REDLEG DISPATCHES

4 June 2009

2010-10-23T15:44:00.001-05:00

Due to a DOD directive banning military personnel from accessing Wikileaks, I cannot post or link to the site. However, viewing any of the reports will give you the gist of what they look like. Take that into consideration, then juxtapose it with an account from someone who has served in Iraq.

Here is the email I sent to friends and family following the events of that day. I am not saying that the U.S. military has never done anything wrong or bad during the 6 years of conflict in Iraq. But to think that these Wikileaks reports mean anything when isolated from their surrounding context is naive and stupid. I mean that: stupid. If you have not served in Iraq or Afghanistan, then you have no idea what happens on a daily basis there. Not even the kinetic fighting. Just the whole experience.

XXXX XXX

5 JUN 09: Red Dragon soldier killed in action
1 message
XXXXXXXXXXX Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 2:18 PM

To: (((OMITTED)))

Will probably be another 24 to 48 hours before this hits the tiny blurbs these types of things are typically relegated to in the papers, but I figured I'd beat 'em to the punch.
Obviously, I'm okay (since I'm writing this email to y'all). Yesterday, 4 JUN 09, our battalion lost another soldier in the line of duty. I'll refrain from putting the name out until I see it in the papers. The soldier was not in my battery, but was in another battery in our battalion.
The soldier had been injured about a month ago in an attack (I did the investigation on it), and had just been awarded the Purple Heart for those injuries by the battalion commander during an awards ceremony last Friday.
I'll wait a bit before I put out the play-by-play, but it basically boils down to this: my platoon was in the north when Golf Company's platoon was hit. We responded, took command and control of the scene (basically my platoon, plus two other platoons from different batteries), and ended up conducting massive searches around the attack area.
Managing a mixed-unit cordon, while battling equipment failures, namely a dead radio and a dead Blueforce Tracker (the screen with icons overlayed on a map which shows you where all of your friendly units are at), while searching for people who just killed an American soldier in four different parts of the city (up to 5 houses in each search area) was definitely a challenge.
What would've been a routine 6-hour patrol turned into a 12-and-a-half hour marathon, but in the end, my soldiers performed magnificently. They were able to react and respond to an unknown, rapidly changing situation, and facilitated the capture of insurgents who killed one of our brothers in arms. They did everything I asked of them, even when shit got chaotic, and I could not be more proud to be their platoon leader.
In the end, despite the outstanding effort put out by the battalion yesterday, nothing changes the fact that another soldier is dead. When we heard the radio transmission, "Soldier died of wounds," I found myself not paralyzed by fear, sadness or even anger. I don't think any of us did. Maybe it's because we already experienced tragedy closer to home -- maybe because it was a soldier from another unit. I don't know. I don't know if those are the "right" feelings to feel or not. Maybe SSG Webster's death drained me (emotionally) so completely that my platoon and I were able to drive on while units around us were running around in circles.
What I do know is that we all did feel a sense of determination, and all understood the fact that each passing moment gave the enemy an opportunity to get further away. Everyone pulled together at exactly the right moment, and got the mission done, even in the face of tragedy.
Ultimately, it's been a crazy 24 hours. I've received a couple of packages and letters, and I will write some individual responses once I get a moment to breathe!!
As always, love and miss you all.
-Mike

I don't say this to sound superior. It's a reality check for anyone that wants to judge me or my soldiers based on internet documents released by a company who has chased sensationalism and their own political agenda. Before you judge me or anyone else, you better answer the following questions. Then judge all you want.

Do you know what it's like to walk down a crowded market with less than eight dismounted soldiers, days after the same market saw IEDs and VBIEDs? Do you know what it's like to have that godawful feeling in your stomach, that something is going to happen today? Do you know what it's like to step out of your humvee and feel that blast of 120-degree heat, and the rivulets of sweat instantly breaking out and dripping down the small of your back underneath your body armor? Do you know what it's like to smell the remains of human beings hours after they were blown up a suicide-vest bomber -- do you know what chunks of people smells like after they've baked in the sun for several hours? Do you know what a person looks like after he has been killed by a VBIED and his entire body is charred black except for the intermittent streaks of red and yellow (fat)? Do you know what it's like to wonder if this time that you leave the FOB will be the last? Will this be the last time you brush your thumb against the selector switch on your M4 before a sniper takes you out? Will this be the last time you key the hand-mic on your radio before your truck is destroyed by a deep-buried IED or EFP? Will last night's phone call be the last time you hear the voice on the other end before your MRAP rolls over on some shitty mud road, killing you and everyone else inside? Do you know?

25 April 2009

2010-10-23T15:29:00.001-05:00

Below is the email I sent to my friends and family regarding the events of that day. I challenge you tell me how the Wikileaks document tells the full story.

XXXX XXX

26 APRIL 2009

XXXXX

Sat, May 2, 2009 at 4:54 PM

To: (((OMITTED)))

I originally drafted this email on the 26th, but couldn't send it due to the communications blackout (no emails/calls in or out until next of kin notified...) The blackout was lifted on the 27th, but we've been busy here, and I haven't had a chance to mail y'all until now... I want to thank you all for the words of sympathy and encouragement I have received.

It would have been easier for me to simply not write this email...to hide the raw emotions from y'all. But the whole point of these emails was to let you in to see what it was like. I promised you a genuine look at our side of the fight, and here it is.

I kept trying to figure out how I was going to phrase my opening remarks to this email...but nothing eloquent comes to mind.

On 25 April 2009, Thunder Battery lost a member of our family. SGT Leroy O. Webster was killed in the line of duty. He was a TC (truck commander) for 3rd Platoon (my sister platoon). Both 3rd and 4th Platoons (my platoon) were part of the same artillery platoon back at Hood. SGT Webster was one of my gun chiefs, and I consider myself blessed to have served with him.

It's been more than 24 hours since he died, but I think everyone is still in a state of shock, myself included.

It was late afternoon, and my platoon had just returned to the FOB after completing our patrol. After refueling the trucks, we headed to the chow hall. On our way in, we monitored radio traffic from 3rd Platoon: they had a WIA (wounded in action), and were rushing back to the FOB.

My platoon immediately staged the trucks in the parking lot to the chow hall -- not bothering to return to the CP because the FOB gate is closer to the chow hall. "Send two guys per truck to grab to-go plates, then everyone back here and prepare to roll out."

I called up to battery, and told them that I was standing my platoon up to serve as a QRF (quick reaction force) if necessary. As we sat there, more details came in over the radio. SGT Webster had been hit in the shoulder by a sniper shot. We had no other information.

My initial reactions were anger that someone out there had hurt one of our own. None of us thought the worst. We figured SGT Webster would quickly recover, and within a few days, be wandering around mouthing off with his usual wisecracks.

As our guys finished eating, I briefed them on what little information we had: a grid coordinate of where the sniper attack occurred, and a couple of suspect vehicle descriptions. In the trucks, we have this thing called blueforce tracker (BFT): it's basically a map with icons showing where friendly units are. Battalion had dropped a green icon at the scene of the attack, and I found myself sitting in my truck, door open, headset on, listening to the radio and staring at the green cone on the screen...waiting for the words "Thunder 46, you are clear to SP FOB and move to following grid..."

Those words never came. As I was waiting for permission to take my platoon out there, my medic came up to my door. He was sliding his cellphone into his pocket. I turned to look at him, pulling one earpiece of my headset away from my head. I was expecting an update.

"Webster's dead."

I didn't believe him. I looked at Doc, and said, "You're shitting me." He shook his head and continued to look at me through his sunglasses. I looked forward, and put my head in my hand, in shock.

Then, Doc did something that I will always thank him for. He leaned in, and said, "The guys don't know. Keep it together, sir." That was all I needed.

We were still in QRF, and there was still a possibility that we would have to roll out into sector. I spoke to my platoon sergeant, and we agreed we would not tell the guys until we were fully stood down. The next hour and a half was perhaps the hardest I've ever experienced: forcing myself to control my emotions, to not let them show. Trying to focus on the possible mission at hand. Convincing myself that keeping the knowledge of SGT Webster's death from the guys for the time being was the right decision...

The call to send my platoon out never came. We parked the trucks back on line, and then I rounded up my platoon so that the commander and first sergeant could talk to them. At this point, some of the guys (the veterans of previous tours) probably had an idea of what was coming.

The news hit them like a ton of bricks. The older guys who deployed with Webster last time around broke down and sobbed openly. All I could do was grit my teeth and clench my jaw. All I wanted to do was drop to my knees, put my arms around each of them, and cry with them. But I couldn't. I had to wait. The battle NCO (who I work with on a daily basis) came up to me later when we were alone and said, "Sir, I know this is hitting you hard. As hard as its hitting me. But everyone here, from the lowest joe on up sees you as the rock of the battery -- they need you to be strong. At least right now." Just his words nearly broke me down. I took advantage of the private moment between both of us to let some of it out before recomposing myself and going back to be with the soldiers.

The entire battery assembled at the CP. Soldiers were sitting on the ground out front, heads in their hands. Others were staring off into space, trying to comprehend the loss of one of the battery's largest personalities. Others sat against the building, heads back, looking up into the night sky, tears rolling down their cheeks.

Late that evening was the ramp ceremony. The entire battalion, and elements from the brigade as well as the Air Force folks showed up at the airfield to say our final goodbye to SGT Webster in person. We all assembled in a neat formation. The guidons and flags were flapping in the wind, and we stood and watched and wept as SGT Webster's flag-draped casket was carefully walked down the aisle between formations and placed in the back of a cargo plane. It had been hours since I learned of SGT Webster's death, and I couldn't hold it in anymore. I let the tears flow as we stood there at attention, holding our slow salutes as he passed us and got on the bird to go home back to his family.

Later on, I sat down with my roommate and fellow platoon leader, and we talked about it. As much as I was hurt, he was hurting even worse. It was HIS soldier. It was OUR soldier. We promised we would look out for each other, watch each other, and make sure that we come out of this mended and healed.

It was 0430 by the time I went to bed. I slept like a rock, but only for a few hours.

The next day was just as hard. First Sergeant and I volunteered ourselves to go to the humvee that SGT Webster rode in back to the FOB. We couldn't bring ourselves to put other soldiers on this work detail. We cleaned it out the best we could. Pulled out all of the personal effects of the truck crew -- the body armor, the helmets, the gloves. We scoured everything, pulling out the items that had blood on them so that they could be cleaned before being returned to the soldiers. When it was done, Top and I stood at the door, staring at the floor plate between the two back seats where the gunner typically stands. Despite our best efforts, dried blood could still be seen along some of the edges. You could still see where undoubtedly the medic worked on SGT Webster while the humvee was speeding back to the FOB. It was heartbreaking.

My worst fear in coming here had been realized. There was likely nothing I or anyone else could have done that would've changed anything that day. But it doesn't change the emotions that wash through you. I wish I had stayed out in-sector for a little bit longer. I wish I had the opportunity to find the escaping vehicles by happenstance. I wish I had the opportunity to be with my brothers in 3rd during their darkest time.

It's a week later, and the healing process has begun. The mission continues. The last six days have been the hardest my platoon has ever worked. Physically, mentally, emotionally...we're drained. Maybe it's because of what happened last week. Maybe it's the toll of a non-stop OPTEMPO finally catching up to us. Regardless, we're going to continue doing what we do. We have to.

The guys still get edgy a little bit in-sector, but it's not as bad as I feared it would be. I still dread the prospect of the worst happening...losing one of my guys. Every day, when my guys assemble for the patrol brief, I look around at them. I see their faces: from the older, seasoned veterans to the fresh-faced young kids, and I pray that I am able to keep them safe and bring them back today. And tomorrow. These soldiers are my life out here: they make me laugh, they put their utmost efforts into the job and the mission at hand. I am so truly blessed to be a platoon leader for these 23 guys, and blessed to have 107 other Thunder brothers-in-arms who will do anything for each other.

We're hurting (I'm hurting). But we're healing. SGT Webster died doing what he loved. It's not fair (it never is): they always seem to take the best from us. But we will endure.

Again, I appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers for SGT Webster's family. Love and miss you all. Talk to y'all soon.

-Mike.

Wikileaks madness, Part Deux

2010-10-23T15:23:00.004-05:00

They're at it again. This time, a data-dump of intel reports from Operation Iraqi Freedom, from 2004 to the end of the 2009.

Al-Jazeera TV's British syndicate is running a video that "proves" that U.S. military forces ignored instances of torture committed by Iraqi Security Forces. Their proof is references to certain FRAGOs (fragmentary orders). What they don't tell you is that a FRAGO is a modifying order that can be put out at any echelon. FRAGO 214 or 232 or whatever-the-fuck can be a company FRAGO or a division FRAGO or anything in between. The takeaway is that without the context (who issued the FRAGO? To which subordinate units? What was the content of the remainder of the FRAGO? What as the base OPORD the FRAGO modifies?), information can be easily spun to be sensationalist and fill whatever political agenda you choose. A FRAGO put out by one idiot staff officer can easily be rescinded or superceded by the next day's FRAGO.

So, here is what I'm going to do: I am going to demonstrate and prove how these intel reports, taken in isolation outside of the context of what happens on the ground, don't mean anything unless you were there or know the surrounding circumstances.

I'm going to prove it to you. I know that sounds bold, but audacity is a principle of offensive operations, so let's do this.

I did what undoubtedly a number of fellow officers did: I went to the Wikileaks website and searched for my own unit's actions. And lo and behold, I found some. Specifically, the reports documenting the deaths of two soldiers in my battalion.

(Due to a DOD directive banning military personnel from accessing Wikileaks, I cannot post or link to the site. Which is fine: I understand the OPSEC considerations -- which is why all of us are so enraged by the data-dump.

However, if you, the non-military audience views any of the reports, you will get the gist of what they look like. Take that into consideration, then juxtapose it with an account from someone who has served in Iraq.

If you are a military reader, do not visit the Wikileaks site. It is not worth it to be fried for an OPSEC violation. You will have to consult local directives put out by your chain of command, but better to err on the side of caution. Just remember you are always subject to UCMJ, both on- or off-duty.)

I want you to read my next two posts: they are verbatim emails that I sent home to friends and family following two incidents. By the time you have finished reading those emails, you will see how I just proved to you that these Wikileaks extracts mean nothing when viewed isolated from their surrounding context. I proved it to you because I was there. And Julian Assange was not.

Once again, I will stress: I have no problems with calling for transparency in our government. That's a good thing. That's how we avoid the deathtrap of authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. But there are more responsible ways to call for change than just data-dumping sensitive information. Even despite Wikileaks' attempt to sanitize their reports (I will admit they did a better job this time around than with their Afghanistan data-dump), they missed plenty of info in just the small sample of leaks that I read that can provide the enemy valuable information on how to refine their TTPs to continue to kill Iraqi civilians and American soldiers.

