Field Artillery

So the 2009 Enlisted Promotion List for the Oklahoma National Guard was published... a few weeks ago, never mind the fact it was due out in Aug of 2009. And yours has come out #20 on this list, on head of my little brother who is also in my home Battery (a company size element) but being Artillery we have different words for the same meanings. So goodie me.... just bide my time, wait for the 19 other guys to either get promoted or passed over for various things, But wait... there’s more. As there stands I've been offered the Battery CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear) NCO slot. A sure fire way to my E-5 Sergeant promotion. For that all I have to do is be on the list next year. Whoa, wait a minute, next year?!? As if I hadn't waited long enough for this. But in hind sight of all this, I also come from a component of the Army where a person can stay an E-4 Specialist for 20 years and retire as one... and have seen it happen.

So as I mill over this decision I find myself wondering this, if I do take the 74D {the above mentioned MOS} job, and when I do get out of the guard, and enter Active duty will my duty station list just shoot thru the roof. Where ever I want to go so long as it meets the requirement of "need of the Army" or if I keep my current MOS of 13M (HIMARS crewman) [Google "HIMARS" and see it in action on youtube.com its pretty awesome] and get my promotion and enter active serves as a Sergeant and just drive on. My only hope is that the decision I make will be the right one for my life in the long run. Until next time I will leave you with the quote I found today while sitting at work, in-between Facebook, and episodes of Family Guy on the TV.

An Army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of bullsh*t! -Gen George S. Patton Jr.
 

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Cause you just might get it, and all of it. So even as a young private I'd been pinning for a sweet combat patch for a while. Mind you, as I write this I'm on year 4 of 6 and have been a speclist since Oct 07. I asked and asked my unit admin to send me over as filler or something. "No, you’re too valuable here in rear." He'd keep telling me, so later that year while in my second semester of college, I get this phone call at lunch, and its my section leader, "Hey Mansell, get your stuff, be here at the Armory at 0600, you’re going to Mexico." "What?!? No I... I can't, I'm in school" I say, but to no avail, I find myself in the back of C-130 after a quick and rushed SRP (Solder Readiness Process) or something like that. So we get to New Mexico, land in some Air Force Base, and we get greeted by this CSM. And all I can think is nothing is better then and old school safety brief to put your mind at ease. So we do our train up at the RTI in Santa Fe, and then head down south to this abandon corporate town kind of like the one from the movie, 'November Sky' So we do our month on the border... well everyone else does, I guess cause I was the High Speed E-2, who had gotten promoted to E-3 and not known about it. I get picked up to attend this counter-terror class that is being put on for SWAT teams. So hey cool deal, 15 soldiers and 5 SWAT teams in one class. Talking about lessons learned, from domestic terror acts and the current conflict in Iraq, this is 2006 and the height of the troop surge is at its highest, and still I don't have a combat patch. So, needless to say we do our 30 days on the border, come back and get ready for a fielding of a new weapon system in 2007. That summer we get our WARNO, Mind you again, that the IBCT had already been in country for 6 months. So we are thinking sweet, we just got new toys, maybe... just maybe we'll get to go play with them, I mean we're pretty high speed, 3rd unit in the entire Army to get this system, and the only National Guard unit tested and deployable with this the M142 HIMARS. Oh no, FORSCOM says... your going on an infantry mission. You're gonna play PSD for Department of State personal, and HVP (High Value Personal) I started to feel like the TRIX Rabbit, "Silly Rabbit, rocket artillery isn't for Iraq" So two thumbs up, let’s go this sweet combat patch, and this year of hell over with. And oh man was it ever. Not to say that total experience wasn't bad, but giving the Bronze Star to the guy who cuts open the IED, or the squad leader, for doing his job, not a good idea... and when I get blown up by a sperate IED, and get an ARCOM denied and instead get my 3rd AAM and a CAB in the same day. But hey got my sweet Combat Patch out the deal. And with my combat service I got this job with the 1st Army. Oh by the way, we were told they guess what, we're moving to Ft. Hood this summer boys and girls. Back to good ole North Fort...

