Voices on the ground: Stars and Stripes surveys troops on morale in Iraq

[thedrifter]

Voices on the ground: Stars and Stripes surveys troops on morale in Iraq


By David Josar, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, October 15, 2003


Day One of a seven-day Stars and Stripes series. Click here to access the series' index page.

Related stories:
¶ Stripes reporters visited nearly 50 camps to gauge servicemembers' sentiment. (Click here)

¶ Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, says troops are focused and back mission. (Click here)

In northern Iraq, just outside Tikrit, a soldier from the 101st Airborne sleeps every night in a sleeping bag under camouflaged netting in an open field. Every meal comes in brown plastic, ready to eat. At Tallil Air Base, about 600 miles to the south, airmen sleep in double beds complete with government-issued comforters and pillows.

Conditions for U.S. troops in Iraq vary widely, and so, too, does the mood and morale of the individual units scattered throughout the country. For months, Stars and Stripes has received scores of letters from troops complaining about one thing or another connected with their service, as well as scores of letters from troops decrying the claims of the complainers and urging them to just do their duty.

In an effort to feel the pulse of U.S. forces firsthand, Stars and Stripes reporters spent three weeks in August fanning across Iraq. Reporters traveled as far south as the enemy prisoner-of-war camp in Umm Qasr, about 15 miles north of the Kuwait border, and as far north as Mosul, about 70 miles from Turkey. To get a firsthand account of what life was like for American forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom, reporters slept, ate, showered and went on patrol with troops.

They handed out and received responses to nearly 2,000 questionnaires. (The U.S. Air Force allowed reporters to visit Air Force bases, but did not allow airmen to complete the surveys at some of its bases. At one base, reporters were allowed to meet with airmen and ask them the questions on the survey.)

Troops were asked about their morale and their unit’s morale. They were asked about their living conditions and whether they thought their commanders were doing anything to improve those conditions. They were asked about their unit’s mission and if they felt going to war in Iraq was worthwhile for America.

Of those surveyed:

¶ Many Reserve and National Guard respondents said they were unhappy with a number of things, just as letter writers from those units had said in letters to the newspaper. They said they often felt like second-class soldiers who don’t receive the same equipment, support and treatment as their active-duty counterparts.

¶ When asked how worthwhile they thought the war in Iraq was for the United States, the split among all those responding was 67 percent saying it was “worthwhile,” “probably worthwhile” or “very worthwhile,” with 31 percent saying it was of “little value” or of “no value at all.”

¶ Asked about their personal morale, 34 percent overall rated it as “low” or “very low,” 27 percent said it was “high” or “very high,” and virtually all the rest called it “average.” Perceptions of their unit’s morale ranked heavier on the “low” side. This question of personal morale elicited widely different responses among the services. Reservists ranked their morale as the lowest by far. Marine and Air Force respondents tended to rate their own morale on the high side, while Army respondents were fairly evenly divided between high and low morale, with most falling in the middle, or “average.”

¶ Of all troops surveyed, 72 percent rated living conditions “average” or better. But disparities existed throughout the region. One Army unit could have three hot meals a day and another unit with the same mission subsisted on MREs and rationed bottles of water. Some units, although they had been in Iraq for months, still hadn’t had a day off or access to a hot shower. Other troops had been in Iraq a few weeks and were already being allowed to leave on morale trips.

The numbers show that sometimes camp conditions and morale are not always connected. Some Marines surveyed in southern Iraq live in austere conditions but still had overall high morale.

¶ There is a sharp divide between the Air Force and Army. The Army and Air Force share several bases in Iraq, but the Air Force has separate — and superior — living conditions. The Air Force at Tallil Air Base, for example, brought in a Pizza Hut concession but the Army is barred from using it. The Air Force does deploy differently based on its mission, but soldiers, after seeing the contrast, said the division, which at times is a fence topped with barbed wire, undercuts morale and teamwork. The Air Force has its own gyms, morale tents and mess halls.

¶ Noncommissioned officers predict problems in re-enlistment, although military leaders say enlistment rates historically drop after conflicts. Nearly half of the troops surveyed said they do not plan to re-enlist. No re-enlistment figures from Iraq are available at this point, while generally the overall military re-enlistment rates appear to be satisfactory or better.

¶ While from all indications troops in Iraq are doing what needs to be done, slightly more than one-third of those responding to the questionnaire said their mission was for the most part “not clearly defined” or “not at all defined.” Sixty-three percent said it was. Again, reservists mostly said that the mission was unclear. Marine and Air Force respondents tended to say that the mission was “mostly clear” or “very clear.” As in other questions, Army respondents, the largest group surveyed, were almost evenly split on the question. At the same time, many respondents — mainly from the Reserves and Army — said that what they were doing was not closely related to what they were trained to do. Air Force and Marine respondents mainly tended to see their current mission and their training as more closely aligned. Reporters in the field found that the transition from war-fighting to occupation had led to different tasks. Soldiers in transportation companies were operating equipment they were not trained to drive, for instance. Marines were asked to perform peacekeeping duties they said they had been rarely been asked to do before. In interviews or written responses to the questionnaire, some troops described what they were doing as “busy work.”

¶ While supply problems have not crippled operations, they have stymied some units. Troops had plenty of bullets, grenades, weapons and fuel, but they said they did not have enough of the plates that make flak vests impervious to bullets. Units also complained that they were sent into combat without enough medical supplies, and transportation companies resorted to building their own “gun trucks” because there were not enough to provide security for convoys. More than 60 percent of the troops surveyed rated their chain of command’s ability to get them supplies as “average” or better. Sixty-three percent of Reserve troops rated that ability as “not good” or “poor,” and 27 percent of the Army rated that “not good” or “poor.”

¶ In interviews, written comments on questionnaires and letters to the editor, a number of troops complained about having to spend more time in Iraq than they thought necessary or were told they would spend. Most of these were reservists.

Over the next week, Stars and Stripes will present its findings on the issues that the troops in Iraq say are important to them. The series also will show creative means troops come up with to do their jobs — and to have some fun or add levity. And it will present what troops say leaders can do to improve morale and some ways troops keep their own morale high. It will conclude with what is next for troops and bases in Iraq.

Staff writers Jon Anderson, Terry Boyd, Lisa Burgess, Steve Liewer, Marni McEntee and Scott Schonauer contributed to this story.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18086


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[thedrifter]

Stripes reporters visited nearly 50 camps in Iraq to gauge sentiment


Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, October 15, 2003


Even before the war in Iraq started, the mail started coming in to Stars and Stripes.

The letters page was filled with notes from servicemembers raising concerns in the Middle East. Many complained about living conditions, inequities and problems with the mail.

As the warfighting force evolved into a stabilization force, the letters continued to flow into Stripes offices. Between June and September, Stripes printed 200 letters from troops in the deserts of Iraq and Kuwait and other remote outposts that have led the fight against terrorism.

Roughly 60 percent complained about various things, ranging from living conditions to redeployment dates back home. The remaining 40 percent urged the others to get on with their duty.

With so many voices clamoring for attention, Stripes decided to try to find out what the ground truth was in Iraq. What were the concerns troops had as they watched their mission change from storming Baghdad to patrolling it? Were things as bad as some servicemembers said? Were conditions as good as others said?

Armed with satellite phones, laptop computers and a questionnaire that sought to seek soldiers’ opinions, three teams of reporters were dispatched to Iraq to see for themselves what it was like. One team of two reporters headed north to Mosul, another south toward Babylon and others worked around the Baghdad area.

The goal was to talk to as many servicemembers as possible. They were asked to fill out a 17-part questionnaire. The results can’t be projected onto the entire military population in Iraq, but the returns were impressive.

Initial plans called for having about 1,000 servicemembers fill out the questionnaire. Visits were expected to be made to about a dozen camps during a three-week window in August. Instead, 1,935 servicemembers filled out the questionnaire, and the seven reporters visited nearly 50 camps in Iraq. Some of the troops said great things about their mission and what they were doing. Others were not as positive. All wanted to be heard.

Stripes listened.

Over the next six days, Stripes will tell those servicemembers’ stories, sharing their victories, their battles and their concerns.

All are important, especially to the people serving in Iraq and the grateful nation back home.

The package, to which Stripes devoted an unprecedented amount of time and resources without the involvement of the Defense Department, will cover an array of topics ranging from troops’ morale and changing mission to hidden benefits to deployments and suggestions on how to improve future rotations.

While the package ends after seven days, the complete coverage will continue as long as troops remain in the Middle East.

Stripes will continue to listen.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18087


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[thedrifter]

Lt. Gen. Sanchez says troops are focused and back mission


By Jon R. Anderson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, October 15, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Pentagon’s top commander in Iraq said complaints about morale are “expected,” but troops are focused and they understand and support the mission.

“Are you going to find soldiers on any given day who are down on morale? Of course,” said Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez, commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq. “There are days when I wake up and don’t feel very good and I’d probably bite your head off. I walk around and talk to all sorts of soldiers also, and I honestly believe our soldiers are doing very, very well. There is no morale problem.”

Complaints about morale, living conditions and other issues surfaced in a Stars and Stripes survey of nearly 2,000 troops in Iraq.

Sanchez said complaints are “an Army’s normal posture. What would be the difference if we were back in [Europe] or Fort Hood or wherever?”

More importantly, he added, “I guarantee you that if you ask a soldier if he’s focused on his mission, does he understand the criticality of his mission, I think you find that a majority of them really do understand why we’re here and the implications of us not succeeding.”

Indeed, nearly two-thirds of the troops surveyed said the war in Iraq was “worthwhile” or “very worthwhile.” Almost a third said the war was of “little value” or “not worthwhile at all.” Similarly, two thirds said their mission was clear, while a third disagreed.

“I think the missions we have are very clear,” Sanchez said. “One, conduct offensive operations against noncompliant forces. The second one is stability and support operations in our zone.”

Where there is confusion, he said, it likely comes from the blending of those two missions across a country that is as diverse as it is big.

“Each of my major subordinate commands has a totally different environment that they’re operating under,” Sanchez said. “And then to further break it down inside a division, different sectors within the division have totally different environments.