Women in the military

2010-10-11T10:42:00.001-05:00

The CGSC (Command and General Staff College) Student Blog over at the CAC Blog (CAC = Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, a nerve-center for senior-level Army professional education) has a post up about the role of women in the military, specifically the current prohibition against allowing women to serve in combat arms roles.

The documentary Lioness that he refers to is a film that follows a handful of female Marines in Iraq who were attached to Army units to assist during presence patrols, particularly in the sensitive area of female searches: for conservative Muslims, it is strictly taboo for a woman to be touched by a male that is not their husband. The assembly of "Lioness teams" and attachment of these teams to combat patrols allowed units to carefully avoid inciting cultural/religious rage during search operations. Incidentally, I met Colonel Mike Cabrey (one of the senior Army leaders featured heavily in the documentary) when he visited Fordham University's Army ROTC back in 2007. He was in town to sit during a Q&A panel following one of the screenings of the film at the Angelika, and took the time to speak to our cadets. I was pleased to run into him again at a formal event at Fort Sill, and he is currently in command of the 214th Fires Brigade.

During my time in Iraq, women were consistently serving in "combat" roles. The current distinction as set forth by Congress follows the lines the Army has drawn between combat arms jobs and combat support or combat service support. Combat arms branches are those that historically involved close or heavy combat with the enemy: infantry, tanks, artillery, etc.

The problem is that war has changed significantly, and the anachronistic view that women are incapable of serving in forward combat roles is just plain outdated. Now, even combat support branches like MPs, engineers, etc., are all doing the same jobs as the combat arms guys: patrolling on the streets in Iraq. Some were very capable, others were not: nothing different than what we see on the male side of the house. I can say without a doubt that there are plenty of women in uniform that can outperform (physically and academically) plenty of male soldiers.

The Army is in a transition period (whether it likes it or not). I believe we will see DADT repealed fairly soon in the future (the next few years), and the prohibition against women in combat arms may soon follow. Just as with DADT, there is always going to be x percentage of the American population at-large and y percentage of the military population that will oppose change. And that's fine. But when Congress makes a change, the military needs to bring feet and knees together, render a smart salute, move out sharply and execute: leaders at all levels are going to have be flexible and adaptive.

Pointing to the pink elephant in the room...and talking about it

2010-10-04T20:21:00.003-05:00

This story of some 2ID soldiers out of Fort Lewis committing atrocities in Afghanistan has been floating in the news for a while now. This is one of those instances where one would hope that in today's professional, all-volunteer force Army, that wretched acts such as those that are being related in this particular case would never happen. One would hope that they couldn't happen.

There is absolutely no doubt that these acts committed by these soldiers are disgusting in nature. Absolutely no doubt at all. Even the most stubborn-headed, ignorant, prejudiced servicemember you can find in the military would have to concede that these men were wrong.

I have absolutely no doubt that these soldiers will be dealt with swiftly and extremely. They must be punished if the Army as an institution is to retain credibility with the American people. But the real question here is not whether the guys were guilty or how long they need to be put in jail for.

The question is, where does the Army go from here? More importantly, how do we prevent this from happening?

This band of criminals committed acts that are far and away orders of magnitude worse than anything previously documented since 2001. The uniqueness and singularity of this case speaks well for the professionalism of our soldiers.

But it happened. And although we may never be able to fully eliminate the chances of this kind of thing happening again, we as an institution must do everything we can to mitigate those chances as much as possible. The solution is not to be found in a popular Big Army course of action (have soldiers sit through a PowerPoint briefing on the Law of Land Warfare (LLW) or the Army core values). Those lessons can be communicated to the soldier level by units on their own -- hell, LLW is mandatory pre-deployment training.

What we need is dialogue among leaders at every level: between two NCOs at chow, between lieutenants at the bar on the weekend, between colonels at the Officer Club, etc. It is very easy to turn our heads away from this because it is so horrible and disgusting: no one wants to acknowledge that people who wear the same uniform would commit these acts.

But we need to talk about it. Captains in the Career Course need to be talking about this. Majors in ILE need to be talking about this. Leaders need to discuss not necessarily the polar black-and-white issues of right or wrong (in this case, it's pretty black and white), but the mushy gray: how do we prevent this from happening? How do we take the lessons from a dry, boring PowerPoint, and make them tangible and salient to our young soldiers? How do we shape and foster a command climate that prevents this kind of shit from happening? What are the warning signs that soldiers might be breaking (psychologically), or wandering off of azimuth?

Trying to look into what allowed this unit and its soldiers to sink to the depravity they did would take forever, but with all of the media attention recently being given to the American military's increasing isolation away from the remainder of society (SECDEF Gate's commencement speech, etc.), it is safe to say that nearly a decade of continuous combat operations is taking its toll on our military, and not just in the very obvious PTSD-at-the-individual-soldier level, but at the institutional levels. Even if the campaigns in Iraq or Afghanistan literally ended tomorrow, the wounds in the Army's skin will take years if not decades to heal or scar over. Leaders need to see this coming: they need to be aware it's coming, and they need to have a plan for dealing with it.

Renee Ellmers = f***ing idiot

2010-09-25T00:45:00.001-05:00

Renee Ellmers is a GOP candidate running for a Congressional seat in North Carolina. I just watched her get pwned by Anderson Cooper on CNN: she essentially said that all Muslims were terrorists and that the "Ground Zero mosque" was equivalent to al-Qaeda building a victory shrine on hallowed ground. When Cooper retorted with examples from history of religious factions building shrines on conquered territory, Ellmers retreated into some of the most nonsensical, circuitous speak I've ever heard (which means a lot, coming from a guy that went to law school).

This is going to sound harsh, but guess what: she is a dumb, ignorant bitch.

Yeah, I said it. And yeah, I know it's a mean thing to say. I don't care.

She is a woman that has somehow, in her mind, twisted the entire Muslim community (which is several billion-strong on this planet) into a clan of evil: she essentially generalized every Muslim as a radical Muslim and therefore a terrorist. Moments later, of course, when asked if she wanted Muslims' votes, she responded "Well sure, I'd like everyone's votes."

Well, NO SHIT!

I mean, if she's going to be prejudiced, can't she at least be consistent? And to watch her evade Cooper's questions about religious factions in history building shrines on conquered territories, to include Christians (a retort to her argument that the "Ground Zero mosque" is a "victory mosque" for al Qaeda) is nothing short of entertaining: much like watching a small, young child engaged in a debate with Stephen Hawking with regards to the nature of gravity or the Grand Unification Theory of Everything.

I'll tell you what: I have seen and heard some dumb shit during my short three decades of existence on this planet...but damn, this woman managed to surprise me tonight.

She knows absolutely nothing about my city or 9/11 or what is happening in Iraq or Afghanistan. How dare she try to exploit September 11th and this "Ground Zero mosque" hooplah for her own political gain. How dare she. YouTube the interview: it's quite entertaining.

Added to my reading list...

2010-09-23T00:31:00.001-05:00

Andrew Exum's got a post from about a week ago, and linked to some books recommended by Gian Gentile, who is a fairly outspoken critic of counterinsurgency (COIN), or perhaps the U.S.'s approach to it. For those who aren't tracking, ever since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there has been an ongoing academic debate inside defense policy circles regarding the merits of COIN. When it became apparent that Iraq was not going to transition to a state of stable peace in anything resembling a timely fashion, the U.S. military found itself desperately treading water. Counterinsurgency was a dirty word, because no one wanted to admit that an insurgency existed in Iraq: too many comparisons to Vietnam, and too many painful propositions that our failure to conduct stability operations post-invasion may have been a major catalyst for the insurgency and almost-civil war.

Of course, David Petraeus and his hundred-pound-brain (along with other smart guys, like John Nagl) stepped out of the shadows and suddenly COIN lost its stigma and became the messiah of strategies. History will determine the ultimate effectiveness of America's COIN campaign in Iraq.

In any case, today there is a huge identity crisis in the U.S. military, in the Army and Marine Corps in particular (the service branches most invested in ground combat). While the Air Force and Navy find themselves affected by the prevalence of stability operations and irregular warfare in the modern operating environment (effects on budgets, equipment programs, etc.), the way they fight is not as profoundly impacted as it is for the grunts and mud-crawlers. Sure: the Air Force's primary mission of air superiority doesn't get exercised too often nowadays, but an A-10 conducting a close air support (CAS) mission in a conventional high-intensity conflict (HIC) is not terribly different from an A-10 conducting a CAS mission in an irregular warfare stability ops environment. Yes: there are differences (collateral damage estimates, etc. etc.), but the fundamentals are the same.

Not so with Army/Marine units. An old-school attack conducted by an infantry rifle company is very different from the new-school cordon and search. A battery volley of M26 MLRS rockets (each capable of destroying an entire 1 x 1 kilometer square on the ground) is very different from a low-yield GPS-guided rocket or Excalibur artillery round shot in Iraq most recently.

The effects of operating in a drastically changed operating environment can be seen even at the unit level: Army units will spend half a year training up for a deployment in COIN and stability tasks, and then spend a year executing those tasks. When they come home, they unlearn everything so they can regain their competencies at fighting a conventional warfare fight (or HIC or major combat operations -- the label is not important). Then, when a deployment appears on the horizon, gears shift back towards irregular warfare and COIN/stability ops.

But this is delving into a topic that can be its own blog post. Let's get back to the recommended reading.

One of the books on Gentile's list is Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost its War by James H. Wilbanks. I have not read this book (yet), but the blurb on Amazon.com indicates that it is a study of our Vietnamization policy and the argument that it was "designed to transfer full responsibility for the defense of South Vietnam to the South Vietnamese, but in a way that would buy the United States enough time to get out with appearing to run away."

The very obvious question is this: is there an analog to today's situation in Iraq? Is Operation NEW DAWN a modern day "Iraqization"? Right now, there is a lot of political pressure in favor of us just pulling everyone the hell out, but I would like to see if anyone has put any serious academic or analytical thought into what the projected security environment in Iraq will be when we "leave" in 2011...

Assessing results in Iraq: too soon?

2010-09-17T01:49:00.004-05:00

With the declared end to "major combat operations" in Iraq, it is only a matter of time before we start seeing more and more attempts by people to answer the question that Professor Kamena of the Air War College poses: "Did we win and was this effort worthwhile?"

Prof. Kamena's short piece (it's only a page) does not so much answer the posed question as it puts forth his hopes and expectations. But this ultimately lends itself to the question: when can we begin to usefully assess the situation in Iraq? When can we start measuring the effects of our efforts in Iraq?

My answer: not anytime soon. While we can certainly put our finger on easy metrics (x murders this year versus y murders last year, or economic growth by z percent), these metrics have to be tied in to a purpose or endstate in order to mean anything. Bottom line up front: the nature of Army operations in Iraq (counterinsurgency vice major combat operations or HIC) means that desired endstates more often than not are defined internally by the host nation (not us), and tangible progress (or lack thereof) may take years or decades to manifest and become apparent.

As a student in his first weeks of small group instruction at the Captain's Career Course, I have been inundated by Army doctrine. Field Manual (FM) 3-0, simply titled Operations, is the Army's primary doctrinal publication that discusses the Army's way of fighting. With the latest edition being released in 2008, it is the result of the Army's having looked in the mirror after nearly a decade of continuous engagement in conflict abroad. Understanding how the Army views itself and its way of war will help us frame the conflicts we are currently engaged in; conceptualizing and visualizing this framework will in turn help us figure out if we can even begin to discuss whether our involvement in Iraq has been a success or failure.

Let's take Prof. Kamena's question and break it down into its two elements: (1) Did we win? and (2) Was this effort worthwhile?

(1) DID WE WIN?

Typically, a pre-requisite to the assignment of a label of success or failure, win or loss, is the identification of the goals or objectives. From there, analysis should be simple: were the goals or objectives achieved? Yes = success. No = failure. The obvious question then becomes: what were/are our goals in Iraq? For the moment, let's keep ourselves out of conspiracy theories or controversy that will simply bog us down. Still, it's a difficult question, and the best way to answer it is to work backwards and find a way to categorize our presence in Iraq: describe our actions there, and then correlate it to doctrinal purposes or endstates. We're going to confine ourselves to the narrower perspective of military doctrine because it's faster and easier than trying to do an all-encompassing analysis or study: after all, this is a blog, not a Ph.D. dissertation or a funded think-tank.

Everything that follows will be a no-brainer for guys that have experience at the operational levels of war and higher. For the tactical guys like me (platoon, company), this can be a bit of an eye-opener, but more importantly, a lens that clarifies and puts into context what we accomplish at our levels. For the non-military folks, this could end up being total gibberish, or perhaps a revealing look at how the Army thinks and operates. To some, it may come as a surprise to know that the Army as an institution has an academic side to it that goes far beyond the popular (but flawed) "just kill more of the bad guys than they kill ours" characterization.

Figure 2-2 from FM 3-0 (above) illustrates different operational themes that characterize Army actions against the spectrum of conflict. FM 3-0 defines the spectrum of conflict as "the backdrop for Army operations....an ascending scale of violence ranging from stable peace to general war." Keep in mind that violence can jump around the spectrum of conflict: it is not a linear scale. As FM 3-0 reminds us, "unstable peace may erupt into general war, or general war may end abruptly in unstable peace." The spectrum allows us to describe the security environment.

While the spectrum of conflict describes the environment, operational themes describe Army actions. FM 3-0 defines operational themes as describing "the character of the dominant major operation being conducted....[it] helps convey the nature of the major operation to the force to facilitate common understanding of how the commander broadly intends to operate."

Operational themes may be further broken down into the joint military operations that are conducted in support of the over-arching operational theme. "Grouping military operations with common characteristics under operational themes allows doctrine to be developed for each theme rather than for a multitude of joint operations." (FM 3-0)

Below you will find FM 3-0's Table 2-1 (Examples of joint military operations conducted within operational themes) overlaid onto Figure 2-2. For example, within the framework of an Irregular Warfare operational theme, conceivable joint operations include FID (foreign internal defense), COIN (counterinsurgency), CT (counterterrorism) and UW (unconventional warfare). It is important to remember that the array of joint operations available for each operational theme are not mutually exclusive: "[f]or example, noncombatant evacuation operations may be conducted during [irregular warfare], or support to an insurgency may occur during major combat operations."

Each type of joint military operation, whether it's counterdrug, foreign humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping, counterinsurgency or an all-out conventional fight like the 2003 initial invasion named Operation IRAQI FREEDOM I (OIF I), has its own doctrinal set of purposes and objectives.

