Finally back
- Thread starter L_S
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welcome back man.
Welcome back L_S, and Thank you and everyone else. Hooah.
Hey is spades still the game of choice?
Hey is spades still the game of choice?
Welcome back, L_S. I was glad to hear you're home safe.
Looking at your pictures, I'm struck by what an awesome experience that must have been for you. I don't mean awesome as in a "neato-burrito let's all have a party" sort of way, but awesome as in wow, what an experience to have had. I can't imagine the effect on your life of having seen and done and accomplished the things you have. I don't mean to sound as if you're lucky to have gone; I wouldn't wish anyone to war simply for the experience of it, but if there is some personal silver lining to your service there, beyond the pride of simply having served, I'm sure it's that you now have the benefit of a perspective that most of us will never know ... a perspective that perhaps includes a deeper compassion or greater understanding ... but certainly one that includes a deepened appreciation for the things we sometimes take for granted. So, in that sense, maybe I do think you're a little lucky.
But, I'm rambling now. I just wanted to say that your pictures moved me; it looks like you did some good work there. And I'm really glad you're home safe.
Looking at your pictures, I'm struck by what an awesome experience that must have been for you. I don't mean awesome as in a "neato-burrito let's all have a party" sort of way, but awesome as in wow, what an experience to have had. I can't imagine the effect on your life of having seen and done and accomplished the things you have. I don't mean to sound as if you're lucky to have gone; I wouldn't wish anyone to war simply for the experience of it, but if there is some personal silver lining to your service there, beyond the pride of simply having served, I'm sure it's that you now have the benefit of a perspective that most of us will never know ... a perspective that perhaps includes a deeper compassion or greater understanding ... but certainly one that includes a deepened appreciation for the things we sometimes take for granted. So, in that sense, maybe I do think you're a little lucky.
But, I'm rambling now. I just wanted to say that your pictures moved me; it looks like you did some good work there. And I'm really glad you're home safe.
Ya know. Last night, I had such a beautiful dream.
I dreamt that I met a middle aged japanese man who introduced himself and told me that he'd seen me driving. He said he wanted to sign me onto his F1 racing team and handed me a check for £20,000,000.
All was good.
Then I woke up.
No F1 team.
No Japanese man with big check.
Nothing except for a kitten begging for food.
All was bad.
And then I read this.
Hey, life's not all bad huh? Welcome back
I dreamt that I met a middle aged japanese man who introduced himself and told me that he'd seen me driving. He said he wanted to sign me onto his F1 racing team and handed me a check for £20,000,000.
All was good.
Then I woke up.
No F1 team.
No Japanese man with big check.
Nothing except for a kitten begging for food.
All was bad.
And then I read this.
Hey, life's not all bad huh? Welcome back
I'm real glad to see you back Tim "Leonard you're a sight for sore eyes"
I'm looking forward to seeing your pictures tonight when I get home from work.
Thanks for going over there.
"Leonard you're a sight for sore eyes"I'm looking forward to seeing your pictures tonight when I get home from work.
Thanks for going over there.
Well I would have done that for ya beeb, but a guy in my company tried something along those lines when he came home for leave and he had the US Marshalls waiting for him when he arrived on the mainland. He's in alot of hot water now
Yeah that's awesome huh! Most guys get issued uniforms with other peoples names on them but I happen to luck out and get one with my name on it!
Hehe you're both right actually...well so long as the generator isn't down. You don't need electricity to play cards though!
Allison, it was indeed an experience. There's alot of thoughts and feelings swirling around in our heads and it will take us a while to get used to "real" life again I think. Some of my platoon mates and I were having a discussion near the end of the deployment and while no doubt we all wanted to come home there was a part of us that said f*ck it I'd rather just stay here. We thought we could kinda relate to people who get institutionalized when they stay in prison too long. I don't know that I can explain...maybe it's just that life over there while dangerous is just much simpler. But all that being said I can definitely say that, yes, I'm a better person now after going through what I've been through.
No matter what you hear good things are happening over there. Mistakes have been made, yes, but things are moving forward and that's the important part. I will be very curious to see what Iraq looks like in 10-20 years.
btw if you guys have any questions about anything over there, I'll be more than glad to answer them. The way things are over there is not always the way the media portrays it so I like to shed light on the subject whenever somebody is curious.
