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Emails from Lt. Josh Arthur

Alive and Kickin'

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Hello All,

Back by popular demand, and because I'd received notes from a few of you that you wanted to make sure I was ok since I hadn't written a tome lately, here's my latest report from how things are over here. I have to begin by saying, once more, how very grateful I am and my soldiers are for all the care package sent our way by so many of you and your friends whose generosity is truly breathtaking. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I've made horrible progress on the thank-yous I mentioned last time, as is my unfortunate fashion, but the fact that I might not have gotten my words down on paper (yet) in no way diminishes how very thankful I am. Your packages are not only heartwarming reminders of the care and concern of so many of you back home but also, given our present situation, an excellent source of very useful and much-needed supplies! "Say, Josh," you might ask, "this 'present situation' you mention - what is it, exactly?" And were you to ask, I would be obliged to answer . . .

. . .that things have changed quite a bit since the last time I wrote! Operations have changed for our battalion and, therefore, for its humble mortar platoon (me and my guys). And there's even some speculation that former members of my battalion (1-5 CAV) are responsible, in a way, for the change that's caught up to us several years down the road! But I'm getting ahead of myself. Last time I wrote, my platoon was attached to a line mechanized infantry company, and we were conducting daily combat patrols in western Baghdad. Since then, the focus of operations has changed a great deal: I'm sure you're all familiar with the "troop surge" that was so publicized following the President's State of the Union address, and the perception is that things have changed largely because of it. How have they changed?

First and foremost, our battalion has relocated its headquarters, in effect. Most units, to my knowledge, used to operate much like we did: we all had our headquarters on one of the major Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) here in or around Baghdad, and those served as a sort of home base from which to stage patrols and conduct missions. That is, we lived here on the FOB, we would prepare ourselves and then head out on a patrol into Baghdad, and then we would return to the FOB. Some patrols were longer than others, of course, and some units - particularly specialty groups like scouts and snipers - have long been accustomed to conducting different sorts of missions whereby they set up and observation post at a predetermined point in the city, remain in place for perhaps a day or two, and then return to the FOB to refit. By and large, though, the out-and-back method was the one that was most commonly used.

As the result of a new strategy for operations within the city, however, units have actually begun to move off the FOB. Our battalion headquarters, or the principal place in which plans are developed and management of the units on patrols takes place, is now in a building out in the middle of the city, believe it or not. The kernel of the strategy is that with a more permanent presence of coalition forces in the neighborhoods, insurgents will have less freedom of maneuver, residents will feel safer, and our close conjunction with the Iraqi Security Forces will instill a kind of trust-by-association (with us), then a more complete trust of the ISF by the general population. (In our area, by the way, residents are still unfortunately skeptical of many of the ISF when they are not operating hand-in-hand with coalition forces. More on that later). So about a month ago, we packed up shop and basically moved our base of operations to a building in western Baghdad.

A filthy building in western Baghdad.

I don't mean to complain, because I'd still rather live in a hardened structure than a tent in the middle of the desert any day of the week. But the building into which we moved was a display of filth of a pretty unbelievable kind. Trash littered the entire compound (which was inhabited and is now co-inhabited by Iraqi Army soldiers), inside the building and around the grounds. The building had no running water or electricity (not uncommon in Baghdad); the bathrooms were (and are) filled with waste, excrement, and standing water; there was human feces on the floors of several rooms. All in all, it was a pretty uninspiring place to think about calling home.

We've made huge improvements in the month we've been there, however. We conducted an intensive cleaning campaign, re-painted walls, fixed the generator that supplied power to the building, and built our own latrine facilities to avoid using the almost hopelessly filthy bathrooms inside (the only downside being we now have to burn our own waste). The place isn't exactly top-notch, but it's tremendously improved from when we moved in. You can imagine the guys weren't exactly thrilled at the idea of leaving the comforts of the FOB and spending the majority of their time out at our JSS - I confess it didn't sound terribly appealing to me, either - but I try to remind myself that this has been the norm for nearly every conflict in the past. Burger King wasn't exactly a main attraction in Normandy that the boys could kick back and relax in. So it really boils down to a matter of expecations and comparison: the only reason this seems bad is because, until now, we've simply had it so good. So I don't mean to complain, exactly; if this is what we'd expected when we deployed and had been the only thing we'd known, I'm sure we'd be thankful for the fact that that we had a permanent structure to live in, period.

