War is Complicated

Gonna take a break from the usual postings about Iraq, and talk about veterans issues from my perspective. I was eating dinner and checking the news, when I came across this article and it made me mildly uncomfortable:

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/03/9923187-ex-soldier-in-mount-rainier-killing-stationed-at-deeply-troubled-base

Although my initial thought was that MSNBC is kind of white washing most soldiers with a broad stroke, from observations it seems like Fort Lewis does indeed have a lot of issues - my personal experience was that I went there for over two weeks for the Warrior Leader Course, and while we were cleaning up around the training area on the last day of our field exercise... we found the remnants of a meth lab and called CID (United States Army Criminal Investigation Command) to investigate. I learned out that the Tacoma area is big on meth and other drugs, and I'm not sure if it's necessarily related to the military though it wouldn't be surprising.

I too don't want to be guilty of painting too many people over with one broad stroke, but the 2nd Infantry Division, where that soldier was from, does seem to have a lot of dysfunction - it produced the infamous killteam in Afghanistan that killed and mutilated Afghan civilians, and from what I gather was at least somewhat responsible for the deterioration of security conditions in Mosul long before I arrived there. It had been peaceful when General Petraeus and the 101st Airborne were conducting operations there in 2003, yet when elements of 2ID arrived, the terrorist groups operating there had been bold enough to virtually wipe out Mosul's police force at the time, circa 2004. Maybe they didn't have as many resources as General Petraeus, maybe they didn't practice counterinsurgency as well, I don't know.

Rolling Stone Killteam Article: very sensationalist, yet it needs to be read:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-kill-team-20110327

A friend with much military experience, stated his belief that a lot of the issues stem from the years of heaviest fighting in the war, coupling with the buildup of new Stryker-based units and lowering of standards in order to get enough people to fight, directly contributed to Stryker units seemingly having more issues than anyone else. He had also operated south of Mosul with the 101st in 2003, and when I asked him about contacts or information he could give me on the area for a mission I went out on, he said that his local contacts were all killed after 2ID took over.

With that kind of background, I'm not surprised by all the shenanigans that have been happening within that division and I don't want to condone murder... but I feel for the young men and women that get put into impossible situations and are expected to make something out of it.

It's sad that this kind of thing has to happen, and for young people to have to go through something so stressful as a deployment in the first place. Away from any semblance of normal social constructs, deployed life can be reminiscent of "Lord of the Flies" and people act in ways that they never would at home. I know this from first hand experience because I did a lot of things that I wasn't proud of over there (obviously nothing crazy) and looking back, I can tell that a lot of it was pressure to fit in with the group dynamic. I guess a general put it best, the issues that most young soldiers face and just how different their lives have diverged from that of mainstream America, particularly since less than 1% total of America's population have served during the past 10 years of constant war:

"At 24 years of age, a soldier, on average, has moved from home, family and friends and has resided in two other states; has traveled the world (deployed); been promoted four times; bought a car and wrecked it; married and had children; has had relationship and financial problems; seen death; is responsible for dozens of soldiers; maintains millions of dollars worth of equipment; and gets paid less than $40,000 a year." - General Peter W. Chiarelli

How do we deal with these issues, particularly PTSD? How do you teach someone so young to have integrity? What's the best way to characterize soldiers? I guess bottom line for me is, war is a complicated affair, and our policymakers are, on some level, blinded by their delusions of doing good in the world or righting some perceived injustice, whether it be Paul Wolfowitz or Samantha Power. I have a lot more thoughts, but I need to sleep - will finish up these thoughts later.

New Year's Resolution #1: Never Stop Posting!

COS Sykes NYE Party... yeah wasn't feeling it, haha

The title of my post is a reference to a catchphrase from the Something Awful forums, as well as my New Year's resolution to write more. I wasn't good about keeping a journal in Iraq other than my bimonthly newsletters to friends, so I'll make up for lost time here. I feel like not only is reflecting on my experiences good for self improvement, but I'll also be able to record more Iraqi memories before I forget them all.

