Back home

Well superfriends, I'm home. I've actually been home for about a week now, but didn't update the blog. Strange, I wrote as often as I could while deployed, but didn't write much about the coming home process. I don't know why exactly, but I don't think I'm the only one. Even in my own community of embedded observers, there's plenty written about the deployment process and the actual tour itself, but very little on the return trip. Part of it could be that people are "smelling the barn door" and reluctant to take on new work as they start thinking of home.

But, I think there's a part of me that feared that writing about it could somehow jinx it. Military folks are pretty superstitious and I'm no exception. But now that I'm back, I can say that it was a long process and involved a lot of waiting. The route home was: Iraq, Kuwait, Ireland (just a quick layover), Ft. Benning, Georgia, Ft Leavenworth, Kansas, LA, San Francisco, then finally Shanghai.

Seeing Sarah again was not something I was apprehensive about, like some soldiers are. It had only been about 7 months and we had been in regular contact. No kids or routine to worry about messing up. Getting my head back into the game to return to work will be a little tough. Things have changed, market conditions have changed, projects have moved on, and a lot of my role has been taken up by others on the team. I'll have another week of break and then will ease back in, but am counting on some understanding from my boss and the guys.
It is strange to not be in uniform every day, have fewer restrictions on daily life. I've woken up several times and experienced a sense of not knowing where I am. I am glad not having to worry if today will be the day where a random act of violence will touch me or someone I know. But, civilian life also has plenty requirements and sometimes it's almost easier not having choices.

I count my blessings - I stayed safe during this deployment, I learned a lot, I have a wife who is strong and independent, an employer who supported my absence, and a group of friends and family who kept my spirits up. But not everyone is as lucky. Suicide and divorce rates in the military continue to climb. A good friend of mine confided in me a couple days before I left that his wife told him that their marriage was over. Three deployments in 5 years did that. He will probably get to go home early to try and solve things, but I don't envy him.
If you come across any spouses or family members of deployed servicemembers, keep in mind the challenges they face and if you can, say or do something nice. Many people don't know what to say or are afraid it'll come out like a cliche, but it is always appreciated.
So that's it for now! Thanks for sticking with my first blog during this little journey and I've dearly appreciated all the contact and words of support. I'll continue to update with life in China and elsewhere, so stick around if you like.

Lessons in Iraqi culture part 2

 

Last night, I'm having one of those dreams where there is a repeating sound, and it gets louder and more insistent until you finally half-wake to figure out that it's coming from real life.  CLANG-CLANG-CLANG....CLANG-CLANG-CLANG.  I heard this repeat 4 or 5 times, then resigned myself that it wasn't going away.  Usually, when there is an indirect fire attack, they use the "Big Voice" or loudspeaker warning system that blankets the base.  I figured that either it was broken, or the Iraqis were running a drill.  If it was a drill, I thought as the sole American representative, I was duty-bound to set a good example and play along. 

 

Back in the days when we thought that all our enemies were going to use nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, we had it pounded into our heads that the sound of metal on metal meant an imminent attack.  I don't know if that also applies to rocket attacks (which is the common threat in Iraq now), but I assumed so.

 

I stuck my head out and saw an Iraqi guy running around sounding the alarm.  I got his attention and mimed a rocket coming in.  He nodded.  So, I got my body armor and helmet on and headed out towards the bunker.  They had fenced it off since I was last there.  I had to walk all the way around, wondering the whole time why I didn't see any other Iraqis.  I got to the concrete bunker and there was no one in it.  That was not totally surprising, since Iraqis tend to blow off alarms.

 

I tracked down the guy ringing the alarm and repeated my rocket pantomime.  THis time, he shook his head and responded with the universal fingers together pointing at his mouth.  I looked down at my watch which read 3am and it all made sense.  He was signalling the last meal before sunrise for Ramadan.  They just happened to pick the same sound that means chemical attack to us.  I had to laugh and went back to sleep for a few hours.

Day 150: "Building whose foundations create terror"

I've been at my "second home" for the past few days for a conference set up by this brigade to share its insights and recommendations on being one of the first specially designated "advise and assist" brigades. My own organization, the Center for Army Lessons Learned defines this as: "a modular brigade combat team augmented, based on the requirements of the operational environment, with enabling assets and capabilities to support a distributed security force assistance mission." It's all the rage right now.

When you strip away the hype, all this really means is that an AAB, about 3000-4000 soldiers strong, is no longer focused on fighting a counter-insurgency fight, but on stability operations and advising and assisting a host nation's own security forces (army, police, border security) and its government. It is really a difference in mindset -- in the words of the average joe -- from "blowing up sh*t" to teaching the Iraqi (or Afghan or [insert third-world country we've defeated here]) forces how to train themselves and the Iraqi government how to run itself and be legitimate. It's a pretty far step from where we saw the Army's role in 2003, which was to defeat the Iraqi Army and then go home. It's also the next evolution from the seize, hold, and build strategy used in previous years.