“That’s a fairly significant challenge, being able to piece that together to the overall mission of the country,” he said. “Even at the brigade [level], that can be problematic because such dynamic conditions exist. In some cases you’re going from stability and support operations in one small area and then transition into a low-intensity conflict area very, very rapidly.”

He points to Baghdad, where more than 40 of the nearly 100 U.S. combat fatalities have occurred since President Bush declared major combat operations over on May 1.

“This is probably one of the most complex environments. It’s much more complex that Kosovo was. Just in sheer size and then all the different dynamics that are playing here. So that can be fairly confusing for a young soldier on the ground.”

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?article=18088


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[thedrifter]

Ground Truth, Day 2:
In survey, many in Iraq call morale
low; leaders say job is getting done


By Ward Sanderson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Thursday, October 16, 2003

What is the morale of U.S. troops in Iraq?

Answers vary. High-ranking visitors to the country, including Department of Defense and congressional officials, have said it is outstanding.

Some troops on the ground have begged to differ, writing to Stars and Stripes and to others about what they call low morale on their part and on the part of their units.

There was a correlation between such things as local services and release dates on the one hand, and morale on the other.

Stars and Stripes sent a team of reporters to Iraq to try to ascertain the states of both conditions and morale. Troops were asked about morale, among many other issues, in a 17-point questionnaire, which was filled out and returned by nearly 2,000 persons.

The results varied, sometimes dramatically:

¶ Among the largest group surveyed, Army troops, the results looked much like a bell curve. Twenty-seven percent said their personal morale was “high” or “very high.” Thirty-three percent said it was “low” or “very low.” The largest percentage fell in the middle, saying it was “average.”

¶ Among the second largest group, reservists and National Guard members, the differences were much starker. Only 15 percent said their own morale was “high” or “very high,” while 48 percent said it was “low” or “very low.”

¶ Among Marines, the next largest group, 44 percent said their morale was “high” or “very high,” and only 14 percent said it was “low” or “very low.”

¶ Among airmen, the smallest of the four major groups surveyed because fewer questionnaires were allowed to be circulated to them, the results were also very positive. Thirty-nine percent said their morale was “high” or “very high,” and only 6 percent said it was “low” or “very low.”

¶ Very few Navy servicemembers could be found to question in Iraq.

The questionnaire findings can’t be projected to all the servicemembers in Iraq. Still, the reporting of “lows” among the two largest groups surveyed, Army and Reserve/National Guard, seemed significant. The views of these troops, at least, appeared to contrast sharply with those of the visiting VIPs.

Respondents to the survey were not given a definition of morale. They responded according to what they interpreted the word to mean. Some believe morale reflects the degree of well-being felt by the servicemember. On the other hand, commanders say that in measuring morale, they want to know if the servicemember is following orders and getting the job done.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. officer in Iraq, said that low morale isn’t an issue because troops are fulfilling the mission.

“Morale is … not necessarily giving them Baskin-Robbins,” he said in a Stars and Stripes interview. “Sometimes it’s being able to train them hard and keep them focused in a combat environment so they can survive.

“So at its most fundamental level within our Army, taking care of soldiers and their morale could have very few worldly comforts. But the morale of the soldier is good. He’s being taken care of, he’s accomplishing his mission, he’s being successful in the warfighting.”

Other military leaders say they are always looking at ways to improve the morale of their troops. “Morale begins with caring leaders looking their soldiers in the eye,” said Lt. Col. Jim Cassella, a Pentagon spokesman. “When senior leaders visit the troops in Iraq, they relate that the troops tell them that morale is good, a fact that’s backed up by re-enlistment and retention rates.”

(These rates have been acceptable or good for the services overall. Figures for re-enlistments in Iraq are not available yet, officials said. In the Stripes survey, half or more respondents from the Army, Marines and Reserves said they were unlikely to stay in the service. Officials say re-enlistments normally drop after conflicts.)

Cassella said that leaders visiting Iraq seek out the opinions of troops. Some say the views expressed may be distorted as a result of the nature of the get-togethers, “dog and pony shows,” in the words of combat engineer Pfc. Roger Hunsaker.

“When congressional delegations came through,” said one 36-year-old artillery master sergeant who asked not to be identified, commanders “hand-picked the soldiers who would go. They stacked the deck.”

Others on the ground in Iraq think top leaders are right more times than they are given credit for.

“I heard that reporters/politicians were trying to say morale was down out here,” Petty Officer Matthew W. Early wrote on his questionnaire at Camp Get Some in southern Iraq. “What do people back home expect us to feel after a war? Are we supposed to be as happy here as we are with our friends and families back home? Hell no.

“Of course, when confronted by reporters, we’re going to voice our opinions about our situation. Unfortunately, some people like to complain about how they live or what they don’t have. The complaint concerning morale is the voice of the minority, not the majority.”

In the Stripes survey, troops consistently rated their unit’s morale as lower than their own. John Kay, marketing director for the Army Research Institute, said, “Soldiers always rate self [personal] morale higher than unit morale. This is nothing new.”

Troops may wish to report what they perceive as the true morale situation without getting themselves into trouble, a way of saying, “I’m OK, but the unit’s not.”

Some of the gap can also be the result of hearing other troops complain, compounding the impression that unit morale is low, even if each complainer believes his or her own morale is better.

“Both are true,” said Charles Moskos, a military sociologist with Northwestern University.

The military studies morale regularly, but “the further you go up the chain in the officer corps, the reality of day-to-day morale cannot register completely,” said Lt. Col. Daniel Smith, retired chief of research for the Center for Defense Information. “Whereas when you talk to the platoon sergeants, platoon leaders and even company commanders, you get a better sense of the true state of affairs. Do the weapons work? Are they getting hot meals? Are they getting enough rest? Are their leaders competent and not taking unnecessary risks?”

Unlike some officials who have visited Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, during a September stop in Iraq, spoke not about morale per se, but about the importance of the mission and about sacrifice.

“You’re people ... who weren’t drafted, you weren’t conscripted, you searched your souls and decided that you wanted to step forward and serve your country,” he told the 4th Infantry Division, according to a Pentagon transcript.

Another speech to air assault soldiers of the 101st Airborne division echoed the sentiment:

“The important thing I would also add is that every one of you is a volunteer. You all asked to do this, and that is impressive and it's appreciated.”

Staff writer Jon R. Anderson contributed to this story.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18110


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[thedrifter]

Full text of Stripes' interview with Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez


Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, October 15, 2003



Stars and Stripes reporter Jon Anderson sat down with V Corp commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. officer in Iraq, at the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Baghdad on Sept. 9.

Since this interview, a number of changes have occurred in the region. More camps have been improved and additional initiatives have been started, such as the 15-day Rest and Recuperation program, which allows some soldiers to spend 15 days outside of Iraq and Kuwait.

Below is what Sanchez had to say during the interview:

Q: One of the things (Stars and Stripes has) learned is that morale can have many facets – esprit de corps, faith in leadership, family and personal issues, belief in mission, quality of life, to name just a few. How do you define morale?

A: Morale is …not necessarily giving them Baskin-Robbins. Sometimes it’s being able to train them hard and keep them focused in a combat environment so that they can survive. So at its most fundamental level within our Army, taking care of soldiers and their morale could have very few worldly comforts. But the morale of the soldier is good. He’s being taken care of, he’s accomplishing his mission, he’s being successful in the warfighting. It varies across the formations depending upon the mission that’s been assigned to an organization and the ability within the logistical system to get the creature comforts out to far reaches, to the soldier on point, if you will.

Q: As the senior commander on the ground here, what would you say is the single biggest challenge in keeping – or getting — high morale?

A: It had been the uncertainty of force rotations. We had built an expectation into the force in general that the way we went to war as an institution was for six months. And deployments would be of the Balkans nature. And, therefore, upon deploying the force into this theater I believe that was that expectation. Even though the leadership tried to communicate the uncertainty of the deployment, it was still very clear to the soldier that that was the way we went to war. With the announcement of the one-year rotation in country, that took away a lot of that uncertainty, both back home and here in the country.

That uncertainty had been a significant challenge in both locations for a while. And now that we’ve got final resolution for Reserve components and active component soldiers, I think it turns to some of the more fundamental requirements for sustained morale.

Q: Actually, many of the troops [Stripes] talked to had a different take on that. They said the single biggest factor on morale is still return dates. Just about everyone said they had been given constantly shifting rotation dates. And many say they still don’t have a hard date. Is that a matter of word not getting down or continuing uncertainty among specific units?

A: I think what you have here is a lot of expectation and a lot of wishful thinking that has continued. There has been some confusion, OK. The confusion comes when you start talking to Reserve components and you say one year for the Reserve component soldier, it used to be a one-year mobilization. What has happened within this week is that it has been made one year on the ground. Which is a significant change for the Reserve component. They have to mobilize, (spend) one year on the ground, and then de-mob after leaving the theater. So that could easily be some of the confusion that is out there. I’ll tell you for the active component soldier that has been pretty well defined with the published force rotation policy. But when you start getting down to dates, that can still modify when the transportation redeployment requirements haven’t been adjusted or met so that we can flow the force out of here.

The guidance I have been putting out to the command is plan on a year from your deployment date. And then as you get closer, you’ll be told exactly when you’re going to depart because it’s still uncertain at this point. We know, for example, that 1st Armored Division will redeploy sometime in spring. At this point I can’t tell you whether it’s going to be April or May or whatever – it’s going depend on how we can flow the forces in.

Q: One of the big pieces that wasn’t mentioned in the announced rotation plan is what happens to your headquarters. Does V Corps have a rotation date and who’s replacing them? Everyone keeps pointing to III Corps.

A: It’ll be one year. They were over here in the November/December time frame and then they went back home for Christmas and then they permanently deployed on the mission somewhere between late January and March time frame. That will be the one-year start point. (On Replacement) I don’t know that’s been announced yet. Let everybody keep saying III Corps.

Q: Another big question mark on rotations: The 101st Airborne Division is slated to be replaced by coalition forces. Who exactly do you expect will replace them?

A: At this point there’s still a lot of discussion going on. But I think that the message is clear to American military forces that they’ll be on the ground for a year. That’s for (U.S. Central Command) and Washington – with, of course, input from me – to figure out how we’ll replace them. The situation that will exist here at the time when the 101st has to go home will hopefully be considerably different. That’s a fairly stable sector. So having to bring in another division would be ideal up there. We continue to work that on multiple fronts. A U.N. resolution is also being worked that could give us some options in the next month.

