Journal: ‘ThunderCat6’ gets to know Baghdad

DATE: July 28, 2006
TO: Friends, family and colleagues

SUBJECT: 25% Done — Mid-Summer News from Baghdad

ALCON,

(That is military speak for All Concerned)

Still alive and kicking.

I have now been boots on ground for 13 weeks, or 92 days out of the required 365. We have been here long enough that people are actually already taking their mid-tour break.

This has been a rough month for the war. The month started off with the bombing of a crowded marketplace in Sadr City, killing more than 60 people and wounding even more. The hard part to deal with is that women and children shop in markets, so the person who planned and executed the bombing was clearly targeting women and children. I had been in that exact market only days earlier meeting vendors, talking to locals and collecting “atmospherics.” Unfortunately, that was only the first of a few market bombings this month in Sadr City, the latest this week also killing more than 30. Sadr City is a Shi’a and a Mahdi militia stronghold, so when the Sunnis want to strike back they plan attacks there.

I have lamented to my friends here that it is downright un-American to stand by and let innocent people get hurt. Isn’t that part of why we are here? We “roll up” and “detain” bad guys instead of killing them. We have to let them go if we don’t have enough witnesses and evidence. We are treating them as only criminals instead of combatants and granting them too many rights. This is war. I know that many times the insurgents just laugh as we arrest them knowing we are going to have to let them go. We are playing by a completely different set of rules. I recommend more teams proactively going after not just the big names and key leaders, but anyone that commits crimes.

On the Civil Affairs governance front, it has been a rough month as well. After the first market bombing, the Sadr District Council blamed and boycotted the American forces. That means they are not allowed to meet or talk to us. We basically ignored it for the first two weeks and kept showing up at meetings anyway. Then we conducted a few raids and captured some HVTs (high-valued targets), creating some collateral damage in the process, so they asked us nicely last week not to embarrass them — and so we honored the boycott.

It is a delicate little dance of position, power, influence and authority. The reason this was such a bad time for a boycott is that the Iraqis are working on the 2007 budget — this is actually GREAT news — not the Americans but the Iraqi Provincial Council working in conjunction with the Ministry of Finance is putting together budget for reconstruction projects. As small an accomplishment as this seems, it is actually a great sign of progress that the government is working and, more importantly, soliciting feedback and guidance at all levels prior to submitting projects and budgets, including local government where democracy starts and truly lives. 

Unfortunately, the Sadr (District) Council was caught flatfooted yet again, and with the boycott I couldn’t work and coach the people I needed to. I have attached the quick “Assessment Guide” I put together for them to use (translated into Arabic, obviously). This gives you a sense of where these folks are at. I am trying to tell them that the education committee chair needs to be the expert on all educational institutions and employees, the health committee members need to be expert on all the health facilities and staffing, etc.

But, in the last meeting prior to the boycott, they talked about furniture for the Council Hall for 25 minutes of a 90-minute meeting and failed to talk at all about how we should help the 2,000 dislocated Shi’a families sleeping in schools and in tents.  By the way, I am working on that issue.

The war strategy and recent news
Once again I feel that the military has been caught right in the middle of a game of political and media positioning. Everyone wants to do the right thing, and wants to help us get to the transition point, but they are afraid to admit that things aren’t going well or on track. Not me, I put status=RED on a bunch of things. I don’t have a career to worry about. 

Many people want us out of here — I understand that, I truly do.  But … in my opinion, we are far from ready to leave this place if we want to leave a stable, functioning democracy. I do not want to see more American soldiers die, but we simply have to finish (properly) what we started. Who knows, the end solution may not be a unified Iraq, but instead the three separate states everyone has been talking about, one Sunni, one Shi’a closely aligned with Iran, and one Kurdish in the north.

It is odd living under this microscope. Picture yourself personally and your company under the microscope every day, someone analyzing each move, highlighting each mistake. It would be tough. A friend of mine gave me a quote before I left that I carry with me each day:

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly ... who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat.”
— Teddy Roosevelt

Here is another I am using for motivational purposes:

“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”
— Albert Einstein

I force my team to do things by the numbers EVERY DAY, things others have long since ditched or let slip. I still give a full-blown detailed Operations Order (OPORD) each night before a mission. I still push documenting and reviewing our evolving SOPs (standard operating procedures). The trick now is to keep up the vigilance, the alertness and the standards. There are two phrases we keep repeating before missions to remind ourselves: “Complacency kills” and “When you half step, it could be your last step.”

