Mission Re-Accomplished

MOSUL 30JUN09 - MISSION REACCOMPLISHED

2009-06-30T13:36:00.002-04:00

Unfurl the banners! Get the confetti back out of storage! I demand to see eagles soaring majestically on cable TV and the citizenry dancing jubilantly down Main Street! Boys and girls, as of midnight last night, WE WON THE WAR!

That's right. It's over. As you can imagine, the fanfare was intense to the point of excessive, and excessive to the point that Nero himself may have blushed at the pure unrestrained orgy of triumphant self-congratulations that permeated our being on this, the day of Victory: AVID. And I am proud to say that as the bell tolled midnight, the Battalion Commander and XO had both retired to celebrate in private, leaving me alone on the throne of command. You know what that means. I was technically in command of the Main Effort Battalion of the Main Effort Brigade of the Main Effort Division in the Main Effort of the War on Terror when Victory was declared. In sum, I LED US TO VICTORY. That's right. I'll let that sink in. "Lo, my minions, take heed at my new authority," I declared as my commanders walked out the door. "Ye may liken me as unto a god!"

No, adoring throngs of America, please hold back your praise. Your adulations touch me deeply, but a proud warrior thrives only on his own self-assurance and self-congratulations. Ergo, you cannot possibly flatter me more than I flatter myself. I am having a statue erected of my image, staring heroically towards the rising sun with a drawn saber in one hand and the olive branch held nobly aloft in my other. It is quite fetching, especially since I had it constructed entirely out of Babylonian Gold and the tangible joyous emotions of my countrymen (a glowing bronze color, for those of you interested in the particulars).

I ordered the finest in non-alcoholic champagne brought to the TOC and ordered the fattened calf that wandered outside the base gate slaughtered for our feast. All of the men gathered together to cheer and toast ourselves and our great victory. After all, it isn't often that you get to declare victory TWICE in the same war! Our jubilations were magnified a dozen-fold when we were joined by the opposing team, who politely came to partake of our hospitality and congratulate us. We lined up, as all opposing teams do after a rousing bit of sport, and warmly shook hands. "Oh, Ahmed!" I gleefully shouted, embracing him manfully and giving him two wet kisses on his cheeks, "You sly dog! Do you know how hard we were looking for you? Almost had you once or twice, too!" He blushed with modesty and forced humility. "Yes," he responded in his surprisingly perfect English, "You almost had me a few times. But in declaring victory, you have defeated me completely! I am no longer an enemy to the occupying infidels, but a rebel in my own country, fighting against fellow Muslims. Who knew that a simple announcement would succeed where all your technology had failed?" I consoled him with a near-beer and a chunk of beef jerky we had microwaved and were trying to pass off as steak. He said he was positively warmed by my generosity, though I'm fairly sure that was just the heartburn speaking.

It is a sincere honor to see that the Iraqi people are also celebrating our victory with such fervor. The parades, the flags, the speeches... my, it's almost too much. What a fortunate and auspicious day! We assumed they had forgotten about the flowers and dancing that were supposed to herald our entrance into their country, but now we realize that they were just saving them for when we had to leave! How very thoughtful!

There remains, unfortunately, a slight degree of confusion between the levels of the Iraqi Government. Their leadership in Baghdad has declared that our presence is no longer necessary, but someone may have forgotten to send the memo to the Iraqi Army in Mosul. They kept asking for our help throughout the day, calling plaintively for assistance as they located bombs littered across their streets. I was positioned so as to correct their misunderstanding. The conversations can basically summarized like this:
ISF: "Someone/something is shooting/exploding/stabbing/being stabbed. Can we get some help over here?"
Me: "No. No, you can't."
ISF: "But... but... we would really like some help with this."
Me: "Nope! Nope, nope, nope. Not gonna happen. Please address all concerns to your respective leadership and elected officials. It's 30 June, yo!"
I mean, that's how you learn to swim. Or drown. But they learn quickly, so at least we'll know which way they'll go pretty soon. We think they'll be fine.

The American media continued to ask our leaders what this meant as far as troop withdrawals. My wife has voiced similar questions. Fortunately, the difference is that Hope has enough intelligence and experience with the Army to understand the answer. The media is entirely befuddled. "Let's get this straight... you're pulling troops back from the cities, but not from the country?" NO. Stop asking. We are NOT leaving yet. If we did, there is a very real chance that we would present ourselves an opportunity to declare victory a THIRD time in Iraq. Twice is enough, I feel. So we'll be here a bit longer.

I hope you have all marked your calendars. AVID should be declared a national holiday, I argue, and I support this with the evidence that the Iraqi Government has already declared it as one! The initial report is that they wish to call this "National Sovereignty Day," but I'm sure that time and events will force them to reconsider. They'll realize soon enough that "Arbitrary Victory in Iraq Day" is much more fitting.

So. Until next time, adoring throngs of America. I will leave you to your revelry and Dionysian debauchery. (Dionysus, of course, being the Greek god of wine and drama. As Stephen Sondheim sagely noted, this is fitting because "a little wine solves a lot of drama." The Middle East would benefit immeasurably from this wisdom.) Go celebrate victory! We still have Afghanistan and the imminent possibility of Iran and North Korea, but hey, at least we can close the book on this one!

MOSUL 18JUN09

2009-06-18T18:56:00.002-04:00

Word has reached me through my family that there are concerns about my new job. All these hours away from the fight, in the air conditioning, sitting in my chair and having food delivered... am I getting fat? Restless? Well, a little restless sometimes. And I have been hitting the gym with a determination to burn at least as many calories as I normally did walking around the city carrying a hundred pounds of stuff. I have taken to lifting heavy things repetitively. Needless to say, I am getting bigger. But not as some of my family and friends would suppose.

And I have plenty of entertainment. From my large leather chair in the middle of the TOC, I am occupied at all moments by no less than eight monitors and six stations of soldiers constantly shouting information at me. Throw in a couple of field-grade officers who hover occasionally, wanting to know EVERYTHING that is going on in EVERY little corner of the city, and my work is cut out for me. I jump from -classified- to -classified-, taking a moment to shout back for status on the -classified-, and finally combining all of these assets into a -classified--censored--we'd tell you but we'd have to kill you-. So. You see why I have problems writing about my new job.

The real problem I have is the perpetual struggle to remind myself and my crew that we are Supporters. We assist in the fight, but we are not the fight. We are here to facilitate them and get them the things they need, when they need them, to win. But as in all offices there is a bureaucratic urge to create a little paper tyrant.

"What? The patrol didn't fill out the third line of Form 1026 in accordance with the new guidance from FRAGO 4-26? Battle Captain, stop them! Don't let them go! They're trying to go without our permission!"

I imagine myself, a month ago, trying to push a platoon as quickly as possible into a fight, racing against the clock. I remember the immense fury that would wash over me whenever some bureaucratic ninny tried to grind the gears of war to a halt because someone in the Command Post hadn't crossed the t's. And I look at my radio operator with what little patience I can muster and explain, again, that we are here to help, not hinder. I'll fill in that section myself. I know what they're trying to do. So I push the platoon out the gate, much to the frustration of my crew and my counterpart, the NCOIC (non-commissioned officer in charge). They always ask why I'm going so easy on the line units, and I always just barely refrain from eating them alive.

There is a character in the military that I love, a certain cheerful fatalism, a powerful self-awareness and a conscious loathing of all personal weakness. This is most prevalent on the line, where men have a reason to be a bit fatalistic. It is not so prevalent in the office. Some of the guys definitely have it, and I'm thrilled to see it, but some of these men have been establishing their little kingdoms of memorandum for a bit too long.

I've talked about this particular military character to family and friends before. If for no other reason, the exposure and hopefully conversion to this mentality is one of the best reasons why I would recommend military service to others. It is wonderfully refreshing. In a society so often defined by its hedonism and egoism, where every little scrape or perceived offense is worth a Wagnerian opera of drama and complaining, the character you find here is like breathing clean air again. I remember a soldier cutting his head open on a piece of metal on his bunk back in the States. He ran down the hall, bleeding profusely, apologizing every step of the way. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, no, don't clean that blood up, I'll get it, I didn't mean to bleed on the floor, I'm so sorry!" He was back with the mop and a couple of stitches within the hour. And last week, when a soldier took grenade shrapnel to the rear. The story goes that his platoon came in to the medical center to check on him and saw him grinning from ear to ear, thumbs up. "I always said the Army would give me buns of steel!" he shouted. Or the strange little tradition of some men in Red Platoon who, after every patrol, count each others' limbs and digits. "Another good day!" they declare upon finding the appropriate number, laughing as if it were the peak of wit. How can anyone not love this? The kind of dark humor that pervades the military can be misconstrued as callousness, but a closer look shows that at root we're just amusing ourselves at the quirks of life and death. "You're dying? Well, for God's sake stop being so damned dramatic about it. Seriously. It happens to everyone from time to time."

I guess that this, and the camaraderie built on shared trials, is what I miss most about the line. But the TOC is its own kind of lesson and I'm finding that it offers its own kind of reward. All in all, I'm happy, the days are counting down until mid-tour leave, and I'm practically reunited with my wife (FINALLY) for at least a couple of weeks. So soon. That should easily refuel me for the last four months. We're over half-way done, and only a week and a half before victory, so who can complain?

MOSUL 06JUN09

2009-06-05T19:35:00.002-04:00

Night sweeps over the city of Mosul again. The setting of the sun is a palpable relief, bringing with it the welcome change from impossibly hot to merely unreasonably hot. The dust is still thick in the air, but it is possible from my position as I leave the Tactical Operations Center to see a plume of smoke rising up from a neighborhood a few kilometers away. Mosul's skyline, pierced by the minarets of countless mosques, is overshadowed by such pyres throughout the day. Each one allows you, from a safe distance, to estimate how many lives were lost and how many livelihoods destroyed in any twenty-four hour period.

Medieval physicians in Europe, working on the principle that the body is directed by diverse humours and that an imbalance of any humour would lead to an imbalance of emotion, conjectured that the feeling of hope was the result of too much blood in the system. This is the origin of the word "sanguine," which means both "hopeful" and "blood-like." Hope stems from an excess of blood.

After walking the streets of the Old District, over and over, and inspecting hundreds or thousands of houses built on foundations hundreds or thousands of years old, I wonder if the people of Mosul ever really strayed away from that medieval supposition. When everything is quiet and peaceful, they always strike me as suspicious, distrustful, fatalistic, waiting for the inevitable explosion. But in the aftermath of these blasts, with all of us exposed to an excess of blood, they respond in a way I hadn't anticipated. They seem relieved, optimistic, and hopeful for the future; perhaps that was the last time, they say. Perhaps that was the tipping point and now we can have peace. Maybe the insurgents have said all they wanted to say, maybe the discontent have expressed their rage, maybe everything will be all right. And they settle back into the niche of their existence, comfortable in their tenuous purchase on life in this city, and spend a few days blissfully content. As if there wasn't a war raging around them. But as the days pass, the restlessness begins again; people become more careful on the streets and express their fatalism over cups of chai. It has been too long, they say, and there must be another attack coming. A roadside bomb, perhaps, that will only destroy the curbs and delay my commute to work. Or a grenade that will block traffic and maybe wound one of my neighbors. Maybe random bursts from an assault rifle, or the deliberate murder of one of my family for the express purpose of proving the impotence of Coalition Forces to protect those that I love. Probably a car bomb that will destroy my house. The tension builds as the days go on until the prophesy is fulfilled, the bomb is detonated, and the cycle begins again. Every blast is a communal catharsis, temporary but welcome. Taken as a whole, sometimes I wonder if the entire insurgency is just how the city tries to heal itself by judicious blood-letting. Perhaps they have convinced themselves that they can only be sanguine when their world is sanguinary.

I have trouble sharing their optimism. As we push the insurgents further towards defeat, they grasp at more and more radical tactics. Sordid and reprehensible, as words, aren't properly equipped to tackle these tactics; they are the kind of debauched inhumanity you only find when fanaticism is at its most desperate. Three schoolgirls, aged 10-13, gunned down as they walked to school last week just so the insurgents can demonstrate how our clear-hold-retain operations have failed to drive them from the neighborhoods. A 13-year old boy is allowed to approach a Humvee because he is too young to pose a threat; his grenade kills one and critically wounds two infantrymen of my battalion. A small 10-year old boy throws yet another grenade at one of our trucks, smiling and waving afterward, unaware that he failed to pull the pin and that only an unnatural benevolence kept the men of the unit from gunning him down. Young children are recruited to throw rocks at us. The insurgents, by their own professions, declare that they will either immunize us to the rocks so as to make grenade attacks easier or force us into killing an unarmed child. I see the benefit to their plans, but no part of me can find how the child benefits. We may be cultural aliens, offering strange gifts of Western candy and backpacks from behind our kevlar skins, but we are clearly the only party who has any interest in seeing those children grow into a world where the clocks can't be faithfully set by the explosions.

With AVID (Arbitrary Victory in Iraq Day) rapidly approaching, we find an interesting and promising combination of political and military realities. We are winning. The Iraqi Security Forces are acting with more confidence and competence than we had ever expected, and they are stepping into the role quickly. The word of our imminent departure has done more to set them into action than months of training. The insurgency is dying. Unfortunately, the final death throes are the ugliest part of any life, and the enemy we face now is cornered, mad with rage, and utterly desperate. Nothing is sacred, no one is safe, and no rules apply. But the end is in sight, and though the final steps will be difficult, at this point I can declare that I am sanguine about the future.

MOSUL 29MAY09

2009-05-28T19:58:00.001-04:00

Last week, with both celebration and regret, I turned Blue Platoon over to the hands of my replacement. My time with them has come to a close. The regret stems from the knowledge that I will not be there beside them for the trials they will doubtlessly face in the rest of this deployment and the fact that I will not be the one marching them back, safe and sound, to their loved ones in December. But I can celebrate that they are all currently safe and sound, confident of their abilities, sure of their mission, and led by a man whose philosophy is not very different from my own. He will push them when they slow down, drive them forward when they lose direction, and remind them of our mission to improve the lives of the people of this country by other-than-terminal means. This is also a phenomenal opportunity for him to learn about himself as a leader and a person; I suppose I shouldn’t begrudge other lieutenants the opportunities I have enjoyed just to satisfy my pride.

My time in my new position has allowed me the luxury of retrospection and introspection and afforded me the opportunity to take stock of our accomplishments at this juncture. We are half-way through the deployment. Blue Platoon conducted 146 combat patrols in the city under my leadership. We took contact directly 15 times, meaning that 10% of our patrols resulted in combat. We were present for or immediately adjacent to other units (Coalition and Iraqi) taking contact another 10% of the time. Blue Platoon initiated projects to remove trash heaps in three neighborhoods, install lights on two major roads, fortify four ISF checkpoints, repair two water mains, pave over three stretches of road, provide over 2,000 packets of food supplies to needy families, supply two badly-needed generators, and employ hundreds of people in our sector. We provided for the renovation of four schools, one medical facility, one power plant, and two parks. We detained dozens of suspected insurgents, terminated a few more, trained our ISF counterparts to the best of our abilities, and saved two of their lives with emergency medical care. Blue Platoon has done well, and I am immensely proud to have been here with them. When I arrived at my unit, I was told to prepare myself for an immense task. Blue was the worst platoon in the company, my commander informed me, plagued with drug abuse, insubordination, and poor, inexperienced leadership. By the time I left, Blue Platoon was praised as the one platoon in the company that had risen to the challenge of the new necessities of counter-insurgency; we spent two hours to every one of our colleagues’ on the ground. We initiated three times as many civil projects. We detained and killed more enemy than any other platoon in the company. I am hesitant to take credit for any of this; Blue Platoon was always full of untapped potential. They just had to reach into themselves and find it. I hope that, in some small way, my leadership contributed to the circumstances in which they ultimately found and utilized that potential. Regardless, it was an incredibly rewarding experience just to witness the profound change that occurred in the men I’ve had the honor of serving beside. And to whatever degree I may have influenced a change in them, I know beyond any doubt that they have impacted a deep change in me.

Our final tally of losses, I’m proud to say, is none. No one in Blue was physically wounded or killed during my tenure. There are decisions I wish I could have remade, moments I wish I could have altered, but I am fortunate that none of those decisions will haunt me for the rest of my life. Whatever deaths are on my conscience, I am forever grateful that none of them were the men entrusted to my care. The unseen and unquantifiable psychological effects may be another story, however, and it is with regret that I count among our casualties PFC Timidity, now in a mental facility, and the marriages of SPC Spanky and SSG Lark. The trauma witnessed in the course of the deployment and the trauma of having a loved one constantly in harm’s way was ultimately more than some could and should be asked to bear. I only hope that all three of those men, and all of the men in Blue, can return to a home where they finally feel loved, secured, and safe. I wish them all many years of boredom. They’ve earned it.

I’ve spent the last week familiarizing myself with my new position—my “promotion”—as Battle Captain. I moved from Bulldog Company to Hawk Company—appropriately named, I joke, because suddenly I find myself high above the fight. My days are now spent on a regular schedule in a large leather chair in the middle of what I can only describe as the bridge of the USS Enterprise. I have six large monitors cocooning me while I recline in my air conditioning, drinking my coffee and eating the hot chow delivered to me from the DFAC, being bombarded with imagery and constant reports about which platoon is operating in which space, where the helicopters are moving, what the drones are reporting, ad nauseam. I have people ringing the room around me, buried in their own terminals, and I call out instructions to air, fire support, communications, et cetera, the whole time feeling ridiculously like Captain Kirk. Due to the nature of my job, my entries in this journal will necessarily have to be much more vague and generalized. My focus is going to shift from the daily trials and tribulations of the Boys in Blue to a more general commentary on our progress in this city and, ultimately, this war. We are now a month away from what we are wryly referring to as AVID: Arbitrary Victory in Iraq Day. The rest of the world may only think of it as 30 June, but soon it shall be memorialized beside V-E Day and Armistice Day as a date of vast importance. On 30 June, the Americans will defeat the insurgency. Seriously. Doesn’t matter what happens, we’re declaring victory. This is, as my father pointed out, actually a strategy of surprising wisdom. Vietnam could have been a lot less painful if we just cut our losses one day and declared victory. We could stick around and try to force our will on the proceedings, but quite frankly, the Iraqis are eager to show that they are capable of independent government and self-protection and our presence is only drawing foreign fighters into the region. Let them have a go at it, and good riddance. I think we’ve all had our share of explosions, and we’ve all learned some fascinating things about the nature of combustibility. I no longer wish to amuse myself by speculating on which common household items will vaporize, which ones will fragment, and how either scenario will play out on the human body. Iraq, good luck. You’ll find us in Afghanistan if you need us.

This is not to imply that we’re in the clear. There are a number of pre-existing analogies, but I’ll use one more fitting to our situation: most of the attacks hit you right when you’re on the last stretch to home. Things are turning very interesting on some fronts that I’m not really at liberty to discuss. Historically close allies of ours are seeing the writing on the wall and are taking advantage of our last months and what remains of the government’s instability to push their demands to the front, and they are blatantly seeking military confrontation in order to do it. If they manage to start a shooting war, we may be powerless to intervene. Do we even want to?

Blue Platoon may be behind me, but we still have mountains to move in front of us. Hopefully only metaphorically. I’ll update this journal from time to time with their progress, but for now I’m enjoying a vacation. Twelve-hour shifts in an air-conditioned room, sitting comfortably, I am able to relax with the knowledge that I am not directly responsible for anyone. I don’t have to sweat their financial or marital situations. I don’t develop ulcers worrying about squad deployment, vehicular movement, or sectors of fire. I can sleep easily when explosions resound in the night: not my shift, not my problem. I am no longer always an hour away from a firefight, anticipating the call to arms at midnight or the frantic preparations just as I sit down to dinner.

I wish I could be there beside them when we come home, but there comes a time in all career progressions when one has to embrace new challenges and new opportunities. I learned an incredible amount from my experience. I did what I came here to do, I saw what I needed to see, I tested my resolve under fire and was not embarrassed by my reactions. Now it’s time for another man to have those opportunities. As always, keep Blue Platoon in your prayers—they certainly remain in mine. But scratch my name and add a new lieutenant to your list, an intelligent, capable, dedicated man who understands our real mission here, and pray that he may find only success in his endeavors. If we accomplish (or re-accomplish) the mission now, it will be through his efforts and the efforts of all the men on the line. They’re in your hands now, buddy. Bring them all home.

MOSUL 25APR09

2009-04-25T15:01:00.000-04:00

It has been much too long since my last entry, I know. I apologize to everybody who keeps track of our adventures through the journal. After my last entry I just needed a few days to get my thoughts in order, and quite frankly, I didn’t know what to write about it. I still don’t. After that, though, we started headlong into an operation that has been getting some significant media attention lately. The hours are ridiculous. We are working constantly. Today is Blue Platoon’s refit day, though, so I have a chance to jot down our recent activities.

As for the last entry, I’ve had some conflicting emotions. The brief summary is that we were engaged, returned fire, and killed our first enemies for this tour. All this time we’ve been getting shot at, blown up, and generally harassed, and this time we got to give some back. After all the frustration, my first emotion was elation. We got you. Get some. Hooah. But there’s always another side when you take lives. We turned a man inside out with multiple low and high-caliber rounds, blew his legs off, opened his stomach and poured out his intestines, ripped his arms in half, and I still watched him die for fifteen minutes. Unable to help him, unable to finish him, unsure if I even wanted to. He was a farmer from out of town. Why did he engage us? What drove him to fight us? Was he an ideological fanatic, or was he just trying to make a few extra Dinar for his next tractor payment by chucking grenades at us?

I said it before, and I reiterate it now: no man is evil. Not purely evil. A man can engage in evil acts, and some will be more evil than good, but you can’t help but wonder what motivated him, what he believed, and how he justified his actions. Did he have a wife? Children? Did they know about his part in the war? Did he believe he was trying to save his countrymen from occupation? Infidels? Was this revenge for something Coalition Forces did years ago? Who mourned his death, who suffers from his loss, whose lives will be forever changed for what we did? I’ve seen more bodies and body parts than I can count out here, but it’s different when you did it, you caused it, and you’re watching him gasp his life away as his insides pour out, observing his face move from pain, to despair, to resignation, to peaceful serenity. May God grace our enemies with peace and understanding of our cause here, and may He extend mercy to the souls of those we kill.

It is not a pretty thing to die for your beliefs. However noble you may believe your cause to be, the end of your sacrifice will be brutal, ugly, and painful. My father sent me a copy of “Dolce et Decorum Est” after I talked to him about the experience. I didn’t even tell him that I had muttered the last line to the body as we wrapped him up. Funny how a father and son grow to think so similarly. How sweet and beautiful it is to die for your country. The carnage of war has not changed so much since the Great War, when the poem was written, and while this conflict is so much less intense, the sordidness of it all and the sick irony of those sentiments remain very much the same.

I’m now spending my last three weeks with Blue Platoon before I hand control over to my replacement. The time has come for me to move on, and while I’m frustrated to leave my men on a personal level, I understand on a professional level that it is time for a new officer to have his chance to command a platoon. I was incredibly lucky to get a platoon so quickly, and no matter how much I selfishly want to stay by their sides and bring them all home by my own hand, I trust my colleague and his abilities. They’ll be in good hands.

These last and next few weeks we’ve been engulfed in a massive clearing operation. I can’t go into the particulars or specifics, but the media has been with us for some of it and you can get the public details from them. We’ve had some terrifying moments, but mostly the mission has thus far passed without major incident for Blue Platoon. A number of our comrades, attached to our battalion for the operation, were tragically killed a few weeks ago, but Blue has maintained the aura of unrealistically good luck throughout the process. I remember a moment vividly when we pursued the enemy from house to house, manpower stretched thin by circumstance and haste, and I led a small team into a house, kicking open the door and clearing the rooms, when I found myself alone in a room full of women and children. Their terror was painful in its clarity, the mother wailing as a small boy looked stupidly down my barrel. I don’t even know why the image stuck with me. We didn’t catch the insurgent, and nothing of significance happened in the house, but the moment imprinted itself in my mind. And another image of a family crying desperately while we dragged their father away into custody and probable execution for his crimes with the insurgency. And another image of an alley being ripped apart with bullets and grenades as we willed ourselves to charge through it and into the enemy position. And another of a rooftop, me directing fire through my binoculars and my men unleashing Hell on men across the road. I wonder if that’s why so many veterans have trouble talking about what they did during their war; maybe all any of us walk away with is a collection of mismatched images, moments of fear and adrenaline and rage and sheer willpower, compiled into a bizarre menagerie of memory.