The problem? It takes us very far from our core competency and has us doing things that historically the military has never really been doing. When field artillerymen and tankers are learning how to be administrators of reconstruction funding and serving as project oversight for rebuilding projects, it necessarily takes them away from their ability to shoot big bullets when we need them to. And in Afghanistan, there is this need. The idea is that AABs will support the civilian Provincial Reconstruction Teams (6-15 person teams of specialists) from the State Department who will lead the stabilization effort. However, I've seen that the State Department right now isn't able to field the experts who can do this job. Despite being paid salaries ranging between $200-400k, some of these spots go unfilled or are filled with contractors who are unsuitable -- imagine an econ PhD who has no actual business experience.

Anyhow, the brigade did a good job of putting together a 3 day conference, which probably could have been 2 days. First day was good -- lots of multifunctional team discussion, but the final messages that were briefed to the big shots were mostly taken from a few dominant voices and some of the opposing viewpoints never made it. That's the military way -- makes me wonder if during some of the civilian breakout groups that I've organized, if I've ever been one of those voices that overpowered the others.

Enough boring stuff....I took around some of the Division and Corps folks to see the biblical Ziggurat of Ur, which is just outside the camp's security perimeter. Built an estimated 4000 years ago with similar characteristics as the Tower of Babil, the ziggurat actually means, "building whose foundations create terror!" The ancient Babylonians were big into buildings that reached to the skies and the ziggurat was the momma one of them all. The ancient city of Ur where it was situated was also the birthplace of the prophet Abraham. Although we couldn't actually get to the site, I took them along the fenceline to a security tower (manned by our friendly Ugandan contract security guards) where they could climb and take some good shots in the setting sun. One group even had a photo op with a pair of Apache helicopter gunships flying overhead. When I was getting ready to return with the second group, one of them pointed out that we had a flat. It was almost a joke -- took 6 senior officers and non-coms almost a half hour to get the tire changed because no one was familiar with where everything was on an armored Suburban. Finally we got it done and I was a little red-faced to return a borrowed vehicle with a flat tire in the back.

I had dinner with TL, the deputy team leader of the Dhi Qar provincial reconstruction team. We had met on a previous visit, when I interviewed him to gauge the military-civilian interaction, and this was a follow up visit (depressing, but a topic for another day). This was more of a social chat too... T is a career State Department guy and had been posted all throughout Asia. His Indonesian wife and two kids were actually in Beijing right now. So, we got along the way you do when you meet another expat. He returns in Feb, but departs China to go back to Indonesia in June of next year, so we traded info and hope to meet up in a different place. Small world.

Day 145: Mr. Culturally Sensitive

So, I thought I would be a good citizen, try and contribute something besides misery to the Iraqi military community that I'm a part of, and get a little cross-cultural exchange going, so I invited the Iraqis to the Army 10-Mile race that I'm running in tomorrow.  The Band commander also was very interested to do some sort of music exchange with them, so I suggested that as well.

 

As I finished chatting with the Deputy Commander, another truck with my pals, LT Mohammed and the medic, "Doc" SA, pulled up.  I said hello, then asked them if they had eaten yet.  They both said no.  I asked them if they wanted to get some lunch (and added, "with lots of ice cream")  Doc SA says, almost regretfully, "Sorry, I am fasting." 

 

Doh.  I knew that, but it didn't process.  I felt like a dick.

No more packages, please!

I've been traveling so much and am getting ready to start shipping things back home, so please hold off on sending any more packages.  I really appreciate everything you all have sent already to send a little taste of home!

Day 136: Last day of freedom

Ah, tomorrow morning will be a sad day. We fly out tomorrow to go back to the real world. We were delayed by one day. That's actually pretty good. There were groups here that had been "stranded" for a week. That means their 4 day pass turned into close to two weeks off.

But, work doesn't stop and I had told one of the units I was supporting that I would be there 2 days ago, so I'm actually glad to be going. Plus, with Ramadan going on, and no trips going out other than the mall, I end up going a little stir crazy. The equivalent is if you went on vacation, but were under house arrest. At a big house with a bowling alley, club area, and movie theater, but a big house still...

I did have the good fortune of being sponsored to go off post. A chaplain's assistant saw me walking to the chow hall and offered me a lift and then asked if I wanted to go into town. The deputy garrison commander and I went -- just in the right place at the right time. We went to the Gold Souks (markets) and the tourist quarter -- beautiful at night and even though it was after sundown, there still were not many locals there. I found that Qataris get something like $8000/month for nothing other than being citizens. Men get more than women, so women go to university more than the men.

The old city markets didn't have much to offer that was really unique. The exception was a falconry training center that had a few falcons just chillin with little gimp-style hoods on. Their hearing was so sharp that they would cock their heads wherever we were moving in the store. I felt bad for the shop owners. They have to know that everytime an American enters the store that they'll ask the same stupid questions and won't buy anything.

Even the pearls here were from Dubai or Tahiti, though a long time ago, apparently there were actual pearl divers here.

