|
I just took my 15th helicopter ride in Iraq. I wonder when I start qualifying for points and miles?
All the grunts dig my Dragon Skin body armor by Pinnacle and wish they had Dragon Skin. It fits well and the fit takes a lot of the load off my shoulders which makes it a lot more comfortable. The flexibility is also nice when traversing walls and rooftops.
Iraqi men still ask me why I'm not married. I tell them because I'm over here so much. Which is kinda true I guess. A few--former Baathist Sunnis who are very western--have asked if I wanted to meet their daughters. I always give them the 'La Mamnoon'--thanks maybe later.
I have noticed that that the Sunnis are better looking than the Shia. Which may explain some things.
The Canon XL-H1 video camera I carry is actually capable of making Iraq look good. It still looks bad (trash, sewage, etc.) but the setups have allowed me to make the colors pop and things look better than they really are.
The XL-H1 has proven to be very durable. It broke my fall a few times.
As one Marine officer quipped, "That's camera's seen more action than most of the M-4s in this country."
Which is why on the kill sheets a lot units have started listing my camera as my weapon.
 |
Many Baghdad residents are big fans of improvised gated communities. This
was my favorite road block in West Rasheed. Whenever I read about Baghdad
residents opposed to the gated communities, I suspect they are astro-turfed. |
More of the grunts are reenlisting than I expected. A lot of the guys are ready to do their four and hit the door, but there are more sticking around than I expected at this point.
The Army sure does have a lot of Sergeants and Staff Sergeants--way more than the Marines.
The infantrymen are universally amazing. Even the few who have decided the work is not for them and hate Iraq and the military still do the job well and have not slacked off.
This current crop of Company and Battalion commanders could be one of the best ever. Nearly every company commander in theater has already been a platoon commander in combat. Most of the Battalion commanders have been here previously on a Battalion or Regimental staff.
I ask the officers: "When you joined, did you ever think you would be--acting as a city manager, provincial governor, village sheriff, mediator between tribes, spending so much time talking with the locals?"
They all say no.
 |
Captain Brian Ducote, Commanding Officer of Battle Company, 1-28 Infantry,
Ft. Riley meets with members of the neighborhood council. Ducote spends two
or more days a week meeting with local leaders about civic projects, security
concerns and making the sects get along. |
Iraq has shown that the DoD bureacracy is too big, too slow and out of touch with the realities of the modern battlefield.
Up until just recently the military was built for a set-piece battle against like forces. But our enemy does not want to cooperate with the geniuses in the Pentagon who came up with the plans and procured the equipment to execute those plans and developed training platforms to prepare soldiers for those plans.
The bureacracy--even in combat--is staggering. To get some things done the request has to go through 15! steps of approval.
One Company Commander summed it up like this:
"They trust me with the lives of 100 men, humvees, weapons, ammo, civil affairs negotiations, classified intelligence, radios, everything. But I cannot be trusted with $20k worth of Dinar to hire a crew to build up an IP station?"
Which is interesting, because I keep hearing that the appeal of JAM and AQIZ is the money.
I saw one sheet listing the rewards for tips. But the rewards were lower than what JAM and AQIZ pay.
Is the coalition losing a bidding war?
 |
| In a Shia mahala in West Rasheed the girls in the school outnumber the boys. |
The big bases have gotten bigger which is a shame. They are populated by many people for whom the war is merely a concept and may not even need to be in Iraq.
It takes--supposedly--4-10 non-combat personnel to support one grunt.
But when you go out to the outposts you don't see that much support.
It appears the majority of the funds being spent in Iraq are to sustain the people who are not providing that much support to the grunts.
Which makes one ask--are all those people really necessary?
But there are more outposts than ever before. Some of the outposts are little more than a house with some c-wire, sandbags and a generator to recharge the batteries on the radios.
Others, the company sized outposts, have Army cooks who actually cook really good food, showers, electricity and occasionally semi-reliable internet.
There are some places where infantry units are almost tripping over each other--which is a good thing.
