thedrifter
06-20-06, 05:53 AM
Faces of war
The chances are fleeting and few, but when U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians meet, those moments are not soon forgotten
By Matthew D. LaPlante
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Hurt and healing in a sea of violence
The "tail-to-tooth ratio" of the American military - the term describes the number of troops in support roles compared with those engaged in combat - is such that most GIs in Iraq will never meet a civilian, defense experts say.
Confined to the relative safety of large, heavily defended military camps, most service members in Iraq have little interaction with those most affected by the war U.S. troops are fighting. Meetings between soldiers and civilians are usually brief - often unaided by trained interpreters - and commonly occur in an atmosphere of tension and violence.
Perhaps because of their rarity, many troops say encounters with regular Iraqis remain some of their most vivid wartime memories - often for good reasons.
And sometimes for bad.
Defense Department investigators are continuing their probes into the alleged massacre of civilians in the city of Haditha. Witnesses to the alleged rampage reported that a group of Marines killed men, women and children - some at point-blank range - after a roadside bomb attack killed a young American lance corporal.
With three tours of combat duty in Iraq behind him, former Marine Kevin Salmon knows the Haditha incident does not reflect the usual interaction between Iraqis and U.S. troops.
But the West Jordan native, who spent time in Haditha during his second tour, said it was difficult building any kind of beneficial relationship in a climate of fear and hostility.
"Our motto was: 'No better friend, no worse enemy,' " Salmon said, adding that standard of warfare was inadequate to deal with the situation Marines encountered in Haditha.
"No one wanted to be our friend, so we had no choice but to be their enemy," he said. "Our job was to pick a fight there."
Salmon said his experiences in Haditha and other parts of western Iraq during his second tour "were like a punch in the stomach" after his first experience with civilians in Baghdad as Saddam Hussein's government fell.
Standing watch near a hospital on his second night in the Iraqi capital, Salmon was approached by a man bearing a gift: a soda and a pita bread sandwich.
"He wanted to thank me, he was really just so appreciative of everything the Americans and the troops were doing," Salmon said.
Salmon's experiences with civilians in Iraq were shaped largely by time and place. In Baghdad, immediately after the invasion, he found the most appreciation. In Fallujah, after Marines stormed the insurgent stronghold, he found the most contempt.
Interaction matters: Richard Dekmejian, an expert on terrorism who lectures at the University of Southern California, said troops are in a no-win situation, in part because they now have so little interaction with Iraqi civilians.
"As the insurgency increased, U.S. soldiers didn't want to get killed, so I'm sure they preferred to isolate themselves and were told, for instance, not to walk into civilians' homes when invited," Dekmejian said.
But that attitude has eroded any camaraderie built between U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians - particularly, Dekmejian said, in Baghdad, where Kevin Salmon accepted a sandwich from a thankful citizen in the infancy of the occupation and where at least 25 U.S. troops were killed last month.
"Now, it is a vicious cycle," he said. "When you are very suspicious of the population and the population is very suspicious of you, then you know there is a growing gap which no amount of presidential good sentiment or expressions of friendship is going to bridge."
M&M diplomacy: But Karsten Josie, a member of a 222nd Field Artillery of the Utah National Guard that began returning to southern Utah last week after a yearlong stint in Iraq, found that even in the provincial heart of Iraq's insurgency, positive and meaningful encounters could occur, given the right circumstances.
On a mission through Ramadi to meet with a sheik - local power brokers whose allegiances often shift from the coalition to the insurgency and back again - Josie met a man who was a bodyguard for the tribal leader.
"He offered me a smoke," Josie said, "and I felt pretty awkward about it considering I don't smoke, but luckily for me I like treats and had quite a few for the trip."
The young soldier broke out a package of peanut butter M&Ms.
"He put the candy in his mouth and made this face like he had just swallowed a bug," Josie recalled. "Then he had the biggest smile on his face and filled his whole mouth full of M&Ms."
As men of power debated how to control the insurgency nearby, Josie believes he was making a connection that was just as important.
Chance tension: Military leaders say they strive for such small successes. But efforts toward creating positive interactions can have unintended consequences, too.
On a "hearts and minds" mission to an elementary school in Zangora, a village on the outskirts of Ramadi, a tussle for toys, candy and school supplies left a young Iraqi girl with a cut across her chin, apparently from the butt of an American soldier's rifle. Though the soldier hadn't hurt the girl intentionally, it took the quick and calming words of an Iraqi interpreter to defuse the situation.
But in a world where decisions must be made quickly and enemy fighters act like civilians until the moment of attack, it can be difficult to bring a positive resolution to a tense interaction.
Tragedies of war: Bart Whatcott, who also is returning home to Utah with the 222nd, described an attack on Jan. 14 - just days after his unit had lost an officer to a suicide bomber.
While on patrol, Whatcott said, a convoy passed a gas station "bustling with eager gasoline patrons waiting their turn for fuel."
Such lines of cars make good cover for suicide car bombers. And indeed, on this occasion, the convoy was attacked as it passed the station.
Though burned on their hands and faces, the soldiers in the convoy would survive. The only person fatally injured was the attacker.
"The suicide bomber himself was in hundreds of pieces scattered across three lanes of the freeway," Whatcott said.
Defending against such attacks is nearly impossible - and fraught with the danger of making a rash decision that turns out to be wrong. That was the case last fall near the city of Najaf, when a convoy of soldiers from a Utah-based unit fired upon a vehicle that did not immediately heed warnings to stop.
The family, found dead inside the car, did not have any weapons or explosives, Army officers said. Military investigators later concluded the soldier had acted appropriately, given the short time he had to make a decision about how to respond to a potential attack.
Sherman Fleek, a native of Utah who recently returned from Iraq, where he was researching reconstruction successes for the Army, said the security situation was such that his interactions with common Iraqis were extremely limited.
And he lamented the lost opportunities to get to know Iraq's citizens better.
"I would like to have been able to go into their homes, you know," he said. "Into their homes, into their common areas, their restaurants. We just didn't get to do that."
He noted that GIs on patrol sometimes see the inside of Iraqi homes, but usually only with the purpose of pursuing insurgent fighters.
"If you really want to get to know someone, you want to be able to accept an invitation into their home," Fleek said.
Cuts both ways: The Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group that seeks to protect the civil liberties of American Muslims, last week decried the actions of a Marine who, in a video recently posted on the Internet, sang a song about killing Iraqis.
The video also records the raucous cheers of the Marine's audience - apparently fellow troops in Iraq.
The song tells the story of a Marine who, after being invited into the home of an Iraqi girl whom he fancies, is ambushed by her family.
mlaplante@sltrib.com
Ellie
The chances are fleeting and few, but when U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians meet, those moments are not soon forgotten
By Matthew D. LaPlante
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Hurt and healing in a sea of violence
The "tail-to-tooth ratio" of the American military - the term describes the number of troops in support roles compared with those engaged in combat - is such that most GIs in Iraq will never meet a civilian, defense experts say.
Confined to the relative safety of large, heavily defended military camps, most service members in Iraq have little interaction with those most affected by the war U.S. troops are fighting. Meetings between soldiers and civilians are usually brief - often unaided by trained interpreters - and commonly occur in an atmosphere of tension and violence.
Perhaps because of their rarity, many troops say encounters with regular Iraqis remain some of their most vivid wartime memories - often for good reasons.
And sometimes for bad.
Defense Department investigators are continuing their probes into the alleged massacre of civilians in the city of Haditha. Witnesses to the alleged rampage reported that a group of Marines killed men, women and children - some at point-blank range - after a roadside bomb attack killed a young American lance corporal.
With three tours of combat duty in Iraq behind him, former Marine Kevin Salmon knows the Haditha incident does not reflect the usual interaction between Iraqis and U.S. troops.
But the West Jordan native, who spent time in Haditha during his second tour, said it was difficult building any kind of beneficial relationship in a climate of fear and hostility.
"Our motto was: 'No better friend, no worse enemy,' " Salmon said, adding that standard of warfare was inadequate to deal with the situation Marines encountered in Haditha.
"No one wanted to be our friend, so we had no choice but to be their enemy," he said. "Our job was to pick a fight there."
Salmon said his experiences in Haditha and other parts of western Iraq during his second tour "were like a punch in the stomach" after his first experience with civilians in Baghdad as Saddam Hussein's government fell.
Standing watch near a hospital on his second night in the Iraqi capital, Salmon was approached by a man bearing a gift: a soda and a pita bread sandwich.
"He wanted to thank me, he was really just so appreciative of everything the Americans and the troops were doing," Salmon said.
Salmon's experiences with civilians in Iraq were shaped largely by time and place. In Baghdad, immediately after the invasion, he found the most appreciation. In Fallujah, after Marines stormed the insurgent stronghold, he found the most contempt.