Now that we've identified ways to describe the overall environment/levels of violence (spectrum of conflict), the general categories of military operations (operational themes), and the types of actions that comprise those themes (joint military operations), we can now try to determine the current state of affairs in Iraq: both the environment on the spectrum of conflict, and the type of operations we are engaged in. This will aid us in determining what our doctrinal operational objectives are, and maybe in turn help us figure out if our efforts have been effective.

Few will dispute that during the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, we were engaged in major combat operations (MCO) in a state of General War. Granted, the campaign was short, but the conventional nature of the fight and the organization of Coalition Forces (CF) and their assigned mission objectives support the characterization of OIF I as MCO/General War.

Post-invasion was when we saw a shift in the security environment in Iraq. Although everyone was hoping that the conclusion of invasion operations would somehow spur a jump from a state of General War to Stable Peace, what we saw instead was a slow slide into Insurgency. Religious sectarian violence exploded in Iraq. In Baghdad, entire neighborhoods of Sunnis or Shi'as were ravaged and vice versa. Sunni-dominated al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was engaged in an all-out fight with Shi'a-dominated Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM), Moqtada al-Sadr's Shi'a militia -- while everyone else, to include CF, were caught in the middle.

The response to this incredible spike in violence was "The Surge": the insertion of five additional brigades into Baghdad to help quell violence and re-establish security in the capital. All of this fell within the 2004-2008 time-frame, and although there were large operations conducted (like the battles of Fallujah), by this point Iraq had slid into a state of insurgency on the spectrum of conflict. Likewise, we shifted operational themes from MCO to irregular warfare, and counterinsurgency (COIN) became the predominant joint operation.

With the end of the Surge in 2008, execution of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in 2009 and the transfers of authority and sovereignty to the host nation in 2010, we are trying to push or slide things to the left. "Advise and assist" has become the catchphrase in the media, but we need to examine things in the framework that we have already established.

Arguably, Iraq is probably in a state somewhere between insurgency and unstable peace. Violence dropped dramatically in 2009, but we are now seeing spikes again as U.S. forces begin to reduce their footprint in Iraq. Our operational theme probably remains irregular warfare: however the dominating joint operation will probably shift from COIN to foreign internal defense (FID). As time moves on, I think one goal is to see our residual force of advisors shift to an operational theme of peace operations -- but whether that transition can be made anytime soon is up in the air.

But let's back up for a moment. We spent several years engaged in COIN operations. FM 3-0 defines counterinsurgency as those "actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency." Here, the "government" is the host nation (HN), specifically the government of Iraq (GOI). FM 3-0 goes on to say that "in COIN, HN forces and their partners [the U.S. and CF] operate to defeat armed resistance, reduce passive opposition, and establish or reestablish the HN government's legitimacy." Finally, we have stumbled across the reason why it is so difficult (and perhaps too soon) to usefully assess the results of our efforts in Iraq.

The defeat of armed resistance may be quantifiable in terms of number of enemy killed or metrics illustrating lesser and lesser levels of violence. And on a macro scale, perhaps that goal has been achieved: violence in Iraq today is nowhere near the levels seen in 2006 or 2007, the height of the insurgency. However, as aforementioned, we are in a transition phase now, and with our withdrawal of forces may come a spike in violence, or in the worst case scenario, a return to civil war.

It is similarly difficult to say whether the goal of establishing the HN government's legitimacy has been achieved. The elections process in Iraq has been an ongoing nightmare. Additionally, corruption is rampant at all levels of politics: from the municipal all the way up to national. Perhaps more striking is the populace's awareness of the corruption, which causes the varying levels of distrust in their government and security forces. The never-ending struggle to repair the infrastructure and bring some kind of consistency to the delivery of essential services to the populace is another hit against government legitimacy.

Finally, the most tangible, and perhaps simplest indicator, is violence. Although we no longer see entire Sunni or Shi'a neighborhoods getting wiped out or cleansed, we are still seeing markets being blown up and acts of violence committed by terrorists and insurgents that will cause the populace to doubt the GOI's ability to provide security for them.

So it is now easy to see why it is so difficult to begin discussing whether we "won" in Iraq. Keep this in mind the next time you see a talking head on the TV drawing bold conclusions. We still have a lot of soldiers in Iraq, and we will continue to have soldiers there for a long time. It may very well be ten or 20 years before we can definitively say, "Yes, we made Iraq a better place," or "No, it was a waste of time that made the global security environment worse: the country tore itself apart five years after we left, and now we have the Middle East version of Somalia."

The importance of using the correct words to say what you mean and mean what you say. The reason I have led you on this meandering journey to simply find a way to correctly label or characterize the nature of the conflict is because of the confusion that exists in the media, in the government and even within the military. In all three arenas, terms are thrown around and used too often without regard to their doctrinal meanings or definitions. The ensuing confusion not only has a disruptive effect on the military's ability to see itself, but also on the public's ability to see what's going on and formulate an informed opinion.

I will be honest and admit that until I came to the Career Course and actually sat down with Army doctrine, I was also guilty of the carelessly-throw-words-around crime. I was guilty because I was ignorant of Army doctrine: I figured I was a smart guy that knew a lot of fancy terms, but my ignorance only contributed to the problem of this institutional fog concerning our role in the contemporary operating environment.

I used to use the terms counterinsurgency and stability operations interchangeably because I didn't know any better. Now, I understand that COIN is a type of joint operation, and stability ops is an element of full spectrum ops (along with offensive and defensive operations). Each type of joint operation, including COIN, is a combination of all three elements in varying ratios. A raid or a major combat operation might be heavier on offensive elements, while humanitarian assistance or COIN might be heavier on stability elements.

(2) WAS THIS WORTHWHILE?

I hate to disappoint, but there is no military metric for this. All military action is a means to political ends. Public opinion and society (and ultimately history) will determine whether our efforts in Iraq were worthwhile.

Beating CNN to the punch: J. Breyer on the 1st Amendment

2010-09-16T00:31:00.001-05:00

Supreme Court Justice Breyer weighs in on the Quran-burning scandal and the Constitutional 1st Amendment Right to freedom of expression here on CNN...about three hours after I did so myself.

Holy dogshit: someone who actually might have read and/or studied the Quran

2010-09-15T21:13:00.005-05:00

Saw this in the New York Times today.

Agree or disagree, at least this guy did SOME homework, making him infinitely better qualified to speak than the endless talking heads who ignore the opinions of actual Muslims (I'm talking about the normal people: your son's friend at school, your daughter's math teacher, your neighbor's doctor...not the radical terrorists that make up less than one percent of the world's Muslim population) or never got past the front (or rather back) cover (for those that don't understand that last bit, you need to go ahead and Wikipedia "Arabic language").

Not-in-chronological-order Suras, reference to Judaism and Christianity to include Moses and Jesus (and not in bad ways)...I'm just going to go ahead and say "I told you so." Thank-you Professor Reza (the prof who taught my Islamic Law class in law school) for saving me from being an ignorant asshole. I can still be an asshole, but I try to at least be a well-read asshole.

Forgive my fervor: I just really hate dumb people. It's a character flaw that I fully disclaim.

And of course, due to the political nature of this topic, I also fully disclaim the fact that this opinion is mine alone, and not representative of the people I work for. If you didn't understand that, please go to the very top of this page, or the right side of this page: it's on here twice to make sure there is no misunderstanding.

Fuck it, that brings up another point. As part of our FACCC small group setup, our instructor makes one of us brief the day's news at the beginning of each day (yeah, it's essentially Current Events for grown-ups). Obviously the crazy I-want-to-burn-Qurans guy in Florida has been a headliner for the last couple weeks, and much has been made about General Petraeus' decision to speak publicly on the topic.

Traditionally, it has been considered a faux pas for uniformed military personnel to speak out on political issues. As a military, we are considered to be a military means to a political end: an extension of political will at the nation-state level. Consequently, there is a perceived conflict of interest: an attitude that is fundamentally rooted in our rock-steady belief in military subordination to civilian authority. No one will ever contest that.

Soldiers talk about politics all the time: within the confines of the barracks or in their homes. To think otherwise is naive. To demand otherwise is foolish. Rigorous intellectual discourse and debate is what stimulates or catalyzes learning and discovery. The words I commit to this page might not be sanctioned or approved by the institution I volunteer my life for, but any debate or thought it stimulates is a positive contribution.

Since the military is an instrument of national policy, it is critical that our military leaders be in tune and in touch with the pulse of America. This is now encroaching on another blog topic that I've been piecing together ever since I had a drunken conversation at a Buffalo Wild Wings with two fellow Army officers a couple weeks ago, but the basic premise is such: as American society's moral values/ideals/goals shift over time, our military institution must be flexible and shift with society. This is one of the greatest challenges facing senior leadership in the modern, technologically rich and information-saturated, flatter global environment. A directly related challenge is whether we should recognize the emergence of a warrior class in today's America (also another blog topic for another day).

But I digress. GEN Petraeus decided to speak out on the Quran-burning affair. Outwardly, it was justified by an undoubtedly genuine concern for the welfare of our servicemembers currently in-theater. And nearly every government official (with half a brain) has been careful to underscore the fact that crazy-Florida-guy does have a Constitutional right to burn Qurans if he wants to (remember, the 1st Amendment doesn't protect only the speech we like, it protects all speech: even unpopular or loathsome forms of expression).

But perhaps this has also been a signal of a shift. Not only a shift in senior leader's TTPs (tactics, techniques and procedures) regarding interaction with the media, but maybe a signal to America of a different United States military. All of this comes amidst a sea of debate and national turmoil over salient political issues: burning Qurans, mosques near Ground Zero, Don't Ask Don't Tell. And now we have a four-star general pleading against the burning of holy books, senior Pentagon leadership saying maybe it's okay for gays to serve in the military...all in the public arena.

Maybe I'm jumping at nothing, but we are a professional Army that has been engaged in continuous combat for nearly a decade: no Army sans conscripts/draftees has ever done that before in American history. Today's military institution is profoundly different, and has undergone more change and transformation in the last ten years than it did in the preceding half-century. So maybe this is the flip-side to the arguments that denounce the evolution of a warrior class. Who knows. I'm rambling, so I'm going to stop now.

After the fall

2010-09-11T23:36:00.000-05:00

I can't remember how long it took to see my father in person. Days, maybe weeks.

The day of, it took me hours to get a hold of my dad on the phone. He worked on John St, just a few blocks away. I would find out much later on that he was scheduled to attend a meeting in the towers that day: he was an engineer who dealt with the Port Authority routinely (and the PANYNJ had its main offices in the WTC on the high floors of one of the towers: sixty- or seventy-something). He was running late that morning, and his tardiness likely saved his life.

It was early afternoon -- maybe. The towers had been gone for hours now.

I watched as people passed me on the street, heading north. Some covered in the ashy white dust. The cellphones had been jammed since ten o'clock that morning. Landlines were worse: calls to my dad's office didn't go to his message box, but rather to an automated message that seemed to imply the nonexistence of the number I was trying to dial.

I remember seeing live footage on the news: street scene from somewhere in the city. Showed a guy on a Nextel, talking. It woke me from my daze. I stopped every guy in a suit. "Do you have a Nextel phone? Do you have a Nextel? I need to make a call."

Finally one guy actually stopped. Maybe he was talking to his wife or girlfriend. "I gotta go, honey. Yeah, I'm okay. I gotta let someone use my phone for a second. I love you. Bye." He handed the phone over to me, and I don't think we even said anything to each other. He held my cigarette for me as I struggled to dial the numbers: my hands were shaking.

It took a couple of rings, but finally I heard my dad's voice. I can't remember the first words we exchanged. Maybe "Are you okay?" or "Thank god you're alive." I don't know. I remember cursing a lot. "Jesus fucking Christ! It's like a war zone down there!" I remember my dad admonishing me for cursing, telling me to calm down. "How the fuck am I supposed to calm down?! They're trying to kill us!" It irritated me.

I asked him where he was. Chinatown, he told me. He was walking north. He heard someone say that there were buses that would take people off the island above 34th Street, so that's where he was walking. He asked me where I was. "Fourteenth Street," I told him, standing outside of an NYU dorm that had become a rally point for displaced NYU students who were living further south, below 14th Street. He wanted me to get off the island -- find a way to mom's house on Staten Island. I told him I was staying in the city.

It was a while before they re-opened lower Manhattan to civilians. At least a week. Maybe two. My dad called and told me he was coming into the city to see if he could get to his office. He wanted to know if I was interested in doing lunch. He picked a seafood place in midtown: Dock's.

I was sitting on the train, headed to Grand Central. We rumbled to a stop and sat there. Nothing out-of-the-ordinary: just another train delay, and there were lots of those as of late. The PA system in my car was jacked up: the conductor's voice came over garbled. Suddenly people from the car behind us started coming into our car, pushing their way to the front.

Whoa whoa whoa. What's going on? They're saying we gotta evacuate. What? Go to the front of the train! We hustled forward, and following the herd, gingerly made our way down onto the tracks, following a loose string of bobbing flashlights that were being wielded by subway workers. We were just a couple hundred feet from the platform, but there was another train in front of ours. I wondered if the third rail was electrified or if the emergency workers somehow disable it during evacuation scenarios.

As we approached the stairs at the end of the platform, we were greeted by cops, frantically waving their arms at the shoulder in a big circle, telling us to get the hell out. Get up to street level now! Oh my God, it's a bomb! Go topside!

As I emerged from Grand Central onto the street, I had that feeling again. That sensation of not being able to control anything; not being able to influence my fate. We could all die at any given instant, and that wasn't rhetoric. The threat was tangible, something that no one had ever felt before. How many times was this going to happen? How many times were we going to have to endure the singular feeling of someone trying to kill us?

I finally made my way into the restaurant probably 30 minutes late, and my dad was showing impatience. "Dad, I just walked out of a fucking bomb scare in Grand Central." Lunch was awkward.

I was never close to my father growing up. He was not the good job, I'm proud of you, let's go in the backyard and play catch type of father. He threw himself at his work to provide for me, and while I never went hungry, I also never really got to know my father. I'm not sure which is the worse option.

Even today, I don't speak much with him. In the nine years since, I graduated college and I graduated law school. My parents felt that I should be doing certain things with my life, and I deviated from their desired path for me by joining the Army. I went to war and came back. I came back hoping that I could finally bridge the gap with my parents -- that maybe the stress of having a son overseas in combat would allow them to drop the shields and just accept me and the choices I have made.

Instead I came back to a lot of dinner-table arguments, poorly informed by 20-second sound bites and the media. Opinions on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the president. Doubts about our ability to accomplish the mission, and insensitive and ignorant generalizations of an entire culture and religion.