The other principal reason we've moved shop to the middle of the city (in addition to providing a more permanent presence) is that it allows us an even closer working relationship with our Iraqi counterparts. We now incorporate them more closely into our own planning process, when possible, because the intention of our "Joint" Security Station is to make it just that - a joint headquarters, our battalion nested with the headquarters of an Iraqi Army brigade. We have interpreters on-site permanently to facilitate discussion between us and the Iraqis, who continue to live in the same building we do (on the floor below us). We review much of the information we gather with them hand-in-hand, and they're even responsible for providing us with some information about activity in the area that we ourselves could never know (this is their home, after all). I think it's safe to say that the effectiveness of the overall program has yet to be determined, but whether you may like it or not, I think it's an encouraging thing that we now have a more defined path and more measurable goals.

Out at this new location, my platoon has taken responsibility for its day-to-day defense. We no longer, for the time being, head out on patrols day in and day out, nor are we any longer attached to our old infantry company. We are once again a more independent unit, and so the principal thing with which we've been concerning ourselves for the past month has been maintaining and improving the security of our new joint headquarters. Is it a glamorous task? Not in the least. But with reports lately of joint headquarters having become a particularly fond target for insurgent attacks, it happens to be an important one, and someone has to do it. On the plus side, our daily rhythm is somewhat more solidified and we're able to focus on more specific things from day to day. Part of me misses being out engaging the local public and conducting patrols each day, but I'm equally pleased to have a more focused task now and to once again be the somewhat more indpendent battalion-level asset that is the intention of the Mortar Platoon in the first place.

Also, we were on the news on account of our occupation of this JSS! Richard Engel, the NBC correspondent, was embedded with our battalion for a week or so at the beginning of February. If you happened to see any reports about the horrors of life at the new JSS last month, that was probably us you were looking at. My soldiers and I made it into some footage used by the crew; they went with as we conducted a dismounted patrol in the area immediately around the JSS, and one of my soldiers was shown being interviewed and smoking with the Iraqi Army soldiers on the floor below us. The story wasn't falsified, but it's fair to say that the news crew had its own idea of the story they wanted to tell and found evidence to support it. I don't feel that the new place is particularly more dangerous than the FOB, and while it's not a joy to have to go showerless for a week at a time, as I said, that's been the standard for all armies of the past (indeed, even for most military field training still today, for that matter).

Remember how I mentioned that former officers from my battalion were in some way responsible for this new plan? Well, that might be crediting a small population too directly. But at the conclusion of this battalion's last deployment to Iraq, which ended in February/March 2005, the operations officer and an intelligence officer put forward recommendations on fighting a modern counterinsurgency campaign that won acclaim and recognition from the Army and, so the word has been passed down, caught the eye of the incoming senior leaders as the new commander in the region, General Petraeus, was inbound. The ideas put forth in the article written by former 1-5 officers bear much in common with this new plan of having battalion and company combat outposts.

All in all, things are still fine over here, lest you're wondering what my final opinion is. Haha. It's less "exciting" not conducting patrols, as I said, but we're immersed in the city all day, every day now. The view from the roof of our building in the morning is as pretty as most sunrises I've seen, in its own way, although I'll take the Caribbean any day, thank you very much. Really, though, spirits here remain pretty high. I was saddened to hear that two soldiers of my former platoon were injured when an IED detonated near their Humvee, both suffered severely broken legs, but survived. And the battalion has had other casaulties and two subsequent fatalities since I last wrote, as well, which are never any easier to accept or believe, but we know that with each day that passes, we're that much closer to being home again. I personally can't wait to get home on leave in May, where I'll spend time in Savannah with my family then time with my girlfriend near Mt. Rainier (I figured it would be a nice way to be cool for a final few days before returning to face the brutal summer over here). In the meantime, don't worry about us over here! I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits to match my own, and I look forward to hearing from you if you get the chance, as always.

Love to all,
Josh

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