We saw an advisor, a civilian engineer working with us that day, have a panic attack during a firefight. I remember thinking very harsh things about him at the time, but in retrospect I’ve come to realize that he’s the normal one. We’ve changed. It was a moment straight out of Hollywood:
“Get up, shithead, and get yourself together! They’re not even shooting at us!”
Zing-thwack, zing-thwack, zing-zing-zing-thwack-thwack-thwack!
“Alright, jack-ass, now they ARE shooting at us, and you need to get the hell out of the way!”
How can I think less of a man who panics when his life is in danger? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? We’ve been trained—indoctrinated—to charge towards the enemy and the fire. He’s normal, we’re not. What we do, on a primordial level of individual survival, is madness. It is contrary to every basic instinct we have. Willing yourself to run into the street, bullets flying everywhere, and chase after your enemy is a special kind of insanity that only the military (and especially the infantry) can inculcate in you. The men of Blue have performed admirably, courageously, and tirelessly in the course of this operation. They are my kind of crazy. The stress has forced one of our number from Blue, while on leave in the States, to go AWOL and check himself into a mental hospital, but I can’t think too much less of him for it. One form of insanity may lend itself to others. My poor driver, PFC Unlucky, was attacked and blown up three times in one week last month. I can’t blame anyone who finds that a bit too much. Thankfully he’s back home for leave right now as well, and his wife just gave birth to their first child. I only hope he’s finding time to decompress and find joy in fatherhood before circumstances push him back into the fight.

Anyway, in brief, we’ve been very busy in Blue Platoon for the last month. The conflict may have started slow for us, but it’s in full swing now. These are the weeks that will stay with us when we come home. The men are doing well, and I’m proud to say that I have seen them commit far more acts of selflessness and courage than of fear and cowardice. I’m going to miss them. Common experience in crisis lends itself to the creation of an unspoken bond. It creates a small community of those who have felt the indescribable and those who haven’t. I always wondered why so many veterans start their friendships with a period of interrogation and one-upmanship; they’re testing the waters. When one talks about the experience, he wants to know if his new friend really understands what he means. Not the words, but the compilations of emotions that the words convey. If he can, then the two are bound to be fast friends. If he can’t, then no amount of explanation can reconcile the two diverse experiences. I’ve also learned why writing is so cathartic for these experiences. When I say that it’s hard to talk about, I don’t mean that what I’ve seen is too horrific to express. That’s not the case. But writing is able to regulate, compartmentalize, and express the myriad of emotions and images in a way that conversation cannot. Talking is too fast and confusing to compile everything into understandable concepts. Writing requires time, thought, and structure. The flashes of self-reflection and introspection that would destroy a conversation are actually helpful in this forum. The journal has been, in my opinion, a very good idea.

SSG Lark is reminding me that it’s getting late, and we have another early morning ahead of us. My last three weeks with Blue are going to stay very busy. I’ll try to write again during the course of the operation, but if the lapse in contact from my last entry is any indication, the chances are slim. As I said, writing takes time. And we don’t have too much of that right now. Keep Blue Platoon in your thoughts and prayers. Take a moment to share in the joy of a new father and the two other soldiers who are soon to see their new babies as well. And as always, take time to support our wives. They have had to suffer too many lapses in contact, too many anxious moments by the television as the casualty reports filter in, and too much time separated from their loved ones. I’m sorry, Hope. I’ll make it up to you soon.

MOSUL 08APR09

2009-04-08T11:08:00.001-04:00

Enemy: KIA.

Hooah.

MOSUL 05APR09

2009-04-05T16:39:00.002-04:00

After receiving considerable resistance from my subordinate leadership lately, it was recommended that I conduct a little study. I pulled up all the records for the past two months of how long each platoon in the company has been outside the wire conducting operations, hour by hour, and I discovered something: apparently, I'm some kind of taskmaster/workaholic. Blue Platoon is out two hours for every one of our colleagues. And this has been chafing my guys. They live around the men from the other platoons and they know the disparity. I was, unfortunately, unaware of it. I kept them out longer and longer, trying to accomplish my goals, and every night they would come back and discover that the other platoons had been out--maybe--and only for about half the time.

In an attempt to assuage their concerns, I approached the commander about this discrepancy, not with an eye towards increasing their time out, but with the intent to have some of our more menial tasks pushed to them. The commander agreed. This, in turn, has now made me a bit unpopular with the other platoons. So my platoon continues to moan, as the other platoons are still out considerably less, and the other platoons moan because they now have extra work that my platoon would otherwise have done. You can't please anyone. My leadership wants a complete victory. They want Red and White (mostly Red) out as long as we are, and no matter how many times I explain that this really isn't the intent, and that Red has a much smaller and compact battle space that requires less time to patrol, they aren't satisfied.

So, in short, I have discovered that I am the bad guy in the platoon. When I come around, they hide or close their doors to avoid another eight-twelve hours out patrolling. They complain bitterly about the disparity of workloads. I have always tried to be a nice, likable guy, but I'm finding myself in an uncomfortable role. I'm the evil taskmaster. After some initial resistance, I find myself warming to it. This is war. People are getting killed out here all the time. We have an obligation to perform our duties to the utmost of our abilities, and we work until completion. Not until some kind of arbitrary time limit established by the other platoons. We have the largest space, the poorest space, and one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city. This means that we have an obligation to perform accordingly. Civil projects must be coordinated. Meetings must be arranged. People need to be persuaded, groups formed, defenses solidified. Some people have accused me of looking for a fight. To this I respond: of course I'm looking for a fight! There are insurgents in our AO who are actively trying to destroy what we create. They must be found, fixed in position, and finished with every asset at our disposal. What's the point of bringing in generators, repairing roads, and rebuilding schools and medical clinics if the enemy comes behind us and destroys them again? We have a two part operation. We build, and then we secure. This place won't resume any form of normalcy until we eliminate the enemy, and the enemy will keep coming until we make efforts to incorporate potential foes into a prosperous and stable city. Tired? Oh, Blue Platoon, you have no idea how tired we SHOULD be. Sleeping at all is a crime. We have a monumental task ahead of us. Coalition Forces are leaving soon enough, and this is our last chance to make a positive impression on this city. The clock is ticking. Too many lives have been lost to allow failure through complacency.

How can I even communicate this to my men? We're on two entirely different worlds. I have a platoon of infantry here, ready to maneuver and engage the enemy in combat, and they're being led by an engineer/civil affairs/propagandist/foreign military liaison/civic coordinator compilation. They all want to know why I bother. AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO READ THE DAMNED COUNTER-INSURGENCY MANUAL??!!!

Captain Yossarian of Catch-22 had a memorable conversation with an Italian pimp in the book. The pimp boasted of how Italy was winning the war, which our American protagonist found confusing. How can that be, he enquired, since I'm occupying your country right now, clearly winning the war? Well, came the retort, the Italian losses thus far have been minimal. Once we submit, the United States will come and rebuild everything. Streets cobbled in the 16th century will finally move to the 20th. How can we be losing, when the most profitable industry in the world is losing a war with the United States of America?

Well, I want the Iraqis to win this war. The Iraqi people that WE helped put into power. The Iraqi government that WE have supported through crisis after crisis. They need to win. If they don't, we leave a bloodbath in our wake. People who dared trust our word, people who risked their lives to support the democratic process, people who place their faith in us when they cut their beards, wear Western clothing, drink alcohol, send their daughters to university, people who believed in us will be slaughtered without mercy. You already see the beginnings. Sunni Awakening exchange fire with Shia Government. The Kurds solidify their political power over the northern provinces, pushing non-Kurds out by force. We are at a tipping point in this conflict. If we can't get the stability and conditions required for peace in place NOW, we lose forever. And this means that we WORK HARDER. LONGER. Am I out to win this war by myself? No. That's just silliness. I'm here to do my share. But the shares of responsibility right now are massive, and even working two hours for every one, we are not meeting our obligations. So. Complain again. I dare you. I can take a liking to my new role as the bad guy. Don't worry, Blue, I'll bring you all back home safely. Or at least keep you safe until I change jobs in mid-May. Your well-being is always on my mind. But my obligation as an officer is not to you first, but to accomplishing the mission. Sacrificing some sleep and some R&R is perfectly acceptable to accomplish a mission where others have sacrificed their lives.

Enough ranting. You can probably imagine that this madness has hit a nerve. I'm doing my best to mitigate the madness from the menial taskings, to spare a few hours for the men, but I'm not going to allow anyone to overlook our very reason for being here. I have until mid-May to convince myself that this was even worth the effort. After that I have to watch from the sidelines. I'm going to hate it.

So. No news worth telling at this point. The last few days have included more humanitarian aid drops, a lot of meetings, and a desperate attempt to salvage the coherency of our partnered battalion. They're suffering a lot of changes. The hiring freeze on National Police (Iraqi government losing funds due to falling oil prices) has hurt them severely. Men die and are not replaced. The holes in their formations are becoming critical gaps. Their position is becoming untenable. We have to hold the ground for them while they consolidate and reorganize. Our days ahead will be very busy (to the great chagrin of some of my soldiers), but we can do it. We still haven't seen the breaking point. I'll tell you if we do. Until then, keep Blue in your thoughts. They'll be slaving under the lash for the next few weeks.

MOSUL 02APR09

2009-04-02T07:21:00.002-04:00

Yesterday we were awakened by an explosion that rocked the CHUs on base. A beautiful train/bus station, built in 1937 by the British, got demolished by a massive car bomb. It was what is referred to in military parlance as a BFB: a Big F-ing Bomb. Huge. No Coalition Forces were out there at the time, so we're all right, but it was not so good for our partners who had a base at the location. We were the first Coalition Forces on site, and I can't even describe the havoc this bomb caused. Every window was shattered in a kilometer radius. That evening, while on patrol, an IED detonated right after our rear vehicle passed the blast radius. A near miss. This morning, a grenade slammed into my rear MRAP. My guys are all at the Aid Station right now being assessed. They're all fine on the exterior; we're just checking for concussions and shock damage. The gunner may have a concussion. I grabbed a team and continued my standard operating procedure of chasing the enemy down the streets for a good hour. And as we leave, empty-handed and frustrated, what do we find? Another IED. A pipe bomb that failed to explode, right by my vehicles.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's been a busy few days.

When the Doc told me to stay on base on light duty for this week after my little adventure, this probably wasn't what he had in mind. But what he advised was not an order, it was a recommendation. And we are in an operating environment where the mission comes first and recommendations can be ignored. I'm needed out here with my platoon, and I'm not regreting it at all. Things are picking up too quickly. Our AO is getting pretty savage. If we don't land hard and fast in the middle of it and squash this now before it gets out of hand, we look at losing many more lives in the long run. Sweat now saves blood later. In the meantime, my headaches have basically stopped and the ringing in my ears has dissipated. I'm back to normal. The pace of constant operations (coupled with meetings spaced between operations) has me irritable and quick to anger, I've noticed, but otherwise I'm fine.

SGT Ladies' Man is leaving Blue Platoon, regrettably, and moving to his coveted position in the Brigade Personal Security Detachment. Honestly, I'll miss him. The two of us share a very similar sense of humor. We have, in his stead, received SGT Ranger (formerly from the Ranger Battalion, hence the name). He just arrived in country and is getting acclimated. This means that SSG Regulator will be returning to the vehicles, SGT Skizz will go back to commanding a team of dismounts, and SGT Ranger will take a squad. More moves ahead. Right now we're all busy pushing through combat paperwork; after every engagement, we have to send up the information regarding who got hit, when, how, and do they deserve an award for their actions. My Father mentioned how much he regreted not submitting his men for awards when he had to leave them, so I'm making an effort to get all of that paperwork completed now. Additionally, I've been moved in my future job from Night to Day Battle Commander. Joy? I don't know. Probably the same as before, but busier, and I'm still leaving Blue Platoon. We expect a change in early June.

I'm worried that I'll be leaving this sector more violent than I found it. The fact that the violence levels are historically higher in the warmer months does not negate my concerns; I said I would leave my part of the city better than I found it. Yes, we've arranged for multiple trash pick-ups, street repairs, electrical generators, etc., but what's the point if they're exploding even more often than before? We'll be cracking down hard on security over the next few weeks. We expect to be ridiculously busy.

Hope, Mark, Parents, stop worrying about my head. I appreciate the concern, but I'm already at the point where I could have returned to patrols anyway, and nothing happened to aggrevate the situation. I have a clean bill of health. I'm grateful that you all expressed so much concern for my well-being. I walked off without a scratch. I am, however, getting some information on the Captain who was walking beside me and shielded me from the blast with his body. He's not from my AO (I was tasked out to work far from my home neighborhoods that day), so I'm having difficulty getting in contact with him, but I can coordinate with the unit that usually works in that AO. I'll have some information for interested parties in a few days. I'm unsure as to the protocol here, though; what do you do for someone who took a blast for you? A thank-you note? A Hall-Mark card with adorable stuffed animals and bad "Bear with it!" puns? I wish I had spent more time asking about his home life, family, interests, etc. We spent our whole time discussing troop movements and inspecting the teams. I know very little about him, except that he is intelligent, friendly, and now sporting a few extra holes in his limbs. I'll see what information I can provide.

Blue Platoon reports all secure. We are alive and mostly well. Some concussions, some exhaustion, some damaged vehicles, but all in all we've come out of the last few days without any disasters. Keep the guys in your prayers, please, and may our enemies find grace and understanding with the world around them. Too many innocent people have been killed because of their blind hatred over the last week. I'll stay in touch and keep the journal updated as the month progresses. Maybe April will come in like a Lion but leave like a Lamb.

MOSUL 29MAR09

2009-03-29T11:50:00.003-04:00

On 1040 29MAR09, during an extensive cordon and search operation, my world went white. Bright shining light everywhere. I didn't even hear the explosion; my ears just went out immediately. Then the ringing started. It still hasn't stopped.

I should preface by announcing that everyone in Blue Platoon is alive and nobody is seriously wounded. In fact, the only Coalition Forces injured in the incident was me. I was walking down the road to one of my vehicles, accompanied by an Iraqi Army Captain (a great guy, easy smile, intelligent, speaks very good English), when everything went into slow motion. I remember walking, I remember everything flashing, and then I don't remember anything for about five to ten minutes. I'm told by my gunner (watching as I walked towards the vehicle) that the IED detonated no more than five meters from me. The IA Captain was standing in such a way that his body blocked any shrapnel from hitting me. In brief, despite all odds, I didn't get a scratch on my body. Not one. My friend was not so lucky. He's alive, and last I heard he's in stable condition. The shrapnel ripped into his arms and legs, tearing open some lacerations all the way down to the bone.

I can't remember what I did for the first five or so minutes after the blast, so what I report is what others observed me doing. Apparently I sprinted to cover, took cover, left cover immediately, and sprinted back towards the blast site, yelling at my gunner to "cover me." He screamed at me to turn around and head for a humvee, convinced I was hit and bleeding. I took his advice and dove into the seat and started calling up orders to the platoon. I'm told most of it was gibberish. Somehow I managed to establish a cordon around a mosque where someone thought they had seen a trigger man flee.

I resumed full consciousness in the middle of a conversation with the Commander. And when I did wake back up, I had no idea what I had been saying when I was still at some other level of consciousness. And I looked like a complete idiot.
"The cordon is in place, LT. What's your plan of action?"
"Hold on... wait... cordon? Give me a second... holy shit my head... what cordon?"
"For the possible trigger man! You were just giving me the description they reported to you!"
"There's a trigger man? Who said there's a trigger man?"
I've never heard of something like this happening before, but apparently it can. I completely lost five or ten minutes of time.

Short of a minor concussion, inflamed and swelling eardrums, a constant obnoxious ringing sound in the back of my head, and some dizziness and nasuea, I'm doing just fine. Thank God for that. I have no rational explanation for how everything around me was perforated with shrapnel and I didn't get a scratch. I've been amazed at my luck before, but this is unprecedented. I can't get my mind around it (maybe because the constant headache has impaired my thinking). I'm fine. I'm good. My joints hurt, my teeth feel tingly and loose, my head is pounding and my eyes have trouble focusing, but I'm alive. Not a scratch. Amazing.

In other news, platoon life continues as normal. Which is to say hectic and busy. I find myself missing my wife and my home more and more than ever (especially today). We're starting to think this madness might never end. We've got to get out of here. There is nothing healthy and sane about a world where random things explode all the time. Some of the guys are starting to push out on mid-tour leave (a bit early, I think), but at least it gives us the illusion that we're half-way done.

I read a particularly inspirational piece of bathroom graffiti a bit ago that may summarize the sinking feeling of despair.
"Anyone ready for some hot man on man action?"
And written underneath, in a different hand:
"Not yet. But soon."

MOSUL 24MAR09

2009-03-24T04:02:00.004-04:00

An eventful ten days since my last post.

We've conducted two humanitarian aid drops--or more specifically, handed all the materials over to the National Police, secured the site for them, and then watched as they informed the populace that this was a product of their good will and a symbol of increasing Iraqi stability (our food, our security... but I guess the illusion is better than nothing). The first drop, in my main problem neighborhood, almost ended in a food riot. When they ran out of food the crowd started rushing the truck. I almost smacked the National Policeman who did what we fully expected they would (but were still hoping they would not) do: started firing rounds off in the air. NOTE: This does NOT calm down a mob. This does NOT restore order. This is NOT a clever idea. All of a sudden, my platoon is pouring out of the woodwork on this crowd. Everyone quieted right down. Apparently the Americans have built a reputation around here for strict crowd control. I wonder if we're still authorized to use the tear gas grenades. Hope has a picture of me in Basic Training after being subjected to my first tear gas chamber. I had bronchitis at the time, so the entire front of my uniform was covered in green stuff. I vomited into the chinstrap of my helmet. It was miserable. But it is a hell of a way to drive off a crowd. Might have countered the good will we were trying to foster, though.

While we were leaving one of the aid drops, the National Police started going crazy about a possible IED in an old, rusted out car on the road. They were convinced there was a bomb. We glanced at it and did in fact see a strange object lying there, so we decided to humor them. Last time I didn't believe their assessment I almost got a face full of shrapnel. So as I'm driving my vehicle by to establish the far-side cordon, I take a good look at it.

Huh.

"Blue One, this is Blue Four," calls SSG Lark. "Do you have a visual? Can you give me a description of the IED?"
"Four, this is One. I have the IED in site time now. Visual description follows: Approximately seven to eight pounds, white exterior, orange markings, long tail, whiskers, and four *adorable* little paws. I'm calling him Mittens."
Mittens left shortly after we cordoned the area off, and we watched as he romped and frolicked around our trucks for the three hours we had to wait for EOD to arrive. Guess what? No bomb. SGT Ladies' Man is preparing a visual diagram to represent his revolutionary new concept: the Cat-Borne IED (CBIED). Could be ingenious.

Yesterday, Blue Platoon arrived on scene to assist our colleagues in Red after a suicide bomber detonated in the middle of their National Police partners. I have some general guidelines for all of you who intend suicide: first and foremost, I would advise against a suicide vest. It is fast, yes, but it is not clean. Not clean at all. We were finding stray body parts hundreds of feet away. We were identifying the victims and the bomber by who's legs were wearing what shoes. Watched a cat (Mittens?) eating pieces of human flesh. If this place weren't already completely surreal and screwed up, this kind of thing might mess with your sleep for the next few years. But I find myself sleeping like a baby. SSG Lark is sometimes confused by how unfazed I seem by all of this. He thinks it may be a mental disorder of some kind, or maybe some kind of delayed reaction coping mechanism. I call bullshit. "Don't you realize that this place isn't normal? That this kind of thing isn't normal?" he asks. No, I counter, this kind of thing IS normal for where we are. I actually expected worse. If you came here expecting to find small-town Arkansas, replete with Mom and Pop stores and the Friday night football game, you're probably having some trouble adjusting. But I had a year and a half of training just to pyschologically prepare me as an officer, and they told us to expect nothing short of Armageddon. This is not the End of the World. This is, as I mentioned earlier, just a ridiculous and absurdly violent camping trip.

The final issue today, and one which depresses me immensely but cannot be avoided, is that I'm going to lose Blue Platoon in June. We knew this would come eventually. I was hoping to keep my platoon through the entire deployment, but my time as a Platoon Leader is ending and I need to step aside for the new guys. I've come to love my men, and there's always a feeling of failure and betrayal when you have to abandon your battle buddies halfway through the fight, but this is the way it goes. "Officers are guests," says SSG Lark. "You come in, take control, make all these big decisions, but then, before you know it, you're gone." I have two more months before I shift out. I'll be assuming the position of Night Battle Captain. As Hope sagely pointed out, this is a position that requires no battling, or--as is apparent by my rank--even being a Captain. This position is in headquarters. I'll be coordinating units in the field while the leadership sleeps, basically acting as Battalion Commander during the slow parts. The moment something happens they'll reassume control, but they have to sleep sometimes, and this is where the Battle Captain comes in. I just track everybody's locations, missions, and dispositions, and then push assets like air support out to them as necessary. My life will be filled with screens and air footage. I'll carry a pistol and smell freshly bathed. I'll work in standard shifts of eight-to-twelve hours. I'll catch myself ruefully reminiscing on the glory days when "outside the wire" wasn't a theoretical concept. Dear God, what will become of me? Transitioning from constant combat operations to headquarters may be too much. My Mom is thrilled. I'm knocking my head against the walls.

As an Infantry Officer, there is a progression of possible jobs I need "to get my ticket punched" for future success. After my time as Platoon Leader, I would ideally like a Scout Platoon, a Mortar Platoon, or to serve as Executive Officer in a company. These are the "next step" jobs. There are also the jobs you definitely don't want, such as serving at Brigade level in the shops. This is where Lieutenant careers go to die. Battle Captain is something towards the high end of the middle. It means my performance has been good but not great, and it means my future is probably not in the Infantry. Which we all know. My Commander told it to me straight: my strength is in the non-kinetic part of the war. Reconstruction, negotiation, public affairs, civil meetings. I enjoy the Infantry portion, but we both know that I'm looking to transfer out of the Infantry and into Civil Affairs. And he's done his best to facilitate this move. In return, though, he cannot in good conscience put me forward for the next-step Infantry positions over officers who actually need them for their careers. Battle Captain will not hinder my branch transfer. It may even help it, since my Commander is trying to push for me to also serve as Civil Projects Liaison. But my Infantry days are coming to a close. My Mom and Hope can throw a party somewhere, but right now I'm a little disappointed. I don't want to leave Blue.

What this means for the Journal will be more difficult. Come June, the focus will shift from Blue Platoon to little old me and my adventures (or lack thereof) in headquarters. Not exciting stuff. Also mostly classified, so the material will be limited. So I'll be trying to cram as many entries as possible into the next two months. After the transfer, we'll see what a normal entry consists of; right now, I can't even imagine. Until then, though, I'm still here with Blue. I'll write again soon.

MOSUL 14MAR09

2009-03-14T11:08:00.002-04:00

Once again, Blue Platoon has experienced an incredible spate of good luck. They tried to kill SSG Lark two days ago... and they almost succeeded. I should probably mention that they tried to kill everyone in his truck, but as I work with SSG Lark more than anyone else, that struck closer to home. As we were completing a traffic checkpoint (searching pedestrians as they entered the neighborhood) and preparing to exfiltrate, an insurgent opened fire on his truck. With a pistol. The gunner swerved over to engage. Our .50 cal Browning Machine Gun vs. their pistol makes for very good odds, so we expected some serious results. But the diversion worked just as intended. A nearby pedestrian walked out of the crowd on the gunner's blind side, approached the truck, and rolled a hand grenade into the turret. The truck behind was baffled... the grenade was bright red, and they couldn't imagine why someone would toss a tomato at the vehicle. Another insurgent walked out of the crowd with a pistol, tried to open SSG Lark's door, found it was locked, and popped a shot into the window. Thank God for shatterproof glass. The driver, PFC Timidity (as we will call him as we introduce him for the first time), demonstrated innovation and quick thinking not usually seen in him (hence his name) and gunned the truck forward. The grenade rolled off onto the ground, detonating and disabling the vehicle, but injuring no one. Very lucky. The ensuing firefight and pursuit damaged a dozen civilian vehicles, but all three of them disappeared into the crowd and fled.

I grabbed a squad and pursued. Maybe not the best idea in the world, but it worked at the time, so we ran--literally ran--for an hour after them. They split up, but the choppers were able to get on station fast enough to identify one of them and walk us in to his location. It was quite a little pursuit. When we caught up, he had dropped all of his weapons and had linked up with his cousin who tried to cover for him. "He's been with me all day." Right. SSG Lark saw you up close and personal. He knows you. He recognizes you. You are ours now, buddy. I had both of them detained. I felt pretty bad about leaving the cousin's eight-year-old kid crying on the street by himself, but getting shot at and blown up can make you pretty callous. We dragged them both back to our vehicles and into our detention facility.

