Nationalism

A fish does not see the water and we do not see the air. It is so part of our environment, so fundamental that we don’t notice it. Like gravity, or the stock market and the effect of the price of a barrel of oil. It is accepted that these are part of our western lives. The rest of the world does not necessarily see it that way.
I was a literally a child at my fathers knee, trying understand what he was teaching in his high school history class. Like any child I was trying to understand the world I lived in, but the concepts were beyond my reach. Why was a revolution in France over a hundred years ago more important than a revolution in the US? We were the super power not them, how could the cheese eating surrender monkeys be mor important. At the time with his infinite patience, he replied simply “Nationalism”.
I am sure that there was an attempt to further explain that I never quite understood. Two decades later, I came to understand. It took stepping out into the water to see how air effected me. I had to go to Iraq in order to understand one of the building blocks of the world I grew up in. Maybe if I had traveled to the third world at a younger age I would have seen it earlier.
In my world the state, the nation was a given, an accepted thing like gravity. Even those who opposed the state wanted to change it, to run it themselves. There are a limited number of exceptions to this, but they are generally considered wing nuts. If I had had the personal experience to process one of my favorite authors I would have understood it. Ralph Peters was trying to explain to the US military in the 1990s that most of the third world does not take nationalism for granted.
Here the tribe, the clan, the religion is takes is the given. A person may want to take the tribe out of the state, but would never consider taking themselves from the tribe. I hope there are brave sociologists and social anthropologists who have a deeper understanding of this and are talking to our leadership.
A few weeks ago I was standing at an Iraqi controlled gate near COB Allalone. It is basically a US Army supplied Pick-n-Pull. A truck leaving did not want to stop. The driver gunned the engine, and the guard got out of the way. The response of my self and the PFC with me was predictable. It was demonstrated in no uncertain terms that to attempt to continue would result in the drivers death. A search of the vehicle revealed that they were trying to steal parts from the yard. This is unimportant.
What is important is that I felt perfectly justified in enforcing the laws of this state and my own: “You do not run check points” The trial and punishment is immediate. The Iraqi guard thanked me for not shooting the man who tried to run him down.
“It would be very bad.” The guard said.
I agreed with him, I would prefer not to shoot someone over stolen truck parts. Then it hit me when I was talking to the man who controlled the lot. It would result in tribal problems, clan problems. The rules of the tribes are more valuable, more important than the rules of the state.
The Iraqi Army paints their flag on everything, they are more compulsive about it than marines with the Eagle Globe and Anchor. This very well may be a deliberate attempt at fostering nationalism in the army. Like putting Napoleon’s eagles at the front of his regiments. Building an identification with the state through a symbol. Is there really that deep of strategy going on here?
The difference between nationalism and a cult of personality is that the image of a person is replaced with the image of a symbol of an idea. It can’t be that simple. Maybe I am over thinking the whole thing, and need to stop listening to philosophy audio books while on patrol and go back to Kim Harrison.

Women

No matter how many women have entered the military it remains a male dominated organization. Why? Too much to go into at this time. Living in this all male sausage fest can be a disorientating. Our medic is female, and the only female in the squad. Watching guys in this environment can be amusing, if you have a sick and twisted sense of humor. We are starved for the female of the species. There is at least two attractive females at the combat stress unit on post. It makes Doc Feelgood’s job easier to get guys to go over there.
You see changes in the soldiers TV and movie watching habits also. We still buy and watch the action flick with big stuff blowing up and a high round count and mortality rate. Then there are movies where a hot actress spends most of the time running around in tight or revealing clothing. (This is how I ended up with five seasons of Alias) But there are also an increase in ‘Chick flicks’.
I find this last trend to be the most interesting as it would seem that it is most prevalent in the younger troops. Is there a need for the softer side of life, maybe a desire to look into a world that is beyond our reach? I really don’t know. I do find that after a long chat with any of my female friends I end up thinking about them long into the next day.
I ended a long term relationship before this trip because I didn’t want the distraction. I have been through the heart aches and pains being married and deployed. This time I walked away clean. Still I find myself enjoying the long conversations with female friends about their relationships and trials. It is a world that is so alien to me as to seem almost like fiction.
The events are no different than they were back home, but I have no frame of reference. My world is so removed from dating, and all things social involving the opposite sex. Maybe it is different in some of the support units that can run up to half female. That, I have heard, brings its own issues.
Like any good grant writer I can only say that this line of thought deserves more investigation. Now if you will excuse me I need to reconsider ordering 7 seasons of Buffy.

