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April 2007
Soldier and sheik like brothers against al-Qaida
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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| Louie Favorite/AJC |
| Lt. Col. Miciotto Johnson has found an ally in Sheik Ahmed al-Rishawi in Ramadi, Iraq. Many formerly suspicious locals have rallied to the U.S. side after enduring terrorist atrocities. • A path to peace |
Ramadi, Iraq — One man is an African-American who grew up in south Atlanta, graduated from Washington High School and joined the Army after college.
The other is a powerful Sunni sheik who reached adulthood in Ramadi and lived the bulk of his life under Saddam Hussein’s rule.
One lost eight of his soldiers in Tameem, a western Ramadi neighborhood where rocket-propelled grenades, improvised explosive devices and suicide bombings were part of the daily vocabulary.
The other lost his father and three brothers. They were assassinated by al-Qaida terrorists.
A friendship between the two men, both in their early 40s, would have been unimaginable a few months ago.
But Lt. Col. Miciotto Johnson and Sheik Ahmed al-Rishawi have learned to rely on each other to quell the insurgency in this part of the city. Though no one will openly admit it, it’s believed that the Anbar sheiks lent tacit support to insurgents operating in the restive province just west of Baghdad. But now Johnson, commander of the Army’s Task Force 1-77 Armor, makes himself at home on the sheik’s property.
A burly man in a tan Army fire-retardant jumper, Johnson plops down on an oversized couch in an upstairs office in al-Rishawi’s vast compound, as much at ease here as he is in his battalion headquarters down the road at Camp Ramadi.
That’s because last September, al-Rishawi’s younger brother, Sheik Sattar al-Rishawi, launched the “Anbar Awakening,” a movement to stop the extreme violence here. Since then, the al-Rishawi tribe has been America’s ally in the attempt to break al-Qaida’s firm grip.
This afternoon, the elder al-Rishawi greets his American friend.
“We are brothers,” al-Rishawi says. “We fight as one hand.”
Johnson’s battalion has been responsible for neighborhoods in western Ramadi including Tameem, where earlier this month a suicide bomber driving a truck laden with TNT and chlorine gas smashed into a police checkpoint, killing 12.
Task Force 1-77 has been working closely with the al-Rishawi sheiks to build up security.
Johnson says the sheiks’ cooperation has been key. Violent attacks in Tameem, as in the rest of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, have decreased significantly.
“A lot of times we say we want to capture hearts and minds,” Johnson says. “How can you capture hearts and minds if you don’t understand the people and what is important to them? The only thing you understand is what you want to achieve.”
Outside al-Rishawi’s mansion, tall date palms sway in brisk winds. Camels graze in a nearby pen. Security guards stroll the grounds carrying automatic rifles, and a U.S. tank sits outside the main gate.
Al-Rishawi’s assistants serve rounds of chai tea in gold-rimmed glasses. The Iraqi and the Georgian talk as though they have been lifelong friends. Though the sheik speaks some English, the two rely on a translator except for simple pleasantries.
Johnson depends on the al-Rishawi tribal leaders for information and cultural awareness. They have told him things, he says, that no counterinsurgency manual could ever teach.
A while ago, the sheiks pinpointed on a map a Tameem apartment building that harbored terrorists. They told Johnson that if he could control those apartments, he would own the entire area.
The sheiks were right.
“They helped me understand my operating space through Iraqi eyes,” he says.
One recent morning, before the sun has fully risen, 1-77 Armor assists Iraqi police in “Operation Kangaroo,” a land, air and water assault to clear an area south of Tameem known as al-Tash.
Once again, Johnson is relying on the sheik’s tip that insurgents have fled south from Tameem.
Johnson’s soldiers provide security as Iraqi police search houses, question residents and detain 30 suspects. The second phase of the mission aims to set up a joint American-Iraqi security station in al-Tash.
A palatial house belonging to a man arrested 18 months ago is tactically and geographically ideal. It was believed to be empty, but a woman related to the al-Tash mayor has moved in recently with her children.
Johnson must make a decision on whether to kick the woman out or look for another place. He needs sound advice so that he doesn’t end up angering residents and, most importantly, the mayor.
Johnson could call his brigade commander on the radio. Or seek out other officers — both American and Iraqi —in the area. But he reaches instead for his cellphone.
From the center of the battle space on the banks of Lake Habbaniyah, Johnson dials Ahmed al-Rishawi’s number. He respects the sheik enough to rely on him in mid-mission.
The U.S. military often touts its partnership with the Iraqis, but a relationship with this kind of depth is rarely seen. Al-Rishawi says his district would still be a butchering ground had the Anbar Awakening not opened the door to a new alliance with the Americans.
The people of Tameem, Al-Rishawi jokes, would elect Johnson police chief if an election were held today.
And to the people of Atlanta, the sheik asks: “Where did you guys come up with a hero like this?”
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Reports from Iraq
War the great equalizer in wide generation gap
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tal Afar, Iraq — “Don’t break your hip,” yells a soldier in formation as Christopher Avery, a corporal a minute ago, runs back to his platoon after his promotion to sergeant.
Laughter roars through the rows of Company H, 121st Infantry (ABN) (LRS) soldiers. It’s another Avery joke, poking fun at the 42-year-old’s age.
“It’s OK,” Avery says. “I’m used to it.”
He is used to watching young infantrymen listen to hard-core metal and hip-hop. He is used to seeing soldiers who are almost as young as his own son slurp down sodas and play video games during their down time.
• Video:See Avery on the sniper range
It’s not unusual to find a wide range of ages in one company, especially in the Army National Guard. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have drawn heavily from the nation’s citizen soldiers, many of whom have done multiple combat tours. Guard units are typically more diverse than ones in the regular Army.
When Avery walks into teammate Spc. Marcus Hunter’s room, which he shares with two others, he is reminded of a college dorm. Hunter was only 17 when he reported for training with Company H last summer.
“They’re all on their beds with their laptops,” Avery says. “How can you sit in front of an electronic game for hours?”
Avery sounds like the disapproving parent, but here in the Army, you learn to live with differences. War is the great equalizer.
In his younger days, Avery was in the Marine Corps and served during the Gulf War. He quit the military but rejoined the National Guard in 2005, two years into the Iraq war. “I kind of think that it’s a civic and moral obligation to serve your country,” he says.
Generational gaps fall away instantly on the battlefield, where young and old face the same danger. When Company H rolls out of the gates at Forward Operating Base Sykes, Avery sees Hunter not as a teen but as a fellow soldier watching his back.
But when the mission is over, Avery returns to the quiet of his own space. He prefers to warm his throat with his specially brewed coffee and listen to Guns N’ Roses, Boston and other bands that saw their heyday before some of his Army compatriots were even born.
“They operate on a different wavelength,” Avery says of his platoon mates. “They have great hand-eye coordination from playing all those video games, but some of these kids have never read a book.”
Avery, meanwhile, has used his spare time in Iraq to write his own book. He won’t reveal the title but says it’s about leadership traits. It draws heavily from what he has seen of his commanding officers out in the field.
When Company H was called up last year, Avery was living in Newnan and working as a pilot and training manager for Atlantic Southeast Airlines. He was accustomed to a comfortable paycheck that supported expensive hobbies.
He owns 40 guns in a collection that includes an M-14 rifle built specifically for him and a Winchester Model 94 that his father gave him for Christmas when he was 14.
Avery’s salary plummeted by $8,500 a month once Company H reported for full-time Army duty.
He was forced to sell the Pitts S2B high-performance aerobatics plane he had just purchased. He stood and watched the new owner fly his plane away.
“That’s when it really hit home — the financial blistering I was in for,” Avery says. “But there’s a lot more things in life that are more important than money. One of them is how you feel about yourself.”
The younger men in 2nd platoon look to Avery for guidance, however “eccentric” they think his habits are.
Hunter dropped out of school in the eighth grade and earned a GED years later through an Army youth program at Fort Stewart. Here in northern Iraq, Avery teaches the shy, quiet kid from Ellenwood how to shoot his machine gun — and about life.
They are both gunners who spend long hours standing in the turret of a Humvee.
Hunter watches the expert sniper in action. He follows him to the firing range to master techniques.
Hunter, who just got his driver’s license while on his two-week leave from Iraq, says he has grown up. Part of that has been under Avery’s wing.
Avery disciplines himself so that he can keep up with the younger breed. When word of mobilization came down, Avery worried whether he was up for the physically demanding life of an infantryman.
His fiancée, Tammy, a fitness instructor, writes programs for him to follow at the gym on the base. He tries to get himself into bed by 9 or 10 every night. He wakes up at 4:30, when it’s still dark. He sometimes goes for a morning jog with Company H commander Capt. Kenneth Hutnick, who is the same age as Avery.
Hunter chows down on a bacon cheeseburger every day at the dining facility. Avery watches what he eats. And bears the brunt of more jokes.
“It’s not just a generational gap. It’s two generations,” a soldier teases him during dinner.
“I take a lot of crap about my age,” Avery says, “but I’ll run with anyone in this platoon and smoke ‘em.”
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| Louie Favorite/AJC |
| When Company H rolls out of the gates at Forward Operating Base Sykes, Sgt. Christopher Avery, 42, sees Spc. Marcus Hunter not as a teen but as a fellow soldier watching his back. |
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Reports from Iraq
A path to peace
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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| Louie Favorite/AJC |
| Sheik Jassim Saleh Mohammed stands in the burned-out home of his brother, who was killed by insurgents. • More photos from Ramadi |
Ramadi, Iraq — One afternoon last November, masked men raided the compound of houses belonging to Sheik Jassim Saleh Mohammed.