Q: In terms of your request for international forces, is the focus now on additive forces or replacements for the U.S. units already here? In other words, are we asking the international community to step up to the plate because we want extra help or so that they can assume some of our load?

A: It’ll be kind of a combination. What’s really needed here is international commitment so that this environment does not seem like an occupation force on the part of the United States. This is a mission the international community has made a commitment to. There are 30 countries already here in the coalition. When you have over 60 that are making contributions to Iraq, clearly you have an international coalition. By increasing the numbers of countries inside of the coalition joint task force, that just shows the Iraqi people that we’re really committed to this idea of a democratic Iraq and us not being a U.S. occupation force in the country. That’s the importance of it. So as you begin to flow these forces, depending on the kinds of forces these countries commit, that’s what drives whether it’s augmentation or replacement. But clearly as more combined forces come in, then that relieves some of the burden on some of the initial coalition partners.

Q: You have said that you don’t need additional U.S. forces, but isn’t it true that as the Army is configured now, there really are no more forces? Just about all the active combat formations have either just left, are here now or are already tasked to come here. If you were to ask for more U.S. forces, who’s left to draw from?

A: We have to remember that America has made a commitment and it is more than the Army. I am very confident that if I identified a requirement for additional forces, then Central Command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff at DOD would be able to (provide them). It wouldn’t have to be Army forces. We’re in the process of exiting Marines. We could bring Marine forces back. There’s still some Reserve component capacity out there. In terms of active component combat organizations, I think you’re right. But there’s still some Reserve component decisions that could be made that could give us that capacity.

Q: (Stripes) talked to a lot of reservists and many of them say they’re tired. Many have deployed to the Balkans already or Afghanistan and now here. How concerned are you that there’s going to be a retention issue there?

A: That is definitely something the senior leadership of the Army is looking at. We have to because of the personnel tempo that we’re operating under. We have to really pay attention to what we’re doing in terms of deployment frequency. And more importantly we’re continuing to watch what’s happening with the individual soldier over time. Yes, that would be a real concern if some of our great Reserve component and active component soldiers decided they don’t want to stay in the profession.

continued.....

[thedrifter]

Q: On the active side, over and over again (Stripes) heard stories about soldiers – because of the way the manning system works – who will do a tour in Afghanistan or the Balkans, then switch units and come here or the reverse where they’re doing their tours here, but looking at follow-on assignments that will bring them back here or send them to Korea for another year away from their family. Is there any solution to that or is that just the going to be the grim reality for now?

A: I think that’s just the reality given the decision that we made to go to a unit replacement here – which is typically what we do – go to a unit replacement system and still have individual replacement underneath that. It’s almost inevitable that you’ll run into the exact situations you described. But that will be and is the concern of the leadership right now trying to make sure we can mitigate some of these young soldiers that are going on back-to-back deployments. There are some alternatives that are being looked at back in the States. The Personnel Command is trying to stabilize them for certain periods of time when they go back on a PCS move. But those options are still evolving. I ran into a soldier the other day who had come in from Korea. He had settled his family and a week later he was here. Those are the kinds of things that the system is working to see if we can mitigate.

Q: The president has called for patience, sacrifice and support for the effort here in Iraq. He closed his recent speech making a point to thank your forces here. Yet increasingly, Americans are questioning the war – in terms of the financial cost and the casualty count. Would you say that an erosion of public support is the single biggest threat to morale?

A: No, I wouldn’t say that at this point. I don’t believe the American servicemember does not have the support of the American people. From my perspective, with almost 100 percent certainty, the American people and our leadership support our soldiers and this mission on the ground. We have learned this tough lesson in the past. I don’t believe the support for our military forces and our individual servicemembers here on the ground will ever wane. What may become an issue is the lack of support at the political level. That could become a challenge. I don’t see that, at least in the near term.

Q: You have publicly described morale among the troops as high here. In a very general sense, [the Stripes] survey found, however, only a minority of troops describe their own morale as high. Most say their morale is middle of the road or low. Does that surprise you?

A: That’s expected. There is no morale problem. What you’ve described is the Army’s normal posture. I guarantee you that if you ask a soldier if he’s focused on his mission, does he understand the criticality of his mission, I think you find that a majority of them really do understand why we’re here and the implications of us not succeeding. Those implications are pretty horrible. Are you going to find soldiers on any given day who are down on morale? Of course. There are days when I wake up and don’t feel very good and I’d probably bite your head off. And we know that.

Q: But do you think it’s disingenuous to present morale in a broad-brush stroke as high when in fact it is more of a bell curve?

A: No, I don’t think so. We’re playing shades of gray. What would be the difference if we were back in (Europe) or Fort Hood or wherever? You have to consider the circumstances. When you’ve got the average morale and expect a certain circumstances when you’re at war – that’s pretty darn good. I walk around and talk to all sorts of soldiers also and I honestly believe our soldiers are doing very, very well.

Q: You mentioned the mission. Another set of issues highlighted by our survey revolves around the mission. For example, about 40 percent say what they’re doing here has very little or nothing to do with their training. About 50 percent said they did not receive enough training for their current mission.

A: There are soldiers out there doing things that are based on training instincts that are built into them, that has allowed them to use their initiative and accomplish the task. And do it at a remarkable level. When you look at the tasks being asked of the units and soldiers in this environment, you have to tie that type of response to the fact that the effect they’re having on the ground is absolutely unbelievable. So, was the soldier trained to go in there and negotiate a contract for the privatization for some hotel? No, he wasn’t, but he’s done it extremely well and has been successful. So that kind of stuff is a little bit different. Now, we do have soldiers out there – like our artillery elements – that are out there moving hundreds of thousands of tons of ammunition around. Were they trained for that? No, they weren’t. But it’s a mission that has to be accomplished and they’re out there doing it. So when I get those kind of responses in this environment, OK, right – that’s exactly right. We’ve asked our soldiers to do things that are way beyond what we ever envisioned having to be done.

Q: At a very basic level, another one of our findings was that more than one out of every three soldiers said their actual mission is unclear as well.

A: I think the missions we have are very clear. One – Conduct offensive operations against noncompliant forces. The second one is stability and support operations in our zone. When you look across the country those come in different priorities depending on where you are because each of my major subordinate commands have totally different environments that they’re operating under. And then to further break it down inside a division, different sectors within the division have totally different environments.

Q: I think most of the responses were at the soldier level and how clear they felt their individual mission was.

A: That’s a fairly significant challenge, because as they move around in their little battle space, being able to piece that together to the overall mission of the country. Even at the brigade (level) that can be problematic because such dynamic conditions exist. In some cases you’re going from stability and support operations in one small area and then transition into a low intensity conflict area very, very rapidly. Just look at Baghdad itself. This is probably one of the most complex environments. It’s much more complex that Kosovo was. Just in sheer size and then all the all the different dynamics that are playing here. So that can fairly confusing for a young soldier on the ground.

Q: We heard a number of stories from units who felt like that had no mission. Bridge building units, for example, that have no bridges to build and haven’t done anything in months. Are there issues there?

A: Well, I’d like to find that bridge unit, because just about every unit that I’m aware of has been given a significant task. Give me the name of that unit and I’ll get them something to do. I’ll go put them to work. But clearly, there is plenty of work here for any unit to make a contribution. If there is some small unit out there that didn’t wind up getting embraced, that shouldn’t be the case.

Q: Mid-tour leave was consistently named as one of the single biggest potential morale boosters. The troops want it in a big way. Where does the decision on that stand?

A: It is in Washington. We have a target date for it. I’m talking an implementation target date. I am doing everything within my power and pulling every lever I can to make sure that happens. I consider that more important that than three days (of R&R) down in Qatar. I am willing to make trade-offs on transportation and resources so that we can send our soldiers home on two weeks’ leave. I believe we are the verge of a final decision.

Q: Will that be for every soldier?

A: Well, no – clearly when you start looking at the amount of time the current force has been here it won’t be possible for every soldier to go home. Those are decisions that will wind up having to be made inside our subordinate units. But my position is that every single day we delay this decision there’s another 500-600 soldiers that don’t get to go. As it is already I won’t be able to send everyone home and that’s going to be a challenge. But just getting started will send a huge signal to the force that this is something we are really serious about. We have some units that are already into their seventh month. The bulk is already here over five months and well into the window where they’re eligible to go.

Q: Another thing troops say would greatly increase their morale is beer — even just a few a week, many have told us, would do wonders. Do you foresee that prohibition being lifted anytime soon?

A: Not at this point. But then that’s why giving soldiers a chance to go to Qatar and do those kinds of things are important for us – to get the soldier out of this environment and have them go do that. But in my military judgment, (beer) is not appropriate for us to be doing. This is still a war zone; we still have to be focused. And especially given the dynamic nature and the very tough environment of having to switch from normal convoy operations to fighting instantaneously makes it very, very difficult for me to think about lifting it.

continued....

[thedrifter]

Q: A lot of troops will very quickly counter that argument by saying things like, “Well, my dad was allowed to drink beer in Vietnam, which was even more dangerous. Why can’t we here?”

A: Yeah…No.

Q: In terms of basic quality-of-life standards for soldiers on the ground here, what is your commander’s intent?

A: It’s very clear that the standard are quite variable. The first day I came to Baghdad we already had soldiers living on palace grounds with running water and everything they could ask for. And then you also had soldiers who were living off of their vehicles just like you would expect in a fast-paced offensive operation. So the standards that we set were that we were going to get air conditioning where at least the soldiers could sleep in air conditioning and provide some rest. More than that is pretty hard. We’ve been working to get the (Kellogg Brown & Root) dining facilities out to the major areas to provide hot meals and at the very minimum mermite out to them. To be able to get them Internet cafes and phones. That has been a very, very aggressive effort over the past 60 days. We’re not out to the individual companies and platoons in little (forward operating bases), but at the major locations I think we’re getting to that level. In the last three weeks or so as I go around talking to soldiers asking about mail and Internet, I hear “Yeah, we’ve got it, getting much better.”