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http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1251338528458&ref=share

There is something unique about the experience of a soldier coming home.  To each time and place I believe there must be something about how they are received that says a lot about the times we live in, our Zeitgeist.  A soldier coming home in America is a unique experience in this world.  I know that this is a similar feeling to what WWI and WWII veterans felt.  Just as in those days there are crowds cheering, loved ones waiting, and invariably John Phillip Sousa blaring in the background; the hallmarks of coming home in America. 

This month I came home to Dallas, where my wife works and I occasionally visit, for my two week R&R leave from Iraq. On both of my R&Rs, 1st and 2nd tours, I was met by the welcoming people of Dallas clapping and cheering as we moved down the breeze way.  I figured that every city was this receptive. Now I have heard that my assumption was naïve.  In Atlanta, soldiers come and go and no one cares. In west coast cities some soldiers are occasionally scoffed at.  I guess it can never be as bad as the Vietnam vets had it.  As I passed the customs check I met the rows of veterans clapping. Vietnam vets mostly but a wide variety of veterans there to greet and thank soldiers. After them I saw my wife Paula and a mob of my friends from my Sunday School class, their children, a former Army buddy, and other family members. What an experience!  No matter how many deployments and reunions it is still wonderful to finally see everyone and breath the free air of home.  During the reunion I shed all my worries like a giant weight suddenly lifted from my chest.  It is like being released from prison without the stigma of being a criminal.

What makes it all the more worth it are the children brought by their parents. Obviously, some came for me.  Some volunteered with the USO.  Others like our friends, K and B, made their kids hand out candy to the returning soldiers. I think this is wonderful, especially since I got my share of the sweets. In doing this K +B were teaching these children about the responsibility society has to its veterans. Another good friend brought her three girls to meet me. The oldest Charlotte, a very grown up 5, made me a sign, welcoming me home.  I thought about this as I stood there.  I flashed back to when I was a boy of 12 at that same airport, and I welcomed home my older brother from the first Gulf War.  Now I was in his place, and both memories would last me a life time.  I immediately thought that I should thank all of the kids there to meet me almost as if I was trying to brand their minds with the memory of that moment. So that maybe they wouldn’t forget their veterans like so many of the baby-boomer generation had.  For the small babies it may be a passing thought when their parents relate taking them to meet the soldiers returning from war when they were little.  Little Charlotte will remember it!  As will my friends and family.  For me these moments are like two way streets of gratitude.  1.6 million have served in this conflict out of 300 million people in the US.  Most Americans don’t even know a veteran of the Global War On Terror.  For many Americans, this is a window into the American Experience.

Incidentally, I joined the American Legion in my hometown of Morton, Texas while on leave.  The commander, a former platoon leader in Vietnam, spoke about preventing what happened to him and the veterans of his time.  Every time I have come home I’ve been met by the Vietnam veterans all working to prevent the same tragedy of ingratitude and silence.  In Dallas that day I thanked the Vietnam guys for giving me the home coming they never had. I’m proud of Dallas, not just for me, but for the response they always give to the soldiers on their way home. Many of my friends who welcomed me have vastly different political opinions of the war than I but that didn’t stop them from welcoming me and all the soldiers home; that’s Patriotism. That’s the singularity of the American experience.         