(Cue the circus music.)
Now, ladies and gentlemen, behold the grand spectacle of the detention process in the new Iraq! With time ticking down before mandatory release, the lieutenant here must gather witnesses and documents in an uncooperative country or watch his culprit run free! It's a scavenger hunt of epic scale. Can our hero do it?

The first act is to round up the witnesses. But wait! In a country where everybody knows everybody's mother, suddenly no one wants to talk about the incident! A dozen people on the street, but each one of them is more terrified of the insurgents than of the Americans. Did you see anything? No? Are you sure? Here, if we blindfold these detainees so they can't see you, can you tell us if you've seen people matching this description on the scene? You can't? Oh, you were hiding at the time and completely oblivious? Of course you were. All of you? No? Great. Well, come with us anyway. We're taking your statements whether you want to give them or not.

Now quickly, as time ticks down to the twenty-four hour limit, process these guys into the detention facility! Tick tock tick tock.... and six hours are gone with paperwork and sworn statements. But wait! You can't hold them without a certificate from an Iraqi Colonel or above allowing Coalition Forces to detain Iraqi citizens. And here's the extra challenge in your scavenger hunt: all of the Colonels in your area are on leave! That's right, vacation! They're gone! With two hours left, you need to find a Colonel willing to sign away these citizens to our custody. Isn't there a Colonel at the Brigade Headquarters? Maybe, but he's new. So we speed over there, run out of the vehicles with the documents, and try to get him to sign it. Twenty minutes left now. What's that, Colonel? You haven't heard anything about this incident and want a full report, as well as a phone call to your command group? Uh... listen, we're a bit short on time here (ten minutes left). Could you just take this on faith? No? Got it. Here's the breakdown. And the phone call. Two minutes left. Documents in hand, we sprint back to the vehicles and drive back to the detention facility. A sergeant from headquarters is there causing a ruckus and trying to distract them to buy time (which is now out). Then, just as they are getting wise to our game, up rolls the convoy! Out we go, documents in hand, and sprint to the desk. Congratulations! You have now imprisoned two men for fourteen days. This gives you time to get witnesses (unlikely) and gather evidence.

The interrogator informed us that they started breaking their story. Separating them and trying to get the cousin to flip may be working. One says they took a cab here, the other says they walked, one says there were just two of them plus the kid, the other claims a whole group was with them. The stories start to crack. All the while, this guy has to be wondering how we caught him. Did he ever wonder why those helicopters kept hovering over his general area? Well, buddy, we caught you. And if we have to turn you over to the Iraqi authorities, while they will most likely eventually release you, we know that you'll at least have a very bad time of it. They don't follow the rules we follow. Why don't you just admit to everything now? They execute terrorists. We just lock you up.

Anyway, it's been an eventful few days. We caught one. Yes, we should have killed all three in the firefight. I know. We'll work on that. Embarrassed? Yes, a little. Our marksmanship is not what it should be, apparently. But we did get you. We're the first platoon to make contact, maintain contact, engage, close with, and detain the enemy. SSG Lark is still a bit shaken up, which is understandable, and PFC Timidity will be getting his Combat Infantryman Badge. Good work, crew. We've been very lucky. Couple this with the IED that detonated much too close to me the day before, and we have what can only be described as unreasonably good fortune. So keep the prayers coming. If you get a chance, say one for the little kid we left on the street without a father. He's innocent in all of this. But do I regret my actions? I surprise myself by finding I don't. He's a casualty in all of this, but that's the price you pay when your family supports the insurgency. Don't shoot at my men. It makes me a bit vengeful. So, I'm off to yet another meeting and another patrol. I'll write again when I get the chance.

MOSUL 09MAR09

2009-03-09T10:49:00.002-04:00

I have been remiss in writing for the last week. We've been ridiculously busy again, but now, between missions and with a new wireless internet service working, I'm able to post another entry. My life over the last week has been a series of missions, varied throughout morning and night, trying to reestablish control of our AO. The insurgents apparently weren't as shocked and awed by our intensive cordon and search as we hoped they would be. Grenade attacks and small arms fire are on the rise. On 07MAR09, Blue Platoon was present for two IED detonations. Nobody in our platoon was hurt. One of my colleagues, a lieutenant in the National Police, took shrapnel to the leg. He'll be fine. These are basically little surface explosives intended to kill dismounted troops; they do very little against vehicles. Might pop off a tire. They want us to stay in the vehicles, apparently, and they want to stretch the National Police thin so that they have insufficient manpower to continue offensive operations. You can't mount a patrol when all of your soldiers are guarding the roads. We've made serious efforts to incorporate the National Police into a real partnership. We pair each of them up with one of our soldiers. We inspect our men before patrols and watch them inspect theirs. We move together, my men paired with theirs, me with their commander, and proceed in tandem. The Blue AO is coming along very well in that department. My colleagues in Red and White are having trouble getting their partnered leadership to understand the importance of patrolling at all, let alone patrolling as partners, so they're essentially stuck far behind us. No lack of effort on their part. I have been fortunate to receive a unit that is comfortable with our presence and eager for our support. I'd like to think that some of this can be credited to our efforts at developing a rapport and friendly relationship with them, but maybe we were just lucky. Red One is having a bad time with his guys especially. Then again, he's also very American in his outlook. He is quick to judge and belittle them when they err, and this probably doesn't do much for the working relationship. It's a problem: we're working in a training/mentoring/partnered relationship, which is basically a Special Forces mission, but we're line infantry. Some of us just can't get out of the mindset.

The difference is palpable. A few nights ago, while on a dismount patrol, Blue was shot at by some National Police. Fortunately I had already recognized them as allies before they shot at us. Given the recent spate of insurgents disguising themselves as police so they can kill us up close, we had some doubts, but I knew these men and their checkpoint. It was dark, they were scared, and they made an idiotic decision. I had my men hold their fire. A tough decision, since that bullet definitely cracked right by me. I was a little angry. We stopped and shouted, with no response. I had some air support choppers buzz them up close, just to put the fear of the Red, White, and Blue into them. Then, with close air coverage, I approached them with a squad and a Bradley, blinding them with the Brad lights. They claimed they thought we were terrorists. Terrorists with helicopters and Bradleys. I have to admit that I held off for a second while SGT Skizz shook them around before I intervened. Usually I put a stop to that kind of thing immediately, but I wanted them to know that we were not happy. Not happy at all. Seriously. I get a little irate when you shoot at me and my men. I just can't help it.

Today is the Sunni celebration for the birth of the Prophet. It was marked by a sharp increase in attacks on National Police. Once again, the enemy pulled out the moment Coalition Forces arrived on scene. They just don't want to engage us anymore. The local populace was targeted as well, with one killed and two wounded, and this has done little to reduce the growing animosity the public has to these foreign fighters. I met a Sheik yesterday who had lost eleven members of his family to Coalition Forces during the course of the war, including his eldest son, and while he was hardly complimentary of our efforts at pacifying the area, he did volunteer that he had come to hate the insurgents even more than us. We at least try to put things right. Say what you will about our efforts here, our intent is honorable. We want to leave the country more secure and stable then when we arrived. The populace is growing to understand this. The insurgents depend on slaughter and chaos and have no honorable plan for the populace, and they are growing to understand this as well. They may not all like us, but they understand us. We're most certainly the lesser of two evils.

My crew is doing well. SPC Darkness is reveling in the fact that he gets to drive my truck, which means he is getting paid for a leadership position but is doing a private's work, and he is pleased to find that I don't scream at my crew when they make mistakes. Not my place. I just try to correct them and get the show on the road. I'm always a little frustrated when my leadership stops a patrol to punish a mistake. I understand it has to be done, but there are ways of getting the job done without stopping the whole process. SGT Lady's Man is also pretty ecstatic about the arrangement. He came to be my gunner when he almost crushed one of our HMMWVs with his Bradley. This is his punishment. He couldn't be happier. SGT Mountain is not faring so well, as the constant screaming from SSG Lark is weighing down on him. He tries so hard. I have never wanted someone to succeed so badly. I want him to do it right, but the little things always evade his attention. He's to the point of seeking counseling from the Chaplain. I've instructed SSG Lark to go a little easier on him, but this is outside of my lane, and I understand if that doesn't happen. SSG Lark is keeping the platoon straight inside so I can keep the sector straight outside. His efforts typically work, so I keep out of his hair. But he is definitely a taskmaster and can be pretty ruthless about it.

Blue Platoon is currently fighting a bell curve... and losing. Someone in headquarters had the brilliant observation that most of our patrols were occurring around the same time every day, so the company decided to change things up. Ideally this would mean shifting to one long mission in the early morning or late night, but we're trying to fight statistics, so my instructions are to stage multiple patrols in morning and night, and be ready to act during those peak times when we're typically out. In essence, we patrol ALL THE TIME. Sleep is sparse. Ulcers are plentiful. I had three men go to sick call for stress-related injuries... not the little ones. Heavy blood content in feces. I think I'm even losing hair. Dad, if you win the baldness gene, I'm going to be very upset. The sad thing is that we pushed those three men through sick call, gave them some medication, and then pushed them immediately out on our next patrol. We can't afford not to. We need everyone. In the Army, you can be punished for falling ill. You have by personal neglect inflicted damage to Army property. Conversely, can you be punished for mishandling Army property? Am I running them too hard? Are they running me too hard? Or are we like the vehicles, with expected periods of breakdown? The only problem is that the vehicles get time for maintenance. My men do not. They need sleep. They need time when they aren't constantly paranoid. They need a day when nothing explodes and nobody shoots at them. We're holding on, but at this rate, I'm going to be leading husks by summer. They're doing their jobs well, but that's all they're doing. They have no down time, no life outside of patrols. And no, we are not one of the brigades tasked for early redeployment. Things are much too hot here. We'll be here to the end.

Keep Blue Platoon in your prayers. We're still trucking, despite it all, and the men deserve great credit for their tenacity. I think that America might have pushed off some of its marginal population to the Army, but they will return as America's best. These men remain heroes in my eyes. I'll write again as soon as I can.

MOSUL 01MAR09

2009-03-09T10:38:00.001-04:00

We’ve completed our portion of Operation New Hope. What it effectively meant for us was a week of very long days and very little sleep. I also got a personal tour of just about every building in a two-neighborhood sector. Of course, by the end of the operation just about everyone knew that we were coming to search their houses. Some of the upper-class houses had chai and baked treats waiting for us when we entered. “Oh, what a pleasant surprise to see you! I suppose you’ll be wanting to search my house now. Please go ahead. We actually thought you were coming yesterday, so it isn’t as clean now as it was then. We apologize for any mess.”

Huh. So much for lightning speed, I guess. But we hit the problem areas first, so everything afterwards was just icing on the cake. The sinister one-eyed man has been captured. A few weapons caches were located and disposed of. I got shot at twice, got scared by a grenade once (as I mentioned earlier, it failed to detonate), and drank maybe fifty cups of chai. I see now why all the old people I meet here have diabetes. It’s the chai and the sweets. They cover everything in high quantities of sugar or salt, depending on the food.

We decided to enact a few personnel moves. SGT Crisis is no longer my gunner, which is fine by me, as he has been given a fire team of dismounts. Let’s see how he handles. My new gunner is SGT Lady’s Man, the only one I know with these standing orders: “If my penis is blown off, do not resuscitate.” Ah, priorities. At least he has some. My driver is SPC Darkness. He was doing well with a fire team of his own before he mouthed off at SSG Crunchberry. He’s set for some obligatory punishment. My RTO, Private Bourbon, had a negligent discharge on the FOB. This means he accidentally fired his weapon. Fortunately no one was hurt, but the penalties for this kind of accident are understandably strict. He has been docked a rank and is working extra duty. I had to intercede on his behalf, or more specifically his wife and two children’s behalf, in order to keep him from losing a week of pay as well. It’s hard enough to support one person on his salary, let alone four. Additionally, he is now serving as SSG Lark’s driver. A pity, since he was really starting to like being RTO. The RTO is a Radio Telephone Operator, my link to the company when I’m on the ground. He carries a radio on his back and walks with me, listening for whenever the commander calls to give orders or request a report. He is easily located by his large antenna. Nice target. I’ve been selfishly hoping that the insurgents never figured out that they should probably aim at the guy BESIDE the big radio, not the guy carrying it.

SSG Regulator is no longer allowed to command a Bradley because he made too much of a fuss in front of the commander that the vehicles weren’t properly configured for combat. When he announced that he would not use it in combat, as it was that unsafe, they removed him from the vehicles. So he is now a dismount squad leader, which is an adventure for everyone. This is maybe the first time in his ten year infantry career that he has been dedicated to the ground. He has two excellent team leaders, including SGT Skizz, so we know he’s in good hands. SSG Chase is now the mounted section leader. He hates it. He spent months trying to get onto the ground, and now circumstances have forced him right back to the vehicles. Of course, given the rate he complained whenever we dismounted, I’m all right with him in the vehicles. Now he won’t wear me down with his constant questioning. “Why are we getting out? We can see just as well from inside the vehicles.” No, we cannot. And when we’re out, we have twenty weapons oriented towards potential enemies. We have twenty individually moving pieces that they have to contend with. When we’re mounted we have only six, and they are unwieldy at best. Deal with it. Get out and walk.

So things in Blue Platoon are new all over again. This gives us a chance to find untapped potential in our soldiers and break up the monotony. The inherent risk, dealing with soldiers who aren’t entirely familiar with their new roles, is just something that comes with the territory. The Army is at its core an adaptable organization. We are supposed to learn quickly. Letting these guys get overly familiar with their jobs only breeds complacency and professional stagnation.

I got a great package from my brother and sister-in-law again, apparently because I issued a “shout out” to them in an earlier entry. So, to Tom and Alicia: extra shout outs to you. Tell your sister’s boyfriend that those were some delicious chocolates. Man, my life can be pretty darned nice sometimes. Hard to complain (mostly because it’s a punishable offense—but seriously, I’m doing just fine).

The platoon also states our appreciation to the Congregation of St. Stephens in Virginia. They have adopted our platoon (thanks to Grandpa Lyle for working this one) and have bestowed many, many nice things on us. I just walked into the headquarters and was told I had ten boxes waiting for me. Big boxes. Personal hygiene kits, food and candy, baby wipes and cleaning supplies, toys and goodies of all kinds; the great part is that we received it immediately after the conclusion of our portion of Operation New Hope. This means that we got a resupply right when we had the opportunity to enjoy it.

My church, St. Bartholomew’s Parish, continues to pray for the platoon every service. I am forever grateful for their concern. As I wrote to my Dad, though I’m hesitant to think the Almighty ever takes sides in the insanity of men, I can’t help but think that maybe the prayers have had a hand in the ridiculous spate of good luck we’ve enjoyed. Bullets that miss by inches, grenades that drop on us but don’t explode, IEDs narrowly avoided… well, in short, keep those prayers coming. They are deeply appreciated.

Hope has been sending me little letters, and from time to time I receive a lavishly decorated package. Cut-out hearts, pictures, my favorite comics, the whole deal. Yes, I picked the right one. I thought she had been perfuming her letters until she revealed that she had been using the stationary she accidentally dumped some kind of fruit juice on. Now she is faced with a dilemma: does she perfume the next letter, risking a little tender ridicule from me, or does she not perfume it, thus sending me into a confused and panicked state when I finally see her in person and realize that she does not smell like the woman who has been writing to me? Her schoolwork is going well, and she’s almost done with her Comps project, but the schedule is stressing her a bit. She’s also looking at a trip to Paris in the very near future. Her first time in Europe. I’m issuing a strong warning to all Parisian men… do not test me. I have friends with weapons all over the world.

Anyway, we’re finally catching a little time to relax. I never thought a ten-hour work day would seem like a vacation. But it means I have time to sleep, to write, and to catch up on the little things I need like laundry and haircuts. I was getting a bit shaggy. I’ll have to post this entry at a later date since our current internet provider jumped town a few days ago and was last seen forging passports for their new lives in Syria. No kidding. They’re gone. We’re waiting for the next service provider, which they assure us is coming soon. Then again, they’ve been saying that for the last two months. That’s right. Today marks two months in Iraq and practically three months deployed. 25% completion. Hold on, Hope. Don’t hate the Army too much. They’ll let me out of here eventually.

I’ve taken to a little song that my Father once sang at a hospital party (he was administrator at the time). I seem to remember him saying that it made some appearances in Vietnam, coupled with “We’ve Got to Get Out of This Place.” The point is to sing it in the most obnoxious twang you can muster.

“If I had the wings of an angel,

Over these prison walls I would fly.

Back to the arms of my loved ones,

For I’m weary and too young to die.”

So melodramatic. It’s not that bad. It really isn’t. The worst part is being away from my wife and family. Next comes the constant paranoia. When the shooting does start, that part really isn’t all that bad. Your adrenaline pumps and you get pretty aggressive, but that’s it. The grenades and IEDs are quick and so far have yet to injure anyone in Blue. You don’t even have time to be nervous before it’s over. I’ve developed a severe mistrust of single-occupant vehicles and large windows. I hate standing in open places. I catch myself peeking around corners on the FOB before I turn them. Not healthy. Not normal. Maybe going a bit crazy. But barring these little eccentricities, it really isn’t that bad. I have food, climate-controlled sleeping quarters, my laptop, and occasionally internet. And I am able to communicate with my loved ones from time to time. Hardly a war at all, really. Just a really violent camping trip.

I’m off to my evening meeting. Best wishes to everyone, my sincerest thanks for the letters and packages, and keep the men in Blue in your thoughts and prayers. We are a quarter of the way done.

MOSUL 23FEB09

2009-03-09T10:35:00.000-04:00

I finally found some time to type out another journal entry. We are in the midst of extensive clearing operations as part of Operation New Hope and Blue Platoon is getting pretty worn down. I myself have slept for an aggregate 6 of the last 72 hours. I can't believe I'm even coherent. Maybe I'm not. I'll look back on this and pass final judgment. The commander has had me clearing during the day and placing barriers at night. The problem is, it's just me. I'm tasked to go with the other patrols during barrier emplacement, even though another platoon is doing the actual work. So Blue Platoon is getting some sleep. I'm not. Today is now three days long, and I've been chasing smurfs and leprechauns across Mosul for the last twelve hours. We'll get them. Damn smurfs.

SSG Lark is asking if I'm being punished for something. Nothing that I know of. Maybe the commander just hasn't realized that he's sending me out for days at a time? Maybe he's just failed to connect the dots? I doubt it. If I am being punished, the stubborn part of me has resolved not to even let on that I'm exhausted. I won't complain to him. Bring it on, buddy. My sleep-deprived leprechaun hallucinations give me strength.

Regardless, we've had the Devil's Own Luck for the past few days. SGT Mountain nearly got shot in the face a few days ago... he kept the bullet that impacted the sniper shield on his Bradley. Our attacker got away. PFC Devil got a scare when an insurgent sprayed his door with an AK-47 this morning. He was a little shaken up by it. Our attacker got away. I managed to cash in one of my lives today with an unexploded grenade. Thank God the guy forgot to pull the second safety. Two safeties, people. You don't just sweep and throw. There are steps. Don't teach this guy, though. I was out of range enough that I would have just taken a good pile of shrapnel. Nothing lethal, most likely. But I would have definitely increased the iron content in my blood. My commander would have gone down for sure, though. I was on the other side of the road when we took contact, and after I got the guys ready to move on the enemy (and called them off as there was already a chaotic death-blossom of National Police firing wildly in the air and moving in the general direction of the attacker), I glanced over and saw the grenade roll under a truck maybe 30 meters from my position. I'm pretty sure that's out of the lethal blast radius. I'll have to check. But then I see the commander, standing there, getting some men together for a possible pursuit.

"Bulldog 6, this is Blue 1."
"Blue 1, Bulldog 6."
"Well, you see, there's this grenade under the truck beside you. I recommend you consider moving."
"Aha. (longer and more drawn out understanding:) Aaaaahhhhaaaa. (He slowly steps into his HMMWV:) Bulldog 6 out."

The major points go to the Iraqi National Policeman who, after a minute without explosion, ran into the truck the grenade rolled under and drove it away. We didn't know what was wrong with that grenade. Maybe the pin was partially in and just required a good jostle to blow. Maybe it was just waiting for the stars to align. Or maybe, joy of joys, the idiot who threw it forgot to pull the second safety. That was still an impressive act of courage, as I see it. You should have seen his eyes when he willed himself to do it. I couldn't even stop him. I didn't believe he was doing it until he dove into the truck.

Anyway, to make a long story short, we've been very busy and very, very lucky. The next stage of the operation remains classified, of course, but more will follow once we've finished the missions. I'm going to hit a brief now and see if I'm about to enjoy day five, night four without sleep. Bring it on. The smurfs and I can handle anything.

MOSUL 15FEB09

2009-02-17T04:07:00.000-05:00

Life is returning to normal for Blue Platoon at this point. At least, as normal as can be expected. Now that the information has been declassified, we can tell you that our Battalion Commander was one of the four US soldiers killed in the incident on Monday. That fact is tragic on a human level and catastrophic on a military level. Our entire command structure was thrown into disarray—though to the credit of our battalion staff, far less than I would have expected—and our initial operations to secure the area and regain control of the city after the fact was more disjointed and the guidance more contradictory than is usually customary in the US Military.

He was a good man. A knuckle dragger, as they said at higher headquarters, a bull who lowered in and charged the opposition with steadfast determination. He was, in my mind, invincible. Untouchable. He was the one who inspired and terrified us, who led us and pushed us, who made our battalion the main effort in the main conflict in the final segments of the war. As a mere Platoon Leader, I did not interact with him to the same extent that my commander and the staff officers did. But I still had the opportunity to learn from him. He was the man you did not dare disappoint. I remember the last thing he said to me, two days before his death, as I stood before him. “Get the f--- out of my office,” he said, throwing the Article 15 packet we had created for a SGT Crisis (so named because his life, and especially his finances, are perpetually in crisis). “He almost missed the flight to deploy, yes, but that was because he was arrested. Not a good thing in an NCO, but he’s here, he made it, and his crew can depend on him. He’s a shooter. I’m not going to punish a man who’s out there, every day, fighting the fight, for something like this. Get the f--- out of my office.” That’s the kind of man he was. Blunt, direct, focused on the mission. There is a time for garrison punishments, and then there is a time for fighting. Never the twain shall meet. I respected that about him. He was a bull of a man, and he will be missed.

The memorial ceremony was a phenomenal event, and I am grateful that my commander was able to push my patrol to the right so I could be in attendance. Men who knew the fallen, their best friends, stepped forward to give a short anecdote of a favorite moment or trait or just to give us an idea of who these people were. The translator who was killed was honored right beside all of them; he had just received his Visa, and was to become an American citizen in three months. He had voluntarily postponed his flight to the States so that he could be on hand until the Colonel was able to find a replacement for him. His roommate stepped forward and shared a bit of who he was as well. The roommate of the sergeant whose personal belongings I was ordered to inventory and organize for their flight to his next of kin (a painful process for anyone) said the most memorable thing, in my mind: “These men all came from very different backgrounds and very different places, but they died as they lived. Together. United in purpose, united in spirit. As a crew.”

I lost composure during the final part of the ceremony when the roll was called. All of the soldiers in the company of the fallen stood at attention and proceeded through the morning garrison ritual of taking the roll. The First Sergeant stood before them and began calling off names:

“Private Thompson!”

“Here!” came the reply.

“Corporal Mills!”

“Here!” he replied.

“Sergeant Phelps!”

Silence.

“Sergeant Richard Phelps!”

The room stood deathly still, eyes focused on the picture at the front of Sergeant Phelps, grinning at the camera, looking like he had the whole world ahead of him.

“Sergeant Richard Allen Phelps!”

After a pause, the First Sergeant moved to the next name on the list. And it resumed down the line until the whole company had been called.

“Sergeant Major,” announced the First Sergeant, turning to issue his morning report, “Four men are reported out of ranks.”

Then the headquarters element stood and proceeded with the same ceremony.

“Major Allen!”

“Here, Sergeant Major!”

“Captain Locks!”

“Here, Sergeant Major!”

“Colonel Redding!”

Silence.

“Colonel Thomas Redding!”

Eyes go to the picture up front, the command picture, with him staring down the camera. The American flag hangs in the background. He looks into your eyes from the picture, demanding loyalty and dedication, every ounce the commander.

“Colonel Thomas Richard Redding!”

He had a wife and three children. Words cannot express my sorrow for them.

“Sir,” said the Sergeant Major, turning to the Acting Battalion Commander. “The Commander is out of ranks.”

