiers there is a cell dedicated to tracking their movements, and not so a party could be thrown in their honor. Hidden beneath the calm is an enemy presence that has used remote areas like this farmland to hide people and weapons. Recent discoveries have caused Coalition Forces to focus more of their efforts on seeing what else they can dig up in the country.
The soldiers approach a girl who appears to be alone at a small farmhouse. This in itself is unusual. More often than not there are more people than one would expect tucked away in these houses. And usually the soldiers are presented with a pretty good poker face. But this girl is visibly shaken, scared and crying. The interpreter tries to reassure her that the soldiers will do her no harm, but she acts as though their arrival is the sound of the other shoe dropping.
The women and children are the wildcards here. Usually any bad business would be conducted by the men, but in confined quarters like most of these people live in it is difficult to imagine everyone doesn’t know everything.
Some females seem to hide behind their role, embrace their status as second class citizens. They know we know they aren’t supposed to know anything, but their smiles suggest they are full of secrets. They must enjoy the power this knowledge gives them.
In these rural communities the residents are usually related, or members of the same tribe. They might share a vehicle. Certainly they share information. If bad people show up, if they hide or bury weapons or explosives in the area, can the locals possibly be oblivious to this activity? And if one knows, wouldn’t they all know? But something keeps them from sharing what they know. Fear? Probably. And maybe the soldiers in their MRAPs are just too foreign. How can they be made to understand the vulnerability that comes from living in a place where the bad guys can hide from the good guys, but the residents cannot hide from anyone.
During the patrol, the motorcycle is abandoned. At a house nearby, two males are questioned. One is asked if he is the owner of the motorcycle; it seems he must be, but he denies it, and doesn’t pretend to want to be helpful.
After several stops, none particularly fruitful, the soldiers are frustrated. There is something lurking beneath the surface here, something that is causing the residents to behave strangely, sometimes revealing more of themselves than is expected, sometimes less.
And the abandoned motorcycle? With no one willing to step forward and claim it, no one willing to explain why he had been following the convoy, there seems to be no choice but to destroy it. One of the gunners shoots it up with his 50 Cal., and the soldiers enjoy watching it burn.
The people of the area had no doubt been warned or enticed into cooperating with the bad guys. By destroying the motorcycle, the soldiers are not only making life a little more difficult for the bad guys, but sending a message to anyone who assists them.
It will take a steady and increased presence in these rural areas to persuade the local population they are not alone if they choose to stand up and fight the enemy. Maybe it seems easier to turn a blind eye to the insurgent activity around them, but the insurgents will only stick around until they have destroyed whatever or whomever it is they wanted to destroy. Our soldiers, on the other hand, will keep coming back until everyone feels safe.
The Scouts of Charlie Company are patient. They have talked to a lot of people in Iraq, and some have begun to respond. The soldiers are receiving more tips and useful information from locals than they have in the past, enabling them to stop insurgents in their tracks. They will continue to talk to people and these conversations will begin to bear more and more fruit. The soldiers may look intimidating, with their body armor and their weapons, but it only takes spending a little time with them to know they want the best for the people of Iraq. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-03-01T04:42:00.000-08:00

2008-03-01T04:39:00.000-08:00

2008-03-01T04:34:00.000-08:00

2008-02-22T09:29:00.000-08:00

Boe Knows

2008-02-22T09:11:00.000-08:00

February 22, 2008

We are all familiar with the concept of stress. Who among us is not living with some level of stress? We are even familiar with the term Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, especially now that soldiers have been to Iraq and Afghanistan, and some, upon returning home, have exhibited symptoms of PTSD. And just as stress is a word that gets thrown around a lot, PTSD is a label that is easily slapped on any soldier, and soldiers have enough to carry; they don’t need the added weight of our assumptions and judgments.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is very real. There are many soldiers who will be legitimately diagnosed with PTSD, and probably just as many who will go undiagnosed, or who won’t exhibit the symptoms until later, maybe much later.
There are soldiers trained to help fellow soldiers with the pressures that come from being deployed in a warzone. At COB Speicher in Tikrit, the 85th Medical Detachment Combat Stress Control Unit occupies an unassuming building across the street from the heavily-trafficked PX and fast food restaurants—perhaps the more popular outlets for stress: shopping and eating.
“Combat stress” might suggest that the source of stress in a warzone is always combat-related. Certainly there are soldiers who go outside the wire regularly, and who encounter IEDs or small arms fire at least some of the time, soldiers who might be experts on that type of stress. But generally much of the stress experienced in a combat zone is more a byproduct of just being away from home. The base becomes a second home, and it is hard to keep house in two places thousands of miles apart.
Many of the soldiers in Iraq now have been to Iraq before. Many were here for twelve months (often more than once), home for twelve months (some of those spent training for the next deployment), and now they are back in Iraq for fifteen months. Fifteen is the new twelve. Fifteen months is a long time to be away from one’s family and friends and familiar surroundings. And freedom.
In some ways, life is simple while deployed. Every day is about work and working out, eating and sleeping. All of the mundane chores associated with life back in the States fall away. Which is where it gets complicated. Those left at home feel… left. Running a household alone, especially if this includes raising children, is not easy. And all of this is compounded by the worrying that comes with being a part of a deployed soldier’s life.
Just about every base in Iraq, large or small, has a room or building with phones and computers soldiers can use to stay in touch. There is no privacy, and it is almost impossible not to overhear pieces of phone conversations, especially when they become heated. Many arguments are about money. Many relationships that were not so solid to begin with cannot be held together with phone calls and e-mail messages. A soldier may feel stuck in time, every day the same, but at home life goes on, whether the soldier is there or not. All of this is out of his or her control, which is not a good feeling.
At the Combat Stress Control building, soldiers will find a kind and sympathetic ear. Sometimes just giving voice to the nagging frustrations and pressures that build from one month to the next is enough to lighten the load. Captain Bret Moore, with a doctorate in psychology and on his second deployment, and other members of the team can offer support and stress management solutions, and obviously they have their own experiences to draw from that help deepen their understanding of deployment-related issues.
Sometimes help is hard to ask for. Soldiers are trained to endure situations and conditions that would break most of us, so they might feel asking for help is a sign of weakness. This is when it is helpful to have another sort of expert available. The Combat Stress Control Unit has just such an expert. Her name is Boe, and she is a licensed therapy dog who is an expert at giving and receiving love and affection.
Boe was a gift to the 101st from a non-profit organization called VetDogs, which has developed a program dedicated to training dogs to work with soldiers. Many of the dogs are trained to help disabled veterans, but recently the program expanded and on December 25, 2007, Boe and Budge, another therapy dog, made the trip to Iraq to offer that kind of support that only an animal can to active-duty soldiers.
Sergeant Mike Calaway flew to New York to the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, which VetDogs is a part of, and spent a week with the dogs learning what they are capable of and how to work with them. Budge is at a base in Northern Iraq, and Boe is with Mike at Speicher. Boe is a gentle black Labrador Retriever, who often roams the halls of the Combat Stress Control building carrying her favorite teddy bear in her mouth.
The addition of a therapy dog like Boe to the staff at the Combat Stress Control Unit is significant. She and Budge are the first dogs being used in a combat zone for this purpose, and hopefully will pave the way for more dogs at more bases. Soldiers who would never think of entering the CSC building to seek help might stop by to visit with Boe. And when the members of the CSC team go out to talk to groups of soldiers about combat stress, a guest appearance by Boe helps break the ice and provides the perfect excuse for soldiers who need an excuse to visit the CSC.
It is impossible to predict how the war in Iraq, with its particular brand of violence and injuries, and its multiple deployments, will affect the soldiers in the long term. Many of them will be affected forever by what happened while they were in Iraq, but as Captain Moore says, “This doesn’t mean they are broken, just changed.”
It would be nice if the war in Iraq changed all of us. It would be nice if it taught us to treat each other better, to help each other with our burdens, instead of adding to them. It would be nice if it taught us to live more simply, instead of surrounding ourselves with status symbols and distractions. Boe knows these things. We need more Boes. More Boes equals less woes.
For more information about therapy dogs and the work of VetDogs and the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, please refer to: www.vetdogs.org and www.guidedog.org. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-02-21T22:27:00.000-08:00