Q: In terms of getting those major hubs up to the end standard you want, how long do you think that’s going to take?

A: We were shooting for about a five- to six-month program because we know that it’s going be a long time that we’re here. When we went into Kosovo we were able to set a not-later-date of, whatever it was, October, where we were shooting to get everyone into buildings by winter. But here, given the breadth and scope of the problem and the dynamic nature of the problem where we are still moving around a lot, it makes it kind of difficult to set a deadline for that.

Q: Morale – for everyone — tends to ebb and flow. Some days are always better or worse than others. When do you struggle with your own morale and how do you deal with it?

A: That’s kind of hard for a commander at this level. What bothers me the most is when I see the tremendous work that our great young servicemembers are doing and I keep seeing negative stuff (in the media.) That’s what eats away at me.

The other thing that really affects me, of course, is when one of my soldiers has died. That’s a really personal thing. And so you have to work through that. It’s a function of the profession. That’s what our profession is about. That’s why the decisions that you make and the effort you put into our training program and the evolution and the learning of lessons while your conducting operations and the continuing to be a training and learning organization every single day is so important to be emphasized by commanders at every level in order to minimize the cost in terms of manpower resources. We know that’s the business we’re in. You wake up every morning and say a little prayer that hopefully not many of your soldiers will get killed or wounded that day.

Q: How important is faith in keeping your own morale up?

A: In my everyday life, it’s the source of my strength in this environment. I reach back into it multiple times every day.

Q: Many soldiers – including several officers – allege that VIP visits from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill are only given hand-picked troops to meet with during their tours of Iraq. The phrase “Dog and Pony Show” is usually used. Some troops even go so far as to say they’ve been ordered not to talk to VIPs because leaders are afraid of what they might say. Do these comments surprise you?

A: I try not to accompany VIPs out there to the divisions, so they can get a first-hand look. The subordinate commanders have a free hand in communicating to them the challenges out there – and they have and that’s what they ought to be doing. That’s what’s expected of us as military commanders on the ground – to communicate to both our civilian and military leadership all the good things that we’re doing here.

Q: We’re told that some soldiers who have spoken out about morale problems have received Article 15s for airing their grievances publicly. Is that true? And where do you draw the line between a soldier’s God-given right to complain and insubordination?

A: Well, no, I can’t confirm that any soldier got an Article 15 for complaining about morale. That would have been done at the company or battalion level and would never have been dealt with at my level. But every single soldier, every single servicemember in America, raises his hand and is a volunteer. When he raises his hand and swears to defend and support the Constitution and obey the officers appointed over him, he makes a commitment to a Spartan code of conduct. He makes a commitment to lay down his life for his country and his fellow warriors. I consider that a very solemn oath that we have made. For us, in this kind of environment, where the country has called on us to make a sacrifice *— and it is not a sacrifice that was asked of us for three months or four months or six months — we’ve got to defend American values however long it takes. Our forefathers fought for years. That’s the commitment we’ve made as professional warriors and that’s an ethic we have to live by. If I have young soldiers that have not totally embraced that ethic, then probably some more mentoring and coaching – and commitment by the American public – has to take place. I am absolutely convinced that the next battleground will be in America if we fail here.

Q: This may sound self-serving, but over and over again we hear complaints about Stars and Stripes not getting to the troops. What is your commander’s intent for Stars and Stripes delivery within Iraq?

A: We are continuing to push and minimize the time it takes to get the paper forward to the soldiers. I think the one I see is usually 3 or 4 days old. That has been one of my key focuses from the beginning.

Q: Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you’re the first officer to lead V Corps who is not a Vietnam veteran. Still, I imagine you have been a student of that war on more on more than a few occasions. What lessons from Vietnam should we remember in Iraq?

A: I think the key is that the only way we’re going to fail here in this country is by walking away from Iraq. The defeat in Vietnam was because we walked away from it. We can’t afford to retreat back. I firmly believe that this is one of the battlegrounds in the global war on terrorism and it will continue – there’s a long road ahead.

Q: During the last Gulf War, one of the war cries was promises that this will not be another Vietnam. I haven’t heard that once this time around. Why is that, do you think?

A: I don’t tie back to Vietnam because there is no ideological battle that we’re fighting here other than the remnants of the regime loyalists. There could be a religious fundamentalist issue, but then we already knew that. That’s why we were on this global war. This clearly isn’t a quagmire. The people here are a people who are proud. They are very intelligent. They were starving for a democratic way of life and they are embracing that. They are enjoying that freedom. They just need to accept a little bit of responsibility for their own security and cooperate with us. That way we can expedite the stand-up of the country and hand it over.

Q: The troops in some units complain that commanders are living inordinately better than they are. Battalion or brigade commanders, for example, getting air conditioning in their quarters before the soldier. Should that be happening or is that more a matter of rank having its privileges?

A: No. As a division commander I lived in my trailer the whole time I was down there. I didn’t live in a palace. I lived right behind the main. The last I heard that division commander was still living in a trailer – the tactical expand-o-van – that doesn’t have air conditioning. I visited my nephew in the first week of May, who is a specialist in 3-7 Cav in 3rd ID. He was living in a palace right here in Baghdad. So it’s a function of where you happen to be and where you ended up. So I think some of that stuff – is it likely to happen? Yeah, it probably is. But is it the standard? No, it isn’t the standard.

Q: Considering the superior technology and weapons systems that America can bring to bear in a more conventional fight, is fighting a guerrilla war the toughest type of combat the United States can face?

A: Clearly, the counterterrorist against a very professional fight is on the very high end of the spectrum of difficulty. To some extent that’s what we’re facing here. If you look at the number of engagements we’re having on a daily basis, if you look at the number of engagements where you actually have small-arms fire and you’ve got an enemy that you’re fighting against, the numbers are tiny – you’re talking six or seven engagements a day. It’s tiny. And two minutes is a long engagement. The whole process of fighting this low-intensity conflict and this counterterrorism comes down to intelligence that you can generate that allows us to conduct precision strikes against them and pre-empt them in their attacks. It requires all the intel resources of our country and that’s what we’re working on right now. But we can’t kid ourselves that this is going to be an environment that they will continue to come and strike at us as long as we are here. Because this is kind of an ideal environment where they can kind of blend in with the population. There is some kind of support base.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18085


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[thedrifter]

Esprit de corps higher when mission is defined


By Marni McEntee, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Thursday, October 16, 2003

BABYLON, Iraq — Despite living in the dustbowls that are most U.S. military camps in Iraq, troops who believe in what they are doing and consider themselves well-trained to do it report the highest morale in the country.

Their gung-ho spirit seems to transcend hardships like not having air conditioning, chow halls or proper showers. Many expected their job in Iraq to be difficult.

“Even though we do not have access to certain things like a game room or a morale trip, I don’t think any of us expect these things,” said Marine Lance Corp. Gabriel Prado of 1st Battalion, 4th Marines at Twin Towers, a camp near Diwaniyah. “We’re here to get our job done so we can go home.”

The Marines at Twin Towers had toughed it out for nearly five months in a cramped old Baath Party headquarters before shipping out in early September. Some lived six to a room. About 40 others at the camp had claimed a large hall and were living cot-to-cot in the airless building.

But their job on the streets of Iraq, providing security and helping rebuild the government, had been challenging and rewarding, many said in interviews.

Fifty-one percent of the Marines surveyed by Stars and Stripes who said they had “high” or “very high” morale reported their work in Iraq was either “identical” to or “very close” to what they had trained to do.

More than 70 percent of those Marines also said the war was “very worthwhile” or “probably worthwhile.”

“The general attitude of the Marine Corps is that you are able to adapt to your circumstances,” said 1st Lt. Davis Lewis of the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, which had about 500 Marines stationed at an old pistol factory near Hillah.

The Seabees working at Camp Babylon built everything from bridges to new toilet stalls for troops while refurbishing scores of schools and buildings for Iraqis. It was the job they were trained to do and they loved doing it.

“Our morale is extremely high,” said Lt. Mark Dietrich, operations officer for an amalgam of stateside Seabee units. “As long as Seabees are building something, morale is extremely good.”

In visits to dozens of military camps around Iraq, Stars and Stripes reporters found that Marines, Seabees and Air Force troops reported the highest morale — although Stripes could only survey 70 of the 1,500 Air Force troops in Iraq.

Of the nearly 2,000 troops surveyed, 8 percent reported “very high” morale; 19 percent reported “high” morale; and 37 percent reported “average” morale.

By contrast, 14 percent of Air Force troops reported “very high” morale; 41 percent reported “high” morale and 23 percent reported average “morale.”

Eleven percent of Marines surveyed reported “very high” morale; 33 percent reported “high” morale and 42 percent reported “average” morale.

Seven percent of Army troops surveyed reported “very high” morale; 20 percent reported “high” morale; and 39 percent reported “average” morale.

Of Air Force personnel surveyed who reported “high” or “very” high morale, half reported that they were doing jobs that were “identical” to or “very close” to what they were trained for. Another 28 percent reported that their jobs were closely related to their training. Fifty-three percent said they believed the war was “very worthwhile” for America and another 21 percent said it was “probably worthwhile.”

The results of the 1,037 active-duty Army members surveyed, on the other hand, told a different story. Fifty-six percent of those reporting “low” or “very low” morale said they were not doing what they were trained to do. And less than half — 42 percent — believed the war was “very worthwhile” or “probably worthwhile.”

Military sociologist Charles Moskos said morale is influenced by unit cohesion, belief in a cause and seeing the children of the nation’s elite also serving. Moskos said that belief in the cause for which one is fighting is one of the most overlooked aspects of morale.

One retired officer with 30 years of military experience said morale is also affected by having the right training for the right job.

“The morale is high when a man is put into a job for which he is trained — naturally,” said retired Army Col. Bob White, who served in a total of nine campaigns in Korea and Vietnam. “And if he understands the mission, if he knows why he is there and ordered to do what he is told to do. Those two are very important.”

In interviews, many troops cited a variety of other ways they kept their spirits high: seeing tangible results, focusing on the mission, being prepared for adversity and maintaining unit camaraderie.

