Bold Steel in Pictures

It's All About the Benjamins, Habibi

April 18, 2008

One of the more significant developments in Iraq over the past year has been the evolution of the Awakening Council, or what is now known as the Concerned Local Citizens (CLC) or the Sons of Iraq (SOI), The Awakening Council began as a locally organized security force of volunteers in a village working under the supervision of the sheik in that village. These groups began popping up when citizens, led by the sheiks, decided to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. Theoretically. In some cases, there may have been a genuine desire to put an end to insurgent-led violence, but in others, the newly formed groups took advantage of their position and created more problems, sometimes adding to the violence.
If a CLC group can be properly trained and managed, there are obvious benefits. Because the members are residents handpicked by the sheik in charge of the village, they should be invested in the wellbeing of that village. Many of these men are military-age males, an age group in need of gainful employment so as not to be tempted into less constructive pursuits. And often these men, even the sheiks, have been on the other side of the law, working against the Americans and their fellow Iraqis, so this is an opportunity to make a change. Or stay the same and get paid anyway. What started as a volunteer movement is now a salaried occupation. A CLC member earns $300 a month, U.S. dollars.
The soldiers of the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery (HHB) of the 2-320 (“Balls”) Battalion, have worked very closely with the CLC groups in the Balad area. Overall, the verdict is positive. Although it is impossible to predict how these groups would behave if our soldiers were not involved in their management, right now they are involved and the hope is that our positive influence will have a lasting effect.
The United States is providing the financial backing for each CLC group, which means we sign the paychecks. What this really means is the soldiers deliver stacks of crisp U.S. currency to the sheik in charge of his group, and he dispenses the money to his men. Recently, a sheik was suspected of mismanaging his men’s pay, after all, the system is easy to abuse. As a precaution, the soldiers participated in the payment process the following pay period.
Captain JonWayne Lindsey, together with the sheik of the village, dispensed payments to the sheik’s men. If word spread that the Americans were watching the payment process, sheiks from the neighboring villages would, hopefully, decide not to take any chances. Of course, if his men are manning the checkpoints like they are supposed to, a corrupt sheik might not get very far anyway.
Over one hundred-thirty men were part of this CLC organization, which meant the American soldiers dedicated almost a full day to helping secure the building where payments were handed out, overseeing the crowd of AK-47 toting Iraqis, and keeping track of the money and the people collecting it. The sheik made sure the soldiers had plenty of refreshments, and had a lunch of kebabs, chicken, salad and fresh bread brought in after about half of his workers had been paid.
The sun was setting by the time all of the money had been handed out. The sheik had also hired additional men without notifying the soldiers, putting them in the awkward position of not being able to pay everyone, and forcing them to organize a return trip in the near future to pay these new workers.
The day should have been over, but there was one more stop to make on CLC business. In another village, a sheik was working with the soldiers to set up his own CLC chapter. The soldiers were delivering a modest stack of bills to him, six thousand U.S. dollars, so he could begin buying supplies for his group: AK-47s, ammunition, and other materials necessary to help them do their job. Our soldiers were also providing concrete barriers, vests that would make the members more easily identifiable, and training in how to manage traffic, search vehicles and individuals.
The sheik was surrounded by a group of men when the money changed hands. Just as the Americans were demonstrating their faith in him by presenting him with this fairly ample sum, trusting that he would spend it on essential CLC equipment, the sheik seemed to be demonstrating his faith in his men by allowing them to be present when he accepted the money.
After the transaction was completed, the sheik asked the soldiers if they had time to talk about life in America. Lieutenant Mike Handlan relaxed his posture, not easy considering he was wearing his body armor and sitting in a small plastic chair, and invited the sheik to lead the conversation. He asked a series of questions: How many children are Americans allowed to have? Who files for a divorce, the husband or the wife? At what age is a child no longer his or her parents’ responsibility? A lively discussion followed. The advantages of having more than one wife were outlined. Possibly by the American soldiers.
Often what happens on the fringe of a mission is as interesting and in some ways as important as the mission itself. While Captain Lindsey, Lieutenant Handlan, and several soldiers from the HHB worked inside during the long CLC payday, Sergeant Ned Healy and Private First Class Andy Stallard monitored the traffic at the back of the building with two CLC members. Though they did not speak the same language, Ned and Andy learned about the Iraqi culture, and the Iraqis no doubt learned something about Americans. They laughed together, just as Lieutenant Handlan and the other soldiers laughed with the sheik and his men at the end of the long day.
The CLC may or may not be here to stay. Sergeant Jonathan Mudget, who was also present for the long payday, says the hope is that many of the CLC members will eventually join the Iraqi police force and help that layer of security become more evenly distributed throughout the province, which would mean the financial responsibility for those men would shift back to Iraq, back where it belongs.
For now, the soldiers are doing everything they can to support CLC efforts. Even if some CLC members were not model citizens before, it is possible that a steady income, a structured work schedule, and a positive relationship with the American soldiers will motivate them to take advantage of this opportunity. Every long day the soldiers have spent in Iraq will have been worth it if the Concerned Local Citizens, the Sons of Iraq, decide to live up to their name and really become part of the solution. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