2008-02-15T07:55:00.000-08:00

Back and Forth with the Sheiks of Bayji

2008-02-15T07:53:00.000-08:00

February 15, 2008

What is an acceptable amount of violence? In a warzone there would appear to be no right answer. The number of U.S. casualties is relatively small compared to other wars, but the number continues to grow, and for anyone connected to any of these casualties, the number is too high.
Many Americans are lucky enough to be able to endure the war in Iraq from a safe distance, never knowing how it feels to lose a son or father, a brother or husband, or a best friend, to violence. Is there anyone in Iraq who knows this kind of luck?
Every day somewhere in Iraq people are meeting to discuss the violence that keeps Iraq from moving forward. The city of Bayji is no different. Recently Captain Tim Meadors, of the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade, met with a group of sheiks to discuss the tensions that plague the city while members of the 1st Battalion’s Alpha Company stood guard.
The sheiks present at the meeting were all family leaders from the same tribe. They complained of feeling vulnerable and victimized because the Bayji police force is comprised of members of a different tribe, whom they feel are using their position to commit crimes for which they will never be punished.
One by one, Iraqi women shrouded in black were brought into the room where the meeting took place to recite their losses. Usually women are kept in the shadows, but obviously the sheiks believed theirs was not the only voice that needed to be heard. One of the women asked Captain Meadors why the American soldiers had allowed her son to be killed.
In a more perfect Iraq, our soldiers would leave the detention and prosecution of anti-Coalition forces to the Iraqi police and soldiers. In the Iraq that we’re dealing with today, we might detain an Iraqi whom we consider suspicious, worthy of further questioning, but if he is handed over to the Iraqi authorities for this part of the process, the detainee may wind up dead. And then we are faced with a grieving and furious mother.
It is true that the Bayji police force does not accurately reflect the tribes of the city. But is this our fault? Is it possible to correct the problem? Can members of different tribes work together? Of course they can if they want to badly enough, if they are sufficiently fed up with the status quo.
Across Iraq there has been a movement among sheiks to do something to reduce the amount of violence in their country. In their towns and cities, they have formed groups called the Awakening Council, made up of men who act as another layer of security. Recently, our forces have tried to support this effort, calling these groups Concerned Local Citizens (CLC).
Because the CLC groups are formed under the supervision of area sheiks, they offer each tribe better representation. In Bayji, the hope is that some CLC members will evolve into police officers and help create a more balanced police force. That is the hope. The reality is that some CLC members sign up simply for the power that comes with the position. CLC groups man checkpoints throughout the city, checkpoints where abuses of power can occur—against members of other tribes, and against us. If they are the ones watching the road, they can choose to look the other way when IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) are placed in the road, or they can set them up themselves.
The day after the meeting with the sheiks, Captain Meadors and Lieutenant Colonel Pete Wilhelm met with CLC leaders, the Mayor, and the Chief of Police of Bayji. The goal, similar to that of the sheiks’ meeting, was to acknowledge that everyone who plays a part in the city’s leadership shares in the responsibility of putting a stop to the violence.
One of the sheiks present pointed out that there are members of the police department, members of the Iraqi Army, and members of the CLC who commit acts of violence against the Iraqi people and Coalition Forces. And each of these three forces has also been known to attack the others. So if the security situation in Iraq is a glass, it is half empty, and you should probably stick to bottled water if you are thirsty.
Everyone in Iraq has been touched by violence. At a very early age, Iraqis learn that life brings with it a certain amount of loss. It is how they decide to respond to that loss that will determine whether or not their quality of life will improve.
At the sheiks’ meeting, it was clear that even while Captain Meadors lobbied for peaceful solutions and cooperation between tribes, they were not ready to let go of their anger. Sometimes anger is a useful shield against grief and sorrow, but sometimes it is nothing but an obstacle and a waste of energy.
It is important to remember that justice as we know it is a fairly new concept in Iraq. Where revenge usually rules, it may take awhile to trust in a system that assumes everyone is equal, and no one is above the law.
Earlier in the same week as the sheiks’ meeting and the CLC meeting, a wedding had taken place, and those present had been out celebrating. It is customary to fire shots in the air as part of the festivities (and yes, our soldiers have included “weddings” on their mental checklist of reasons why they might be hearing gunshots on certain days of the week). Enthusiastic members of the wedding party had encountered equally enthusiastic members of the CLC, and the celebration turned deadly for at least one person. This is the sort of occurrence that makes us shake our heads and wonder if this is a country beyond repair.
The Bayji Police Chief drafted a law stating that wedding celebrants are not to fire gunshots as part of the celebration from now on. If shots are fired, the groom will spend his first night as a married man in jail. The Mayor smiled and nodded his head in approval when the proposed law and punishment were presented.
Embracing the future doesn’t have to mean forgetting the past, but in Iraq, it may be time to put some traditions to rest. Time to replace bullets with birdseed. Time to say enough is enough. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-02-15T07:50:00.000-08:00