"Dad: I spent a year there. I lived it every single day. I think I might know what I'm talking about. I think I might be more of a subject matter expert than some talking head on Channel 5 news or Newsweek magazine." My parents could not accept my four-year-old decision to join the Army, and understood less about what I did in Iraq than my friends. Hell, my friends were more family to me than my family.

So that's where it stands. A lot of things can happen in nine years. But a lot of things can stay the same.

If you have a good thing going, cherish it. I look back and sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision. I gave up a prosperous livelihood and any chance to sustain a normal relationship or start a family or just be a normal fucking person in order to serve this country and take care of soldiers. Sometimes it drives me crazy. But in the end, if I had to do anything differently, it would have been to sign on the dotted line earlier.

Facebook says I should never forget; let me tell you why I choose not to forget

2010-09-11T14:06:00.001-05:00

Three thousand people were killed in our backyard, and everyone says it's a good thing to move on, but you know what, I don't want to move on. I want that hurt and that pain to stay with me, because if I ever forget even a small piece, then I start feeling guilty. Hell, I am stuck in the middle of Oklahoma right now, and I feel guilty that I am unable to be home in my city to grieve in my concrete jungle.

People throw up a Facebook status, then go back to watching their college football or mall shopping or whatever the fuck it is that they are doing. They have no understanding of what happened to our city that morning, and will never understand the magnitude of the tangible assault on the senses (I say that literally: the sights, the smells, the sounds).

If you weren't there, people, then don't patronize me with some empty patriotic saying in between your Saturday errands. Come sit down with me, buy me a beer and listen to what I have to say, and learn about what it was like to be a New Yorker on that day. But don't ever think that a couple keystrokes on your smartphone will ever be enough to give back what so many people lost that day. If you don't understand, then just accept that you are not part of our fraternity, and stop pretending.

Here is the reality, as much as it hurts, you have to accept it: if you were in a position of safety where your life was not physically threatened, then you haven't earned the right to have your voice heard over those that died or those that lost something. If you didn't spend your entire life living and breathing in the greatest city, then you will never understand. If you were sitting in some class in junior high or high school two thousand miles away, watching it on TV, you may take solace in the fact that you can participate in the shared national shock suffered by all across the nation, but you will never be one of us -- we who were there.

Yes, you're right: it is a shallow, elitist and exclusive view, and I should be bigger than that. I should be better than that.

But you do not know what it was like to have a brigade-sized element murdered in your backyard. I do.

You can say what you want, you can feel you want, and that's fine: my soldiers and I risk our lives so you can enjoy that right. But I don't have to like what you have to say, and I don't have to listen or care. Not on this day. Be deferential today and be sensitive, because it's not your day. It's mine. And it's the only day of the year that I deserve to be as small or shallow or insensitive to your feelings as I want. Tomorrow, the status quo returns, and the emotional and physical and security needs of America will once again go before mine.

But let me have today.

If I don't care about the "Ground Zero Mosque", why should you?

2010-09-11T11:50:00.003-05:00

This was written a few days ago, before the crazy Florida guy backed off from his plan to publicly burn Qurans...

I'm gonna lay it out there: I really don't give a shit about who practices what religion in whatever location.

Here are my credentials: I'm from NYC; I was in NYC on the island of Manhattan on 11 SEP 2001; I'm in the military; I served in Iraq; we lost soldiers.

An Islamic Center downtown really doesn't bother me (assuming they are not being funded by al Qaeda, the boogeyman or the Devil). So somebody explain to me why people who aren't from MY goddamn town who weren't there on THAT day and who think Sharia is representative of everything radical and crazy (newsflash: it's not; it's just overarching classical Islamic law -- there's even a book or two out there on this stuff: I read 'em, I recommend everyone else do so as well) are making such a big f*cking deal out of this "Ground Zero mosque" nonsense???

I'm serious, I actually need some convincing. If it was all 9/11 families, that would be one thing: I can understand the difficulty in separating the traumatic emotional hearbreak of losing someone from other issues. But I do NOT understand these random people from all over the country weighing in on this shit.

And now some church in Florida is going to burn Qurans on 9/11 because they think Islam is evil?? Seriously?? Do those idiots really think that the proper way to "remember the 9/11 victims" is to fucking burn Qurans??? Are they even aware that some of the victims were Muslim (and I'm not talking about the hijackers -- I'm talking about regular people)? Shit, do you think they even plan on looking inside these Qurans before burning them? Do you think they know what a Surah is? Do you think they know that the Surahs are ordered not in chronological order, but by length (because it was originally an oral text passed down from generation to generation, and the ordering facilitated memorization). Who are we joking: of course not. Even without doing any research, I think I can safely assume that that church of idiots is completely ignorant of everything that is outside of their little bubble.

It's all right I guess, I'm sure there won't be any images or video of this retardation and I'm sure it won't make it onto the Internet and I'm sure it won't be manipulated for God-knows-what kind of purposes.

Does anyone else see the absurdity in all of this, or am I the only one? If I am the crazy one, someone please set me straight.

That morning, the sky was blue: not a single cloud in sight

2010-09-11T11:46:00.005-05:00

The sky was a perfect kind of blue without a single cloud in sight; it was still t-shirt and shorts weather. Nine years later and I can still remember what it smelled like, the way my skin was numb, the mass exodus to go north or just get the fuck off the island, and the strangeness of hearing total silence that night: no cars, no planes, not a goddamn thing except for a fighter jet that screamed overhead every now and then that freaked us the fuck out.

Everybody was in shock. It was so offensive and so personal, like getting punched right in the mouth...nobody knew what to think or what to feel. Am I supposed to be a an ignorant gung-ho idiot and say I hate all Muslims? Am I supposed to preach peace, love and tolerance, so the terrorists don't win? Somebody tell us what the fuck we're supposed to feel, because right now nobody fucking knows.

For days afterward, people walking around like zombies in the middle of 5th Avenue and Broadway because everything below 14th St was in the lockdown zone (no cars except emergency vehicles), making crazy shadows in the dust (which hung around for a solid 3 weeks) especially when the sun was low -- like out of a horror movie.

The Cortlandt Street stop

2010-09-11T11:44:00.002-05:00

I remember the mall that was underneath the towers: Cortlandt Street stop on the 1-9. Or the N-R stop a couple blocks away. MetroCards were blue and tokens had that pentagon-shaped silver thing in the middle (after they replaced the ones with the hole in the middle and the ones with the big cutout Y of N-Y-C). Hell, just walk it -- just a few blocks. Go the back way through Battery Park: go into that other mall with all of the glass and metal, take the bridge across the West Side Highway; forget about trying to cross it at street level: you'll die.

I used to go into the Sam Goody in the basement mall underneath the towers as a kid, trying to figure out which CD I was going to waste my money on to stick into my bright yellow Sony discman. I remember the greasy and overpriced slices at the Sbarro. I remember snickering at all the poor Jersey fucks who had to take the friggin' PATH train to come into my city. I remember the bigass escalators in the lobbies, with all of the international flags on the second floor.

Suits on Motorolas and Nextels, and tourists all over the place, waiting for the elevators. Shoeshine guys buffing away on Italian leather wingtips that cost more than your parents made in a month. Express elevators that skipped whole bunches of floors -- different ones for different sky lobbies. I remember the home video my dad took of me on the roof when I was little, and how the audio on the VHS was all fucked up from the interference from the gigantic antenna and how absurdly small the city's huge buildings looked, with little yellow matchbox cars sliding up and down the pencil-thin streets with little tiny dots playing Frogger in between them.

I remember eating lunch in the plaza at the base of the towers: sitting at the fountain thing with the big metal globe, surrounded by businessmen taking drags off of their cigarettes in between bites of a $1 hotdog and a Poland Spring or Snapple, their suit jackets folded neatly beside them, company badges and ID cards hanging from belt loops or shirt pockets or coat lapels. Tourists, arched backwards aiming their cameras straight up, trying to get both towers in the frame, pointing towards infinity. I remember exiting any subway station within sight of the WTC and automatically looking for the towers to orient myself: our compass.

What do you remember?

Media misrepresents substance of Wikileaks documents

2010-07-27T19:02:00.001-05:00

CNN is running a story on TF 373, what is apparently a Special Operations Force (SOF) unit in Afghanistan. CNN cites to one of the Wikileaks documents to imply that during an aborted operation, TF 373 killed seven Afghan National Police officers.

I'll let you read it for yourself here. The way that paragraph is written, you come away from it thinking there was foul play -- that maybe this SOF unit maliciously killed Afghan police officers.

But if you click through to the document itself, the data paints a completely different picture. I'm not going to dissect it and explain every single acronymn, because I still believe that the OPSEC violation committed by Wikileaks is outrageous, and although the data is out and the damage is done, I refuse to exacerbate it by helping the layman decipher some of the cryptic terms and verbage.

Here is the bottom line as to what happened in this particular instance: SOF was conducting a night-time operation. They were accidentally engaged by Afghan police forces. SOF conducted a battle drill along with air support, which resulted in the deaths of some of the Afghan police officers who accidentally attacked the SOF unit.

The remainder of the rollup goes into the fallout and second- and third-order effects of the incident. That's the bottom line: it was an accident. Does this kind of shit happen in combat? Absolutely. You've got a special ops unit (which obviously does not coordinate with everyone for security reasons -- even regular U.S. military forces are not privy to what these guys do for a multitude of legitimate reasons), operating at night, that gets engaged by an Afghan unit that can't communicate directly with the American unit (again for security reasons). Both elements did what they thought was the right thing: the Afghans thought they were shooting at bad guys. The Americans thought they were shooting at bad guys.

Once again, I will not dissect the rollup, and I don't have to prove my credentials to read these reports by doing so. I am a United States Army officer with a secret-level security clearance, and I know how to read these documents because I dealt with this kind of information on a daily basis for an entire year.

I realize I am rambling. What I'm trying to get at is that it is not fair for the media to imply (by omission or mischaracterization of data through ignorance) things that are simply not true or cannot be corroborated without additional evidence or information. This is only the tip of the iceberg: media outlets and pundits are going to read what they want to read, and will feed a willing audience what both parties (media and information consumer) want to read/watch/hear. It's ridiculous, because we're talking about CNN: a reputable news source. If it was just some guy's random blog (like this one), it would be a different story. But CNN and any other major news outlet all possess a unique ability to tangibly and substantially shape and effect public opinion. Opinion informed by knowledge or information that isn't quite 100% does not equate to informed opinion: it equates to being hoodwinked. Congrats: you got spun.

I only ask that when you get bombarded with some of the sensational stuff, take it with a grain of salt. Wait for it to be vetted by people with experience and knowledge before swallowing it completely.

Wikileaks madness

2010-07-25T23:56:00.000-05:00

This Wikileaks drama is fucking bullshit: there is a difference between lobbying for government transparency and just irresponsibly dumping info on the web. We still have thousands of soldiers over there: they don't deserve to have fucking grid coordinates and BDAs and goddamn unit callsigns published on the goddamn internet. A sophisticated enemy can cull plenty of data from this shit and use it against coalition forces. And believe me, the enemy is sophisticated -- we are not talking about some kind of primitive monsters running around with towels on their heads. We are talking about an agile, adaptive, tech-savvy enemy that has managed to avoid destruction at our hands for the past decade.

Unfortunately, it's too late: the damage is done. Every single fucking byte of data has no doubt been burned onto CDs or DVDs for study. The guys at Wikileaks need to be put in jail: OPSEC violation of this magnitude should be criminal.

More of a reminder

2010-07-20T23:43:00.001-05:00

This is more a reminder to myself, and not really a proper post. Lots of ideas and fragments; can't guarantee all of them will see fruition as fully-developed posts...

Global Assessment Tool and the Soldier Fitness Test: the U.S. Army's online mental health survey -- quantify your psychic well-being with a number between 1 and 10...your answers will determine how fucked up you are (based on some kind of algorithm), and you will be required to view some online PowerPoints and videos. Upon completion, you will be all better.

Fort Sill historian attempts to teach us how to think by telling us what to think: when academia violently collides with a room full of reality.

FACCC Chaplain: PTSD; moral and ethical decision-making; how do leaders give their soldiers the context they need within which to frame the death of a comrade?

Mission first, people always: hard rights, easy wrongs and the Twilight Zone in between.

Taking on the Ivy League: an intellectual joust and why I hate answering the same damned questions every time I meet people at a party

U.S. Army officer/leader development: why is the system broken and WTF do we do about it? Also: the coming leadership gap -- today's company-grade officer exodus is fucking over tomorrow's field grade leaders.

Semi-fiction: fucked up dream (9 bullets)

Book Review: The Strongest Tribe by Bing West.

New York Times: rise of the warrior class? (and hazing in today's military)

Full Spectrum Operations, Stability, Counterinsurgency and Core Competencies: when Redlegs turn blue

Killing the Myth: recent Army doctrinal/training reform did not arise from 9/11. As evidenced by a question posed to my FACCC class, "Did 9/11 change the Army for better or for worse?" I was shocked at how many hands went up in an attempt to link the Army's adoption of counterinsurgency as a strategy in Iraq to the events of September 11, 2001. Same for the sudden push for the development of smart, agile and adaptive leaders at the company level. I was shocked because the premise that these changes or reforms arose directly out of 9/11 or even the beginning of the GWOT is wrong. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was strictly a conventional affair. By the fall of 2001, the Army was already in the midst of "Transformation," a key Defense buzzword. Starting with Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki in the 1990s, the Army was moving towards a more rapidly-deployable, expeditionary force: away from the gargantuan, monolithic Army that enabled us to win the Gulf War back in 1991. The division-centric Army trained to fight AirLand Battle (fight the Soviets at the Fulda Gap!) was transforming into the modular brigade-centric Army trained to fight across the full spectrum of operations...

Back on the net

2010-07-12T12:40:00.000-05:00

Apologize for the long hiatus. To sum up the previous six months (during which time my posting was rather sporadic): wrapped up a tour as a headquarters battery XO at Fort Hood, TX. I will refrain from delving into the details at this time, but suffice to say the culture and environment in the battalion changed dramatically after certain personnel were changed out. What used to be a collaborative environment, dedicated to supporting the line batteries and ensuring that our soldiers each received quality training and a legitimate chance to survive in combat...was transformed into a hot mess. Again: I'll spare you the details, because I don't want to bore you with my bitching. I'll just say that my timing in leaving Fort Hood was fairly excellent.

So what now? Took some PCS leave (permanent change of station: when you get transferred from one base to another for whatever the Army considers to be a long(ish) period of time, then it is classified as a PCS move vice a TDY, or temporary duty assignment, move) and went back to NYC. As opposed to every other time I go home to the East Coast, this time I spent most of my time relaxing and NOT trying to visit every person I knew out there. Spent a solid week growing my hair out, not shaving, putting a dent in the book I'm reading (An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson), eating non-chain-restaurant food, and remembering why I miss living in the borough of Brooklyn so damned much.