The event itself released an emotional catharsis in us, I believe. There is something to be said for grabbing five hundred infantrymen and tankers and forcing them to cry. Everything around us seemed as if it were returning to normal afterwards. The gnawing anxiety lifted. Things were going to be all right. We had suffered a tragedy—though I don’t dare compare it to the suffering of their families—but we would carry on. There was work to do.

Our response measures consumed nearly every hour of the week until today. Sleep was held over us as a sweet but unattainable temptation; every time we even considered laying down, the call went up for RedCon1. And back out we went. Day and night into day and night into day and night. It’s all blurred together in my mind. I can’t tell you what we did when. But in the end of the madness we captured some of the parties responsible, formed networks we hadn’t utilized before, fortified our positions and those of our Iraqi partners, and reinforced our presence in the city in a way no one could deny. They will know now what happens when they strike us, and they will learn fear.

While I can’t tell you much at all about what occurred in response, I can tell you one thing: Navy SEALs are like kids in the playground with weapons. Part of me respects what they’ve been through to earn their place. The rest of me thinks that they are cowboys out there that may do us more harm than good. We hit a neighborhood one night in conjunction with them; my platoon hit one part while they hit the other. We breached and cleared many a building (I’ve discovered that “breaching and clearing” is surprisingly like “breaking and entering”) in pursuit of our targets. Every few minutes, though, the district was rocked with an explosion. The first time I rushed over with a dismount squad to support the SEAL Team, which I assumed had hit a house bomb or a grenade. Nope, they said, thanks, but that was us. We’re using explosives to breach the doors. I just looked at the guy in my squad with the bolt cutters, looked back at them, and walked away. Seriously. Why would you blow up the doors when the bolt cutters are faster and quieter? I think they just like blowing stuff up.

My translator that night was Kyle. I have to say, I was impressed with his performance. Not at translating, mind you… we really didn’t talk to anyone. We cut a lock and prepared to enter and clear—only to find that there was an internal lock. SGT Darkness started pulling out his shotgun. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I see a flash of movement and later recognize it as Kyle doing a flying mule-kick at the door. “Oh, hell yes, Kyle! Go, buddy, go!” He hits the door, caves it in slightly, bounces back, and then shoots in for another kick. And another. And on the fourth, the door slams open—and Kyle goes in right with it. He doesn’t even have a weapon. The guy is nuts. I was told later that he is prior Iraqi Army. Go figure. I’ve said it before: whatever we may say about their tactical training, you should never underestimate their courage. They are insane. I wouldn’t have been surprised if one of my men did it, but the translator? That just boggled my mind.

We’ve got more operations in the morning, so I’m going to have to end this entry before I go through everything. It’s already getting pretty late. The internet is down, so I’m going to have to post this whenever I get a chance. I know. We may be back to the old system for a few days. Oh, and Blue 4 (SSG Lark) would like to thank Grandmother for the cookies. I’ve been sharing them around, as instructed. He also stumbled across my collection of Wagner and had some questions. Mostly he just kept repeating: “Seriously? I mean, seriously?” Yes, seriously. I LIKE it, damn it. Besides, I’m in the 1^st Cavalry! Haven’t you seen Apocalypse Now? We HAVE to play Ride of the Valkyries at least one patrol. We HAVE to.

So, that’s it for this report. We’ve got some work to do, and that requires that I cram some of that sleep in. I’ll write as soon as I can.

MOSUL 11FEB09

2009-02-10T17:44:00.002-05:00

I can't really talk about what happened yesterday. Not yet. I can't tell you anything more than you've already learned on CNN. Just know that yesterday, we suffered tragedy. Not the platoon, not the company, not the battalion, but the whole brigade. Five good men were killed, right inside my own sector, by a suicide car bomb. Four American soldiers and one Translator.

When my platoon arrived on the scene, the unit that was hit was just starting to recover bodies. The blast was tremendous. I found parts of the car bomb 200 meters away. The hole was a good eight feet deep. Our truck was thrown across the road... I'll spare you what happened to the bodies. God be with their families. I'll be able to comment on the significance to greater effect once the information is declassified. For now, just understand that we are all shaken and angry. We are taxing ourselves to maintain our composure when every ounce of our being is crying for retribution. The attack struck us to the core. We want vengeance. Nevertheless, 99 percent of this city had nothing to do with this. So we can't just vent our rage on the populace.

Such a damned waste.

Last night, the Standard Operating Procedure was out the window. We were busting down doors and inside the houses. I spent a good hour in a traffic circle, staring every driver/passenger in the face before letting them proceed. The new method, coordinating with our Iraqi counterparts and having them take the lead in the operation, was scrapped for the day. OUR men were dead. OUR men responded. Today was much the same; we saw two individuals on a rooftop holding what we initially assessed to be an AK-47. National Police in the area verified that none of their men were on that roof. So up we went, ready to engage, and our Iraqi counterparts could tag along if they wanted to. But we aren't waiting for them anymore. If they can't act on the target in time, we'll do it alone. That's fine by us. Because today I assess it as more important that we kill the enemy than build our partner's self-esteem.

Turned out that the AK-47 was just an unfortunately shaped piece of wood, and we scared the living daylights out of two young men who were trying to build a birdhouse for the pigeons on their roof. I felt a bit foolish. It would have been all right if they had been doing something shady. But coming up, weapons at the ready, and forcing two men to spend thirty minutes crouching with their hands up because we spotted them doing something ADORABLE? Embarrassing. Especially as I had to climb over a series of rooftops with a fire team to get to them. Not easy in all that body armor. Couple that with last night, when I dragged a different fire team through knee-deep open sewage to get them into a battle position in time, and I think they're actually getting reluctant to roll out with me.

So, as you may have noticed, I have internet. Kind of. This is a sluggish abomination, slouching towards an eventual connection, that will have to do until the wireless they promised comes online. But I can't really complain. The guys who came in the initial invasion certainly didn't have internet. Thus, my updates will be more frequent. I won't have to stockpile a month worth of entries before I post them. Expect a more regular update.

Hope is doing well, all things considered. She's having a time of it this term with her overloaded schedule. I told her not to, but God help her, she's just frolicsome like that. She's off debating today, so I'm missing contact with her, but this internet will make both of us much happier.

And a big shout out to my brother and sister-in-law. Tom and Alicia, thank you. The packages are great. The photos are great. The oatmeal is in hilarious quantities, and thank you for it... but extra credit for the jerky, the fruit/nut mix, and the CHILI SAUCE. Whoever told you about that (I imagine either Hope or the Marine in Alicia's family) was spot on. This is not a request for more chili sauce. I now have more than enough. But I am SO HAPPY about it. I've tried putting it on everything. Additionally, a big thank you to my own in-laws. Hope hates summer sausage, but as she grudgingly admits, I kind of like it. A lot. A guilty pleasure. And now I have the whole collection: cheese, condiments, sausage, and crackers. Let's face it. My life is actually pretty good right now. Minus the exploding and shooting stuff. But hey, what existence doesn't have its drawbacks?

I'll have more updates on the situation here once we are cleared to communicate. Everything else remains classified until further notice. Just know that everyone in Blue is safe and sound. Keep the families of the deceased in your prayers; they will need your support tonight. The tragic loss of life can only be answered by unwavering support for the poor souls who will be awakened in the dead of night and informed that their loved one made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom of our country. May God watch over those families and may the dead find peace in His infinite Grace. May the country they died for know of their character, their bravery, and their final sacrifice. And may we never have another day like this.

MOSUL 04FEB09

2009-02-10T04:53:00.000-05:00

Red Platoon got hit again today with another grenade attack. This accident from yesterday is really hurting our efforts at developing a positive relationship in our battle space; little wonder, really. They took no casualties. We immediately jumped to the site to see if we could locate anything to chase after, but we were unable to capture anyone even with the assistance of a (severely delayed) report from our drone assets about suspicious activity on a neighboring rooftop. We cleared that rooftop with a quickness and saw… absolutely no one and nothing. Again. We just stood around the attack site for a while, chatting people up and trying to get a grasp on what happened, hoping the enemy would try their luck a second time with us; nothing happened. Nothing seems to happen to us. We go to the same place Red Platoon gets hit, and they just don’t make an effort to kill us. We rolled over an IED yesterday and didn’t even know it; the enemy didn’t detonate it until the National Police drove over it. Nice buried sucker, too.

Today we rolled with Combat Camera. What this means is that two sergeants, both female, got in our trucks with their cameras and followed us around all day. And while my ego eagerly awaits all this footage of me being undeniably awesome (what a wonderful world I build for myself), what this effectively meant was that two soldiers without any weapons of consequence were in the middle of all the action today, making us very, very nervous. Fortunately, the only casualty was our mission: I had to return to base (RTB) sooner than I anticipated because one of them needed to tinkle around hour 3.5.

Did you know that female soldiers aren’t allowed to urinate in sector?

Neither did I.

The conversation went a little like this:

All Blue elements, this is Blue 1. We will proceed south along route…

Blue 1, this is Blue 5. Before you put out any more crazy schemes of maneuver, be aware that one of my camera sergeants needs to tinkle.

Huh. I hadn’t really made a plan for that one, 5. All right, we’ll pull over here and secure an alley for her.

1, this is 5. I don’t think you get it. They aren’t allowed to urinate in sector.

Really?! I mean, really? All right, I guess we can work with it. COP (blank) isn’t too far away. We’ll push over there.

No, 1. COP (blank) is in sector. They can’t piss in sector, AT ALL.

(Pause)

Blue 1, this is Blue 5. Did you copy last?

(Pause)

ARE YOU SAYING I HAVE TO RTB SO SOMEONE CAN URINATE?

(Pause)

Roger, Blue 1. That’s what that means.

(Pause)

Blue 1, Blue 5… what are we going to do?

(subdued whisper of defeat): This is Blue 1. We are prep to RTB time now. Blue 1 out.

I don’t get it. Who made that rule? I can’t really blame the camera crew, since you gotta go when you gotta go, but who made that rule? Ridiculous! That essentially means that women cannot be outside the wire. They must stay in the FOB or be returned to the FOB once every two hours. I almost asked if they were allowed to piss themselves in sector and whether they could just go ahead and do that for me. But I want to keep my job. So we just returned to base.

I also don’t understand the appeal of Army-owned latrines. Some of the worst atrocities committed by mankind have been in or around Army latrines. I remember a period at the Infantry Officer Basic Course where I stumbled one morning, drowsy and naïve, into a port-a-john in the field. There were ten of these port-a-johns standing side by side in the middle of a clearing where we mustered and ate chow. I opened the door and stepped inside, still not opening my eyes from sleep… and then, as I blinked myself awake, I beheld the apparition. The most monstrous mountain ever made by man (go team alliteration!). I didn’t move. I didn’t blink. I just stared—not shocked, not disgusted, but in deep contemplation. How had this come to happen? Obviously the last few people to utilize this particular latrine had been forced to squat or stand in order to allow the mountain to actually peak above the seat. By a good foot. I contemplated the intent of my predecessors. I contemplated gravity and how it had been defeated once more. I turned and saw the warning written in small font on a poster by the door: This unit is intended to maintain ten people for twelve days or twelve people for ten days. Exceeding the intended use may result in unsatisfactory conditions. I contemplated the meaning of “unsatisfactory” and whether or not, in a morally objective sense, I could judge Poop Peak to be “unsatisfactory.” Then I turned back to the warning and began counting the number of people in the field and how many days we had been out here. I then contemplated the mathematics of human tragedy. We had 120 people and 10 latrines… so ten days should be optimal. We had been out for twenty. Apparently we either exceed standardized expectations (validating all of you who always said that officers were full of shit) or optimal intent for a latrine is a bit over half-full. After a moment my silent ruminations were interrupted by a dismayed scream from a new neighbor.

“Someone shat on the floor!” he yelled, to no one in particular, just to help himself come to terms with the unfathomable. “How can you even shit on the floor in here? How can you even position your body to shit on the floor?”

Good question, I conceded. How would one even go about that? You’d have to lift one leg here, brace your arms up there… I think I spent another ten minutes contemplating that before I decided to just go out and try my luck in the woods.

The point I am making here is that sometimes the wide open public is preferable to Army latrines. So don’t make your host unit RTB in order to rush you to one of them. COP (blank) has a perfectly functional toilet. Well, kind of. Really it’s just a hole in the ground… but isn’t that effectively the same as a port-a-john? I mean, in the end, aren’t they basically the same?

I’ve begun to find porcelain latrines a wanton extravagance. When I get back Stateside, I will have to make a conscious effort not to just stop my car in public, get out, and urinate on my tires. I don’t know how more people don’t talk about this. I mean, it isn’t as if we’re going to knock on neighborhood doors and ask if Coalition Forces can borrow their restroom. So we just get out, have someone pull guard on us, and piss. It works. It’s normal. And I’ll believe this until the Arkansas State Police arrest me for indecent exposure. The difference, I feel, between this and the man we observed urinating that night, is that we know everyone can see us. We aren’t hiding anything. That feels normal. He thought he was being secretive. That just makes it feel somehow naughty. Thus, the crime is in the intent and not the action, Officer.

That was basically my whole day. I had meetings, did random administrative nonsense, and now I’m going to sleep early. I’m getting promoted to 1^st Lieutenant tomorrow, and I’m hoping to be coherent and well-rested. So good night to you all.

MOSUL 02FEB09

2009-02-10T04:51:00.000-05:00

Our first company casualties today. First, nobody was killed. All four are stable; two are already returned to duty, a little worse for wear, and two are still under the knife but will be fine. Second, none from Blue Platoon. Red Platoon took the hit today and took it bad. A grenade attack hit their leadership while they were dismounted. Their platoon sergeant, a section sergeant, and a squad leader were hit. The fourth was, most unfortunately, their medic. So Red took the hit and immediately jumped to CASEVAC.

The elections were surprisingly calm. Nothing serious happened in our sector; my platoon only had to deal with one IED. White Platoon had a good dozen in their sector, but they were able to find practically all of them. The remaining detonations wounded some local nationals and National Police, but no Coalition casualties. The following day was completely quiet. In fact, everything was very calm until the Incident.

The Incident is a tragedy which probably has reached the news. You’ve probably read about it before I post this. One of our other companies took some small arms fire, had one soldier wounded, and rushed to get him to the medical unit. They put him in a Bradley. Traffic was congested, going was slow, and I can imagine in my mind the decision that their platoon leader made. He’s dying, we can’t wait, we have to push through. So they pushed through. And crushed a car with the Bradley, killing a father and son that they trapped beneath. Then, for the first time since we arrived, Coalition Forces were fair game. Every insurgent in the city was on us. Suicide vests, bombs, a dozen grenade attacks, small arms fire, you name it. We were being hit everywhere. Blue Platoon was far enough away from the incident that it didn’t directly affect us. The Incident did occur on the border of our battle space, but more in Red Platoon’s side, so they went out to check it out and try to smooth over the disaster. So they got hit. I sat in the headquarters beside 1LT Freddy, both of us in full gear and ready to go in an instant, mesmerized by the situation and waiting with sick anticipation for orders to roll out. Our guys were hit. All we knew at the time was that four of ours were wounded. We were hungry for blood. Things were going to hell, and we wanted to get out there and let them know that we weren’t going to back down. But higher headquarters vacillated, titillated, ruminated, cross-coordinated, un-coordinated, re-coordinated, and then vacillated again for a good two hours. When I finally got clearance to move my platoon into the sector, we got called back a mere ten minutes later. The battalion commander had decided that he didn’t want to further agitate the local populace with our presence.

This puts me in a situation. Part of me, however small, sympathizes a bit with our enemy today. What happened was a terrible tragedy. And yes, further Coalition presence (especially as we were ordered to roll out with Bradleys) would have possibly sent the wrong message. We’re in a business where stupid decisions cost lives on a regular basis, but it is especially tragic when the lives lost are those of innocents. On the other hand, we left the field in the hands of the enemy tonight. Coalition Forces were hit… and did not respond. In fact, we withdrew. We abandoned the field to the enemy. To hell with that. Tomorrow morning they’ll wake up, see that we still haven’t responded, and realize that they can strike with impunity. That enough grenades will actually force us into inactivity. That all they have to do is coordinate, hit hard, and watch us flee. To hell with that. Coalition Forces were hit, Coalition Forces should respond. We should be in there, in their neighborhoods right now, grenades be damned, making it clear that we are not to be trifled with. We’re soldiers. We should not be gun shy. We cannot afford to be gun shy. We need to let all of them know that, although the tragedy was deeply regrettable, we WILL accomplish the mission. And if the people of the neighborhoods do not assist us in securing themselves, if they provide shelter and support to the enemy, we’ll be back the next day. And the next. We will be in their streets, ready to fight, until we finish our job. If they can’t help us secure the neighborhood in a way that is amenable to them, we’ll secure them in whatever way we have to. Like it or not, your streets will be peaceful. Our way or yours. You pick.

Part of me recognizes the wisdom in the battalion commander’s decision, but part of me thinks that this will only hurt us in the long term. Part of me wants to go smooth things over with the local populace, but part of me wants blood. I’m torn. Regardless, I should have been ordered one way or the other IMMEDIATELY. That should not have been a hard decision. We can’t spend two hours debating the points while the enemy runs rampant. Blue and White Platoons should have been there, at the exact site where Red was hit, within minutes. We would have locked that place down. Maybe even saved a few lives out there tonight. Tomorrow I’ll have to roll out and eat a large helping of humble pie in front of my Iraqi National Police partners, thanks to what happened today, and we’ll have nothing to stand on. We killed two innocent people (whoops) for questionable reasons (we look out for our own, you look out for incoming treads on your hood), took some serious punishment, and turned tail back to the FOB.

I’m increasingly bitter since I wrote the last paragraph, since five hours have passed and I’m on QRF again. Out of rotation. By some fluke or (hopefully not) conscious decision from our leadership, Blue has now been on QRF for something like five of the last eight days. This means sleep is minimal and patrols are frequent. But this is not the problem that makes me angry. No, I’m angry because my platoon leadership is being downright petulant about it. Like spoiled kids. For the love of God, we are AT WAR. The platoon who was supposed to have QRF had all of their leadership blown up today. Should we go grab them from the ER and put them on guard, guys? Maybe that would be more equitable, right? SHUT UP. This is not about you. This is not about fair. This is about what WORKS. Right now, we can work. Man up. Just do it. If we’re all doing it, if I’m doing it, I don’t want to hear anybody complain about it. Or pout. Or “forget” to relieve me on QRF guard after four hours because they didn’t want to do it. Fine. You know what? I’ll just do it all tonight. I’ll do it all every night. Not to shame you, because I know SSG Crunchberry and SSG Chase will just throw a party that they don’t have to pull shifts anymore. I’m going do it because it needs to be done. And I cannot abide by that kind of childlike petulance. Here’s the catch, guys: you still have to follow my orders out there. So on day three, when I’m starting to see magical leprechauns frolicking on the major routes, you’re going to have to dismount on my command and try to detain them. Think about it for a minute. Just ponder the consequences. And I will rip the spleen out of the next one of you who asks for a day off. I. WILL. RIP. OUT. YOUR. SPLEEN. Do we understand each other? Do we?

Men bled out there today, and I’ve got NCOs complaining that our platoon spends a disproportionate amount of time on QRF. This is not the breaking point. You are not falling apart. You do not have shrapnel wounds all over your body. You do not have a bullet in you. When the company asks you to cover down on your buddies, you jump to it. Because you are in the ARMY, damn it, and that is WHAT YOU DO. I do not care that we don’t sleep enough. I do not care that you haven’t had a day off in the last two weeks. I won’t have a day off all year, you clowns, and you aren’t allowed to break until I do. Deal with it. And for the love of God, DO NOT COMPLAIN TO THE MEN. You are their leaders. The soldiers of Blue have been real troopers through all of this; tonight, they were racked out, happily asleep, when we had to rouse them from their beds and send them back out to the line. And they jumped to it. If they complained, they at least had the presence of mind not to do it in front of me. And they at least waited until after we had prepared everything and staged ourselves. That kind of motivation and tenacity deserves the best out of its leadership, and right now they’re getting childish petulance. It’s sad to watch. No, it’s infuriating to watch. As platoon leader I don’t do the screaming thing. SSG Lark is more than happy to do all the screaming for me. I try to mentor, foster, develop, and guide people in the right direction. And I’ve had a few isolated guiding discussions with some of the leadership about this, but quite frankly, I don’t think they’re getting it. My primary screamer is also acting badly so I can’t look to him tonight. If this madness does not resolve itself in a moment, I will be forced into an uncharacteristic bout of righteous fury.

I’m sorry. This venue should not be where I vent my own frustrations. I want this journal to carry the story of Blue Platoon through our part in the close of this war. I want this journal to show some of the lighter moments of deployment and some of the more subtle aspects of modern war. I don’t want it to be a gigantic whining session, especially since I’m using it to rail on about whiners. It’s just that today struck home, in a way, and I have difficulty finding anything of interest—let alone great drama—in the trivial when life and death decisions are being made all around us. I’m just a little shocked that anyone would have the audacity to complain about a little nonsense when there’s so much at stake. It’s like complaining about the trash in the HMMWVs while the IED is blowing it up. Maybe, in a way, it’s how NCOs cope with their surroundings. They’re raised to be fascinated in the smallest detail. They have to occupy their time with the minute details so I have the time to grasp the bigger picture. So, maybe, I should expect this kind of thing. Perhaps I should accept it as part of the difference between my job and theirs. Fair and equitable distribution of work is exactly what they have to think about. I, however, have to think about what the unit needs as opposed to what my leaders want. If that means we have to patrol when someone would rather sleep, so be it. If we have to dismount when someone would rather ride, we have to do it. Because it is Mission, Men, Me. In that order. That’s the rule. So if we have to pull yet another night of QRF because our company needs us to step up, then we step up. That’s the mission. End of story.

Anyway, we’re on communications blackout because of the casualties today, so I can’t call Hope. So I get to vent here. My apologies. But I have to get back to staring at the map and hoping things don’t explode tonight. We’ve got a mission in about five hours and I should get that planned. So, have a good night, and take a moment for the soldiers in Blue. It is they, and most certainly not their leadership (self included), that deserve any prayers or gratitude tonight. And drop an extra prayer for the guys in Red. May they recover quickly. Finally, spare a thought for the two innocent people who were killed today. There is nothing we can do or say that will alleviate the suffering of their loved ones. They’ll just be forgotten in the ever-growing tally of unfortunate victims in a place defined by tragedy and carnage. But for tonight, please remember them and pray for their family.

MOSUL 27JAN09

2009-02-10T04:50:00.000-05:00

We’ve started establishing a rhythm here. When lucky, we have up to two days warning about future patrols; this gives me time to plan the missions and figure out exactly what I want to do in my sector. Additionally, we’ve started picking up a workable system inside the platoon: SSG Lark keeps the platoon straight, I keep the sector straight. An ideal scenario for me is I come from a brief, tell him I need five trucks by 0900 and one squad of dismounts, he makes it happen, and I take over on the patrol. It works.

Activity yesterday was pretty substantial. We had three IEDs, one VBIED (car bomb), and some small arms fire in the city. None directed against Coalition Forces, but the National Police had a bad time yesterday. I was rolling out the wire just as it happened. This meant that I was tasked and retasked to go play pick-up-sticks all over the city. When something exploded, I had to stop my regularly-scheduled mission and go run over and assess the damage. The car bomb was pretty vicious. We found a second car, heavily damaged from shrapnel, a good three hundred meters away on the road. The driver had been badly wounded and the car had just kept on rolling down the road until the tires finally gave out and it slowed to a halt.

Over the past few days, Blue Platoon has been running around the neighborhoods conducting more SWEAT-MS assessments (Security-Water-Electricity-Academics-Trash-Medical-Sewage). We’re basically glorified utility patrollers with guns on these operations. The electrical situation here is the real problem; most households receive 1-4 hours of power for every 24 hour period. Everybody complains about electricity first. They don’t even complain about anything else, usually, as if to emphasize how bad the situation is.

MOSUL 30JAN09

A little break in journal contact, there. Sorry. I had to stop in mid-entry and go out to watch a tower move from one traffic circle to another; exciting stuff, I promise. At least it helped us build a little “wasta,” which is apparently the term here for the reputation of a relationship. If you promise something and then deliver on time, you build wasta. If you fail to deliver, you lose wasta. I guess it isn’t too different from gaining or losing face. The commander of my partnered battalion was very appreciative of our efforts; the fact that we also drove like madmen around the city for the past three days delivering truckloads of barbed wire to polling sites hasn’t hurt us, either. It was like Iraqi Christmas. We would drive up in our big tan sleds and dump spools of jagged metal on their doorsteps, and the National Police practically cried with joy. They have an unhealthy obsession with barbed wire, I suspect. They went pretty nuts out there. After doing a pretty good job of fortifying the polling sites with the wire, they took the extra and started hitting targets of opportunity. They put wire on top of barriers, wire on top of sandbags, wire on top of wire, wire surrounding cars, wire on the outside of walls, wire on the inside of walls, wire on the walls—all with this maniacal grin of utter and perverse glee. They are happy tonight.