Honestly, New Year's Eve 2010 wasn't great or anything - COS Sykes outside Tal Afar was a big base in terms of real estate, and once housed thousands of US troops when Iraq was completely melting down circa 2005-2006, but by the time I got there it was down to roughly 400-450 people, and the base was shutting down any day - eventually it happened that the base wasn't officially closed until July, but I don't think anyone knew when exactly the big day would happen. In fact one of my responsibilities was to help shut down the PRT branch office operations... a big pain in the ass, but that's a story for another day.

In any case, being my second day on base and still getting used to things... I wasn't really feeling the New Year's spirit, haha. I showed up to the official base party just to take a look around, and there was about a dozen or so soldiers and other people... not knowing anyone was kind of a drag, so I ended up leaving the party and going to sleep early, haha.

My office trailer

The State Department had its own little office compound that I ended up managing as part of my "Operations" responsibilities. For example, if the roof started leaking in the conference trailer, I called KBR to get it fixed, among other responsibilities! What was nice was DOS had their own contracted civilian internet for this office compound - it was nice because the alternative would have been paying around $100 a month out of my own pocket from a local contractor, oftentimes I would stay late at the office to go online and talk to friends. Another thing that helped was that my coworkers were very helpful for the most part, and I worked for a great boss. Apparently they used to have two people covering my responsibilities (a lieutenant colonel and a staff sergeant at one point in time) and then

Babby's first chopper ride

I had zero conception of what I'd be able to bring to COS Sykes in Tal Afar, so I think I packed everything I came to Iraq with. That morning, I found out I could only bring two or three bags... so much of it was spent frantically redistributing everything to make sure I had enough clothes for however long I would be out there for. Then, I got to da choppa and flew out west across the desert... oh joy. It was super stressful for me, having a day's notice I would be going out to a base away from my team, where I didn't know anyone. In my email newsletter to my buddies, I wrote about the visual textures of flying in a Blackhawk, but I feel like I had to present a sanitized version of events and inject as little emotion into the process as possible, while keep it it humorous and interesting.

"You're leaving for Tal Afar tomorrow. Pack your bags." WHAT?!

It's such a contrast to me: tonight the 29th was spent in Royal Oak and Ferndale hanging out with old friends, while last year I was basically given a day's notice that I, the least experience soldier on my team, would be traveling by myself to a base in the middle of nowhere to do a job that required someone who actually knew what they were doing... makes me appreciate little things like hanging out more! I'll post more substantial content once I've gotten some sleep.

One Year

A year ago today (December 28th) marks my first day in Iraq, and I feel like I have a lot to say about that... but there's so much else to write about, like fear and drinking with other veterans! I guess I'll write about the first thing.

C-130 Porthole

December 28th, 2010 - the day I arrived in Iraq! All the fretting, all the waiting, all the planning finally over! After spending more than a week in a daze somewhere in Kuwait, we finally boarded a C-130 and flew to Mosul.

I've never been much for observing people, and I don't think I really started noticing people's personalities until the deployment. I got picked up at the airport by a young Asian NCO, and over the course of the ride back to the PRT compound I learned everything I cared to learn about him. He was the same age as me, and though it was interesting how our paths diverged (he enlisted right out of high school whereas I enlisted after college) I really didn't care at all for his ridiculous machismo. I tried to make some light conversation about how the deployment had been for him, like asking about how many missions he had been on, and he gave hard ass responses like "yo dude I've been on over 400 missions!" Then I met one of his buddies, and unsurprisingly this guy was the same way, if not worse... haha as insecure as I am/was, they took overcompensation to a whole new level! I'm pretty certain they didn't shoot anyone or have a chance to be involved in any kind of shenanigans outside the wire, and that they had simply taken after a senior NCO in the wrong ways.

I will admit I was like that once, thinking I was an absolute BAMF immediately after basic training and AIT... then working on Red Dawn illuminated how foolish my notions of badassery was. If anything, in the past year I've been thinking about how to be kinder, gentler, more thoughtful, more loyal, and generally trying to better filter the words coming out of my pie-hole. Sure, I've deployed, I like to shoot guns, and I'm really good at video games or whatever, but those things in and of themselves don't define masculinity, they're facets of it at best. It's just something I'm increasingly conscious of, how selfish I might have been during college, and learning to appreciate little things here and there that people have done for me, and being actively engaged to try to pay them forward.