Letters from the Front

[thedrifter]

Letters from the Front

http://sandgram.blogspot.com/

Happy New Year to all of you out there in Cyberland!! I’m very lucky to have a guest writer on the SandGram. Major Brooks Tucker, USMC. He is a fellow reservist that I served with on recruiting duty who has also volunteered for a tour of duty in Iraq with the Marine Corps Lessons Learned Department. His writing is awesome and it tells the story that the media has hidden from the public about our progress over there since it’s going so well. There are three letters and I’ll post the next two shortly. I hope that you enjoy his insights as much as I have. Feel free to pass these along.
Semper Fi,
Taco




Dear Family and Friends:
I have been in Iraq for nearly three weeks now and am beginning to find a rhythm to my work days and nights and have seen just enough to have some sense of awareness concerning the complex nature of the war and our role in it. Before I begin to cover some of the latter, I would like to dispel some of the lingering misconceptions that remain in the American consciousness on the home front. First and foremost, it is instructive to note that as of two weeks ago there were less than 20 journalists embedded with US forces across all of Iraq. There are approximately 165,000 US troops in Iraq, so that is 1 reporter for every 8,250 troops, roughly the equivalent of almost two regiments. If the media has been our window, no matter how opaque or transparent, into this war, the media is not in a physical position to report with much authority at this stage, in my opinion. Which leads me to one of the changes the media has not covered well, what is going on and has been going on for almost six months in al Anbar Province, where the US Marines and US Army are working day and night to set the conditions for transition of security to Iraqi Police and Army.

Within days of my arrival, I Iearned that our base outside the once violent and impenetrable city of Fallujah had not received incoming fire since April of this year. In the past several months, the Marines and Army have taken many casualties while making great strides finding roadside bombs, defusing them, and training the Iraqis to find them and report this to US forces. The number of violent incidents in the provincial capital, Ramadi, has declined 95% in the past year and Marines now patrol both Ramadi and Fallujah on foot without the ever present fear of being shot. Neighborhood watch programs manned by Iraqis proliferate and it is common for a Marine security patrol to encounter numerous checkpoints throughout the city of Fallujah, where Marine platoons man Joint Security Stations alongside Iraqi Police. I spent a day and a night with one of these platoons two weeks ago, and found the perimeter guarded by Iraqi Police, the interior manned by Marines and Iraqis in observation posts, and the outlying neighborhood patrolled at night by squads of young Marines on foot searching for signs of insurgent infiltration from outside the city limits. I sat in on a gathering of Fallujan leaders and Marines to discuss better communication and cooperation and found that their relations were professional and cordial. The Marines and the city leaders in Fallujah have brokered a way forward that respects the local muhktars, or religious leaders, vests much power in the city council, and allows the Marines to step back from their prior role as the key power brokers. The Fallujans are smart and they know the Americans have money and resources or at least can lead them to money and resources for their badly damaged neighborhoods and inadequate infrastructure, especially sewer and power. They also know that the insurgents have neither the money nor the resources to rebuild their city and will not help them gain leverage with the central government in Baghdad. This bottom up approach is a key component of our counterinsurgency strategy and tactics, for it empowers local and municipal leaders who are very wary of the civil servants in Baghdad. Furthermore, the Iraqi constitution gives significant powers to the provinces, so a strategy that builds the capability of the provinces is in keeping with that document. I have just returned from Hit, a city north of Fallujah, along the Euphrates River, where much the same story is playing out, Iraqis and Americans joining forces to defeat remnants of the insurgent cells that are still active, but are finding it increasingly difficult to locate safe havens free of the 24 hour US and Iraqi security presence on the highways, in the streets, alleyways, all under the watchful eyes of unmanned drones circling aloft.

Now a few words about quality of life for me and the other Americans serving and working here. I live in what is called a "can", a basic trailer type living space, with a couple beds, lockers, and maybe a camp chair. Most have AC. Showers and toilets at main bases are like you would find in a basic locker room, but showers are individual stalls. Third Country Nationals, Pakistanis mostly, clean the toilets and showers twice daily. Laundry service usually has a 24 hour turnaround. At more remote bases, or platoon and company outposts, showers are more primitive and porta johns are the rule. Food on main bases is plentiful and well cooked, to include fresh fruit, salad, Gatorade and pastries. Even at the remotest locations, the logistics folks manage to deliver some semblance of good food, although it is not as well presented. People here work long hours, mostly because there is little else to do, and most battalion and company bases have some form or internet access for official business, at least. The weather is cooling off now, temps in the high 80's during the day, high 50's at night. No rain yet, but when it comes the "moondust" will turn to slick muck. Until then, we are enjoying the fall like weather.
Best regards,
Brooks

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Sunday, January 06, 2008
Second Letter from the Front

http://sandgram.blogspot.com/

Here is the second letter from Brooks. Hope you enjoy the update. More to come.
S/F Taco

