MOSUL 30JUN09 - MISSION REACCOMPLISHED

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

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

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

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

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

Enemy: KIA.

Hooah.

MOSUL 05APR09

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.