Morale and the media
I read an article this week in the Washington Post where one soldier felt that he was just waiting to get blown up. There are days that I can certainly empathize with him on that. I see it all the time right after a soldier, a friend gets killed, a unit or group feels it, and it gets harder for them to maintain a positive attitude. I haven’t been faced with any injuries or incidents so I can’t comment, but keeping a positive attitude is so important.

I find myself counting the days — look at the title of my e-mails — but each day I am still out there trying to get some things done. It is hard to continue day after day without seeing faster progress, or having little successes. But, when you look, truly look, they are out there. In my short 90 days the streets are cleaner, there is more fresh water, less sewage in the streets, and more electricity every day and the government is actually starting to work. There are also now two more planned health clinics going up in Sadr City, bringing the total for Sadr to seven within a year’s time.

Last Saturday, the Battalion I am assigned to lost a soldier to a roadside bomb. It cut him in half.  Members of my company were on a different mission, but diverted to the scene to help with security during the casevac (casualty evacuation). Some of our guys saw that soldier and have been deeply affected since.  It was bad the first couple of days, but you can sense it still lingering. It is natural to question your purpose and your resolve. But that is part of what makes a soldier special, the ability to shake off those horrors, the doubts and drive on with the mission assigned to us by the U.S. and our leaders.

When the unit we replaced lost two soldiers, it tore them apart. They basically stopped functioning for the last part of their tour and in the end it was rumored they were throwing Gatorade bottles filled with urine at cars that wouldn’t get out of the way fast enough — and this is a CIVIL AFFAIRS team, you know, winning the hearts and minds!

Those that have read my monthly updates know that like many U.S. citizens I have my doubts about how and why we ended up here, but you also know how committed I am as a soldier called to duty to doing this right and how much I believe in completing the mission here properly. As you drive through certain neighborhoods you see people smiling and waving, thanking us for being here. These folks have had tumultuous history by any standard. They deserve the right to be free. They deserve the right to be safe.

Women in combat, Part II
I stand by my original statements on the quality of all soldiers serving here. But, I may have jinxed us by speaking too early in the tour about no issues. Both our female soldiers were involved in a drinking and sexual misconduct incident. One involved a married man. Adultery in the military is still a jail-able offense.

Humanitarian aid
Thanks for all the packages — keep them coming. We went to an orphanage of 50 boys last week and dropped off a bunch of items including clothes, toys, vitamins, school supplies and of course soccer balls.

We need:  Clothes all children’s sizes, including teens (non-winter); shoes all sizes; children’s vitamins (generic in volume is best); toys; blankets; basic school supplies; coloring books and crayons; used musical instruments. Blankets are the newest addition to the list.

Mundane things
All in all I am doing quite well and remain excited about the challenge of helping the people of Sadr City. I am in the best shape of the last 10 years: My 2-mile is now well under 13 minutes, my 4-mile is well under 30 minutes, I can do 80 sit-ups in two minutes, I can even knock out a few pull-ups finally. I hit the gym two to three times a week.

I guess I have officially settled into a routine and I barely notice the fact that my barracks is located 100 meters from where they burn all the smelly trash. I am being as safe as I can — keep up the prayers, from the luck we have had so far they must be working.

MORE FROM CHARITY BEGINS AT WAR

Charity Begins at War Section Front

Part 1: From executive suite to Baghdad Journal: Called back to active duty — ‘No joke’ Day 2: Minimal training for a huge task Journal: Readying for ‘very dangerous job’ Part 3: Venturing ‘outside the wire’ Journal: ‘ThunderCat6’ arrives in Baghdad Part 4: It all comes back to garbage Journal: Goodbye Baghdad; hello bed rest Part 5: Charitable spirit survives Journal: A new foundation Charity Begins at War Section Front   Add Charity Begins at War headlines to your news reader: