Letter from Iraq

[Carl Harrod]

I am sorry to say that I still haven't heard anything for my friend's old unit that just went back to Afganistan, but he did pass along this message from an advisor who is currently in Iraq.

Subject: Update #8

  I vaguely remember one of my literature teachers telling me that good writing should serve to both educate and delight.  That seems like pretty good advice, and I try to make sure I do both in these updates, especially as the audience grows.  I never really know what I am going to write about next.  So much of what we do is classified. It is not really possible just to describe things as they happen.  And to be honest, many of the stories would start sounding the same.  So I usually
wait for some sort of inspiration that ties a few images or tales together.    I got that today when I came back from a particularly successful district area council meeting where we are really beginning
to gain some traction.  I opened up my computer and scanned the headlines from the major wireless services...

            ...and once again my faith in the American Press's ability to responsibly use the freedom of speech a generation is fighting to defend was shattered. "Polls show Iraqis don't trust Americans!"  "only 19% of Iraqis trust Americans"....blah blah blah...drivel drivel, poppycock.  Story after story reciting some poll without ever explaining any of the methods used to take the poll, or when it was taken.  No accountability whatsoever.  I would bet this months pay the poll is at
least 30 days old, and the polltakers have enjoyed about 4-5 weekends and a couple national holidays sitting on all that useful data, while twenty year old American and Iraqi Patriots put their lives on the line without break to actually fix the problems the brave pollsters cant even articulate decent questions about.

            I would love to know how the data was collected.  I bet it wasn't door to door...if it was I would probably have seen the Soldiers tasked to guard them.    By telephone?  I wonder what percentage of folks have a cell phone and where they are located regionally?  Even without my rocket science degree I can pretty well determine that telephone won't get you an even representation in Iraq.  Mail?  Sorry friends, Cliff doesn't get off his barstool at Cheers to deliver to
Haifa Street...even in good weather.

            I wonder about the questions not asked in the poll.  Did they ask what percentage of Iraqis trust Iraqis?  Would it be higher or lower than the 19% level afforded to Americans? Next months paycheck says it is less.  I am not an expert on Arab culture by any means, but I am pretty sure of this.  Arabs don't trust anyone unless they have looked them in the eye, eaten with them, and have included them in their circle of friends.  Trust is built over time and not given easily. They do not do any business on the first meeting, or the second, or often the third.  They will judge you and prejudge you until they find you worthy, and when they start calling you friend, you will be in the family and they will do anything for you.  The default answer to any poll question asked about trust is going to be no.

            So here are some examples of Iraqis I have met.  You judge if they trust us.

Several weeks ago we conducted a cordon and search operation to serve warrants on a list of about sixty individuals.  We rounded up about forty.  Iraqi names are often very similar, and sometimes you don't get the right guys.  In this particular search the Iraqis detained a guy with an Egyptian accent.  For a variety of good reasons the Iraqis assume that non-Iraqis are here as foreign fighters.   This particular gentleman was pretty old, probably about sixty, so I was a bit skeptical.  While we were processing all the detainees, he began faking seizures.  My medic examines everyone we detain, at the point of capture and every few days at the detainee facility to make sure there is no
abuse.  He was certain the old guy was faking.  It is common...almost everyone ever pulled from their home has a bottle of pills for some life threatening illness that they must be released to go get.  At any rate, this old guy went through the process, and after a few days the Iraqis
determined that he had no information of value and we escorted him back to his neighborhood.  Weeks later, COL B and I conducted a foot patrol through the neighborhood talking to residents.  When we get to the bottom of one alleyway, we hear a ruckus and the Egyptian breaks through
the crowd and greats both COL B and I like we are long lost friends.  My medic was with us, and got a warm hug and a thanks for the placebos he had been given for his seizures. (I am sure the motrin helped him feel better, but had little effect on his seizures)  He invited us down to his market stall and insisted that we eat fruit with him.  I am pretty confidant that he trusts COL B and I.  He knows he was treated fairly, and so do the folks in his little community.

            We went into a school around the corner.  An elementary school for boys.  We sit with the school master, a male, and three female teachers.  They are actually excited to talk with us, and
contrary to many of the myths, the females engage us openly.  They are happy to be back to work after months of being too terrified to open the schools.  I ask how many of the kids are actually back at school.  They tell me that about half are back, the remaining parents are waiting to see if the next month is as good as the last.  I ask why they feel safer now...why they think the violence is down?  The response is that they have Iraqi units permanently assigned to the checkpoints in the
neighborhoods, and they see Americans working with them.

            We negotiated a busy traffic circle the other day.  An Iraqi motorcycle cop was in hot pursuit of a guy on a moped and they both careened into the traffic circle to my right rear.  A car saw us and stopped abruptly.  The moped slipped past, the motorcycle clipped the car sending the patrolman flying off the bike.  All I saw was a while helmet fly past my window!  That was strange enough I ordered a halt. My trail vehicle saw what happened, so we helped clear the scene and my
Doc and terps went to work.  It didn't take long for the Iraqi ambulance to arrive on the scene, but the common response from the Iraqi police that arrived to help their comrade was "thanks, we are glad you got to see him first".

            Today we drove through a busy market.  As I admired a narrow alley overflowing with fruit stands, and wishing I had my camera to capture the colors, I watched a guy collapse for no reason.  We stop. Doc goes to work and quickly assesses that he has passed out due to dehydration.  An old man helps keep the crowd away from us and as we leave, he tells us that he is glad that we stopped when we didn't have to.  He wishes us safe travels, and is glad we are finally back in the
area to help.  No pollster had to coerce that response from him.  He could have easily stayed in the crowd and said nothing.

            About an hour before that we were stopped by a group that wanted to tell us something.  It was in an area we have visited often (near the Egyptian).  The kids all recognize us...candy has that effect. They know several of us by name and ask for us to stop.  We find a safe spot and pull over.  The kids bring over a few young adults who are asking about their brother.  They are concerned because a national police unit came and took him yesterday, obviously because he was a
Sunni, and most police are Shia.  I start asking questions.  What did the vehicle look like?  How many trucks in the patrol?  What did the uniforms look likes?  What time of day?  The answers all match my
suspicions.  I tell them "the only guy the national police arrested yesterday in this neighborhood was selling fuel." 

            "Yes, that's him!'  They cried. 

            "Oh really, and he was selling fuel on the side of the road"

            "yes, that is what he does."

            "You know that the prime minister has made selling black market fuel illegal?"

            "Well, yes"

            "Did you know that the commander that arrested him is Sunni?

            "No"

            "So is it possible that they arrested him because he was breaking the law and not because he is Sunni?

            ...Pause...the adults that have  gather all glance at each other.

            Grudgingly "yes. But Is he OK?"

            "Yes, we saw him this morning.  We check the detainees every day."

            "Good, we understand that he was caught doing illegal things, we just don't want him killed.  If you are checking then we know they won't kill him.  We trust the Americans, but not the police."

            "You know that I don't get to go home till you start trusting them more than you trust me?

            They laugh.

            "I am really looking forward to going home!"



One of the first people the national police detained when we got here was a really odd Taliban looking guy.  The full out of control beard and traditional Arab dress.  That is actually very unusual in Baghdad.  He had been casing one of the checkpoints and the police noticed his suspicious behavior and detained him.  He was so nasty and dirty he had fungus growing on him.  When he was brought back in for questioning, we were just arriving at the headquarters.  They had him kneeling on the ground in the intelligence officer's office asking him some questions. They had told us before we went in that they were pretty sure he was Al Qaeda and had had some brainwashing.  He was blindfolded, so didn't see the Americans enter the room.  We listened to the questioning.  After
several minutes one of my guys asked a question.  The sound of an American voice hit him like a brick.  He collapsed to the floor and began reciting the Koran over and over....refusing to come out of the trance.  He trusted Americans too...he knew his chance of Martyrdom was over.



Trust is won one person at a time.  It requires looking them in the eye and convincing them that you are just like them.  It requires courage. It requires a commitment to stay the course.  It requires consistent ethical behavior.  Over time acquaintances become neighbors, neighbors to become friends, and friends to become brothers.  Candy may win the kids, but consistency wins the adults.  Too bad there is no magic pill to cure the attention deficit disorder of nation.  Ours could use one.



Hope this finds you and yours well,

Matt

[Janet Harrington]

Thanks, Carl, for again sharing with us news from the war.  It is great to hear what is really happening over there.

[Dee Gee]

This is more like what I think it is like over in Iraq instead of all the one sided stories we get from the news coverage and goverment.  Thanks for sharing the letter

[MarineMom]

Those are the same kind of things that my son was telling me both when he was in Afghanistan in '04 and in Iraq in '05 and I fully expect that I will hear those same things when he goes back to Iraq this summer. I just wish that the news media would be a little more honest in their coverage and report more of what is really happening. Maybe then the democrats would not have felt so compelled to push that deadline through congress yesterday which makes me more afraid for my son and our other service members over there.

[Janet Harrington]

Me, too.  One thing that I am grateful to God for is our strong President.  I know some people don't like him, but he is strong and he will stand behind what he says.  He says he will veto any bill that gives a deadline to bring our troops home.  I want the troops home as much as anyone, but why do the Democrats want to put those innocent citizens at anymore risk than they already are.  I don't know the answer.  I wish I did.