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When you need to get some ones attention or you run out of good material resort to toilet humor. At any rate, it’s a glorified whole in the ground. Western toilets are a luxury now, not essential. Often I’m forced to use the “Turkish” toilet when working with my Iraqi counterparts. It’s difficult. It requires balance and if you look closely you will notice that in Iraq it does not require toilet paper, a serious issue indeed. Well how does one make this work? Well my method, a conclusion I came to through observation and trial and error, is to place my hand on the wall behind the toilet to provide balance. I find that if you center yourself it could prove disastrous; aiming is akin to WWII bomb runs. You could place one done the leg of your pants if you’re not careful.  The position needed to perform nature’s call is a position one finds many Iraqis when they are just hanging out, much like a baseball catcher. After my first attempt at the maneuver I was left wondering how the toilet paper situation worked, I mean it can’t still be the old medieval adage of using your left hand can it? But I took a shallow breath and realized that was what the red pitcher is for. Then it took me a moment to figure out the mechanics of it. The pitchers have a long crooked spout to place the water in just the right place. The pitcher can best be described as an 18^th century baday of sorts. It’s really hard to imagine what disabled people or the elderly must do to be able to use the facilities, but then I’ve seen the handicap bars over here to. To most of the world, this is the way they go to the bathroom. Western toilets are not the norm and if you enjoy traveling you’d better get used to it

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In many ways, being on a Transition Team is more like being in the old Texas Rangers than being in the modern Army. I've come to see myself as a diplomat with a gun as much as a Soldier. During this tour our team has conducted the full spectrum of operations Civil Affairs, Advising, Manuever, Fires and Effects, Intel, C2, Logisitics, even Law enforcement. In some ways it is our own private fight. I shouldn't say that but it feels like it when other US Forces are hours away. When your away from the rules and the saftey net of the FOB it really is the frontier. How can I ever go back to the regular Army after an adventure like this? 

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 Battle Lines

There is a future war coming. Its lines are being drawn ethnically and associatively; those who were loyal to the Americans, those against the Americans, and the majority who are ambivalent and will gravitate to the side with the most power at the moment.  Iraq is a corrupt place, no matter who is in charge. What we in America would consider corruption is merely the price of business. We hear rumors of corruption all the time but we have never been able to prove it within the organizations we advise. Loyalty is never bought but it can damn sure be rented.

Where ever Kurds are they are deeply rooted into the new government and now have a defacto state in the north of Iraq. When you cross into Kurdistan you cross into another country. The signs are different, the language is different, the people dress differently. It may be Iraq on the map but it is a different place.  Our area is where the two cultures meet. A third culture, Persian, is also in the area. I knew I was seeing the fault lines the other day. In a meeting with the local Muktars, our Iraqi Battalion Commander had given everyone Chai and told them how he wanted to make the area a safe place for all people. His message was translated into Arabic, by an American interpreter, and into English by another terp for our benefit. He spoke in Kurdi. The Arabs all responded with “Inshallah” (God Willing). After his speech he opened the floor to problems. A Kurdish Muktar named Jazim immediately began to speak. His was a speech at first that then degenerated into a gripe session, followed by petitioning the Colonel to fix his town’s water problems. He began by saying that he was so happy that American forces were here. To which all the Kurds responded “Basha”, and then he thanked us for getting rid of the tyrant Saddam Hussein, “Basha”. Then he went on a list of things Saddam did, namely kill a lot of Kurds and force them off of their land in the area.  The one caveat to all this is that the people who took over their land were in the room, the Arabs who were sitting quietly. Jazim’s welcoming of us was a way to say to the Arabs, that we, the Kurds, are in charge now and our big brothers, the Americans, are here to set things right. There is a sense of justice to what he is saying. But it occurred to me as the meeting pressed on that the Arabs said nothing. Arabs are never silent, they always talk. Unless they want to kill you, and even then they usually tell you. The Kurds went on for hours about water being bad, how they couldn’t farm without water so they had no choice but to smuggle, how the Iraqi DBE had taken their land to build border forts; 30 years ago. It went on and on but the Arabs said nothing. Meetings in the south or in our training that were all Arab looked exactly like this one in terms of what was being said. But it was what was unsaid that really stood out.