2008-02-15T07:48:00.000-08:00

2008-02-08T22:40:00.000-08:00

The War at the BOR

2008-02-08T22:38:00.000-08:00

February 8, 2008

Often, it seems, the busiest soldiers in Iraq enjoy the sparest living conditions. There is a small patrol base set up on the property of the Bayji Oil Refinery (the BOR) where soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade live and breathe Iraq’s most valuable resource. Commanding Officer Captain Joe DaSilva and Captain Steve Wright know more than most of us would ever imagine a soldier should have to know about oil production and distribution. And the soldiers of the 1st Battalion’s HHC (Headquarters and Headquarters Company) work to ensure that all runs smoothly at the BOR, which keeps them busy. Very busy.
A typical day begins with a trip to the gate, the entrance to the BOR, where soldiers from the Iraqi Army (IA) manage the traffic into and out of the facility. Some Iraqi soldiers are more driven than others. These guys are flagging. Indeed, a meeting conducted over orange drink juice boxes confirmed that there were morale issues, related mostly to staffing and equipment shortages, and also a general malaise perhaps associated with always being surrounded by gas, living in a world lit day and night by gas. Excess propane is burned around the clock, at least one precise orange flame always beating like a silk flag atop a tower visible from miles away.
Each of Iraq’s provinces has a specific day (or days) when they are permitted to send tanker trucks to the BOR to be filled with gas or another refined product. The Iraqi soldiers must guard against trespassers; attempts to breach the system are frequent. Truckers try to get in out of turn, civilians try to get in though only select civilian vehicles are supposed to be allowed through the gate, everyone has an angle or an excuse, all of which seem to weaken the IA’s resolve.
Soldiers like Lieutenant Michael Saur, who during this visit found himself nursing a cold as well as the IA, listen to the issues and concerns raised by the IA, and try to help them strive for a higher standard of performance in spite of the obstacles.
In addition to monitoring gate security, our soldiers also pay regular and frequent visits to the pumps where the tankers trucks line up and wait. The trucks are there for hours, giving the soldiers an opportunity to see what the drivers have to say. Some complain of being forced to pay for their space in line. Apparently someone claiming to be a guard has positioned himself outside the gate and convinced the drivers it would be easier to pay than protest. Now the soldiers will have to develop a strategy for preventing extortionists from interrupting the flow of traffic to the BOR.
There is no more valuable and plentiful product in Iraq than the gas that leaves the Refinery every day in tanker trucks. Terrorists, government officials, gas station owners, and of course the truck drivers themselves are unable to resist the money and the power that comes with controlling where the gas goes. One of the ongoing challenges facing Captains DaSilva and Wright involves accounting for all of the gas that is pumped into those tanker trucks.
When a truck is filled up, the amount of fuel it receives is recorded. When the truck arrives at its destination, most often a gas station, the amount of fuel it delivers is recorded. These numbers should be the same, but funny things happen, and a simple math equation becomes a convoluted word problem. Sometimes the number itself is recorded but the truck leaves without delivering the fuel to the gas station, and it is sold on the black market instead.
It should be easy to spot discrepancies, but when they are discovered, the drivers and gas station owners questioned, even arrested, the punishment is never so severe as to act as a deterrent. And with so much money at stake, it is possible to buy one’s way through the system, a system which seems deliberately primitive and flawed.
The Chief Operating Officer of the BOR, Mr. A---, himself a study in refinement, acknowledges the corruption but there is little he can do about it. He is responsible for production, not distribution. Still, he knows that any truck leaving the Refinery might be a player in one of Iraq’s biggest problems, carrying the product that should be the solution to all of its problems.
Mr. A--- himself feels pressure from all sides. His job is to make sure the Refinery runs at or near capacity. He has succeeded. But buried in the fine print of his job description, written in invisible ink, is the ever-growing list of people he must try to please, or try not to anger, or try to work with rather than fight against. These people make outrageous demands, asking for everything from furniture to cars, demands he says he tries to meet about fifty percent of the time. “I cannot refuse all the time. I cannot agree all the time,” he explains in his perfect English.
Captain Ali, head of Bayji’s ESU (Emergency Services Unit), a specially trained branch of the Iraqi Police Force, is as fiery and intense as Mr. A--- is cool and collected. Lieutenant Trent Teague and members of his platoon visited Captain Ali at his home, which has the feeling of a men’s club with an edge. Members of the ESU hang on the perimeter of the room as if waiting to receive orders. On the walls are pictures of relatives and ESU members killed in the line of duty. Recently a VBIED (vehicle-borne improvised explosive device) exploded near Captain Ali’s house, killing many civilians and one of his men.
The violence and losses Captain Ali has experienced seem to have galvanized him. “His heart is dead; he has no fear,” says Fadi, one of our interpreters, and he appears not to, ready to name names, ready to take on anyone he sees as doing wrong. He embraces the American soldiers, happy to have an ally in his war.
During our visit, Captain Ali’s young nephew wandered into the living room and over to his uncle, who pulled him into his lap and held onto him as if trying to recapture his own boyhood innocence, which he undoubtedly lost too soon. The boy sat silently while his uncle discussed the death and violence that fill his world, and it looked like the boy’s days of innocence would be cut short too.
The HHC soldiers who call the patrol base at the Bayji Oil Refinery home are fighting a different kind of war. The enemy is corruption. The enemy is everywhere. Even the otherwise innocent people who buy black market gas from the boys who sell it on the side of the road are helping the enemy. The only way to make headway against so relentless and pervasive an enemy is to be equally relentless and pervasive. This means maintaining a constant presence in and around the BOR. This means frequent foot patrols and meetings with Refinery personnel and security forces. This means there is very little time off, very little time for the soldiers to realize how much they are doing without. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-02-08T22:33:00.000-08:00