Probably not, really. We’re all a little on edge. Tomorrow is Election Day, and we’ve been prepping for this operation for the past three weeks. We’ve reconnoitered the polling sites, prepped the security, established a permanent presence, re-prepped the security, established a no-vehicle curfew for the city, placed panels on the rooftops for the helicopters and drones to identify, and then prepped the security a little more. But tomorrow we see what our efforts are worth. I expect and predict some serious violence in a few target neighborhoods where dominant ethnic groups are going to try to influence the election by intimidating/slaughtering their political/ethnic enemies en route to the polls. Then again, maybe everything will go smoothly. As my translator Sam (the nickname is goes by in the platoon) taught me: insh’allah, la hatha she bacher. May it be the Will of God that nothing happens tomorrow. If it does, though, Blue is ready. We’ve prepped for this for weeks. Let’s see how our plan stacks up with theirs.

I suppose I should probably introduce Sam at this point. Sam is my translator, an Iraqi university student in his senior year majoring in nursing. He’s a nice, quiet guy who has only one problem: he doesn’t speak English. I don’t know how nobody noticed this during the interview process. But here he is, and learning quickly—and here I am, learning Arabic quickly. So I guess it works out for both of us. If he was a perfect translator I would have a much harder time forcing myself to learn the words and phrases in Arabic. He’s generally hilarious, as are our attempts to come to a mutual understanding of whatever someone said to us. “Fire station no move through traffic the system.” (I cock my head slightly to the side, raising one eyebrow in consternation. This is the first step in the little dance we have choreographed.) “He say, fire station in traffic the system no go.” (At this point I give my first attempt to translate. This is dangerous, as he will agree with my translation if it sounds even remotely like what he meant to say. This can cause some misunderstandings among the finer details of the conversation.) “The fire station is in the traffic circle?” Good start, I think. “No, the fire station no go through the traffic… the circle traffic… traffic circle the system.” (This leads to my second attempt at translation, which is usually right… not because I actually got it right, I suspect, but because I was close enough or Sam considered it a hopeless case.) “The fire truck can’t get through the traffic circle?” “Yes! Yes. No go fire station through traffic the system circle.”

I think you get the idea. He’s a great guy, and he has a good temperament and patience for our patrols. He comes out every time I do, which is to say every patrol. He goes without complaint. My men don’t go without complaint, so that’s a point for Sam. Last night on a dismount patrol Sam stayed up and kept moving beside me even after a few hours. Some of the men were starting to drag behind. Point for Sam. When the bullets started whizzing around last night, Sam even tried to grab me and push us both into an alley. I had to extract myself with a little urgency, explaining that my job was to run towards the gunfire, but it was perfectly all right if he decided not to join. I didn’t think we would be exchanging pleasantries with the bullets.

Unfortunately, last night revealed itself to be a terrible accident. Fortunately there were no casualties on either side, thank God (al hamd’allah—see how we learn?). We had fired upon a National Police vehicle in the dead of night. He had approached from the rear of our patrol, without sirens, flashers, or other identifying police markers, and my rear fire team initiated their Escalation of Force procedures. They shouted at him to stop, showed their weapons, and then flashed the vehicle with their tac lights and lasers. The vehicle stopped. A moment later the lights came back on, the engine gunned, and the truck sped forward. My rear fire team repeated procedure (very quickly, as they were already too close for comfort) and then popped off a warning shot. The truck sped up—probably out of panic—and my rear team fired a couple of controlled pairs into the hood. He stopped then. I ran to the perimeter and screamed at him to open the doors and get out of the vehicle immediately or be fired upon, at which point he identified himself as a (terrified) lieutenant of the National Police. He had come up to visit a neighboring checkpoint. We then learned something that I imagine should have been rectified a long time ago: their near recognition signal, the method by which they pass through friendly lines and identify themselves as friendly and find the friendly forces around them, is to flash lights at each other. Our Escalation of Force (EOF) doctrine is to shine lights at the target. So in the light conversation that occurred last night, one party said STOP and the other party heard COME ON IN, BUDDY. How we haven’t solved this would have boggled my mind before, but now that I understand how the Iraqi Army and National Police plan operations and signals I’m not surprised at all. Maybe this incident will force a solution. Meanwhile, I made a point of checking up on him today and discreetly having Sam inquire as to the cost of fixing the truck. Yes, it wasn’t our fault—we followed doctrine to the letter—but it would demonstrate an act of good faith with our allies.

So, to tally, I’ve now experienced Blue on Red (enemy contact), Blue on Blue (friendly fire), and Blue on Green (allied friendly fire). Now all I need to get the whole spectrum covered is a contractor to pop a few shots at me. That’ll bring us a Blue on Gold. At which point I might as well come home, because what else is there to see? Blue Platoon has now been shot at by every possible group!

Anyway, it’s past midnight and I have about four hours of sleep to get before the operation tomorrow. Wish us luck. Tomorrow will be a bit crazy, I suspect, but I know we’re ready. I’ll update as soon as possible with the results of our operations tomorrow.

MOSUL 20JAN09

2009-02-10T04:48:00.000-05:00

1230: First contact with enemy forces.

I was inside an Iraqi National Police company headquarters speaking with their commander when the room was rocked with a resounding explosion. It came from right outside the building. My first thoughts were of the disposition of my humvees pulling security outside; where they had all been stationed, where I had placed my dismounts, where the alleys were and the neighboring buildings. Then, as I bolted out the door to assume direct control of my element, all I could think about was what I would see when I opened the door. The explosion was very loud and very close. All I could imagine was one of my trucks on fire with Blue Platoon corpses scattered across the street. Then, as I threw the door open, the firing started. The street was hot. We had a firefight on our hands.

Never did I imagine that my first thought in a firefight would be of immense relief, but when I finally got eyes on my element all I could feel was the pressure draining as I witnessed all of my vehicles, perfectly fine and operational, and all of my men—excited and returning fire, but all very much alive and well. Thank God for that. A quick scan of the bodies in the alley to our southwest confirmed that none of my men were down. No time for giving thanks, though; we were still engaged in a firefight with at least one insurgent and I wanted that bastard dead. My blood was up. He needed to die.

He had thrown a grenade at a National Police truck neighboring my position from a large rooftop to my immediate southwest. One National Police soldier was lying on the ground with a partially amputated leg, surprisingly quiet given his condition. Or maybe it was just too loud to hear the screaming. Two local nationals had been wounded: one older man had taken shrapnel to his leg, and one child had lost an ear to shrapnel and had taken some metal in the abdomen. I grabbed a dismount fire team, commanded by SGT Skizz (thank God I got our best for our first contact), and pushed all of us forward into the alley. My first thought was to get SSG Lark’s truck to push in first and cover our movement, but once he informed me that the attack was grenades thrown from rooftops that plan was scrapped. He’d just be an easy target. So we pushed up, six of us with minimal cover, and started clearing the building to get access to the rooftop. My first room clearing in combat. Fortunately we were met only by five very surprised office workers, all of whom quickly complied with our instructions to get down on the floor and stay there. No weapons, no ammo, and regrettably, no access to the roof from their office. So we got them all on their knees and handed them off to the National Police following us. Then we shot down to the next door, breached, and found ourselves staring right at the stairwell up. How fortuitous was that? Made my life easy, certainly. So up we went. By the time we got to the top, of course, our insurgent friend was gone. He had doubtless fled by one of the dozens of stairwells leading to every corner of what we quickly ascertained was a ridiculously large complex of individual apartments all housed under one roof. And he was gone. SGT Skizz was pretty sure he winged him, but I regret to announce that I found no blood, weapons, ammunition, or trace of the enemy when I searched the roof. And we were unable to identify him out of the dozen or so local national we rounded up inside the complex. So he got away clean. Final tally was one National Police seriously wounded, one child moderately wounded, and one civilian male lightly wounded. And our attacker was gone. Air assets pushed up too late to be of any assistance, which is a great pity because I have been so pleased with their assistance and performance to date. I wish they could have been on station or at least around when we took contact. I wish we could at least have flown a drone over ourselves during the patrol. If we had kept our eyes in the sky we could have tracked him down. There is nothing more frustrating and demoralizing than getting your blood up, having the men under your charge attacked, watching innocent bystanders bleed in an alley, and be unable to close with and destroy the enemy. But try us again, asshole. We’ll get you next time.

The only Coalition casualty, I announce with the utmost regret, was my pants. I ripped the crotch completely open when I dove for cover. This is a long-standing problem with ACU pants. I didn’t notice until the issue was brought to my attention a good half-hour later. The boxers I was wearing at the time did not have a button on the flap, so—yes, you guessed it—I spent the entire engagement exposing myself to the people of Mosul. I tactically questioned (can’t say interrogate, as we aren’t qualified to doctrinally interrogate anyone) families inside that complex in an attempt to find our attacker, and didn’t even realize that I was showing a bit more of the “vestiges of humanity” than was normally allowed. For heaven’s sake, there were children in those groups I questioned. I can’t believe nobody mentioned it. But what would you say? Your home was just the site of a grenade attack and a firefight and your living room was just breached and cleared by a fire team of American soldiers all hungry for blood. You probably aren’t going to list public indecency very high on your priority of concerns. Still. Could my life get any more ridiculous? Probably not. My commander was the one who finally pointed out that I was pointing out. How embarrassing.

Reactions after the fact were unanimous; the platoon has experienced catharsis. PFC Bourbon (a young and surprisingly gentle Kentucky soldier who serves as my RTO [carries my radio] and got married a month before we deployed to a woman he had met the month before) was downright excitable. He showed some particularly fierce killer instincts for a man who is generally so mild. PFC Devil happened to be my driver today, as we decided to give my usual team some time off to recover, and he was overjoyed that he was there when it happened. I know I shouldn’t show any favoritism to any of my soldiers, but I’ll come out and say it here. PFC Devil is my favorite soldier. He’s a tall, lanky older twenties soldier who spent time in prison for assault and spent most of his youth addicted to some of our society’s nastier drugs. His brother is still in prison leading a band of the Aryan Nation. Despite all of this, he is one of the most calm, composed, resourceful, and competent soldiers it has ever been my pleasure to work with. He would have a great career ahead of him in the Army were it not for his felony record. As it stands, though, he will most likely never rise above Staff Sergeant. He can’t get the security clearance to be a Platoon Sergeant. But from here on out, whenever I hear someone complain that the quality of soldiers dropped when the Army decided to fill the gaps by accepting convicted felons, I’ll use PFC Devil as a counterexample. I’m grateful he was there today, too. Our real hero of the day, though, was Doc. I recognized this guy as an invaluable asset when I first arrived to the platoon. Of all the medics in the company, and probably the battalion, we got the best. Doc is absolutely stellar. He’s a quiet, friendly, and very intelligent soldier who has yet to demonstrate fear, frustration, or exhaustion in my presence. And we’ve been in some pretty strange spots. Through it all, though, he’s been constant. He can perform combat medicine without even thinking about it. He slapped tourniquets on that NP’s legs before we had even pushed our fire team forward of his position. Just dove right out and started assisting the casualties. We couldn’t complete our job out there today because the enemy escaped, but Doc definitely completed his. I came back from the rooftops to find him calm, composed, and coated in blood. Jovial, even. Looked right at my pants, looked at his shirt, and announced with a wry smile that we were both out new uniforms. Speculated that, had we been the same size, we could have combined my top with his pants and at least salvaged one. Maybe he’s just naturally like this. I would conjecture that part of this is because Doc is the only man in our platoon who has ever been shot… but he was shot in a bar fight when he was a civilian. This baffles me. I can’t imagine anyone ever wanting to fight Doc. He’s just too good natured. I have an even harder time imagining someone wanting to shoot him.

The rest of my day, after having my heart launched into my esophagus, was an endless series of mind-numbing debriefs. This misery was compounded by the fact that my body was just about ready to crash once my blood rush ended. Fight or flight takes it out of you. Nevertheless, there I was: eyes barely open, fingers clutched in a death-grip around my coffee, reciting my debrief narrative by some method of rerouting my subconscious/unconscious directly to my mouth. It was downright impossible to bring myself to recall all the little details the Iraqi commander and I had discussed before the explosion. I couldn’t bring myself to care. There was my life before the explosion and my life after the explosion, and right now I really didn’t feel like thinking about my life before. This was big. This was life-changing. This was first contact under hostile fire. This was the first time I took a fire team into a building, tearing our way up the stairs as I waited for the other shoe to drop—would the house explode, was there an ambush waiting on the roof, would a car bomb detonate around my security, is one of these local nationals wearing a suicide vest, is the enemy waiting around this corner, is another grenade ticking off seconds even now?

We took another mortar on the FOB today. I was walking outside when I heard it impact. I was surprised at how little I cared. There was life before first contact and life after first contact. I can understand how some people could become addicted to the adrenaline rush of combat, but quite frankly, I’m just tired. Tired and relieved. I wished for something just like this to keep my men from getting complacent, and I got it. But all I can think about is that similar acts took place against Coalition Forces all over the city today. Maybe it was in honor of our new President. Maybe their elections are just looming close. Maybe they’ve decided that the observation period is over. Whatever the cause, I get the feeling that we’ll be seeing a lot more of this in the next few weeks.

ADDENDUM FROM 21JAN09

Couldn’t even finish this entry last night. We got the call to respond to a Task Force (Special Forces) QRF mission, so we put on the gear, turned on the trucks, and moved out. On the way out, just before midnight—meaning that both major incidents did manage to fall on the same day—my lead vehicle was shot at by Coalition Forces. Some lunatic gunner on a convoy security MRAP looked over, saw our trucks trying to pass, and somehow convinced himself that the insurgents had stolen five HMMWVs, packed them with explosives, and were trying to integrate themselves into his convoy. No, you idiot. You were going two miles an hour and we had to respond to a QRF call from a unit in sector. We were trying to pass you. Anyway, long story short, he tossed a warning shot at us. A very close warning shot. SSG Chase was in the lead vehicle—and immediately he was out of it, correcting malfunctions on this idiot in a way we can all wish we’ll never see firsthand. I had to stop him from physically assaulting the man, get him back in the truck, and push us out on our mission.

What does this mean? Well, at a basic level it means that I’ve had two firsts today: enemy small arms fire and friendly small arms fire. Exciting day to be in Blue Platoon. At a punitive level, it means some unit out there committed a Blue-on-Blue (friendly on friendly) hostile act. And that means that after I spent all night out with Task Force, doing nothing, I spent the early hours of morning doing paperwork on the “incident.” Then, just as I finished with that, Blue Platoon was called out to another QRF call. When we returned from that we were instructed to stay in our vehicles at RedCon 1.5 (5 minutes out the gate from time of order) until further notice as an operation was currently underway. Remember how I said I was tired last night and hadn’t slept in a long while? Well, the situation has not improved. I’m running entirely on coffee fumes by now. That’s all right; tomorrow is our first maintenance day. Our vehicles are getting absolutely torn apart by the constant pace of our operations (naturally we’re more concerned about vehicular than personnel breakdown) and we need to get them into the mechanics. I’m going to go ahead and designate a block of that time as Human Maintenance. I’m going to shower. I’m going to eat. And then I’m going to sleep.

I can’t stand it when anyone here complains of exhaustion, since we’re all undergoing some form of sleep deprivation and nobody wants to be subjected to constant whining, but today I’ll make an exception. I’ve started walking funny and stumbling everywhere. I blink and blank out for whole minutes. It’s been at least three days since I caught more than two hours of sleep a night. The worst part is that it isn’t for any good reason: I’m awake because the infernal inhuman machine at headquarters wants me to give them more paper so they can justify their existence. I’m doing nonsense work. Mandatory nonsense work. I have a list of dozens of things I need to be doing, but command forces me to waste my time on trivial paperwork instead. They interrupt my patrols with orders to investigate shadows. They send me out at night so I can observe Task Force and make sure they don’t abuse anyone or damage any property during their operations (surreal moment last night as I’m calmly discussing the finer details of property accountability with an operative in the middle of a room of screaming and wailing women at 0200). They send me out to escort VIPs suffering from delusions of tactical competence. And then they complain that I spend too little time patrolling my neighborhoods… and where was that paperwork we needed last night, LT?

Go. To. Hell. Stop bothering me. I have things I need to do, you lunatics, and I’m on the verge of physically dragging some of you out into my sector so you’ll have a chance of seeing how incredibly ludicrous you all are being with your own eyes. Seriously. I’m tired, I’m angry, and you’re bickering at me that I didn’t give you a grid for my last front-line trace. It’s the Main Traffic Circle, you ass! It’s big, it’s on your map, and you DO NOT NEED ME TO TELL YOU EXACTLY WHERE I AM ON IT AT THIS GIVEN INSTANT. Because I’m STILL MOVING. By the time I finish giving you the grid it’ll be a distant memory. And next time someone gets into a fight out there? Don’t flood the net with three thousand requests for additional information. That Platoon Leader is trying to maneuver his element and develop the situation. He needs that frequency clear to arrange for air assets or CASEVAC. Do not bog it down because you just feel curious and have somehow convinced yourself that your need to know trumps their need to survive.

I’m sorry. I think I get a little grumpy when I’m tired. SSG Chase and Crunchbery have already discovered this; joking does not go over well with me at these points. I’m getting a bit abrasive around the edges. So I’ll stop bewailing my little problems and get around to sleeping. I’ll write as soon as I can—but go ahead and be jealous. It was a hell of a day to be in Blue Platoon.

MOSUL 19JAN09

2009-02-10T04:47:00.000-05:00

I’ve been unable to find time to write any entries over the past few days. We have been very, very busy. But after finally catching a few hours of sleep (I actually couldn’t remember when I had last taken a full three-hour sleep cycle) I’m back up and even have a little spare time on my hands. Couldn’t be happier. Because of this recent spate of activity, I have quite a bit to report and comment on, but I’m honestly a little fuzzy on what happened on what day. The last few patrols have all blurred together in my mind. The key point remains, however, that we have yet to take (serious) contact, are still engaged in constant area reconnaissance in our AO, and are still working with the same National Police forces.

First, a brief letter to whom it may concern. Dear Iraqi Man in the vicinity of the traffic circle: I saw you pee last night. When you thought no one was looking, around midnight, and stepped outside to relieve yourself on the street corner, I was there. When you glanced furtively around you, checking to ensure that nobody witnessed your act of public urination, I was there. I observed you with casual interest from only a few dozen meters away. Your urine glowed bright green in my night vision. So, in short, you have been caught in the act. We know what you did. An entire platoon of American forces witnessed the act. Our surveillance drone witnessed the act. I would not be surprised if our satellites did not also peek in. When you approach street corners in the dead of night, we get apprehensive as to your intentions. We like to watch. And while countless insurgents all over the city were probably simultaneously laying IEDs at every other traffic circle in the city, all our assets were there with you. Watching. Judging. Evaluating your performance. Quietly whispering our suggestions as to how you should relax more, lengthen your stance, and in general stop urinating on traffic circles. Think on that for a while. Big Brother is watching everything… except for the important stuff, apparently.

As for yesterday, I am quite frankly amazed that I did not get shot. Or any of us, really. We did the most fantastically ridiculous thing. An Iraqi Army General, his staff, and about a fire team of American Colonels decided that they would like to conduct a market-walk in my AO. They wanted to dismount, go straight down the main avenue, and talk to everybody along the way. Get a feel for the area. And Blue Platoon was tasked to escort them on this walk. I would like to take this opportunity to make two points. First, while I appreciate that higher command has taken an interest in seeing how our operations affect the daily lives of the populace, I would presume to remind them that they would be better suited in their efforts if they coordinated their intents through the unit that actually owned that battle space and had conducted similar patrols a dozen times. This means that when we make tactical suggestions we should not be completely ignored. When we tell them that we can’t take Bradleys and MRAPS down certain routes, they should probably take heed. When we tell them that we need to minimize our vehicular presence in order to provide actual tight local security instead of just the illusion of security, we would appreciate it if they listened. The second point is that, while their confidence in my platoon’s ability to maintain their personal safety was encouraging, they should be more realistic in their expectations. And more sound in their own tactics. Just because a perimeter has been established doesn’t mean that the interior is secure. Not in an urban environment. Especially when they don’t want to disrupt the flow of individual or vehicular traffic. So when you see a six-lane intersection, please don’t stop and stand in the middle of it for half an hour while you tell the Iraqi private in the tower how to arrange his sandbags. Two sub points here: first, you are a general. He is a private. There is a chain of command for these things, and you do not need to concern yourself with—let alone personally supervise—the disposition of his six sandbags. Second, you may have noticed that I only have one fire team and myself deployed forward of your position. There are six lanes on this intersection and only five American soldiers securing them. The tower would have been able to cover down on the last lane, but as you may know you had completely diverted his attention to the crucial matter of the sandbags. Insurgents of Mosul, you may never have a chance like you had yesterday. I will never understand why you didn’t strike. We were a perfect target. One suicide vest would have knocked my entire battalion combat ineffective. Why? Because all of these colonels and majors were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, clustered together, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MARKET. I’m not angry, I’m stupefied. I’m stupefied that we would even do something like this, and I’m stupefied that the enemy didn’t take advantage of us. And I’m even more stupefied that we tried to do the same thing today. Thank God for last minute cancellations—not because they recognized it as a horrible idea, but because the official party of VIPs was late in arriving. So here’s to not getting shot while pursuing incredibly foolhardy and misguided schemes.

And on the subject of disrupting vehicular and individual traffic: I have nothing but awe for the patience that the people of this city have developed. Whenever a Coalition patrol approaches, all local nationals must stop their vehicles on the side of the road and turn on their hazard lights. And if we stop to check something out, they stay there. Until we leave. And sometimes we’re there for hours. We are a serious disruption in their lives. And it isn’t just the roads; the schools, the banks, the markets—everywhere we go, we stop business as usual. And we’re spread out all over the city. Granted, business as usual is marked with explosions, executions, theft, and extortion. So they have a choice to make between security and freedom. Most seem to have embraced (or at least resigned themselves to) security, but I wouldn’t be surprised if more than one donation to the insurgency was a result of a six-hour traffic jam.

I am amazed that they can see us as humans at all. They have developed patience, yes, but some have established a degree of human empathy with us as well. This is a recent surprise for me; while beforehand I would have expected it, a few days ago I so terrified a little girl that I came to realize what we must look like to them. Blue Platoon entered the school to check security and see how they were doing. Obviously no teaching was done during this time, as the students went into all forms of different reactions. The teachers were forthright, friendly, and easily answered our questions (which I feel my predecessors have asked them repeatedly for years). But the kids are all over the map. Some stand away cautiously, some rush for chocolate or pens or goodies of any kind, but some are straight up terrified. This little girl just hid behind her teacher while I talked to him, trembling and staring with wide eyes, and I couldn’t understand. How could you be terrified of me? I’m about the least terrifying person you’ll ever meet, in my estimation. I like to think I’m pretty friendly. My eyes are gigantic and blue, my dimples are embarrassingly noticeable. Then I realized how I looked from her perspective: an armed mechanical giant adorned in Kevlar, weaponry, and communications gear. Only my mouth is visible. I have trouble thinking of my guys as terrifying, since I know them personally, but I could see how someone could envision us as a bit intimidating. How have they ever learned to live with us? We’re a walking paradox. Thirty-two tons of folded steel and bristling guns purge an exhaust of Everlasting Gobstoppers to eager children. Mechanized contraptions in the form of humans smile at families from behind shatterproof black lenses and hand out pencils carefully stored beside their ammunition, stopping occasionally to excrete tobacco spit/motor oil on the street. Immaculately armed and trained killers lift their trigger hands to their Kevlar chests and wish peace upon elderly gentlemen. Machines are trying to win the hearts and minds of people. God help us when the next line of body armor is revealed. We’ll be covering the mouth, finally, and hiding the last vestiges of humanity behind dark bulletproof glass. Our communications will be received through external computers that translate Arabic to English, we’ll mutter our answers from behind our blast shields, and a computerized Arabic translation will issue from our robotic voice box. The warrior of the future. How could people do anything but love us at first sight?