[Carl Harrod]

Update #9
Thursday, March 29, 2007 1:48:51 PM

The noise of the engine rumbles steadily as we creep along.  In spite of the decibels constantly bombarding the senses, the night seems quiet.  The headset helps muffle some of the noise.  I suppose the near total darkness tricks ears and brain into assuming it is quiet.  We have been patrolling for several hours, rolling at a slow and deliberate pace through each of the varied neighborhoods in our sector.  It is small relative to other sectors, but has more diversity than most.  From the richest to poorest, oldest to newest, the area provides a wide range of possibilities and pitfalls.         

            Our patrol started in the wealthy neighborhoods.  Large homes even by our standards are lit by the occasional street light and a fluorescent business sign here or there.  The trash is mostly policed, the sewage is under control.  In many of the upstairs rooms you can see the obvious flicker of a TV set piping in some unknown show from a rooftop satellite.  Curfew has been in effect for several hours and nothing moves in the streets, not even the expected pack of dogs or stray cat.  There is not enough trash to support them here, not when there is much better scrounging to be had elsewhere.

            We drive to elsewhere.  A cluster of high rise apartment complexes house an untold number of residents.  Close to the green zone, this area has had continuous occupants, and infrequent violence.  It too is largely lit.  Powered more often than not by generators tied to apartment buildings rather than the city power grid, life is reasonably normal here day and night.  But nothing moves outside.

            Back north to Haifa Street, to the movie studio lot I mentioned previously.  New shows are being produced there during the day.  Medical dramas replace war flicks.  Last week our partnered US unit did a medical assistance visit, setting up a temporary clinic in a school in the heart of the previously abandoned area.  Residents have slowly begun trickling back to the apartments.  Word spread quickly and the sick and needy came for care.  The children swarmed about in packs. COL B made a statement for the cameras.  I stood in the school yard, surrounded by high rises.  The face of this once thriving area is pockmarked by bullet and shell.  The walls above the windows are stained by smoke and flame long since extinguished.  Like the eyes of a crying woman, mascara running uncontrollably.  Two months ago no one dared live above the bottom few floors.  Everyone we talked to told stories of gunman roving the upper stories at night randomly killing anyone who ventured out.  Today I watched a young woman on the eighth floor lower a rope to the ground and drag her belongings up to the balcony.  I looked around, and found two other families doing the same in adjacent buildings.  Apparently the elevators are all broken.

            The activity we saw during the day last week is not at all apparent this night.  Security forces patrol the streets.  As do the dogs.  There is much better rubish here.  By and large there is no power.  But the occasional window betrays a flicker.  Small generators bring hope to rooms that are heavily curtained to avoid waste, or drawing attention.  We continue on to the very poorest and oldest area, in the shadows of the modern apartments.

            The streets begin to narrow and twist.  The houses grow increasingly smaller.  We know they are packed with dozens in each tiny space.  The streets here are flooded with children during the day.  I joke with COL B that he has yet to take me to see the children factory that produces all these kids.  He jokes that the children factory will go out of business if we can get the lights fixed and give the employees something else to do.   Electricity, the single most frustrating problem we face.  We make a turn at the bottom of the street and pass our problem.

            An electrical substation huddles in the shadows.  A dark lifeless corpse mounted on the side of the wall to the cemetery, another unlikely victim of the war.  About six months ago the oil cooling tank on the sub-station was hit in the crossfire of some sectarian shootout.  The oil bled out within minutes, leaving a sickly pool that still marks the death.  Without oil, the substation overheated and blew in a shower of sparks. The neighborhood has been plunged into an era of darkness ever since.  The corpse lay decomposing on the cemetery wall largely unnoticed.   Now, six months later, we have the forces to do something about it, but progress is painfully slow in the eyes of the locals.

            The houses here are pitch black, and have been for almost six hours since the sun went down.  The streets are lit by a crescent moon, but the moon can't penetrate the warren of slums where windows are rare.  It will be another several hours before the sun entices the populace back out into the street.  I can't help but wonder what they tell there children in the darkest hours.  How do they give comfort when the nightmares come?  How do they help the little ones overcome the fear?  How do they overcome it themselves?  What do they think when the sounds of our vehicles pass?  Are we guardian angles?  Are we death squads sent by a militia to kill them?  Are we going to raid their home and snatch a loved one away?  In another place and another time I would expect to see lambs blood lining the doorposts and lintels, biding the angle of death to pass over the house just one more night.

            We drive on.  Death will not visit tonight, or at least not that we observe.  At the turn of the year this area was reporting thirty murders a day.  Daylight would find corpses arrayed on either side of the road marking the boundary between Sunni and Shia neighborhoods.  Bodies deliberately drug from the scene of the crime and purposefully staged, each side striving to instill fear in the hearts and minds of the other.  January saw over six hundred slaughtered.  We are down now to a handful a week.  Breaking the cycle of violence has been easier than we expected.  But how do you wipe that experience from the minds of the locals?  How do they learn to forgive and forget?  That fear has to be replaced with something.  We hope we can start with light, resurrecting the metallic corpse tacked on the cemetery wall.