A note to the reader

Half of my reason for writing this blog is for my own personal record. This place does funny things to my head. I want an accurate image of where I was and what I was thinking. Therefore I write and post without editing. Going back over the posts, I realize that this leads to more than a few typos. Deal with it. I am however considering going back and maybe tidying some things up.
I think all the readers for not commenting on these not so minor errors. Most of the other reasons have to do with keeping friends and family up to date on how I am doing, as I am really horrible about writing letters. The last bit is probably a desperate cry for attention… but who knows?
For those of you who are not here, but have loved ones here, let me say a few things about letters. Letters are the best way of telling someone that you care. There is something incredibly special about having someone take a piece of their day, put it in an envelope, and sending it to you. There are a few letters that I have that stay in my bag, so I can take them out and read them over and over again. E-mail, VOIP, and chat programs just are not the same.
I was asked by a friend back home about what to write. I thought about it, and finally like many of my best answers, I told them what my dad did. Start with what you did today, then what was going through your mind when you started writing, and finish with your short term plans. A little slice of home. I have heard of this in other words from other sources, but he said it best, and does it the best.
Better than boxes of candies, or care packages, a little piece of home goes a very long way. This by no means should imply that I do not love home baked cookies or hand and foot warmers arriving here. But if someone you care for is over seas, go old school, put pen to paper and drop them a line. If they don’t write back you can gently remind them that they don’t even have to buy stamps.

Why are we here?

The sun is coming up over the Eastern Horizon, the stench of sulfur from the oil refineries fills my nose. The wind is still icy cold, even behind my gun shield but the morning sunlight holds the false promise of warmth. Even false hope is still hope. The country is waking up. Local cars pull into the north bound lane to make it an undivided two way road for as long as our trucks occupy the south bound lane.
In the states this would cause dozens of accidents. Instead I have yet to see one. Traveling three or four wide on a two lane road, the somehow manage to sort it out. All sorts of things filter in through my eyes, get sorted into little boxes, and stored there. Types of cars, number of occupants, drivers attitude, all get sorted and stored. My brain is busy else where. One big question has been looming since shortly before dawn.
Why are we here? Leaned back behind a loaded automatic weapon, in an occupied country, I have to ask it. The arguments of WMDs, don’t really wash with me. The petroleum argument is also a little hollow. There are supply and demand issues that don’t match up with that theory. Even the conspiracy theories don’t really wash. I have to find something that fits. Am I simply a modern storm trooper for imperialism? Possibly I am crusader for truth justice and the American Way? This doesn’t wash. The simple answer the one I give to friends, when they ask why I went to Iraq, while true only scratches the surface. “I went to Iraq, because if I didn’t they would arrest me.”
If pushed I would explain that the military should not make political decisions, and we go when and where ordered because that is what the Constitution says. More than one friend has listened to that response and gone on to other subjects, they know a canned answer when they hear it. That one smells of spam.
The truck is silent, as I play with the ideas. I go back to being in college, and the deeper question of why the US has a military. The simple answer is that we have guns because they have guns. That doesn’t give me much hope for our future. There should be a higher purpose, a long term goal, in this giant destructive machine.
I think that a world where we have access to peaceful redress of grievances is a good goal. There is one problem. The use of force is easy, it is cathartic and it presents the hope of getting exactly what you want. Diplomacy is slow messy and you never get everything you want. The solution, remove the ability to succeed by using force.
W.T. Sherman expressed this view in his attack into the secessionist states. It was his stated intent to be so violent, so destructive as to make the thought of redress through force to be unthinkable. He was partially successful. We should use force to block that avenue of for people to groups or states to get what they want. But if this is the only tenant of this philosophy, it results in becoming the bigger bully. So there has to be a balance.
If you block one method of redress, you have to open another. If force is not available to the other side you have to be willing to negotiate from a position of strength and pretend as if you are not. I guess Iraq may be an example. We have proven that we are not going to be shot, mortared or blown out of the country. This means we have to go when we are voted out. We have to lose to their elected government, and show that that process can work.
There is a third part. One I think we forget, and will forget as soon as Iraq is behind us. The root causes of most conflict are economic. The root causes for much of the domestic violence in the US are economic. The solution to reducing the number of people willing to plant bombs to kill US troops was to provide jobs. It has worked. This is a lesson we might apply to our own people back home. Sun Tzu was right, the ultimate excellence in warfare is to win without having to fight.
The blimp above COB Allahlone is visible, we are on the home stretch, and I can smell the barn. I reach into my pocket and press play on my Zune. “Scotty Doesn’t Know” starts up in my ear phone. It obliterates the deep thoughts for a while, anymore and my head will start to hurt.

