thedrifter
09-15-08, 12:41 PM
Dillow in Iraq: Marines turning country toward peace
Gordon Dillow
Columnist
The Orange County Register
GLDillow@aol.com
Comments 18 | Recommend 14
Al Asad, Iraq – In his four tours of duty as a Navy chaplain for Marines in Iraq, Father Paul Shaughnessy has held more memorial services for the fallen than he wants to remember, and consoled more of their distraught buddies than he can count.
But here in western Al Anbar province, in the late summer of 2008, the 58-year-old former San Clemente resident doesn’t have to conduct memorial services for the dead.
Because for right now at least, Americans here aren’t dying.
“It was pretty intense back then,” Father Shaughnessy says, recalling the grim days of years past when American Marines and soldiers were dying by the scores. “But it’s much better now – thank God.”
Anyone familiar with what used to be known as “Bloody Anbar,” the vast, predominately Sunni Muslim region west of Baghdad, will tell you the same thing. American battle deaths here are a small fraction of what they used to be.
Of course, that’s not something you’re likely to see widely reported in the news media. That’s partly because the news media aren’t in the business of reporting deaths that didn’t happen. And perhaps it’s also because we naturally shy away from using -- or even implying -- the words “only” or “a few” in connection with the deaths of American troops.
And yet, what has happened in Al Anbar in terms of American casualties in the past two years is nothing short of astonishing.
I was last here in June-July 2006, a time when every venture “outside the wire” of an American base was an exercise in terror – or at least it was for me. Every time I went out with Marines here on foot patrols or night raids or convoys, I was gripped by a sickening sense of dread.
And I made only a dozen or so such forays before I scurried home to safety. The courageous Marine infantrymen and Navy corpsmen I was with did it time after time after time, month after month. For them, going outside the wire was another day at the office.
And back then, Al Anbar was a deadly office.
According to Department of Defense reports, in the three-month period from June through August of 2006, more than 90 Marines, soldiers and sailors died in Al Anbar province, almost all them from enemy action. The violence level was so high, and so widely reported, that many commentators confidently announced that Al Anbar was irrevocably lost to the enemy.
But apparently no one informed the Marines, or the Army units operating with them in Al Anbar. Despite their losses, they kept doing their jobs every day, fighting terrorists and helping to build up Iraqi security forces.
Meanwhile, the so-called “Awakening” began among local Iraqi leaders, a backlash against the brutal, Taliban-style tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq, tactics that took far more Iraqi lives than American ones. The Iraqis, including some former insurgents, began working with American forces to root out the terrorists.
The impact on American casualties has been dramatic. In June-through-August of 2007, American deaths in Al Anbar dropped to 23 – about one fourth the number from the same period a year earlier. And nine of those 23 deaths were from “non-hostile” causes such as vehicle or aircraft accidents.
That trend has continued. In June-through-August of this year, there were 11 American military deaths in Al Anbar, 5 of them from non-hostile causes. And in the first 12 days of this month, not one American soldier, sailor, airman or Marine died in “Bloody Anbar”.
Again, no one should ever say that “only” 23 Americans died, or “only” 11 Americans died; their deaths were too devastating and too heartbreaking to too many people to ever rate an “only.”
Nor should the sharp decrease in American deaths in Al Anbar and throughout Iraq be a signal to start planning a victory parade. Nothing in Iraq is ever easy or simple or certain.
Still, what has happened in Al Anbar is a story worth telling. Unfortunately, it’s a story that for the most part hasn’t been told. Particularly here in far-flung western Al Anbar, reporters are a rare commodity.
The Marines say that’s okay, that their actions speak for themselves. As Marine Regimental Combat Team 5 executive officer Lt. Col. Robert E. McCarthy III puts it, “When Marines are doing their jobs, when they’re accomplishing their mission, and there are no casualties, that’s news enough for us.”
The colonel is right. It would be nice if the U.S. military’s accomplishments here were more widely reported.
But if the price of widespread news coverage is a high number of American deaths, then here in formerly Bloody Anbar, no news is good news.