The intruders held an AK-47 rifle against the throat of Mohammed’s wife. They burned two houses. They killed 17 women and children. They killed his brother.
Overwhelmed by the carnage, the sheik uttered one word: “Enough.”
“I call it a decisive day,” Mohammed says, sitting on the front porch of his house overlooking a small lawn, pink roses and the charred ruins of his brother’s house. “After what they did to my family, I had enough.”
Mohammed was the first sheik in eastern Ramadi to turn against insurgents linked to al-Qaida in Mesopotamia. Today, he is part of a burgeoning movement of powerful Sunni tribal leaders who might have tacitly supported al-Qaida in the past but are fed up with the extreme violence. More than 40 sheiks have joined in a united front against both the insurgency — which they say uses Islam as the rationale for slaughtering women and children — and a perceived threat from Shiite Iran to the east. And they are cooperating with the Americans.
The sheiks call it the “Anbar Awakening.”
They wield considerable influence in the heavily tribal Anbar province that stretches west from Baghdad to Iraq’s borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Col. John Charlton, the overall American commander here, says the sheiks’ support has allowed U.S. troops to raid restive neighborhoods, purge insurgents and set up American-Iraqi police stations throughout Ramadi, where the police force had been all but wiped out.
“The sheiks in this part of the world are the conduit to the community,” says Charlton, who heads the Fort Stewart-based 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, responsible for Ramadi since January.
“I could speak to all 400,000 people in Ramadi and have no impact,” Charlton says. “But if a sheik puts his arm around me, it’s a different story.”
Building relationships with community leaders has been a key facet of U.S. counterinsurgency tactics in Iraq. Part of the much-heralded security push that began Feb. 14 in Baghdad put American forces in the neighborhoods they patrol instead of returning to isolated military bases.
The strategy appears to be paying off here in Ramadi, where U.S. troops live in makeshift compounds throughout the city helping the Iraqi Army and police keep the calm.
Signs of normalcy have started emerging in Ramadi, until recently a ghost town. A man sells produce at a roadside stall. Laughing children walk down the street behind a woman who smiles and says “welcome” to passing American soldiers.
Lt. Col. Miciotto Johnson, an Atlantan who commands one of Charlton’s battalions, Task Force 1-77 Armor, says Ramadi is a tale of two cities — one where bloodshed was as routine as sunrise, the other where guns have almost fallen silent.
———————
The Iraqis say if you throw your hat into the air in Ramadi, it will come down with 12 bullet holes in it.
A drive down the main east-west road that runs parallel to the Euphrates River conjures images of Hiroshima after the atom bomb. Not a single building stands unmarked. A fifth-floor balcony crashed to the sidewalk. Gnarled metal gates resembling Twizzler sticks. Carcasses of blown-up cars. Shattered glass. Trash everywhere. Facades of what were once apartments, offices and shops riddled with bullet holes. “Swiss cheese,” as the soldiers call it.
Saddam Hussein’s troops and U.S. forces fought fierce battles here during the 2003 invasion. When the United States disbanded Saddam’s military, many of the disgruntled men came home to Ramadi.
Anda Khalaf, a colonel in the former Iraqi Army, says the insurgency was imported to Iraq by foreigners but mushroomed here because so many men were sitting at home, jobless and angry. Last year, half the terrorist attacks in Iraq occurred in Ramadi.
The city has been al-Qaida’s haven and America’s hell on earth — the ugly, beating heart of the insurgency.
———————
The Americans believe democracy will help return this city to its people.
On a balmy April morning, Mohammed, the sheik from eastern Ramadi, heads to a district meeting. He is the leading candidate in an election to choose the district of Sufia’s representative on the Ramadi city council.
Mohammed wears the traditional dress for Arab men — a pressed white dishdasha covered in a sheer black muslin robe with gold brocade trim. He is a simple man, a farmer who is not well educated. But he is smart enough to recognize his weaknesses and surrounds himself with polished men in suits and ties.
American military officers are at the meeting to ensure Sufia’s first act of democracy is unblemished. Mohammed enters a two-story building where two U.S. infantrymen were killed in a recent firefight and where, today, local ballots will be cast. In a show of good faith, American soldiers and Marines around the building remove their body armor and helmets. Standing unprotected on the street, they appear uneasy.
But there is no gunfire today. People are not giving the Americans the “evil eye,” a term soldiers use for glances that say: Get out.
“I am in shock,” says Sgt. 1st Class Thomas Dougherty of the more tolerant atmosphere.
Inside the building, the voting comes to a close. Mohammed, who heads the sizable al-Soda tribe, wins by a large margin. The Iraqis then serve lunch on long folding tables outside the meeting hall.
Capt. Jamey Gadoury, commander of 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment’s Charlie Company, shares lamb and rice with Sufia’s community leaders and members of the Iraqi police.
There are three ways to deal with insurgents, he says, tearing a piece of bread and scooping up a chunk of meat. “You either want to kill them, make them go away or get them on your side.”
When asked what happened to the insurgents in Sufia, Gadoury stops chewing his food and grins.
“You’re eating with them,” he says.
———————
What Gadoury means is that some Iraqis who planted bombs and pointed rifles at the Americans just a month ago now have switched sides.
Yet with that welcome change comes uncertainty: There’s no easy way to tell good from bad.
The police often don’t wear uniforms. They cover their heads and faces with rags, sling AK-47s on their shoulders and ride in the back of pickup trucks. They look disquietingly like insurgents.
Ramadi’s ferocious fighting nearly wiped out the police force — its numbers dwindled to 35 a year ago. Today, Johnson, the 1-77 Armor commander, says 4,500 police patrol the city through nine permanent stations and many more substations.
Red squares and triangles on a U.S. military map indicate security posts throughout the city. A few months ago, the map was nearly void of the shapes. Now it is covered in them.
———————
Every American soldier who has patrolled Ramadi’s streets knows how to predict danger.
“Even if people don’t tell you anything, their body language does,” says 1st. Lt. Curt Daniels of 1-9 Infantry’s Able Company.
Daniels leads his platoon through Melaab, a neighborhood known as “the heart of darkness.”
When residents are asked what it was like here before the recent calm, they glide their right index finger across their throats. The insurgents brazenly beheaded people in public and distributed videos of the executions.
Daniels walks over a road where patches cover craters created by improvised explosive devices. The Americans recently found 15 IEDs and 2,500 pounds of explosives in Melaab.
In January, Ramadi suffered about 140 violent attacks a week. By the end of March, it dropped to a little over 60.
Daniels says insurgents are “laying low now” after the sheiks cleared the way for security forces to saturate neighborhoods.
“There’s no way you are going to kill or capture every insurgent,” he says, surveying the neighborhood from the rooftop of a police station, the sound of gunfire echoing in the distance. Then Daniels takes a line straight out of the Army’s counterinsurgency manual: “As soon as you win the faith of the people, the insurgents go away.”
Johnson, the 1-77 commander, says the peace will not hold in Ramadi unless local forces take control.
“They see my soldiers as just that — soldiers,” he says. “The populace trusts the Iraqi police. These are their fathers and brothers, uncles and cousins.”
If anyone can sniff out bad from good, Johnson says, it’s the local police.
———————
The day after his election, Mohammed, the sheik from Sufia, arrives at a joint Iraqi-American camp in central Ramadi for his first city council meeting.
He clutches a gray file filled with notes and says he already has started thinking of reconstruction projects.
Outside, the skies are ominous. It has been rained intermittently, but that’s enough to flood this city without any infrastructure. Mohammed wipes the mud off his leather loafers. He adjusts the white kufiya on his head and appeals to Ramadi Mayor Latif Obaid Eiada.
“We need many things,” Mohammed says.
Every district representative echoes Mohammed’s statements. Everyone is impatient.
Charlton, the brigade commander, attempts to soothe the crowd. He knows that the 15 months his brigade spends here will only be the start of an arduous process.
“This is probably the most damaged city in Iraq,” he says. “I’ll bet my paycheck on that. It’s going to take years to put it back together.”
Charlton promises the Ramadi council that U.S. forces will support its reconstruction priorities.
Realizing the fragility of the fledgling council, he implores them to keep on the right path. “We’ve worked too hard to let terrorists back into the community,” he says.
Mohammed nods in agreement. He has paid the price for peace.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Reports from Iraq
Bullets, Braves and boiled peanuts
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| Cpl. Michael NeSmith of 1st Battalion, 6th Marines walking back to the 17th Street security station in the Jumaiyah neighborhood of Ramadi. |
Ramadi, Iraq - Cpl. Michael NeSmith, 33, a former lineman with Albany Water, Gas & Light, joined the U.S. Marine Corps three years ago. So did Lance Cpl. Clinton Fort, 22, of Marietta.
The two went through basic training together and did a tour in Fallujah in 2005. Last fall they arrived in Ramadi, then Iraq’s most dangerous city, with 1st Battalion, 6th Marines.
Here in central Ramadi, the two Georgians share space with the rest of Alpha Company and a host of Iraqi security forces in a multi-story building that used to be a school at one time.
The idea is for the Americans to live among the people. The 17th Street security station is in the middle of the Jumaiyah neighborhood, where, until a few weeks ago, the sound of gunfire, mortars and makeshift bombs reverberated daily.