If I was a Sunni Arab who lives in that part of Iraq I would look around and notice that the President of Iraq is Kurdish, the local Police Chief, the mayor of (insert Big unnamed town here), and the Border patrol officers were all Kurdish, in an area that had an equal amount of Arabs. The Iraqi Army rarely made forays in this area; they left it to the Kurdish Peshmerga. An entire society based on Sunni Arab supremacy had been washed away. For my part I could not leave the Sunni Arab leaders with a bad impression of the local Americans. We can’t be seen as the willing conspirators with the Kurds but rather as fair and impartial arbitrators of justice. Our lives may depend on this. As the meeting ended and I said my piece I introduced myself to every Arab present in Arabic. You should have seen their demeanor and their posture change when I greeted them, asked where they were from, and how many sons they had. After a few tiring conversations where they warmed up to me I realized that this is why I’m here. I can’t say that little things like this have saved anybody’s life; but it sure can’t hurt.      

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Iraqi forces and American forces operate along cultural lines. The Americans value precision, safety, speed, surprise and information disseminated to all levels. The Iraqis value secrecy at the highest levels, their own Soldiers and Policemen may very well be in Al Qaeda or Jaysh Al Mahdi, so they keep things quiet. They value the power or “Wasta” that comes from being the only one who can supply a unit, or know a secret, or change a schedule, or develop a plan. Americans on the other hand value the fact that no one should be irreplaceable.

All of this was further highlighted by a clearing mission in a treacherous area near the Iranian border where Al Qaeda has taken shelter with a tribe called OPSEC. The area is called OPSEC and all other Iraqis call them thieves, terrorists, and smugglers. They specialize in that last occupation. In fact, we even have caught OPSEC members harvesting land mines and selling them to Al Qaeda for use as bombs making materials.

On a given Day an Iraqi Brigade decides, usually because their source network hears rumors and the Americans usually have information gleaned from a technological source that corroborates these rumors, to go into an area and force contact or clear it completely. The BDE CDR tells his Battalion Commanders to have so many men at a certain time and place ready, to tell no one, and to bring radios. We have devoted a great deal of effort to teach their Battalion staffs how to plan, integrate intelligence into operations, and craft their logistical needs according to those plans. An order like this takes the initiative right out of the Iraqi officer corps. When this order was given the other day our Iraqi Battalion Commander didn’t even know the plan one hour before execution. I thought this was a surreal nightmare. One of my NCOs, a former Drill Sergeant, threw his helmet in frustration. We arrived at the designated rendezvous point where hundreds of Iraqis were gathered in large groups, perfect targets for rockets, mortars, or snipers. No one knew what was going on. The general pulled his Battalion Commanders in and gave them the plan. Pretty simple really! Walk that way down the canyon, look for bad guys or weapons caches, you guys take the left, you guys the right, you guys down the middle in the river bed. Of course my Battalion gets the low lying and dangerous river bottom. They have no say in the plan, no access to intelligence, and no real coordinations are made with other units. 