Glass Half Empty

April 3, 2008

Water is one thing our soldiers generally have plenty of. At Patrol Base(PB) Woodcock, located south of COB Speicher, there may not always be hot water for showers, or running water for toilets (I don’t want to talk about it), but there is bottled water which, as the temperatures begin to climb into the nineties and higher, is as important as a loaded weapon.
Living in a desert climate obviously presents challenges, but thanks in large part to the Tigris River, the Iraqi people have access to a steady water supply. Or they should. Sergeant Jose Torres and the soldiers of the 1st Battalion’s Charlie Company discovered the well had run dry for at least some of the people in their sector.
The convoy left PB Woodcock and rolled through the countryside in search of people to talk to. Near Woodcock, farmland is punctuated by small houses. Cows graze peacefully. Green fields are a welcomed surprise. Gradually, though, the palette loses its intensity, and rich greens and browns give way to the dust color that prevails in Iraq.
The trucks parked near a squat mud and straw hut, a modest dwelling, where there were signs of life, signs of a hard life. There was evidence of a water pump system, and an irrigation ditch, but any traces of water were contaminated and quickly vanishing into the parched ground. Within the walls of the hut lived a family of six, and another room sealed off from the living quarters contained sheep and goats noisily protesting their confinement, or maybe complaining that they had no lush fields to graze in.
Sergeant Torres sat on the floor of the living room with the family and listened while they talked. This may have been the first opportunity the family had been given to talk to the Americans, so they were making the most of it. Sergeant Torres wanted to know if there had been suspicious traffic in the area. According to the man of the house, the Iraqi Police were possibly the biggest threat to local security, which was of course discouraging news.
The conversation moved outside as Sergeant Torres examined the water pump, and the homeowner continued to talk as though afraid if he stopped the Americans would leave, and he didn’t want them to go. Sergeant Torres asked what the family did for water, and the man said he had to pay to have it delivered, an expense that must have been difficult to meet. His wife and children stood by the entrance to the house, and she held my hand and asked if we could stay for lunch, though it was hard to imagine there was enough food for the family, let alone a group of unexpected visitors.
We could not stay to lunch, but the soldiers removed cases of food and bottles of water from the trucks and carried them into the house.
The convoy moved on to another house in the area. This one seemed more thoroughly maintained, but a conversation with the owners indicated that water was a problem for them too, that they were paying to have it delivered also. This was not supposed to happen. Iraq was still working through a long list of problems, but people were not supposed to have to pay to have water delivered.
The Americans had worked hard to build water treatment plants throughout the country, so that Iraqis not only had water, but clean water. And in areas beyond the reach of treatment plants, the local government was still responsible for seeing that the people in these areas had water. The soldiers were frustrated by the lack of services being provided, and the people who were affected clearly had no power to change the situation.
A few days later, we visited one of the water treatment plants the Americans had been working to open in the area, and their frustrations only grew.
Crates of new parts lay in front of the water tanks, unopened. The contractor in charge of making the plant operational gestured to the crates and explained that he had ordered the best parts he could find. But the soldiers wanted to know why they were still in the crates. A fast-talking man in a suit stepped forward, and identified himself as an inspector sent by the city to make sure the system was safe and properly maintained. Again, the soldiers wanted to know why no work was being done, why everything was in the same state of disrepair it had been in when they last visited. The inspector said he couldn’t approve the project yet. But why did he need to approve it now, when it was just beginning, and not later, when there was actually water that could be tested?
It didn’t take an interpreter to know the inspector had expected some sort of pay off from the contractor by now, and was digging his heels in until he had been properly thanked for his time. To justify his continued presence at the meeting, he launched into a never-ending speech about the importance of completing one part of the process before beginning another, but nothing was beginning here except a migraine for everyone involved.
The soldiers were finally able to extract a promise that some kind of activity would be taking place the following Monday, but no one was holding his breath.
The soldiers at Patrol Base Woodcock are no strangers to adversity. When they arrived at the base in 2007, there was no running water, no heat, no showers. Now they have all three, most of the time. They know it is possible to adapt to one’s living conditions, but it is also possible to improve them. They are trying to help the Iraqi people improve their living conditions too, so they are less vulnerable, which is hard enough in the desert, but even harder when their opportunistic countrymen put a price on everything, including water. Only dust is free in Iraq. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