2008-02-08T22:27:00.000-08:00

2008-01-20T01:14:00.000-08:00

The Squeaky Wheel

2008-01-18T09:30:00.000-08:00

January 18, 2008

The Bayji JSS
It has been brought to my attention that I am a bit of a complainer. Captain Mike Sykes points this out every time I see him. Mike is the person in charge of getting me off the base, finding me a seat in any convoy embarking on a mission or patrol that might be of interest to me. Lately, I think his only interest has been in getting me off FOB (Forward Operating Base) Summerall period. So when Mike arranged for me to spend the night at a crappy little base (I know, I know) in Bayji, I was afraid I would never get to see the inside of my beloved VIP trailer again.
The convoy pulled into the Bayji JSS (Joint Support Station) and slowed down just long enough to push me out. Okay, it wasn’t quite like that. The trucks did come to a complete stop. Everybody got out. Mike was traveling with Major Brad Mock and Lieutenant Colonel Pete Wilhelm, so he had to behave himself. He couldn’t laugh diabolically while I took in my accommodations and fought the urge to beg him to let me go with them. After an MRE (Meals-Ready-To-Eat) picnic, Mike, Brad and Pete headed back to the parked trucks. Pete turned to me and said, “We’ll see you in a week.” What? A week? Was Pete in on Mike’s evil plan?
I turned to face the building, the Joint Support Station. It seemed to lean to the left, struggling under the weight of the sandbags that were stacked on the flat roof. In front of the building was a charred rectangle where the mess hall had stood until recently. It burned down in a suspicious fire, and a new one was in the planning stages.
The 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade’s 1st Battalion’s Alpha Company, an MP unit, and Iraqi interpreters and police officers all stay at the JSS, which is right in the city and often a target. The soldiers rotate back and forth between FOB Summerall and the JSS, usually in five day shifts, and I do not envy them. I met a couple of female soldiers who became my heroes for putting up with the challenging conditions.
My goal was to try not to complain during my time at the JSS. No, seriously. But with its camp-like atmosphere, its spotty heating system, its lack of a VIP trailer, I figured the only way I was going to meet my goal was by not talking.
I set my backpack down on a cot in a dark room—a cell, really--wedged between two other rooms. One of the adjoining rooms housed at least four Iraqi interpreters, and the other was occupied by soldiers. My room was not much warmer than the outdoors, where it was somewhere in the forties. Alpha Company’s commanding officer, Captain Tim Meadors, had said we would be going out later in the day, so I had time to kill, but I would not be killing it here.
The MPs take turns monitoring the entrance to the building. They check IDs, pat visitors down, and try to pretend it’s not that bad, sitting outside in the cold waiting for their shift to end. I stood outside and observed until I couldn’t feel my feet, then went back inside and upstairs to the living room, if you can call it that, where soldiers and Iraqis tried to relax, heating up Hot Pocket after Hot Pocket in the microwave. We watched Superbad, and it felt good to laugh, although I also feared this might be the highlight of my stay.
At about 7:30 pm, we finally left the base to pay a visit to a local sheik. It was 8:30 by the time we found his house. The electricity hadn’t come on, and the room wasn’t heated, so we sat stiffly in plastic chairs while the captain and the sheik talked with the help of an interpreter, their faces lit by flashlights and headlamps. There didn’t seem to be any urgency to the conversation or the visit. We left after about twenty minutes, having accomplished I don’t know what. Supposedly the sheik was a friend, but why descend upon a friend’s house unannounced, scaring his family and disturbing the neighborhood, if only for a brief chat? Much of what goes on here is confusing.
Next we had to make a stop at FOB Summerall. That’s right. Home of my beloved VIP trailer. We were picking up the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) team and escorting them back to the Bayji JSS, where there were some explosives that needed to be taken care of. Oh the despair I felt when we pulled into the parking lot at Summerall. I thought about making a break for it, but knew Mike would never let me live it down if I cut short my JSS trip, so I stayed in the truck and tried not to think about my lovely private bathroom, the abundance of heat, the solitude.
Morning could not come fast enough. The Iraqi interpreters had loaned me one of their space heaters, so the night was not as cold as it could have been, but still I had kept my coat and hat on all night.
As I wandered through the building trying to shake off the night’s chill, trying to figure out why the soldiers weren’t furious about their living conditions, an Iraqi spirited me into a room where he and his friends were having breakfast. The cheese and bread tasted delicious. We drank chai, and talked through an interpreter, and they said they were committed to working with us, and I wanted to believe them. The interpreter didn’t want his picture taken--many don’t--always a reminder of the dangers facing those who work with us.
There seemed to be no plans that included me (perhaps word had spread to Bayji that I was a complainer), so once again I positioned myself near the entrance to the JSS, where a handful of soldiers lingered. One of the interpreters, Alex, who would love to move to the United States one day, pulled out a list of English words he found difficult to pronounce, hoping for some assistance. At the top of the list was “Congratulations.” I couldn’t think of a reason why he would ever need to use that word; the words used most often here have only four letters.
After a long day of standing around with the MPs, watching them manage the flow of traffic into and out of the building, and then watching Crash with a few of them, Day Two at the JSS finally drew to a close, and I got into a convoy headed back to Summerall. Or so I thought.