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| Cpl. Michael NeSmith, 33, of Albany, and Lance Cpl. Clinton Fort, 22, of Marietta. |
The concrete is crumbling off the walls. The broken staircase leading to the roof is precarious in parts. The hallways are a haze of dust. The dining room resembles a Vietnam-era mess tent - dark, dingy and devoid of hot food found in the chow halls at big U.S. military bases.
The Marines sleep in proper rooms, but they are crowded - 10 to 12 guys on bunk beds. No room for footlockers or tables or anything, really, but you, your rucksack and a pillow.
There’s no running water in the building, which means no showers or bathrooms. There aren’t even port-a-johns here. The Marines use disposable WAG bags,” dry toilet waste bags with Pooh Powder that works sort of like kitty litter.
It’s down to the basics for the Marines and soldiers who occupy these security stations throughout Ramadi. But that’s how it should be, they say, when you are at war.
An Army platoon sergeant once described Baghdad’s sprawling Camp Victory complex — with amenities like beauty salons, Pizza Huts and a swimming pool — as Disneyland. He said infantrymen should live like the grunts that they are in a combat zone; that a place like Liberty gave Iraq a surreal quality.
Ramadi’s 17th Street security station never lets anyone forget that the war is here. And now.
NeSmith and Fort say the living conditions are rough but being in the thick of the battle helped them win the trust of the local people.
“It’s letting them know we’re here to help,” NeSmith says. “The people are beginning to stand up for themselves.”
NeSmith and Fort talk about home with each other to keep sane - boiled peanuts, hunting, the Braves.
Alpha Company has a handful of Georgians who bear the brunt of jokes sometimes from their fellow Yankee Marines.
NeSmith, for instance, has to suppress the urge to say, “y’all.”
Navy Hospital Corpsman Tristan McCauley of Riverdale shakes his head in disapproval.
“Somebody show Georgia some love,” says the medic attached to Alpha Company, “‘cause we don’t get enough of it here.
“Georgia - it’s the Empire State of the South.”
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| Medic Tristan McCauley, 22, in the room he shares at the 17th Street security station. |
Permalink | | Categories: Moni Basu
Love and war: ‘Will you wait for me?’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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| Elissa Eubanks / AJC |
| Nicole Lopez, who works at a Kennesaw restaurant, talks almost daily with her boyfriend, Spc. John Giunta, who is stationed in Iraq. |
Sitting across from him at the restaurant, she’d sensed he was gathering courage to ask a question.
He’d gotten past the preamble, and what a preamble it was: I’m going to Iraq. Then, stumbling some, he dove in:
Will you wait for me?
The average American soldier in Iraq is between 20 and 24 years old.
Spc. John Giunta is 21.
His girlfriend, Nicole Lopez, is 19.
At 19, you wait — especially if you believe he’s the one.
Giunta, of Company H, 121st Infantry, asked Lopez to wait about a year ago. Now, describing that night at the restaurant, Lopez’s hands move as she remembered his did. The timbre of her voice matches the memory of how his trembled. Her brown eyes sparkle, a perpetual blush colors her smooth round face. She shows off her trendy Guess purse, where she has stitched one of his National Guard nameplates, perfectly centered on the leather: “Giunta.”
The sight of it makes her grin.
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| Elissa Eubanks / AJC |
| Lopez has stitched one of Giunta’s National Guard nameplates on her purse. |
She first met Giunta at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Their paths, quite literally, crossed as she was catching a flight to visit family in New Orleans and he was going to visit family in Boston. She was 18, petite and pretty; he was 19 and handsome. For 30 minutes they gazed at each other and talked in the concourse. Before his plane took off, Lopez got a text message from him telling her she was the most gorgeous girl he’d ever seen. They called each other every day. When they returned to Atlanta, they went out on their first date.
Then about three months into their relationship, he asked her to wait. A year might go by quicker than they imagined. His National Guard deployment ceremony was on her 19th birthday.
It’s obvious to Lopez that they’ll be together forever. So it kind of grates when people ask why she’s waiting for a guy at war. And her friends do ask.
They want to know why she won’t go party with them after classes or work. Or why she doesn’t just find someone who is here, who is less likely to be in harm’s way. Lopez says their families think they are just too young.
“Look, they are sending 18-year-olds over there and he’s 21, so he’s a man,” Lopez begins. “He went to war and now he’s risking his life. So I think he can date. And yeah, people say, ‘you could have any guy.’ Well, I don’t want any guy. He is just wonderful and he’s so nice to me and if you heard us on the phone you’d think we’d been together years. We know so much about each other already, and we know where we’re going and if we can make it through this year then we’re gonna be stronger than any couple we know.”
She says he calls her almost every day, and they talk for as long as they can. Her mother has said that as long as her daughter goes to college she’ll foot some of Lopez’s expenses. But this deployment has run Lopez’s cellphone bill up to $800 a month. Her job at a Kennesaw restaurant just pays her other bills.
But she has to take his calls whenever they come. They are her “sanity calls,” and she figures they are his, too. He vents if he needs to, or shares a laugh. If he’s scared, he doesn’t usually tell her, but she can hear it in his voice. It makes her worry. Like when he came back to Atlanta for his two-week break the day after Christmas. He wasn’t too talkative. In the car with her, he flinched if he saw something in the street. The roads in Iraq are studded with makeshift bombs.
She tried to make things as normal as possible for him. That meant taking a grand total of 467 pictures of the two of them together.
She is hopeful he’ll be home for good by the end of summer. But circumstances change swiftly. There aren’t any safe spots in Iraq, and Tal Afar seemed like one of the less risky. Giunta is stationed there. Last week his base rumbled from the impact of a nearby suicide bomb. Once she learned about it, Lopez held her breath and her cellphone. When Giunta did call, she heard that thing in his voice again.
After a while Lopez stopped pressing him with pleas of “what’s wrong?” He wouldn’t say. So she shifted to future tense, talking of what will be.
They will both go to North Georgia College & State University in Dahlonega. Lopez is moving their things up there and getting an apartment they can share.
She already has bought a strappy red dress to wear to the Paratroopers’ Ball next January.
All they have to do is make it through the next few months.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Reports from the Homefront
Troops push Iraqis to grasp security mission
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Louie Favorite / Staff
Iraqi Border Patrol and Iraqi Army leaving the border patrol station near Sununi on a mission to retrieve weapons taken home by border patrol who have left their jobs.
Tal Afar, Iraq — A suicide truck bomber kills 152 people in a Shiite neighborhood. Later that night, 47 Sunni men are executed as payback. Among the gunmen are Shiite police.
• Photos: See more from Tal Afar
In the tense days that follow, U.S. Capt. Todd Hopkins and his commander visit the office of Staff Gen. Ibrahim al-Jibouri, the Iraqi police commander installed after the night of madness. The previous chief simply walked away from the job.
Al-Jibouri knows why the Americans have come.
“I’m going to bring up a touchy subject,” Hopkins says. “I need to know how the investigations are going for the civilians who were killed.”
The police involvement in the reprisal murders is a big setback for Hopkins and his Florida Army National Guard company that has been training Iraqi police in western Ninevah province for eight months. Hopkins must ensure that the Shiite-dominated police force does everything in its power to quickly heal the wounds.
Al-Jibouri assures Hopkins that a committee has been formed to look into the shooting rampage. He says several suspects have been detained. A few bad men have tarnished the reputation of his force.
“Whoever is convicted will be sent to jail,” he tells Hopkins.
“That’s exactly how it needs to be, saidi,” Hopkins says, using the Arabic word for sir.
“The citizens of Tal Afar need to understand whoever does wrong will be judged.”
No one has the answers on how to keep security forces clean of sectarian influences. Or how to gain the trust of civilians — and each other.
No police officer, the American soldiers tell the beleaguered Iraqi commander, can take the law into his own hands.
Words, however, don’t always change attitudes. Yet today, words are all Hopkins has.
A vital link
Men like Hopkins are a critical component for America’s exit strategy from Iraq. The U.S. military has first to find a way to stop the violence and then make sure that the Iraqis will be able to keep the peace after the Americans leave.
It’s an easy concept to grasp, says Hopkins, but an immensely difficult one to execute.
U.S. soldiers as well as Iraqi leaders trace part of the problem back to Order No. 2, issued by the Coalitional Provisional Authority on May 23, 2003. It disbanded the Iraqi military. Those who wore the uniform under Saddam Hussein were sent home, without pay.
The consequences of Order No. 2 are hotly debated — some argue Iraq’s insecurity blossomed because of it. What’s certain is that the U.S. military had to build a local security force from scratch in the middle of a complex conflict.
In 2004, the U.S. Army began designating transition teams solely charged with training and advising the Iraqis. About 5,000 U.S. soldiers are currently in that role in Iraq. Maj. Daniel Rice is one of them.
Rice, born and raised in Atlanta, arrived in Iraq only weeks ago after a 60-day course at Fort Riley, Kan. One of his goals is to teach the Iraqi Border Patrol how to work alongside the Iraqi army and local police — and how to trust one another.
In Ninevah, the Iraqi army has roughly 7,000 soldiers; the border patrol has another 2,000. The police force has about 4,000 men. Together, they must battle insurgents and block border smuggling in an ethnically mixed part of Iraq near Syria.
Will confiscate AK-47s
On a recent day, Rice and his team drive to a border patrol compound near the base of the Sinjar Mountains. It’s not uncommon for members of the border patrol to abandon their jobs without turning in their weapons. Today, Rice wants the commanders to confiscate missing AK-47 rifles.
