KUWAIT 20DEC08
Red saw his first camel yesterday. We’re still trying to find where he dropped his jaw. There are actual, literal HERDS of camels here. All over the place. I guess I should have figured, but I had convinced myself that this sort of thing was just romanticized beyond reality. They don’t actually have swarms of camels on everything, right? Wrong. They totally do. We were all out on the firing range zeroing our weapons in a place where roaming Bedouins are an actual safety concern (we have to keep reminding them not to ride around or set up camp in the middle of our firing lanes), and sure enough, we soon found ourselves completely surrounded, enveloped, and cut off by a fortunately benign forest of curious humps. There was a flurry of activity followed by communal browbeating and self-flagellation as we realized that none of us had brought a camera. That would have been an awesome Christmas card to send home. Oh, well.
The training goes well, given the short notice we’re working with. We’ve had a few frustrating experiences where we get everybody up and into their gear, trudge over to a range or simulator, and find that nobody actually allocated us ammo or sim time. My initial response is to demand the heads of the morons responsible, but after a little time I remind myself that those guys in headquarters are currently buried in bureaucracy and paperwork trying to sort out where all of our equipment is, where it’s going, how it’s getting there and when, and why the Brits, Aussies, Pakistanis, Kuwaitis, and Iraqis here have trouble understanding our plans or instructions. The yelling my company makes about our training resources is probably a miniscule drone in the background of the S3 shop, and what frustrates us beyond belief is most likely just a minor annoyance to them—if they register it at all. Still, the infantry pride in me occasionally fights to take over the more rational and understanding aspect of my personality and remind these people that, if our base is overrun because my men were never allocated the appropriate training or even ammunition, the fault lies with them. Fighters should have priority in a war. And in that vein, where are the other ten men I need to bring my platoon up to full strength?
But I could fill a book with complaints. It wouldn’t do anything to fix the problems. This is not an ideal world (I doubt the Army would even be necessary if it were), so I’ve been learning to accept “complications” with grace. In the meantime, between disappointments, we’ve been training the men in MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) procedures, giving classes on the rules of engagement and proper escalation of force, conducting medical training, and going for night movements with our Night Vision Goggles (NVGs, or NODs, as the Army has at least a dozen different names and acronyms for everything). One man (we’ll call him Demure, a play on his name and a generally accurate description of his gentility and shyness) did suffer a minor back injury during one of these events. He’s been out of training for a couple of days, but with any luck, he’ll be back with us shortly. Just proof to my old suspicion that the best training is the most dangerous. We were conducting a NODs movement—running with the goggles on, which reduces depth perception as the cost of providing vision—over a series of dirt berms. This teaches you confidence in your equipment while forcing you to adjust your gait, as that discolored piece of green (it’s all green in one way or the other in those things) is not just a change in soil but a big rock (so step lively). I myself enjoyed an epic face-plant at one point, going head first and completely without dignity into a nice soft piece of earth, but my embarrassment was tempered by the fact that everyone was dropping like cement bags everywhere. PVT Demure did not suffer as well on his fall (or, in that case, did he suffer better? Talk amongst yourselves). We’re awaiting X-ray results, but at least he’s back up on his feet and moving well. My real admiration goes out to the guys who completed the movement with the old PVS-7 series goggles. I use a 14 series set, which goes over one eye and leaves the other free—albeit in the dark—for depth perception and sudden flashes of exterior light. The 7s are a bizarre Cyclopean contraption that cover both eyes but leave only one green monocle on the other side. This completely destroys any hope at seeing in depth. I used to comment, during my training with them, that I could clearly see every tree I hit on the trail.
So the men are, all in all, doing well. The proximity of our imminent departure to Mosul is forcing a sense of seriousness and urgency into men who were too lackadaisical before. Additionally, some changes in our junior leadership and their ensuing demonstration of their skills at leading (usually a dichotomous vacillation of instilling confidence or terror in their men) have contributed to an ambience of unpleasant reality. We’re going to war, and it’s sinking in. People who were marginal before are showing their use now. SGT Mountain, for instance (so named because he came to us from the 10th Mountain Division and was also, after suffering a serious leg injury in Afghanistan that stopped him from exercising, subsequently—and for our pseudonym, fortuitously—mountainous), has been stepping into his role with vigor. We expect good things from him. Over the past few weeks he’s also dropped a couple of stone in weight and is now approaching the standard. That kind of motivation is valuable. He was adept at leading by instilling confidence before; now he is demonstrating that he can also instill terror when necessary, thus completing the aforementioned prerequisites for team leadership. SGT Skizz (his choice of pseudonym, as it is actually on a nametape on his body armor) is a recent arrival from the headquarters platoon, and he is setting a new standard of excellence for team leadership in our platoon. I hesitate to give glowing reviews to anybody at this point, since we have so many things ahead of us, but as of now I’m impressed with his performance. I speculate that part of the recent improvement in our other team leaders can be attributed by a desire on their part not to be eclipsed by our new addition. Regardless of the causes, I’m pleased with the results.