Outside of my little vacation, I have completed moving myself and all of my belongings back to Lawton, Oklahoma, where I am scheduled to attend the Field Artillery Captain's Career Course (FACCC) here at Fort Sill. For the non-Army audience: the title FACCC sounds a lot fancier than what it really is -- standardized PME (professional military education) at the put-forth-by-doctrine time of the career. The utopian goal is to educate junior officers and prepare them to serve on battalion staffs and ultimately as battery commanders. In reality, it will likely be another Big Army lowest-common-denominator everyone-is-a-go course. Of course, I will let you know where reality lies as I lean forward in the foxhole during the coming weeks and months.

Although I haven't posted anything substantive in a while, I wasn't on complete hiatus: I've amassed a list of articles and interwebs snippets that I told myself to comment on. I'll be reviewing the list, seeing what might still be timely or interesting (even if we are weeks or months removed from initial headline publishing). Hopefully I can get back on the saddle and start pumping out entries again.

Private First Class Mark West (1988-2010)

2010-05-11T21:13:00.000-05:00

Another soldier is dead. Mark West, a kid in my old battery died while riding his motorcycle on Saturday, 8 MAY 2010. He was in one of the gun sections of my old artillery platoon, and a gunner in my sister rifle platoon.

I got the call on Sunday from my First Sergeant (we were both in Bravo Battery) while I was in Ikea buying coffee tables and side tables and other domestic shit.

There was some initial shock at first as I stood there in the middle of Ikea, head in my hand as all of these people went past me, completely oblivious to the feeling of loss: an absence that can only be felt after you have placed your life and trust in someone else's hands.

But the feeling wore off quickly. I feel like I should have been more affected. I saw the kid all the time in Iraq. Saw him all the time here in the States after we came back. Smart kid. But couldn't stay out of trouble here in garrison. "West-icles," I used to call him, after hearing a guy in Iraq call him that. I remember that cracking me up, so I stole it and continued to use it after we came home. Every time I'd run into him in our battery areas or maybe at a BBQ for SGT Webster's family or after formation..."Westicles! How the hell are ya?!" He always smiled.

I am afraid I am becoming desensitized to the loss of people. Perhaps it's an internal defense mechanism? I have no fucking idea. Better question is, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Am I supposed to be able to adjust better to losing people, or should I be devastated by every loss?

Never forget

2010-03-12T16:00:00.000-06:00

3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment honors its three fallen

LOW (25APR09) - CMK (4JUN09) - JRP (25JUL09): R.I.P.

A good read from an Iraq vet

2010-03-10T19:12:00.000-06:00

Apologize for the long hiatus -- work's been killing me. Here's a good read from CNN.

Back from Iraq war, and alone - CNN.com

Highlights the fact that we now have another generation of combat vets in the ranks of the population, and underscores some of the common issues many returning vets face: issues that the public-at-large remains largely ignorant of (and sometimes insensitive to).

Are people aware that returning vets might have problems? Yeah, sure: common knowledge, standard data. But most aren't tuned in to the (sometimes substantial) depths of these problems. We saw the ripple effects for years after Vietnam: vets in jail, vets that were homeless, vets that were jobless, vets that were killing themselves. I think we're starting to see a little bit more of the iceberg now, and the waterline will continue to recede and reveal the ugly monster even more in the years to come.

I think right now, common opinion in the ranks is that the Army and our society is not doing a good job in helping a lot of these guys out. Anyone familiar with the process when a soldier separates from the Army (under normal, honorable discharge circumstances) knows it's a joke: PowerPoint briefings acting as a substitute for quality career/life/health/financial/mental counseling.

The Karate Kid...practices Kung-fu. WTF?

2010-02-25T00:40:00.001-06:00

This post is a little off-topic, and for that, I apologize:
So I was surfing the website for the Bobby Bones Show, an Austin-based morning show that I listen to fairly religiously each morning as I sleep-drive my way to work at 0515 every morning, and I saw that he posted a link to a trailer for what is either a re-make or reboot of the Karate Kid franchise.

Sidebar: I freakin' love the Bobby Bones show, mostly because its personalities are all late-twenty-somethings (i.e., my age), and they are able to make me laugh -- an increasingly difficult task to accomplish these days.

As Mr. Bones rather astutely notes, it stars Will Smith's kid, and Jackie Chan (who I guess is filling the Mr. Miyagi role as coach/teacher/mentor?)

One thing bothered me, though: if the kid is going off to China to study kung-fu (a Chinese martial arts discipline), then why in the name of f*** is this thing called "The Karate Kid". Should it not be "The Kung-fu Kid"? Additionally, since I no longer have an MLA guide to writing, can someone tell me if I'm supposed to italicize movie titles, or stick 'em in quotes? Or are they one of those grey-area things where both are acceptable, so long as you remain consistent...?

Am I the only one bothered by this? Does anyone else see the ignorance in this misnomer for a movie title? At least Jackie Chan (maybe) gets an opportunity to be an actor, and not an empty vessel exploited for a cheap laugh (usually at his own expense). C'mon Jackie: do the Asian American community a favor and stop with the jokes whose punchline is your inability to speak English. You're better than that, and quite frankly, the racial slapstick is kind of old and passé.

Iraq and Afghanistan veterans turning-in rifles for pens and typewriters

2010-02-08T22:10:00.000-06:00

One of my old high school classmates beat me to the punch and posted a link on Facebook to this article from yesteday's NYT about the recent wave of writing (memoirs, analytical studies, etc.) emerging from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's a short article, so I won't waste time giving you an executive summary. Instead, I'll talk about what struck me. In particular was this paragraph from the article written by Elisabeth Bumiller, characterizing today's "soldier-writers":

The current group is different. As part of a modern all-volunteer force, they explore the timeless theme of the futility of war — but wars that they for the most part support. The books, many written as rites of passage by members of a highly educated young officer corps, are filled with gore, inept commanders and anguish over men lost in combat, but not questions about the conflicts themselves. “They look at war as an aspect of glory, of finding honor,” said Mr. O’Brien, who was drafted for Vietnam in 1968 out of Macalester College in St. Paul. “It’s almost an old-fashioned, Victorian way of looking at war.”

That's a hell of a paragraph, dripping with consequence for my fellow comrades-in-arms who dare look inwards and confront their inner drive and motivation. So I ask myself: have I been seduced by the magnetic charm of the warrior-scholar paradigm? Hell, we've got Tim O'Brien himself here, saying that "we look at war as an aspect of glory, of finding honor."

My God...is that what I'm doing?

I spent a childhood growing up on a healthy dose of Vietnam movies and memoirs and Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, which I truly believe left a huge impression on me as a young high school student back in the '90s. With this pedigree of social commentary under my belt, any implication that I see war as a mechanism to find glory and honor would be downright embarrassing. I mean shit, who wants to admit that? Who wants to stand up, raise their hand and say, "Yes, I joined the military because I'm looking for glory."

But wait, let's pause for a second. Maybe Ms. Bumiller and Tim O'Brien are onto something here. And let's face it: Tim O'Brien's a hell of an insightful guy (just read his books).

As I was reading the article, I couldn't help but feel that someone had been spying on me, and sent a report to the Times. Caught in the act! Or maybe, more accurately, I want the article to remind me of...well, myself.

I mean, isn't that why I'm even posting to this blog in the first place? Yes, part of it is cathartic like I imagine it is for plenty of service members who write memoirs about their wartime experiences -- to help myself work through some of the things that I've seen and done for the last couple of years in the Army. But isn't a part of it also because I have indeed been seduced by the warrior-scholar paradigm? And if I have, the question then is: is that a bad thing?

Don't worry, I'm not comparing myself to guys like Nate Fick or Andrew Exum -- guys that went to war, wrote books, then went on to go to the best schools in America and are currently doing amazing things as civilians; guys that are just downright geniuses. These guys are intellectual heavyweights with wartime credentials that outdo mine by a thousand-fold, and unless I do some amazing shit when World War III pops off, there's no danger of my joining their ranks in the warrior-scholar elite.

Maybe I write because I want to break that age-old stereotype: the one of the soldier as an apish brute. Maybe I want to prove that just because I put on a camouflage uniform does not mean that I am unintelligent or incapable of understanding issues of larger import or gravitas than what the chow hall is serving for the next meal. Maybe I want to prove to mainstream America that I understand the national and global policy issues behind the wars that are killing my soldiers better than they do, because I don't shackle myself to 60-second sound-bites from a spin-doctor on Fox News. Maybe I want to show people that there's more to the military than the whole "Kill! Kill! Kill! Death! Blood! Yeah! Awesome!" visage that is so often paraded around and exploited by anyone with an agenda in their pocket.

I don't know. I'm just glad that GWOT (Global War on Terrorism -- yeah, it's a Bushism, but one acronymn is better than two separate ones: OIF and OEF) veterans are writing, and that some works are being recognized. Hell, exposure in this Times article is probably as mainstream as some of these works will ever get, but if that means more people wander over into the Military History section of their local Barnes and Noble or Borders, and pick up Colby Buzzell's My War or Andrew Exum's This Man's Army or hell, even James McDonough's Vietnam memoir, Platoon Leader: A Memoir of Command in Combat...well, then that's a good thing.

Let's talk about what no one wants to talk about: PTSD

2010-02-08T21:32:00.001-06:00

This started off as a comment/response to an old law schoolmate's blog entry, but it started getting rather lengthy and out-of-control, so I migrated it to a full post here. A rather gifted Jarhead, she somehow manages to balance being a mother, spouse, lawyer and Marine all at the same time. I won't do her the injustice of trying to summarize her entry, so read it, then come back (she flatters me in her first paragraph -- skip on down to the main body text for the substantial stuff!)

Okay, you're back. So this post is meant to directly address the feelings of -- I don't know what they are: anxiety, maybe -- that we feel when confronted by disturbing images or events. I think these feelings in and of themselves are not so strange in the narrow context of following exposure to bad shit: most people would call it a normal reaction. I think what makes those feelings difficult to reconcile is when, just as Colleen writes in her entry, you are a professional warrior trained to fight, and ultimately to kill if necessary. We're supposed to be immune to those feelings, right? We're supposed to just lock them away in a box somewhere, and save it for later! Save it for all of the yummy and tasty goodness of PTSD, right?!

That works for some people. But not everyone. And this is where my discussion is going to probably start jumping all over the place, so bear with me: just buckle your seatbelt and enjoy the ride.

Rewind a year and some change: December 2008. I'm on pre-deployment block leave, just a few weeks away from getting on the bird and heading to The Big Show (i.e., Iraq). I'm drinking with an old ROTC buddy of mine, John: an Army infantry officer who deployed to Afghanistan at the same time I left for Iraq. It was probably late in the evening, and we both had undoubtedly had a few too many drinks in us. John was one of the few peers I had in ROTC that was truly on the same page as me: we both understood very well the grave and substantial responsibility we were shouldering. We were both going to be in charge of 20 to 30 people. Lives. Fathers, husbands, sons, brothers. Anything our platoons did or failed to do...well, that would be our responsibility and ours alone.

So, John and I both being drunk and on the verge of embarking on the great adventure known colloquially as war, we start talking about the shit that you don't generally share with other people, namely normal civilians. What worried us? Losing soldiers. Competence. Ability. Courage/fear. Everything. How would I react in any given situation? Am I ready? Am I ready right now to lead soldiers in combat? Has the Army given me all of the tools and training I need to ensure that I can lead soldiers effectively and not squander their lives?

Neither of us joined the Army with our eyes closed. We knew what we were getting into: if you're active duty Army, and if you're a combat arms officer, then you are virtually guaranteed to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan within a year of arriving at your first duty station. And we knew what was going on. I was an undergrad at NYU in 2001 when the World Trade Center turned into The Pile (and later The Pit) -- or Ground Zero as the rest of America calls it -- and we kicked off military operations in Afghanistan. And I was still in college in 2003 when we marched into Baghdad. I was old enough to be cognizant of what war can do to people: it kills them at the worst, or mangles them physically, or scars them psychologically.

Anyway, so there we are, drinking and sobering each other up with our insecurities. I remember looking at John and saying, "Hey dude -- this is gonna sound weird, but...I've been looking at fucked up shit on the internet to get myself ready." To my relief, he responded with, "Yeah bro, I've been doing the same thing."

This was the rationale: we didn't want the first time we saw something terrible or horrifying to be on the streets of Iraq or the mountains of Afghanistan. I wanted to take care of the shock value ahead of time -- in essence, pop the psychic cherry. I was hoping to desensitize myself in the hopes that if I was ever confronted by the real-life horrors of war, I wouldn't be paralyzed and I'd still be able to make decisions properly. I was jealous of my other ROTC buddy Ian, who as a paramedic/EMT, had seen all sorts of fucked up shit. Hell, I had seen a dead guy with his head cracked open on the curb back when I was living in Bushwick, Brooklyn: but that was only once, and it was at night, and I was drunk at the time.

So almost like we were fulfilling some kind of perverted fetish, we both had ended up scouring the internet for the most disturbing images of war we could find. I'll spare the detailed descriptions, but you can guess: the kinds of photos that were easy to take back in 2003 and 2004, in the early parts of OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom): dead civilians, dead insurgents, etc. etc. We were hoping that it would somehow prepare us for what we could possibly see first-hand.

So, all that being said, did any of my extracurricular research help prepare me any for what I saw in the year that followed? Answer: not a damned bit.

The first time you see something bad, it's scenes of people running around, maybe bleeding from their head or their arm or whatever. That's palatable. Your brain can handle that: big boom, people hurt, little bit of blood. Got it. I'm okay, let's charlie mike ("continue mission").

The next time, maybe it's kids instead of adults. Okay, little bit worse now. It really tugs at your heart when you see some grade schooler walking around with an almost cartoon-like bandage wrapped around his head a day after a VBIED (vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, i.e., carbomb) blows up in front of his school. But you can handle it. The kids are alive, some are a little bit hurt, but everything's going to be okay.

But that's really the extent of "okay". Next incident: SVBIED (suicide VBIED) blows up next to an ESU (Iraqi Emergency Service Unit) pickup truck carrying five Iraqi Policemen. Firefighters are pulling blackened, twisted and mangled things that are totally unrecognizable as human. In fact, the only thing that makes it apparent that this is a dead body they are pulling out of the molten wreckage are the following: (a) they are loading it onto a bright orange spine board; (b) as parts of the thing catches on corners of the truck's wreckage, strings and ropes of burned meat or tendon or tissue are pulled back to reveal yellow and pink shit underneath, and I know enough biology to know that the yellow shit is the fat in your body; and (c) some of the black, charred things have these big lumps in the middle, which upon closer inspection appear to be all twisty and loopy, which is when you realize that you're looking at a dead dude's intestines.