Rice wants the border patrol to work with Ziad Lahso, a young Iraqi army lieutenant, and a handful of Iraqi soldiers. Even though they have been notified beforehand about the mission, the border squad is not ready to roll. Rice says he finds the Iraqis lack motivation and discipline.
“If we show up, then they do their job,” he says. But he also understands Iraqi frustration. “We know we will have all we need for a mission — fuel, equipment, protection,” Rice says. “They don’t.”
Eventually, the Iraqis pile into the bed of a pickup truck, their faces covered by ski masks for fear of identification. Rice’s team follows them as they race through terraced hillsides to small-town police stations.
Rice knows it’s overkill to have so many men engaged in what is a simple mission. But it forces the Iraqi security forces to work together.
“The citizens here see U.S. Army, the IA, IBP and IP together,” Rice says, using common abbreviations for Iraqi army, Iraqi Border Patrol and Iraqi police. “It adds legitimacy.”
The Iraqis round up four AK-47s and ammunition at the targeted houses.
“Getting the weapons is nice, but that’s not what this is about today,” Rice says.
Gen. Sattam Saleh of the border patrol predicts it will be at least two years before the Iraqis can do the job alone.
Rice doesn’t “have any illusions that it’s going to happen overnight.” He just wants to set an example for his Iraqi counterparts. If he can influence one or two men “to do the right thing,” he will be satisfied.
Rice was an Army aviator who did a tour in Iraq in 2003 with the 101st Airborne Division. Back then, the U.S. military was the sole authority here. It’s encouraging, he says, to see Iraqis start taking control.
In western Ninevah province, the security forces are a ragtag army put together with hand-me-down uniforms and weapons. Police walk about Tal Afar, the largest town in this district, in sandals.
In his meeting with Hopkins, al-Jibouri lodges his complaints. He needs heavier machine guns, bomb-detection devices, body armor and even helmets for his men.
“The [government] system is completely broken,” Hopkins says. “If we leave now, logistically, they will be shut down in 30 to 60 days.”
Lt. Col. Malcolm Frost, the commander of 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, which is in charge of this region, says Americans back home mistakenly think “we can instantly change Iraq.”
“These people lived under a centrist, socialist system for decades,” he says. “For us, it’s easy — we wire money, we write checks. Here, it’s a cash-based society. It’s taking time to build the right bureaucracy.”
A teaching mission
In his time here, Hopkins has tried to make the Iraqis understand a method of law enforcement absent under Hussein’s authoritarian rule. The classes the Americans teach focus on community policing — emphasizing that police are here to serve the people, not control them. The officers are encouraged to get out of their vehicles and talk to residents, not just drive by brandishing weapons.
Al-Jibouri tells Hopkins he would like Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to visit Tal Afar. “I have a lot of needs. I have a list,” he says.
The frustration in al-Jibouri’s voice is apparent. He tells the Americans that he will do all he can to clean up his police force. But how do you keep a man — be it a police officer or schoolteacher — from being honest one day and an insurgent the next when there is so much unemployment?
A man will take $100 to provide information to the bad guys, al-Jibouri explains. Then the insurgents go back and give him $200 to buy weapons. Eventually, they entice him with $1,000 to plant an improvised explosive device.
The Americans have no good reply for al-Jibouri.
Frost acknowledges the challenge of establishing long-term security in Iraq goes beyond the army and the police to addressing poverty and discontent.
“The key is reconstruction,” Frost says. “And that takes a lot of time and a lot of money.
“We cannot leave Tal Afar and western Ninevah until there is irreversible momentum on the path to long-term security. What does that look like, smell like, feel like? I cannot tell you. But I’ll know when it happens.”
U.S. soldiers believe trust is what holds an army together.
Al-Jibouri says it’s the greatest lesson the Americans have imparted.
In Tal Afar, that fragile trust was shattered by recent violence, making the road ahead that much more difficult.
Hopkins shakes al-Jibouri’s hand. The young officer from Mount Dora, Fla., assures the Iraqi police commander that he has faith in him.
Tal Afar will get better, Hopkins tells him. Then the American utters a common phrase here: “Inshallah.”
It means “God willing.”
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Reports from Iraq
Can you help provide for our adopted village?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My husband’s unit, Company H, 121st Infantry, has adopted Shababit village in Iraq. Here in the States, we are collecting clothing, school supplies, sporting goods and toys for shipment and distribution to the village.
A citywide collection effort, which we call Operation Schoolhouse Iraq, will be held from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. April 29 in the Fellowship Hall at Peachtree Road Methodist Church, which has a turnaround for drop-offs. The church is at 3180 Peachtree Rd. NW, Atlanta, 30305
Volunteers will be on hand to unload/sort/pack supplies. I hope you can find the time to help us with donations.
Here are some of the questions you might have:
Can I donate used shoes and clothing? Yes, we will gladly accept gently used clothing.
What items are needed most? Children’s shoes, children’s clothing, school supplies.
Are seasonal clothes needed? Yes, there are both winter and summer seasons in Iraq.
What kind of school supplies are needed? Basic supplies include notebooks, pens, pencils, paper, erasers, chalk, etc.
What ages are the children? There are all ages in the village, but the school age children are 5 to 12 years old.
How are the items shipped? Through the Postal Service. Average shipping cost is $15/box @ parcel post rate.
Who pays for shipping? Our small group of volunteers pays for the shipping through donations.
Can I donate money? Yes, monetary donations will be used for shipping the items.
To whom should checks be made payable? Peachtree Road Methodist Church, make a note on the check that it is for Operation Schoolhouse Iraq.
Are donations tax deductible? Yes, forms will be provided to donors for their tax purposes.
For additional questions, please email iraqidonations@gmail.com.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Andie Heffernan
To the heart of darkness
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| Staff Sgt. Adam Troxel, of Acworth, in his quarters at Camp Corregidor in Ramadi. |
Ramadi, Iraq - It’s not easy to travel to the heart of an insurgency.
In more peaceful times, Ramadi, the capital of al-Anbar province is about eight hours drive from Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq. But in the middle of a war, it took us three days. By air.
From Tal Afar, photographer Louie Favorite and I flew to Camp Anaconda in Balad to stay overnight. On Easter afternoon, a C-130 ferried us west to al-Asad and then back east to al-Taqaddum, where we spent another night and a full day. We finally got on a helicopter and landed at Camp Ramadi on Tuesday morning.
Normally, the journey might have been an adventure. But I was anxious about going to Ramadi, once dubbed the most dangerous city in the world.
This city of about 400,000 is on the banks of the Euphrates River and is the capital of heavily Sunni al-Anbar province. The terrorist group al-Qaida in Mesopotamia also claimed Ramadi as its capital.
“You’re going to Ramadi? What? Why would you voluntarily want to go there?”
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| Some of the ruins of Ramadi. |
That was a common reaction when I told soldiers of our plans to embed with the Third Infantry Division, based at Georgia’s Fort Stewart.
So at each stop in our journey, I lay awake in my sleeping bag wondering what I would see in Ramadi. I had not been there since 2003 when I passed through on the way from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad. The fighting here in the initial invasion had been fierce. Ramadi never settled down.
I’d heard that the situation had improved considerably in the last few weeks. Still, it was Ramadi where car bombs and improvised explosive devices had become as much a part of the urban landscape as telephone poles and electrical lines.
The choppers dropped us off on the landing pad in the absolute darkness of night. We were shuttled to a row of wooden huts that house transients on the camp.
After a few hours of sleep, we collected our things and climbed into the hatch of a M1A1 Abrams tank for a 20-minute ride to Camp Corregidor. The barrel of the tank said “Customer Service.” Staff Sgt, Michael Widelko of the 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment said the crew often gives “taxi rides” to people between Ramadi and Corregidor. Thus, the name.
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| The barrel of the tank says “Customer Service.” |
There wasn’t anything else in the world I would have rather been transported in but a massive, seemingly impenetrable tank. At least not for my first ride through Ramadi.
During our first few days of travel, we drove in and out of Corregidor, headquarters of 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, which falls under 3rd ID here.
The battalion’s intelligence shop is managed in part by a Staff Sgt. Adam Troxel, 40, of Acworth. Troxel was an Acworth police officer for 11 years and served in the Georgia Army National Guard for a number of years. He was in Company H, 121st Infantry (ABN) (LRS) from 1993 to 1996 and again in 2005.
I told him about some of our experiences with Company H during my five weeks with the long-range surveillance unit in Tal Afar and along the Syrian border. Troxel told me about his wife, Holly, and his three children and offered me Girl Scout cookies from a massive box that his daughter Kyla, 9, sent him.
Troxel has been in Ramadi since October. He manages the temporary holding facility at the camp and assists with evidence handling and seized weapons. On his wall is a M1919 Browning, a .30 cal machine gun manufactured at the GM plant in Saginaw, Mich. It was the weapon of choice in World War II. This one was seized with a 200-round belt of ammunition when soldiers found a weapons cache.
Troxel keeps it in his room as a trophy. He’s a fan of antique weapons and this Browning is in mint condition. Troxel guesses it was given to the Iraqis when relations between the United States and Iraq were warm.
Our conversation about Atlanta was over a good, strong cup of coffee and centered on the Olympics and traffic woes. I forgot that I was in Ramadi. The images of the day — of bloodshed and despair — were gone. If just for that moment.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Moni Basu, Reports from Iraq
Searching for a piece of the puzzle
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Al-Sahl, Iraq - Even though they have been out all night scoping out the Syrian border, the Georgia soldiers wake at the crack of dawn.