What I am NOT pleased with is the communications equipment on Camp Buehring. The internet NEVER works, and the phones are constantly on the fritz. Coupled with these obstacles is the eight hour time difference between Hope and myself, and the added burden that most of the hours I can talk to her are spent in training or getting my four hours or so of sleep a night (might be the jet lag, here, but I’m actually not all that tired about it). Subsequently I’ve only managed to call her twice. I’ve wandered the camp on my free time, urgently seeking a way of calling her, and am frequently frustrated in my efforts. It may actually be driving me a bit crazy. Honey, I’ll at least be able to send you an e-mail when I get on and post this. I’ll try to call, but only certain computers here have partially reliable internet, and none of them allow me to Skype. Until then, I’m sorry. I’m trying. I love you. Additional apologies to my family, who I haven’t been able to contact yet. This update will include an e-mail for you, too.
The rest of my days are spent reviewing intel of our Area of Operations, or AO, a nebulous blob that seems to change a few times a day. War is an extension of politics (thank you, Clausewitz), so our plans are about as fluid as the political situation. Situations. Two countries, here. Both the USA and Iraq have something to say about the way the counterinsurgency is going, and both like to change things up. Anyway, I still don’t know exactly what neighborhoods we’ll be tasked to manage. So I’m reviewing the whole sector. And the sector is not pretty. Not by a long shot. The unit we’re replacing is averaging 10 significant actions (sigacts) a day. A SigAct can be anything from small arms fire to an IED, a weapons cache found, or Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) executing people in the streets in order to spread terror.
Most insurgencies are bolstered by support of the local populace. AQI is not. They have lost all political capital in Iraq through a continued campaign of terror and threats. These are Sunni foreign fighters coming from a country I cannot disclose here (not Turkey), and they finance themselves through kidnapping and extortion. They take most of your money, threaten your life, kill a family member or two, and then try to close the circle by offering a little of the money back every time you turn in someone who cooperated with Coalition Forces. These people are true, shameless, Mafia style scum. Actually, I’d like to apologize to the Mafia for the comparison. The Mafia never threatened to execute any woman going to Mosul University who does not adhere to strict Islamic dress. Even if the woman is Christian, of which Mosul has a small population. Nor does the Mafia publicly butcher barbers because their trade is an offense against God. Their twisted interpretation of the Koran and forced propagation of Sharia law—not as most Muslims would know it, but a xenophobic, technophobic, gynophobic abomination before the progress of the last millennium—must not only be stopped, it must be eliminated.
I hesitate to call any man Evil. Good and Evil are values inherent in every action, but no man can be consumed entirely by one or the other. My religion tells me that only one man in history was purely Good, and I’m pretty sure we deified him. No, people are complex beings capable of complex actions. Each of our actions, no matter how evil they may be, can be rationalized in our minds as a contribution to a final good. This applies to me as well; killing a member of AQI is a small evil for a greater good, as I see it. These people have a vision of the future—which looks shockingly like the medieval past, romanticized—and they are trying to create a brave new world in its image. A Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Crusaders attempted the same, alongside Bolsheviks, Nazis, various churches, and yes, even us. We are ourselves in the process of making a brave new world. Are we evil? No. Are they evil? No. They are simply wrong. Very, very, very wrong. And sometimes, for the sake of human progress, we must expunge what is irreconcilably wrong. Their vision is of a world inspired by hate and controlled by fear. Their justice is unbridled mob violence fueled by paranoia and xenophobia. The new is a threat; paradise existed on Earth once, and for every day since then we have been drifting into the abyss. In my own cursory studies of history I have yet to encounter this paradise, but they seem quite convinced of it. Well, what we represent is new. What we are doing in Iraq is new. And now that the people of Iraq have tasted the fruit of the Tree of Western Knowledge, they’ve started acquiring a taste for it. This frustrates AQI to no end.
But they still aren’t evil people. They’re people driven by a delusion of a romanticized myth, doing evil acts. And in some respects, even their public justifications may only be a ploy. There is more at work here than misguided fanatical fervor. Mosul is going to be a battleground long after we leave; political machinations are bringing these fighters here. There are governments that can construe more benefit from their actions than just the propagation of Sharia. And Mosul, being situated almost evenly between the self-proclaimed champion governments of Sunni and Shiite Islam (still can’t say the names), is a prize for whoever can exert the most control over it. So, as you can imagine, another unnamed government is supporting their opposite insurgent number, the Islamic Army of Iraq. Their tactics are less brutal (though still heinous), and by attempting to co-op the Shia led Iraqi government, they may have more success in the region. These two groups have nothing in common but that they don’t like us, they don’t want the Iraqi government to gain strength or stability, and they both want to own Mosul. I will wait for further and firsthand evidence before making any final decisions on it, but my impression from what I’ve read in these reports is that Mosul is becoming the battleground for a proxy war between two other regional governments/religions that would profit from instability in Iraq. And we, oh lucky we, are right in the middle of their ambitions.
Anyway, between studying, training, and practicing my (very modest) Arabic, my days are pretty full. But I’ve found time to knock out this entry, so I’d better finish it with another attempt to upload it to the journal and find a way of contacting Hope. So, good luck to you all, and have a Merry Christmas. Celebrate for Blue Platoon, too... surprisingly enough, they don’t really celebrate it here.
