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thedrifter
12-23-06, 03:34 PM
Posted on Fri, Dec. 22, 2006

General says troops in Iraq fight to stabilize the country

By Joe Swickard

Detroit Free Press

(MCT)

RAMADI, Iraq - With ankle-deep mud, rows of Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and the pop-pop-pop of AK-47s amid sand-bagged observation posts, it is clear that Camp Corregidor is the real face of war.

Crouching low, Marine Brig. Gen. Robert Neller emerges from the camouflage netting that shields a young Marine from insurgent sniper fire in the hotly contested southeastern corner of Ramadi.

"Thirty-one years in the Corps, and he's why I do it," Neller said after spending 10 minutes inside the rooftop post Sunday talking with that young Marine.

As deputy commanding general of Operations West, the East Lansing, Mich.-raised Neller is among the top leaders holding sway over the 1st Battalion of the 24th Marine Regiment , a reserve unit at Selfridge Air National Guard Base that represents the largest deployment of Michigan Marines in the war.

The Marines' job is to help stabilize Iraq, then leave, he said - but not precipitously so.

"To walk away from this would be a dangerous thing to do," said Neller, 53.

But ultimately, he said, while this might be our fight for now, it is the Iraqis' country, their fight and their reconciliation if they want to continue as a nation.

A compact, tough knot of a man with a calm, deliberate delivery, Neller is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where he earned a bachelor's degree in history and speech communication. He also has a master's degree from Pepperdine University in human resource management.

Neller, who played football as a young man, remains an avid college football fan, and his son, Brett, played football at Hillsdale College, where he graduated this spring. The general is a veteran of Panama operations and a student of small irregular wars who says he needs first hand contact with troops in the fight.

"I can't keep up with these kids when they are patrolling," he said in an interview at his office at military headquarters at Camp Fallujah, outside the city. "But I have to go out to see what it's like on the streets."

Neller's responsibilities in Anbar province include Ramadi, a city where there is almost daily fighting with insurgents, as well as tribal-dominated rural areas and the dense and uneasy city of Fallujah.

Part of his command is the 1/24th, which has more than 700 Michigan residents serving in its five companies. The battalion's performance in the Sunni Triangle is crucial to America's war efforts here.

"We have to help give these people a life," Neller said. "We have to be seen as part of the solution for Iraqis rather than part of the problem."

The Selfridge-headquartered Marines had a violent welcome to Iraq in the fall. They took a series of heavy hits that claimed at least 11 lives and left at least 23 Marines severely injured.

The end of Ramadan, the pending U.S. elections and the general notion that any new unit would get a rough reception were a triple-whammy for the 1/24th

The unit "walked into a tough situation," Neller said. "Everybody who comes in gets tested."

He said troops come in "jacked-up. Then they get hit by reality, and it's never quite what they expected. They were rocked, but they're shaking it off."

The first few months can be transformational for new troops, he said.

"When a man sees his best buddy get killed, he wants revenge, but we can't have that," Neller said. "This place will harden your heart, but it's the leaders' job to see that they don't get too hard."

The role of the 1/24th "is as much law enforcement as it is a fight," Neller said, adding that the task matches the skills that many men bring from their civilian jobs as police officers, fire fighters and other professions.

Those skills, he said, are crucial because "the prize of this fight is the people of Fallujah."

Neller said the city has "the ingredients for success: a government, police and commerce." But he said the city also has "a lot of symbolic value for the insurgents" because the Marines ran them out of town after full-scale battles in 2004.

The insurgents want it back, Neller said, but "they will not regain control of the city."

Still, he stressed that U.S. forces have a limited role to play as all the Iraqi factions and sects "with their different agendas and animosities" try to hammer out a workable government.

"They want us to leave, and we want to leave," he said, adding that the United States eventually must transmit the region to them.

"The long-term answer is more Iraqis" for the army and police, he said. Americans, Neller said, "need to know of the effort" of U.S. forces like the 1/24th on behalf of Iraqis.

"Anybody who thinks Americans are soft and can't hack it hasn't seen these men and what they are doing, " he said. "We're the good guys."

Ellie