They know if they get to al-Sahl too late, all the men in the village will be gone from home.
Most of the villagers here make a living herding sheep or trading goods, a suspect business so close to the border. Here smuggled fuel, cigarettes and weaponry go from one nation to another with a hop over a sand berm.
• Photos: U.S. soldiers question villagers
The men of 2nd platoon, Company H, 121st Infantry (ABN) (LRS) surround the village. Staff Sgt. Brett Paul begins walking from mud hut to mud hut, asking the men questions.
In this random war pulled in every direction by sectarian allegiances, religious fanatics and anti-American sentiment, the only way to stop senseless brutality is by getting to the triggerman before he unleashes his wrath.
In poor towns and villages in this part of Iraq, an innocent man can easily turn to violent acts for a few extra bucks in his pocket.
“We never get concrete information but generally we get a piece of the puzzle,” Paul says. “The biggest benefit to walking in like this is that it gives Iraqis a platform to speak.”
But this also a war driven by extreme fear.
Every Iraqi knows that talking to an American one day can mean death the next.
Two people lingering at a doorway begin walking away from Paul. A woman shuts the metal gate to her compound.
“Have you ever seen outsiders here?” Paul asks Mohammed Chanchan.
“La, la, la!” he exclaims uttering the word for ‘no’ in Arabic. “There is no one from Syria or any other country here.”
The man is a little too eager. Paul has a hard time believing him.
His father, Nashmi Mohammed Abid, has the same answers.
“Maku,” he says, meaning nothing. He has never seen outsiders. There is nothing here, he says.
Paul snaps a photo of Abid and the five tattooed dots on his left hand. They are tribal identifiers.
The next few interviews reap the same results. No one knows anything about smuggled goods or people who have crossed the border illegally.
Company H soldiers routinely performs “assessments” in the Iraqi villages that are situated in the border region.
They won’t talk about all the techniques they use to gather intelligence on activities; some, they say, are “classified.” At one village, reporters were forbidden to accompany the soldiers. Meetings were held behind closed doors. An American interpreter of Lebanese descent who has classified clearance from the Defense department accompanies Company H soldiers into such meetings.
But often, the assessments entail patrol leaders talking to the mayor and going door to door. One could call it grassroots intelligence.
At al-Sahl, Paul tries to talk with as many people as he can.
The dirt paths are lined with simple mud houses. There is no electricity of running water here. The packs of mangy dogs surround the Georgian soldiers and begin to growl. The sheep and donkeys grow restless in their pens.
“I’m beginning to tick everybody off, aren’t I?” Paul says.
He takes a photo of a white Opel Omega parked under a thatched roof. License plate: Mosul, 288373. The car looks out of place in the village. Paul and his men will keep watch for that number.
“Who owns the horse?” Paul asks at another household. He is curious because he has seen horses on the border. They are too fast for soldiers to catch on foot on the sand berms. “It’s natural to suspect everyone,” Paul says about poor Iraqis trying to supplement their meager incomes. “That’s how these guys make a living.”
The soldiers cannot afford to stay in one village too long. Their security could be threatened.
Paul rounds up his soldiers and heads out. As always, the children run to the Humvees.
“All the children here are so cute,” Paul says. “It’s only when they grow up.”
Permalink | | Categories: Moni Basu, Reports from Iraq
Comfort food in Balad
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| Cafe owner Sami Atilan greets each customer with a wide smile. |
Balad, Iraq — The Saddam Hussein-era building sits just behind the cinema hall at the sprawling air base here. It was once supposed to house a Popeye’s Fried Chicken and one end is wall-papered in bright reds, oranges and blues, depicting the jazz scene of the Crescent City.
No one here knew why the New Orleans-style fried chicken chain bailed. But for two years the building at Camp Anaconda sat empty save the pigeons who roosted inside. It fell into disrepair; the walls and floors were caked with filth.
The muraled wall stands out now not just for its gaudy hues. The rest of the building’s interior is decorated with woven Turkish Kilims and oversized platters made from hammered brass and copper.
The man behind the cashier counter, owner Sami Atilan, is always busy. But he takes time to greet each customer with a wide smile as if to say, “Welcome to Sami’s.”
Sami’s Turkish Café opened in Balad in January. Without advertisement or fanfare, it has easily become the most happening place around.
On a Saturday night, the line to order snakes around the restaurant. Soldiers and airmen are in love with the lamb tawa (grill), chicken kebabs, bread, humus and even pizza. Then there’s Turkish coffee and chai.
“No. 14!” yells the waiter at the counter. A soldier raises his hand and the waiter runs over to his table with a grilled chicken dish and heaps of fresh bread.
Atilan is a successful businessman who’s a construction engineer by trade but dabbles in a variety of other enterprises like restaurants and jewelry.
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| Louis Favorite / AJC |
| The post chaplain, Capt. Fouvale Asiata of American Samoa, is a regular at the cafe. |
His wife is English. They have two daughters and have made a life for themselves in the United Kingdom, though they spend quite a bit of time in Adana, Atilan’s hometown in Turkey.
Though Turkey is one of Iraq’s neighbors, Atilan, 59, had never visited here before. So why would such a man think to open a café in the midst of war?
“Well, since 1966 I have worked with the Americans,” he says launching into a history of his life at military bases.
Adana, is of course, adjacent to Incirlik Air Base. As a poor student who needed some extra cash, Atilan began working at the dining hall as a dishwasher. Within a short period, he shot up the ranks and was promoted to community liaison officer.
That launched a management career at various military posts both in Britain and America. His non-military ventures took him across the world, too. Atilan even spent a year and half in Atlanta in the mid-1980s working at a country club.
He fires off a flurry of questions about Atlanta and then recalls with fondness his younger days when he and his friends rented a limousine for the evening and barhopped in Buckhead.
In 1990, he opened a restaurant at Incirlik called “Turkish Café.” Photos of the place adorn the walls at Sami’s in Balad, a cruder extension of what he has in Turkey. He even brought along a few of his staff from Adana.
If you ask Atilan how business is here, he smiles and simply points to the crowd behind him.
A group of soldiers walk in with balloons to celebrate a birthday. Others hang out at the wooden tables savoring the food or drinking a chai, talking away the day’s worries.
For most, it’s a break from the dining halls; as good as they are at Camp Anaconda, the repeated menus can become monotonous.
Air Force Staff Sgt. Roderick Jones was stationed at Incirlik once and developed a taste for Turkish cuisine. He has brought along a friend to try out Sami’s tawa dishes.
But for most of the men and women in uniform here, Sami’s is the closest thing to the neighborhood hangout in their home away from home. It’s a restaurant-size room, not a giant cafeteria with blinding fluorescent lights. It’s a place to just “hang out” when they have down time.
Even the post chaplain, Capt. Fouvale Asiata of American Samoa, is a regular here. “In the middle of war, this is like being at home and having a meal with your family,” Asiata says ordering a second plate of chicken wings.
“It’s getting away from the norm — which is sleeping, working, sleeping some more and then eating at the military dining facility.”
Asiata, whose job here is to counsel and comfort service members, says Sami’s is a fantastic stress reliever. Even for him, apparently. Asiata had just arrived from Balad’s combat hospital where he visited victims of chlorine-laced bombs. It was a “tough day,” he says.
The good news at Anaconda is that Atilan plans to stay open until he “gets kicked out.”
“Wherever America goes, I go with them.”
Permalink | | Categories: Moni Basu, Reports from Iraq
Soldier shoulders memories of fallen
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tal Afar, Iraq — There are reasons why soldiers make certain decisions that are difficult for the outside world to understand.
Why a man in Spc. Rodney Davidson’s situation would choose to return to Iraq when he had the option of resuming a quiet life in the backwoods of Thomaston.
Or how a man can witness what Davidson did and still not let vengeance steer his battles here.
He doesn’t talk much about what happened two Julys ago, though he keeps reminders around him at all times.
Few in his current unit know what he has been through. Some are fresh out of high school, with little combat experience. They cannot imagine the horror.
• Video: Davidson talks about being back in Iraq. • Photos
On two searing summer days in 2005, Davidson stood in the gunner’s turret and watched the last of three Humvees in his convoy explode beyond recognition.
Both times, Davidson was supposed to have been the fifth man in the doomed trucks. Both times, the platoon sergeant switched him at the last minute.
He was with Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment then, just starting a yearlong tour of Iraq with the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team.
Within a week, Davidson’s 16-man tent contained eight empty beds. He lost his entire squad to two massive bombs hidden in the road.
Most days, the gruesome images flash through Davidson’s mind. He sees the faces of his eight fallen comrades; he hears their words.
Particularly painful are memories of Staff Sgt. Carl Fuller and Spc. Gus Brunson. Fuller was a military guy all the way who kept things bearable with his wicked sense of humor. Brunson shared Davidson’s love of hunting. Davidson keeps in touch by phone with Brunson’s father, Jeffry, though he cannot bear to tell the father the details of his son’s death.
The three soldiers had volunteered to go to war with the 48th Brigade. They were on loan from a different guard unit — Company H, 121st Infantry (ABN) (LRS). But Davidson returned alone to Company H, after a grueling year in Iraq. When he heard Company H had been called up, he chose to return to the war, even though the Army would not have required him to do another tour so soon. He has been here since August.
