I LOVE THIS LINE

"But as a professional, I have the luxury of putting politics aside and focusing on the task at hand."

Note where, by implication, this puts politicians in the scheme of things.

Please read the entire piece by this Marine.

In May of last year, I was sitting with some fellow officers back in Diwaniyah, Iraq, the offensive successful and the country liberated from Saddam. I received a copy of a March 30 U.S. newspaper on Iraq in an old package that had finally made its way to the front. The stories: horror in Nasariyah, faltering supply lines and demonstrations in Cairo. The mood of the paper was impenetrably gloomy, and predictions of disaster abounded. The offensive was stalled; everyone was running out of supplies; we would be forced to withdraw.

The Arab world was about to ignite into a fireball of rage, and the Middle East was on the verge of collapse. If I had read those stories on March 30, I would have had a tough time either restraining my laughter or, conversely, falling into a funk. I was concerned about the bizarre kaleidoscope image of Iraq presented to the American people by writers viewing the world through a soda straw.

Returning to Iraq this past February, I knew that the Marines had a tremendous opportunity to follow through on our promises to the Iraqi people.

Believing in the mission, many Marines volunteered to return. I again found myself in the division headquarters.

Just weeks ago, I read that the supply lines were cut, ammunition and food were dwindling, the "Sunni Triangle" was exploding, cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was leading a widespread Shiite revolt, and the country was nearing civil war.

As I write this, the supply lines are open, there's plenty of ammunition and food, the Sunni Triangle is back to status quo, and Sadr is marginalized in Najaf. Once again, dire predictions of failure and disaster have been dismissed by American willpower and military professionalism...

I am not ignorant of the political issues, either. But as a professional, I have the luxury of putting politics aside and focusing on the task at hand. Protecting people from terrorists and criminals while building schools and lasting friendships is a good mission, no matter what brush it's tarred with.

Nothing any talking head will say can deter me or my fellow Marines from caring about the people of Iraq, or take away from the sacrifices of our comrades. Fear in the face of adversity is human nature, and many people who take the counsel of their fears speak today. We are not deaf to their cries; neither do we take heed. All we ask is that Americans stand by us by supporting not just the troops, but also the mission.

We'll take care of the rest.

SATURDAY, MAY 22d.

One year and 11 days (377 days) since CPT Patti left for Baghdad.

Sorry I wasn't here on Friday. I went down to Bavaria to mark 1ID's "100 Days of Deployment" with some friends. Perhaps I was invited to ensure they didn't get too deeply into a pity party...since I've seen the 100 day mark come and go three times, soon to be four.

They didn't.

But they did take me to a wonderful restaurant...and then to one lady's beautiful home where the Blue Margaritas were in bountiful supply.

And right in the middle of it all my darling wife called. She has purchased a cell phone from an Iraqi vendor. Our hope is this means we will be in contact more frequently than before. Anyway the crowd cheered when they could tell it was CPT Patti on the other end. That is how some of us are dealing with this...by noting and celebrating the positives in the lives of others.

Anyway...my thanks to Sarah for the invitation. And to Oda Mae and her husband for the engaging conversation (and the odd colored drinks), J (to whom it is just possible I might be distantly related) for hosting the after-dinner party, and E, most notably for seeing this deployment on her terms and setting an example to the rest.

But mostly to CPT Patti who knows I'm the odd "male spouse" surrounded by females and who doesn't bat an eye when I hang out with the majority. Make no mistake about it, I've earned the trust...that doesn't make me any less grateful that she has it.

DIFFERENT TIMETABLES

A reader asks me to speculate...so I will.

I was wondering...could you explain why the Army and the Marines *are* on such different timetables? Are there any advantages to it? Does is create resentment between soldiers and Marines?

Also, from your experience...can you speculate at all on how likely it is that the Pentagon will indeed extend the Marines' tours?

So...here is my speculation and opinion...worth every penny you paid for it, as usual.

If one were to judge only from a cursory glance at Operation Iraqi Freedom one would be tempted to think of the USMC and the US Army as very similar in capabilities and functions. After all it was the 3d ID (Army) and the 1st MEF (Marines) that battled their way from Kuwait across Iraq and into Baghdad.

Historically however, there are notable differences in the two services. The USMC combines many of the capabilities of the Army, Navy and Air Force into one small, quickly deployable force, simplifying the ability to get what's needed where its needed in a hurry. In their role as "naval infantry" the Marines have a unique function.

The Army, as a larger, heavier force, may not be as quickly deployable, but, the theory goes, its size and capabilities make it the tool of choice for extended operations requiring seizing and holding ground.

As a result of these built in assumptions there are differences in how the forces are equipped. From a practical standpoint it can be fairly said the Marines are equipped for a lethal, but short stay...and the Army is equipped for longer haul.

