thedrifter
02-05-06, 08:15 AM
Assignment: Iraq -- Five months in Iraq: strain & focus
By RORY QUINN , Associated Press (ASAP)
© February 5, 2006
Last updated: 8:31 AM
EDITOR'S NOTE -- This the latest in a series of stories written for asap by a Marine captain in Iraq. It is aimed at offering one voice from someone on the ground in Iraq, and should not be seen as telling the whole story of the events of the war. Before the writer submitted the dispatch for publication, it was reviewed by Marine officials to make sure it did not reveal military security or logistics details.
RAMADI, Iraq (AP) _ Capt. Rory Quinn and his unit have been in Iraq for nearly five months, and he says the strain is beginning to show.
His Marines are getting in fights. Some are permanently cranky.
''I've been away from my wife for five months, yet I'm still two months from seeing her again,'' Quinn says. ''Two months.''
In his latest exclusive dispatch for asap from Ramadi, Iraq, Quinn writes about the hard work involved in staying focused on the daily tasks of war after spending months patrolling a dangerous Iraqi city. Here, in his own words, is what he had to say:
January 29, 2006:
Wow. The deployment can really drag on, at this point. We're approaching the five-month mark, and as with every deployment, the signs that we've been gone a while are starting to show. Marines are fighting more. Some have become permanently cranky. There is tension in the air.
I've been away from my wife for five months, yet I'm still two months from seeing her again. Two months.
The company's leaders work hard to keep the Marines focused on the daily tasks of the war. There's some humor to break the monotony, though. Here's a bit of conversation from the other day on the radio, to a friend of mine:
Marine: ''Sir! We've got a guy here. I think he knows where the terrorists are and he's trying to tell us.''
The very concept of that is funny -- the Marine doesn't mean it this way, but it comes across as if this is the one Iraqi, in a town of 400,000, who knows the physical location of every terrorist in the city. The Marine continues:
Marine: ''What should I do, sir?''
Company Commander: ''Have him tell you where they are, Marine.''
Marine: ''Sir! He doesn't speak English. I need an interpreter.''
There's no interpreter available. The Captain thinks of an alternate strategy.
Company Commander: ''There's no terp. Have him write down the information for you on a piece of paper, and we'll take the paper back to camp.''
The interpreter will be able to read it on our base and translate it there. We do this frequently when there aren't enough translators to go around.
Marine: ''Sir, I don't think he writes in English, but I'll try.''
The Marine is off and running.
Marines are so close to the fight that sometimes they can't see the forest for the trees. It's an endearing trait, actually. He's trying so hard to accomplish good things that he sometimes loses perspective.
A different Marine received a letter from an American student the other day. We receive these fairly regularly. Kids make then in arts and crafts. Most are pretty straightforward: The children wish us well. They draw American flags, or pictures of their families.
One of them was from out of left field, though. It went something like this: ''Dear Soldier, My name is Braedon. I'm 6 years old. I like video games. Have any of your men been shot?''
There's a kid who doesn't have trouble cutting to the chase. Thankfully, lately, the answer has been no.
Things are going well fighting the war. Our company's main mission is to train four different companies from an Iraqi battalion to be self-sufficient, so they can take over daily operations, and U.S. forces can go home.
One company just did a sweep through a part of the city, completely independent of Marines. They went through about 40 houses -- knocking on doors, talking to occupants, and documenting all sorts of information about who lives in each house. It's much like a census. The ability to be anonymous and hide amongst the population is the most sophisticated weapon the enemy has in this war. These census-like operations slowly take that away from him.
We've already conducted several successful missions as a result of previous census operations. It's a good technique, and it allows the Iraqi soldiers to be seen going through Iraqi neighborhoods.
There are personal developments as well. On long deployments like this, you have to break things down into phases. In the beginning, much of my energy was spent focusing on getting to know the city and learning the specifics of the enemy we were fighting. I did relatively few recreational things. I was worried that if something happened to a Marine, I wouldn't be able to face myself if I knew I could have worked harder to stop it.
So I didn't watch any movies. No working out. No pleasure reading. That mentality lasted for half of the deployment.
But after three months of running around the city, constantly getting in and out of trucks, my body was starting to break down. My knees were killing me, my elbow couldn't bear weight, and there were other little aches and pains.
At the halfway point in the deployment, it's common to develop a new hobby to avoid being bored to tears. My hobby became the gym.
The day I deployed, I weighed 207 pounds. I'm six feet tall. Marines may be muscular, but I wasn't all muscle. For the final two months in the states, I didn't exactly live like a Spartan. When you know you're coming to a dusty, lonely desert, you drink that extra Corona. Or two.