“As long as your buddies are alive, that’s good,” said Spc. John Stubbs, a 101st Airborne Division soldier living at the main palace in Mosul. “Everybody here joined for a reason higher than ourselves. But having these experiences makes you understand what the oath means.”

Staff writer Ward Sanderson contributed to this story.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18112


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[thedrifter]

Ground Truth, Day 3:
In Iraq, some servicemembers live like princes while others sleep in the sand


By Steve Liewer, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, October 17, 2003

TIKRIT, Iraq — When Pfc. Alan Shaffer wakes up each morning in his camp near the Tigris River, he looks up and sees the stars. He grabs an MRE for his morning chow; for a toilet he uses a slit trench in the grassy field not far from where he sleeps. A shower to wash off the sweat? Only in his dreams.

Shaffer and his infantry buddies from Company A of the 173rd Airborne Regiment’s 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry Regiment live in the yard of a village water plant in north- central Iraq. The two open, concrete buildings aren’t safe to live in, so the soldiers sleep outdoors in a chigger-infested yard ringed with barbed wire.

The neighborhood, a hotbed of Saddam loyalists, isn’t terrific, either.

The run-down water plant is the 11th camp Shaffer has called home since his unit parachuted into northern Iraq in April.

“We always move into the worst sites and fix ’em up,” said Shaffer, 20, of Monroe, La. “Then we have to move on.”

Forty miles downstream in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, Spc. Dennis Kerr also lives in a camp overlooking the Tigris. But his digs are quite different.

Kerr, 20, of Sparks, Nev., plays trumpet in the 4th Infantry Division band. When he wakes up on his cot, in air-conditioned comfort, he sees an elaborate crystal chandelier and he pads across a marble floor to a latrine with gold-plated fixtures. Then he eats a plate heaped with bacon or sausage and scrambled eggs, topped off with fresh fruit and chilled juice in a Kellogg Brown & Root chow tent.

“It’s very nice. I never thought I’d be living in Saddam’s big palace,” Kerr said. “We’ve seen a lot of soldiers living in a dust bowl. We really appreciate living up here.”

Six months into the Iraqi occupation, U.S. military forces have begun to get their houses in order. In many places, air conditioning takes the edge off the heat. Ample quantities of fresh meat and vegetables have begun to replace tiresome T-rations and Meals, Ready to Eat.

Showers have become a morning ritual instead of a rare luxury. Most letters from home arrive now in days or weeks instead of months.

At camps across Iraq, access to e-mail is now at least possible, though soldiers complain about long lines and security firewalls that block access to common programs like Yahoo! and Hotmail. Most soldiers say they can get to a post exchange at least once a week. And most occasionally see television news or Stars and Stripes.

“Living conditions have improved rapidly,” said 1st Lt. Kevin Mumaw, 33, of the 101st Airborne Division’s headquarters company, camped at one of Saddam’s lesser palaces in Mosul. “I have it pretty good, I can’t complain. I just miss my family.”

During the last two weeks of August, a team of Stars and Stripes reporters visited dozens of bases, surveying nearly 2,000 soldiers and interviewing hundreds of them about the way they live. More than 70 percent rated their living conditions as average or better.

Still, they found their camps lacking a lot of the basics. Asked to rate their camp facilities on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest:

¶ 82 percent of soldiers gave their toilets a rating of 3 or lower.

¶ 73 percent rated their hand-washing facilities 3 or lower.

¶ 79 percent rated their gyms 3 or lower.

¶ 82 percent rated their telephone service 3 or lower, and almost half rated it 1.

¶ 66 percent rated their e-mail access 3 or lower.

¶ Overwhelming majorities, ranging from 64 percent to 85 percent, said they had no access to a library, a game room, MWR trips, AFN television or USO services.

“We are a country at war,” said Sgt. William Hutchens, a 13-year veteran serving with the 82nd Airborne Division. “We are soldiers, and it is expected that conditions will be rough.”

In a Sept. 9 interview with Stars and Stripes, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, said he is working hard to get air conditioning, e-mail, telephones and hot food to at least all of the bigger camps. He’s been hampered by logistics snarls and guerrilla attacks.

“That has been a very, very aggressive effort over the past 60 days,” Sanchez said. “We’re not out to the individual companies and platoons in little [forward operating bases], but at the major locations I think we’re getting to that level.”

Like kings — sort of

It’s no secret Saddam spent billions of dollars of his country’s post-Gulf War oil wealth on lavish palace complexes for himself and his cronies. Division commanders usually took these over for themselves and their headquarters staffs. The palaces, after all, were built for security and are relatively easy to defend.

The 4th ID staff makes its home in one of the former Iraqi dictator’s most grandiose layouts, a riverside complex in his hometown of Tikrit. Walls topped with razor-wire surround roughly three square miles of hills featuring at least 40 palaces (and dozens of smaller buildings) scattered along a modern street network. Two man-made lakes, both stocked with carp, break up the desert landscape.

Only one of the palaces suffered bomb damage in the war, and looters left the complex almost untouched. The setting is so pleasant, the division has converted one of Saddam’s hilltop playhouses into a recreational retreat for 4th ID troops unlike any other MWR facility anywhere in the world.

The marble palace is vast enough to hold 10 high school proms at once, said Lt. Col. William “Josh” MacDonald, a 4th ID spokesman in Tikrit. In one room, soldiers can swim in an indoor pool surrounded by a mosaic deck beneath a marble ceiling.

Upstairs, an enormous chapel serves as a movie theater each night. Other large rooms house an alcohol-free sports-bar, a rug bazaar, a TV room, an Internet café, a computer-game room, a barber shop and a game room with foosball and pool tables. Soldiers can borrow bicycles, basketballs, rubber rafts and fishing gear.

“It’s pretty obvious,” MacDonald said, “not everyone can have a place like this” — a fact that some field officers say they try to keep their troops from seeing.

“I don’t want my soldiers coming up here,” said one senior commander in the 101st Airborne Division, surveying the swimming pool at the “Screaming Eagle” headquarters at a palace in Mosul. “I don’t want them to see how good the division staff has it.”

But some do.

“The leaders live in air conditioning; lower enlisted live with swamp coolers if they’re lucky,” said Spc. John Ray, 28, a 101st Airborne soldier at Qayyarah West (Q West), a remote former Iraqi air force base between Kirkuk and Mosul.

“They live in palaces,” said Spc. Troy Pickens, 20, a 4th ID soldier at Tikrit South, “and we live in the sand.”

Headquarters troops are keenly aware their front-line brothers and sisters have a much harder life than they do.

“I don’t think the living conditions here are bad compared to the brigade [combat] teams,” said Spc. Kristy Wade, 21, who lives at the 4th ID headquarters palace, Camp Ironhorse. “Compared to them, we live in heaven.”

“I can’t complain. We’ve got phones and air conditioning where I’m staying,” said Sgt. Felix Gutierrez, 28, of Chicago, a 101st Airborne supply sergeant living at the division’s headquarters palace. “I expected living out in the desert, sand all over, scorpions in my boots.”

While boots may be bug-free in a palace, soldiers who live there say life isn’t quite as cushy as it looks. While the buildings look awesome, Saddam clearly cut corners.

A close look reveals a plumbing system so poor that many soldiers in Tikrit must use portable outdoor toilets and field showers instead of the gold-plated indoor facilities. The thousands of light fixtures, up close, look as if they came from a discount store.

“They’re spectacular from the outside,” said Sgt. Daniel Cade, 29, of Corpus Christi, Texas, who serves on the 4th ID’s operations staff, “but a hunk of junk on the inside.”

V Corps Command Sgt. Major Kenneth Preston said soldiers bunking in the palaces still sleep on Army-issue cots in rooms crammed thick with troops.

“Really, the palaces are marble tents,” said Preston, a 28-year Army veteran. “It looks nice from the outside, [but] if you actually lived in there you’d see it’s not that nice.”

Making do at looted airfields

Only a lucky few of the Army forces bed down each night in palaces like the ones in Tikrit, Baghdad and Mosul. Far more make their homes at old Iraqi military bases, the teeming tenements of military life in the Middle East.

Most live in abandoned buildings that were trashed by armies of looters after the fall of Saddam. They arrived at former air bases like Balad, Kirkuk, Tallil and Q West with few tools or supplies and created for themselves a place to live. Many others live in tents pitched near the flightline.

“My squad had to beg for permission to clean out a damaged building to sleep in. The building was full of car parts, dirt, animal droppings and anything else you can think of,” said a 27-year-old staff sergeant from the 63rd Signal Battalion at Tallil. “Five months later, we are still crammed in that building. The only materials we have for improvement are materials we have found or begged from other units.”

The 101st Airborne Division’s 5,000-man 3rd Brigade — known as the Rakkasans — arrived at their new home at an old Iraqi air base near the border with Turkey and Syria in early May. Dotted with wide, flattop concrete bunkers and herds of goats, the airfield had become a camp for local nomads. Dubbed Tall Afar airfield after a nearby village, the airfield is one of the northernmost U.S. outposts in Iraq.

continued......

[thedrifter]

“It was pretty bad when we got here,” said Spc. Ken Sprague. “The Bedouin had moved into the bunkers. You could tell by all the muck inside that the sheep had been living in them, too. It was pretty...

[thedrifter]

Ground Truth, Day 4:
Iraq living conditions highlight different ways Army, USAF operate


By Marni McEntee, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Saturday, October 18, 2003

TALLIL AIR BASE, Iraq — On one side of a sprawling, run-down Iraqi fighter base near Nasiriyah sits a well-guarded compound that a select few U.S. troops can enter.

Inside the thick, sand-filled bastions topped by razor wire are many of the comforts of home: air-conditioned lodging, a base exchange, a gym with aerobic and weight-training equipment, a morale tent with personal computers and DVD players, and a volleyball court.

Soon, the smells of Burger King and Pizza Hut will waft through the air. This is how the Air Force lives here.

One sergeant, among roughly 5,000 soldiers living without air conditioning in old buildings in LSA Adder, the Army base outside the Air Force living area, calls the sequestered compound “Camelot.”

The 1,500 airmen with the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, however, simply call it home.

Tallil Air Base is one of three Air Force bases in Iraq that share vast stretches of land with Army troops, but whose living areas, morale facilities and other amenities generally are off-limits to anyone not sporting Air Force blue.