One example I'm familiar with: a few years ago when I was serving as the Director of Army Food Services I worked closely with my Marine Corps counterpart. It was interesting to me to learn the Marines had no equivalent to the Army's Mobile Kitchen Trailer, a collapsable kitchen capable of preparing meals from raw, fresh ingredients. The USMC colonel explained to me "We don't plan to be there long enough to need it...that's what you guys are for.".

So...my speculation is the Marine Corps leadership has established the 7 month rotations for the Marines in accordance with their custom and tradition. By that I don't mean "just because we've done it like this in the past"...I mean they designed things to take advantage of their strengths.

Does it cause resentment? I'm certain it does. But jealousy and sour grapes between services is nothing new.

Will the Pentagon change the Marine corps tour lengths? That's a tough question. Certainly the expenses associated with the more frequent rotation will eventually become a factor. And one has to believe that everytime we change US "management" of a city we take a giant step backward in trust and efficiency in working with the locals.

On the other hand I honestly doubt anyone will make the change simply to "make it fair" to the Soldiers on one-year tours. And such a decision would also have to address the issues of brevity and longevity I discussed above. Plus, the Vice Chairman of the JCS is a Marine. I suspect he gets listened to pretty good.

However, given that we are stretched so thin around the globe and we are pulling folks out of the individual ready reserve I think it will ultimately seen as a way to stretch the assets further. So...in the end, my bet is those tours will be lengthened.

A CONVERSATION IN A CAB IN BAGHDAD

I understand your fears but I always have known this place to be busy until midnight.

-That’s true but not in my neighborhood, so I have to go back much earlier than that

-Where do you live?

-In Sadr city.

-Oh I see, but what do you think the cause of this insecurity?

-Is that a question?? They are those thugs and thieves.

-Who are those?!

-Sadr followers.

-I agree, but I don’t understand your people there. Why do they support them!?

-Do you really believe that?? I swear to God they are no more than a couple of thousands terrorizing millions and hiding behind slogans like jihad and resistance. The whole city has got sick and tired of their doings. We just want to work, feed our children and take a break. We are tired of all this bullshit. They can’t deceive us anymore.

This idiot is taking advantage of his father’s name and we know the people who are gathering around him. Most of them are gangsters and ex-convicts with some foolish teenagers. They are anything but Muslims. Every now and then one of these cowards come hiding his face and fire against the American troops and when the Americans respond innocents get hurt.

I was encouraged by his attitude and asked: -Why don’t you try to do something about it?

-Who says we aren’t? I’m one of the people who reported some members of the Mahdi army to the IP and now they are in prison.

-Really!? God bless you. That was brave of you. These people really belong there.

-Sure they do! Did this idiot forget who killed his father!? And who took his revenge? Could he have ever raised his voice if it wasn’t for the same people whom he’s fighting now? Well let the Iranians help him now! Believe me brother when I say that the majority of Sadr city people are grateful for the Americans. We didn’t fire a bullet at them when they entered our city. We gave them the reception of liberators and they are. Why would we fight them now!?

DEMOCRACY BREAKING OUT IN IRAQ

A podiatrist who left Iraq 30 years ago said he is closing his Naples practice and returning to his native country to run for the presidency in 2005.

Rasool Sharif, 58, said he has traveled to Iraq twice in the last two months. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most respected Shiite cleric, recently asked him to return for more meetings, Sharif said.

"I was the only American who has met with him," said Sharif, who opened the Foot & Ankle Clinic in Naples two years ago.

Sharif said he is being recruited by the National Alliance of a United Iraq, which he described as a nonpolitical group of Iraqi professionals interested in the country's future.

STRETCHED THIN

Extraordinary.

The U.S. Army is finding soldiers for duty in Iraq wherever it can find them, and that includes places and people long considered off-limits.

The Army confirmed on Tuesday that it pulled the files of some 17,000 people in the Individual Ready Reserve, the nation's pool of former soldiers. It has been screening them for needed specialists and has called about 100 of them since January.

Under authorization from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Army could call as many as 6,500 back on active duty involuntarily.

"Yes we are screening them and, yes, we are calling some of them up," an Army spokesman, Col. Joseph Curtin, told Knight Ridder.

"We need certain specialties, including civil affairs, military police, some advanced medical specialists, such as orthopedic surgeons, psychological operations, military intelligence interrogators."...

It is also considering a plan to close its premier training center at Fort Irwin in California so the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the much-vaunted Opposition Force against which the Army's tank divisions hone their combat skills, would be available for combat in Iraq.

No decision has been made on that plan.

KERRY'S CAMPAIGN PROMISE

We can be just like Spain!

If elected, Kerry promised that virtually all U.S. combat troops will be out of Iraq by the end of his first term.