CONTACT THE WRITER: GordonDillow@gmail.com. For more stories and photos by Dillow from Iraq, go to www.ocregister.com
Ellie
Gordon Dillow
Columnist
The Orange County Register
GLDillow@aol.com
Comments 18 | Recommend 14
Al Asad, Iraq – In his four tours of duty as a Navy chaplain for Marines in Iraq, Father Paul Shaughnessy has held more memorial services for the fallen than he wants to remember, and consoled more of their distraught buddies than he can count.
But here in western Al Anbar province, in the late summer of 2008, the 58-year-old former San Clemente resident doesn’t have to conduct memorial services for the dead.
Because for right now at least, Americans here aren’t dying.
“It was pretty intense back then,” Father Shaughnessy says, recalling the grim days of years past when American Marines and soldiers were dying by the scores. “But it’s much better now – thank God.”
Anyone familiar with what used to be known as “Bloody Anbar,” the vast, predominately Sunni Muslim region west of Baghdad, will tell you the same thing. American battle deaths here are a small fraction of what they used to be.
Of course, that’s not something you’re likely to see widely reported in the news media. That’s partly because the news media aren’t in the business of reporting deaths that didn’t happen. And perhaps it’s also because we naturally shy away from using -- or even implying -- the words “only” or “a few” in connection with the deaths of American troops.
And yet, what has happened in Al Anbar in terms of American casualties in the past two years is nothing short of astonishing.
I was last here in June-July 2006, a time when every venture “outside the wire” of an American base was an exercise in terror – or at least it was for me. Every time I went out with Marines here on foot patrols or night raids or convoys, I was gripped by a sickening sense of dread.
And I made only a dozen or so such forays before I scurried home to safety. The courageous Marine infantrymen and Navy corpsmen I was with did it time after time after time, month after month. For them, going outside the wire was another day at the office.
And back then, Al Anbar was a deadly office.
According to Department of Defense reports, in the three-month period from June through August of 2006, more than 90 Marines, soldiers and sailors died in Al Anbar province, almost all them from enemy action. The violence level was so high, and so widely reported, that many commentators confidently announced that Al Anbar was irrevocably lost to the enemy.
But apparently no one informed the Marines, or the Army units operating with them in Al Anbar. Despite their losses, they kept doing their jobs every day, fighting terrorists and helping to build up Iraqi security forces.
Meanwhile, the so-called “Awakening” began among local Iraqi leaders, a backlash against the brutal, Taliban-style tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq, tactics that took far more Iraqi lives than American ones. The Iraqis, including some former insurgents, began working with American forces to root out the terrorists.
The impact on American casualties has been dramatic. In June-through-August of 2007, American deaths in Al Anbar dropped to 23 – about one fourth the number from the same period a year earlier. And nine of those 23 deaths were from “non-hostile” causes such as vehicle or aircraft accidents.
That trend has continued. In June-through-August of this year, there were 11 American military deaths in Al Anbar, 5 of them from non-hostile causes. And in the first 12 days of this month, not one American soldier, sailor, airman or Marine died in “Bloody Anbar”.
Again, no one should ever say that “only” 23 Americans died, or “only” 11 Americans died; their deaths were too devastating and too heartbreaking to too many people to ever rate an “only.”
Nor should the sharp decrease in American deaths in Al Anbar and throughout Iraq be a signal to start planning a victory parade. Nothing in Iraq is ever easy or simple or certain.
Still, what has happened in Al Anbar is a story worth telling. Unfortunately, it’s a story that for the most part hasn’t been told. Particularly here in far-flung western Al Anbar, reporters are a rare commodity.
The Marines say that’s okay, that their actions speak for themselves. As Marine Regimental Combat Team 5 executive officer Lt. Col. Robert E. McCarthy III puts it, “When Marines are doing their jobs, when they’re accomplishing their mission, and there are no casualties, that’s news enough for us.”
The colonel is right. It would be nice if the U.S. military’s accomplishments here were more widely reported.
But if the price of widespread news coverage is a high number of American deaths, then here in formerly Bloody Anbar, no news is good news.
CONTACT THE WRITER: GordonDillow@gmail.com. For more stories and photos by Dillow from Iraq, go to www.ocregister.com
Ellie