Back with Bravo Company

March 21, 2008

FOB (Forward Operating Base) Brassfield-Mora is a humble base near Samarra. Look closer, however, and you will see a base teaming with calendar-worthy hunks. Was that the Rock?!! No, just someone who looks like him. You are in Iraq, not on a Hollywood film set. You just happened to have stumbled onto a base with more than its share of ruggedly handsome soldiers.*
*†The above was the fulfillment of a contractual obligation to the soldiers of Bravo Company and does not necessarily reflect the views of this reporter, though no one was holding a gun to her head.
Bravo Company. During their last deployment, from 2005-2006, the 2nd Battalion’s Bravo Company filled the streets of Kirkuk with their particular brand of diplomacy and good humor, and is it any wonder there is a network named after them. Commanding Officer Captain Casey Welch knew there something special about his company, and graciously allowed this amateur reporter/librarian to go everywhere they went. Staff Sergeant Jeremy Stearns (think Cary Grant meets Clint Eastwood†) quickly dubbed the tagalong Miss Shelby, and all was right with the world, or as right as it can be in a land full of dust and insurgents.
Bravo Company is back in Iraq. Some of the faces have changed, but the approach is the same. This time the soldiers are working their charm on the people in the area outside of Samarra. And the charm is working.
Act Two of the Bravo Company Road Show introduces some new characters: the CLC (Concerned Local Citizens), also known as the Sons of Iraq. In Kirkuk, the soldiers spent a lot of time with the IPs (Iraqi Police), offering support and supervision while the IPs offered comic relief. Now it is the CLC’s turn to provide the laughs.
Sergeant John Paul Harper and other members of the Third Platoon headed out at 10:00 pm. Miss Shelby thought that seemed late, but she accepted the invitation to make the rounds with them and tried to look sharp.
One of the CLC’s primary responsibilities is to operate checkpoints, to monitor traffic coming and going through their community. It is a type of neighborhood watch, Iraqi-style, which means nosy old ladies have been replaced with military-age males carrying AK-47s.
A sheik is responsible for recruiting and directing CLC members, but the Americans do everything in their power to help these groups succeed. Sergeant Harper and the soldiers of Bravo Company spend almost as much time at the checkpoints as the CLC members themselves, making sure they are manned, and that the men have ammunition for their weapons.
There are two sheiks the Bravo Company soldiers have come to know quite well. Each is a leader of a CLC group. We’ll call them Sheik A and Sheik B. The road to sheikdom is not always easy to follow, but Sheik A calls himself a sheik, and he drives a Mercedes. He has the attitude of a gangster and wants the Americans to see him as important, someone they would do well to listen to. They listen to him, but they don’t trust him, and when he materializes out of the darkness, they roll their eyes because conversations with him are like quicksand.
Sheik B is better. He is not so high maintenance, and the soldiers take him more seriously. During another night patrol, members of the Second Platoon, led by Lieutenant Vinnie Annunziato and Staff Sergeant Jeremy Stearns, spoke with Sheik B about recent threats made against the CLC. His contacts had heard there were people planning to attack the CLC, possibly with one or more suicide bombers.
There have been attacks against CLC posts around the country, indicating this newly formed security force is an obstacle for some insurgents. And some CLC members are themselves former insurgents, so perhaps their old friends don’t like the new path they’ve chosen, if they have in fact changed.
In Iraq, “good” and “honest” are very relative terms. Good often means less bad. A good man may have many bad relatives, or vice versa, and all become guilty by association. Sheik A may be bad, but there are probably worse men driving fancy cars in Iraq, and just because he seems bad, doesn’t mean his men are too. Or maybe it does.
And Sheik B’s information turns out to be very difficult to verify, so it is hard to know if the threat is real, if he was being honest. Maybe the story was manufactured to get the American soldiers to spend even more time at the checkpoints. There is no denying the CLC members are much more vulnerable and exposed when the Americans are not there to help.
While Sheik B is conversing with the soldiers, his CLC crew takes advantage of the shift in his attention, and they reach for their cell phones, which are loaded up with music. Not for the first time, “Yeah,” by Usher, is pumped into the night air. It is nice to know the war does have a soundtrack and it includes some hip hop.
Some dancing follows.
When Sheik B realizes the checkpoint has turned into a series of outtakes from So You Think You Can Dance, he becomes disgusted and orders his men back to work.
Every layer of security in Iraq has some holes in it. Holes you could drive an MRAP through. The good news is we have plenty of MRAPs. As always, there are some hardworking Iraqis whom the American soldiers enjoy working with, and there are some who simply waste their time.
Working with the CLC means working alongside people who may until very recently have meant to do us or our Iraqi friends harm. Is it possible for bad guys to become good guys? The future of Iraq is contained in the answer to this question. For now, at least, some of the bad guys are pretending to be good guys, and this in itself is a full-time job. As long as we can keep them on the job, we can hope they will become so good at pretending to be good guys that they will actually be as good as the real good guys. And then our good guys will be able to ride off into the sunset, to the delight of their adoring fans. shelbymonroe@gmail.com