And it's good to see that BuF is still thriving!
L_S said:
Great! Looking at your pictures made me curious about something: It looks like you spent some time training Iraqi troops, and I was wondering if you knew about their make-up. Are they mostly Shiites and Kurds, or were there some Sunnis in there too? And how does that work; are their units integrated, or are they segregated into their own command structures? And were you able to observe enough to notice any differences between Arabs and Kurds or Sunnis and Shiites in how they performed in the field?
Whatever you can tell me would be great. I think I had heard that the Kurds were good fighters, but they hate Arabs and Arabs hate them. And then Sunnis hate Shiites and Shiites hate Sunnis. And I'm sure there a lot of smaller factions within those groups that don't get along too well, either. It just seems like it would be an impossible task to get everyone working together.
For the majority of our deployment we were in the city of Kirkuk, Iraq's 4th largest city. There are very few Sunni Arabs there. The population consists of about 40% Kurds, 40% Shia Arabs, 20% Turkomen, and a handful of Assyrians (who are christian).
They are all mixed up. The makeup of the battalion here pretty much matches that of the general public that I mentioned before (40% Kurds, 40% Shia Arabs, 20% Turkomen)
As far as shooting, moving, and communicating, I'd said they're all about even really. You probably got that idea when you heard about the Kurdish resistance group called the Peshmerga who were constantly fighting against Sadaam and keeping him out of the north. Most of the Kurds in the Iraqi army were/are Peshmurga so, yes, they are battle hardened and that's something you can't teach. I'd say one out of every two of these guys have been shot before (they'll proudly show you their scars), that's no joke either. I swear this one guy, Ehmad, could probably get in the Guiness Book of World Records for the number of times shot in life category. He spent twelve years in Sadaam's prisons and was one tough SOB. As luck would have it he was shot another three times in his arm late in our deployment going on a raid with us.
The Kurds are kinda the bastard children of this area. They are spread over Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. At some point in history I believe they briefly had their own autonomous country. In fact that is what most Kurds desire, they don't want to be a part of Iraq. Whenever you drive through a Kurdish neighborhood you will see the Kurdistan flag plastered all over the place and in conversation with a Kurd you will hear him refer to the area as Kurdistan or refer to himself as a citizen of Kurdistan, not Iraq. Farther up north they pretty much actually have their own government in cities like As Sulaymania and Erbil which are fairly quiet as Kurds are wholeheartedly our friends.
So what's the problem? The problem is the Kurds feel that Kirkuk is a part of Kurdistan too and belongs to them, which it did originally depending on who you talk to. So where did all the Arabs come from? Well there's one little point I left out about Kirkuk. Fifty percent of Iraq's oil production comes from Kirkuk's oil fields. Now do you think Sadaam (or any other country in the area) would allow a bunch of piddly Kurds to control all that wealth? So despite whatever principled reason Saddam gave his people for wiping out the Kurds, what it all came down to was the oil. He instituted a policy of "Arabization" where he forcefully moved Kurdish people out of their homes and moved in Arabs. I personally spoke with many Kurds who this happened to. Their families were kicked out of their homes and literally the same day there was an Arab family moved in. The Kurds were required to register with the government. They had to apply to buy real estate, to buy automobiles, to get jobs and more often than not were rejected. Sometimes they would bring buses into the Kurdish neigborhoods and randomly grab the men of the household. They might turn up a few months later, a few years later, or their families may never see them again.
About halfway through our deployment there was a huge influx of these dislodged Kurds who came back to claim their homes. They tried to resolve all this through the courts and whatnot but as you can guess it caused alot of problems.
So you can see where all this animosity comes from. Besides all that the culture over here is just prone to violence. Revenge is like a tradition it seems so after so many years of tit for tat, back and forth, the people hardly even remember where all the hate comes from and that's words from their own mouths. It might seem crazy through your eyes but killing is just a part of life for them. There were countless times when we were out on patrol and would get flagged down by some woman whose husband/brother/son had been shot in some stupid neighborly dispute and we'd go and help out. To me it seems outside of their tribe and family they really don't trust or care about people.