Pretty horrible, but your brain can still process it. Because there is still a tangible process to it all. Those dudes are dead. I know they're dead because those are their bodies that are being carted away right now. Got it. Was it a gross and disgusting sight? Yes. Shocking? Sure. But I'm over it. Charlie mike.

Okay fast-forward to the next incident. SVEST (suicide vest) in the southern part of the city. Roger, we're moving time now. Just go south. Follow the sirens and police trucks and ambulances. Go go go! There, one o'clock: two, three hundred meters by the big building on the west side of the street: gaggle of emergency vehicles. Stop! Where's the cordon? The Iraqis have no cordon. Okay, I see a shitload of people standing around by those fucked up cars -- we'll move in a little closer and establish a cordon around the blast site. Okay, this is good, stop here. Button-hook to the right a little bit...yeah, that's good. Stop. Hey gunner, face over to our seven o'clock. Driver, call it up to battery and let 'em know we're stopped, dismounting and give 'em the grid. Tell the other trucks to conduct survivability moves every now and then, but maintain cordon. Okay, I'm dismounting now. Interpreter, let's go.

Hit the handle, grab your weapon, lean into the heavy door with your shoulder, slip the right arm and M4 out, look down for a second (no boobytraps) and let the right foot down onto the pavement. Take a few steps out, scan your sector, move over to the next piece of cover, take a look around and figure out what the hell's going on.

You see two, no three cars parked near each other: two sedans and a white pickup truck. Windows all blown out, and all of the vehicles are peppered with paintball-sized holes. Two of them have streaks of blood all over their front ends. You've never responded to an SVEST before, and you don't know what to expect. Once you determine that security is set, you make your way to the gathering of first responders near the blown up cars. It's morning -- only zero-nine-something -- but the summer heat is already starting. Next to the cars is a very shallow, but rather wide crater. More like a gentle dip in the ground, but it's just covered in all of this brown shit -- brown shit just smeared all over the place.

You turn around and scan the area, and you see these little brown splotches all over the street, radiating out from the crater for a good bit -- all the way to the other side street on the other side of where your vehicles are at. You kneel down to look at the ground, closer at a brown splotch, and realize that it's a piece of human meat that has made the ground wet. These meat chunks are all over the place. Hell, your whole platoon just drove right into the crime scene. Nice job, asshole: now what? There's no way to walk around without stepping on the splotches.

You look around, and some of your soldiers are starting to realize what they're looking at, too. Your mind is racing in a dozen directions at once. The rational part is analyzing the scene, adjusting vehicles, talking to IPs (Iraqi Police), trying to figure out what happened here. Another part is trying to understand that all of these brown chunks used to be people: real people that had real lives. Another part of your brain is trying to wrap itself around the sobering reality that an entire life -- all of those experiences and memories and friends and family that's affected by that individual's existence -- can be snuffed out in the time it takes for an SVEST to explode. And yet another part of your brain is wondering if that strange smell is the odor of all this meat cooking on the ground in the summer Iraqi heat.

So what's the point? Why did I laboriously take you with me on a perhaps too-detailed description of some of the weird shit that occurs overseas? During my platoon's response to the SVEST, I believe my mind erected some kind of wall: okay, that's weird, but ignore it, still got a job to do. Defense mechanism that enables continued performance, perhaps?

But later on: and I don't even know how long it took. Hours...days...weeks...but later on, I did find myself thinking about that scene over and over again. And I found myself disturbed by it.

Which brings us full circle to our original topic: the feelings and emotions we feel following exposure to any kind of terrible sight. And whether it's okay to feel these things if you are a part of our storied institution of warriors.

Let's be blunt: PTSD has become a meaningless, empty label nowadays. I would argue that it's an unnecessary label. The stigmatizing label of PTSD is nothing more than the human body's normal physical and mental reaction/response to a traumatic stimulus/event. Whether it's being shot at in combat, or surviving a car accident on the interstate, I would argue that what we today call PTSD is just a normal physiological and psychological set of responses. If you go through some fucked up shit, of course you're going to go through some kind of process. Of course you're going to feel some weird things. This is normal.

So why the label in the first place? My cynicism is going to show through here, but I would say because a label makes it easy to categorize. And the military is all about labels and categories. Quality medical diagnoses and treatments have been replaced by compartmentalized, quick-fix mass programs that are just ineffectual attempts to preserve the appearance that the Army is helping its (psychologically) wounded warriors. Dear sir or madam: have you ever been deployed? While deployed, did you ever see dead bodies or wounded personnel? Did the sight of these things disturb you? Okay, well, regardless of your answers, here's a 30 minute PowerPoint presentation, and if you feel like seeking additional help, we'll put you in touch with a mental health professional who has never deployed in a combat status and will likely not understand anything you tell him or her.

Whoops: soldier's acting up? But he was such a good soldier in Iraq! Well either he's an asshole that needs to be chaptered out of the Army, or he's got PTSD. Oh wait, he has PTSD? Well, he's no good to us -- put him on medical profile and let the head-shrinkers deal with him.

You see -- it's easier to label people because when you do, it makes the immediate problem go away. No matter how much the military tries to sell its newfangled programs for helping out returning veterans, the sad truth is that the military (especially the Army) is astonishingly ill-equipped to properly handle or treat an entire generation of soldiers who have been exposed to multiple tours of combat and overall bad shit.

So, let's get back to talking about me. Here I am, safe and sound, deployment complete. The sights, smells, sounds of all the bad stuff: thousands of miles away from here. Do I still think about these things sometimes? Sure. Am I totally desensitized to the horrors of war? No, and I doubt I ever will be. I'm not sure anyone can ever truly be desensitized or made immune from these normal feelings. At least not with the way the Army deals with reintegration upon redeployment back home.

The Army (and the Marines and everyone else) spend an untold number of dollars and weeks or years of its time training you, Soldier or Marine, to be a warrior. You will move your selector switch from safe to semi, scan your lane, and kill any green motherfucker that pops up in your sights. You will pick up your radio, map and binoculars and call in some 155mm artillery HE (high-explosive) and smoke the shit out of that grid. You will put your thumbs on the butterfly trigger of that M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun and blow the shit out of any dumptrucks that attempt to breach that IP checkpoint 500 meters to our north. This is what you were trained to do.

But when you come back, all of a sudden it's "Stop! Wait, just kidding. We wanted you to be warriors and we want you to be turned on and on red alert all the time, but not anymore. It's not okay to be on high alert anymore." Because if you're on high alert, guess what: you might have PTSD. Or you're crazy. So get over it, the Army tells us. Re-adjust, reintegrate. So you do it. You reintegrate. To only have to re-learn how to ramp yourself up again when you find yourself in the desert or mountains again a year later.

Why can't we just accept that yeah, people are going to be amped after deployment. Why can't we accept that as normal and go from there? Why label it? Why stigmatize it? Why force our warriors to shun the very warrior culture that very possibly kept them alive for 365 days? Why can't we teach them to hang onto it -- even if it's just a little bit of it -- so they don't have to feel like they're crazy for it?

Now let me be clear: I'm not saying that it's okay to have brigades of soldiers running around in the U.S. pretending like they're still in Iraq. However, the process of reintegration is too rushed. And it's too superficial and empty. Have you watched the PowerPoint on reintegration? Yes? Okay, you're good. Next soldier. Have you watched the PowerPoint?

So, my colleague Colleen wonders whether the feelings of disgust/anger/remorse, etc., at seeing images of violence and war or whatever are normal or common -- even in the face of her professional background as a Marine. I would say yes, this is normal. There will of course be a large subset of military folk that will continue to toe the party line of machisimo, exhorting an invulnerability to quaint things like feeling or emotion -- but those dudes are just lying to themselves.

Whatever you end up feeling in response to some out-of-the-ordinary shit -- whether it's the shock of seeing destruction, or the grief of losing a soldier, etc. -- is a completely normal reaction. Everyone's reacts in different ways, and everyone has a different timeline for how long they are affected: for some, it's measured in seconds, and for others it can be years. The biggest thing is being aware of the fact that your body and mind are going through a process (regardless of how brief or prolonged it may be), and that it's completely normal.

To readers who've seen the shit: I hope this helps. You're not alone, and don't let anyone make you think you're crazy. Be aware of what's happening to you, and be rational enough to think about it and analyze it and if it's a problem, then attack it.

To readers who haven't seen the shit yet: there's nothing I can say or write that will prepare you. Nothing you look at on the internet is going to simulate the sensation of seeing and smelling and touching the fucked up shit that goes on overseas. Just trust in yourself, and trust that whatever reaction you have is normal. Trust your training and trust in your ability to overcome whatever intense shit you feel right at that second to do your job and take care of your soldiers.

Blinders for the public?

2010-02-03T21:33:00.000-06:00

The New York Times' At War blog has a good entry by Wesley Morgan, a student at Princeton who had spent a decent chunk of time in Iraq and Afghanistan for research. He discusses the general public's isolation and perhaps even ignorance of the daily horrors of combat that take place in Iraq and Afghanistan. Much is attributed to other factors that drive the two wars to the corner as distractions from more tangible issues, namely the economy.

And you know what? Young Wesley is right. But I'm not completely sure that this is something that we need to be disturbed by. My first reaction is to be all up-in-arms: why the hell don't people care? People are dying, for God's sakes.

But maybe this is just an illustration of how lucky we as a nation are. The fact that we can be entrenched in two separate wars, and preserve the ability for the majority of the American populace to go about daily life unaffected -- that's a good thing, right? I mean, it's a good thing that only a small percentage of the people have to experience the trauma of losing a loved one in combat. Or the stress of being separated from a spouse/parent for a year at a time.

No. That's not a satisfying answer. Less than one percent of the American population currently serves in the military. But I want people to care. I want people to know about the things happening overseas: both the good and the bad (an important emphasis placed on the word and).

A lot of people will talk about today's American military and its increasing isolation from the general public. For the first time...ever, we are fighting two major conflicts not with conscript soldiers, but with a professional all-volunteer force. Are we seeing the development of a separate warrior class in our society? And if so, is that good or bad?

Traditional thinking says: bad. Old school military thought says that war is a military means to a political end (Clauswitz). The Constitution itself subordinates the military to civilian policy-makers. So where do we stand today? We've got probably the brightest generation of senior leaders serving in the military right now, and today's platoon leaders/company commanders are going to be tomorrow's battalion commanders and generals. The wealth of combat experience that the up-and-coming generation possesses is astonishing. But what will they/we make of this gap with the rest of society that some perceive?

Another question is, on whom does the onus fall to close the gap? That's probably the more difficult question. Who possesses the obligation to do the azimuth check? Honestly, I don't know. My emotional side says the general public: we (the military) are suffering the horrors of war first-hand, therefore it is the public who get to enjoy daily safety that is obligated to learn more about what the hell is really going on in this world.

But another side of me says, The public will NEVER understand. Take a sample or cross-section of America: how many people do you think really understand what counterinsurgency is? How many people understand what exactly the 2006 "surge" in Iraq entailed, and how it fits into counterinsurgency theory? How many people understand that The Surge's success was due not only to "sending a bunch more troops to Iraq", but also the reconciliation of Sunni insurgent groups, which later came to be known as the Sunni Awakening? How many people even know what the difference between a Sunni Muslim or a Shi'a Muslim is? How many people know that muslim describes people, while islamic describes things? How many people understand that Afghani is NOT a word, and that the proper term is Afghan? The general public does not know or understand these things -- these basic, academic things -- which leads me to believe that they will never understand the more exotic shared-military experiences: grief, fear, victory, frustration...

Which goes back to the question: where does the onus fall? Is it my responsibility to teach Joe Civilian the difference between a Sunni and Shi'a? Or is it Joe Civilian's responsibility to go out and educate himself about the policies that are being enacted by the people he voted to put in office?

I don't know. This blog entry is obviously much more disjointed than my usual entries, and maybe it's because I'm so conflicted on the issue. So let's return to the initial discussion: the general public, and their isolation from war. I'll close this one by quoting from an entry I wrote back in 2008:

Think back to the last time you thanked a soldier/sailor/Marine/airman for their service. Was it when you accidentally bumped into them on the subway? Or in the mall? Or at the airport?

If these are the only times you think about the kids that are making the ultimate sacrifice out there, you need to start thinking about them more.

Don't thank ME for my service. I haven't done a thing. Thank the guy with the patch on his right shoulder. Or the girl that has to learn how to use a metal hook for a hand. Or the family who lost a son/brother/father/husband /sister/mother/daughter/wife... The 18 year old kid who no longer has any need for left-foot shoes. The father who came home unrecognizable to his baby girl and worries about hugging her good night because she's too scared of him now...

Thank them, and do it often. It's not really an option for any of us...it's an obligation.

Funny -- I'm reminded of an incident a couple nights ago where I was in Wal-Mart, and some random older lady gives me a card saying, "This is for you." On the card was printed the words, Thank-you for your service. A nice gesture -- the exact kind of gesture that I ask for in the above quote. But it seemed so...fake. Contrived. Almost disingenuous. Maybe it was the fact that she was handing out friggin' business cards: was a handshake and a verbal thank-you too much for her to offer?

A COIN vignette from Afghanistan

2010-02-03T00:07:00.000-06:00

Great vignette from C.J. Chivers' excellent blog at the NYT. Reminds me of a missed opportunity my platoon had in Iraq. We were heading north on a main route that handrails the dry riverbed that cuts Kirkuk in half. It was probably mid-day, and traffic was heavy in the area we were in. We were stopped at a red light (yes, we followed the rules of the road...a topic of discussion that warrants its own post later on) and we noticed a LN (local national) had a broken-down vehicle.

Lead truck called it out over the platoon internal net. One of my squad leaders recommended we stop to help the guy push his car out of the road. Some of the guys in my truck immediately reacted with a "Fuck no!" But I took a few seconds to chew on it. Would it increase risk to us? Of course -- every time you stop and dismount, you incur risk. But what about the benefit/gain? I'm talking beyond the immediate effect that would be experienced by the LN (in the form of a helping hand). But every other civilian and pedestrian in the area would see a platoon of American soldiers stopping to help out one of their own.

Would the IO (information operations) gain be likely limited? Yeah, probably. But who knows -- that could've been a dozen, maybe two or three dozen people that could have seen American soldiers doing something positive. A couple dozen people that could have talked about it later that evening when they sat down for dinner with their families.

