Honoring Our Veterans

In recognition of our veterans, the Washington Post ran an opinion piece by William Quinn, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq from 2005 to 2006. Quinn writes about his return to civilian life after the intensity of serving in a war zone.

The only feeling I've ever had that was more surreal than arriving in a war zone was returning from one.

I came home on R&R in 2005 after eight months in Iraq. Heading for the baggage claim in Detroit, I watched travelers walking and talking on their cellphones, chatting with friends and acting just the way people had before I'd left for Baghdad. The war didn't just seem to be taking place in another country; it seemed to be taking place in another universe. There I was, in desert camouflage, wondering how all the intensity, the violence, the tears and the killing of Iraq could really be happening at the same time that all these people were hurrying to catch their flights to Las Vegas or Los Angeles or wherever.

Now as a student majoring in international politics and security studies at Georgetown, Quinn feels the same disconnect with the war among his peers on campus.

I find it frustrating that Facebook is a bigger part of most students' lives than the war. After my first semester, I decided to rejoin the Army by signing up with the ROTC. I felt a bit guilty for having done only one tour in Iraq while friends of mine have done two or three. And I didn't want to forget the war. I may be prejudiced, but many of my college peers seem self-absorbed. I didn't want to end up like that.

...Nonetheless, the Army's values are important to soldiers. They may not always live up to them, but they do when it matters most. Soldiers are selfless; they are courageous; they are loyal. The most interesting intellectual conversations I've had have been with others in the military. They discuss things not to impress you but because they're trying to figure them out. They're faced with difficult situations, and they want to make sense of them. Though many privately question our government's policies, they do their duty, which lies beyond the political debate.

This culture of duty is at odds with the culture of individualism and self-promotion that seems paramount here in college.

As one of those students, I have to admit that at first I felt a little defensive about William's op-ed. But as these thoughts sank in I began to accept them as accurate. Indeed, the college life is a far cry from military service, and our responsibilities are different. College is a duty to one's self, whereas the military is a duty to one's country. Serving in this country's armed forces requires a selflessness that others probably don't understand. Today, we honor their courage and their call to duty.

Soldier Stories (II)

The story of Alan King demonstrated the urgent need to train Iraqi police and soldiers, and this has in fact been listed as a top priority by both the Iraq Study Group and Vice President al-Hashimi, among others. But proponents of this recommendation generally only gloss over all the problems involved. The most obvious problem is that far too few U.S. soldiers speak Arabic. This communication barrier puts lives at risks. How can one rely on someone in a combat situation if the two are unable to communicate properly with one another? A shift away from combat operations to a more advisory role would require a three-fold increase in the number of Arabic-speaking U.S. soldiers- this alone could take years. And even if you manage to train and equip Iraqi soldiers there is still doubt as to whether these soldiers will be politically reliable.

Here is an excerpt from a story told by Joseph Hatcher of the 1st Infantry Division:

It's interesting when you work with the Iraqi army because they're sworn to defend Iraqis. They refuse to shoot at Iraqis or they've been seen shooting at Americans before. I don't feel comfortable around Iraqi soldiers. The inability to communicate makes me uncomfortable. We had a questionable incident involving some Iraqi Civil Defense Corps soldiers that were blown up by an AC-130 gunship. We had a raid go wrong and cars everywhere, drive-bys, just a complete fuckfest. Th egunship came in and lit up one of these cars, We pulled all the bodies out of the cars, and they were all fucking cops. We know for a fact they were shooting at us.

There are thousands of other U.S. soldiers with similar stories and the same misgivings about Iraqi armed forces. I believe that it is imperative that we retrain the Iraqi army and police as we were the ones that initially decimated them; I only worry how successful we will be under these conditions.

A few of you e-mailed asking about the book. You can find it on Amazon.

Army Still Sending Unfit Troops to Iraq

You may remember reading about the case of Staff Sgt. Bryce Syverson:

"Syverson, 27, had landed in the psychiatric unit at Walter Reed after a breakdown that doctors traced to his 15-month tour in Iraq as a gunner on a Bradley tank. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and was put on a suicide watch and antidepressants, according to his family. Today, Syverson is back in the combat zone, part of a quick-reaction force in Kuwait that could be summoned to Iraq at any time.

He got his deployment orders after being told he wasn't fit for duty.
He got his gun back after being told he was too unstable to carry a weapon."

Well it seems that the US army is still sending troops to Iraq that have been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Hartford Courant has the story of Damien Fernandez, who after being diagnosed with PTSD and rated 70% disabled by the US.