2008-01-18T09:03:00.000-08:00

The Drive Home
Some of the convoys now include a relatively new vehicle called an MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected), which is designed to withstand IED explosions better than a humvee. The soldiers seem to like the idea of a safer vehicle, but since most of them still have to travel in humvees, their excitement is limited. I was traveling in the MRAP in our convoy, and became fairly well acquainted with its interior. It is more spacious than a humvee, but still doesn’t seem designed to accommodate soldiers wearing body armor.
We left the Bayji JSS at about 8:00 pm, and were scheduled to make a stop at an Iraqi checkpoint which had been hit by an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade). There had been no damage to the checkpoint, and no one had been hurt, so we moved on. Briefly.
A call had come in from the IPs (Iraqi Police), who thought they had spotted an IED, so our convoy was sent to check it out. The IP truck was parked down a deserted narrow stretch of road lined with tall grass. A perfect place for an ambush.
Two soldiers, Ryan Rockriver and Chris Gardner, were sitting in the back of the MRAP with me. Ryan and I tried to look out the side windows to get an idea of what was going on outside, but the windows were too small and too close to the ceiling, so we sat back down and listened to Chris and the gunner argue over which state was better, Texas or California. Then the driver got involved and there was a moment of silence while they tried to figure out if there was anything to say, good or bad, about Idaho.
The soldiers who had taken a look at the IP’s discovery determined that it was worth calling out the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) team to have a look, which meant we had signed up for at least another hour, probably two, of waiting.
Ryan and Chris were beginning to fidget in their seats. We had been out longer than expected, and they needed to tinkle. In situations like this, soldiers usually just hop out of the truck and everyone politely looks in the other direction, but it’s not easy to hop out of an MRAP--they are much higher off the ground—and the area did seem dicey. So the search began for empty bottles. Having found two suitable for the task, Ryan and Chris went to opposite corners and I covered my face with my helmet. It was sort of a bonding experience.
The EOD team arrived at about 10:30 pm, and, with the help of their robot, determined the IPs had found a mine. They cleared an area for a controlled blast, and once the mine was taken care of we resumed our journey to FOB Summerall.
It was midnight when we rolled through the gates. The VIP trailer had been reserved for another VIP, an actual VIP, so I had been booked into a room in the Battalion headquarters. While it didn’t have its own bathroom, there was a TV, and I was really just looking forward to some quiet time, a good night’s sleep, but one of the beds was occupied by a guy. One of the beds was occupied by a guy? What? Was this another of Mike’s little tests to see what I was made of?
Turns out Rusty was a private contractor waiting for a flight out. He was a very sociable fellow who talked and asked questions while I unpacked my backpack and wondered if I could somehow sneak back into the VIP trailer and ask the real VIP if I could bunk with him. I also wondered how I was going to recover sufficiently in time to convince Mike I had enjoyed a lovely visit at the Bayji JSS and my complaining days were over.
As much as I complain, I always learn something, either about myself or about the soldiers, every time I leave the comfort of the VIP trailer and go outside the wire. My trip to the Bayji JSS taught me just how soft and spoiled I am. And I also learned that it’s not easy to pee into a bottle in an MRAP, in full body armor.
Mike does a great job arranging to get me out as often as possible, and I have no right to complain about anything, although of course I will unless someone sews my mouth shut. But I like to think I am complaining on behalf of the soldiers too. I think every soldier deserves a VIP trailer of his or her own. Of course they do. Even Mike. Especially Mike. For putting up with me.

2008-01-08T01:50:00.000-08:00

I Heart Iraq?

2008-01-08T01:46:00.000-08:00

January 8, 2008

Iraq’s tourism industry got a real shot in the arm (poor choice of words?) earlier this month with the maiden voyage of a ship packed with camera-clutching sightseers across the majestic Tigris River.
Okay, well, there was a boat. And it did cross the Tigris.
The Tigris is majestic. In some places. The stretch that borders Bayji, home of the Bayji Oil Refinery (BOR), could use a little work. There is a bridge that falls several car lengths short of spanning the river, thanks to damage done by an explosion, so the easiest way to get to the other side is by boat.
The Iraqi Army (IA) has a battalion stationed on one side of the river (the BOR side), and a lone company set up in a much smaller base on the other side. Major Oscar Pintado and his Military Transition Team (MiTT), part of the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade’s 1st Battalion, are responsible for five IA battalions, and they try to visit each of them regularly, offering guidance and support as these battalions take over more and more of the responsibility of providing security for their country. The MiTT team members spent the morning meeting with their Iraqi counterparts in the battalion, but before we could break for lunch, Major Pintado wanted to visit the company across the river.
It turns out some people don’t find the idea of crossing a river, even if it is the Tigris, exciting. A seaworthy vessel makes such a trip more appealing. Our vessel did not look seaworthy. Crudely fashioned out of rust and just enough metal to support the planks we would be sitting on, the boat did not inspire confidence. The soldiers were not fighting each other over who would get to make the trip and who would have to stay back. Most of the guys were more than happy to stay back. It wasn’t just that the boat looked like it might sink immediately, but the weight of their body armor meant the soldiers would sink immediately too.
While those selected for the river crossing collected themselves on the sloping shore, thinking positive thoughts, mentally rehearsing the best way to shed our vests if the boat capsized, the majority of the MiTT team, together with some of the IA soldiers, pulled security. We would be vulnerable in more ways than one out on the river, and the soldiers are trained to recognize these risks and take precautions, which meant positioning the humvees and themselves in spots where they could provide us the best coverage in the event of an attack. Though, really, an attack on the boat would take us back to square one: figuring out how not to sink like a rock. And if any insurgent was watching, he probably figured it would be smarter to save his ammo and just let the boat take care of us all by itself.
We were divided into two groups; the boat would only hold 4-5 people, including the captain of the ship, a polite and quiet Iraqi soldier who probably thought we were idiots for making such a fuss--the journey only took a few minutes. No, it wasn’t far at all. Just far enough for me to gaze up and down the river and realize it was the Tigris, and the sun was shining, and we were in a crappy little boat, and probably Katie Couric never had it so good.
Once we arrived at the other side, Major Pintado and the colonel from the IA battalion spoke with IA soldiers from the company, giving them a chance to voice their concerns. There were very few structures on this side. They had to cross the river to use the battalion’s showers and to pick up supplies, like food. They had a fairly large area to cover security-wise, but some shifting would be occurring, and more troops were going to be brought to the area. It sounded like from a soldier’s standpoint, things were moving along, however slowly. But I couldn’t help feeling that, from a tourist’s standpoint, they really could have used a souvenir shop. A place to buy a t-shirt: I crossed the Tigris. I made this suggestion to the colonel. He looked at me as though I could take a lesson from the Iraqi women and just be quiet.
Having conquered the river, we were more than ready for lunch. Major Pintado admitted one of the reasons they liked visiting this IA base was lunch. I had been to an IA base in Kirkuk, and I knew what he was talking about. We entered the dining room and were welcomed by the sight of a table covered with all kinds of local dishes. Fresh bread, vegetables, hummus, rice with chicken, lamb, apples and oranges, salad, and, when we were finished with our food, chai.
We finished lunch around 2:00, and if we could have napped, we would have. Instead, we said our goodbyes. The colonel said our visit (maybe not so much mine) had made him happier than he had been the day before, and he was sincere.
The drive home was slow. The lead truck was on the lookout for IEDs, and anytime something looked suspicious, we stopped so they could check it out. At one point, we came upon a donkey standing stoically on the side of the road. He was weighted down with saddle bags, which were a concern because insurgents have been known to conceal bombs in animals, both living and dead, and the bags looked heavy. I didn’t want our excellent day to be ruined by an exploding donkey. We waited. We watched him and he watched us. After a few minutes of this odd standoff, the soldiers decided maybe sometimes a donkey is just a donkey, and we continued home.
It may be a few years before Iraq can compete with, say, Nicaragua as a vacation spot, but it has potential. A peaceful boat ride across the Tigris followed by a delicious meal would have to be considered a great day by most. It was for us. And let’s hope everything worked out for the donkey. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-01-08T01:42:00.000-08:00

