Vietnam was my generation’s “war to win the hearts and minds of the people,” and Iraq is the same kind of war for a new generation. Many of the problems we geezers faced in Vietnam the new kids are facing in Iraq, although some would say (and I am one of them) that the conditions are harsher now, and the stakes are higher.
In May, 2007, I began “embedding” with Army Civil Affairs soldiers in Iraq. As a young man in 1970-71 I had served as a Vietnamese interpreter in a Civil Affairs unit, and although I hated the war I have cherished my memory of service in it. If infantry is “the point of the spear” in a shooting war, Civil Affairs is the spear point in the battle for hearts and minds. My intention in going to Iraq was to learn about modern Civil Affairs methods and objectives; to see how much better these soldiers have become; and to get some sense whether Civil Affairs can thrive in the current battle zone, and affect the outcome of the American enterprise.
Some of the stories were published in The Providence Journal, where I got a job and priceless training as a staff reporter forty years ago.
BAQUBAH, Iraq — As the day ebbed soldiers gathered in the gym at FOB Warhorse, where the basketball court had been converted into a temporary chapel. They were there to say goodbye to Sgt. Iosiwo Uruo, a Guam native, 27 years old, who had been killed while on patrol in Buhriz, Iraq.
Men who knew him spoke about him warmly; chaplains uttered benedictions; and then a ritual many generations old was performed. A soldier rose and in a loud sure voice called out his name:
Uruo!
Uruo!
Sgt Iosiwo Uruo!
It was Sgt. Uruo’s final roll call. Because he was not alive to answer, his service in the Army had formally come to an end.
The guns fired their volley, taps was played, and fellow soldiers lined up to pay their respects. Alone or by twos or threes they approached a display containing Sgt. Uruo’s rifle, helmet and boots. All saluted, some knelt to pray, some left mementos, and a few touched the helmet with an open, gentle hand.
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BAQUBAH, Iraq — The men started their engines and formed the convoy to Al Anbakiyah at 7:15 in the morning. They rolled into Al Anbakiyah, only ten miles away, more than seven hours later.
At first their departure was delayed because the route clearance crews had found more than the usual number of Improvised Explosive Devices along the usual routes that Americans use in this part of Iraq. Even after the convoy moved out, its progress was slowed because route clearance had not been completed.
The road to Al Anbakiyah is a narrow, two lane stretch of blacktop pocked with craters left by detonations. A single crater here; a pair of craters there. Each one a hit or a near miss; each one a reminder of what had happened to other Americans, and could happen to the men and women in this convoy at any point along the way. It was slow, anxious going.
Move 200 yards. Wait ten minutes. Move 100 yards. Wait fifteen minutes. Move another 100 yards. Wait twenty minutes. Move a quarter mile… Jeeze, would you look at that hole! Veer.
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CAMP STRIKER, Iraq — One day a young man wearing a pistol on his leg leaned his rifle in a corner, shucked his ammunition and his body armor, and pulled out his knife. It was about the size of a meat cleaver. “Nice,” another young man said, admiring its high-tech look: all black, including the blade, but for the silver gleam on its sharpened edge. The admirer pulled out his own knife – about the size of an English broadsword – and the two men traded blades, testing for edge and heft and balance and… well, feel.
I smiled at the young woman typing at a laptop. “It’s a guy thing,” I said to her, apologetically.
“No it’s not!” she said. “It’s a knife thing!”
She pulled out her own knife, that was apparently designed for Zeus to carry into battle.
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BAQUBAH, Iraq — A young Sharon Stone fluttered about the TV screen. She wore a bare-armed white tight button shirt. Her shorts were so taught and so tiny that losing one thread in your home town would invite a misdemeanor prosecution. She had big blond hair, mid-calf boots, and as she clutched Richard Chamberlain in this bad remake of an old Safari movie, the look on her face bespoke the same message starlets have exploited since movies were actually celluloid: “Save me! Save me! Imagine how grateful I’ll be!”
The sound was turned off, and the movie had Arabic subtitles.
On one side of the TV sat a big, gray-haired bear of a man named Bruce Reges, a First Sergeant who had been deployed to Iraq when he was 57 years old. His 25-year-old bride was not happy.
On the other side of the TV, and its winsomely desperate Ms. Stone, was a 61-year-old gray-haired correspondent whose work habits were so stale that he never took his pad and pen out of his pockets.
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BALAD RUZ, Iraq – “The Light” had gone dark. The radio station should have been pushing out 5,000 watts of news and music. Equipment problems had reduced it to only 1,400 watts; and now it was off the air entirely because of a labor dispute.
Army Captain James Goethals, a 42-year-old Reservist – now the leader of a Civil Affairs team – tried to put some backbone into the radio station’s Iraqi manager.
“It’s hard to be boss,” he told the manager. “Sometimes you have to do difficult things.”
The manager tried to convince Capt. Goethals to fire three of the station’s employees, who had fomented a work stoppage over a wage dispute.
“He says he will lose face if he fires them,” an interpreter told Capt. Goethals. “Maybe there will be problems if one of them is the son of some important person. He says it would be better if the American Army fired them.”
“Coalition forces do not want to get involved in the day to day running of the station,” Capt. Goethals patiently explained. “It’s the Iraqi government that needs to handle the station.”
The manager hung his head. Couldn’t the Americans please rid him of those three troublemakers?
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MAHMUDIYAH, Iraq — She was taller than the other women. She adjusted her headpiece as an eagle might spread its wings: proud and powerful. Soon she and I would become bitter enemies; but I didn’t know that when I snapped her picture. I had a lot to learn in the next few minutes about Iraq, about the war, and about myself.
By the time I met the woman in black I had been in Iraq about five weeks. Although I had not been a working news reporter for 35 years, I had come to Iraq as an unsupported freelance journalist embedded with teams of Civil Affairs soldiers in Mosul, Baqubah and Mahmudiyah.
Americans don’t know much about the Army’s Civil Affairs mission. If Americans want to achieve success in the wars they fight, and choose their wars wisely, they probably ought to learn.
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I spent about six weeks in Iraq researching the Army’s Civil Affairs mission: its methods, goals, and effectiveness. Vietnam was my generation’s “war to win the hearts and minds of the people,” and Iraq is that kind of war for a new generation. Here are some impressions.
A War of Their Convenience
American casualties in Iraq are much worse than those we suffered on 9/11. That’s because in the vacuum our invasion caused, the White House has established the world’s busiest shooting gallery, where every nutcase in the Middle East rushes to pick off an easy target. Day after day Americans drive the same crater-pocked roads, praying against another detonation. The enemy buries bombs every night, in the same spots on the same roads; no neighbor turns them in; and the Iraqi Army never sees them do it. After a hearty breakfast, the enemy walks to work, presses a button, watches the boom and goes home again.
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