My counterparts are happy to see me.  We shake hands and man kiss. They know that my specialty is Artillery and Air Strikes. The Shurti, (policemen) act like teenage boys before a football game and slap each other on the rears and make fun of one another. It’s hard to get control of that. I begin asking the officers and the Sergeant Major if all the Shurtis have been prepared. “We don’t know where we are going yet,” they said.  “No,” I said, “but you can check everyone’s gear …does everyone have water, ammunition, first aid pouches etc.?”  Our guys snap into immediately, which even though they had to be prompted, they knew how to do it, and because of us they started doing pre-combat checks while the other battalions just stood around. They have not rehearsed battle drills or a CASEVAC Plan but they did bring an ambulance that would drive forward if someone was hurt. OK better than nothing, the ambulance also doubles as a mobile kitchen and is filled with food. I would walk with the Battalion Quick Reaction Force, a group of Shurtis that had been trained by my team. We would be leading the way on the southside of the valley floor. Immediately I told the platoon leader, Lt. Nouri, we have to establish sectors of fire so that we don’t fire on our own troops on the canyon wall. Nouri didn’t emplace this on his own account but immediately understood the necessity. The tension rises as the Shurtis realize that they are leading the way.  Nouri tells me that it was in this river valley that their previous Battalion Commander had been killed by a roadside bomb.  Everyone’s nervousness is palatable.  The Iraqis brought no maps, after all they didn’t know where they were going.  My boss stays with the Battalion Commander who also doesn’t have a map so my boss provides one.  My Shurtis are armed with Ak-47s, 120 rounds each.  Every US Soldier carries a minimum of 210 rounds.  Some of them have RPG-7s, a scary but very ineffective weapon. They have light weight body armor, the kind that local cops use in the US weighing 15 pounds or so. My body armor is fully 40 pounds and I have grenades, extra ammunition, signaling devices, a radio, a GPS, a camel back with 3 liters of water, a helmet, a pistol with ammo, and my M4/M203 grenade launcher. Add in 116 degree heat by 11:00 and it was a recipe for heat stroke. It was a matter of personal pride that I keep up with the lighter Iraqis who started off at a really quick pace. My guys looked good. With a little prodding they all kept their weapons at the ready, scanned their sectors for contact, and kept good intervals to prevent multiple casualties in case of ambush.  As I looked at the other forces moving in the valley like a giant swarm I felt a little pride in what we had done with our training. Our QRF was more disciplined than the other Iraqis. As I walked I kept my eye on the other advisor with me, a US Border Patrol Agent named OPSEC, who stayed about 50 meters away. In between us was our trusty interpreter/side kick codenamed OPSEC. I advised Nouri along the way. After twenty minutes the discipline of the QRF degenerates. Some of their weapons are on their shoulders or are held with one hand pointed at the ground as they walk.  After 40 minutes, I really didn’t care about that anymore. We pressed on. With danger areas like river crossings or hills the Iraqis lost their tactical proficiency and gaggled into little groups and crossed together. This is dangerous, a perfect opportunity to take out numbers of troops at one time. I keep them going but they are getting more and more tired as the distance and time wear on. As I come to an open area I see the outline of a mortar round. I halt the whole platoon and make the Shurits get back. I look at the mortar round for a minute. There are no wires, the contact fuse is not on it, and it has decades of rust. I conclude it is unexploded ordinance left over from the Iran-Iraq war. Before I finish the thought an Iraqi Lieutenant, Sherkoo,  picks it up, slaps it against his helmet and says “Makoo Shee” ‘nothing happened’. “You Idiot” I said. Within a second he came to me and put it beside my head then the Battalion intelligence officer snaps a quick picture of us with his cell phone. I continue my tirade, then OPSEC gets his picture with certain death avoided. Then the Iraqi intel guy gets a call on his cell phone and answers it. In Kurdish he says “Wow, I get service way out here.”  By the way, that picture is my profile picture. Sherkoo grinning ear to ear and me in the middle of talking with an oblong brown mortar round about an inch from our faces almost like it’s a stuffed animal or something. 

After seven miles the Battalion decides it will mount in its trucks, go to the OPSEC villages, and return to the start point. Iraqi vehicles are big NO-NOs for US forces. I remember at the OPSEC Academy they told us that if we rode in Iraqi vehicles and something happened the survivors would go to jail. Our several hundred Iraqis mounted up. There we were 4 US Soldiers and two terps about to be left behind in the OPSEC, the rest of our team was at the start point because our huge MRAPs would sink on the canyon floor and could not traverse the canyon walls on the flanks. In the interests of not getting our heads cut off, not offending our Iraqi counterparts, and not having to suffer the 7 miles back in 120 degree heat through the OPSEC we got onto those trucks with only a quick glance at each other, almost as if to say IT WAS A STUPID RULE ANYWAY. Another day on the Frontier I suppose.