They'll work together, but get them by themselves or in their little cliques and they'll readily admit their dislike for whatever ethnicity they're not. This is something we quickly learned. We were learning as we were going along. It was really difficult especially with the language barrier even when we had an interpreter (and some days we didn't!). By the end of it we picked up enough of the language to communicate most military related type stuff.
Anway training an army was not something we were really prepared or trained for but my platoon sergeant used to be a drill sergeant so they tasked our platoon to the job and we trained the majority of the guys there. We would stress to them that they are not Arab, Kurdish, or Turkoman but rather Iraqi and that until they learned to work together they would accomplish nothing. Enough of them seemed to buy it but that wasn't our biggest problem actually.
We were given two weeks to train up a platoon which isn't much time (compare that to a little over three months for your typical American infantryman's basic training). We treated them all as privates and ran it pretty much like a condensed version of our basic training, teaching them basic soldier skills and a few battle drills. When they were out with us and the sh1t hit the fan they would look to us, follow our orders, and react accordingly which is good except we weren't gonna be there forever right? Which revealed the problem I mentioned. They had no leaders. Oh they had squad leaders and what not but that was in name only. Realizing our mistake we started to focus our training on leadership, treating the squad leaders as our equals and making them call the shots and disciplining the soldiers to react to their leaders. Kurd, Arab, Turkomen whatever I don't care, if you have a good, solid leader that you have confidence in, none of that other crap will matter.
By the end of it the entire battalion that protected Kirkuk had been through our classroom so no matter where we went there was always somebody who knew my platoon. We got to be pretty close with some of those soldiers. We'd visit them in the hospital when they got wounded and bring them gifts. We gave away alot our gear to them or bought them gear with our own money. They respected us and tried to emulate us. It was a great feeling when you saw a guy who actually got it. You look at him and say to yourself this guy actually understands what we're doing and why we're doing it. That's a great feeling, but there was an even better one yet...and I'll never forget this one moment in particular...it was the first day of their squad live fires, kind of a culmination of their training to this point, and I had been struggling all day with this one squad doing dry fires before the live fire...they had just f*cked up the squad attack battle drill for the umpteenth time and I was about to go off on them when one of the soldiers who "got it" came over and put his hand up to me. I stepped back and gave him the floor. He pushed a few guys around, made some corrections, and they did it perfectly on the next run. A guy who "got it" showed some other guys what to do and now they "got it." I thought to myself, jesus christ, this sh1t just might actually work out
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Thanks, LS. You're lucky we're communicating in a forum or else I'd talk your ear off. That's some fascinating stuff.
BTW, what's your status? Are you a reservist? Do you know if you're heading back anytime soon?
BTW, what's your status? Are you a reservist? Do you know if you're heading back anytime soon?
Hell no, I'm not a fat a$$ reservist I'm active army in the 25th Infantry Division. For some guys that came over from other units that was their second depoyment, they had already done a tour in Afghanistan or Iraq before.
But the 25th (my brigade at least) shouldn't be heading over there any time soon again. My unit is slated to become the next Stryker Brigade. Which requires around 1.5-2 years of train up and certification with trips to NTC and JRTC before we'd be deployable.
My self personally, while I was in Iraq, I reenlisted to stay in Hawaii until 2009. I might not stay that long though because my platoon sergeant and platoon leader are helping me to go to Ranger school and if I can make it through that I want to try to go through Special Forces assessment and selection. I just gotta get off my a$$ and give it a shot.
I'm active army in the 25th Infantry Division. For some guys that came over from other units that was their second depoyment, they had already done a tour in Afghanistan or Iraq before. But the 25th (my brigade at least) shouldn't be heading over there any time soon again. My unit is slated to become the next Stryker Brigade. Which requires around 1.5-2 years of train up and certification with trips to NTC and JRTC before we'd be deployable.
My self personally, while I was in Iraq, I reenlisted to stay in Hawaii until 2009. I might not stay that long though because my platoon sergeant and platoon leader are helping me to go to Ranger school and if I can make it through that I want to try to go through Special Forces assessment and selection. I just gotta get off my a$$ and give it a shot.