2008-01-04T08:44:00.000-08:00

A New Time Zone

2008-01-04T08:35:00.000-08:00

January 4, 2008

We have all heard and used the expression “time flies.” But you won’t hear anyone using it in Iraq. If you would like your minutes to feel like hours, your hours to feel like days, you should move to Iraq. As far as I know, I’m the only tourist currently wintering in Iraq, but as soon as they get the dust issue sorted out, and Iraq becomes a real vacation destination, I think one of its strongest selling points might be that you can spend a long weekend here but it feels like a month. Now that’s value.
Of course, our Army deserves some of the blame (or credit, depending on your point of view) for the time situation in Iraq. They have been working very closely with the Iraqi forces, and have taught them everything they know about waiting (which is a lot). The Iraqis, in turn, have taught our soldiers a thing or two about how to set the pace, how to keep others waiting. So our soldiers together with the Iraqi police and soldiers, perhaps without even trying, have actually achieved what many thought impossible; they have stopped time dead in its tracks. Yet I feel ten years older.
The day began at 0530, that’s 5:30 am to most of us. That’s way too early to me. Actually, I was ready at 5:30, but didn’t get picked up until 7:00. A soldier would not be surprised by or complain about this ninety minute discrepancy, but I’m not a soldier. I’m a VIP. There were no other VIPs to complain to, so I was forced to look at the bright side: at least they showed up at 7:00. And this time the VIP trailer has a working bathroom! I have my own shower! I am visiting a small base, FOB (Forward Operating Base) Summerall, near Bayji, home of one of Iraq’s oil refineries. I was invited to witness the progress being made between our forces and the Iraqi forces, and I have learned that even though progress is being made, you still have to wait for it. And wait for it.
I was transported to an even smaller base jointly operated by American soldiers and Iraqi police, where Captain Aaron Billingsley of the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade’s 1st Battalion, and Lieutenant Russell Kaufmann, an MP from a Washington, D.C. unit, and I waited to speak with the Iraqi police chief of Siniyah. After over two hours of waiting, we were shown into the office. They talked, and I mostly listened. While I was listening, I realized there is something about just putting in the time that the Iraqis equate with cooperating. They will talk in circles, avoid certain issues, claim to know who some of the bad people are but make excuses about why they haven’t been picked up yet, thank us for all of our help, and make promises they don’t intend to keep. These conversations go on all the time, they usually feel like a waste of time, but they give the impression that the people in the room have nothing but time.
It was beginning to seem as though the police chief was just behaving the way he thought he ought to, saying what he thought we expected to hear, putting in his time with the Americans until they moved onto something else, and then maybe he would have a chance to watch a little TV. But it turned out he was just slow to warm up. Once the unpleasant topics had been covered and/or dodged, he became more animated and he made a point of explaining to me, through our interpreter Nissan, how much he valued his relationship with our troops, beginning with the 82nd Airborne Division, and now continuing with the 101st and the MPs, who have helped to re-establish his station and reduce acts of violence in the area. So, though the conversation was not entirely productive, it served the purpose of maintaining the relationship, the spirit of cooperation.
In a land where a life can be cut short so quickly, it may seem surprising that the hours that make up a day are often squandered. Maybe this reckless disregard for time is a way of standing up to the temporary nature of life in a warzone. Getting nothing done today means it will have to be done tomorrow. Or the day after that. So life must go on.
There has been a very conscious effort on the part of our soldiers to try not to force our timeline on the Iraqis. Our soldiers, who have learned so much about patience since they joined the Army, are demonstrating what it means to be patient every long minute they are in Iraq. Although every day seems very much like the day before (soldiers make frequent references to the movie Groundhog Day, and did last year too), there is the possibility that by showing up each day, even if it is to have the same conversation over and over again, some change is occurring.
A tree may look very much the same from one year to the next, but each year is marked by a new ring. In Iraq trees, like everything else, do not have an easy time of it. But they do grow, and our relationship with the Iraqis does too. The rings may not be very thick, and the roots--it is hard to know how secure the roots are, but time passes, however invisibly, and maybe after enough of it passes, the changes will be evident and positive, and time will be looked at differently. Maybe its healing properties will be recognized, and time will not have to worry so much about being killed either. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2008-01-04T08:24:00.000-08:00