A Day Like Any Other

March 8, 2008
Ask any soldier which movie best represents his deployment (s) in Iraq and, more often than not, he will say Groundhog Day. This war is not about fiery battles nearly so much as it is about repetition. Once in a while a day will be filled with excitement, but most days are filled only with the strange sensation of having done all of this before.
On a recent dismounted patrol with Lieutenant John Vickery and the Scouts of the 2nd Battalion’s Charlie Company, one of many Groundhog Day moments occurred. We were in Samarra, and Lieutenant Vickery was talking with residents of the city, trying to determine what was on their minds, how they felt about the city, their safety. During his last deployment, in 2005-2006, Lieutenant Vickery and the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade were in a different city, Kirkuk, but he was walking the streets and talking to people then too.
The Scouts went outside the city for another patrol the following day. Again, they left the safety of the MRAPs so they could talk to the people. Here, out in the open country, where they could not hide in a crowd, the residents were less inclined to talk, slower to warm up to the soldiers, if they warmed up at all. Nothing the soldiers hadn’t experienced before.
A few days later, I was out with the 2nd Battalion’s Delta Company. Further away from Samarra, the soldiers of Delta Company live at JSS (Joint Support Station) Love, and they too spend a lot of time talking to people. Again, our patrol took us into a sparsely populated area, with a handful of small farms and little else. Similar to the population in the farm country of Charlie Company’s sector, the people of this area seemed difficult to reach, as if being pulled in many directions and unable to find their way.
What was different this time was the proof that lay scattered across the wasted ground. Proof of an earlier far less civilized encounter. Proof that the farmland wasn’t just for farming anymore. What had once been a mud and straw hut was now a pile of rubble.
Increasingly, abandoned huts in these rural areas are being used as hiding places for insurgents, their weapons, and bomb-making materials. Delta Company soldiers and Iraqi soldiers successfully battled the insurgents at this location, and destroyed some of their hiding places.
For the people who live in the area, this must have been more activity than they were used to. But did the increased activity alter their routine here? Fear appeared to be keeping some closer to home. With nothing to do but tend the land and hope for quiet, the locals were probably also struggling to distinguish one day from the next.
Lieutenant Robert Baird and the soldiers of his Delta Company platoon tried to get a sense of how the residents in this remote place were feeling in the aftermath of the deadly gun battle. Living off the land, especially when the land is packed dust, is difficult in the best of times. When outside forces strike like a bolt of lightning it must seem like a bad joke. Indeed, some of the people Lieutenant Baird spoke with were not laughing. But what seemed like a significant battle to the soldiers may have been nothing compared to the daily battles each of these families faces.
Though some of the residents were standoffish, giving stock replies to Lieutenant Baird’s questions, others were more approachable. Maybe they felt lightning could not strike twice in the same place. Maybe they appreciated the attention, the novelty of being treated with respect and concern for their wellbeing. There is a difference, though, between being approachable and being helpful.