And therein lies the rub.

At best, some Army troops look with covetous eyes over the fences barring them from the Air Force digs.

“Being in the Army and working on an Air Force post really opened our eyes,” Army Sgt. Nicholas Hub wrote on a Stars and Stripes survey, one of nearly 2,000 completed in August by troops in Iraq.

“Why can they live and eat so good compared to us? Every piece of equipment and every service they have is better! The Army needs to feed, shelter and supply like the Air Force does,” wrote Hub, 23, of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment at Kirkuk Air Base in northern Iraq.

At worst, Army soldiers harbor the resentment of the have-nots.

One 27-year-old staff sergeant from LSA Adder wrote on his survey: “Are we fighting the same war as the Air Force or did I miss something? Every day my soldiers wake up covered in sweat with their cots just inches apart, and they know that less than a half-mile away the Air Force has literally the comforts of home.”

Different priorities

Of course, the Army and Air Force are fighting the same war. Air Force planes at Kirkuk and Tallil provide crucial air support to Army troops on the ground. Army troops wouldn’t get in or out of Iraq without Air Force planes shuttling them to and from Baghdad International Airport. And Air Force troops benefit from Army-led security forces at all three air bases. But the priority that each service places on quality-of-life upgrades is vastly different.

The reasons, Army and Air Force leaders say, are based on several fundamental differences in the way each service operates.

For one thing, the Air Force has only about 5,000 troops in Iraq. The Army’s 130,000 troops make up the bulk of the 160,000-strong U.S. military force in Iraq.

And the Air Force is relatively limited in the areas it can operate; its main prerequisite is an airfield suitable for a variety of combat aircraft.

“We can fight the war from those fixed locations, so we don’t have to move all of our living equipment during a conflict,” said Col. Michael Butler, chief of logistics for U.S. Central Command Air Forces.

The Army, on the other hand, is far more mobile.

Four months after major combat ended, the Army is just now consolidating bases and selecting those it plans to keep for the long term. In Baghdad alone, soldiers live and work on 20 different compounds.

“There’s a big difference between taking care of a relatively small group of people in a small area where their base of operations stays the same, compared to the Army, which is spread out over a place the size of California and operating from many different places,” said Col. David MacEwen, assistant chief of staff for personnel at Coalition Joint Task Force-7 in Baghdad and the Army’s point man for Morale, Welfare and Recreation services in Iraq.

The second major difference between the services is that the Air Force makes quality of life a prerequisite for completing the mission. It expects to have basic upgrades like showers, air-conditioned sleeping tents and latrine tents in place within three days of airmen’s arrival.

“If you take care of the people, the people will take care of the mission,” Butler said.

For example, he said, pilots must be rested to do their demanding job. They need a quiet, cool place to sleep and to get ready for their next combat mission.

“It’s not a luxury,” Butler said. “It’s absolutely necessary so our pilots and our technicians can provide the services they provide.”

Included with the rest of the equipment and supplies labeled war-readiness material that the Air Force had pre-positioned in the Middle East before the Iraq conflict were enough “housekeeping sets” to support 1,100 troops at each location.

Those sets include 12-man air-conditioned tents, dining tents, toilet tents and shower tents.

“Those housekeeping sets need to be there before troops deploy. That’s the best-case scenario,” Butler said.

For the Army, combat comes first and comfort follows.

“We’ve got soldiers on the ground because that’s where we have to have soldiers on the ground. They’re there because of the mission,” said V Corps Command Sgt. Maj. Kenneth Preston, the senior enlisted leader for 130,000 Army troops in Iraq.

Some of their locations, such as bare-bones bases near the Syrian border, get hot chow and other amenities later than bases in central Baghdad simply because of the logistics, Preston said.

Some troops are still sleeping on the ground because their mobility is key to outwitting the enemy.

“I guess it’s unfair to compare the Army and the Air Force,” Preston said.

Nevertheless, Preston said the Army is selecting some of its permanent locations and quality-of-life upgrades are flowing into the region.

By the end of September, for example, 27 Kellogg Brown & Root chow halls will be up and running at Army bases, Preston said

The Army also has a high-end housekeeping set similar to the Air Force variety. The Army brand is called a Force Provider set, known on the ground as a “City in a Box,” said Harvey Fry, chief of the sustainment analysis division for Headquarters, U.S. Army Materiel Command.

The City in a Box provides enough billeting, toilet and shower tents, mess halls and laundry facilities for roughly 600 troops — 50 of whom are on hand to operate the system’s generators and other equipment, Fry said.

The Army has 35 such sets. So far, it has sent 17 to Iraq, Fry said. The rest are in Afghanistan and Kuwait.

That means roughly 10,000 Army troops in Iraq are using Force Provider systems. The rest either are using what facilities were left behind by prior units or are bringing their own tents and amenities with them, Fry said.

The Army is also working to set up fast-food restaurants, such as Burger King and Popeye’s Chicken, at some larger locations. Those chains provide, as MacEwen said, “a taste of home.”

And the service has ordered 1,000 American Forces Network decoders to use with large-screen televisions at many locations, MacEwen said.

Limited access

Another sore spot for soldiers is that, in general, Air Force troops are welcome to use Army chow halls and PXs on the Army bases next door. But there isn’t always a quid pro quo.

At Baghdad International Airport, a fortified compound housing about 1,200 airmen from the 447th Air Expeditionary Group, access is granted only to those with a special ID card issued to Air Force members and certain others with business on the post.

“Who’s the enemy, the Army or somebody else?” Sgt. Mac Wilson, of the 2nd Battalion, 15th Field Artillery, 10th Mountain Division at Kirkuk, said in an interview.

Butler said access is limited because the Air Force plans its quality-of-life upgrades based on its own population numbers.

“If 14,000 or 15,000 of our closest friends show up, it won’t be long before we can’t handle it,” he said. “If we can open it to others, we do.”

That’s what happened at Kirkuk Air Base, a sprawling ex-Iraqi airfield.

Col. Jim Callahan, commander of the 506th Air Expeditionary Group, said he is spending tens of thousands of Air Force dollars to upgrade Army living conditions.

“My guys aren’t hurting right now. It’s the Army that’s hurting,” Callahan said. “We have to look at this from a joint-force perspective and take care of the airborne brigade,” he said.

In fact, one of the first things Callahan did was have airmen clean out a swimming pool on the Army side of the base for off-duty dips.

“That doesn’t make them soft,” he said. “Instead, it allows them to decompress and get all of that stress out, and then go back to that next combat operation.”

continued......

[thedrifter]

Pfc. Jerry Allen of the 173rd Airborne Brigade’s Company C, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment said he saw the base transformed after the Air Force arrived.

“I saw the Air Force move in, and it became a real nice place to be,” said Allen, 20, of Beaumont, Texas. Allen returned to Italy in July — before the Air Force fixed up the swimming pool.

But he said that compared with the Air Force, “the Army’s definitely roughing it” in Kirkuk.

“The Army kept me alive,” Allen said. “They took care of me. But as far as luxury, the Air Force has got it made.”

Aiming high

After the basic housekeeping sets are in place at air bases, the Air Force’s corps of services airmen go to work making the installation even better.

The morale tent at Tallil, for example, is a veritable oasis of recreation options. Inside, airmen can surf the Web or send e-mails to their families and friends. A shelf overflows with paperback books. A half-dozen wooden stalls house TVs and DVD players where two or three airmen can strap on headphones and share a movie in relative privacy.

Though many bare-bones Army posts offer few, if any, computers for “public use,” the Air Force sees e-mail as a key part of keeping troops focused on their mission.

“If you’ve got a troop that’s worried about what’s going on at home, then he can’t give his attention to his job,” Butler said. “If we can provide them that — and we can’t in all instances — then we will.”

The formula appears to be working. More than half of the 70 airmen — most from Kirkuk — who filled out Stars and Stripes’ questionnaire reported having higher morale than Army troops in the same area. Air Force commanders at Iraq’s other two air bases, housing roughly 3,700 airmen, refused to allow Stars and Stripes to distribute its forms because of an Air Force regulation barring such surveys.

“The reason why they have great morale is because our leadership has identified the importance of quality of life,” said 1st Lt. Pierre Lashier, CENTAF’s services plans officer. “The airmen feel they are being taken care of.”

Airmen interviewed at Kirkuk and Tallil agreed.

“I thought I’d be able to tell some war stories, but what stories can I tell? We’re getting a Burger King and a Pizza Hut. How hard can it be here?” said Airman 1st Class Felix Funis, part of the 506th AEG at Kirkuk.

Most Air Force personnel in Iraq will never leave the protective confines of their base. Funis sees the Army soldiers go out the gate every day to patrol the streets of Kirkuk and hunt down Iraqi guerrilla fighters and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Those soldiers, Funis said, have earned her respect.

“They’re doing the hardest job out here, and there’s no doubt they’ve got it the worst,” Funis said.

Staff writers Jon R. Anderson and Steve Liewer contributed to this story.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18142


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[thedrifter]

Ground Truth, Day 5:
Evolving goals of Iraq mission
mean unusual roles for troops


By Scott Schonauer, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Sunday, October 19, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq — It was a routine traffic checkpoint. But the soldiers weren’t looking for illegal weapons, regime loyalists, terrorists or even fugitive dictator Saddam Hussein.

They were looking for window tint.

Any vehicle with blacked-out windows got stopped.

After the occupants stepped out of the car, heavily armed soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division ripped off the tint, which the U.S. military calls a security risk.

U.S. soldiers, now combat veterans who survived March’s wartime sprint to Baghdad, mocked the duty as “Operation Window Tint.”

Some soldiers point to the job as another example in post-war Iraq of how far they have drifted from their traditional role as warriors. For example, military band members in the north are conducting perimeter patrols. A maintenance company at Camp Dogwood said it is burning latrine waste. And a Marine sergeant at Pistol Factory who said “we were told we were shock troops and not an occupying force” is now doing humanitarian missions.

The evolving mission has left some troops disillusioned with the reasons for being in Iraq, frustrated with an ambiguous mission and struggling to learn duties they were never trained to do.

Other troops say soldiers need to do whatever the military needs them to do, even if it’s not their specialty.