2007-12-26T06:03:00.000-08:00

The 56 MPs, The IPs, and a TV

2007-12-26T05:59:00.000-08:00

December 26, 2007

The 56th Military Police Company, the 56 MPs, are a reserve unit attached to the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade, and they are here in Tikrit to work with the Iraqi police, the IPs, helping them to establish themselves as the law--the law as we know it, which is very different from the law the Iraqis came to know under Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship.
If our police force is the thin blue line, then the Iraqi police force is at best a dotted line, not always blue, and sometimes the dots disappear. It is not easy being a cop in Iraq. Anyone who watches the news knows Iraqi police are targets. Knowing the risks, anyone who sets out to be a good Iraqi cop must be very brave, possibly crazy. Some do set out to be good cops; some set out to be bad cops, which requires less courage, but the pay is the same. The 56 MPs have to deal with the good, the bad, and, perhaps the most dangerous group, the ones who haven’t decided which group they belong to yet.
The stakes are high. If the IPs can do their job honestly and consistently, they will earn the trust of the people, and the insurgents will not be able to move about as easily, the terrorists will have a harder time finding willing recruits. By containing these hostile elements, the police will make Tikrit safer for themselves, for the Iraqi people, and for our soldiers. Until then, when IEDs explode on routes our convoys travel, the IPs are in some way responsible. These are their streets.
Developing a dedicated police force in a struggling, divided country is nearly impossible. But it may be some of the most essential work going on in Iraq today. And there are always a few duty-bound individuals at every police station who seem willing to carry more than their share of the burden for the sake of the greater good. These men have earned the respect and admiration of the MPs, who in turn try to do everything they can to support them.
It is winter in Tikrit. The MPs, most of whom are from Arizona, where their unit is based and where the climate is not unlike the climate here, are concerned that the police district headquarters and the six stations that fall under its jurisdiction are not heated. The temperature can drop to below freezing at night, and it doesn’t always warm up during the day. Imagine American cops working in a station without heat. Now take away their gear. Weapons are hard to come by here, as are uniforms, sturdy boots, coats. One soldier, Shawn Peterson, has taken it upon himself to collect extra pairs of boots from soldiers and distribute these among the IPs. It doesn’t seem right that these men should have to live with the fear of being targets and be uncomfortable and ill-equipped to protect themselves too.
During a visit to the district headquarters, MPs Shawn Peterson and Danny Schrader set up shop in a vacant room, one which luckily had a space heater, where they took information on each of the nine prisoners being held at the headquarters’ jail. Each prisoner was brought into the room individually. His date of birth, height and weight, and his crime, were recorded, and then Shawn used biometric equipment to scan each prisoner’s eyes, take his fingerprints, and photograph his face.
There was also a television in the room, the Iraqis love TV, and it was tuned in to So You Think You Can Dance, with the sound turned down, but Arabic sub-titles made it possible for the cops to follow the action. I wondered how we would ever earn the respect of the Iraqi people if this was the sort of programming we were exporting. At the same time, I was hypnotized by all of the dancing, and I had to force myself to pay attention to the activity in the room. On the TV, the dancers occasionally addressed the camera, their faces full of emotion, as if trying to convince the world they really could dance. Meanwhile, in the chilly, smoke-filled police station, a series of prisoners, guilty of everything from missed car payments to forgery to murder, stepped into the room and addressed our camera. But there was no dancing. A commercial came on with highlights from an upcoming Dr. Phil, who was devoting an hour to the struggles and triumphs of a set of blind and deaf triplets.
The atmosphere at any IP station is never as serious or grave as one might expect, and thanks to American television, there will always be a touch of the absurd. The IPs are probably a pretty accurate reflection of the Iraqi people in general. They are tired and frustrated, cold and scared, handicapped by a lack of resources, and some are interested only in protecting themselves, serving their own interests.
Would anyone want to trade places with any Iraqi cop, good or bad, even for a day? It is hard to blame them, then, for turning on the TV and getting lost in a world where dancing well is all that matters. The MPs understand. And they know that proper training and equipment are vital if a police force is to succeed. So they allow the IPs their TV breaks, but they never lose sight of the work that remains to be done, and they will continue working closely with the IPs, both the MPs and the IPs fully aware that changing the situation in the city is not as easy as changing the channel on the TV. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