Thirty days after our arrival in Ramadi, in the heat of September and sprinting all over the city, I weighed 193 pounds. There were some gaunt-looking Marines walking around the camp.
The gear we wear each time we go out easily weighs 50 pounds, and these are not strolls in the park. Marines gradually adjusted, but you get worn down. There is a reason that recreational runners don't run on the pavement. Normal people run on the grass. Shin splints are not any better in combat boots. Before too long, I was popping a Red Bull and a painkiller every time I left the gates.
Now, six weeks into the workout phase, I'm back up to 201 pounds, but it's a very different 201. This is one my wife is going to like. And if I can let you in on a little secret about Marines: As hard as we work to come across as outwardly tough, most of us are only interested in making our wives happy. There are some cretins in the Corps, for sure -- but most Marines are softies.
When I'm stuck in a barren desert and there's nothing but trash and filth on every street corner, my wife's soft cheek and flowing hair are sometimes all I think about. The only time I try not to, in fact, is when I'm on those nasty street corners. Those are thoughts best left on base, when none of us are in anybody's cross-hairs.
And now, as we head into the last two months, we see signs of real progress going on around us. Some of the progress is beginning to appear in the mainstream newspapers on the Internet, but only sparingly. There is significant infighting going on between the insurgents. The nationalist insurgents have had enough, it seems, of the foreign ones.
On Jan. 5, a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of Sunni police recruits just a few hundred meters from where we live. This was a spectacularly stupid move by the al-Qaida in Iraq guys, for a couple of reasons: First, many locals are without work, so they'll show up for any job interview. And with so many terrorists around, the people have been clamoring for police, so offering jobs as police officers to local Sunnis was the perfect solution for both problems.
Then the suicide bomber killed over 30 of Ramadi's sons. Many more were injured. It was a gruesome scene. That's when the local Sunni citizens seemed to revolt.
Since then, there's been an increase in violence around the city, consisting mainly of Iraqis hunting down foreign terrorists (the al-Qaida in Iraq guys) and killing them. We hear about it on patrol from people on the street.
The local Iraqis want the same thing from the coalition forces as the coalition itself wants -- to train Iraqis to defend Iraq, and then to go home. We both want the Marines out of Ramadi, once conditions are right. It's a beautiful partnership.
Hopefully, we'll both soon get our wishes.
Ellie
By RORY QUINN , Associated Press (ASAP)
© February 5, 2006
Last updated: 8:31 AM
EDITOR'S NOTE -- This the latest in a series of stories written for asap by a Marine captain in Iraq. It is aimed at offering one voice from someone on the ground in Iraq, and should not be seen as telling the whole story of the events of the war. Before the writer submitted the dispatch for publication, it was reviewed by Marine officials to make sure it did not reveal military security or logistics details.
RAMADI, Iraq (AP) _ Capt. Rory Quinn and his unit have been in Iraq for nearly five months, and he says the strain is beginning to show.
His Marines are getting in fights. Some are permanently cranky.
''I've been away from my wife for five months, yet I'm still two months from seeing her again,'' Quinn says. ''Two months.''
In his latest exclusive dispatch for asap from Ramadi, Iraq, Quinn writes about the hard work involved in staying focused on the daily tasks of war after spending months patrolling a dangerous Iraqi city. Here, in his own words, is what he had to say:
January 29, 2006:
Wow. The deployment can really drag on, at this point. We're approaching the five-month mark, and as with every deployment, the signs that we've been gone a while are starting to show. Marines are fighting more. Some have become permanently cranky. There is tension in the air.
I've been away from my wife for five months, yet I'm still two months from seeing her again. Two months.
The company's leaders work hard to keep the Marines focused on the daily tasks of the war. There's some humor to break the monotony, though. Here's a bit of conversation from the other day on the radio, to a friend of mine:
Marine: ''Sir! We've got a guy here. I think he knows where the terrorists are and he's trying to tell us.''
The very concept of that is funny -- the Marine doesn't mean it this way, but it comes across as if this is the one Iraqi, in a town of 400,000, who knows the physical location of every terrorist in the city. The Marine continues:
Marine: ''What should I do, sir?''
Company Commander: ''Have him tell you where they are, Marine.''
Marine: ''Sir! He doesn't speak English. I need an interpreter.''
There's no interpreter available. The Captain thinks of an alternate strategy.
Company Commander: ''There's no terp. Have him write down the information for you on a piece of paper, and we'll take the paper back to camp.''
The interpreter will be able to read it on our base and translate it there. We do this frequently when there aren't enough translators to go around.