Gee, Senator...seems to me we should tie the pull-out to the accomplishment of the mission.

PERSONALLY, I COULDA GONE ALL DAY WITHOUT READING THIS...

The commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said Wednesday that he may need more than the 135,000 troops already in Iraq once political control is handed back to the Iraqis on June 30 because the insurgency is likely to grow even more violent then.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"This story seems to reflect the fevered insights of those with little, if any, connection to the activities in the Department of Defense".

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita referring to reports by an investigative journalist that Secretary Rumsfeld approved prisoner abuses.

ECONOMICS 101

In the year since Saddam Hussein was overthrown, American-led troops have used a wide range of force to combat insurgents opposed to the military occupation. This week the army tried a new approach to silence Iraqi guns:

Buy them.

In their first program of its kind in Baghdad, American troops engaged in a weapons buyback program. It began on Saturday and was so popular that it was extended for another two days.

By Tuesday night hundreds of Iraqis had been paid $761,357 for 56,536 items, from bullets to assault rifles to mortars and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, according to the military. The soldiers set up well-guarded sales tables at three locations — a field, a cigarette factory and a soccer stadium surrounded by an empty lot.

"This is probably the only place in Baghdad where they can walk up with an R.P.G. launcher and not have a coalition soldier shoot at them," said Col. Robert Abrams, commander of the troops carrying out the program on a dusty lot outside Baghdad.

"We are trying to get as many weapons as possible out of their hands and into ours," said Capt. Bill Williams.

AN INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE ON OUR HISTORY AND OUR EFFORTS

American history sometimes seems to be the same story repeated over and over again. Some group of big-dreaming but foolhardy adventurers head out to eradicate some evil and to realize some golden future. They get halfway along their journey and find they are unprepared for the harsh reality they suddenly face. It's too late to turn back, so they reinvent their mission. They toss out illusions and adopt an almost desperate pragmatism. They never do realize the utopia they initially dreamed about, but they do build something better than what came before...

And it is that way today. We are tricked by hope into starting companies, beginning books, immigrating to this country and investing in telecom networks. The challenges turn out to be tougher than we imagined. Our excessive optimism is exposed. New skills are demanded. But nothing important was ever begun in a prudential frame of mind.

Hope begets disappointment, and we are now in a moment of disappointment when it comes to Iraq. During these shakeout moments, the naysayers get to gloat while the rest of us despair, lacerate ourselves, second-guess those in charge and look at things anew. But this very process of self-criticism is the precondition for the second wind, the grubbier, less illusioned effort that often enough leads to some acceptable outcome.

Today in Iraq local commanders seem to be allowed to try anything. We are allowing former Baathists to man a Fallujah Brigade to police their own city. We are pounding Muqtada al-Sadr while negotiating with him. There is talk of moving up elections so when an Iraqi official is assassinated, he is not seen as a person working with the U.S., but as a duly elected representative of the Iraqi people.

THURSDAY, MAY 20th

One year, nine days (375 days) into CPT Patti's deployment.

MORE EVIDENCE OF THE DEATH OF CIVILITY

Powder bombs at Blair trigger security fear at British parliament

Schroeder slapped at campaign stop

GIVE 'EM HELL, ZELL

My favorite democrat asks some pointed questions.

Why is it? Why is it that there’s more indignation over a photo of a prisoner with underwear on his head than over the video of a young American with no head at all?

Why is it that some in this country still don’t get that we are at war? A war against terrorists who are plotting to kill us every day. Terrorists who will murder Americans at any time any place any chance they get.

And yet here we are, America on its knees, in front of our enemy, begging for their forgiveness over the mistreatment of prisoners.

(Thanks to Beth and Cathy)

WELL PUT

Andrew McCarthy reminds us the terrorist in charge told us this would be a dangerous time.

Take a couple minutes and go read the entire thing. It will put things in a better perspective.

The sarin, the Council president's brazen murder, and the butchery of Nick Berg must anneal our resolve, not diminish it. The enemy is desperately stepping up its attacks because the enemy has glimpsed defeat. Defeat for the jihadists can be avoided only if America loses its sense of purpose and shrinks from its mission. It can be avoided only if an effectively abandoned Iraq is allowed to descend into civil war — particularly, the sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shia that Zarqawi expressly sought to provoke.

Even for those of us who remain steadfast that the U.S. incursion into Iraq was a vital step toward vanquishing the militant Islamic threat that Saddam protected and promoted, it must be conceded that there is much for people of good will to debate — both about the concept and the execution. But now is not the time. There is, after all, nothing to debate about this: In Iraq are thousands upon thousands of our best and bravest, in the thick of what the enemy aptly calls "the zero-hour"; and we have not only rhetorically linked this battle to the war our nation engaged after the 9/11 attacks, but our military is incontestably fighting the world's most lethal terrorists at this very moment.