“These are my brothers,” Davidson says of his platoon mates, stationed at Forward Operating Base Sykes, near Tal Afar. “This is where I belong.”
Davidson admits it’s a hard concept to grasp. It was for his wife, his mother, his sister. He had not even been home a month last May when he announced he was leaving again.
Such is a soldier’s sense of duty to his band of brothers.
——————————-
The Company H Humvees push out of the gates at Sykes, past jersey barriers and enormous bags stuffed with sand. These are meant to protect the base and are just like those at Camp Striker in Baghdad. The roads are safer here than they were down south, but Davidson cringes when the truck hits a jarring bump. He has a nervous habit of tapping his foot while standing in the hatch.
The driver, Spc. Jesse Wilkes, puts on music for the long ride north of the Sinjar Mountains, to the Syrian border. Davidson sings along with the band Poison: “I won’t forget you …”
On his right wrist is a blue metal remembrance bracelet with Fuller’s name on it. On his left wrist are two stainless steel bracelets that Alpha Company special ordered. Each has the names of four of their own who died in July 2005.
Makeshift bombs, otherwise known as improvised explosive devices, are the No. 1 killer of U.S. soldiers in Iraq; more than 1,200 of the 3,200 American casualties were from IEDs. Usually, it’s the gunner’s job to survey the road ahead for suspicious people, vehicles or things like tires or bags or wires.
“Got a vehicle on the left,” Davidson yells, referring to a car parked off to the side. “Not sure what he’s doing.”
When his plane landed on Iraqi soil last August, Davidson wasn’t sure how he felt being back here. The blast of blistering air, the flour-like dust, the familiar smells of burning trash. His time with the 48th rushed through his mind.
“This place wasn’t good to me before,” he says.
Davidson thought, too, about all that he had missed during his first tour: His mother suffered a stroke, his grandmother died. Family members “all say they understand,” he says. “But that doesn’t make it easier. I’ve been married seven years. Three of them, I’ve been away from home,” training or deployed overseas.
It helps that Davidson’s team leader, Sgt. Ellis Lowery, a law enforcement officer from McDonough, is on his third tour of Iraq. Lowery spent a year with the 48th, first in a tent not far from Davidson’s at Camp Striker and later at Tallil Air Base, escorting supply trucks to northern destinations.
Now Lowery is with Davidson as their convoy rolls north toward an Iraqi outpost. Lowery looks over at his platoon mate and shakes his head. It takes a unique person to be in that man’s shoes, he says.
Lowery knows the details of the blasts that killed the Alpha Company Soldiers — that both were caused by 600-pound bombs, that the entire platoon received trauma counseling and that for months afterward, Davidson saw pieces of body armor, Humvee seats and tools still strewn in the nearby fields.
It helps that Lowery knows, even though it rarely comes up in conversation.
——————————-
Despite everything, Davidson recently re-enlisted. He wants to finish a career in the Georgia Army National Guard.
With Company H, he has already spent another seven months in the Iraqi desert, where it is pitch black once the sun goes down. The soldiers use headlamps as they check weapons and trucks for the long night ahead on the Syrian border.
Davidson, a piano tuner at the Yamaha plant in Thomaston, is proud to be a part of this long-range surveillance company and is determined to go through Ranger school when he returns home. He has been trying to lose weight to “get ready” for the physically punishing 61-day course. Lately, he has been eating salads for dinner and lunch though he admits that the creamy, high-calorie dressing he slathers on probably defeats his effort.
Davidson will turn 41 this June; he tells everyone that he was born on 6-6-66. Others tease him and call him “Hippie.” In his younger days, he sported long hair and rode a motorcycle. But Davidson’s age and maturity helped temper the anger that overcame him right after his squad mates were killed.
On the road to the border fort, he points out a village in which Company H soldiers confiscated bomb-making materials. He remembers wanting to “slug those guys.” He doesn’t believe in abusing human rights but says he would consider it if he knew getting the right guy would save other soldiers’ lives.
Every time he looks into a detainee’s eyes, he still wonders whether that person was connected to the booby traps on Route Aeros and Route Red Sox in southwestern Baghdad.
“I’m not God, I can’t know a man’s heart and mind,” he says.
But he wishes that soldiers were given more authority to take action. He believes there are too many restrictions on when they can shoot their guns or detain suspects, especially after the incidents at Abu Ghraib prison.
Davidson is also troubled by politicians in Washington who he says make a political football out of this war. “If we pull out now just because the Democrats or new Republicans want it — well, that bothers me. That means by buddies died in vain.”
After arriving at the Iraqi outpost, Davidson gets ready for a reconnaissance mission by moonlight.
The Army issued him new equipment for his second tour of Iraq, but Davidson climbs atop his truck and throws on the body armor he had when he was with Alpha Company.
The vest with bullet-stopping plates is stained and dusty, the helmet equally so. On the right corner at the back of the Kevlar is a nick. That was from the explosion that killed Fuller. Davidson refuses to wear any other helmet.
He settles into the gunner’s stance all too familiar to him. The Humvee moves a few feet forward and then, boom. The truck comes to a sudden halt.
Davidson almost falls onto his 240 Bravo machine gun.
For the few seconds that pass before everyone realizes the truck rolled over a sawed-off pole, Davidson holds his breath.
He survived certain death twice. He knows at any moment his luck could run out.
ABOUT THIS STORY
Reporter Moni Basu first met Spc. Rodney Davidson in the summer of 2005 when she was embedded with the 48th Brigade Combat Team. She covered the memorial services at Baghdad’s Camp Striker for eight of Davidson’s platoon mates. Six months later, she caught up with him at Tallil Air Base and accompanied him on convoy security missions on the main north-south highway in Iraq.
Davidson returned from the war in May 2006. Two months later, in July 2006, Basu visited Davidson at Fort Hood, Texas, where he was preparing to return to Iraq. She is currently embedded with Company H, 121st Infantry (ABN) (LRS) in Tal Afar and recently joined Davidson on a surveillance mission to the Syrian border.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Reports from Iraq
I’m just so proud of my husband
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I sometimes wonder if my husband truly knows how proud and honored I am to be his wife.
With this being our first deployment, I’ve experienced many emotions. But one of the most profound is an immense sense of pride for what he’s doing. I’ve found this be hugely consistent with the military wives I’ve met.
They are all staunch supporters of their husbands, and with good reason. We’re married to true heroes — the ones who are living in harm’s way, who have left behind their loved ones and careers and who worry daily about making it back home to their families.
They voluntarily make these sacrifices to defend the rights of those who sometimes don’t understand or don’t appreciate what they’re fighting for. We understand their selfless service to this country and couldn’t be prouder they are our husbands.
How do you show your pride for your soldier?
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Andie Heffernan
Military a path to citizenship for Cuba native
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| “I’m pretty thankful for everything I have in the United States,” Hector Arbosferrer says. “I worked hard for it.” |
Every father wants a daughter to be proud of him.
Hector Arbosferrer is no exception. When Daniela turned 5, he worried she would be embarrassed to say her daddy was an immigrant who worked as a mechanic in a carpet mill in Dalton.
He wanted more for her.
He joined the Army.
A year after his enlistment, 26-year-old Arbosferrer finds himself in Iraq, risking his life for a country of which he is not even a citizen yet. And he is quietly fighting a battle of his own to change that.
Arbosferrer is one of a number of men and women in uniform who are still citizens of other countries. He carries not just a foreign passport, but one from a nation considered an enemy of the United States: Cuba.
A specialist with Company H, 121st Infantry (ABN) (LRS), Arbosferrer is stationed at Forward Operating Base Sykes, near Tal Afar, and has been there since August. He applied for citizenship more than a year ago and was hoping his service to America would expedite the process. A 2002 executive order signed by President Bush waives some procedures for those serving in the armed forces.
But a series of bureaucratic mishaps has kept Arbosferrer from standing at al-Faw Palace in Baghdad’s Camp Liberty, where naturalization ceremonies are held, and taking the oath of allegiance. He dreams of that happening this summer before he leaves Iraq.
“I’m pretty thankful for everything I have in the United States,” he says. “I worked hard for it.”
Arbosferrer was born and raised in Santiago de Cuba, a city surrounded by sand and sea on the eastern end of the Caribbean island. His father owned a house on the beach and taught him diving and spearfishing.
In 1996, after his parents divorced, his mother, Ileana, immigrated to America with him and his sister Nancy.
He was only 15 then. His Hollywood visions of America were wiped out within seconds of his arrival at Miami’s airport. His grandfather, a retired construction worker, picked them up and drove them to his modest house.
Life was not easy. Arbosferrer ended up dropping out of school and marrying his girlfriend, Yajara, when he was only 17. They have three children.
When he joined the Georgia Army National Guard in 2005, Arbosferrer could not speak English. He learned the language in basic training.
The Army has given him a sense of accomplishment that might have eluded him otherwise, he says. It has given him the friends he lacked in Dalton.
But it has also put him in a precarious position. The United States has severed all relations with Cuba. As an American soldier, Arbosferrer knows he cannot go back to live there - not unless the political climate changes. In fact, he has not even told his family in Santiago of his military adventures.
“Nobody in Cuba knows,” he says. “I’m afraid of what they might do to my family.”
Not one for politics, Arbosferrer believes the Cuban government is manipulative and authoritarian. But he also thinks “it’s like any other government. If you mess with them, you will get crushed.”
Still, he misses the sound of the waves and the laughter of his boyhood friends.