I haven't bumped into any Infantryman Bloggers. Why? Because there are no internets at COP Battle. The internet at OP Omar is shared by 70 guys and only works from 1800 to 0600--and even then is slow, unreliable and often non-existent. There is nothing at PB 548 and OP Delta's system only works on dot-mil sites.
Fobbits (base working personnel) should have to pull their own security, which would free up more combat power to work the streets. In Baghdad, some Brigades require the infantry Battalions to supply platoons for FOB security.
Some of the FOB (forward operating base) types who are supposed to be the political/civil affairs types never leave the FOB. In one instance a team from the Green Zone was supposed to meet with an infantry officer and Iraqi neighborhood council members about a project. The Green Zone guys cancelled the meeting. The threat level was too high that day so they didn't want to leave the fortress.
I walked and rolled around that area with a platoon of soldiers and a video camera when the threat level was just as high.
There are several wars going on at the same time. The one unseen by Americans is the virtual war where everything is summed up nice and neat on power point slides sent to the Colonels and Generals.
I wonder how many Staff Officers and NCOs will spend their deployments building power point presentations.
The Colonels and Generals then do old fashioned battlefield circulation--hopping from outpost to outpost, Mahala diving all day--to get the bottom line that doesn't always translate well into a power point presentation.
I met more Field Grade and Flag officers outside the wire on this trip than the previous two combined.
 |
|
Cult of personality. In Shia neighborhoods Sadr's face is everywhere.
|
Which reminds me of a discussion a college professor--an old school retired Marine Colonel--once instigated with a class I was in. He asked us why the U.S. did not prevail in Vietnam. We gave all the usual answers and he kept saying nope, no, no, not even close.
After we had exhausted all the usual answers he gave us his theory.
"Ya'll have met a lot of Vietnam veterans right?"
We nodded yes.
"Did you ever meet a guy who was a motor T mechanic in Vietnam? Or a helicopter mechanic? Or radio repairman?"
We kept nodding no.
"You see, the problem with Vietnam was that all the motor T mechanics and helicopter mechanics and radio repairmen somehow became special forces or Rangers or Recon or straight infantry. So there was no resupply because the trucks were broken down and we ran out of ammo. We couldn't call in close air support because the radios weren't working and even if they were, the birds couldn't fly. And it is like that in every war. Suddenly, somehow, everyone becomes an infantryman or even more high-speed."
In 10 years there will be no Fobbits. Everyone will become a grunt living out there at the outpost or down in the mahala or on some task force tracking down AQIZ types.
The Fobbits catch a lot of shit but many of them are doing necessary jobs--but I'm still not sold that we need so damn many of them.
All infantrymen really dig the History Channel. Everyone in the Army and Marines seems to really dig the History Channel.
The the CDI ballistic sunglasses by ESS work great with the eye piece on my Camera. And generally look cool too.
In Shiabi, just outside of Kharma, I found a 24/Hour convenience store. Really.
That would be one of the Metrics that the think tanks don't measure--are stores opening up in places they were not open before and the quality and quantity of goods sold.
The shop in Shiabi sold all the food staples and the usual selection of sodas and cigarettes plus diapers, sandals, air freshner and cleaning supplies.
I bought sodas for all the guys in my truck plus 3 packs of smokes. I handed the guy a U.S. $20 and got 20,000 Iraqi Dinar in change.
I always hold on to my Dinar--maybe, one day....
The other non-think tank Metrics I use are:
- Census/Data in a unit database
- Women shopping in a market unescorted by a male
- Women running stands in a market
- Number and quality of tips from informants. When they start giving license plate numbers and detailed descriptions of people complete with names, then a unit is making progress.
- The number of informants who provide that kind of reliable information.
- The personal relationships between a Commander and the tribal/civic leaders.
- Depth of trash piles and sewage.
The phrase 'Outside The Wire' is slowly being replaced with a new one. But I will hold on to that bit of knowledge for a while longer.
There is a new category of Fobbit the F-A-G, or Former Action Guy. After four years a lot of grunts, through promotion, reclassification, etc. are no longer grunts. The infantry Platoon Sergeant of 2004 is now a Gunnery Sergeant and may be the Ops Chief or NCOIC of another section. He is a Fobbit now, but went outside the wire before, so he's not a career Fobbit. Therefore he is a Former Action Guy.