A Stars and Stripes questionnaire of nearly 2,000 servicemembers in Iraq showed that 35 percent of the respondents said their mission was “mostly not clear” or “not clear at all.” An equal number said the mission was “very clear” or “mostly clear.”

A 30-year-old National Guardsman with the Florida-based 3rd Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment wrote on his questionnaire, “Our mission has changed more than the president changes his underwear.”

Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Carla Williams, 39, of the 353rd Transportation Company wrote that she is not exactly sure what her unit is supposed to be doing.

“Our mission has changed, but I haven’t been told exactly what our mission is since after the war started,” she wrote on her questionnaire.

‘Missions are clear’

While top leaders acknowledge the mission is complex, they say the goals are straightforward.

“I think the missions we have are very clear,” said Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the Army’s top commander in Iraq.

“One: Conduct offensive operations against noncompliant forces. The second one is stability and support operations in our zone.”

Different commands have different priorities, Sanchez added, but all work toward those two goals.

For the tanker crews, infantry units and paratroops on the ground, that means first hunting down regime loyalists and terrorists, and then starting to build schools, create Internet cafes, clean up trash, train Iraqi army recruits, crack down on organized crime and form neighborhood-watch programs.

It is a mammoth assignment.

Many of the jobs, troops said, are more suited for military police or civil affairs units, but traditional soldiers are carrying the bulk of the workload.

Some units have gone from full-fledged combat to setting up city councils. While they help rebuild Iraq, they continue to face daily attacks from an elusive enemy.

The low-intensity conflict, which has seen 101 combat deaths since major combat was declared over on May 1, has many soldiers unsure how to approach their new tasks.

When asked how closely what they’re doing now is related to their training, 40 percent of the servicemembers said it is “not close” or has “nothing to do” with training.

Members of the 82nd Airborne Division in Baghdad said that what they do daily has little to do with the air assault operations they practice religiously at Fort Bragg, N.C. Like it or not, soldiers trained to parachute into a hot landing zone and unleash hell find themselves in a mission now that requires more finesse and less sheer force.

For instance, one evening during the summer a group of soldiers from the 82nd prepared to raid an apartment complex in Baghdad.

The translator knocked on the door, but a woman inside refused to come out. In the darkness, soldiers impatiently stood nearby with their rifles locked, loaded and aimed at the door. One yelled an expletive directed at her. The derogatory name would make any woman cringe.

“Hey, hey, hey!” said another soldier, scolding him.

The startled family slowly walked out to face a group of heavily armed soldiers with night-vision goggles fastened to their Kevlar. The mother, dressed in a nightgown, was so terrified she needed help walking outside.

“We’re not used to knocking on doors. We’re used to knocking doors down,” Sgt. 1st Class David Santos said, explaining that some soldiers were uneasy with a new order requiring toned-down tactics.

Change in tactics

Post-war Iraq for the American soldier has required some rough, tough and brash soldiers to check their attitudes and holster the killer instincts that served them so well in March. At the same time, they have to be prepared for shooters hiding in the shadows.

Many are doing just that, despite not having the specific training needed.

Battalion Command Sgt. Major Randy Johnson with the 82nd said his troops might lack the know-how, but his soldiers are doing a great job under the circumstances.

Each day, he tours the different companies spread out across the sector near the airport and visits his men. He calls his favorite soldiers DICKs — an acronym that means Dedicated Individual Committed to Killing.

“I’m so proud of these men,” Johnson said, riding in his Humvee from camp to camp. “I love these guys. This is not easy, but they’re doing the best they can.”

Pfc. Nathan Cummings, 20, of the 173rd Airborne Regiment, lives in a safehouse in Kirkuk. He had been doing patrols before helping train Iraqi police officers.

“It’s good for the welfare of the city,” Cummings said. “But I’m an 11 Bravo [infantry soldier], I’m not a police officer.”

Staff Sgt. Scott Riley, 29, who is with the 101st Airborne Division in the Mosul area, said he plans to get out of the Army after 10 years of service. “It killed my morale when they told me I was on the peacekeeping force — and I’m a seasoned soldier.”

Another soldier who feels underused is Spc. Tramaine Lee, 22, of the 3rd Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment at Talafar air base. “When the war was going on, my mission was to find and destroy the enemy. Now that the war is pretty much over, my job is not needed here anymore, so now all I do is go on fuel distribution missions and pull guard on a daily basis.”

Army Sgt. Glenn Girona, a tanker who is living on a base in Baghdad called Bandit Island, said he spends most of his time guarding sites where there is little or no threat. He said he doesn’t believe he is trained to do what he is doing. “I’m making it up as I go along.”

But he said his personal mission is crystal clear: “My main mission is to get home alive.”

While some soldiers grumble over the mission, others just grit their teeth and make the best of it.

“You don’t have to like what you’re doing, but you have to do it,” a 34-year-old reservist with the 443rd Military Police Company at Camp Cropper wrote on his survey.

Many successes

The roughly 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq have had many successes.

Although they have yet to find Saddam, coalition forces found and killed his sons, Odai and Qusai. Both were widely despised by Iraqis.

So far, troops have captured or killed 37 of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis. And nearly every day, units apprehend regime loyalists or suspected terrorists. They often find or are led to weapons caches.

U.S. forces also are helping train thousands of Iraqi recruits for a new army and police force.

Sgt. 1st Class Fermin Jiminez, 41, of the 3rd Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment in Baghdad said the deployment has given him an opportunity to meet the people of Iraq.

“All these missions are different than what I would usually do, but all is working out great,” he wrote in a survey. “It feels good to come face-to-face with Iraqi locals and make contact with them. They are beautiful people.”

Not everyone appears to be as glowingly optimistic.

Spc. Michael Wadle, 21, rates his personal morale as high, but he said the murky mission has left some soldiers stewing. He is an infantry soldier with the 101st Airborne Division who is running a store for troops.

“A lot of stuff we’re doing here doesn’t make any sense at all,” Wadle said. “Basically, the mission here isn’t really clear anymore. The vast majority of us are just sitting here with nothing to do. We just don’t understand, and that’s bad.”

Maj. Scott Sossaman, the operations officer for the Giessen, Germany-based 2nd Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, said troops in his unit are learning and adjusting.

“A lot of these soldiers have been asked to do things they haven’t been trained for,” he said. “To some degree, we’ve been successful. We’ve had to learn it from the ground up.”

In addition to catching hiding regime loyalists, the unit has adopted 117 schools as part of a program to fix them up. The unit also recently opened up an Internet café in town.

Soldiers consider it progress.

“Our primary focus is to go out and catch” regime loyalists and terrorists, Sossaman said. “But our goal also is to leave this place a much better place than we found it.”

Staff writers Jon Anderson and Steve Liewer contributed to this story

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18161


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[thedrifter]

Ground Truth, Day 6:
Servicemembers weigh many options
in deciding whether to re-enlist


By Terry Boyd, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Monday, October 20, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Deploying to Iraq has helped some troops decide that military life is not for them. But others consider a number of factors in deciding whether to re-enlist.

Some soldiers predict that long deployments will cause a mass exodus. Others say that those who don’t want to deploy and join the fight should just get out and follow another career.

To some extent, war separates the warriors from the whiners. When the RPGs start sailing through the air and units are taking small-arms fire, some soldiers “just want to be back home on the couch drinking Budweiser,” said Staff Sgt. Michael Paris, Rear Headquarters, Headquarters Troop, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, a career counselor. “Others are totally happy, and thriving on it.”

Meeting a soldier’s immediate needs with assignments and bonuses may override all other considerations, Paris said. “A lot of it is the here and now,” he said.

For every soldier who’s motivated, there’s another who says, “‘I don’t need it. I just want to get out because of where we are,’” said Sgt. Andre Taylor at the 2nd Troop, 3rd ACR’s Headquarters, Headquarters Troop in Fallujah, Iraq.

Neither rank nor age is a predictor of who stays and who separates, said Taylor, troop re-enlistment NCO. “You got a staff sergeant with 12 years in versus the private. And you think someone with 12 years in would re-up, but they’re the ones we’re losing.”

While all the branches in the military may be losing some troops, none is losing more than it expected.

“We have not yet seen any adverse indications with respect to recruiting or retention that are notable,” said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday. “There’s one indicator in one service with respect to one category that is soft,” he continued, and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that it was for the Army Reserve component.

“On the other hand,” Rumsfeld said, “the effects of a stress on the force are unlikely to be felt immediately; they’re much more likely to be felt down the road, so we have to be attentive to that, and we are.”

Each service met or exceeded recruiting goals for fiscal 2003, which ended Sept. 30. The Air Force and Marine Corps met their goals well before deadlines. The Navy met its goal, as did the Army, even surpassing its target for the reserve component by 3.6 percent, according to Army recruiting Command spokesman Doug Smith.

Air Force Maj. Sandy Burr said Department of Defense is meeting all re-enlistment goals as well.

In the Navy, the re-enlistment rate for first-termers from October 2002 to June 2003 was 70.3 percent, according to a news release. The Navy’s goal was 56 percent. The Air Force re-enlisted at a 60 percent rate. And the Army needed 13,833 first-term soldiers to meet its goal; 14,599 soldiers re-upped.

Paris’ job is getting more difficult because many servicemembers are looking at a one-year, unaccompanied tour of South Korea after Iraq, he said. “It’s hard to sell Korea after doing a rotation in the desert.”

Asked if reducing deployments to six months from a year would help retention, Paris and Taylor agreed it wouldn’t make any difference. Soldiers know they’ll be deployed the same amount because there’s too few soldiers doing too many jobs, they said.

Hundreds of interviews across Iraq tend to bear out the observations of Taylor and Paris. Of the nearly 2,000 servicemembers surveyed by Stars and Stripes, 31 percent said they were “very likely” or “likely” to stay in the military; 49 percent said they were “not likely” or “very unlikely” to stay in.

“I can’t do another rotation!!!” Staff Sgt. Gilbert Gonzales, 27, Troop F, 2nd Squadron, 3rd ACR, wrote on his survey.

One reservist cited deployments, poor living conditions and lack of communications as issues that he thinks will lead to “mass exits.”