2007-12-25T23:22:00.000-08:00

2007-12-19T21:08:00.000-08:00

The Power of Dust

2007-12-19T21:06:00.000-08:00

December 20, 2007

If you were going to put one battalion in your Rolodex, you might want to make it the Special Troops Battalion (STB). Also known as the Spartans, STB is a versatile and handy battalion. I accompanied their team of engineers on a trip to Samarra, where their assignment was to check the train tracks for barriers, and the berm for breaches.
Both missions required the use of some heavy equipment, so I piled into the Buffalo with Jerimy Burr, Ryan Garrity, David Ryan and Eugene Stonehouse, and we were joined by two tractor trailers, one hauling a bucket loader, the other a bulldozer. Together with our 2nd Battalion escorts, a convoy sent up from Brassfield-Mora, the base in Samarra, we made an impressive display of brute strength as we rumbled down the road. Until one of the trucks started to lose power and we had to slow it down to twenty, then fifteen, then ten miles per hour. And then we became slightly less impressive still when the truck had to be pulled by the very bucket loader it was meant to be hauling. But still, we made a lot of noise. The Buffalo, which sported enormous tires and was much more spacious than a humvee, did not win any awards in the smooth ride department.
By the time we arrived in Samarra, and traded our Charlie Company escorts for a convoy from Delta Company, the sun was going down, and it felt as though we had been bouncing around inside the Buffalo for days. The train tracks had not been used since the war began, and the idea was to clear the tracks so trains could begin running again. We went to the location where a barrier had allegedly been spotted, but the Delta Company soldiers could find nothing as they drove up and down the tracks. It didn’t make sense to continue searching in the dark, so we headed back to Brassfield-Mora for the night, where it was rumored I would be housed in the VIP trailer.
The VIP trailer! I pictured a spotless room with a bed that wasn’t half of a bunk bed, a basket of delicious snacks, a bottle of something bubbly, a bag of the latest beauty products, which I would not know what to do with, and a private bathroom. No staggering around in the dark looking for a female latrine. No walking into a male latrine by accident. My very own bathroom. Finally, I was being rewarded for my efforts. Getting the treatment I deserved.
Almost completely hidden with sandbags, the trailer was nicely set apart from the rows that housed the regular people. The door stuck, but I brushed that detail aside. Two soldiers, my hosts, and I entered the room. While it was not going to pass a white glove inspection, there was a cooler on the floor which was no doubt filled with lovely beverages. But I was in search of the private bath. There it was--set between the first VIP bedroom and a second, empty now as I was the only VIP present-- a shower stall, and a….well, there was a pipe sticking out of the floor where the toilet was meant to be, and in a wall another pipe with no sink attached to it. There was a lot missing from the scene. Still, I was excited to be in a somewhat cozy trailer, excited to relax at the end of a very long day inside the Buffalo.
Once alone, I went right to the shower, reaching out to turn on the water, anxious to soothe my aching muscles. Reaching out. But where were the taps? Where was the shower head? “Hey guys,” I shouted, “There are no fixtures. Where’s the water?” No reply. They had fled the scene. Leaving me with a bad case of helmet hair and no idea where the female facilities were. If there were any.
I set out with my toiletries and a tiny flashlight. The base was dark, very dark. And quiet. I saw no buildings that looked like latrines, male or female. Just the portable stalls that spring up all over every base. Fine in a pinch, but I was a VIP. I walked down a long path between rows of housing. None of the regular people were awake, apparently, so there was no one to guide me. Unlike Speicher, where there is no possibility of wandering off the base, I thought I probably could accidentally wander off this one. That didn’t seem like a good idea, so I turned around. I made a quick stop at the portable toilet, and then patiently rocked the door of the VIP trailer back and forth until it finally popped open and let me in.
The next morning, I ran into Jerimy Burr and Ryan Garrity at the DFAC (dining facility). They looked tired. Ryan said their trailer had not had any heat. They had definitely not received the VIP treatment, which I was beginning to think was overrated anyway. It would be another long day.
We met up with the Delta Company guys and headed back out to the train tracks. This time there was actually a barrier where there was supposed to be one, so the heavy equipment was put to use. Now the tracks were clear and it was time to see to the berm.
The berm was a dirt wall that the engineers had built around the city of Samarra to force all traffic coming and going to pass through checkpoints where each vehicle would be searched by Iraqi guards, thus curbing insurgent activity.
There were breaches in the berm. One had clearly been created to allow vehicles to pass through, but the others looked like areas that had been worn away by foot traffic. Nevertheless, the bucket loader and bulldozer were fired up, and seconds later clouds of dust engulfed the area.
The berm appeared to be made more of dust than dirt. Half of what the loader lifted seemed to blow away. It was strange to think that something as difficult to contain as dust could be used to contain a city. But, except for a few breaches, the berm seemed to be working. The markets in the city were busier. The residents felt safer.
How much dust would it take to make the whole country safer? I think there might be enough here. And the engineers from the Special Troops Battalion would be the men to move it. But if I am going to be invited to watch, I am going to need a shower. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

COB Speicher: First Impressions

2007-12-13T05:59:00.000-08:00

December 13, 2007

I am here in Tikrit at COB (Contingency Operating Base) Speicher, and my worst fears have been confirmed. There are even fancier bases than FOB (Forward Operating Base) Warrior in Kirkuk, where I spent 4 ½ months last year, and this is one of them. Not that I wanted to rough it, but I wanted to believe I could rough it. Oh, and yes, there is still a war going on; peace has not broken out everywhere. Things are actually heating up around here, courtesy of the surge.
But it is hard to believe anything is happening anywhere when I am nestled in my trailer, which is bigger than my bedroom back at home in New York, and it’s wired for cable. During the day, the sun still burns and the air conditioner cancels out the sounds of any blasts or explosions that might be occurring in the city. At night it quickly turns chilly, and the air conditioner becomes a heater.
There are two full service dining facilities, a thirty minute bus ride apart from each other, and each has enough choices to make just about anyone happy. Even I, who complain about food as if it’s my job, have a hard time complaining about the food here. They do overcook the vegetables, though. And my personal pizza could have been a little hotter.
I have yet to leave the base, but I think that will change soon. I hope so. It is a strange feeling to be so comfortable in my trailer and so completely ignorant of conditions outside the base. It feels wrong. And I know some of the guys from the 101st Airborne Division whom I met in Kirkuk last year are here this year. They are spread out from Bayji down to Samarra, with Tikrit falling in the middle, and it sounds as though they are having a tougher time this deployment, facing greater risks, many doing without the luxuries we are afforded here at Speicher.
Big bases like Warrior and Speicher seem proof that we are going to be here a long time. With all of their amenities, I think we are meant to believe this isn’t so bad. There is a Pizza Hut, a Taco Bell and a Subway near the PX. Soldiers can have television and Internet service in their rooms if they want to pay for it. In some ways this is a war unlike any other, a war that may be remembered (or forgotten) by the quality of its distractions.
But in spite of the upgrades to the living conditions that make it seem unlikely anyone would be fighting anywhere, there are reminders everywhere of what we are here for. Soldiers carry their weapons with them wherever they go, keeping them near while they order a custom stir-fry at the dining hall or check their e-mail at the MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) facility. They will rarely be called upon to fire these weapons. It is not that kind of war. In addition to the ever present guns, are the sand-colored humvees that lurk in the parking lots and stir up clouds of dust when they rumble by, though for all of their bulk, they are often no match for the IEDs that have wounded or killed so many of our soldiers.
It is appallingly easy to start a war, but the amount of time, energy, and resources required to maintain a convincing presence in a war zone is staggering. It costs money to destroy a country; it costs money to rebuild it. And we are paying for both. Periods of calm create hope and optimism, but I see evidence of construction and improvements being made here at Speicher, and to me the sound of a bulldozer is not always the sound of progress, but simply the sound of digging in deeper.

shelbymonroe@gmail.com