This is not to say that we aren’t doing good things here. Iraq needs to find peace, and we’re helping them get there. Mechanized soldiers might be cold, sterile, and inhuman at times, but seeing how humans can behave, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to be a bit detached from them. A baker was executed in the middle of a crowded street this morning, in my AO, for having sold bread at discount to his friends in the National Police. Four pistol shots to the head. A woman and child were vaporized when an IED detonated in a crowded traffic circle yesterday. A National Police soldier was shot in the head, execution style, when he left his station off-duty to buy cigarettes. An innocent bystander was decapitated in an indiscriminant rocket attack the day before that. His face showed no recognition of his fate, no surprise—his eyes and mouth were contorted as they had been as he walked down the street, oblivious to his impending death. If this is human behavior, then maybe we should go ahead and get the new armor. Maybe we’ll be seen as more judicious and impartial when we have covered those last few inches of human flesh. Maybe the last thing the Iraqis need is more people acting like people.

Enough waxing philosophical. Sorry you had to endure that (assuming you read this far). It was just weighing on my mind, and this seemed like a reasonable venue to vent. But we have another patrol tomorrow, which means I have to get back to my maps and my paperwork. And I’ll have to enjoy a little heart-to-heart with SSG Crunchberry and SSG Chase, who are becoming downright moody as of late. The schedule of constant patrolling has wearied them. I would be sympathetic, but those two rotate on patrols. SSG Lark and I are on every patrol. My gunner and driver are on every patrol. This is a combat zone, we are soldiers, and I honestly feel that our own moodiness should not affect our performance. Mission first. Men second. Self last. That’s doctrine. That’s how the Army works. This is not the war of the past. We aren’t under fire for days at a time, we have chow available whenever we’re hungry, we have heat and air conditioning where we sleep, we can shower every few days, and we can even call home from time to time. Maybe my interest in military history has poisoned my expectations, but I simply can’t take any man seriously when he complains that our work is exhausting him. Just drink some coffee, find some intestinal fortitude, and drive on. We haven’t come close to finding our limitations. And with any luck we won’t have to. But enough on that; I’ve got to get to those maps. I’ll write again as soon as I’m able.

MOSUL 11JAN09

2009-02-10T04:45:00.000-05:00

I heard that you would start hating being here after about a month. I figured that the tempo of operations, or the violence, or the smell that permeates so much of the city, or maybe even the constant interaction with a population that is sometimes downright hostile to your presence would be to blame for this. I had never imagined that the discontent would stem from within.

My company is driving me insane right now.

We have been on lockdown—grounded—for the past four days. We can’t leave the company area unless we’re on patrol. We can’t call home. We can’t pick up our laundry. We can’t buy supplies (the smokers were the first to lose composure). This kind of thing is necessary when someone is killed, as it allows us to notify the family of the deceased before the rumor mill reaches them. Fortunately, nobody died. We actually have yet to make contact. Violence keeps happening really close to us, but we’re always 200 meters or 10 minutes too late to be involved. Lucky? I guess. I’m starting to think that the insurgents have decided that it’s much easier to hit Iraqi forces than American forces and are hedging their bets. Not to question the bravery of our Iraqi allies—to the contrary, they’re probably too brave. Brazen. Occasionally foolhardy in their machismo.

No, we’re on lockdown because my leadership wants to prove a point of some kind about accountability of equipment. My platoon (yep, I’m afraid that I have a hand in this disaster) lost track of two handheld radios about three months ago. Fortunately these were outdated pieces of junk without cryptography, so they weren’t sensitive items—more like crappy walkie-talkies. But yes, we lost them. And we scoured the earth to find them. And then we scoured the other platoons to find them. In essence, no stone was left unturned for miles and miles around the company area in the vast effort to locate these radios. Lo and behold, however, we found one four days ago comfortably nestled between two boxes in the middle of our stuff. Are we incompetent? Maybe sometimes, but not in this case. Someone had apparently finally opened one of their personal bags, realized that they no longer needed that radio they had accidentally(?) taken, and had made an effort to blamelessly return it. The commander called thief. Probably right, all things considered. But the fallout was ridiculous. After all of the leadership stood at attention for a half hour being screamed at, we were told that we were to be cut off from the world. No contact. Daily details—lay out your property, inventory it, repack it, lay it out again, repeat procedure—until the thief came forward or the other radio was recovered. If the other radio is even here, the person who has it was obviously smart enough to dispose of it in a place where we’ll never find it. It would be suicide to present it now. And no one is going to identify himself as the thief.

So here we are. Our families probably think some of us got killed. Nope, we’re all sound of body. But we’re rapidly losing our minds. My squad leaders were the first to start rebelling, which is no surprise as SSG Crunchberry and SSG Chase can be pretty downright moody at times. Especially Crunchberry. They have been exceptionally surly and sullen as of late. Then PSG Lark started losing his cool this evening—not in an angry way, but in an advanced apathy that is much worse for me to deal with. Some of my team leaders, including SGT Mountain (who was signed for those two radios in the first place) decided to utilize the open door policy with the commander (despite my objections) in order to state their displeasure at this policy. I can understand. One just found out his wife is pregnant, another is going through a divorce, and another is a newlywed. They need to call home. But going to the CO via the open door policy, thereby bypassing and simultaneously dragging in their own chain of command, is a recipe for pain. There is no better way to get me in trouble, which in turn makes me a bit taciturn. So with torrents of abuse coming down from above and torrents of complaints surging up from above, I find my general good nature is beginning to rebel.

I’m QRF right now, which is the Quick Reaction Force. We stand by for a 24 hour period and provide immediate relief to any units under fire in our AO. We’re supposed to be battle-ready and rolling upon 15 minutes notice. This is doable unless you’re the guy planning the mission. I have to make a maneuver plan in route and try to brief it over the radio—very difficult—and just hope I’m fast on the draw. It’s an adventure every time. My shift ends at 0200, which is why I find myself with a rare moment of free time with which to write this entry. When I haven’t been patrolling I’ve been planning patrols, debriefing patrols, being briefed on new patrols, doing silly details as part of our mass punishment, and maintaining the paperwork on our platoon. Occasionally I sleep, but I’m starting to get a serious case of weltschmerz. I’m sure I’ll buck right up once I can talk to my wife again and eat a solid meal. Maybe we’ll even have a regular patrol schedule soon. And maybe they’ll stop sending me on fool’s errands across the city of Mosul.

Three days ago a helicopter team located a machine gun on a rooftop. They didn’t see any National Police or Iraqi Army manning it, so they called it up as a possible attack position. I was tasked to investigate. We found it on top of the roof, just as they said, and thoroughly confused the police officer manning it. He had just stepped down for a bit to use the latrine. This is common enough here; I had to physically wake up the guards at the last National Police outpost I visited. Still. This place was marked on the map as a checkpoint. I mean, good practice and all, but really? I had to cancel the mission I was on so that I could rapidly respond to this breaking intelligence.

And yesterday I had to stop my mission yet again and respond to a report of a possible IED on one of the main roads. They gave me a six-digit grid to the coordinates, which is a nice way of saying that it might be within a hundred meter radius of the point provided. This is a lot of ground to cover to find a bundle of buried explosives. Especially since you REALLY don’t want to walk up and find it right beneath your feet. There was no problem finding this one, though, because the Iraqi Police were everywhere around it. Or where it was, anyway. It had exploded three hours before I received my intel that there MAY be one there. You cannot pay for this kind of intel. It’s how we win wars. Of course, it took me about an hour to ascertain exactly where the IED was, when it had exploded, and what it had damaged because none of the police on the ground had the same story. So at least they’ve got it worse than we do.

On the upside, I got flipped off by an eight-year old child today. Little tyke. Adorable, really. Standing there by the road as I patrolled by with my men, innocent and curious. Straight up flipped me off. And not just my patrol, but me individually. Must have a solid sense for finding the officer. The neighborhood I patrolled today has not been visited by Coalition Forces in YEARS, I’m told. Somehow all my predecessors just kept passing it by. These guys were obviously not happy to see us in their streets, and the military-age males in the neighborhood were downright hostile. Nothing significant in the way of violence, fortunately, but they made it clear that we weren’t welcome. The kids stayed away and didn’t wave, the adults all just stared us down silently, and the dogs stopped frolicking and started baring teeth. Seriously. I think cats were hissing at us. Thank God we had air cover at the time. Some incredibly bored chopper pilots happened across our convoy, jumped to our frequency, and asked if we minded if they tagged along up above. I was more than happy to have the company. And they, with their itchy trigger fingers, were just thrilled to hear about the reception we were getting down there. I really do think they’ve started going insane with boredom. When guys started moving up on their rooftops, our chopper friends started buzzing them at low altitudes. They came back down in a hurry. Invaluable asset.

Then, strangely enough, things started changing. The patrol crossed some invisible line where people loved us. Adults held up small children to see our patrol and wave at us. I looked back at one point to find one of my soldiers completely surrounded by fascinated school children, all giggling and pointing at him. Strangest transition ever. I went from fully expecting to get shot to knee-deep in happy kids with practically no warning at all. I’m gonna have to check the demographics of my AO and figure out where and why things started looking rosy back there.

Well, it is 0140, so I imagine it’s time for me to start wrapping up this entry so I can brief my replacement and then catch a few hours of sleep. It’ll be my first in a while. We have another full day tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. Some of my men complain of boredom, and I get positively livid with envy. They’re spared the planning process and the infinite debrief. Some people on the FOB work eight hour days. I actually find myself wanting to inflict bodily harm upon them. If anyone was foolish enough to invent a drug that would render sleep unnecessary for human functioning, only one organization would be cruel enough to force it upon their people. The US Army. Sleep is a crutch, a handicap, a weakness that must be purged from the body. I have so much caffeine and nicotine in my system that my hands shake. I have been awake for DAYS. I actually can’t remember when I last slept for more than thirty minutes. Every now and then I glance down and find a lit cigarette in my hands, half-way finished before I even remember that I don’t smoke. How did it even get there? I don’t know anymore.

Things will improve. We’re gaining stability, getting a long term schedule soon, and starting to get a grasp on the things we need to accomplish. Our vision as a unit is clearing. The lockdown will eventually stop. I will one day be able to call my wife. People will stop calling me in the middle of my mission because they saw a light flicker four miles away. I will meet all of my Iraqi National Police counterparts, we will banter and befriend each other, we will conduct perfectly executed joint patrols, and they will barrage me with their finest chai in gratitude. It will get better. But right now? This whole damned war can go to hell.

MOSUL 07JAN09

2009-02-10T04:42:00.000-05:00

Blue Platoon has now conducted three patrols in the past three days. Well, not all of Blue Platoon, but I’ve been out for all three. The first two patrols were actually led by the unit we’re replacing and I just got to sit in the passenger seat and observe how they did business. They dismounted us at a few key locations to let us get a good view of the neighborhoods, discuss an area prone to serious attacks, or meet some of the principal characters we’ll be working with. It was a good introduction for me since I got to spend my time concentrating on the environment and their tactics rather than focusing entirely on my own maneuver elements and my own plans for reacting to enemy contact.

The crucial part of our first patrol was rolling out and meeting the key leaders of the Iraqi National Police in our area. These are not police as you know them at home. They’re light infantry who generally live in sparsely covered checkpoint shelters, guarding traffic circles, main highways, and government buildings. In many cases their living conditions are deplorable. The problem is that Mosul has become, for the Iraqi Government, the Waterloo of this war. If Mosul can be tamed the war will be won. So command of National Police units in the area has become a highly coveted position, as every Iraqi officer wants to claim that he led the big fight at the last days of the conflict. What this means, effectively, is that the commanders and units get cycled through this place at a ridiculous rate as different officers exploit different political connections to steal that position. And when the old ones go, they have the units strip every amenity from the bases. Light bulbs? Gone. Electrical wiring? Stripped away. They even take the water bottles. It’s a combination of petty vengeance and shameless profiteering.

We found out about the most recent change in command after we arrived at the headquarters of what was, until immediately after this discovery, Blue Platoon’s AO. (The change shifted my AO to the Main Effort, so Red Platoon moved to deal with that, and Blue has moved to handle the old Main Effort Area. Very, very violent.) The meeting started out simply enough with our commander greeting the Executive Officer, thanking him for his hospitality and continued cooperation with Coalition Forces, and asked if the Colonel was in. Oh no, comes the reply, I’m afraid the Colonel was ordered away a few days ago. I’m in command currently. Will he be coming back, we ask? Nope. Where is he now, we ask? Can’t tell us. Interesting. I tried to unobtrusively scan the room for missing light bulbs.

What proceeded from there was an introduction to the social customs of our Iraqi colleagues. Americans meeting traditional Iraqi families should know a few things before they accidentally spark a Jihad, so consider this a brief overview of Middle East Chai Survival Techniques.

1) They will offer you a tiny, tiny little glass filled with equal measures of piping hot brown stuff and sugar. This is called chai. You will accept it either with instant gratitude, or if you’re feeling a bit coy you can hold out to the third offer. But you WILL accept it, and your WILL drink it. And some chai is not as good as others. This isn’t Starbucks chai, people. This is a thick black tea leaf concoction ground with some kind of secret spices which should probably stay secret. But even if it’s bad, even if you’re meticulously planning your suicide with every gulp of noxious liquid, you have to drink at least one. Fortunately the chai I had at our first location was pretty darned tasty.

2) This culture has systematically learned to avoid saying anything in which you admit ignorance, acknowledge that something is impossible, or possibly and in any conceivable way insult the one who acts as your host. In case of chai this means that you cannot refuse a second cup of chai outright. Really you should drink at least two anyway. But if you just can’t take anymore, never say “No.” They’ve developed a culturally understood signal to convey the meaning without using that most odious word. Hold up the dregs and swirl it in the cup a few times, subtly and politely, and the person serving the chai will hopefully see this signal and understand that you would prefer not to be offered another drink. In case of planning and cross-force coordination, this philosophy of conversation can cause many incidents. The American military forces soldiers to admit, freely and without reservation, whenever they do not know the answer to a question. We’d rather not have somebody just pretend to know and then get us all killed with his ignorance. When we know we can’t accomplish a task, it’s true that we’ll still try, but first we inform our chain of command that our efforts will most likely result in failure. Just so they know. The Iraqis, however, are loath to ever admit that they don’t know or can’t do something. It’s just a cultural stigma. They have developed, as with the chai, a series of subtle codes meant to convey the meaning without directly admitting the ignorance. Was the car fully prepared before it left? “I will check for you.” Warning bells should now be going off in your head. While we consider this to be a promise in which the other person will immediately pursue this information, this is in fact another of those secret codes at work. They have acknowledged in the most obscure way that they do not know, by leaving the possibility open that they DO know and just need to verify or update their information and by letting you know that they do not want to terminate your friendship by openly leaving you in the lurch. But they will most likely be “checking” for the rest of human history. Don’t hold your breath for the answer.

3) Your Conversational Chai Opponent has another tool in his belt, or bullet in his chamber, or what have you—the deeply feared Insh-allah. “If God Wills It.” This phrase will be uttered with great repetition whenever you begin speaking of the future. As you speculate on a day when all of Mosul will be peaceful and secure, your partner will mutter Insh-allah practically the whole time. I’m amazed they can hear you at all when they do it, but somehow they know to transition out of it the moment you go to present tense. On the surface, this seems like a wonderfully humble acknowledgment of Man’s place in the divine purpose. Every conversation of the future should involve an Insh-allah. But on closer inspection it reveals yet another social code. Let’s try it with a few examples. “Will the Commander be able to meet us for dinner tonight?” If you answered Insh-allah, congratulations! You passed your first test in Passive-Aggressive Conversation. Your great piety has now resulted in great consternation. Was it a yes? Was it a no? In actuality, it’s nothing at all but a diversion. You have admitted that you don’t have control over the situation and cannot make a promise you cannot keep. This would be laudable if the culture didn’t also teach you to avoid ever taking responsibility. As such, it’s always going to be Insh-allah. But so far this is nothing but a minor social disruption, as the worst that could happen is you end up eating alone. More food for you. Let’s try another example. “You need to emplace these barriers around your outer defenses or you’ll be attacked by car bombs!” If you also answered this with Insh-allah, well done! You’ve advanced to Dangerously Ambivalent! Did you mean insh-allah for the part about placing the barriers, or the part about being attacked by a car bomb? Both! Neither! You have successfully detached your Will from playing any role in our world. This is, given the phobia of admitting failure, ignorance, or offending your host, the safest position for most men in the culture. You are now completely passive. There are two ways that Americans can react to this, as I see it: immense frustration or immense sarcasm. We like to push our Will onto everything. We’re an aggressive culture like that. We’ll tell you when we’re ignorant, but in return we want to be in control when we know we’re right. That’s two major faux-pas in your chai encounter. So we’re forced, upon hearing the dreaded Insh-allah, into our predetermined American responses. The first is to get frustrated and angry, as my XO does. “No, you asshole, it’s MY will! You get him to the meeting place on time, or you risk MY wrath! You don’t know if God is vengeful, but you better damned well know that I AM!” This, while cathartic, is not the most polite conversational gambit in a culture where you have to refuse beverages in secret code. My response is a touch of piety and sarcasm, with what I hope is a little lesson in the way I think. The moment they start muttering Insh-allah, I join in. We quickly meld into harmonious piety, deferring all to the will of the All-Mighty, and the conversation ceases while we wait to see who’s going to stop first. Theoretically this could continue until one of us spontaneously combusts, but usually (though I’ve only done it twice now) we both just go silent after about a minute. They stand there silently, at a loss, and I stand there hoping that I’ve subtly conveyed what I think about this kind of passivity. If it spreads, nothing will ever get done. I hope, Insh-allah, that I have been successful.

4) Be prepared to change your views on hygiene. The left hand is never to be used for anything involving another person, as the culture hasn’t really taken a great liking to toilet paper. I’m reminded of a story from one of my drill sergeants who once held an Iraqi man at a vehicle checkpoint for a few hours until the man requested permission to use the restroom. The checkpoint didn’t have a restroom, so the sergeant just escorted him to the corner they had been using. The man proceeded to defecate, wipe himself with his left hand, and began to walk away. The sergeant, who had heard of but never directly seen this, was horrified and quickly moved to offer the man some baby wipes (we always carry those things around). Our Iraqi friend stared down at consternation, pondered this great mystery, and then stared up questioningly at the sergeant. The sergeant did his best to mimic wiping motions in pantomime. The man had an obvious Gestalt moment where his eyes lit up with recognition and understanding. He smiled, turned around, walked to the corner, and very carefully placed one baby wipe on top of his refuse. Then he glanced up triumphantly to see if the sergeant had acknowledged his success. The sergeant mastered his obvious frustration, smiled back, gave a thumbs-up, and just sent the guy back to his car. Good try, buddy. That kind of effort, however misguided, deserves at least a thumbs-up.

5) Never give an Iraqi man a thumbs-up. Or an OK sign with your fingers. These are obscene gestures, and while most of these guys have seen enough American movies that they understand what we mean when we use it, it can lead to misunderstandings about your intentions with the females of his family. Never shake hands with the left hand. Never stop someone by holding up your left palm to their face. This is difficult to avoid as my trigger finger is on my right hand and I’ll be damned if I’m going to make a stopping gesture AND take my finger off the trigger. Never cross one of your legs when sitting around a table with another person, and if you must, make sure your heel isn’t visible to him. That shows that you consider him to be lower than you. Do not relax back into your chair, as this demonstrates that you are not interested in the proceedings. You may, however, raise your voice and gesticulate wildly to convey a point. Hysteria is encouraged; comfort is not.

6) The end result is that chai is a carefully choreographed conversational gavotte (so close to some serious alliteration right there) more centered around what is not said than what is. This is a culture where you cannot admit fallacy or ignorance. You are obligated to show hospitality and are terrified of incorrectly receiving their hospitality. To complicate this, you are not allowed to drink alcohol. Or have pre-marital sex. Or masturbate. Freud would have some things to say about this, I think. Perhaps one day I’ll write the post-modern anthropological analysis of the sexually repressed chai drinking peoples of the great deserts. The Great American Novel, really.

From our adventures in chai we resumed the patrol and dismounted to conduct a movement through the marketplace by the river. This was, without reservation, the most nerve-wracking experience in my life thus far. I hope I don’t develop agoraphobia as a response. The market is composed of very narrow streets hedged by multi-storied shops (each of which is built on ancient foundations the Babylonians may have recognized), and is completely filled with people. Every nook and cranny has a person to go along with it. Sometimes two or three. The major risks along this route are small arms fire attacks (they shoot at us) or suicide vests (they blow everybody up). This is understandable seeing as you’d have a nigh impossible time trying to keep every possible suicide bomber out of detonation range in a place this crowded. After only three patrols I’ve already found myself scanning every car on the road to see if its suspensions are heavy-laden or reinforced, if the driver is the only occupant, and finally if he’s wearing white and is clean-shaven. Some of these bombers believe that they are transported to heaven immediately upon the blast, and that they arrive just as they were in the last moment of their lives, so they try to make themselves presentable to the All-Mighty. The same works dismounted: I’ve taken to scanning everyone for bulky clothing, hands inside pockets, inordinate interest in our patrol, and general nervousness. This makes one a wee bit twitchy, I find. Not to make light of the results… I almost shot a little kid on my first patrol. He started running up from behind to ask me for money. All I knew, until I had recognized him as a little kid wearing form-fitting clothes (and after I had already taken the safety off my weapon and was ready to let go a few rounds), was that someone was trying to get close to me from my blind side and that someone wasn’t one of my soldiers. I might never go to a shopping mall again after this.

About half-way down the road we heard semi-automatic rifle fire. About ten rounds, I’d guess, in quick succession. I was behind cover before you could blink. When I glanced behind me to locate the guys around me and try to get a fix on the source, all I saw was SSG Lark standing over me in the open, barely containing his laughter. “Sir, what the hell are you doing down there? Noise carries in the city, and that firing was at least a block away. Nobody was shooting at YOU.”

Crazy bastard. I think I’ll live longer my way.

Nothing came of the contact on our end, as it was directed against another of our patrols on a neighboring road. They got one of that patrols Humvees with a parachute grenade, another readily available and immensely frustrating Soviet weapon that has found its way to the Middle East, but inflicted no casualties. But you, dear American taxpayer, will be buying us another truck. So sorry.

The second patrol was even more uneventful. I just rolled around to the different National Police companies in my AO and got to meet their leadership, assessed their combat strength, determined where they had their checkpoints and who they had manning them, and what they needed to be more effective. I’m working on getting some earthworks for one of the COPs (Company OutPosts) as it was fairly vulnerable to car bombs in its current state. That being said, yesterday morning it was in fact hit with a car bomb. A little north of the most devastating point, but definitely close. I was in the American base at the time, working on my platoon equipment, when I heard the blast. (Not so strange, as everything JUST KEEPS EXPLODING IN THIS COUNTRY.) So last evening, around 1530, I received instructions that I was to conduct an escort for the engineers who would be filling the resulting hole in the ground. Brief was to be held at 1800, start point (SP) at 1900. What resulted was a flurry of activity that boggled the mind and dazzled the senses. We had no vehicles so we had to find a company able to give us some. Remember, we’re still transitioning into operations right now. This isn’t normal. So I signed for the vehicles and all of their basic issue items. That took a good 30 minutes. We had no radios, and once we did have them (more begging, scrounging, and time off the clock), we still had to encrypt them. We had no mounted weapons. Once we did, we had no ammo. Once we had ammo, we had no mounting brackets with which to mount the weapons on the vehicles. More scrounging. More begging. More time lost. We had to hook up the electronic equipment, which I assure you is mind-boggling in complexity but also classified so I can’t go into any further details… though I’m sure CNN has probably told you all about it already.

Throw in a little time for me to make a plan, brief the plan, coordinate with the engineers, and conduct final tests, and you’d have a two day effort on your hands. We did it in three hours. My CO let it be known that he was less than pleased with the fact that one of our machine guns was improperly headspaced and timed, which is (I concur) an embarrassing mistake, and that one computer system wasn’t completely plugged in, which would also be embarrassing under normal circumstances, but I think that we worked very well with what we had. Honestly, I’m angry that my leadership said anything negative at all about our progress (as I’m told they did at the nightly meeting, which I missed because I was on the patrol watching cement dry). We went from zero to combat ready in three hours. And I mean ZERO. We had NOTHING but our own personal weapons. And we didn’t even have ammo for them. We had to beg and borrow and scrounge for EVERYTHING on the vehicles, including the vehicles themselves. Let’s see the other platoons try that. Only Blue Platoon, the “Dirty Third,” is the right mix of clever and crazy to pull it together in time. White would have been unable to resource out all of the stuff, because they don’t have the begging/borrowing system down, and Red would have spent all their time inspecting the vehicles and equipment before signing for them. We just had to take some of our material on faith. Dangerous? Yes. But engineers, while great guys to have around, should never be trusted to defend themselves. So it was important that we get out there on time.