We had dinner at a nice Qatari restaurant. The place was nearly empty, but good atmosphere and attentive service. I had the mixed grill and some banana yogurt -honey drink.

I heart poodles

There are no words to describe this.

Maybe, "why?"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1208913/The-poodles-transformed-pandas-horses-snails-creative-grooming-dog-shows.html

Day 134: Qatari Beach Day

So, this morning, I was able to secure a spot on the inland sea picnic. For $27, it was an excellent deal. The 20 of us split amongst 5 SUVs and drove out to the coast. Although we had to wear long sleeves, long pants, and closed toe shoes, the drivers did not. Go figure. It took us about 45 min to get out to the sand dunes. On the way, we got to see a little bit of some of the apartment complexes from a distance. Lot of construction going on, pretty clean and nice Arabian architecture that reminded me of the Alhambra in Spain.





The sand dune driving was a trip. Our driver, Shyam, from Sri Lanka (the other drivers were from Ethiopia, Egypt, and Pakistan) was really good and took us ripping across the dunes at angles that I was sure were going to make us rollover. We finally ended up on a bluff overlooking the coast -- impressive.

Then we drove down to a semi-permanent camp with A/C tents, volleyball court (that no one used), showers, and an eating area. For the next 3 hours, we did whatever we wanted there, but mostly, people just swam, laid out (but the sun was extremely hot and anyone who was follish enough to suntan will pay the price tomorrow), ate, or read.

The water was beautiful. Light shade of blue, then turned into a dark turquoise when it got deeper. What was most unique about it was the salinity, which was so high that some of the women were able to lay back and just float. I tried and failed, getting a nose full of super salty water. I highly recommend you not try this.

I felt sorry for the two bored looking camels that had been there all day, so paid $5 to ride one and get some pictures.

When we came back, the entire carfull of people was really subdued because people were just worn out and sunburn-fatigued. Good day.

I had hoped to make the evening trip to the mall, but no luck - already full. Apparently, it's a place where you can ice skate.

Hell is bad karaoke

Now I understand why karaoke has such a bad reputation in the US. People are allowed (or feel they are allowed) to sing when they should not be singing.

Maybe just military folks sing worse than the average person?
Maybe military have less inhibitions?

Whatever it is, they need to take a page from the asians who practice and when they don't have anything nice to sing, stay away from the mike...

Day 133: In Qatar on 4 day R&R pass

The military has an old tradition of giving R&R (rest and recuperation) for soldiers in combat theaters. This has changed significantly over time. Back in the Civil War, soldiers would just take off and go visit their families, etc. Then in Vietnam, it was a little more formal -- there were bases in more secure zones with some of the amenities of home, made nice for soldiers to take some time off, but you could still go out on the town and get in trouble. The version today, is a little sanitized for my taste (nightly curfews, lots of paperwork, little contact with the locals, and lots of rules), but it's still a welcome break.

Soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait go to Qatar, an oil-rich emirate that has been tolerant of US bases in it since the first Gulf War. It's a Sunni Muslim state, but expats actually make up the majority of the residents and enjoys the 2nd highest per capita income in the world. It borders the Arabian Gulf and has a reputation for very clean, nice cities.

Unfortunately, my group won't ever know. Our pass just happened to coincide on the 1st day of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, and indulging in anything that is in excess or ill-natured; from dawn until sunset. What this meant for us was the cancellation of most activities. The city tours, shopping market tours, boat cruises, golf, and water sports, were all nixed. Only thing left were the inland sea picnic and stupid mall tours. I don't know why they didn't find some other events that started after dusk, but I'm not in charge.

So, after a day-long journey of flying from Basrah to Tallil to Kuwait and then finally on to Qatar, we got here at 3am. Went through customs (were told repeatedly not to swear at the Qataris -- apparently, enough people have been kicked out of the country for doing so), then got picked up 2 hrs later to go to the R&R camp.

This airbase really has a lot of creature comforts. Big gym, USO with many computers, Orange Julius, pizza place, burger joint, pool, bowling alley, even a putt-putt course and small driving range. Some babysitting rules in effect -- maximum of 3 drinks per day (though I understand this one), women can only wear one-piece swimsuits and no Speedos for men (I have those European style boy-shorts good for diving, didn't know if those were kosher), and no flipflops.

We stay in big bays with bunks and wall lockers. 20 bunks to a room for officers (01-05), private rooms for SGMs and O6 and above. No schedule during those 4 days -- eat, sleep, when you want, and show up for the trips. I was a little amazed that some of the soldiers I spoke with since I've been here who are finishing up their pass chose to spend their time just playing Xbox and lounging by the pool instead of going out to see the city, when they had the chance.

She's so romantic, that wife of mine

I woke up today, day like any other except that I had a text message saying, "Happy Anniversary!" That Sarah....she really knows how to melt a guy's heart...

So, this is probably the 3rd anniversary we've spent apart. Kind of a miserable day actually -- was supposed to have hopped on a flight to get to Qatar for a 4 day pass, but apparently the plane was last night and no one mentioned the news to any of the 18 people scheduled to be on it. Welcome to the Army, please sit down and shut up.