He displays a small sticker of the Cuban flag on his Humvee windshield as proudly as he wears the Stars and Stripes on the right shoulder of his uniform.
On a mission out on the Syrian border, the rest of Arbosferrer’s platoon takes advantage of an afternoon lull to catch a quick nap or play a round of Yahtzee.
The young Cuban with the freckled face and clean-shaven head sits by himself on the hood of his truck. Slight in size compared with some of his platoon mates, Arbosferrer is quiet — he rarely talks about the life he left behind.
In his hands is a thick biography of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the iconic Latin American revolutionary executed in 1967 by the Bolivian army under the instructions of the United States.
“He’s one of my heroes,” he says of the man who eventually became the most famous face of Cuban communism. Cuban schools had their own agenda in their portrayal of Che. Arbosferrer wanted to make up his own mind. Next is the epic biography by Jon Lee Anderson.
“The Cubans put a twist on things,” he says. “I never trusted Cuban history. I’m not into communism, capitalism — any kind of politics.”
But after reading up on Che, Arbosferrer can say that he admires the revolutionary’s toughness and “who he was as a man.”
Ultimately, Arbosferrer believes, it is not country or ideology that builds character. It is the soldier within.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Reports from Iraq
Yezedis: The forgotten people
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| Yezedis in village of Baronah. They are an obscure Iraqi sect whose beliefs are ancient and whose practices are often misinterpreted. |
Baronah, Iraq - Caesar, an interpreter for the U.S. Army, shuttles us into the courtyard of his house, He is anxious for Maj. Daniel Rice to see where he lives, meet his family.
Caesar (his real name has been withheld for safety reasons) is proud of who he is. “I am not Muslim,” he says. “I am Yezedi.”
• See more photos from Yezedi villages
Rice, a border patrol transition team officer from Atlanta, sits on a white plastic chair and drinks a can of the local version of RC Cola. Today, he is the guest of honor.
The women of the family usher me into one of the rooms to show me the newborn of the family lying in a small crib. Caesar introduces me to his sisters. They are wearing slinky skirts and body-hugging blouses. Gold jewelry adorns their necks, ears and wrists.
The Yezedis are an obscure sect whose beliefs are ancient and whose practices are often misinterpreted.
No one knows exactly how many Yezedis are left in the world though it’s estimated that 100,000 live here in northwestern Iraq, along the Sinjar Mountains.
The Yezedis are an insular people who have their own customs. They never wear the color blue or eat lettuce.
They have kept their religion alive through oral history and have falsely come to be known as devil worshippers because they are followers of the fallen angel, Lucifer.
The Yezedis, however, believe Lucifer was forgiven by God and returned to heaven. They call him Malek Taus (the peacock king) and pray to him. They do not ever use the word “Satan.”
In the Yezedi villages, women don’t have to cover their heads. They consume alcohol. Cans of Heineken pile up on trash heaps. At a local new year’s festival, Georgia Army National Guard soldiers were offered whisky (they declined, of course).
The Yezedis, like their neighbors the Kurds, were persecuted by Saddam Hussein after he took power in 1979. When the dictator was toppled in 2003, the Yezedis had great hopes that their lives would take a turn for the better.
They believed in the Americans as saviors who would release them from their misery.
But now, in the fifth year of the war, frustration surfaces in Yezedi villages.
In nearby Yarmouk, the mukhtar (mayor), Qasim Sameer Rashu, sits down eagerly with Maj. Voris McBurnette, a high school principal from Raleigh, N.C., who is serving in Iraq on a military transition team.
Rashu leads McBurnette into a large hall lined with carpets on the floor and fancy lighting fixtures on the ceiling. There is, however, no electricity.
Rashu doesn’t hold back. He unleashes a torrent of complaints - no electricity, no water, no food supply.
“Electricity? We have forgotten what it is,” Rashu says.
“In the beginning we were happy to see coalition forces. They got rid of Saddam. Now we are disappointed.”
McBurnette explains that coalition forces will do less from now on.
“It’s time for the Iraqi government to do more,” he says.
“You are right,” Rashu says. “But for three months, they have done nothing for us.”
He says insurgents often target trucks carrying food and medicine into the village.
“What if your kids were without food, without water, without power?,” Rashu tells the major.
“We think the insurgents come from outside of Iraq but the Arabs here help them. And the Iraqi government - they are not hungry. They don’t know what’s going on in these villages far away from Baghdad.”
They are a forgotten people, Rashu says.
“We feel safer with Saddam gone but the services we have are worse.”
McBurnette explains that the Iraqi government must learn to respond to its own citizenry; that Americans can no longer do their job for them.
And then the mukhtar makes a politically-charged statement.
“We want to be part of Kurdistan.”
Though they practice a different religion, the Yezedis have much in common with the Kurds. They come from the same ethnic stock.
But because they occupy villages that sit on the borderlands between Arab Iraq and Kurdistan, the Yezedis were caught for years between the two.
The Kurds, who established an autonomous region after the 1991 Gulf War, now exercise influence in the Sinjar area but few Yezedis want to be co-opted by their northern neighbors. They have fought for centuries to maintain their identity. Rashu speaks out of economic desperation.
“In four years, the only help we have seen is from Kurdistan,” he says.
Back in Baronah, Caesar’s family don’t want to let Rice and his team leave. They want him to experience Yezedi hospitality.
Caesar’s family, meanwhile, shows me albums containing snapshots of weddings and vacations. They like to go to Dohuk, a Kurdish city in northern Iraq, where “things are so nice.”
The Yezedis are far removed from the bustling streets of Baghdad. Overlooked even in a war that cruelly highlights ethnic and sectarian differences. There is no mention of them even by those who want to ethnically carve up Iraq into separate nations.
Sadly, one man tells me, the only connection to Iraq these days is through bloodshed. The Yezedis, he says, are prone to bombings and assasinations just as their Sahiite, Sunni and Christian brethren living south and east of them.
Caesar’s sister wants me to take home a photo from their family album. I tell her I cannot accept something so personal.
She tells me they have never seen a foreign journalist in their village before. She says she probably won’t again. She is part of a forgotten people.
Permalink | | Categories: Moni Basu
Soldiers speaks out on anti-war sentiment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tal Afar, Iraq - A majority of Americans backed President Bush when he ordered U.S. troops to invade Iraq. But in the fourth year of the war, public support for American involvement in Iraq has waned
U.S. military leaders argue that progress in Iraq will take time, anti-war Democrats in Congress are pushing hard to set a timetable for withdrawal of American soldiers.
Since 2003 when the war began, more than 3,200 American soldiers and at least 65,000 Iraqis —- soldiers and civilians —- have died.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution asked Georgia Army National Guard soldiers stationed here in northwestern Iraq with Company H, 121st Infantry (ABN) (LRS) how they feel about anti-war sentiment back home.
Here are some of the answers the state’s citizen soldiers gave:
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| Wilder, Prater, Hutnick, Madden, English. |
“I sympathize with them [opponents of the war]. But if we don’t finish the job, we’ll be back here in 10 years.”
Spc. TIM WILDER, 36, a general manager with Comcast in Covington. Wilder was referring to the Persian Gulf War when the United States withdrew forces from Iraq, leaving Saddam Hussein in power.”
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I volunteered for this war so I’m in full support of what the president is doing. But I can see where the American people are coming from. We’re spending way too much money. There are changes being made but things are changing slowly. I think we need to be home soon, but not now. Maybe in the next two or three years.”
Spc. ANDREW PRATER, 20, of Newnan. He joined the Army after graduating from high school.”
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I can understand [public] concern for us. But at the same time, we should finish what we started here. We’ll cause [the Iraqi] people harm if we pull out now. We have a job to do.”
—-Spc. MATT MADDEN, 19, a student at Athens Tech
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“If you study history, you’ll find that this is exactly what Congress did in 1973 and 1975 [referring to the Vietnam War.] They couldn’t find a nice way to say we’re going home. So they said, cut the funding. I hate getting stabbed in the back like that. I think you have to give [overall U.S. commander Gen. David] Petraeus a chance. He’s the only guy who understands the situation. He thinks outside the box.”
Cpl. RYAN ENGLISH, 33, of Atlanta, a former Marine and Department of Defense contractor
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“It doesn’t affect me at all. What’s going on at home doesn’t come into play here. Having said that, I’m proud to defend ideas I may disagree with. It’s part of what we’re supposed to do.”
Capt. KENNETH HUTNICK, 42, a full-time Guard officer from Alpharetta
Permalink | Comments (52) | Categories: Moni Basu
‘Excuse me. I’m from Atlanta’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| Jaime Martinez, an Air Force captain who works for the Health Facilities Division in Baghdad. He lives near Emory University. |
Tal Afar, Iraq — In the war zone, it’s comforting to meet people from home.
In my travels through Iraq, I have run across Atlantans from all walks of life. We sit and wait for a plane together or share a meal at the dining hall.
We chat about things that are dear to our hearts. Perhaps a memorable Braves game. Or a concert we saw. A favorite restaurant. Things that help ease the anxiety.
While waiting in Baghdad for a C-130 ride to Tal Afar, I met Jaime Martinez, an Air Force captain who works for the Health Facilities Division. He overheard my conversation with someone else and introduced himself to me and photographer Louie Favorite.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Are you from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution? I’m from Atlanta.”
We discussed his job in Iraq. He was supervising construction of medical facilities for Iraqi military personnel.