Master Sgt. C. J. Nouse, 39, with the 372nd Military Police Company, is in his second deployment since Sept. 11, 2001. “In the last two years, I’ve only seen my family four months,” he wrote. If the military can’t improve conditions and slow down operation tempos, “I know these brave men and women WILL exit the military when they get home.”

Yet for every fed-up soldier, there seems to be one staying in.

Before Iraq, deployments were good for retention, according to the Army’s top NCO in Iraq. Since 1995, Heidelberg, Germany-based V Corps has had the Army’s highest retention rates, said V Corps Sgt. Major Kenneth Preston.

Of the Army’s 10 divisions, the forward-based — and oft-deployed — 1st Armored Division, based in Wiesbaden, and the Würzburg-based 1st Infantry Division have had some of the best retention rates, Preston said. Tough units doing tough jobs typically have the best retention rates, he said.

When he was with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment on the German border during the Cold War, his regiment spent as many as 285 days a year deployed, Preston said. “So everybody thought we’d have low morale and low retention units. But the 11th ACR was a focused, proficient unit with high esprit de corps,” he said.

He’s seen the same thing in Bosnia and Kosovo with the 1st AD.

“While they’re there, times are hard [and] conditions aren’t very good. They’ll ***** about it, they’ll gripe,” Preston said.

“But when it comes down to it … they’re contributing to something that’s bigger than themselves. It’s not make-work mission, it’s a real-world mission.”

However, there are soldiers “with a 9-to-5 work ethic and they didn’t come into the Army to do that,” Preston said. When war came, “it was a reality they weren’t ready for.”

“Things like loyalty, duty, honor and country” became just abstractions, he said.

Others are using the chance to re-enlist to head back to the States or another unit, as well as cash in on their service to their country.

Re-enlistment bonuses earned under the military’s tax-free status while in Iraq provide a strong incentive to stay in the Army.

Just ask Sgt. Allen Samuel.

The UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crew chief just got an $11,000 signing bonus for re-upping.

“That kind of money makes a difference, Samuel said. And while his new contract requires an 18-month tour in Korea, he said, “at least I’m getting out of here.”

Spc. John Johnson, with the 101st Airborne Division’s 3rd Brigade, used his re-enlistment to head back to the States, but only after his wife signed off on his re-upping. “I really didn’t think she would go for it,” he said.

But that was before he explored the possibility of recruiting duty — a job that would give him at least three years in a nondeployable status and, under new rules handed down in August, would likely pull him out of Iraq before the division rotates back the United States next spring.

“We decided to go for it,” Johnson said.

His squad leader, Staff Sgt. Steven Sills, signed up for another four years in the Army with a guaranteed assignment to an airborne unit in Alaska.

“I’m hoping for a little bit of a breather there,” he said.

If nothing else, he’ll likely get to leave Iraq several months early, he said. “And that’s good, too.”

Staff writer Jon Anderson contributed to this story.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18182


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[Mudwalker]

Low Morale, Morale problems, WTFO!! I have two words for these folks.."STOP WHINING"!! Nobody held a gun to their heads when they signed the contract. I was over there also and I was damn proud to be there. Yeah the living conditions suck, the chow sucks, it's hot, it's sandy, your away from home, but what did these people expect when they joined? I think alls they heard was Montgomery GI Bill and money for college, so they joined. These people need to get a clue. I bet a bunch of them re-enlist when they get back too.

[thedrifter]

Thanks for your input Mudwalker

WELCOME HOME!!!!!!!!!!


Ground Truth, Day 7:
Leadership, rotations seen ultimately more important than comforts


By Steve Liewer, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, October 21, 2003

The typical private arriving in Iraq next spring more than likely will live far better than even some generals do now.

He will sleep in a building with solid walls that is heated in the winter and air conditioned the rest of the year. He’ll eat three or four meals of plentiful, tasty food each day, have ready access to the Internet, and watch any of six American Forces Network channels on television in his spare time — that is, when he’s not playing video games or watching DVDs on his personal player.

He may even get a chance to take weekend MWR trips outside the battle zone, and go home for 15 days in the middle of his tour. In short, he’ll live better than any soldier before him in the long history of warfare, thanks to efforts already begun by U.S. military commanders in the Middle East.

“Every brigade commander is going to make every effort to make things as quality-of-life oriented as possible,” said Col. Bob Nicholson, division engineer for the Tikrit-based 4th Infantry Division.

What is not guaranteed, say close observers of the U.S. military in Iraq, is that they’ll be much happier than the current crop of troops, many of whom told Stars and Stripes in a recent questionnaire that they are hot, tired, bored, homesick and disillusioned.

While they welcome better living conditions, hundreds of troops said they are unhappy for deeper reasons that are not as easily fixed. Some have lost confidence in leaders who often can’t tell them clearly what their mission is or who keep postponing the date they can go home to their families. Most of all, they’re worried about an operations tempo that threatens to keep them at war more than at home for years to come.

“A lot of stuff we’re doing here doesn’t make any sense at all,” said a 21-year-old 101st Airborne Division infantryman at Qayyarah West air base. “Now that we’ve been lied to, we don’t trust anyone. They could turn this place into the nicest living conditions, and it still wouldn’t matter if they’re going to keep us here for a year.”

Some critics have blamed a naïve media for mistaking the routine grumbling of troops in the field for a crisis in military morale. There’s no question that bellyaching in the barracks is a sport as old as war itself.

“Soldiers gripe, because that’s what soldiers do,” wrote a 26-year-old 4th Infantry Division staff sergeant on a Stars and Stripes questionnaire. “We could be in the middle of Hawaii, and people would complain.”

But last spring’s good-natured griping about lousy food and no showers has given way to edgier complaints about inequality among the forces and lack of confidence in their leaders. About one-third of the nearly 2,000 troops questioned by Stars and Stripes in August — and 54 percent of those who rated their own morale as low — doubted the value of fighting the war in Iraq.

Improving living conditions certainly will make troops more comfortable. It may even help them do their jobs better. The Air Force is famous for making sure its troops live well no matter where they are stationed.

“There’s a light year’s difference between the airman who’s had the opportunity to relax [and one who hasn’t],” said Col. Jim Callahan, commander of Air Force troops at Kirkuk air base. “He’ll be more focused, far more combat-effective.

“These folks don’t need much,” he added. “They need cold water and hot chow.”

Giving soldiers better camps and more rest is important, said David Hackworth, a retired Army colonel and self-styled crusader for the well-being of the common soldier. But it’s not everything.

“Spirit is more important than all the cappuccino you slop down their throats,” Hackworth said. “Morale is everything. You give me 10 spirited soldiers, and I’ll take on 100 who don’t give a rat’s ass.”

Hackworth thinks morale in Iraq can only be fixed with strong, down-to-earth, mission-oriented leadership.

“There’s a disconnect between the top and the bottom,” Hackworth said. “The magic panacea is caring leadership, leadership that’s down with the troops, talking to them. That’s what’s missing now in the U.S. Army.”

He praises Gen. John Abizaid, the new head of coalition forces in Iraq, as the kind of hands-on leader who can fix morale.

“He’s going to have to go out and grab a bunch of generals, a bunch of colonels, and thunk their heads together,” Hackworth said. “The officer corps, from 2nd lieutenant to four-star general, needs to look in the mirror.”

But even Abizaid can’t solve the problem of a military — especially the Army — that is stretched to its limits. About 130,000 soldiers are currently on duty in the Middle East, including five of the Army’s 10 divisions.

Even the greenest soldier can figure out he or she is likely to spend every other year in Iraq until things stabilize and forces can be reduced, a prospect that now seems far away. Next spring, thousands of unlucky soldiers likely will find themselves rotating from a unit that has just finished a year in Iraq to one that is just arriving.

“The big question is, will this become a semipermanent mission?” said Tom Donnelly, a military affairs analyst for the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

“Are [soldiers] looking at a career that is measured by constant duty in Iraq?”

Forty-nine percent of the soldiers Stars and Stripes surveyed said they were unlikely to stay in the Army after their current tour is over. The figure jumped to 74 percent for those who rated their own morale as low.

“We’re not an Army of draftees, like in Vietnam. You’ve got to give me some time with my family,” said Staff Sgt. Scott Riley, 29, of the 101st Airborne. “I have a rock-solid marriage, but my wife gave me an ultimatum: it’s her or the Army.”

Michael O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the burden in Iraq is about twice as heavy as the Army can bear. In a column written for The Washington Post in July, he proposed a series of measures that might help the service through this rough patch. The Bush administration already is trying some of them:

¶ Temporarily add 10,000 to 20,000 troops to the Army, a step he acknowledges would be costly and time-consuming.

¶ Approach a wider range of allies — including France, Germany, Japan and South Korea — for troop contributions in Iraq.

¶ Make the Marine Corps a full partner of the Army in peacekeeping, reducing the Corps’ presence in Okinawa.

¶ Make more Army troops deployable by suspending certain functions such as mid-career education.

¶ Establish any new bases added in Eastern Europe as part of the Defense Department’s “transformation” in areas where troops can be accompanied by their families.

In an interview with Stars and Stripes earlier this month shortly after he had visited troops in Iraq, O’Hanlon said the pace of deployments is at the top of their list of concerns.

He said President Bush had taken a large gamble by stretching U.S. forces so thin, hoping the extra burden won’t cause a mass exodus of soldiers, reservists and National Guardsmen.

“Definitely, the Pentagon is assuming they’ll suck it up and drive on,” O’Hanlon said. “If the assumption proves wrong, then you’ve broken the finest volunteer Army in history.”

Until more foreign troops can be found or the country turns peaceful enough that American forces can leave, U.S. commanders must do their best to keep their lonely, listless troops motivated. How well they meet that challenge will determine if the Army can weather the war on terror.

If they’re looking for inspiration, they may want to chat with Spc. John Stubbs, 20, of College Station, Texas. Six months into his Middle East rotation with the 101st Airborne, he’s as excited to be in Iraq as the day he arrived.

“Everybody here joined for a reason higher than ourselves, but having this experience makes you understand what your oath means,” said Stubbs, whose father served in the first Gulf War.

“As long as your buddies are alive, life’s good.”

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18190

Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[richgitz]

Amen to that Mudwalker.