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Retelling from My journal: 4 April, 2009 A lot has happened since I last wrote. I promised I would never talk about operations but this is a story I need to tell. Its not the worst thing that has ever happened to me in Iraq, just another day really but it shows how everyday here is uniquely dangerous. We work on the border with Iran. The previous team had never visited all of the border forts and we needed to in order to know our battle space and affect the situation. On the map, one castle which I cannot name, had a route drawn to it, as if the previous team had actually been there. On my on-board computer called the Blue Force Tracker or BFT a straight line route was drawn right over mountains that obviously curved and winded. It would be a trip. We set off to the unseen fort, some of our Iraqi counterparts are there so it can’t be too bad I thought. It was in the mountains were Iraq, Kurdistan, and Iran collide. This had been the final lines of the Iran-Iraq war (1979-1989). All over the area are abandon mine fields, old trenches, bunkers, and rusted wrecks of vehicles and artillery. The ground in some places is a former impact zone of thousands of artillery rounds, pock marked with craters. As we proceed up the mountains, the environment changes. There are meadows, with water and wildflowers. It reminded me a lot of the climb up the mountains on the way to Ruidoso. The road begins to be smaller and smaller the further we go. Our massive trucks, called MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles) can barley fit into the two tire tracks that is now the road really just a turn-row. Any oncoming traffic had better get back up the mountain. There is no room to turn, there are 400 ft. drops on either side and we are bigger and have guns. But there is no one. We haven’t seen anyone for miles and that is never good in Iraq. The route on my BFT is imaginary. I plotted the position of the castle on my map then looked at satellite imagery to plot my own route. The old route is as the crow flies so it can’t help me. We come to a meadow, a flat area on the saddle of a mountain. The road divides in two. The split is not on my map nor is it on my satellite imagery. I order the two trucks behind me to stop while I recon the route. I zoom in on my BFT. There is a spot near me that shows a line going north, but it’s a contour line, a line that shows changes in elevation. My road seems to curve to the right. This is certainly not the time to remember Robert Frost’s Road less traveled garbage. A road less traveled means its dangerous; people don’t travel on roads with bombs. Now, I always feel better in the mountains. Its prettier than the desert flatlands of Iraq and Al Qaeda doesn’t really go up there. Here we are still in danger because of our mission. We are targeted by Iran and their supplicants JAM (Jaysh Al Mahdi), the Badr Corps, and Iraqi Hezbollah and we are meters, not miles from Iran. The wrong turn might land us in Iran, into a mind field, or into a trap that JAM has constructed. I see my road on the map going right, plus the road going left looks less traveled so I take the road on the right. As soon as we moved up the road my ICON on the BFT went off the road to the right. It was a wrong turn! I tell the rest of the truck, “It’s a wrong turn”. My gunner a Lieutenant from Illinois named Erich says “its ok I see a place where we can turn to the other road through the field”, I waited until I could see the turn-row. It seemed like it had been traveled on in the past few years so I said “alright do it but Steve (our driver a Captain from Florida) keep our tires in the tracks”. We turn into the field. We go about ¾ of the way through when Erich says “we’re in a mine field” then I see that the road is cratered in the last ten meters of the road. The wreckage of a truck still there and cratered so deep we cannot go around it. We pull to a stop. I radio to the other trucks and tell them “don’t come into this field”. I look out my window and see the small rusted metal fans of an exposed Anti-personnel mine. Oh God, I have heard about idiots who lead their troops into mine fields but now I’m that guy. I look further and I see small piles of rocks spray painted red, the UN symbol for a minefield. “We gotta back up” Steve says. Right “Erich you gotta watch our tracks” I said. “Alright, I’m watching” Erich replied. “Damn it!” I said. I radioed the rest of the team “We are going to back up…everyone button up and gunners stay down” (this is to keep them from getting wounded in case my vehicle gets hit). Our Master Sergeant, who I will not name, comes over the radio “I think ya’ll are in a minefield” he drawls. “Yea we are” I said as I simultaneously prayed and looked in my rear view and watched.