In the end, other Iraqis came to the aid of the LN before we could properly establish security and dismount. Whenever I look back on that missed opportunity, I always wish I had been able to make the call sooner. COIN discussions invariably talk about "the strategic corporal", the idea being that junior leaders are making tactical decisions that can have strategic effects, both positive and negative. So although my platoon missed a chance on that summer day in Kirkuk, it's good to see that the Marines that Mr. Chivers is embedded with not only recognized an opportunity, but acted on it.

2010 QDR making waves

2010-02-01T18:50:00.001-06:00

The defense/national security world has been abuzz for the last few days with leaked information leading up to today's official release of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The report can be found and downloaded here.

So, what's the big deal? Let's start with the QDR itself. Published every four years, the QDR serves as an overarching framework for the Department of Defense. Think of it as a very broad Commander's Intent (for the five-paragraph OPORD-minded folks in the audience). My first run-in with the QDR was back in 2002 when I wrote a paper on the 2000 QDR for a college course (I think it was a class on public policy). Ever since 2002 (and probably earlier than that, even going back to pre-QDR days), the American military has focused on posturing itself so that it could fight two conventional wars on two separate fronts at the same time. This has driven force structure and force strength, as well as pursuits of various technologies (as technology increases in capability, you might see a down-sizing in ground troops -- all part of the delicate balance between capability and budget constraints).

So once again, the question begs: what's the big deal about 2010's QDR? From what I can glean from the web, it appears the the DoD is, for the first time in seemingly forever, abandoning the two-war construct, and shifting towards a full-spectrum operations capability.

Again, I haven't read the thing yet, but my guess is that this will come as no surprise to the Army or Marine Corps, who have bore the brunt of the human cost of the counterinsurgency fights in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past decade. Army doctrine has transformed from the conventional fight-the-Soviets mentality of AirLand Battle (ALB) of the 1980s to a full-spectrum operations mindset that we see today. Hell, ALB (or a close cousin of it at the very least) carried the Army through the Gulf War back in 1991. The humongous troop levels (500,000+) along with the very conventional maneuver warfare battles involving entire divisions and even corps were a perfect illustration of Army conventional warfighting doctrine in full motion.

Counterinsurgency, non-lethal effects, non-kinetic operations, stability and support operations, advise and assist: all of these buzzwords are the result of a transformation in Army doctrine that has been in effect ever since the middle 2000s (picking up steam with the publication of Field Manual 3-24, General Petraeus' meteoric rise in the ranks, and the Iraq surge). However, the very first seeds of the modern Army doctrinal transformation can probably be found in the aftermath of the 1993 Somalia debacle.

The Marine Corps has accustomed itself to adapting to new doctrine in modern history (20th century to the present). The smallest of the service branches, it has had to transform itself a number of times in order to maintain relevance. During the inter-war period between WWI and WWII, the USMC was at the forefront of developing counterinsurgency doctrine due to its involvement in the so-called Banana Wars in Latin America and the Caribbean. Out of this experience came the Marine Corps' Small Wars Manual, which prior to FM 3-24's publication in 2006, was the military's last actual doctrinal publication on counterinsurgency.

The USMC again reinvented itself as amphibious shock troops, illustrated by their storied Pacific island campaign of WWII. The USMC also showed some innovation during Vietnam with some small unit counterinsurgency tactics that are being examined again today, especially by those that are in or heading to Afghanistan (the Combined Action Program/Platoons in particular). In recent history, however, the Marine Corps (or at least their utilization in the Global War on Terror) has drifted away from the first-in/first-out shock troops employment, and more towards a role analogous to the Army's: a land force entrenched in full-spectrum operations mission.

This is probably the result of the operational tempo required to deploy and sustain the high numbers of American forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, necessitating that the Marine Corps shoulder its share of the burden of fighting the "long war." Regardless, the 2010 QDR's policy shift should not be a surprise to leaders in the Marine Corps, as both the Corps and the Army have been going down this path for a number of years now.

So who will be surprised? Not surprisingly, the remaining services, in particular the Navy and Air Force. Strategic force projection is what the Navy and Air Force have always been about, and depending on how much the strategic outlook has been changed by this year's QDR, the USN and USAF may be severely impacted (budget-wise, and via other allocations across the board).

Will update with more thoughts once I've had a chance to read the QDR...

Catching up on a week's worth of news

2010-02-01T18:24:00.002-06:00

Lots to catch up on. First week back at work complete.

The following story was brought to my attention by one of my fellow lieutenants: apparently, Trijicon (the company that makes the ACOG sights) has been inscribing Bible verses on their optics, and has been doing so for decades. I was pretty incredulous, but when one of my fellow lieutenants prompted me to look it up on Google, lo and behold, a slew of results popped up.

I've used ACOGs for years now, and not once did I ever suspect the last few digits in the string of characters on the bottom of the optic to be a reference to a Bible verse. I think everyone assumed that it was part of the model number, seeing as how it followed the numbers denoting the magnification factor and field of view of the optic, e.g., 4x32JN8:12 = four-power magnification, with a field of view of 32 degrees. The JN8:12 was just assumed to be some kind of obscure manufacturer's nomenclature. It will be interesting to see what waves this ends up making in the military community, especially for troops that are downrange in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Now that these Bible verse references are public knowledge, there is obviously an IO (information operations) disadvantage to walking around in-sector with an ACOG inscribed with a Bible verse. Nonetheless, Trijicon has provided only 100 kits (yes, you read that right: only 100) to the military to remove the etchings from the tens of thousands of optics that are currently in the inventory.

I suspect that units will probably etch over the verses at the local level. Regardless of the negative atmospherics of having these Bible references on the optics, Trijicon optics are some of the best out there and most widely used, and, barring a command directive, I highly doubt that soldiers or Marines are going to start dismounting ACOGs from their rifles because of bible verse references.

I f*cking told them so! (ISF and fake bomb-sniffers)

2010-01-26T09:33:00.001-06:00

Wired's Danger Room is running an article about the fake bomb-sniffing devices currently being used by Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). My unit saw these things in-person: they were in use at a number of checkpoints in Kirkuk.

We always knew the devices were fake, but were unable to convince the Iraqis of the fallacy of relying on these things to detect explosives. At some point during the tour, we received a report that Americans had taken X-rays and taken apart one of the devices to reveal that there was no power source inside the device, and that none of the "detecting" components connected to anything.

My patrol stopped at a checkpoint in the northern part of the city initially to chastise the Iraqi Police (IPs) for not wearing their bulletproof vests ("It's too hot and the vests are too heavy" was the Iraqi response to our line of questioning).

Among the IPs manning the checkpoint was a commissioner (IP equivalent to a senior NCO in the U.S. military) who was so obese that his vest could not be closed. I asked him what his procedures were for checking vehicles for explosives. He waved an IP over with a small black pelican case. The IP opened the case and the commissioner rather triumphantly pulled out the fake bomb-sniffing device.

We proceeded to explain to him that the machines were fake and had zero ability to detect anything, much less explosives. The IP commissioner was adamant that the machines worked.

"How many vehicles have you stopped and detected explosives inside using this machine?" I asked, pointing at the flimsy piece of black plastic.

"None," he answered. Still, he insisted that the device worked.

"How does it work?" I asked. "Explain to me exactly how this thing detects bombs."

The commissioner pulls out these little things that looked like calling cards. "Each card detects a different chemical: RMX, TNT, etc.," he said. "Insert the desired card into the machine, and if there are explosives, the antenna will move."

By this point, we were all fairly incredulous that this Iraqi Police officer had fully placed the safety of himself as well as those of his men in the hands of a piece of plastic with a car antenna sticking out of it.

Further pleas with the IPs to stop using the machines and go back to old school police work -- random vehicle stops, getting the driver out of the vehicle, methodical vehicle, search, etc. -- were unsuccessful.

"I am telling you -- I'm not guessing, I am telling you -- that this shit doesn't work. If you guys want to get yourself killed, go ahead. I'm not going to be anywhere near you guys when you use this garbage." Disgusted, we mounted back up and got the hell out of there.

Small Wars Journal: Today's Junior Army Officers

2010-01-25T02:33:00.000-06:00

An interesting article posted on SWJ regarding the Army's current ability (or lack thereof) to retain quality junior officers. The author, CPT Tim Hsia (I recognize the name, so he is a fairly prolific contributor in the defense academic circles) takes a look at why so many company-grade officers are getting the hell out of the Army.

I know this inevitably leads people to ask me about my own intentions, signaled by the leading question of, "So when's your commitment up?" or "Ever think about using your law degree?"

And my answer is always the same: I don't know yet. For the short term, the Army is a good place to be. I got another deployment in me, so the Army is the answer for the next few years. Beyond that, I just don't know: there are a lot of variables, a lot of things that can or may or may not happen to me between now and x number of years from now.

I do know that CPT Hsia points out some concerns among junior officers that I share, concerns that are both professional and personal in nature.

I also know that there is a fear out there (at least a fear that I feel: not sure how many of my peers feel the same way, or are even cognizant of it) that the Army is going to suffer down the road. We're talking five, ten years down. When shitty lieutenants and captains who have been able to fly under the radar because of OPTEMPO and retention and attrition, become shitty majors and lieutenant colonels.

I don't want to sound alarmist: I am not saying that battalion staff officers and battalion commanders of the near future are going to all suck. Not at all: there will be plenty of good officers that stay in that will undoubtedly bring some balance to the mess. But, there will most certainly be a rough patch that the Army officer corps will have to endure. I imagine it will be akin to the turbulence the Army sailed through in the post-Vietnam era. Probably not to the depths or extremes as the late 1970s and early '80s -- but perhaps in a similar vein, albeit less severe/substantial.

Only time will tell, I suppose. Maybe I'll still be in a uniform to tell y'all about it...

An exercise in academics

2010-01-25T00:08:00.000-06:00

Okay, I've decided to resurrect this thing. Hopefully, I'll have better luck keeping up with it than before. Now that the tour in Iraq is over, my focus is going to shift more towards defense topics. It's really an academic exercise, intended to keep my mind sharp and motivate me to educate myself before the next inevitable deployment (can anyone say "Afghanistan"?)

I also plan on slowly updating entries from the Kirkuk deployment: that will take some time, though. I've also imported some older entries from a different, now-defunct blog that I used to keep: some of them still relevant today. They are posted under their original dates of publication, so you'll have to do some scrolling and clicking to reach them (mostly 2008 entries).

D+1: En Route

2009-01-06T01:00:00.000-06:00

THIRTY-SOME THOUSAND FEET IN THE AIR -- It was a seven-and-a-half hour flight from West Fort Hood to Shannon, Ireland. The flight was fairly miserable. I tried to sleep as much as I could. Vaguely remember some movie called Ghost Town playing. Greg Kinnear gets run over by a bus, and is walking around NYC as a ghost, trying to sabotage his newly widowed-wife’s attempt to move on with a new man. Or something like that.

We ended up with a four-hour layover in Ireland. There were soldiers all over the terminal, with as many civilians roaming about. We grabbed food, stared longingly at the bottles of liquor in the duty-free shop, ogled pretty girls in civilian clothes, surfed the net, called our wives, or slept.

Re-boarded the plane at approximately 1300 Ireland time. Flew the next seven hours to Kuwait. Local time in Kuwait City was 2300 hours, 5 JAN 09. I remember thinking to myself, Well, the airport in Kuwait looks like every other airport in the world. There was nothing out-of-the-ordinary. A disarming start to a year of combat.

Days without beer: 2

Shannon, Ireland.

D-Day: Good-byes

2009-01-04T21:00:00.000-06:00

FORT HOOD, TX -- Woke up early in the morning. Threw the cot into the car, dropped the keys off at the apartment complex office, and drove away from the apartment for the last time. After making a quick stop to toss my cot into the storage unit, I slid behind the wheel, and made the drive to Killeen. With my CDs packed into storage, and my iPod tucked into my assault pack, the radio was my only option. I tuned it to one of the local morning shows that I usually listened to while driving to work. It was a repeat broadcast -- the crew still on vacation from New Year’s.

The butterflies were back, but they felt different this time. I felt calmer than yesterday. I headed to an Army buddy’s house, Stacy. Picked up some McDonald’s on the way (Egg McMuffin, hash brown and OJ -- a pathetic final breakfast). I left my car at Stacy’s. She would bring my car to my vehicle storage place the next day, since the place was closed on Sundays.

I also gave her a black plastic footlocker filled with last-minute items that I needed mailed to myself over there. After leaving her some final instructions for the car and the footlocker, we jumped into her pickup truck, and she drove me to post.

We were early. Weapons draw was 1115 hours, and it was only 1045. I hopped out of the truck. It was bitterly cold. The clouds seemed to be racing each other across the dull grey sky. There were a few cars in the parking lot, but not many. A couple of soldiers walking around with their wives and children, holding hands and holding back tears.

I hugged Stacy and J (another mutual friend of ours) good-bye, and watched them drive off in Stacy’s huge green pickup truck. I swung my assault pack over my shoulder, and headed into the battery, expecting to find only a few people. I figured everyone would be waiting until the last minute to arrive -- savoring final moments with the people they love.

The door swung open, and I was shocked to see nearly half of the battery already assembled inside. The second floor of our building has all of the offices and conference rooms, while the first floor is mostly empty space. A couple of caged off spots serve as our supply areas. An arms room, protected by a huge, vault-like metal door that’s at least five inches thick. And wall lockers arrayed along one side.

Soldiers were laying about, listening to iPods, reading books, talking to wives, holding babies. I walked over to a sergeant from our intelligence team. “What the hell is going on?” I asked. “You guys are early!”

He looked up at me, pulling one white iPod earphone out. “Detox, sir.”

It instantly clicked in my head as I looked around. Our standing orders were no alcohol for the eight hours prior to formation. Undoubtedly, these guys threw a hell of a party last night at the barracks, probably drinking themselves to the brink of death right up to that eight-hour mark. They then probably helped each other pull uniforms on, and crashed on the floor of the battery. It’s a simple plan: guarantees that no one faces UCMJ for missing movement. Responsibly irresponsible.

The line for weapons draw was long, so I decided to wait until the end, rather than stand in line for an hour. It was a good opportunity to finish making good-bye phone calls. I didn’t realize how difficult the task would be until I found myself hiding around a corner of the building, crying while talking on the phone, and struggling to maintain my composure while the freezing wind bit into my hands and face.

I don’t know what brought it on. The voice on the other end. The conversation itself. The thoughts of saying good-bye to others. The sight of other soldiers saying good-bye to their families and loved ones. The absence of having someone to say good-bye to in person -- to physically hug and kiss and hold onto until the last possible moment.