Passengers Pt 3

Rolling South, the temperatures is below freezing, and with wind chill I figure it is in the single digits. I swap out my gloves every twenty minutes or so, but the my fingers still go numb and I have to beat them back to feeling. The full moon makes NVGs useless, and I spend most of my time with my eye pressed up against the thermal sight.
The world as seen as warm and cold. The radio is silent, just the calls as we pass checkpoints. Lifeguard is pounding away at the BFT, and Mighty Mouse zones out to his own music. The miles click away.
“TWO STOP.” The radio jumpstarts my adrenaline.
The lead truck has seen something, and hopefully the second truck stopped before they ran over it. We stop and wait will they check it out.
Time ticks away, five minutes turns into ten, ten into thirty. They confirm it and we call up for the disposal guys. Sitting on the road. I scan, and scan. I memorize the terrain. Time ticks on.
An hour passes then two, we still wait. A car rolls by 500m out in the desert, it stops and drops someone off. We watch the car and the person left behind.
Moto asses the situation and calls the BC. We have the extra trucks, could he take the 4 truck out and see who this guy is? Moto repositions the other trucks and we move out to link up.
“TRUCK 4 THIS IS DOME 6, WE WILL MOVE OUT ON THIS ACCESS ROAD TO THE DISMOUNT. I WILL LEAD, AND DRAW HIS FIRE, YOU STAY 50 METERS BACK AND SUPRESS HIM IF HE FIRES.”
This is what the man has spent twenty years in the army to do. Granted it is a two truck element, not over sixty armored vehicles. I am a impressed he has made the right leadership decision, will take the big risk.
Lifeguard acknowledges and off we go. Mighty Mouse has really grown as a driver since we got here. He takes the embankment just right, then puts himself 50 meters back and a little to the right of the lead truck. The road 500m out runs along a railroad embankment. The BC pops over it, and Mighty Mouse stops us just as I can get a line of sight over it. I can’t depress onto the target. He rolls forward just enough.
The thermal does not show uniform or faces, but the targets body language says it all, just a rent-a-cop, Iraqi style. We search the area for the fun of it and roll back. A little bit of activity to kill time.
After a three and a half hour wait the disposal guys show up. The poke and prod the suspicious object. They run it over with their robot. It is a rock. No bad on our lead element. This is the nature of the beast.
The road clear we roll south, with the sun over the Horizon, and traffic going both ways in the other lane. A twenty four hour mission. As we roll in the passengers thank us for the ride and extend kudos. CSM Snarf wants to see Moto in his office the next day.
He had nothing but bad to say. As a very senior NCO said to me about his comments and criticism, consider the source.
All told I would rather not have passengers.

passengers pt 2

It is midnight 30, and we have been at work since 11am. The CSM wants to get home and so we are rushing through all the things it takes for us to ‘Turn and Burn’. First we refuel, then drop our passengers and finally go and get a to go plate from the DFAC. I select finger food, things that don’t require forks or spoons. Mini-pizzas and jalapeño poppers are not the greatest food for a long night of work but the calories will burn.
The trucks are turned around and ready to roll in 45 minutes, amazing how things move faster when the big boss is watching. SSG Moto has two big challenges for the ride home. The first is that he has to do everything exactly according to the battalion rules, the man who signed off on them is watching. That is easy, we normally follow almost all of the rules. The second issue is harder. By the rules he is the Convoy Commander, the absolute authority on all things that happen on the mission. For this mission he has four people who are his bosses, bosses, bosses boss.
Moto takes an interesting tack to this issue, he makes two Lieutenant Colonels and one of the Sergeants Major into just additional vehicle commander. There is no question, no conversation about his choice, he simply does it. Our own BC takes it well, actually seems to enjoy himself. An armor officer commands a tank long after his peers in other branches have been consigned to offices and command posts.
CSM Snarf will ride in the 2 truck with SGT Linebacker. A pity for him. After the ritual pre-mission re-brief the BC steps up and tells us what happened on his way up when another squad rolled over an anti-tank mine. The information is useful. Not to be up staged CSM Snarf steps up.
“Do you all know what Positive ID is?” He asks.
I am standing near the back, a cigarette hanging from my lips and a steaming cup of coffee in my hands. The crews from the other Battalion Commander and Command Sergeant Major are to my left and right. They are from a support battalion. The LT standing next to me looks like he should be playing professional football, the model image of a soldier. I am sure that he is mostly useless, as no one can look that way and be able to perform. It takes me half a second to decide to take the hit.
“You know the fucker is trying to kill you before you make him a meat bag.”
CSM Snarf knows me by the sound of my voice. And is a little startled at my eloquent turn of a phrase. The LT takes an half step to the sided, as I take another pull on the smoke.
“I want you gunners to make absolutely sure you have Positive Identification before you pull the trigger. Nothing could be worse than you pulling the trigger on the wrong thing. Make absolutely sure you have PID before you fire.” Snarf says.
This is such incredible bull shit. The words may sound like a good reiteration of ROE, but what the PFC or SPC hears is “Don’t pull the trigger. Don’t pull the trigger. If you pull the trigger and are wrong I will stake you out in front of the bus then ensure it backs over you after it runs you over.”
Moto waits a second, to see if he is done then repeats the order of march and tells us to get on the trucks.
Walking away I am walking with PFC Airborne, just back from leave. I look at him and say, “Better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6.” He looks at me and offers up a fist for a fist bump, before we split off to our trucks. I look back to see the BC walking behind us. He barely nods and heads to his truck. I climb up the hood of my truck and slip into the turret. I pull on the wool cap, balaclava, gloves, and snuck them all into position. I turn on the tunes playing in my left ear, and then settle head set and helmet over my head. I lock and load rolling out of the gate. Weapons on amber my sweet ass.
It would be a long ride home.