Several of the men the soldiers encountered were military-age males, which is one characteristic many of the bad guys share. These men may not be bad guys themselves, but they have probably considered how slim the rewards are for being good. They have probably thought about their survival and safety and realized how little control they have over either.
A teenage boy left the women of his family working among the rows of their crops when he saw the soldiers approaching. He cautiously made his way to the edge of the cultivated area where the soldiers stood. Lieutenant Baird tried to begin a conversation, but the boy was very ill at ease. He seemed reluctant to say anything, to answer the most basic questions. Maybe he knew something. Or maybe he had figured out that he was entering the hard years of his life, and he wasn’t ready for them. No more hiding behind adults. More was expected of him suddenly, from his people, perhaps from the insurgents who swept through the area, kicking up the dust, and now the Americans had to be added to the list too, people who did not even speak his language.
Lieutenant Baird could have made the boy’s life even more difficult than it already was. He could have continued to ask questions until the boy broke, or he could have raised his voice and tried to intimidate him into cooperating. Maybe that was how the boy expected to be treated because he had been treated that way, or worse, by someone who was there before us. But Lieutenant Baird gave him an out, and he took it. He let the boy know he didn’t have to talk to us if he didn’t want to, so the boy returned to the women in the field.
The boy walked away from the soldiers. Just like that.
What happened to the part where we ask a question, and he pretends he doesn’t understand, so we repeat the question, and he answers a different question, so we rephrase the question, and he repeats his answer to the question we didn’t ask, and he stares at us and we stare at him, and instead of feeling like we’ve learned something, we actually feel tired and as though maybe we forgot something we once knew, but we’ve chewed up some time and somehow that carries us forward. Weren’t we doing that anymore?
But Lieutenant Baird remembered something I had forgotten. This whole day could be repeated. Maybe the boy did walk away today, but tomorrow he might answer a question. He will realize he was given a choice, maybe for the first time, and he might feel more inclined to cooperate the next time. He might not answer the question we ask, but he will be ready to start something resembling a conversation.
Sometimes it is impossible to distinguish one patrol from another; they look and sound so much alike. It is almost as though a script is being circulated throughout Iraq that tells people how to talk to the Americans. This is fair. The Americans have a script of their own. What keeps it interesting are the little departures from what is expected: letting the boy walk away, or finding that rare individual willing to answer the question put to him. The only way to make it possible for those moments to occur is to try again tomorrow. And if tomorrow is just like today, the soldiers will not be surprised; they will simply try again the day after tomorrow. shelbymonroe@gmail.com