Maybe it was a combination of everything, but all I know is that despite all of the training, and the attempts to put up the hard, concrete façade in front of the soldiers, I could not hold back my tears today. It’s never easy. It’s like saying good-bye to your mother the morning after Christmas, and watching her hold herself in the cold. She tries not to cry in front of you, because she wants to be strong -- so that you can be strong. But she’s your mother -- and you can see right through her. And it kills you to have to drive away, having told her that you’ll be all right, even if it might be a lie.

Pre-manifest was at 1330. Sat in an auditorium for a short while, then loaded up on buses to the airfield on post. A couple of the wives and girlfriends had stuck around, waiting for us to get out of the theater, and waved and blew kisses as we boarded the buses.

At the airfield, we waited some more in a holding area. As we walked in, our ID cards were scanned into a computer -- probably the last time they would be scanned on American soil. Standing guard at the door to the waiting lounge was an old lady -- had to be in her seventies -- passing out little prayer pamphlets and, of all things, hugs. The sight of this old, wrinkled, smiling lady, giving a hug to every single G.I. that filed through would have melted even the coldest, toughest of hearts.

Walking across the tarmac to the plane felt like a movie. It was still cold, and the sun was setting, turning the clouds into a bunch of pink, purple and red streaks. A huge, dark grey Air Force cargo plane sat in the background, nose open; pallets of some kind of equipment were being loaded into it.

Our commercial plane was in front of the cargo plane, and there was a grey line of ACU-clad soldiers snaking towards the stairway leading up to the hatch on the left side of the plane. There was no time to stop and look around -- no time to take it in, or savor the last breaths of Texan air. I can vaguely remember shaking hands with the brigade sergeant major, brigade commander, the division sergeant major, and division commanding general. Good luck, son. Make us proud.

I wasn't impressed. I'd rather that they didn't show up at all -- their appearance now seemed all too choreographed and empty. I'm pretty sure the brigade commander would never recognize me at a function, or remember my name -- not unless I earned him a positive bullet on his evaluation report in the form of some kind of spectacularly courageous feat, or a place in newspaper headlines as a tragic statistic.

Suddenly I was in my seat, buckled in, feeling the vibrations of the plane around me as it taxied its way to the runway. A sudden increase in the shriek of the engines, a quick rumble, and we were gone.

Days without beer: 1

The hug lady

D minus 1

2009-01-04T00:00:00.000-06:00

FORT HOOD, TX—The 30-minute drive from my apartment in Belton, Texas to Fort Hood was different this time. I don’t know what it was...maybe the huge cup of coffee I purchased at the Texas Java Coffee House around the corner from my now-empty apartment. All I know is that as I was driving in to work, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. The sudden sense that this was really going to happen washed over me. I could feel my pulse in my temples and in my fingertips. It seemed to take forever to reach post.

Butterflies were flapping their wings in my stomach as I pulled into the parking lot in front of our building -- swarms of soldiers milling about. Golf Company (one of the units in my battalion) was leaving today. My unit -- Thunder Battery -- was leaving tomorrow.

I looked around as I parked the car in front of the building that served as headquarters for our battery: soldiers were wandering around, saying goodbye to their families, clinging to a last warm embrace. The black metal of rifles slung over the back glinted in the sunlight. It was a sobering sight, and did nothing to allay the increasing sense of anxiety within me.

A long line of soldiers carrying duffel bags and rucksacks was snaking around a cordoned-off area of the parking lot. At the head of the line was a desk manned by a few NCOs, and a scale. Soldiers would check off their names, and drop their bags on the scales. Seventy pounds per bag was the limit. A handful of soldiers were off to the side, carefully rearranging their bags -- re-distributing items between their duffel and ruck to meet the weight restrictions.

I was a first-time go at the station -- I packed according to the packing list, and although I had my doubts, both bags made weight. After throwing my bags in into the container truck marked with our battalion, the Red Dragons, I made my way over to a fellow LT, Jeff. He dropped the tailgate of his Chevy pickup, and we sat there in the sun, watching and waiting for our soldiers to finish making their way through the baggage station.

Jeff's whole family -- parents, sister -- and his fiance were there. I stood to shake hands and introduce myself when they approached. The other LTs, Chris and Albert also made their way to the truck, accompanied by their fiance and girlfriend, respectively. Our commander and his wife joined the party as well. It was like a tailgating party, minus the beer, burgers and football game.
By this time, the butterflies had disappeared. It wasn't until after formation, and after I had made arrangements with a local storage company (for my car) that the strange anxiety came back... Even with all of the training that I had undertaken with my unit in the preceding seven months, I could not shake the fact that I was once again headed into unknown territory. Never before had the responsibility of the soldiers' lives under me become more salient than now.

I spent the night grabbing a couple of last beers at a restaurant just down the road from my apartment, and moving the last boxes into my storage unit. Caught a couple hours of sleep on a cot (the bed had been packed into the storage unit weeks ago), next to my last remaining possessions: the uniform I'd be wearing, a pair of boots, my assault pack, and my car keys.

The Mandatory Introductory Post

2009-01-02T14:00:00.000-06:00

I'm a New York City native who sold his soul to Uncle Sam for the price of law school tuition. Currently serving as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army with a field artillery unit out of Fort Hood, Texas.

I'm going to try to write some notes as I go about my business over the next year -- more for myself than anyone else...something to help massage the aging memory cells when I want to look back at this tour.

The other reason for this blog is to help paint a picture of what life is like in a deployed combat arms unit. For my fellow colleagues, nothing here will be new or extraordinary. But for my friends and loved ones back home, this may be the first, truly detailed account of "Army life" they've ever heard from me.

I've chosen to not include my parents in my circulation of emails. They're worried to death about me as it is, and are able to find comfort in the prospect that maybe as an executive officer for a field artillery unit, I'll be relegated to sitting in the rear inside the wire for the entire year. I'm happy to perpetuate this myth in their minds, but should the worst happen, this will at least stand as a record of my thoughts and feelings for them, after the fact.

I'm going to throw out a disclaimer right now: I'm going to be true and honest in this thing. I don't want to dilute or distort anything, and I won't apologize for language or anything upsetting that may end up here. If things turn sour, you'll know it. If things are peachy, you'll know it. If things are just downright ugly and nasty...you'll know it.

So here we go...

The other side of the COIN...

2008-11-02T14:24:00.000-06:00

As this latest presidential campaign draws to a close with the quick approach of November 4th, there is no doubt that the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan always held a prominent place on the whole plate of issues.

That being said, it can be easy for us to focus only on the impact on Americans that the wars have held. American fatalities and casualties typically shoot to the top of the headlines (but usually only in the form of cold, unemotional statistics). The travesty that is our system of institutions and programs that are supposed to help returning wounded veterans is another salient topic of the times.

It's easy to forget that in Iraq, there are more than 25 million people trying to scratch out a life for themselves and their families -- all while death comes and knocks on doors all around them.

The New York Times gives us a good reminder of the type of challenges that an untold number of families face in Iraq on a daily basis...

Petraeus takes over CENTCOM; SECDEF seeks "coherence" to Afghanistan strategy

2008-11-01T14:23:00.000-05:00

GEN Petraeus took over U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), giving him overally responsibility over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates stressed that while it would be a primary
task for General Petraeus to "keep us on the right path in Iraq," an immediate
challenge was "bringing coherence to our own strategy" in Afghanistan.

So we'll see what happens. I greatly admire and respect GEN Petraeus: he epitomizes everything about that warrior-scholar paradigm. I hope he knows what the next step in Afghanistan is, because I certainly don't. I feel as though even classic COIN strategy may find itself challenged in Afghanistan (assuming, of course, that we are even undertaking a classical COIN effort).

Where STEP ONE always reads "Secure the population," I wonder if we have yet to even lace our boots up in that regard. The enemy is able to move and operate with almost complete freedom, and is able to threaten and influence the population as he pleases. The presence of a neighboring nation-state which is either unwilling or unable (due to fears of retribution or reprisals or fomenting instability etc. etc.) to prosecute any kind of substantial search for terrorists within its borders, certainly exacerbates the situation.

We have a long way to go in the long war in Afghanistan. I hope GEN Petraeus' hundred-pound brain can put us on the right path.

What the hell are we doing in Afghanistan?

2008-10-20T14:20:00.000-05:00

Andrew Exum's excellent counterinsurgency blog brought this incredible Rolling Stone article by Nir Rosen into the spotlight.

Rosen writes of his experience as an embed with the Taliban. In addition to some damn good storytelling (I could feel my own heart start to beat faster as Rosen recounts a time when he nearly met his doom when a rival Taliban group suspected Rosen of being a spy for the Afghan Army), his article raises a few questions as to just what the hell we are doing in Afghanistan.

Rosen's Afghanistan (the one of 2008) is an Afghanistan where the Taliban are able to move and operate with near impunity. It is becoming clear that American and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan are treading water, if not flowing backwards with the rising tide of insurgency.

My old roommate from FAOBC (Field Artillery Officer Basic Course) and Fort Hood is currently serving in Afghanistan. He writes home about once a month via email. His messages have become more and more sobering over the past 4 months -- his unit has lost several soldiers, and "the bullets seem to get closer and closer every day, I swear to God they do."

It took America a few years to buy into classical counterinsurgency doctrine: securing the population, winning hearts and minds (God I hate that phrase!). However, our classical counterinsurgency strategy does not seem to be working. It's difficult to win hearts and minds when the Taliban is able to freely enter any village and cut off the head of the village elder whenever they please. It's difficult to win hearts and minds when Coalition reconstruction efforts are woefully underfunded.

So if counterinsurgency strategy is not working, then what next? COIN is often referred to as the graduate-level of warfare. We recognized that brute force using only kinetic direct action was not going to solve the problem, so we moved to classical COIN. Now even that appears to be failing. What is the doctorate level of warfare? Where do we go from here...?

A muse rediscovered...

2008-10-13T14:19:00.000-05:00

Something interesting happened last night. I was hanging out at a friend of a friend's place, and I discovered a novel by one Mark Helprin, titled Winter's Tale. I read a single passage: a short, one-page chapter somewhere in the middle of the book. The author had written about the mysteries and magic of the universe and our existence.

What struck me was how damned good the prose was. The writing was so compact and economical. Each word was perfect. He said what he wanted to say in exactly the number of words it required. No more, no less.

I was thoroughly impressed, and it sparked in me that old desire -- the desire to do something great. That's part of the reason why we write. Or act. Or draw. Or paint. Whether admitted to or not, there's a desire to do something noteworthy and great. Something deserving of recognition. Something to be remembered. That desire was rekindled in me.

It's part jealousy. I'm not sure if I could ever meet that standard of prose-writing. If I could, it would take me a hell of a long time to ever climb that summit. But one can always try. Give it the ol' college try.

Long story short, it made me go back to my old writing and even rediscover this blog. I remember when the words used to come so easily. I used to be able to sit down in front of the TV with a good, gel pen and a legal pad, and be able to just spit out fragments or passages. Now I wonder how much work and concentration it would require. I feel like my creativity has atrophied, and that thought bothers me. I'm disturbed by the fact that I allowed it to happen to myself. I blame only myself for letting work consume my life...

Navy SEAL awarded Medal of Honor

2008-08-04T14:16:00.000-05:00

Navy SEAL Monsoor was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor today. Most of the major media/news outlets are running brief stories on this, but as BlackFive.net notes, few if any have fully delved into PO2 Monsoor’s story. And by that, I mean his STORY -- who he is, not just what he did on 29 SEP 06.

The story: it’s a familiar one, told repeatedly since humans started donning uniforms, picking up weapons and killing each other: a guy who put his buddies before himself.

No matter what’s happening on Capitol Hill right now, a second of your time needs to be devoted to reading PO2 Monsoor’s story. Considering what he did for a living for both you and me, I’d say that second of your time is mandatory. There are no viable excuses; you do have the time.

No matter what your personal politics are on this "big thing" going on "over there"...if the story doesn’t tug at your heart just a bit, then you need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and assess what you see looking back at you.

There’s a lot of folks -- a lot of them just young kids -- out over there doing good things. I don’t mean "good" in any kind of grandiose, idealistic, or political manner.

I’m just talking about people doing their jobs, taking care of their buddies, and taking care of the people they have daily contact with -- the sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, moms and dads (and I’m not talking about Americans here) that they have the opporunity to influence, protect, and maybe even save from a worse fate (far worse than anything you, me or anyone else will face here at home).

Try to keep these things (the simple things, the human things) in mind while the media, politicans, your friends, your teachers, that guy in line in front of you at Starbucks and everyone else spins and stretches and pulls this whole thing in every which direction for their respective agendas...

I’m not trying to tell you what to think, or that you need to lean towards one side of the grand debate or the other (and if I somehow come across as trying to persuade you to think one way or another, then ignore everything I’ve said here, because persuasion on the grand newspaper headline issues is neither my intent nor my privilege).

I just want you to (for a moment) forget the politics. Forget the spin and the talking heads and all that jazz. Just look at the people.

And take a moment to think about them. That’s it.

(I apologize for hitting the preacher button...y’all know what’s important to me)

EXCERPT FROM THE BLACKFIVE BLOG (QUOTING ANOTHER BLOGGER):

"..On the rostrum, all three [wounded] SEALs whose lives Mike personally saved hobbled up together to thank Michael and his family for their very existence and to show their family’s gratitude for sparing them the grief that Michael’s family is now experiencing..."

America's changing officer corps

2008-03-18T14:00:00.000-05:00

(originally published on 18 March 2008)

Newsweek: "Scions of the Surge: Five Years on, the war is transforming the American officer corps"

With the 5-yr anniversary of the kickoff of OIF comes the expected tidal wave of editorials and opinion pieces on the state of our military, the effect the war has had at home and abroad, etc. etc. etc.

Newsweek's running an article that caught my eye...

U.S. News article

2008-02-20T14:00:00.000-06:00

US News and World Report: "How the War in Iraq is Changing the American Soldier"

Interesting article in this week's issue of US News & WR.

Think back to the last time you thanked a soldier/sailor/Marine/airm en for their service. Was it when you accidentally bumped into them on the subway? Or in the mall? Or at the airport?

If these are the only times you think about the kids that are making the ultimate sacrifice out there, you need to start thinking about them more.

Don't thank ME for my service. I haven't done a thing. Thank the guy with the patch on his right shoulder. Or the girl that has to learn how to use a metal hook for a hand. Or the family who lost a son/brother/father/husband /sister/mother/daughter/wife... The 18 year old kid who no longer has any need for left-foot shoes. The father who came home unrecognizable to his baby girl and worries about hugging her good night because she's too scared of him now...

Thank them, and do it often. It's not really an option for any of us...it's an obligation.