Latter that night I had stir fry for supper!

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 Watching TV of late one sees a lot about the Iranian elections, Michael Jackson, and maybe the beginning of the end in Iraq. It really is the beginning of the end here. While on a recent logistical mission to the massive base at Balad Iraq my team was stuck in a sandstorm keeping us in the base until the security agreement deadline had passed. By the agreement, advisors like us are exempt from the many provisions. The main provision is that no coalition forces are permitted inside major cities except at the behest of the local authorities during an emergency. Many Iraqis took this to mean any and all cities with no real definition as to how big or small. So on July 1 when a US armor unit with M1A1 tanks rolled into a Diyala city of only 30,000 people they were stopped by a truck load of Iraqi Police armed with only Ak47s and told to turn around because they were not permitted in the city limits without the police chief’s permission. These Soldiers could have responded by pointing the main gun at the IPs or just rolling right by them but they did the right thing. They radioed higher and respected the sovereignty of the Iraqi government. In the end they turned around went back onto the FOB and probably had some ice cream or cake at the chow hall. Despite the potential for the situation to turn violent between allies the results have thus far been good minus some suicide bombings in Baghdad. The willingness of the IPs to tell the Americans to turn around is sign of ownership and responsibility. No IP, no legitimate IP, wants to be at home when Al Qaeda in Iraq comes to call. If the situation gets bad enough they will call the Americans and we will pounce on an enemy they might for once be in the open. We advisors are still allowed to go where we want but the command has put out an order “No unnecessary trips outside the wire until July 10”. This is not to prevent casualties or to minimize the overlap of Iraqis and Americans it is to present a perception of American withdrawal and slowly foster confidence in the Iraqi Security forces. I don’t mind doing a little office work for a while anyway.

                Lack of confidence is the problem. All of our local interpreters are afraid. They don’t trust the Iraqi Army or the Iraqi Police. Memories of Saddam are not that distant. There is no real faith in the government leaders with the exception of the Kurds who put their faith in the regional government of Kurdistan but are deathly afraid of the Iraqi Army. I saw pictures of young Iraqis in Baghdad celebrating but when we got back home to Kirkush it was business as usual. Our Iraqi friends were happy to see us back safe but they are all worried about what will happen once we are gone. Many of my Iraqi friends and even an Iranian have told me that the US messed up by putting Iraqis in charge of their country. Instead they all suggest that the Americans should have put their own people in charge to change the culture of corruption in Iraq. Some have even said that Iraq should be the 51^st state. We are not invaders, we never intended to be. We consider ourselves liberators and empowers of change.  I joked with one of my interpreters that he might be hanging on to the helicopter once we leave just like the Vietnamese did. He didn’t laugh; I guess it wasn’t that funny after all. 

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 One of the blessings of this my second tour in Iraq is the cultural interaction. As a Transition Team we live with the Iraqi Army.  We stay on the third floor of a 3-story building inside an Iraqi base, not an American forward operating base (FOB). The Iraqis live on the first floor. Most nights we have Chai together, the main Iraqi officer CPT Basil, who speaks a smattering of English, always calls me his brother, as he did with our predecessors. The fact is, we are his family. He has no wife or children. He was once Major Basil but with the help of our predecessors, he reported corruption in his chain of command and got a general and a colonel fired, but he was demoted in the process. Our predecessors called him “the most honest officer in the Iraqi army”.