So, we'll try again tomorrow. At least I didn't waste any time sitting in some hot passenger terminal waiting for a bird that might or might not show. Unfortunately, I figured I'd be doing a lot of waiting, so I was up late last night and didn't get a lot of sleep.

So dear, if you die, I will not flush you down the toilet. That's how much you mean to me.

Happy A

Day 125: Case closed, sad chapter

So the night I informed the Iraqi chain of command, I decided to file a report with our own MPs.  They came over around 9pm, and we dropped by the dining hall and the Deputy Commander and the security chief were both there.  I had asked the two MPs to be low-key because this was not our backyard.  They were two specialists (junior soldiers), so weren't going to throw around a lot of weight anyhow.  COL Nazzir said that the MAJ Jabbar had tossed a few rooms on that row, but found nothing.  I asked whether they had taken my suggestion to look for the distinctive squeegee that had been taken along with the phone.   My logic was that the guy would have hidden the phone, but wouldn't have thought to hide the squeegee.  Find the "smoking squeegee," finger the culprit. 

 

They hadn't, but COL Nazzir directed MAJ Jabbar to do so and the MPs went to join him.  15 min later, they came back with the squeegee.  They found it just a few rooms away in the room of one of the young soldiers that was in the group that liked to hang out with my roommate -- this was the group I suspected, but didn't want to believe to be guilty.  When they asked where it came from, nobody would own up to it, but one of the guys had just left that morning to go on his 10 days' leave that every soldier gets each month.  At that point, there was a bit of headscratching as the soldiers' commander and MAJ Jabbar tried to figure out what to do next.  I wanted to tell them that they needed to segregate the buddies immediately before they had a chance to cook up a story, lean on them and see who they fingered and how the stories varied.  He told me he would bring the soldier back and then compare his story to mine.  That didn't make sense to me because of course our stories would be different and then it would be my word vs. his.  But, this wasn't our show, and I couldn't force him to run his investigation.  Very frustrating -- in a way, this is exactly what we are going through in the entire country.  We want to do things a certain way, but have to go through the Iraqi forces now and they're going to do it their own style.

 

They decided to recall him.  Last night I got a knock on my door.  There were the two MPs there and the US Air Force Master Sgt who is the liaison officer training the Iraqis.  He said that they had found the guy and had the phone and were waiting at the dining hall to meet me.  We walked on over.  General (retired) Falah was there, the senior man, and someone I knew.  He expressed that they were very embarassed by this and wanted to set an example and that the culprit already had his papers stripped, would be drummed out of the Iraqi Army, and was now in jail, where he would be locked away "for years."

 

We went over to the security chief's office and he told us what had happened.  They brought the soldier, Sabouri, back from leave and MAJ Jabbar questioned him closely for an hour.  He denied everything, but after awhile, MAJ Jabbar told him to tell the truth and that nothing would happen.  He then fessed up and said the phone was in Baghdad.  They sent him all the way back (about a 5 hr drive) to fetch it.  Sure enough, it was him.  Then, MAJ Jabbar sent him to jail. 

 

So, on the one hand, I'm happy to get my phone back.  I'm glad they found who it was and that an example was made.  There have been thefts before, but they'd never caught someone.  But, that night, I couldn't sleep.  I was really bothered by the fact that the thief was someone I had invited into my room and shared drinks and I thought, friendship.  We talked about families.  Even more, I was bothered that his life was probably ruined.  In jail, how would his wife and two kids (unless he lied about that) get by?  Would he become bitter and vengeful and turn into a criminal, when he could have been turned right?  Did the punishment fit the crime?

 

I don't know... I understand the reason for administering a harsh sentence and making a statement, but I don't want all this on my conscience.  I think after this simmers down, I will go and ask for leniency.  It will, after all, shortly be Ramadan, and that is a time for charity. 

Day 121: The other shoe drops

Someone broke into my room last night between 11pm and 1am when I was at the gym.  They didn't take too much -- my mobile phone, and oddly, a bathroom squeegee and some toothbrushes.  The impact though was the big hit.  I feel angry, disappointed, and most of all, betrayed.  The timing tells me that clearly it was not an outsider, but someone who knew I was out.  Chances are good that it was one of the young bunch that my former roommate hung out with.  They had been in the room and were able to explain why they'd be inside the outside door.
 
When I realized it, there wasn't much I could do last night.  This morning, I woke up early and hoped to find Gen Falah, who I am familiar with.  He wasn' t around, so I found the deputy instead, a COL Nazzi.  His response was as I hoped -- he was mad and got the security officer and ordered an investigation. 
 
I haven't gotten the official outbrief yet, but I dropped in at noon to supervise the lock replacement (they busted the lock).  Someone wandered by and mentioned that the "investigation" hadn't revealed anything.  I'm not counting on getting my phone back (though getting all the numbers and notes that I've stored on there over the years would be worth it).  But, I do want a precedent set so that there will be some sort of deterrent from this happening again.
 