Of course, the convoy was delayed for a good half hour while my lead vehicle tried to figure out what was wrong with its gun. We sat and sat while I fumed at the gunner, who we initially blamed for being incompetent, then at his Truck Commander, who should have fixed the problem by now, and finally at the guy who conducted the headspace and timing in the first place. Ten minutes passed as I fumed, then twenty, and as we approached thirty my eccentric sense of humor got the better of me. “Good evening and welcome to Bulldog Convoy,” I shot onto the radio—disregarding decades of accepted radio protocol. “We know you have a choice in escorts, and we appreciate you choosing Bulldog. Unfortunately we’re having some minor technical difficulties at this time, so we ask for your patience and understanding, but once we square this away and receive clearance from the tower we’ll have you on your destination in no time. Thank you for flying Bulldog.” SSG Lark says I missed my calling. I always knew the Army was a bad idea.

The patrol was mind-numbingly boring. Attacks rarely happen at night, because the point of the insurgency is to terrify the local populace and show that we are powerless to stop them, and audiences are somewhat sparse around midnight in January. We arrived, established security, and waited. And waited. And waited. Cement, apparently, is not a fast process. Towards the end we were all playing celebrity name games just to stay awake and alert. When they were finished, we turned around and drove home. There. That’s it. My first patrol as commander inside a hostile zone. I watched cement dry in the dead of night. Then I drove home over a thousand potholes even bigger than the car bomb hole, so towards the end I wasn’t even feeling that useful. We’d need a whole division of engineers to fix the Baghdad Highway.

And that brings us to early morning today, where I finally got to call Hope for twenty minutes (one phone, 200+ people) and then rack out for four hours. I am starting to get tired. That’s all right, though. I passed another major milestone. I’ve conducted my first patrol, then my first patrol in command. Soon it’ll become a rhythm, and once that happens I’ll be just fine. But I’ve got some meetings to attend, so I’ll cut this short. That’s all the news from Mosul. Go practice your chai skills.

MOSUL 03JAN09

2009-02-10T04:40:00.000-05:00

I first arrived to my platoon as it was in the middle of a brigade field problem about six months ago. I had never worked with a mechanized force, had never met my NCOs or my men, and was entirely out of my element; the training we received as infantry officers was sadly lacking when it came to conducting the actual day-to-day functioning of a platoon. At that point it was just SSG Crunchberry and a few corporals leading a severely under-strength platoon, and they needed an experienced and knowledgeable officer to take control. Instead they got an OCS 14-week wonder with no mechanized maneuver experience. I can’t tell you that it wasn’t rough. My first weeks with Blue Platoon were filled with amateur oversights and rookie mistakes. At the end of the field problem I was put on notice, effectively. If my performance did not improve, and quickly, the CO would have no choice but to try his luck with the next LT they sent.

There was no way on earth I was going down without a fight. I wanted this. Badly. Ever since I was branched Infantry in OCS, I’ve realized that the only way to know I was doing my job right was to have a platoon. Infantry lieutenants without platoons are cursed to sleepless nights of self-condemnation and flagellation, deep introspective fits of depression and self-loathing, and long boring days behind desks working on things none of us were ever trained to do. When I didn’t earn my Ranger tab I was told that there would be no chance at me commanding an infantry platoon. I started resigning myself to the inevitable.

When I arrived at my unit and was immediately pushed to a platoon, I thought it was a combination of clerical oversight and divine intervention. It was a second chance. So there was no way I was going to give it up. The road from then to now is pocked with mistakes and embarrassing stories, yes, but I’m still here. And Blue Platoon is steadily improving with each day. The CO has honored me by letting me know, repeatedly, that I have learned faster and made more improvements in less time than he ever thought possible for any lieutenant; though to tell you the truth, I initially interpreted this as meaning that my beginning was very, very, very bad and the current status is just marginal. But recent events have made me wonder if we really are performing better than we had thought.

Yesterday the Commander informed me that we would be changing our battle space again. Brigade HQ had included a chunk of neighborhoods across the river into our AO, so our company now had territory in both East and West Mosul. There’s an entire brigade of combat troops here, but our company encompasses maybe fifteen percent of the city space and twenty percent of the population. We have the government district, the river, and three of five bridges spanning the river. Our neighbors in Alpha Company are also taking a considerable amount of territory, though nothing comparable to our chunk. It strikes me as odd that we would have all of these troops in sector and then lean overwhelmingly on two or three companies, but I suppose the fewer the men, the greater the share of honor (and all that).

Well, Blue Platoon has been given the government district, the river, and the few neighborhoods we are to control across the river. We’ve just received our tickets to the big game. This sector is NOT quiet. This sector is NOT peaceful. The Commander has noted our improvements as a platoon and has decided to place more trust on us. Additionally he feels that I might have a better chance of acting as my company’s diplomat (without portfolio, unless you count my ammunition…and I suppose all diplomacy is empowered by threat of coercion) within the area. I’m going to be surrounded by people who severely outrank me in my own military, in their military, in our government, and in their government, and the CO seems to think I’d be the most capable at holding my ground with them. I’m touched by the confidence—and I’ll work my ass off to prove that it isn’t misplaced. Blue Platoon is moving up in the world.

SSG Lark is passed out right now. He spent all of last night getting our Brads moved over to an equipment installation yard and was completely exhausted, but I still had to practically order him to go to sleep. When he gets his mind working on something he hits an admirable form of high-octane tunnel vision. He just won’t stop until it’s finished, and sometimes he won’t stop even after it’s finished, so occasionally I find myself worrying about his general health. My God, he even tried to wake up as I wrote this. I may have to knock him unconscious in a moment.

SSG Crunchberry, my old partner in crime, has been informed by the Commander and the First Sergeant that he himself may be on notice for a while. When he was Platoon Sergeant he was overwhelmed, yes, but definitely invested in his job. And when his dream came true and he reverted back to leading a squad he was thrilled. Finally a break, he thought. Well, the Commander is concerned that he’s trying to take too much of a break. That he may be getting a little lazy and that SSG Chase is following suit. This concerns me deeply, because under no circumstances whatsoever do I want to lose him and have him replaced by whatever refuse White Platoon is trying to throw off. 1LT Freddy in White Platoon (so named because he dressed as Freddy from Scooby Doo this Halloween, and yes, he does look just like him—so restrain yourselves, ladies) is a great guy, a very competent officer, and is fortunate to have SFC Stupendous Bad-Ass (I don’t have enough security clearance to know how many secret operations this guy has done) as his Platoon Sergeant. But even with that duo, they’re in a rut: their squad leaders are truly and completely awful. This is why Blue has moved up in the company, and White has moved down—and while I’m grateful for the opportunity, I have to admit feeling some pretty deep sympathy for 1LT Freddy’s situation. I don’t envy him. And I definitely don’t want one of his squad leaders coming in to replace SSG Crunchberry. Oh, hell no. So we’ve been pushing to get Crunchberry and Chase some limelight in the past few days. Make it clear that they’re working hard and effectively. They’ll be organizing a firing range in a few days, and mostly by themselves with only a few signatures and resources from me, so they should be able to prove themselves as capable and competent leaders to the Commander. I hope. I really don’t want to consider the possibility of losing one and gaining some dead weight after all of the progress we’ve made.

The other news? I’m happy to announce that on 1140 on 01JAN09, someone finally tried to actively kill me. Well, kill anyone, really. Mortars are a bit impersonal. But it is the first time anyone has fired a shot in anger capable of hitting me. I was under hard cover at the time, so I was pretty safe, but my heart rate still jumped for a second. KABOOM. Shook the room. My reaction startled me more than the act itself; for some reason, I was positively gleeful about it. Landmark reached and safely passed. Now they hold no real interest, as every subsequent mortar will just be a pitiful impression of the first. I felt a bit like a Midwest tourist in New York when it happened: eyes wide open, struggling to keep my excitement from bubbling over to everyone around me. “Aren’t these buildings just fantastic? Oh, and Bernice, have you seen the mortar impact? Just unbelievable!”

I’ll also be rolling outside the wire for the first time tomorrow (and as I’ll be posting this entry of the journal after the fact, I’d like to point out that operational security has been observed and adhered to). Six to eight hours of area familiarization with the unit we’re replacing. About time, really. I’m getting tired of this administrative aspect. As SSG Chase so aptly stated, it’s as if we went to war and garrison broke out. We’re all a little anxious to get started with the work at hand. So my next entry will contain a description of my initial observations and my first patrol. Fortunately I’ll be in the passenger seat on this mission, so I’ll just be observing. The unit we’re replacing—which I would like to point out has done an incredible job in Mosul with severely limited resources—will be conducting the actual tactical maneuvering and leadership. I’m just here to watch how they do business.

That’s all the news from Mosul, where the men are anxious, the women are armed, and the children are hiding behind concrete barriers. More to come as soon as I get a chance.

MOSUL 31DEC08

2009-02-10T04:36:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year. The CO is due back this evening, so it shouldn’t be too long before we’re able to roll out and see our area. I’m heading over to brief him on the state of our platoon in an hour, so I won’t have too long for this entry. Blue Platoon is doing well; we’ve been covering our new radios and equipment in recent training, including the famed MRAP vehicle—we should be issued some of them. This new contraption may be the Army’s next major fighting line vehicle and our answer to IEDs. It has a V-shaped hull, intended to deflect general blasts from run-of-the-mill IEDs, and tons of armor. The vehicle is still somewhat vulnerable to Explosively Formed Projectiles, or EFPs, the newer and better constructed IEDs the military’s been encountering for the past couple of years. These things are ingenious, really. Take a copper pot or ashtray, orient it behind explosives, throw a little laser on it (usually the motion sensors or line-of-sight sensors found in the lights around your garage door), and you’ve got a recipe for fiery death. Turn the laser on as the convoy approaches so it detonates when one of your vehicles breaks the beam. The explosion immediately melts the copper, which shoots through your vehicle like a bullet, setting fire to anything it comes in contact with. Very ugly. The entrance wound is miniscule, but the exit wound can be catastrophic. Kind of a lesson in counter-insurgency, really. We spend billions on a new weapon system, and the enemy counters with a thirty-cent ashtray. Granted, these things are difficult to construct properly, and only insurgents with outside connections can really get them going. But they’re still ridiculously cheap, minus the cost of expertise. Additionally, the profile of the MRAP is so high that it tends to run into power lines on patrol. And it’s so wide that it can’t make it through most of the streets in Mosul. We’ll be able to use it on missions skirting the edges of the city, but otherwise it’ll just sit here in the motor pool, waiting to be mortared.

Speaking of which, still no mortars. The XO got his fill of them when he arrived early, but it seems the rest of us just aren’t worth killing. It’s almost as if the enemy doesn’t care anymore. I’m kind of insulted.

Blue Platoon will be assuming a battle space previously owned by a whole company, so I’ll have plenty of work on my hands. The area is relatively quiet right now. Nevertheless, it was a major hotspot a few months ago, so we expect some volatility. There are two large populations of refugees in the area; we have some Turkoman refugees in the south who are generally cooperative and peaceful, and some Tal Afar refugees in the west who apparently have a reputation for causing trouble. We’ll be keeping a close eye on them. They fled Coalition operations in Tal Afar and came here because the size of the city gives them better opportunities to blend in with the population. While most of them are just petty criminals or general opportunists, some are undoubtedly here with more violent intentions. The area is overwhelmingly Sunni, which is good because the homogeneity probably means a minimum of ethnic violence will be conducted in the AO, but bad because a potential Shia landslide in January’s elections could send them into riots and increased support for insurgent elements. The Coalition will become, in their eyes, the enforcers of a Shia-controlled Baghdad and a Kurdish-controlled Mosul. We might not be well liked, soon.

I attempted to brief these items to my partner in crime, SSG Lark, but we quickly ran into a serious conflict of minds. The qualities that make him good as a platoon sergeant, namely his tunnel vision and absolutist mindset, can make him absolutely infuriating here. “Religion doesn’t mean a damn here,” he claimed. “It’s all about the money. All the Hajjis (wince) are baddies, and they don’t care about the reasons. Don’t worry about the religion or the politics.” I tried to patiently stress that yes, religion is in fact a MAJOR issue in Iraq, but was quickly shut down. “Oh, I forgot that you’d also spent 13 months here,” he replied sarcastically. True, I haven’t been here before. Yes, experience is the best teacher. But I was just about ready to start banging my head against the wall until sweet unconsciousness took me away. The political make-up of the neighborhoods? Of no consequence. Refugees? Just more willing to plant IEDs for an extra buck. Doesn’t matter what they’re fleeing from. And the unit we’re taking over from? They’re not to be trusted, they’re just trying to make themselves look good, they’ve done a terrible job, etc. It took all of my self-restraint not to rejoin that they have been here for 15 months, in fact, and more recently than he was here. Oh, well. He does an excellent job as a platoon sergeant, and I have no complaints on that front, so this is more frustrating from a personal than professional standpoint. I just told him that he needn’t worry about those details, that I would concern myself with the subtleties in the local populace, and that I would consider it a favor if he humored me whenever I naively acted as if such things were occasionally important.

I’ll be conducting all of the engagements with our counterpart leadership in the Iraqi Security Forces. If worse comes to worse, I may have to issue a standing order that he just not speak around them. It’s amazing how such trivial misunderstandings—your religious and political views are merely a front for your avaricious desire to blow things up—could cause diplomatic tension.

I suppose I’m just angry right now, and later on I’ll look back at this conversation with greater understanding. We are soldiers. We’re trained to find, fix, and finish our enemies on the field of battle. If he isn’t wearing an allied uniform and he’s armed, he’s an enemy. A simple premise. And while the response to this simplicity is in fact an incredibly complicated series of tactical maneuvers and cross-force coordination, the initiating act is supposed to be very easy to understand. Find, fix, finish. Unfortunately this isn’t the kind of war we’re engaged in. That armed civilian could be on our side, conceivably, trying to protect his property from looters or insurgents. The world is very, very confusing. And while the Army has done an outstanding job adapting our tactics and procedures in dealing with the new war, we haven’t been able to fundamentally change the individual soldier. They’re young, jumpy, confused, and armed. They’re good men, and they all want to effect positive change here, but it’s obvious that we all yearn for a simpler day when the enemy made it clear that he was an enemy. Here, they sell you fruit in the day and plant bombs in the night. And not just against you; against their neighbors, their political enemies, and their own police forces. Some of these people even conduct these attacks in the belief that they share a common goal with the Coalition, and that if they could eliminate this one particular group from the city it would finally be stable and secure. It is nuanced, it is subtle, and it is frustrating as hell. And these are not things a fighting man likes to hear. Give me a target, set me loose, and I’ll deal with it. But as that is a rarity, my job becomes something a bit different than those of my colleagues in previous wars. Explain the nuance, clarify the subtlety, and be ready to turn on—or off—the killing spirit in my men on command. I only hope I’m up to the task.

Since I’ve spent most of my time in meetings or conversations with the people I’ll be replacing, I really haven’t been around the rest of Blue Platoon that much. I’m feeling pretty detached from them (which is actually how my NCOs like it, as they feel—and rightly so—that the men are their territory).

That’s enough for now, though. I’ve got to go brief the commander and learn about our course of action for the next few days. Happy New Year to all of you..

MOSUL 29DEC08

2009-02-10T04:29:00.000-05:00

We’re here. In the early morning of 28DEC08, Blue Platoon completed manifest and got on the buses to our Kuwaiti airstrip, boarded a C-17, and flew to LSA Diamondback (Mosul) which borders our current home, FOB Mirez. Stepping off of the plane was a slightly surreal moment; the first sight was the weeping willow-esque trees surrounding the airfield, and behind that was a clear view of the city of Mosul. Game on. We’re finally in a place where a lot of people actively are trying to kill us. The XO told us not to be surprised if we received indirect fire en route to Mirez, as the FOB has received mortar fire for three of the last seven days he was here (one conspicuously close to the place I’m currently living). Nothing yet, but I’m waiting with almost gleeful anticipation. Come on. Lob one at me. Let’s see who gets the honor of trying to kill me first.

All in all, the threat from indirect fire is minimal. It isn’t like an artillery barrage. Some bad guys are just trying to pop a few rounds at the FOB to see if they get lucky, and the atmosphere here is one of minor annoyance. Short of locating and eliminating the mortar team, there isn’t much you can really do about it; we’re already bunkered down surrounded by concrete and sandbags. It would take a direct hit to actually kill you, unless you happened to be walking in the open at that moment, so the general opinion is, “Well, all right. Either you get hit or you don’t.” And the odds of you—individually—getting hit are astronomically high, so we aren’t too concerned.

The city is very, very big. 1.8 million people live in Mosul, and it shows. It’s not New York City big, granted, but it would take the entire US Army to occupy and hold an insurgent NYC. We have a brigade for this one. This isn’t counting the multiple brigades of Iraqi forces stationed here; taken in tandem, we constitute maybe two divisions. Gunfire is a constant background noise, helicopters are circling the city around the clock, and it all feels very real. I’m having a hard time convincing myself that this is just like training. No, this is clearly the real thing.

We haven’t rolled outside of the wire on our first patrol yet, since our CO hasn’t arrived from the additional training he’s been tasked to receive. We’re essentially grounded on the FOB for the next few days. This is pretty beneficial for us, actually, as it forces us to get all of the final maintenance and administrative details out of the way first. Left to our own devises we would be outside immediately. We’re all eager to get out there and see our new battle space, meet the people we’re going to work with, and get this show on the road. After the two years and multiple millions the Army has spent on my training, I know that at some level I’ll feel fundamentally relieved after my first patrol: they’re finally going to get some payoff on their investment. And, most of all, I want to start learning first-hand. The curve will be steep, certainly, but I’m betting that I’ll begin to see things differently and learn tactics, techniques, and procedures that never really made sense in training. It takes nine months for a fertilized egg to develop into an autonomous human baby; what will twelve months of Mosul do to all of us?

Regrettably, SPC Ladies’ Man’s paperwork didn’t come through on Christmas Day. So I didn’t get to reenlist him as Santa Clause. He’s adapted, though, and now wants me to conduct the ceremony in one of the frilly, lacy shirts the locals tend to wear. I’ve decided to humor his request. Now he just needs to get those documents in order. SSG Lark is a little on edge right now. Part of this may be the fact that circumstances have forced us to temporarily share a Containerized Housing Unit (CHU), a little container that would be cramped for one person. Combine that with his OCD and we get a potentially explosive situation. But most of the stress is Mosul. It’s big, it’s busy, and we’re still not entirely sure what or where we’ll be operating. I’ve gotten a good tentative outline of my area over the course of the day. Currently my neighborhoods are relatively safe, but they were a hotspot of insurgency only a few months ago, so we’re going to find out pretty quickly if the progress was permanent or not. Additionally, with the Iraqi elections so close at hand, the new Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that limits our role in theater, and the rumor that some of the Iraqi National Police units may be forced to stand down, the city is sitting on thumb-tacks. It could get very volatile, very soon.

There isn’t much to report, otherwise. Most of the time over the last few days was spent in transit, waiting for transit, and unpacking equipment. The food at the DFAC is excellent. I mean truly excellent. Whatever I’ve said about KBR—which I continue to stand by with few exceptions—they can keep the cooks here. The walk to chow is a bit ridiculous, but definitely worth it. I also finally have an address:

NAME (with rank)

UNIT

FOB Mirez

APO AE 09334

Yes, I know. Silly anonymity. If you don’t know my unit, contact Hope or my family. If you don’t know my name, then you probably shouldn’t be reading this, let alone mailing me stuff.

That’s all I have to report for now. We’re here, we’re very eager, and we’re grounded for a few more days. Shouldn’t be too exciting. I’ll update this as soon as I can find internet; we’re not really moved into our final CHUs, so we don’t have internet access yet. But soon. And then I’ll start updating the journal directly, as opposed to writing it on my laptop and then wandering until I can find a terminal with a connection. But days one and two are complete. 300-something more to go.

Christmas Eve

2008-12-24T09:23:00.001-05:00

KUWAIT 24DEC08

Christmas Eve in Kuwait. I’ve finally found some time to sit down and write my third entry here. Over the past few days we’ve been awake practically around the clock; we finished a daylong range on 21DEC and then proceeded to spend the whole night installing reactive armor on the Bradley Fighting Vehicles. After two hours of sleep we went out for another day long range, and after that I was informed that I would be the Officer In Charge (OIC) of the range the following morning (a full eight hours in the future), so the rest of my night was spent scurrying around from one place to another finding us the vehicles, ammo, and range equipment we would need to conduct the training. We woke up early (another two hours) and started working on the Bradleys; they had been transported to us by ship, and apparently a few of them had developed some mechanical problems in transit. So we pushed through those issues in time to get to the range and we fired until range control told us to stop around nightfall. Busy days. The Commander, Executive Officer (XO), Company Intel Officer (COIST), and a few other key leaders from headquarters have pushed ahead to Mosul to prepare for the main body’s arrival. So now it’s just the lieutenants and our NCOs running the show. First order of business was to catch up on lost sleep.

Bradley Reactive Armor is quite a concept. We’ve added large (heavy) panels of C4 to the sides of all the vehicles, which at first sounds like a terrible idea. I was uncomfortable with the fact that I spend so much of my time in a little metal cocoon surrounded by ammunition even before we decided to further surround THAT with explosives. But the reactive armor is directional—and fortunately, directed away from us. The idea is that a rocket will encounter equal and opposing force from the contact detonation of the C4, and thus cancel all of its effects. A nice idea. Unfortunately, the rocket has to hit at the right angle, in the right armored spot, and we have to hope that the ensuing blast won’t inadvertently set fire to the neighboring panels of C4. It detonates by a combination of heat and pressure, so the fire alone won’t send it exploding in every direction, but it is quite flammable and could conceivably light us all up. We’d probably be quite safe (though warm) on the inside, but the result would be the Hell Bradley, a flaming ball of death careening through the streets of Mosul. Definitely a sight to behold. So, until the damned stuff ends up saving my life or one of my men’s lives, all I think of the reactive armor is that it is heavy, bulky, and overburdens the suspension.

This is a problem the German Army of World War Two would be able to converse about at length, so it’s nothing new. We design a vehicle for certain tasks, but as the missions and the threats change, we throw additional equipment on to negate the new risks. More armor, more weapons, more communications arrays, more everything. But the underlying chassis remains the same. So now the vehicle has to carry 40 tons when it was designed for 36, basically. This leads to mechanical problems and forces us to drive at less than peak efficiency. So far the problems are minimal, but the history of the Koenigstiger Panzer shows where this eventually leads. Or, more recently, the 1114 HMMV (the real Hummer, for those of you driving the oversized gas guzzlers at home). When we started upping the armor on those, throwing heavy armored doors and building up the turrets, we basically shot the suspension all to hell. This is one of the reasons we’re shifting to the newer 1151 model—and ultimately shifting from the HMMV model altogether. A good vehicle at its core, but with all the additional equipment, too prone to rollovers and mechanical flubs.

The men are in good spirits for Christmas. In the spirit of things, one of the men (SPC Ladies’ Man, as we’ll call him for reasons which should be obvious) has done me the great honor of asking me to preside over his reenlistment ceremony—but I have to dress up as Santa Clause. He’s still trying to get a suit by tomorrow. I’ll provide the update on how successful this was in the next entry. We’ve planned minimal training for tomorrow, so after a few hours of medical work, the men should be free to hit the Moral, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) tent and play some cards or pool. If they’re really brave they might even try to tackle the lines for the phones… provided they even work.

I may have spoken too soon about the progress of my team leaders. For a minute there I considered us to have the best leadership in the company, and for my hubris the company 1st Sergeant swapped one of my best riflemen for an aging specialist in 2nd Platoon, with instructions that he be given a team leader position. He is new, he is untrained in the job, and thus far he has been demonstrating no serious desire to change this. We put him in the squad with SGT Skizz in the hopes that he’ll be able to light a fire under him. Should his performance not improve within the next two weeks, we’ll be forced to fire him. Out of a cannon. Into the sun. So all eyes in my headquarters are on SPC Pappy. Maybe he’ll surprise us.