Marine: ''Sir, I don't think he writes in English, but I'll try.''
The Marine is off and running.
Marines are so close to the fight that sometimes they can't see the forest for the trees. It's an endearing trait, actually. He's trying so hard to accomplish good things that he sometimes loses perspective.
A different Marine received a letter from an American student the other day. We receive these fairly regularly. Kids make then in arts and crafts. Most are pretty straightforward: The children wish us well. They draw American flags, or pictures of their families.
One of them was from out of left field, though. It went something like this: ''Dear Soldier, My name is Braedon. I'm 6 years old. I like video games. Have any of your men been shot?''
There's a kid who doesn't have trouble cutting to the chase. Thankfully, lately, the answer has been no.
Things are going well fighting the war. Our company's main mission is to train four different companies from an Iraqi battalion to be self-sufficient, so they can take over daily operations, and U.S. forces can go home.
One company just did a sweep through a part of the city, completely independent of Marines. They went through about 40 houses -- knocking on doors, talking to occupants, and documenting all sorts of information about who lives in each house. It's much like a census. The ability to be anonymous and hide amongst the population is the most sophisticated weapon the enemy has in this war. These census-like operations slowly take that away from him.
We've already conducted several successful missions as a result of previous census operations. It's a good technique, and it allows the Iraqi soldiers to be seen going through Iraqi neighborhoods.
There are personal developments as well. On long deployments like this, you have to break things down into phases. In the beginning, much of my energy was spent focusing on getting to know the city and learning the specifics of the enemy we were fighting. I did relatively few recreational things. I was worried that if something happened to a Marine, I wouldn't be able to face myself if I knew I could have worked harder to stop it.
So I didn't watch any movies. No working out. No pleasure reading. That mentality lasted for half of the deployment.
But after three months of running around the city, constantly getting in and out of trucks, my body was starting to break down. My knees were killing me, my elbow couldn't bear weight, and there were other little aches and pains.
At the halfway point in the deployment, it's common to develop a new hobby to avoid being bored to tears. My hobby became the gym.
The day I deployed, I weighed 207 pounds. I'm six feet tall. Marines may be muscular, but I wasn't all muscle. For the final two months in the states, I didn't exactly live like a Spartan. When you know you're coming to a dusty, lonely desert, you drink that extra Corona. Or two.
Thirty days after our arrival in Ramadi, in the heat of September and sprinting all over the city, I weighed 193 pounds. There were some gaunt-looking Marines walking around the camp.
The gear we wear each time we go out easily weighs 50 pounds, and these are not strolls in the park. Marines gradually adjusted, but you get worn down. There is a reason that recreational runners don't run on the pavement. Normal people run on the grass. Shin splints are not any better in combat boots. Before too long, I was popping a Red Bull and a painkiller every time I left the gates.
Now, six weeks into the workout phase, I'm back up to 201 pounds, but it's a very different 201. This is one my wife is going to like. And if I can let you in on a little secret about Marines: As hard as we work to come across as outwardly tough, most of us are only interested in making our wives happy. There are some cretins in the Corps, for sure -- but most Marines are softies.
When I'm stuck in a barren desert and there's nothing but trash and filth on every street corner, my wife's soft cheek and flowing hair are sometimes all I think about. The only time I try not to, in fact, is when I'm on those nasty street corners. Those are thoughts best left on base, when none of us are in anybody's cross-hairs.
And now, as we head into the last two months, we see signs of real progress going on around us. Some of the progress is beginning to appear in the mainstream newspapers on the Internet, but only sparingly. There is significant infighting going on between the insurgents. The nationalist insurgents have had enough, it seems, of the foreign ones.
On Jan. 5, a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of Sunni police recruits just a few hundred meters from where we live. This was a spectacularly stupid move by the al-Qaida in Iraq guys, for a couple of reasons: First, many locals are without work, so they'll show up for any job interview. And with so many terrorists around, the people have been clamoring for police, so offering jobs as police officers to local Sunnis was the perfect solution for both problems.
Then the suicide bomber killed over 30 of Ramadi's sons. Many more were injured. It was a gruesome scene. That's when the local Sunni citizens seemed to revolt.
Since then, there's been an increase in violence around the city, consisting mainly of Iraqis hunting down foreign terrorists (the al-Qaida in Iraq guys) and killing them. We hear about it on patrol from people on the street.
The local Iraqis want the same thing from the coalition forces as the coalition itself wants -- to train Iraqis to defend Iraq, and then to go home. We both want the Marines out of Ramadi, once conditions are right. It's a beautiful partnership.
Hopefully, we'll both soon get our wishes.
Ellie