Dear Family and Friends:

With six weeks under my belt now, I am beginning to feel at ease with the surroundings and the routine of work and daily life here, which, when we are not working, is mostly filled with sleep, exercise, trying not to eat too much chow in the dining facility, and waiting for helicopters. Lest anyone thinks the two hour advance arrivals in the States are unknown in a combat zone, forget it. Reservations for a seat on a flight must be made exactly four days in advance and you must check in at the air facility 2 hours before your departure time. The only positive is no TSA checkpoints, since everyone here is already armed. Most flights out of my camp and back to it are done at night, so this usually means sitting around a dusty plywood hut for two hours or more until around midnight, when the flight arrives and the wind from the rotors buffets the thin plywood walls. A Marine with a roster and a fluorescent blue chemlight ushers the passengers outside and we follow in single file to the landing zone, clad in our flak jackets and helmets, and lugging backpacks and rucksacks through the hot rotor wash, blowing sand, and gravel. Once aboard, bathed in dim green light, we sit knee to knee inside the rumbling fuselage, smelling exhaust fumes wafting through the narrow compartment. The waiting can last a few minutes, or if you are unlucky, there is a lengthy delay as the aircrews and ground crews work to load or unload cargo (sound familiar), which can take longer than you would think since it is being done in the dark, with a military forklift, while the helicopters are running. Last night, when we departed a remote airbase, the helo fired off a solitary red flare, probably as a precaution, that was intended to distract man portable surface to air missiles. I don't know if there was a legitimate threat below trying to shoot us down, but when you are sitting near the rear of the aircraft, as I was, peering out into the blackness beyond the edge of the ramp, and you hear a loud pop, followed by burst of red light, it certainly gets your attention for a second.

Since my first update, I have ridden on nearly a dozen helicopters and visited several cities, military bases/camps, and Joint Security Stations (police precincts) in Al Anbar Province. My focus has been on what is termed "Transition", which, for the military, is the training, advising, and equipping of the Iraqi Security Forces, their Army, Police, and to a lesser extent, their newly formed Highway Patrol. Transition, though, is more than just training a military and a police force; it consists of several pillars or elements that must be interconnected and interdependent to fully function as one. These elements are: Rule of Law, Security, Communication, Governance, and Economics. In order to get all of these elements of Transition to work is a complicated, sometimes rewarding, and frequently frustrating process, involving military civila affairs teams, US State Department Provincial Reconstruction Teams, US Agency for International Development, law enforcement advisors, and instructors on judicial process and municipal management. The overall goal of Transition is to move the Iraqis to a point where they have become relatively self sufficient and reasonably capable of providing security, stability, and the broad array of basic services at the local, regional, and national levels. There will be differing and uneven progress in all these areas, imperfect solutions at best, but if we and the Iraqis can build on the trust that has been established so far, their formal government institutions and their age old tribal organizations will find a way to work together and function for the betterment of their leaders and their constituents.

For the Marines, the Security element of Transition, especially the training and advising piece, can be somewhat counter intuitive for the American military mind. Our traditions and our ethos are steeped in the institutional practice of empowering young leaders and solving problems at the lowest levels. Our ranks are replete with Type A, problem solvers and aggressive, smart young enlisted who want to "fix" and change things, in this case the Iraqis and their seemingly bad habits. But the Iraqis do not adhere or subscribe to a Western military mindset. Arab militaries, for the most part, do not have any tradition of expecting their Corporals and Sergeants to take decisions; that is left to the Captains and Majors. However, the Iraqi soldier, or "jundi" is desirous of a challenge, eager to learn and show he is competent and capable, and their officers are, for the most part, quite seasoned. We Americans often look at their Army and Police with a very critical eye and see their shortcomings compared to our capabilities as deficiencies we must address and indeed correct before we can depart and deem our mission a success. But our trainers and advisors must fight this urge to try and remake the Iraqis in our image, for the longer we persist with this line of thinking, the more the Iraqis will lean on us and expect more from us. We are, as one departing colonel told me, "advisors, not providers" and the sooner we embrace that philosophy, the sooner the Iraqis will begin to solve their problems in their own time and in their own way. They are already doing this in many areas, we are simply here to ensure they make progress, but over time, that progress will have to be defined more by them, and less by us.
For those of you wondering where and when this relationship ends, it won't, at least for another twenty years, perhaps much longer. We have made a long term moral, financial, and military commitment to the Iraqis and we are not going to renege on that commitment, regardless of the political rhetoric in Washington DC or on the campaign trail. Our degree of involvement and numbers of troops will decline in the years ahead, but it is obvious to me that we will have troops working alongside the Iraqis, just as we have the South Koreans and the Germans, for at least another generation. By that time, it is my hope that the young barefooted Iraqi boys, who passed me by the other day, pushing carts to Fallujah, will have had an opportunity to go to school, find an honorable way to earn a living, and raise their families in peace.
Semper Fidelis,
Brooks D.Tucker
Major, USMCR