                Every night that I am not on mission and in our main home I play dominos with CPT Basil, SFC Faidel, our interpreters Kamil, a US citizen, and Loren (a local national), and other random Iraqi soldiers.  Every night chai is served by a Jundee named Haji Jazim Abu Ali. Every time I see Haji Jazim he insists that I come to CPT Basil’s room for chai, usually at Themaniya or “aiet” as he says. Haji Jazim is a portly man originally from Syria with a heart condition.  For him, hospitality is an obligation and he loves showing me this eastern respect. He practices his English with me and amuses himself by correcting my broken Arabic. When there is food he never fails to force it on me no matter what.  When we are building positions or just making our quarters more civilized he always shows up to help. Haji, meaning he has made the pilgrimage to Mecca but used by everyone more to indicate his age, has two wives, as is occasionally the Muslim custom, though it is less common in Iraq than in Saudi Arabia. He also cares for his sick mother, sons Ali, Ahmed, baby Muhammed, and a daughter, Fatima. Truly every conversation with him is a profound cultural exchange, a conduit of cultures. Haji Jazim’s insistence on these courtesies is older than Islam, an echo of Babylon, which is where his family lives today in Al Hillah.

                One of our interpreters, Code-named Loren, is originally from Balad Ruz, a few miles from my current location. Now he keeps his family, a wife and a baby girl, in Baghdad.  They moved after Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) left a note on his door threatening to kill his family by name and calling him an “enemy of God” because he was working with the Americans. He is young, 23, and he loves American culture but is equally proud of his Iraqi heritage, and never hesitates to teach me about the Iraqi people and the Arabic language. Loren wants to become a US citizen and even wants to join the Army. To me, Loren is the epitome of what Iraq has come to and he represents the choice Iraq has to face in the future.

Another jundee, Muhammed, tells me that he loves Americans, then shows his scars and tells me in Arabic that he is from Fallujah. Once he was hit by a mortar round inside an Iraqi base. Then on his way to the American aid station the truck he was in was hit by a roadside bomb. The Americans evacuated him and his comrades with helicopters and operated on him at Balad Air Base. The sincere gratitude he feels can be seen in his manners and eyes as he displays horrific scars across his chest and legs.

After a few weeks, the Arabs who know me began to call me Habibi, which literally means “my Love”. Loren explains that “in Iraq this not gay”. The expression still has a homosexual sound to my American ears, in fact my wife giggles when I tell her about it. But for the Arabs, men specifically and exclusively, it is a sincere and non-threatening expression of affection. They say Shloanak habibi  “ how are you my love” and afwan habibi “excuse me my love” when I’m in the door way or they need to break off the conversation.

Eating is always the most demonstrative and culturally significant event. I’m quite fond of Iraqi food, but not always so fond of Iraqi habits.  Once in Khanaqin, my team and I ate at an Iraqi restaurant. On my last tour this was forbidden and still is to the average US military personnel but we are a transition team and we don’t play by big Army rules. We took off our body armor, carried only our pistols, a few frag grenades, and some radios. I sat with my back to the corner to watch who came in, how they reacted to seeing us, what they were wearing, did they leave when they saw us? We were careful. We were served rice (timmon), flat bread (hops), Simoon (a puffy bread), chicken, lamb, beef, lamb kabob, and an assortment of spices and vegetables. It was delicious! But as I came to my last piece of lamb I noticed it looked a little different. I thought it was just a fatty piece, then I realized it was either a grilled ear or lip. I concluded that it was lamb lip and sat it back on my plate, covered it with some vegetable leftovers, smiled, and inhaled vast amounts of second hand smoke; Iraqi men are generally train smokers. Of course, eating with your hands is also customary but not always done. It is the early twentieth century in Iraq these days and silver ware is pretty well accepted. When you do eat with your hands it is extremely important to never use your left hand, this comes from a time before toilet paper in Iraq and if forgotten generates an immediate reaction of disgust from the Iraqis. With Saliva still on their hands Iraqis will offer you their portion of meat, a gracious sign of respect and welcome Camil tells me. When an Iraqi Lieutenant Colonel offers me a piece of his meat from his spit soaked hands I remember to turn my brain off, enjoy the company and food, and endear myself to these people who are suffering every day in this experience that I will never forget.    

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