            Several days later we patrol by day.  We stop at the soviet style statue down by the bridge.  We have been back here several times since that first nervous press conference.  Tradition lets soldiers who are reenlisting pick where they want to have it done.  My Doc just signed on for another six years.  Great news for our Army.  He decided he wanted to reenlist at that statue.  I bring COL B down there with us to take part in the ceremony.  Partly to educate him on how our process works, but also so he could hear the words to the oath our soldiers take.  He understands them, and lives by very similar ideals.  I want him to see that we work to instill those values in every solder.  He is pleased to participate; he knows it is important to DOC.  We bring an American flag, but don't unfurl it.  DOC  hold it as he reaffirms his oath and we pose for photos.  The Shurta are curious.  We take the opportunity to walk the street.

            We no longer shuffle through piles of trash.  It is not clean by our standards, but sparkles in comparison.  Much like visiting New York City before and after Rudy Giuliani's tenure as Mayor, the difference is striking.  We visit a newly opened café on the corner.  The owner proudly proclaims that it is the oldest café in the district, which would make it one of the oldest in Baghdad.  The expansive room looks larger than it really is, due to an abnormally high ceiling and large columns that line the two open walls that face the corner of the street.  The inside is painted what was once a warm mustard, but is now stained by smoke.  At the back of the room is an open fireplace lined with white porcelain tiles.  Old men drink chai and play dominoes at low tables.  They grin toothless grins and exchange warm greetings as we enter.  I could make a fortune turning this place into a Mexican cantina.  Note to self.  Find mustard color paint.

            On the way back home the radio crackles.  My terp translates quickly.  COL B has stopped the convoy, but we are not getting out.  That is a bit unusual. Not the stopping part, he is always stopping to make a correction on one of his security forces, or to talk to locals, or to investigate something that looks out of place.  So it is very odd that he would stop but not dismount.  Instead, one of his guys jumps out and darts into a local bakery.  He comes out a few minutes later with box in hand.  The radio crackles again "ok, we can go."  We do.  We eat a late lunch.  Sometimes it's just COL B and I.  Sometimes the whole team eats. Often it's a mix.  Today, it is just COL B and my two majors.  We eat back in his private room, not out in his office.  We had not done that before.  The conversation is light.  The chai guys keep us well cared for. 

            COL B loves deserts.  He has been telling me about one of his favorites which has an Arabic name I can't remember that translates into "from the sky".  I have no idea what "from the sky" is made of, and neither do they.  The bakers keep it a guarded secret apparently.  Served on a tray of flour, "from the sky" comes in small Oreo size globs.  Sticky on the inside, the flour makes it possible to hold.  It is not dough, nor is it taffy.  Somehow it is both, and contains a nut similar to a pistachio in it.  I love it, partly because I can not figure out what it is.  It is kind of like what you get when you knead a marshmallow for a few minutes, but not that sweet.

            When we have eaten all we can eat, COL B goes to his refrigerator and pulls out a bakery box, the one picked up earlier on the patrol.  He grins broadly.  "I have just a little thing for your birthday."  A cake from Haifa Street, that is hardly a little thing, I am delighted.  "Take it with you so your team can celebrate."  We save it for the next day.  My mother has taken to celebrating birthday weeks in recent years.  I think it's a shame she didn't have this epiphany when I was nine.  But thirty-nine will do. 

So tonight we sat out behind one of Saddam's old palaces.  In the gardens, under the palm trees are a variety of tea shops and small restaurants catering to the soldiers.  We drink chai and eat cake.  My team has been together for six months now.  We laugh about those first few months of training, and plot the first few months of our return.  COL B's gift takes us away, at least for a few hours, from a city still desperately in need of our efforts, tentatively embracing a few early rays of light.





Hope this finds you and yours doing well.  We are.

[Janet Harrington]

Whoever this soldier is, he needs to be a writer.  He paints a picture in words that allows your mind to see what he is seeing.  To feel what he is feeling.  Thank you again, Carl, for sharing.  I love it.  I sit and read and can almosts escape Howard, Kansas, and sit in Iraq with this man.

[Wilma]

Ditto to what Janet just said.  I love hearing about the more positive side.  Of course, this wouldn't make good news so the reporters avoid telling us about it.

[Janet Harrington]

I want to share a YouTube video made by Bob Parks, Black & Right.  It is very good and I hope that you are able to make it play.  He's talk is about the liberals wanting to give Iraq a timetable to get our troops out of Iraq.

     http://www.youtube.com/v/m9Yc3wYJOtI

You may have to copy and paste this address into your address window to get it to come up.

Bob Parks is a member/writer for the National Advisory Council of Project 21, and
VP of Marketing and Media Relations/Staff Writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc.

Enjoy. 

[Teresa]

Thank you very much Carl. These are wonderful .