Passengers Pt 1

It is midnight 30, and we have been at work since 11am. The CSM wants to get home and so we are rushing through all the things it takes for us to ‘Turn and Burn’. First we refuel, then drop our passengers and finally go and get a to go plate from the DFAC. I select finger food, things that don’t require forks or spoons. Mini-pizzas and jalapeño poppers are not the greatest food for a long night of work but the calories will burn.
The trucks are turned around and ready to roll in 45 minutes, amazing how things move faster when the big boss is watching. SSG Moto has two big challenges for the ride home. The first is that he has to do everything exactly according to the battalion rules, the man who signed off on them is watching. That is easy, we normally follow almost all of the rules. The second issue is harder. By the rules he is the Convoy Commander, the absolute authority on all things that happen on the mission. For this mission he has four people who are his bosses, bosses, bosses boss.
Moto takes an interesting tack to this issue, he makes two Lieutenant Colonels and one of the Sergeants Major into just additional vehicle commander. There is no question, no conversation about his choice, he simply does it. Our own BC takes it well, actually seems to enjoy himself. An armor officer commands a tank long after his peers in other branches have been consigned to offices and command posts.
CSM Snarf will ride in the 2 truck with SGT Linebacker. A pity for him. After the ritual pre-mission re-brief the BC steps up and tells us what happened on his way up when another squad rolled over an anti-tank mine. The information is useful. Not to be up staged CSM Snarf steps up.
“Do you all know what Positive ID is?” He asks.
I am standing near the back, a cigarette hanging from my lips and a steaming cup of coffee in my hands. The crews from the other Battalion Commander and Command Sergeant Major are to my left and right. They are from a support battalion. The LT standing next to me looks like he should be playing professional football, the model image of a soldier. I am sure that he is mostly useless, as no one can look that way and be able to perform. It takes me half a second to decide to take the hit.
“You know the fucker is trying to kill you before you make him a meat bag.”
CSM Snarf knows me by the sound of my voice. And is a little startled at my eloquent turn of a phrase. The LT takes an half step to the sided, as I take another pull on the smoke.
“I want you gunners to make absolutely sure you have Positive Identification before you pull the trigger. Nothing could be worse than you pulling the trigger on the wrong thing. Make absolutely sure you have PID before you fire.” Snarf says.
This is such incredible bull shit. The words may sound like a good reiteration of ROE, but what the PFC or SPC hears is “Don’t pull the trigger. Don’t pull the trigger. If you pull the trigger and are wrong I will stake you out in front of the bus then ensure it backs over you after it runs you over.”
Moto waits a second, to see if he is done then repeats the order of march and tells us to get on the trucks.
Walking away I am walking with PFC Airborne, just back from leave. I look at him and say, “Better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6.” He looks at me and offers up a fist for a fist bump, before we split off to our trucks. I look back to see the BC walking behind us. He barely nods and heads to his truck. I climb up the hood of my truck and slip into the turret. I pull on the wool cap, balaclava, gloves, and snuck them all into position. I turn on the tunes playing in my left ear, and then settle head set and helmet over my head. I lock and load rolling out of the gate. Weapons on amber my sweet ass.
It would be a long ride home.