Guess I am the bounteous breasts for this Iraqi military to suckle at....

Proof that Facebook is taking over the world

Of the 8 public computers that I can see around me in this morale, welfare, and recreation center, 5 are open to a facebook screen. Wow.

Day 120: The bounteous breasts of America

I don't know how much of a buzz this has created back home in the mainstream media, but a high ranking officer here whose role was to advise the entire command leadership on Iraq policy recently released (some say it was leaked) a memo stating that US forces need to go home.

It has a lot of detail and supporting examples of why we have overstayed our welcome and that by staying longer, we run the risk of becoming targets, both kinetically (in the military sense) and politically. Many folks with Iraq experience agree with the points he makes, but the word is that up in Baghdad, the big cheeses are either too committed to the path they have chosen (and admittedly, nothing turns on a dime and things are thought out for a reason), or fundamentally disagree. Buzz is that the emphasis is on finding out and controlling the leak of non-official, yet attributable opinion pieces instead of whether the logic has merit. This is the second such "leak" in the past couple of months.

Take a look if you want to understand what some of the frustrations are. This is a very different Iraq deployment than even one or two years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/world/middleeast/31advtext.html

Can anyone tell me how to post entire articles as originally formatted in as blog posts?

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So I just got back to Basrah two nights ago after 3 weeks on the road. Never thought I'd think it, but it's nice to be "home" in Basrah. Fortunately, all my stuff was intact at my desk, but in my room, all the stuff was gone from the bathroom....again. Lesson learned is to not put anything there when I'm gone for extended trips. I now have to cover down on my colleague at another brigade, so I will probably split my time between there and here.

Thinking about that memo again and my earlier comments I shared about creating a dependent culture, I am a little sad. A bunch of young Iraqi soldiers came out to greet me the first night I got back. These were the bunch that my roommate, a captain, hung out with. I tend to stick with a few of the older, quieter guys. Within 2 minutes of chatting with them, one of them goes, "Give me DVD." I figure that this is his learned, broken English and he doesn't understand the nuance between "may I" and "give me." I kind of beg off, giving a white lie that all of my movies can only be played on the computer. But, it's pretty clear that it's not just choice of words -- we go through the same game with, "Give me drink," "Give me bandage," and the next morning, "Give me black t-shirt." It really did bum me out. We created this.

BBQ corn nuts

oh how i love you, my bbq corn nuts

Day 111: A typical day in paradise

Today was a good day -- sort of representative of the things I'm doing here, so thought I'd share...

Yesterday, I left the Regional US Embassy compound in Babil province, which is not far from the biblical hanging gardens of Nebuchanezzar. Unfortunately, I was only there for an overnighter, so I did not get to go see the ruins of the gardens or the palace that Saddam built right on top of some other archaelogical city foundation. I also did not get to take a dip in the pool that the embassy has. I was there to meet the Provincial Reconstruction Team, debrief the outgoing and incoming military support elements, and talk to the civil affairs teams to get input for the series of recommendations I'm writing about how to improve the way the Army and the civilian reconstruction teams work together.

Anyhow, that night, we had another indirect fire attack -- nothing as effective as the rockets in Basrah. The embassy is protected by contracted guards (Blackwater), not the military, so they went up to the roof with snipers while we waited downstairs. I felt pretty useless with the civilian contractors protecting us.

I jumped in with a convoy coming out to Kalsu, also in Babil province, but further north and much larger. This area is notorious for dust, and it was so thick, visibility was limited to two cars ahead, so we kept the speed down. Last week an MRAP driver fell asleep and hit a Iraqi car headon. 18 tons vs. 2 tons -- the civilians didn't have a chance.

The civil affairs guys took care of me and put me in a room in their compound. The room looks like a cross between a 10 year old's playroom and a college dorm. Two beds on milk crates, homemade furniture constructed from 2x4's, snacks and wrappers all over the place, kiddie sheets on the bed, a stuffed teddy bear in the corner, and Maxim's all over the place (man, I thought I had outgrown those, but they're pretty addictive...even if they are from 2003). Best part was that someone routed an internet cable through the wall.

I slept fairly well, and then woke up at 5:30am to get ready for a mission. I ate breakfast and then linked up with the CA guys and the infantry platoon that was providing security. The mission was to check on some issues with the farmer's market that this team had poured over $2M to build. We took the MRAPs, which was unusual, because those things are so big and have such an aggressive, military appearance, which is something we're getting away from. We also did not use an Iraqi police or Army escort, which is also pretty standard after the June 30 security agreement, which requires most movement to be escorted.