On that note, I don’t think I’ve introduced the cast of characters in my little headquarters yet. We’ve got an ensemble that would make Shakespeare green with envy. At the head is my Platoon Sergeant, my partner in crime and mentor. We’ll call him SSG Lark here, as his real name is another songbird and he prefers being Airborne. He came from Fort Benning where he was a black hat in Airborne School (one of the trainers). Funnily enough, we’d actually briefly met before he came to my platoon. He was one of the instructors in my Airborne School company. His wife worked with a good friend and fellow lieutenant’s wife back in Georgia. The old timers always tell me how small the Army world really is, but I hadn’t expected to start running into old faces so soon. Anyway, SSG Lark is 30 and has a dozen years of Army experience. He’s generally quiet and reserved, but is quick to anger and righteous indignation. This is good for discipline in the platoon, as it is neither my job nor my personality to drive people by screaming. He’s happy to do all of that for me. He has been blessed with very high expectations, and maybe cursed with the fact that he does not always react well to the inevitable let down when these expectations are not met, but all in all he has been an outstanding addition to Blue Platoon. He is also OCD, which is another excellent trait in a Platoon Sergeant but not so desirable in a roommate. Well, at least he’ll be able to escape the aura of “filth” that surrounds me when we get our own rooms in Iraq. I’ve never seen so many ulcers formed because my shoes were not perfectly aligned—or maybe my weapon strayed a few inches into his territory when I set it down—or perhaps my rucksack is lilting slightly to the left. He organizes and trains with the same attention that he cuts his sausage patties in the morning; namely, with great focus and meticulous planning. This has provided the platoon with the stability and order it so sorely needed before.

My vehicular expert and leader is SSG Regulator. I’ve chosen this name not only because of his clear desire to keep things clean and orderly but also because of his seemingly limitless memory of Army Regulations. This guy uses regs as a weapon. Doesn’t think it’s a good idea? Well, he can find a reg that tells you not to do it. And given the prolific nature of Army publishing, there’s one for just about everything. My God, we even tell you how far you need to have port-a-johns away from the tents. And he knows exactly what that distance is, in every form of measurement ever devised by man. This can sometimes result in great tedium, but generally this means that there is no better man in the platoon—and possibly the whole company—to keep your vehicles in order. I can always trust that they’ll be ready to roll out with SSG Regulator. I haven’t had the opportunity to roll out of the wire with him yet, so I don’t know how he handles in the field, but inside the base he is the very definition of “By the Book.”

My first dismount squad leader is SSG Chase—actually his first name, which he would prefer you used when addressing him. Smooth, laid back, easy humor… not your first image of a thundering infantry squad leader, but he gets the job done. He has high expectations of his men, if not always of himself, and his meteoric rise through the ranks is a testament to his ability to get the job done. It won’t always be pretty. In fact, I don’t think it has ever been pretty. But it gets done. Otherwise, and with the exception of his close friends, he keeps himself quiet and reserved. He works just fine with me because he’s open to new ideas and is amenable to getting things done in whatever way works. This, needless to say, causes a slight amount of friction with SSG Regulator.

My second dismount squad leader is SSG Crunchberry. I’m not sure what the story really is behind this name, but from time to time he insists on being referred to as Petty Officer ----, of the HMS Crunchberry. Eccentric? Definitely. He also used to be my platoon sergeant before SSG Lark arrived. He is certainly capable, and eight days out of ten is an invaluable asset to the platoon. The other two days he’s generally inebriated and hostile. This has obviously improved since we got to Kuwait and the well dried up, as it were. But there were definitely a few touchy days of withdrawal we all had to contend with. He much prefers leading a squad to managing a platoon, as it spares him from the politics and administrative ulcers at my level. And he is very good at getting the men trained. When he gets it in his mind to teach the men a new skill, they WILL learn it. It’s just a lot less painful if they do. His life ambition is to leave the Army after this tour and open a cantina on a beach somewhere in Mexico; barring this, he will take his savings and tour the world as a high-class hobo, befriending bums along the way while he writes the memoirs of his travels; or, he’ll stay in Iraq after the reconstruction since it provides him the opportunity to pursue a career in midget farming. That’s right, midgets. As in “little people.” He wants to raise them. Strange? I prefer the term “delightfully eccentric.”

Those four make up my little inner circle. Obviously my first point of contact is SSG Lark, who’ll accomplish whatever I need done with little fuss and careful planning. He’s also there to whisper into my ear whenever I need to get more involved, get less involved, completely disinvolve myself, or totally take over something. This is necessary for me. Most of my officer training was conducted and overseen by NCOs, so I tend to focus too much on what NCOs focus on. Officers need to have eyes only for the bigger picture. SSG Lark does not appreciate it when I poke my nose into the inner workings of the platoon, and we’re still trying to work out some kind of code so he can covertly inform me that I’ve encroached on his territory. Nevertheless, I spend a decent amount of time with SSGs Regulator, Chase, and Crunchberry; first so that I can get firsthand reports about the men, second so that I can directly express my expectations or plans, and third because otherwise my world would be very, very small. I’m not really suppose to interact with the men at an individual level, since my NCOs—and the Army, really—want to maintain some kind of buffer between the links in the chain of command. As my dad would say, shaking his head about his same observations in the Navy in Vietnam, there is “no playing with the enlisted men.” So, to keep myself from going crazy, I have my little circle. And sometimes my brother lieutenants, but more often than not they’re all embroiled in their own platoon problems.
And that, in brief, is the higher leadership of Blue Platoon. We’re all gathered around the tent cleaning our equipment and dreaming of sugarplums right now. For the first time in my life I won’t be celebrating Christmas with my family. Additionally, because of the No Fly Zone and our anti-aircraft platforms, Santa won’t be landing here tonight. So I celebrated by buying myself a new map pouch and a large Spiced Chai Latte (that’s right… this is not your granddaddy’s war). Around midnight I’ll push out to the phones and try to call my wife and family. For now, though, I’d better sign out. SSG Crunchberry is brandishing a shotgun and yelling eccentricities (less delightful when the man is armed, I’ve observed). So, Merry Christmas to all of you. May your celebrations be full of cheer, may your loved ones be close beside you, and if you have a chance spare a prayer of good fortune for the boys in Blue.

Training in Kuwait

2008-12-24T09:20:00.000-05:00

KUWAIT 20DEC08

Red saw his first camel yesterday. We’re still trying to find where he dropped his jaw. There are actual, literal HERDS of camels here. All over the place. I guess I should have figured, but I had convinced myself that this sort of thing was just romanticized beyond reality. They don’t actually have swarms of camels on everything, right? Wrong. They totally do. We were all out on the firing range zeroing our weapons in a place where roaming Bedouins are an actual safety concern (we have to keep reminding them not to ride around or set up camp in the middle of our firing lanes), and sure enough, we soon found ourselves completely surrounded, enveloped, and cut off by a fortunately benign forest of curious humps. There was a flurry of activity followed by communal browbeating and self-flagellation as we realized that none of us had brought a camera. That would have been an awesome Christmas card to send home. Oh, well.

The training goes well, given the short notice we’re working with. We’ve had a few frustrating experiences where we get everybody up and into their gear, trudge over to a range or simulator, and find that nobody actually allocated us ammo or sim time. My initial response is to demand the heads of the morons responsible, but after a little time I remind myself that those guys in headquarters are currently buried in bureaucracy and paperwork trying to sort out where all of our equipment is, where it’s going, how it’s getting there and when, and why the Brits, Aussies, Pakistanis, Kuwaitis, and Iraqis here have trouble understanding our plans or instructions. The yelling my company makes about our training resources is probably a miniscule drone in the background of the S3 shop, and what frustrates us beyond belief is most likely just a minor annoyance to them—if they register it at all. Still, the infantry pride in me occasionally fights to take over the more rational and understanding aspect of my personality and remind these people that, if our base is overrun because my men were never allocated the appropriate training or even ammunition, the fault lies with them. Fighters should have priority in a war. And in that vein, where are the other ten men I need to bring my platoon up to full strength?

But I could fill a book with complaints. It wouldn’t do anything to fix the problems. This is not an ideal world (I doubt the Army would even be necessary if it were), so I’ve been learning to accept “complications” with grace. In the meantime, between disappointments, we’ve been training the men in MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) procedures, giving classes on the rules of engagement and proper escalation of force, conducting medical training, and going for night movements with our Night Vision Goggles (NVGs, or NODs, as the Army has at least a dozen different names and acronyms for everything). One man (we’ll call him Demure, a play on his name and a generally accurate description of his gentility and shyness) did suffer a minor back injury during one of these events. He’s been out of training for a couple of days, but with any luck, he’ll be back with us shortly. Just proof to my old suspicion that the best training is the most dangerous. We were conducting a NODs movement—running with the goggles on, which reduces depth perception as the cost of providing vision—over a series of dirt berms. This teaches you confidence in your equipment while forcing you to adjust your gait, as that discolored piece of green (it’s all green in one way or the other in those things) is not just a change in soil but a big rock (so step lively). I myself enjoyed an epic face-plant at one point, going head first and completely without dignity into a nice soft piece of earth, but my embarrassment was tempered by the fact that everyone was dropping like cement bags everywhere. PVT Demure did not suffer as well on his fall (or, in that case, did he suffer better? Talk amongst yourselves). We’re awaiting X-ray results, but at least he’s back up on his feet and moving well. My real admiration goes out to the guys who completed the movement with the old PVS-7 series goggles. I use a 14 series set, which goes over one eye and leaves the other free—albeit in the dark—for depth perception and sudden flashes of exterior light. The 7s are a bizarre Cyclopean contraption that cover both eyes but leave only one green monocle on the other side. This completely destroys any hope at seeing in depth. I used to comment, during my training with them, that I could clearly see every tree I hit on the trail.

So the men are, all in all, doing well. The proximity of our imminent departure to Mosul is forcing a sense of seriousness and urgency into men who were too lackadaisical before. Additionally, some changes in our junior leadership and their ensuing demonstration of their skills at leading (usually a dichotomous vacillation of instilling confidence or terror in their men) have contributed to an ambience of unpleasant reality. We’re going to war, and it’s sinking in. People who were marginal before are showing their use now. SGT Mountain, for instance (so named because he came to us from the 10th Mountain Division and was also, after suffering a serious leg injury in Afghanistan that stopped him from exercising, subsequently—and for our pseudonym, fortuitously—mountainous), has been stepping into his role with vigor. We expect good things from him. Over the past few weeks he’s also dropped a couple of stone in weight and is now approaching the standard. That kind of motivation is valuable. He was adept at leading by instilling confidence before; now he is demonstrating that he can also instill terror when necessary, thus completing the aforementioned prerequisites for team leadership. SGT Skizz (his choice of pseudonym, as it is actually on a nametape on his body armor) is a recent arrival from the headquarters platoon, and he is setting a new standard of excellence for team leadership in our platoon. I hesitate to give glowing reviews to anybody at this point, since we have so many things ahead of us, but as of now I’m impressed with his performance. I speculate that part of the recent improvement in our other team leaders can be attributed by a desire on their part not to be eclipsed by our new addition. Regardless of the causes, I’m pleased with the results.

What I am NOT pleased with is the communications equipment on Camp Buehring. The internet NEVER works, and the phones are constantly on the fritz. Coupled with these obstacles is the eight hour time difference between Hope and myself, and the added burden that most of the hours I can talk to her are spent in training or getting my four hours or so of sleep a night (might be the jet lag, here, but I’m actually not all that tired about it). Subsequently I’ve only managed to call her twice. I’ve wandered the camp on my free time, urgently seeking a way of calling her, and am frequently frustrated in my efforts. It may actually be driving me a bit crazy. Honey, I’ll at least be able to send you an e-mail when I get on and post this. I’ll try to call, but only certain computers here have partially reliable internet, and none of them allow me to Skype. Until then, I’m sorry. I’m trying. I love you. Additional apologies to my family, who I haven’t been able to contact yet. This update will include an e-mail for you, too.

The rest of my days are spent reviewing intel of our Area of Operations, or AO, a nebulous blob that seems to change a few times a day. War is an extension of politics (thank you, Clausewitz), so our plans are about as fluid as the political situation. Situations. Two countries, here. Both the USA and Iraq have something to say about the way the counterinsurgency is going, and both like to change things up. Anyway, I still don’t know exactly what neighborhoods we’ll be tasked to manage. So I’m reviewing the whole sector. And the sector is not pretty. Not by a long shot. The unit we’re replacing is averaging 10 significant actions (sigacts) a day. A SigAct can be anything from small arms fire to an IED, a weapons cache found, or Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) executing people in the streets in order to spread terror.

Most insurgencies are bolstered by support of the local populace. AQI is not. They have lost all political capital in Iraq through a continued campaign of terror and threats. These are Sunni foreign fighters coming from a country I cannot disclose here (not Turkey), and they finance themselves through kidnapping and extortion. They take most of your money, threaten your life, kill a family member or two, and then try to close the circle by offering a little of the money back every time you turn in someone who cooperated with Coalition Forces. These people are true, shameless, Mafia style scum. Actually, I’d like to apologize to the Mafia for the comparison. The Mafia never threatened to execute any woman going to Mosul University who does not adhere to strict Islamic dress. Even if the woman is Christian, of which Mosul has a small population. Nor does the Mafia publicly butcher barbers because their trade is an offense against God. Their twisted interpretation of the Koran and forced propagation of Sharia law—not as most Muslims would know it, but a xenophobic, technophobic, gynophobic abomination before the progress of the last millennium—must not only be stopped, it must be eliminated.

I hesitate to call any man Evil. Good and Evil are values inherent in every action, but no man can be consumed entirely by one or the other. My religion tells me that only one man in history was purely Good, and I’m pretty sure we deified him. No, people are complex beings capable of complex actions. Each of our actions, no matter how evil they may be, can be rationalized in our minds as a contribution to a final good. This applies to me as well; killing a member of AQI is a small evil for a greater good, as I see it. These people have a vision of the future—which looks shockingly like the medieval past, romanticized—and they are trying to create a brave new world in its image. A Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Crusaders attempted the same, alongside Bolsheviks, Nazis, various churches, and yes, even us. We are ourselves in the process of making a brave new world. Are we evil? No. Are they evil? No. They are simply wrong. Very, very, very wrong. And sometimes, for the sake of human progress, we must expunge what is irreconcilably wrong. Their vision is of a world inspired by hate and controlled by fear. Their justice is unbridled mob violence fueled by paranoia and xenophobia. The new is a threat; paradise existed on Earth once, and for every day since then we have been drifting into the abyss. In my own cursory studies of history I have yet to encounter this paradise, but they seem quite convinced of it. Well, what we represent is new. What we are doing in Iraq is new. And now that the people of Iraq have tasted the fruit of the Tree of Western Knowledge, they’ve started acquiring a taste for it. This frustrates AQI to no end.

But they still aren’t evil people. They’re people driven by a delusion of a romanticized myth, doing evil acts. And in some respects, even their public justifications may only be a ploy. There is more at work here than misguided fanatical fervor. Mosul is going to be a battleground long after we leave; political machinations are bringing these fighters here. There are governments that can construe more benefit from their actions than just the propagation of Sharia. And Mosul, being situated almost evenly between the self-proclaimed champion governments of Sunni and Shiite Islam (still can’t say the names), is a prize for whoever can exert the most control over it. So, as you can imagine, another unnamed government is supporting their opposite insurgent number, the Islamic Army of Iraq. Their tactics are less brutal (though still heinous), and by attempting to co-op the Shia led Iraqi government, they may have more success in the region. These two groups have nothing in common but that they don’t like us, they don’t want the Iraqi government to gain strength or stability, and they both want to own Mosul. I will wait for further and firsthand evidence before making any final decisions on it, but my impression from what I’ve read in these reports is that Mosul is becoming the battleground for a proxy war between two other regional governments/religions that would profit from instability in Iraq. And we, oh lucky we, are right in the middle of their ambitions.

Anyway, between studying, training, and practicing my (very modest) Arabic, my days are pretty full. But I’ve found time to knock out this entry, so I’d better finish it with another attempt to upload it to the journal and find a way of contacting Hope. So, good luck to you all, and have a Merry Christmas. Celebrate for Blue Platoon, too... surprisingly enough, they don’t really celebrate it here.

Arriving in Kuwait

2008-12-24T09:18:00.000-05:00

KUWAIT 16DEC08

Blue Platoon gathered in the company area at 2300 on Friday evening, 12DEC08, surrounded by our families and friends. We had spent two weeks on pre-deployment leave with them, and then had a few half-days of work while we completed our final preparations—enjoying the other half of those days with our loved ones—but this precious time together was marked by a sense of urgency and tension. I may have finished my leave even more reluctant to leave my wife than if we had just flown out without those weeks. There isn’t much you can say when the two of you are looking down the tunnel at a year of absence. The time is so great that it is ridiculous to contemplate; a vague, abstract concept. Not real. Especially as we already expect this tour to be extended, and possibly by another six months. There is no light at the other end of that tunnel.

Hope and I spent the final day clearing out the apartment, moving what we had into storage or into her car for her use during the year at school, and finally settling in for a last evening together in a hotel by the base. We didn’t let go of each other for the better part of six hours. But as 2200 rolled closer we came to terms with the deployment. Putting my uniform on had a profound sense of finality that evening. For those of you who know Hope, you’d know that only a complete idiot would ever want to leave her for a year. We are so ridiculously happy together that we actually make people nauseous around us. We’re one of those couples that are bound to inspire nostalgia among the old and serious jealousy around the single. Still, as cliché as it sounds, some problems are bigger than our lives, and what we might want for ourselves is miniscule compared to what we as a people want for the world. So the boots were laced, the duffel bags were packed, and we drove to base.

The entire platoon, to their credit, was present for deployment. No attempts at desertion, no straggling, no evasion. Even the one soldier who went to jail that night for excessive speeding, who could have drawn out the legal proceedings and missed months of the deployment without raising an eyebrow, quickly settled his affairs and made formation an hour before the flight. Blue Platoon is ready to roll. We drew our weapons from the arms room, completed the flight manifest, and Hope and I even managed to work in a game of Scrabble before we had to move the proceedings to the gym. She (narrowly) won, thus breaking a recent winning streak of mine. Hopefully not an omen.

The entire battalion convened inside the gym for an hour, a final chance to say goodbye to our families, and Hope and I barely restrained ourselves from making a scene. Not that it would have mattered, of course; the entire place was replete with the sound of crying. It was gratifying to see how many of the families of my men had come to see their soldiers off. But what struck me was how many of them just gathered among their battle buddies, alone and without family support, and patiently waited through that hour. The stereotypes about Army life, and the people who choose it, are occasionally and tragically correct. A lot of these guys—very good men, who deserve better—have nobody. Some are estranged from their families, some have focused their entire lives around the military, and some are just alone. They’re shipping out for very different reasons than I am, typically. The Army is a chance for them to break free from home, or from a cycle of poverty, or to give them opportunities for education and jobs that otherwise wouldn’t have presented themselves. It never ceases to amaze me how so many different people of radically diverse backgrounds and rationales are gathered for a common cause. When we get into country proper, though, I would deeply appreciate any gestures made on behalf of those men. Even cards addressed to “Dear Soldier” have an effect. It reminds them that people at home are still thinking of them, even as the war starts to wind down and take the backburner as the Afghanistan campaign receives the attention that it so desperately needs.

The flight out was, as if the Almighty was enjoying a moment of dark humor, delayed. So after I had kissed Hope goodbye and sent her back to the hotel for much needed sleep, Blue Platoon spent the better part of that day in the terminal waiting to depart. When we finally did get the wheels up, that evening, we had already been awake for something on two days. So the sleep on the plane was pretty good. And in the true Army form of treating soldiers in garrison with a sort of detached neglect but lavishing resources on those deployed, the food was good and plentiful. We even managed to spend a few hours on layover in an airport in Ireland—the first time some of these men had ever been abroad. We actually had to take one soldier’s credit cards from him since, in his excitement, he couldn’t stop buying trinkets and souvenirs. Red, as we’ll call him here (he once wrote on an Army form that the two languages spoken in his home were English and Redneck), had to be reminded that he would soon have to physically carry all of his possessions around the country, and infantrymen are already loaded to capacity. But there wasn’t an Irishman in the entire terminal who didn’t have a picture taken with him. “My God, sir,” he observed with a delighted fascination, “they look just like us!” We’ll give his cards back eventually. Maybe.

Finally, on Monday morning 15DEC08, we landed in Kuwait. From the airport in Kuwait City we took buses (with armed escort) to Camp Buehring, where I’m writing my first deployment entry. We’ll be spending a few weeks here conducting final training and preparation. Weapons will be zeroed, night vision and other equipment tested, and additional armor installed. It is COLD. Not Minnesota cold, but a kind of dry, windy cold that only the desert can accomplish. We grabbed our gear and struggled into our tent (more like a building at this point, as it has a floor and heat), and finally got to drop that weight. I probably weighed well over 450 lbs with all of that stuff on, and I imagine the smaller guys physically comprised of maybe a third of their total weight, so the relief was palpable and sincere.

So, we’re here. Not really in deployment yet, but the days are already ticking down. Kuwait is just the last waypoint on a journey that started when I took the platoon six months ago... or maybe the next to last stop on a two year epic beginning when I decided to join This Man’s Army. I had grown tired of academia and politics and wanted to get my hands dirty (sandy?) doing something where I knew people were needed. Well, there’s plenty of work to do here, and much more up north. And on that point, I’d better stop typing and catch some rack time so we can get back to it. My love to Hope and my family. We’re all safe and sound.

Preparing to Deploy

2008-11-13T18:15:00.001-05:00

With one month remaining before my unit deploys to Iraq, I've decided that I'll have few opportunities as leisurely as this to establish my journal if I don't do it now. The purpose of this journal is two-fold: first to keep friends, family, and interested parties updated as to my goings-on and general well-being, and second to ensure that I spend time every few days during the deployment to write down recent events in an orderly fashion for future reference. For reasons which should be obvious, this journal will not include any real names or specific locations, and as I'll only speak of events that have already passed, this journal will pose no threat to operational security. And though my friends and family all know who I am, in the interests of aforementioned security (etc.) I have to maintain a kind of ridiculous anonymity. So just suspend your disbelief and pretend you don't know me.

What I can disclose:
-I'm a 24-year old Second Lieutenant in the US Army. My branch is Infantry. I commissioned from the Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, GA, and I've spent the last two years in training of one kind or another to lead an infantry platoon.
-Through a combination of lucky timing and a general shortage of officers, I came to my brigade with a platoon immediately available. We're mechanized infantry, and I've held my position for five months now.
-In an even more fortuitous set of circumstances, I happened to take command of one of the three platoons in the company that has been tasked on my battalion's Order of Battle as the Main Effort for this deployment. So we're the spearhead of the battalion.
-My battalion has been named, because of a rotational notation system (it's their turn) as the Main Effort for my brigade. So, by extension, my company is now the Main Effort company of the whole brigade.
-Yet it gets even more fortunate. We are deploying to Mosul, declared a few months ago as "the last stronghold of Al Qaeda in Iraq." Thus, the brigade in Mosul has been named as the Main Effort for the Iraqi Theater. If you connect the increasingly ridiculous dots, this means that my company is now the tip of the spear for the whole of Iraq.
-And as Iraq is currently the Main Effort for the whole US Military... well, you get the idea. The point is that, through a million machinations of dumb luck, I happened to land one of the three platoons, 40 of 120 soldiers, that are slated as the primary focus--the very spear tip--for the entire Armed Forces of our nation. At least for this year, anyway.

And I was afraid I'd miss the war.

From this position, I'll be on hand to witness and even take part in the (hopefully) last days of the conflict in Iraq. I know a hundred lieutenants--and I can imagine thousands of captains, majors, and maybe even generals--who would kill to have my job right now. I don't blame them; this wasn't earned by skill or any extraordinary qualities on my part, but because the numbers just happened to work this way, and any Infantry officer with blood still flowing would salivate at the opportunity to be there, on the ground, leading the soldiers who will bring this war to a close. And I don't mean that in the sense that we'll end the war with our awesome bravery, our unsurpassed technical and tactical skills, or my ridiculously incredible leadership abilities. Though I assure you that those are all true. Very true. I'd venture that if we'd been on hand in 2003 for the initial invasion, my platoon would have taken Baghdad in a matter of hours--conservative estimate. No support. Just us. In fact, I'm sure that my men would have ferreted out Saddam Hussein that very day... using only their prodigiously wondrous sense of smell.

No, we'll end the war in the sense that we'll be there, on the ground, at the decisive point, when we clean off the old "Mission Accomplished" banner and hoist it back up. Game over. Elections completed, Status of Forces Agreement adhered to, democracy propagated, defended, and upheld; this is a foregone conclusion. The politics there have decreed it, the politics here have decreed it. The war in Iraq will end this year. If I'm fortunate, the symptoms we witness on the ground will correspond to this diagnosis. If I'm not... well, the banner's coming out of storage anyway.

So whatever may happen this year, I have a feeling that it will be interesting. It will be a personal interest for my wife, my family, and my friends, an academic or curious interest if you just happened to stumble across this journal one day, and a profound interest for the people of Mosul--and more importantly, in my eyes, the men in my platoon. I'll write again in Kuwait, a month from now, and begin the journal in earnest. In the meanwhile, please keep the men of Blue Platoon in your prayers as they spend these last days with their families and prepare for a Christmas in the desert.