thedrifter
04-05-08, 04:13 AM
SATURDAY APRIL 5, 2008
Last modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2008 11:36 AM CDT
Establishing mutual trustEstablishing mutual trust - This is #26 in a series of “letters home” from a local Marine deployed for a second tour in Iraq
By Staff Sgt. Isaac Weix, USMC
One of the reasons for the Marines’ success in Al Anbar is the relationships we cultivate with the local population.
We have formed a relationship where we are in this together with common goals. We do everything with the Iraqis. We trust them with our lives, as they trust us with theirs.
The Iraqi police force is a professional organization that gains legitimacy and trust of the people daily. Bureaucratic institutions like the Ministry of the Interior are solidifying, and chains of command are becoming more defined.
Every week, I attend city council meetings, reconstruction meetings and security meetings. The Iraqis who are at these meetings are not elected, but are local leaders. Sheiks, Imams, business leaders, engineers and doctors show up at the meetings.
One of the things needed in this area are local elections to give the city council more legitimacy. The law that will permit those elections has been a sticking point at the national level, but it looks like they will happen within a year.
Everything here is about relationships, so we will be invited to the house of many of the people who sit on the council. In fact, we seem to be having dinner with someone all the time.
On the most recent outing, we had lunch with one of the second-tier sheiks in the area.
(The best way to define a sheik is a family leader. The more offspring you have, the more powerful you are. This is the reason for multiple wives.)
This sheik was a “gentleman farmer.” He has his tractor, date palm grove, apple orchard, milk cows and flock of sheep. I stayed outside to provide security, which means I talked to the kids and checked out the farm.
You never know what you are going to find when you look around, whether that be anti-tank mines or homemade explosives. The people here were not always our friends, and they like to hedge their bets. Who knows what the next president will do?
I took some pictures of his tractor (Massey-Ferguson is the most common tractor over here), his cows, (Holsteins, another Iraqi favorite), his date palm grove and his bread oven with fuel stacked neatly behind.
The fuel for the oven comes from the back of the cows. This bread would be great for someone leading the “organic” lifestyle — even the heat source is organic.
Weix, an Elmwood native, serves with the 24th Marine Regiment out of Madison as a platoon sergeant for Weapons Platoon, “G” Company, 2nd Battalion.
Ellie
Last modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2008 11:36 AM CDT
Establishing mutual trustEstablishing mutual trust - This is #26 in a series of “letters home” from a local Marine deployed for a second tour in Iraq
By Staff Sgt. Isaac Weix, USMC
One of the reasons for the Marines’ success in Al Anbar is the relationships we cultivate with the local population.
We have formed a relationship where we are in this together with common goals. We do everything with the Iraqis. We trust them with our lives, as they trust us with theirs.
The Iraqi police force is a professional organization that gains legitimacy and trust of the people daily. Bureaucratic institutions like the Ministry of the Interior are solidifying, and chains of command are becoming more defined.
Every week, I attend city council meetings, reconstruction meetings and security meetings. The Iraqis who are at these meetings are not elected, but are local leaders. Sheiks, Imams, business leaders, engineers and doctors show up at the meetings.
One of the things needed in this area are local elections to give the city council more legitimacy. The law that will permit those elections has been a sticking point at the national level, but it looks like they will happen within a year.
Everything here is about relationships, so we will be invited to the house of many of the people who sit on the council. In fact, we seem to be having dinner with someone all the time.
On the most recent outing, we had lunch with one of the second-tier sheiks in the area.
(The best way to define a sheik is a family leader. The more offspring you have, the more powerful you are. This is the reason for multiple wives.)
This sheik was a “gentleman farmer.” He has his tractor, date palm grove, apple orchard, milk cows and flock of sheep. I stayed outside to provide security, which means I talked to the kids and checked out the farm.
You never know what you are going to find when you look around, whether that be anti-tank mines or homemade explosives. The people here were not always our friends, and they like to hedge their bets. Who knows what the next president will do?
I took some pictures of his tractor (Massey-Ferguson is the most common tractor over here), his cows, (Holsteins, another Iraqi favorite), his date palm grove and his bread oven with fuel stacked neatly behind.
The fuel for the oven comes from the back of the cows. This bread would be great for someone leading the “organic” lifestyle — even the heat source is organic.
Weix, an Elmwood native, serves with the 24th Marine Regiment out of Madison as a platoon sergeant for Weapons Platoon, “G” Company, 2nd Battalion.
Ellie