We arrived, met the 8 man "management board" mostly composed of the local sheiks and a few other influential people. They explained that they wanted to expand the market stalls because trucks could not get in all at once. They didn't come out and say it, but they wanted money. Before seeing the problem, the project leader said the right thing, which was to ask them if they'd considered getting a loan, adding an investor, or increasing the stall rent. They looked at each other like they really hadn't. I suggested we take a look because it might just be an operational problem. We walked outside and there were two large permanent overhead stall covers about 25' apart. I could see how it could get congested. But, with some established traffic patterns and a couple traffic cops, it could get a lot better. The iraqi traditional way is to just let anyone come in at all times, leave their trucks there, basically chaos. So, who knows if they'll do it. But, asking for money to expand after only 2 months of operations and when they haven't even gotten the liquidity to pay their own salaries, tells me that they're still learning to do things for themselves. We are in the business of helping them take care of things themselves. That's why it's a little annoying to most everyone in the civil affairs community to be told that an additional $500M had to be spent this year.

Anyhow, we told them we had confidence in them (the equivalent of, "Yeah, you got it taken care of.") and then rolled back to camp. Just had enough time to drop my gear, grab some lunch and then went in to interview the brigade commander and his deputy. This is a typical interview with broad questions about what they've learned to pass on to other units and leaders. Generally, I have no problem securing these interviews because commanders love to talk. But they usually have pretty good insights, so it's valuable. The deputy gave pretty ho-hum answers, but the commander was very opinionated. Unfortunately, he was from West Virginia and talked a mile a minute, so I had problems keeping up. Some people use an audiorecorder, but I prefer to just write.

After the interview, I sat in on an intelligence synch meeting to see how the different staff share information. The group here is doing better than most. Usually, everybody is pretty silo'd. The intelligence guys just want to focus on threat intelligence about bad guys, while the civil affairs guys just care about civil information on schools, who runs the electricity grids, etc. But there is a lot of potential for cross-over. For instance, one PRT team leader was talking with a Brigade commander about a deputy governor who was seeming to be very uncooperative and driving a wedge between the rest of the local govt and the PRT. Turns out that this guy was actually implicated in the murders of two Iraqi policemen and was giving information leading to the emplacement of IEDs against our patrols. With that info, she could now plan her strategy to try to isolate him.

I had a few more informal conversations with people who wanted to share some observations from their time there. Like my civilian job, I end up hearing a lot of the frustration of people, and it's tough because I can't influence everything and can't promise anything. But, at least input allows me to prioritize the messages and once in awhile, I can talk to the right people to fix things.

Went back to the room to crunch the past several days' notes into updating my drafts and then sent them out back to Ft. Leavenworth in preparation for a conference call meeting tomorrow where we are going to try to deconflict what everyone is doing. Apparently, a lot of people are working on this topic of civil capacity building, and it's good not to be duplicating efforts.

Finished about 9pm, did a quick check-in call with my analyst back in the US, and then off to the gym for a quick workout before bed.

So that's a typical day in the life...little bit sweat, little bit writing, and a lot of talking. 4 provinces down, 2 to go. I should be back in Basrah in about a week.

Day 104: Scrappin' with the locals

Just a quick post to let you all know i'm fine and correct the impression I may have given that I was in the ER for an extended period of time. Nope, I was in and out -- just a quick check that all my bits and pieces were in the right place. My neck feels fine now.

Strange timing, because today I had lunch with one of Iraq's top wrestlers. Gaz is only 23, but has trained for 16 years, both here and in Iran, and hopes to train in the US as well. I met him through the provincial reconstruction team leader for the Diwaniya province, who met him through the nephew of a local sheyk who is a wrestling enthusiast. He didn't speak English, but we chatted through an interpreter and he said that he really was interested in learning some brazilian jiujitsu. The PRT team leader is trying to set up a wrestling tournament just to increase interaction with the locals. No, Sarah, I won't go near it...

I'm on 3 week trip outside the wire this time, covering 5 provinces. Started in Baghdad with a couple of conferences and am making my way down to the units I haven't met with yet. Coordination has been kind of painful, since there's so many parties involved.

This morning, I used the phone of an empty office and when the PRT civilian came in, my greetings and self-introduction was met with a "Who are you and what are you doing in my office?" (no smile). Yup, definitely a culture gap between the military and the civilians, but I thought that usually the guys wearing the green suits were supposed to lack social skills??

kare11.com | Twin Cities, MN | Three MN soldiers killed in Basra attack

kare11.com | Twin Cities, MN | Three MN soldiers killed in Basra attack

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Day 99: Lives lost for what?

Sorry, haven't blogged in awhile, haven't been in a terrific mood. Several nights ago, we lost 3 soldiers in a rocket attack.

These guys were not on patrol, they were not going into insurgent territory, and our base is not in a controversial location (in a city). They were just like you and me, probably getting ready to go eat late dinner, take a shower, go workout, or standing around talking about what they're going to do when they get back home.

Then, some insurgents who liked life the way it was before, fired off 5 rockets from outside the camp walls. 4 hit within the camp footprint. They were unusually accurate or lucky this time.

One hit near the living area, and those guys were gone. How do you tell their families that is how they died?

We need to quit "liberating" countries where we sink billions of dollars into the government, sheiks, and militaries, only to have celebrations when we leave (but keep the dollars coming, please) and where people watch insurgent cowards indiscriminately shoot at us from cover of night. And now we have our hands tied when we want to defend ourselves.

