Our "final exam" went well, except for one pretty big mistake, which we'll get to later.
The day started off early; we linked up with our "Iraqi Army Commander" named Colonel (COL) Halim and our interpreter, Hend at 6:30 in the morning, on Forward Operating Base (FOB) Army Strong (FOB AS is where we have been living and working out of for all of our training at Fort Riley). There we discussed the day's events, which started with paying a visit to the Coalition Forces Commander on FOB Jawad.
The commander wanted us to visit three towns: Sarhad, Muqasem, and al Hawej, all of which were on either a physical or cultural border, and all were full for various forms of unrest. How convenient. We had been in Hawej before, and things were kind of warm there last time. Overall, there was an uneasy peace in all three towns.
After our visit with the commander, I had to pay a visit to a local sheik who lost a member of his village at the hands of a Special Forces A Team raid gone bad. Typically, US forces make such payments in an effort to make amends. The amount is insignificant, but it shows an effort to make reconciliation. Never done anything like that before, but apparently I was told I was too cold. Oops. It seems my natural disposition is bland and monotone. I'd call this a tie.
I was also interviewed by an Arab reporter for a newspaper. That went much better, as I was able to get my message out without offending him or falling prey to his biased journalism. He seemed genuinely interested in getting the story right (at least from my vantage point). That's one for the good guys.
After I made the payment, we went into planning. I purposely stepped back and let the team plan this one. The team's Operations Officer, Captain (CPT) Steven Hancock, is growing into his role and he handled it well. After some brief rehearsals, we left FOB Jawad and headed for Sarhad.
Our Iraqis led, which was important, as it is another small gesture that shows the Iraqis taking responsibility for their own security. The move was uneventful, and once at Sarhad, we headed into town and my Iraqi counterpart and I met with the mayor and the police chief. We discussed security issues, which were plentiful. Imagine that. In the midst of understanding the problems, the town received some mortar fire. Three local civilians were injured, and we assisted in treating them, and I was able to convince the Iraqi commander that it was to his benefit to transport the injured to a local hospital. It set a dangerous precedent, but it showcased the Iraqis as a compassionate and engaged force. We agreed to meet with the mayor and town officials again next week.
Off we went to Muqasem, where we were to meet with the local leadership and again discuss security issues. Muqasem was apparently not a nice place. The meeting with my IA Commander, the assistant mayor, the police chief, and the local militia ad hoc security force went well. We were also able to recommend some improvements to their checkpoint, and in the course of advising them, we observed a truck that we were told to be on the lookout for. Inside the truck was a woman who told us about a bad guy who did bad things in town. Col Halim quickly assembled a team to go and search the house where he was allegedly hiding, and his force discovered weapons and information. In the attack on the house, though, two of his soldiers were lightly injured, so we treated them as the rest of COL Halim's men arrested the bad guy, which the town was growing increasingly angry at. I recommended to COL Halim we take the weapons and get out of there before the town lynched his prisoner.
Another one for the good guys. It seemed everything was going well.
As we were loading up, one of the guys on my team radioed me to let me know there was a guy running away towards a walled in series of buildings, and that he looked to be a threat. I gave the order to shoot.
At the time it made sense; a guy running away from a house that had just been raided were weapons and an insurgent were found. Turns out he was scared, and he was running to the local mosque (the walled in series of buildings) to pray. This apparently was the wrong decision, and we would feel the repercussions of it very soon.
We loaded up and headed to al Hawej as the town grew more and more restless towards COL Halim's prisoner.
At Hawej we were again to meet with local leaders, this time with the mayor, sheik, and police chief of Hawej, and also included were the sheik, police chief, and mayor of Surdash. My favorite angry Arab agenda driven journalism reporter guy was there too, and he was as obnoxious as ever. The folks of Hawej were downright hostile, and and they were disrupting the meeting. It took me a while to figure out why-- They had got word of the shooting in Muqasem, and were reacting accordingly.
Oops. One for the bad guys.
Nothing got done in the meeting, and due to the deteriorating security, we had to leave, and we had to do it in a hurry. The people were understandably irate. We scheduled another meeting for next week after things died down, and off we went, back to FOB Jawad.
It was a nice day; sunny and pleasant, and not overly hot. The drive back was almost pleasant.
Then the road blew up. We ran into a complex IED and small arms ambush. My truck was rendered immobile, and amazingly, despite being in an armored truck and wearing body armor with plates in it, I sustained a sucking chest wound.
I realized at that point I was wounded to see how the fellas would do without a leader. Not missing a beat, Doc went to work treating me, the lead truck backed up and hooked up our tow straps, and the rear truck suppressed the remaining enemy like clockwork, as we had rehearsed. Reports went up, and off we went. The whole engagement took less than three minutes, and off we raced again to FOB Jawad.
I'd call this one for us. The precombat checks, rehearsals, battle drills and prep work all paid off.
Overall it was a good training event. I know you can't be ready for everything, but I think we are to a level of training to where we can function and to where we can provide value. We will continue to get better, and we have some more training in Kuwait and also in Iraq before we get to our unit.
On Tuesday we 'graduate.' It's much more impressive than it sounds, as nobody really fails; you are still going to Iraq. But from there it is up to the team to get the rest up to speed. Fortunately we don't have that issue. I will leave 'FOB Army Strong' confident in our abilities as a team.
Hope all is well with you. And don't shoot the guy running to the mosque....
Take care.
Ron
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