AN AUSTRALIAN BLOGGER DOING WHAT WE DO HERE

Finding the good stuff. But the down-under version is very concentrated.

(via Instapundit)

PERSPECTIVE

You really should go read this entire piece.

Freedom does not come easily or without sacrifice. The upheaval that most Americans see on TV and read in the newspaper is not the complete story of Iraq. There is only a minority here who want to stop the progress being made and to keep others from having individual freedoms.

They have little or no value for human rights, let alone human life. They see an opportunity in this time of massive change to take control and dictate the lives of Iraqis.

They are cowards.

Instead, we have seen numerous examples of Iraqi citizens risking their lives to serve their country.

One of the first events we staffed was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's visit to the Baghdad Police Academy in February. We were going to include one of the female cadets in a camera shot, but she refused because she said she was lying to her family about training as a police officer, instead telling them that she was working at a library.

Despite the obvious danger of serving on the police force, she still wanted the job. Since we arrived in Iraq, the academy, led by an affable 6-5, 350-pound Scot, has graduated three classes of officers, and more are being trained every day...

This week the Ministry of Foreign Affairs became the ninth department to be turned over, another significant step toward sovereignty.

We have helped coordinate the formal transfer ceremonies, which are generally well attended by Arab media and all but ignored by western journalists.

What's been most evident at these events is the national pride and joy Iraqis are experiencing, from the words spoken by each minister to the bright, inspiring voices of school children singing Mawteni (My Homeland), a stirring nationalistic song akin to America the Beautiful.

Rend Rahim, Iraq's representative in Washington, D.C., said, "We Iraqis have achieved an enormous amount of success so far. We now have the power to set the course toward our own chosen destiny."

GEE, YA THINK?

CIA interrogators have seized on an admission by Saddam Hussein that he fears torture at the hands of his Iraqi enemies and are threatening him with a quick handover to the new government in a renewed effort to break his silence...

Lengthy daily interrogation sessions have been structured around an apparent attempt to prepare Saddam to be handed over to the interim government that takes power after June 30. The 67-year-old, who admitted that he feared torture soon after he was arrested last December, has been told that his transfer will be delayed if he begins to cooperate.

Saddam is due to face trial at a new war crimes tribunal in Baghdad after the transfer of sovereignty.

MY KIND OF HERO

A stray bullet had blown a gruesome, 3-inch-wide hole through Miller’s right forearm – just when the truck he was in broke down. After half scrambling, half sliding out of the vehicle, Miller found himself lying in the road with his wounded arm hanging at his side, telling himself everything would be all right, and that the medic was on his way.

But the shooting continued, and everything was not all right.

As the rest of the convoy pushed onward, several members of Miller’s team continued to fire on the attackers on the left side of the road. From his new vantage point Miller could see there was trouble on the right side as well.

"I saw three guys come out of the bushes on the right side of the road and I yelled out, but everyone was still focused on the left," Miller said. "I grabbed my SAW, wedged the stock under my arm and rested the barrel on my knee and opened fire on the three guys. I don’t know how I did it, but I hit those three and a couple more, and then there’s a big gap where I don’t really remember much."

Still under heavy fire, Miller got a field dressing for his arm from a medic, grabbed a bag of extra ammunition from his truck and barely made it into the back of a cargo truck. He later sustained additional injuries to his arm and chest from shrapnel that ricocheted off nearby equipment.

"They told me in the hospital that it took three guys to convince me to put my weapon down, and that apparently I had shot more than 30 enemy insurgents after I’d been hit," Miller said. "I guess I just went into auto pilot."

Later reports confirmed that the 29-member team was under attack by more than 200 enemy soldiers.

Miller is scheduled to receive his Purple Heart in Bangor on June 12, and has also been recommended for a Silver Star. But medals and recognition are still far from his mind.

"I wasn’t concerned with my injuries," Miller said. "I was concerned with performing my job and making sure there were no more injuries in the convoy."

The welfare of his unit still weighs heavy on Miller’s mind, and he expects he will return to Iraq when his leave is over.

"I plan to spend as much time as possible with my kids while I’m here," Miller said. "I’ll be heading out to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. in a month for rehab.

After that, it’s more than likely I’ll request to go back – I just can’t see sitting around over here while the rest of the unit is still in harm’s way."

COOL!

Killeen - A collaboration between Killeen I.S.D. and Fort Hood officials will allow deployed soldiers in Baghdad to view the school districts graduation ceremonies.
Eight local graduations will be webcast from the Bell County Expo Center in Belton.

The webcast will allow soldiers in Iraq to view graduations on their computers.

In addition to Killeen's four high schools, Salado, Temple, Copperas Cove and Belton schools are also participating in the project.