"When the FedEx letter from the Army arrived Nov. 28, he calmly told his mother and girlfriend, "I got my orders," staring hard at them with vacant eyes.

That night, he snapped. He told his girlfriend, Riella Darko, that he wanted to die and asked her to take him to the emergency room of St. Mary's Hospital, where he was placed on a suicide watch. He has since been transferred to a locked ward in the Northampton VA Medical Center in Massachusetts.

His callback orders have not yet been rescinded.

Fernandez is one of 8,262 soldiers who have left active duty but have been ordered back under a policy that allows the military to recall troops who have completed their service but have time remaining on their contracts. About 5,700 of those called up have already been mobilized, with Fernandez among about 2,500 ordered to report in the coming weeks."

Apparently, Fernandez is one of thousands of soldiers who have left active duty only to be ordered back under a policy that allows the military to recall troops who have any time remaining on their contract. On average a soldier will be on active duty for 2-6 years for an 8 year contract. Now it seems the US is pushing to get every minute possible out of soldiers, regardless of their condition.

Thanks to Mike over at Born at the Crest of the Empire for pointing me toward this article.

Good Reading

Since the amount of embedded reports has dropped to almost nil, it is no surprise that the main stream media is able to offer little in regards to the on-the-ground situation in Iraq. Fortunately, a great deal of soldiers have been actively writing about their experiences in Iraq, offering the public a unique window into the Iraqi conflict.

The Nation recently published a very interesting article written by Major Bill Edmonds, a US Army Special Forces Officer who served in Iraq for one year advising Iraqi intelligence officers. Maj. Edmonds laments the cultural divide that seperates Iraqis from US soldiers and is frsutrated by the latter's reluctance to even attempt to overcome it.

"I have come to realize that we isolate our soldiers from the societies in
which we operate. We airlift and sealift vacuum-sealed replicas of America to
remote corners of the world; once there, we isolate ourselves from the very
people we are trying to protect or win over."

He found that this lack of awareness was a huge contributing factor to the insurgency.

"'It is how you act," he [a captured Iraqi insurgent] says, 'and how
we are treated that makes me fight. For many Iraqis this anger at you is just an
excuse to kill for money or greed. But for most others, they truly feel they are
doing what is right. But you give them this excuse; the American military gives
them the excuse.' So now terrorist leaders pretending to be pious Iraqis target
this very common base anger, Iraqis fight and civilians raise their fists to
salute the Holy Fighter."

Make sure to read the entire article.

Soldiers are also well poised to analyzes the current situation in Iraq. In an article for CSIS, Lt. Col. Stephen Sklenka, USMC discusses the perils of withdrawal. Col. Sklenka argues that U.S. troops in Iraq are serving two very important purposes: (1) stemming the influence of Iran in Iraq and thereby forbidding Iran from become a regional hegemon and (2) preventing a genocide.

The former argument is more or less common these days; however, I haven't heard too many people using the term "genocide" yet. Though his analysis may seem a bit alarmist, Col. Sklenka's overall argument is quite persuasive. Here is an excerpt:

"In the quest for political and economic supremacy, there are strong indications
that Shi’a leaders are not just aiming for dominance over the Sunni, but rather,
full and complete subjugation of their traditional antagonists. The only
thing preventing fulfillment of their unspoken goal is the presence of US and
coalition forces. If those troops, serving in a de facto mediating
capacity, are removed from Iraq, the already high level of violence will
potentially rise to unspeakable levels of horror as Shi’a death squads assert
their newfound dominance. If the current rate of killing is occurring
while American forces are still in Iraq, one can only conclude that removal of
US forces from that country will be accompanied by an exponential increase in
violence. "

I have a bit of problem with this argument. I'm not sure whether it is fair to say in certain terms that removal of US forces will result in exponential increase in violence. Sure it is likely, but arguments that the presence of US troops incite a great deal of violence are not entirely without merit. Moving on:

In fact, it is not beyond reason to forecast those levels of violence
approaching, if not actually assuming, religio-genocidal proportions as Shi’a
seek to exterminate their Sunni adversaries. For those who dismiss the likelihood of sectarian violence reaching such an extreme, it is important to remember how the various groups in Iraq tend to view themselves.

Unlike their neighbors to the north who consider themselves Kurds first and then
Sunnis, the vast preponderance of Shi’a and Sunni identify with their sectarian
affiliations first and embrace their secular identities a distant second.
That distinction is important because it lays the foundation for understanding
the cultural-ethnic dynamics that have existed in the region for hundreds of
years, long before the concept of an Iraqi nation was articulated.