Just my personal opinion of course.

Day 91: Got put in the emergency room

But it's not what you think. Since I've been in Baghdad this week, I noticed in the gym that there are classes and one was combatatives (Brazilian jiu-jitsu). Since I was training before I deployed, and really enjoy it, I was psyched to check it out. At Basrah, not only are there no classes, there's not even a mat in the tiny gym we have to work out in.

So, the first night, I go in and it's just open mat, meaning you show up and do free sparring ("rolling") with anyone else who shows up. I went, met a few people, and did a little rolling for about an hour. There was really no pussyfooting about it. No going in slow -- you just wade right in. The first guy I matched up with probably outweighed me by about 90 lbs. He did submit me twice in the few times we rolled, but it felt good and I think he expected it to be easier from his first comment, "F*ck, you're annoying!"

Then, I sought out a smaller guy, who was hanging out in the wings, who turned out to be really good. The guy was doing leg and ankle locks on me, which beginners usually don't know. This was better because he wasn't just using his weight and sitting on me like the first guy -- and I was a little more technical. He submitted me 3 times, but taught me some stuff too.

The next morning, I was so sore I had a hard time getting out of my bunk.

The following evening, there was another session, but this time with instruction. We did basics like passing guard. That was followed with more rolling, and I learned that in gi-less (no uniform) fighting, there's few advantages in offense, but makes it much easier to escape -- because you're so sweaty and slippery and also because it's tough to grab onto clothing.

Then, the third night, I went back for more open mat and ended up matching up with the really experienced guy. We started easy, then got a little more aggressive -- maybe when I got him in a choke he didn't expect. He stacked me, which means he had my entire body up on my bent neck, and then he suddenly put more weight on me and twisted me at an odd angle. I felt a sharp pain shoot through my neck and heard a series of pops. Not good. I called him off, and froze -- I did not want to move.

To make it short, I ended up going to the post medical facility to get an x-ray and check things out. The doc said it was just a bad sprain and gave me all kinds of horse tranquilizers and muscle relaxants. And Sarah says that I'm too old to do this stuff anymore.

It's weird -- when I turn my head one way, I feel tingling in my scalp on the other side.

Let's hope this is the only time I'll have to see the ER this tour...


Oh, happy birthday to my brother !

Say it loud! I'm American and I'm proud!

Happy 4th of July everyone, especially my Yankee friends living overseas.  Get those MC Hammer pants out (you know, the ones with the flag screen-printed on them.)  Match them with a Three Wolf Moon t-shirt (http://www.amazon.com/Three-Official-T-Shirt-Cotton-Sleeve/dp/B000NZW3IY) and show the locals who's the ugly American. 

 

What did you do today for the holiday weekend???

Day 83: TGIF!!!

Just kidding... it's easy to lose track of what day is what because there's no real weekend.  Most people take it easy on Sun, but there's definitely no sense and excitement on Fri afternoon.  Actually, some people are giving their sections Sat off because it's the 4th of July, but since there are no real celebrations or parties, all you can do is really sleep longer, watch some DVDs, or go work out.  I may try to get the Iraqi guys out to play some football or ultimate frisbee. 

 

Ah, crud.  Going back to Baghdad for the 4th to attend a conference.  Maybe it being such a big post, there'll be some festivities like more cheerleaders!

 

So, here's a few random thoughts and observations that came to me as I sat in on an assessment of the sector this morning:

 

* One of the key things we're moving towards here is a professionalized law enforcement and judicial system based on evidence, not just witness statements and confessions.  So, a big part of this is building warrants, getting them approved by a judge who's got enough balls to not worry that someone will try to kill him or his family, and then partner with the Iraqi police or Army to go execute the warrant ("snatch the guy").  Problem is that after all of this, a lot of the suspects claim that they are not the ones on the warrant!  There are endless variations of names and it's all real confusing, but the bottom line is that some dirtbags slide because of that technicality.  So, the lifesaver is using biometrics (retina scans, fingerprints) to get people's identities right.  The effort is around getting people into the database, and then getting a hit when they come up for a violation, etc.  Since people tend to stay near their hometowns, if you get some guy who's not from his "hood", it's a good indication that he may be up to no good.

 

* The extremist groups have tried to increase their attacks on coalition forces as we moved combat forces out of the cities.  Why?  To try to claim credit for us leaving.  Kind of the equivalent of the skinny loudmouth kid saying, "Yeah, that's right...better get your ass out of here." as the big guys are already leaving the room.

 

* It's tough to be the Iraqi Police.  They already have a bad reputation because they are much more likely to either be corrupt or infiltrated and tied to the gangs or extremist groups.  But, now, an IP chief can lose his job based not only on either of those two claims, but also if he doesn't go along with the politicians' political agendas. 

