Silence

There is an odd state of silence after an operation in which more than 10 Al Qaeda insurgents and supporters were detained in our little section of central Diyala Province. The local nationals no longer ignore the Strykers as they drive by, but now look on with fear, respect, hatred, or appreciation. Either way, they look at us knowing that we can directly effect their lives in either a positive or negetive way - depending on whose side they are on.

While Counter Insurgency is indeed a battle for the hearts and minds, those hearts and minds must also be constantly reminded of what can happen if you support the bad guys... The Americans will drop the hammer on your ass.

The Catholic Priest

He curses, calls soldiers "dude" and "man", proudly admits to drinking heavily, looks about 30 years old, 85% bald, and sometimes forgets what he is saying mid-sentence. He is a Catholic Priest, Army Chaplain, and Army Officer - Captain to be exact. Not only is he a strange man, but he is actually interesting to listen to. If it were not for his "stories" that he manages to draw up mid-mass I would probably not have continued to go to his masses at random times on random days at our Combat Out Post (COP) here in Diyala Province.

A brief description of him might be called for here. He is about 6 foot tall, bald as I already mentioned, wears ACUs like you would expect an Army Officer to, weighs in around 240 or so and wears fairly thick glasses. One might actually take him seriously until he begins talking. I have been to 3-4 of his masses and he informed us (the 2-5 soldiers who attend) that it would be his last mass at our COP as he was redeploying to his home unit for a year before deploying again to spread his message of dudisms and drunken TRADOC adventures. I bet you could get some funny stories and moments out of a drunken Catholic Priest.

Thoughts

My favorite professor in college told me that terrorist cell organizations cannot be fully defeated due to their decentralized organization. He used the metaphor of trying to grasp a stream of water in your palm, you can try all you want but some of the water is always going to leak out.

I notice a lot of financially motivated "terrorism", not the ideological terrorism that I feel most of the western world imagines. Yea, there are the occasional religious fundamentalists who strap on the SVEST but my experience has shown me mostly frustrated young men who found a way they can "be somebody" and make their own money.

My last post describes and IED strike that happened a little while ago. I didn't have much to say about it, but I can say that soldiers and officers alike really do fall back on that annoying and repetitive training that we all go through a million times before we deploy.

There is no doubt that Coalition Forces and ISF have the upper hand in Diyala, however, it is ultimately the ISF that must hold the security gains and work with CF in pursuing what water is still dripping on the floor. I would truly enjoy mopping up what my professor seemed to be an impossible task.

Contact

The vehicle in front of you is now replaced with a 100 meter dust cloud and your ears feel like they were just slapped all at the same time. What do you do?

Platoon Photo

I know this is worth 1,000 words.4th PLT, I Co, 3/2 SCR (APR2008)
Diyala Province, Iraq

Flexibility

Detentions, broken sewage pipes, evidence collection, foreign nation military training, social events, and convoy commander all in one day. This is not some exaggeration of responsibilities. Today's Army Officer must be able to be a warrior, leader, politician, teacher, mentor, project manager, paperwork reviewer, planner, general problem solver, detective, friend, and law enforcer. Basically, life is a little more complicated than saying "execute battle drill 1A - go!"

Managing these micro-crises on a daily basis can either cause a man to develop a brain tumor of stress and anxiety or cause him to adapt and become Mr. Fix-it. There is also the gray area between these two extremes where I am currently sitting, swaying one way or the other depending on the day's disasters.

I hope to post photos soon in order to make the blog interesting for those non-readers out there, but if I don't then I don't. Currently reading "The Castle" by Kafka, only a few chapters deep - I will decide on my stance a little further into the novel.

Another Iraq War Blog? not quite

Deciding what to say in your first blog post is similar to deciding your first words when meeting an individual of some sort of significance, except the latter goes by in a flash while the former is corrected time and time again with the backspace key. I intend to discuss my military life, the deployment, my personal life and whatever else in this blog as more of an experiment than anything. If I am able, I will try to update frequently - but we all know how that can turn out.