Interaction matters: Richard Dekmejian, an expert on terrorism who lectures at the University of Southern California, said troops are in a no-win situation, in part because they now have so little interaction with Iraqi civilians.
"As the insurgency increased, U.S. soldiers didn't want to get killed, so I'm sure they preferred to isolate themselves and were told, for instance, not to walk into civilians' homes when invited," Dekmejian said.
But that attitude has eroded any camaraderie built between U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians - particularly, Dekmejian said, in Baghdad, where Kevin Salmon accepted a sandwich from a thankful citizen in the infancy of the occupation and where at least 25 U.S. troops were killed last month.
"Now, it is a vicious cycle," he said. "When you are very suspicious of the population and the population is very suspicious of you, then you know there is a growing gap which no amount of presidential good sentiment or expressions of friendship is going to bridge."
M&M diplomacy: But Karsten Josie, a member of a 222nd Field Artillery of the Utah National Guard that began returning to southern Utah last week after a yearlong stint in Iraq, found that even in the provincial heart of Iraq's insurgency, positive and meaningful encounters could occur, given the right circumstances.
On a mission through Ramadi to meet with a sheik - local power brokers whose allegiances often shift from the coalition to the insurgency and back again - Josie met a man who was a bodyguard for the tribal leader.
"He offered me a smoke," Josie said, "and I felt pretty awkward about it considering I don't smoke, but luckily for me I like treats and had quite a few for the trip."
The young soldier broke out a package of peanut butter M&Ms.
"He put the candy in his mouth and made this face like he had just swallowed a bug," Josie recalled. "Then he had the biggest smile on his face and filled his whole mouth full of M&Ms."
As men of power debated how to control the insurgency nearby, Josie believes he was making a connection that was just as important.
Chance tension: Military leaders say they strive for such small successes. But efforts toward creating positive interactions can have unintended consequences, too.
On a "hearts and minds" mission to an elementary school in Zangora, a village on the outskirts of Ramadi, a tussle for toys, candy and school supplies left a young Iraqi girl with a cut across her chin, apparently from the butt of an American soldier's rifle. Though the soldier hadn't hurt the girl intentionally, it took the quick and calming words of an Iraqi interpreter to defuse the situation.
But in a world where decisions must be made quickly and enemy fighters act like civilians until the moment of attack, it can be difficult to bring a positive resolution to a tense interaction.
Tragedies of war: Bart Whatcott, who also is returning home to Utah with the 222nd, described an attack on Jan. 14 - just days after his unit had lost an officer to a suicide bomber.
While on patrol, Whatcott said, a convoy passed a gas station "bustling with eager gasoline patrons waiting their turn for fuel."
Such lines of cars make good cover for suicide car bombers. And indeed, on this occasion, the convoy was attacked as it passed the station.
Though burned on their hands and faces, the soldiers in the convoy would survive. The only person fatally injured was the attacker.
"The suicide bomber himself was in hundreds of pieces scattered across three lanes of the freeway," Whatcott said.
Defending against such attacks is nearly impossible - and fraught with the danger of making a rash decision that turns out to be wrong. That was the case last fall near the city of Najaf, when a convoy of soldiers from a Utah-based unit fired upon a vehicle that did not immediately heed warnings to stop.
The family, found dead inside the car, did not have any weapons or explosives, Army officers said. Military investigators later concluded the soldier had acted appropriately, given the short time he had to make a decision about how to respond to a potential attack.
Sherman Fleek, a native of Utah who recently returned from Iraq, where he was researching reconstruction successes for the Army, said the security situation was such that his interactions with common Iraqis were extremely limited.
And he lamented the lost opportunities to get to know Iraq's citizens better.
"I would like to have been able to go into their homes, you know," he said. "Into their homes, into their common areas, their restaurants. We just didn't get to do that."
He noted that GIs on patrol sometimes see the inside of Iraqi homes, but usually only with the purpose of pursuing insurgent fighters.
"If you really want to get to know someone, you want to be able to accept an invitation into their home," Fleek said.
Cuts both ways: The Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group that seeks to protect the civil liberties of American Muslims, last week decried the actions of a Marine who, in a video recently posted on the Internet, sang a song about killing Iraqis.
The video also records the raucous cheers of the Marine's audience - apparently fellow troops in Iraq.
The song tells the story of a Marine who, after being invited into the home of an Iraqi girl whom he fancies, is ambushed by her family.
mlaplante@sltrib.com
Ellie