His perception was that a lack of medical facilities was holding back the readiness of the Iraqi armed forces.
“If you can’t treat people, you can’t send them back to fight,” he said. He viewed his role in building better clinics and hospitals as a way of improving the security situation in Iraq.
And, like others I’ve met here, Martinez lamented the fact that so many Iraqi doctors have fled the country because of threats against them and their families.
“If I were them, heck, yes, I would leave, too,” he said, hoping that the new facilities would help lure them back to Iraq.
Martinez, 36, was born in Guanajuato, Mexico, but has lived in the United States for 23 years. He and his wife, Sandra, have three children: Lance, 15; Eduardo, 12; and Yashua, 11.
He lives near Emory University, not far from my house. I sometimes buy groceries at the same Publix he frequents.
Martinez spoke with great pride about Lance, who is going to be a White House intern.
“That means the world to me,” he said.
In Atlanta, Martinez works on the eighth floor of the federal center. From his office window, he can see the AJC building on Marietta Street. Every Friday, he walks by the building on his way to lunch at CNN Center.
In Atlanta, our paths may not have ever crossed.
But in Baghdad, we talked over Styrofoam cups of tasteless instant coffee at 5 in the morning, bonded by the city we call home.
He said his tour in Iraq was almost over. He was happy to be going back to Georgia, though he would miss the Iraqi people.
Then we parted ways. I knew then that even though we are just blocks apart in Atlanta, I may not ever see him again. But on that weary morning, a heartfelt conversation helped pass the time.
Permalink | | Categories: Moni Basu
One week after bombing, residents of Tal Afar worry they will be forgotten
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| Mohammad Kathem Kanbar Ahmo, who lost three of his children in last week’s bombing, clears debris from the ruins of his shop. |
Tal Afar, Iraq — The Iraqi schoolteacher beseeches the young American captain as though the latter were God.
“Please. We want you to turn our darkness into light.”
The two men stand near the blast site, surrounded by rubble yet to be cleared — and by scars that are indelible.
• See more photos from Tal Afar
One man’s life will never be the same, as much as the other man tries to help.
“We are waiting,” the teacher says. “We hope for something to cure our hearts.”
Today marks a week since the tragedy in Tal Afar, where 152 people were killed in a massive explosion in the poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood of al-Wahada.
Since then, other bombings in Iraq have overshadowed Tal Afar’s.
Since then, politicians, military analysts and journalists have debated whether the change in this city, quiet for 15 months, signals the start of another evil trend in Iraq. The phrase “model city” described the hopes for Tal Afar; “litmus test” more cautiously describes its status now.
None of this has meaning to the teacher, Haider Yaqub Salih.
What he knows is that on a sunny afternoon, he was sitting at a small shop talking with a friend. About school. About their families. About ordinary things in their ordinary lives.
Without warning came the noise louder than a thousand thunder strikes. Salih saw a speeding ball of fire shoot into the sky, twisting, breaking, mangling, crumbling everything in sight. Human body parts flew through the air.
One moment, Salih was in the neighborhood he has called home all his life. The next, nothing was intact save a brand-new building across the street from the shop and a nearby mosque.
A suicide bomber had driven a flour truck into the neighborhood shopping area and detonated 10,000 pounds of explosives. The Iraqi government says 152 people were killed, making it the single most deadly terrorist attack in the four years of the war.
The sun returned the next morning to al-Wahada, but the light was gone.
Salih is 59. He lived through years of Saddam Hussein’s repressive rule. He fought in the brutal Iran-Iraq war, and as evidence, points to the scars that crisscross his forehead. But nothing has taken his breath away like that instant when a truck driver decided to push the switch of a detonation device.
“What shall I do? What shall I say? Is there anything to say?”
He clutches a string of pale green prayer beads.
Almost every day in Iraq, there is another al-Wahada. Monday, a bomb exploded in Kirkuk. Sunday, it was Baghdad. Like this, more than 600 Iraqis have died in the seven days since the blast here.
Those who perished in al-Wahada are just numbers now, added to the tally of Iraq’s dead.
But Salih must look at the empty space where a friend’s house stood. He still sees the images of children’s limp bodies carted away. He taught them English. For what, he thinks? For what?
“We are like babies. Help us. We are an illness. Cure us.”
He fights the tears welling in his eyes. Crying is not for men in this part of the world.
The American captain, Todd Hopkins of Mount Dora, Fla., has moved away to speak to others. Salih pulls a reporter aside.
He wants to explain how his already meager existence will now be an unbearably meager one. There are still residents and shopkeepers of al-Wahada searching through the destruction for all that they lost.
The people here are without jobs, without money, without food. They were drawn to the bomb-laden truck because it was carrying free flour from a humanitarian agency.
And now, they are without loved ones. Will they become without compassion too, Salih asks?
This much tragedy can sour the soul. “Everyone will forget Tal Afar. Who will help us now?” Who, he asks, will bring back the light?
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Reports from Iraq
General soothes stricken Iraq city
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| Community leaders listen to the governor of Ninevah province, Duraid Kashmula (center), with Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno (seated) at a meeting in Tal Afar on Sunday. |
Tal Afar, Iraq — Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno knows well the suffering in Iraq. His own son, Capt. Anthony Odierno, lost an arm when a rocket-propelled grenade ripped through his Humvee in 2004.
The elder Odierno, who assumed the role of American operational commander in December, flew Sunday from Baghdad to Tal Afar, where anguish reached heinous dimensions last week.
Local authorities say about 85 people died in last Tuesday’s truck bombing here. But the Iraqi Interior Ministry upped the death toll in the Shiite neighborhood of al-Wahada to 152, making it the deadliest single attack in Iraq since the war began four years ago.
The number of dead rose as more bodies were pulled from the rubble, the government said. Another 47 people — all Sunni men — died in a night of brutal vengeance killings after the bombing. Some of those implicated were Shiite policemen.
With Tal Afar’s peaceful image tarnished, local authorities and U.S. troops in the region have clamped down on security. Shops remain closed. The streets are lifeless. Tal Afar looked like a ghost town Sunday as Odierno’s entourage made its way to an Ottoman Turk castle that now houses city council offices.
After a particularly bloody week that renewed concerns that Iraq is teetering on outright civil war, Odierno stepped into a conference room to meet Tal Afar’s mayor, the governor of Ninevah province to which the city belongs, Iraqi police and army commanders and a host of community leaders.
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| Louie Favorite / AJC |
| Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, indicating respect and friendship, greets community leaders at the mayor’s office in Tal Afar. Odierno is the operational commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. |
Just blocks from the where the carnage occurred, Sunnis and Shiites sat with one another to talk.
Odierno assured them that U.S. forces were here to help them “move forward from this tragedy caused by a handful of people who do not care about the greater good of Iraq.”
A towering man, Odierno dwarfed his Iraqi counterparts as he shared a meal of lamb and rice and exchanged conversation well into the afternoon.
The prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, was supposed to have been at Odierno’s side. But bad weather kept the Iraqi leader from flying, according to military officials at Forward Operating Base Sykes, just outside of Tal Afar in northern Iraq.
Privately, the Americans who accompanied Odierno — including other high-ranking Army officers and State Department employees of the area reconstruction team — lamented al-Maliki’s absence. It was important, they felt, to put a united face forward at this critical juncture in Tal Afar, the city that President Bush held up a year ago as Iraq’s beacon of hope and one that is viewed as a litmus test for this troubled nation.
Violence once reigned in Tal Afar, a predominately Turkoman town that is about 60 percent Shiite and 40 percent Sunni. An American offensive in the fall of 2005 chased the insurgency away and residents here experienced calm compared to other parts of Iraq.
That peace shattered last Tuesday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a flour truck carrying 10,000 pounds of explosives. Entire blocks of houses collapsed; the local hospital brimmed with the dead.
Odierno said, however, he was impressed that local authorities were able to put a quick lid on a volatile situation.
“Tal Afar had one incident which was a very bad incident,” Odierno said in a brief interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after the meeting.
“What’s been heartening to me is how the city has responded,” he said. “The first 24 hours were tenuous. There were very clearly ethnic tensions, sectarian tensions. But the leadership was able to bring the town back together and stop the sectarian tension. That in my mind is very important.”
Odierno is no stranger to this region; he spent a year in northern Iraq as commander of the 4th Infantry Division, which got credit for the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Since his return to Iraq, the No. 2 military man behind Army Gen. David Petraeus has breathed caution into his Iraqi forecast, saying that improvement will take time.
The two generals have implemented a new U.S. strategy here with increased American troop presence in restive Baghdad neighborhoods and revamped counterinsurgency operations.
Odierno, however, is keenly aware that his biggest battle might be time. He said patience is wearing thin in the United States. Sunday, he reiterated the importance of that patience.
“I think we’re on the right track but I don’t know how long it will take,” he said, adding that the United States will take a measurement of progress this summer.
“By July or August, we’re going to have to conduct an assessment of how far we’ve come, how successful we’ve been and we’re going to have to make a decision on where to go from there,” he said. “We’re seeing some positive steps but there’s still a long way to go.”
Tal Afar’s tragedy was just one example that Iraq is far shy of the democracy and stability Odierno said he is here to create.
But, he said, there is always a heavy price for attempting ambitious change. His family paid it.
“This is not about individuals,” Odierno said about his son, who was 26 when he was wounded — and perhaps also alluding to those whose lives ended in Tal Afar last week.
“It’s about a country trying to move forward.”
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