For some reason people mistake me for some kind of former cool guy contractor. It is the Merrell hiking shoes which seem to be favored by some NSW types. And the beard and longer hair and general demeanor.
There is a distinct reality gap between the Green Zone and the platoon sized outposts. At the Combined Press Information Center where embeds are accredited and parcelled out from there is a sign on the wall--No Weapons. For CPIC purposes even a Gerber or Leatherman is a weapon.
Once I'm down in the village or Mahala with an infantry platoon they think I'm crazy for rolling around without carrying at least a pistol.
All the grunts think I'm making a lot of money over here. I tell them they are making more than I am. I only get paid through DVD sales.
Then they know I'm crazy.
Speaking of crazy...
Most 1st Sergeants are insane in a good way. All E-8s have some kind of eccentricity. I guess that happens after nearly 20 years in the military.
The IEDs and EFPs used now make the IEDs of 2005 look like firecrackers. The triggering devices used now are factory made, not the home-rigged devices of the past. The EFPs which shoot a fist-sized chunk of molten metal are precision explosives--milled and machined to a level of craftsmanship that is just not found in Iraq.
The strategy of ever spiraling countermeasures will never elminate the threat or achieve an end state. We add more armor, they make bigger bombs. We put radio jammers on humvees, they go to pressure plate or wire det by remote. We turn humvees into bank vaults they use EFPs. We will come up with a counter measure to the EFP, and they will build something else.
The safest place in Iraq is down in the village or mahala on your own two feet. But I have always thought that.
I forgot how hot it gets even in May and June. But it gets even hotter. Now it still cools off some at night. In a few weeks it will still be sweltering at night.
COP Battle--an outpost in an asphalt parking lot is unbearably hot. 110 in Anbar feels better than 102 at COP Battle.
The Blackhawk helicopter is a smooth, quiet ride but I prefer the CH-46--more leg room and luggage room.
The CH-47, the Army Chinook, is bigger, louder and smells even more like hydralic fluid than the CH-46.
If you ever get on a 46 and 47 and you can't smell the hydraulic fliud--get off that chopper because it is not airworthy.
The fight nights are becoming common. The big bases have boxing rings, headgear, mouth pieces and sign up sheets. The Fobbits train for the fight for a month or more.
The outpost fight night is on a patch of hard dirt, no head gear or mouth pieces and you don't know if you are fighting until you called out or cajoled into fighting.
 |
Fight Night at the Combat Oupost one evening every other week or so the
gloves come out and it is fight night. |
 |
| At one OP I visited the rule is everyone must fight--even the embedded reporter. |
The gloves are 16 ounces, the match is two, one minute rounds and the Platoon Sergeants run the fights. When someone starts to get the upper hand they call break.
It is good for morale and if you talk any trash or bitch about a fellow soldier--you will be in the ring. It cuts down on a lot of bitching and trash talking.
Army and Marine hand to hand combat training is not built on punching and fist fighting. It is built on ground fighting. Close the distance, take your opponent to the ground and choke him out or arm bar him or other submission style moves.
Which is why they are allowed to box for fun--because if they really went at it people would wind up with broken wrists, gouged eyes and crushed testicles.
If you have any questions about what I'm seeing, doing or not doing--send me an email.
I'll try to answer them in a future post.
If you buy a DVD, the odds of your question being answered increase exponentially.
Yes, this a shameless attempt to sell DVDs.
All of JD's income is supported through DVD sales and reader contributions. Please help so JD can continue to report on his personal experiences with our military and the war in Iraq.
Freedom isn't free...and neither is reporting from Iraq. To help offset the costs of independent reporting and filmmaking of our military, please...
BUY A DVD
OR, make a contribution by choosing one of the options below.
We are providing a new service that allows people to make regular (monthly) contributions to support JD's work, but you can also make a one time contribution through BlogPatron. Click on the BlogPatron link below. The Outside the Wire project is better supported through BlogPatron's regular contributions than just one-time contributions.
|