[thedrifter]

Thursday, January 10, 2008
Third post from Brooks

http://sandgram.blogspot.com/

Dear Family and Friends:

Since my last update, Christmas and New Year’s Day has come and gone, as has Ramadan, or “The Break in the Fast” celebration, and Eid al Adha or “The Sacrificial Holiday”, where all work stops here, sheep are slaughtered, and families, wealthy or poor, gather for sumptuous meals. The tiny office I share with two other Marines has a small refrigerator stocked with baked goods from friends, family, and well wishers across America who we will probably never meet. In the past few weeks the flow of care packages has not ceased. From middle schools to church congregations, small and large boxes arrive almost daily, filled with beef jerky, granola, energy bars, shaving cream, athletic socks, and cards and letters. A British Royal Marine I work with commented that he is simply stunned by the volume of goods Americans send to their troops, for this sort of display of gratitude from countrymen is something entirely foreign to the deployed British troops in the south, who he says rarely receive much from the home front.

The generosity and largesse that is unique to America has also been manifested in the lives of many well to do and ordinary Iraqis in Anbar, where, for the past year, the Marines have allocated tens of millions of dollars to the provincial economy, working with sheiks and municipal government leaders to identify areas where our money can jump start reconstruction projects, repair schools, clean the water, and get school books and pencils to needy children. It is probably fair to say that Anbar has received over one hundred million dollars from the military, with over two thirds of that going to education, governance, justice, public safety, sewer and water, electricity, and trash collection.

While I was traveling through northern Fallujah two weeks ago, we passed through the Jolan District, the scene of some of the fiercest fighting between Marines and insurgents in 2004-2005 and still a very dangerous place up until about nine months ago. Our small convoy of Humvees stopped in the main market area and we were mobbed by a crowd of young boys, practicing their English, eyeing our gear, and asking us for candy. Children nearby is always a good sign, so we let our guard down a bit and joked with them. The market was full of sheep being herded toward the open square where they were purchased, then held down, their necks slit, and once dead, skinned and taken to the nearby butcher. A fruit and vegetable stand was full of fresh produce, everything from peppers to watermelons to cucumbers, much of it imported from Syria, but some of it locally grown. Nearby stood a new water tower, once nearly destroyed in the urban fighting, but now fully functional and freshly painted: American dollars, Iraqi labor.

Outside Fallujah, we drove through a verdant agricultural area called Azergiya, where children raced barefoot down dirt driveways to the main road, waved to us, and asked for soccer balls and candy. We had none; in fact we have stopped handing out gifts like candy to the children out of concern that we were raising unrealistic expectations and for their own safety along the road. I found it interesting that a few of these kids had become so jaded that they merely opened their mouths and pointed to their tongues, but most ran alongside our vehicles and smiled innocently. Someday soon, we’ll have to also reduce our handouts to the sheiks in Fallujah, who are unceasing and unabashed in their requests for American financial assistance. It seems we cannot encounter an Iraqi who does not ask us for something. We stopped at a local school, where we met the caretaker and toured the trash and sheep dung covered grounds. Our hope was that it would be suitable for a joint US-Iraqi medical team to set up and administer to the locals. Two of the insidious legacies of Baathist rule are the high illiteracy rate among Iraqis and the poor water quality, both of which affect children, moreso than adults. Our Iraqi interpreters handed out fist sized stuffed animals and pencils for school as gifts to the caretaker’s seven children. Down the road, we stopped to pay a visit to the local Iraqi Police colonel at his command post set up in the home once occupied by his brother, who was killed by the insurgents. The burned out and bullet riddled carcass of his brother’s white BMW was parked outside. The colonel had fought the Iranians in the Iraq-Iran War many years ago and was a seasoned military man. Before we departed, a convoy from our Combat Engineers arrived with plywood guard shacks, purchased for the Iraqi Police so that they can stay sheltered while standing watch on cold winter nights when the mercury dips below freezing.

As I near the end of my third month in Iraq, I often reflect on a comment made by an Iraqi Police major who spoke English quite well. He and I were seated next to one another at a town council meeting in Fallujah. During the weekly meeting, where local leaders submit their constituents’ bids for American funded contracts and haggle over pricing with the Marines, the discussion turned to politics and the plight of the Sunnis in Anbar, who are now out of power in Baghdad and none too pleased about it. The police major told the sheiks and the senior imam (religious leader) that the only way to change their political circumstances was to vote in the next election and tell all their people to vote. He mentioned all Iraqis voting, but he really meant all Anbar Iraqis, specifically the Sunnis. Then he turned to me and said “You know, we must only talk about the future, (for) if we keep talking about the past, everyone here” and he swept his arm around the room, “(would have been) detained.”

Semper Fidelis,

Brooks D.Tucker

Major, USMCR