 

* One major difference we're doing here is to consciously shift power from the traditional centers of influence -- the tribal sheiks -- to the elected officials of the Government of Iraq.  It's the right move because we want to build legitimacy of the government.  But, it feels a little forced -- is it really our job to meddle and change the shift of power?  The mechanism is reconstruction funding.  The US has done this for years....interestingly, there is little mention of this "soft" or non-kinetic power, which is really where the fight is now.  The scary thing is what is the role of the sheiks now?  If they become marginalized, there is the risk of them becoming anti-govt and therefore anti coalition force.  The friend of my enemy is my enemy...

 

* The Iraqis dropped leaflets over Basrah yesterday celebrating the pullout and also urging residents to support the government.  What is amazing is not the message or the delivery method, but that they did this without our urging and actually, without even coordinating with us.  At initial blush, I'm sure some people were a little prickly about that, but when you think about it, that's really a good step.  Goes back to that comment I mentioned about a week ago where a senior ranking American officer was given the door in his face when he tried to go to an Iraqi meeting.  "Thanks but no thanks.  This is an Iraqi meeting."

 

* In the immediate several weeks after the very important 30 June pullout which is going smoothly so far is addressing any report that we are violating the security agreement because this can be used to justify terrorist actions and attacks our credibility if not addressed immediately.  So far, there have been several claims in the Iraqi media that so and so saw American troops in so and so neighborhood without Iraqi Army or Police around.  So, it is important to have a battledrill ready to quickly respond and stand with the Iraqi security forces and say, "BS -- we did not do that."  In the past the battle drills were just to respond to indirect and direct fire, now words and perceptions are just as damaging.  Things like this really make me think that today's junior leaders have to be much more savvy and adaptive.  No more lugheads going "Me like break. Me kill."

 

* My old friend Mike S would get a big kick out of the fact that I have now seem the word "nefarious" used in at least two briefings.  So zany!

 

Day 80: American combat troops are out of the cities

So, although Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett's deaths have pushed Iran's democratic protests and the US "drawdown" out of the cities to the back pages, today was the Big Day. So far, there has been one terrorist attack -- up north in Kirkuk, where the Kurds have been asserting their autonomy and fighting not only with the Sunnis, Shi'as, but also the Turkish people.



Honestly, I don't know if it was Obama's push, or if that was just the impetus, but if so, I am already glad he's in power because putting some dates and some heat really got people from the momentum of stretching this out to being another Bosnia or Kosovo. Actually, someone should call me out on this because it was actually the security agreement and I think that was signed before the presidential campaigns.



Anyhow, I was in Baghdad today, but only in the Green Zone, so did not get to see any of the parades or ceremonies or "street parties." We took off from Baghdad to come back home around 2pm, so had a birds eye view from the helicopter, but still did not see anything. Strangely, the main roads were actually empty -- maybe a security measure?



This is a good thing folks.



Oh one funny incident. The chopper ride from Basra to Baghdad is one hot, unpleasant 3 hr experience. Maybe the first time, it's sort of cool. Maybe for about 20 min at most. You pass over some pretty incredible terrain -- mud houses with no power lines anywhere in sight, marshes, even some open water, then baked desert. But, having the hot wind and sand in your face for that long while your ass goes numb doesn't rank real high on my list of fun things to do. So, I was amused when the political advisor (POLAD) for our division, civilian equivalent to a general, pulled out a Amazon Kindle to read on the flight. I kidded her for awhile, and then right when she was started to get annoyed, I showed her mine. So we both had these geek toys and when the pilot came over during a refueling stop, he was shaking his head. I wrote on my hand, "Because no inflight magazines"

Day 79: Americans pull out of Baghdad = Iraqi Victory?

Caught this on Yahoo News (my choice of premiere, unfiltered, high quality news)...
 
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. troops pulled out of Baghdad on Monday, triggering jubilation among Iraqis hopeful that foreign military occupation is ending six years after the invasion to depose Saddam Hussein.
 
Iraqi soldiers paraded through the streets in their American-made vehicles draped with Iraqi flags and flowers, chanting, dancing and calling the pullout a "victory."
 
Read the whole thing here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090629/ts_nm/us_iraq
 
I agree that this is a good thing.  It answers the doubters (both in the US and in Iraq) of whether we are serious about this pullout.  Heck, any one who has spent 5 min talking with anyone who is in Iraq now or has been there in the past year could tell you as much that we are turning things over and getting the heck out of Dodge.
 
But what bugs me not just a little bit is when the guys you defeated, then built back up, trained, and pushed towards getting a plan to take over their own country, now drive around in the Humvees that you (the American public) bought them (and are having a helluva time teaching how to maintain) and say that it is their "victory."
 
Just a minor irritation of course.  Totally irrational, I know.
 
 

Day 77: Few images from the Iraqi Army

Short post -- got back from my trip, this time, didn't take 7 attempts, just one, and I walked into the passenger terminal and directly onto the waiting helicopter. Of course, that was only because I was in the Deputy General's party... life is a little different when you have those stars on your collar.

Little more excitement this trip -- our living area got rocketed (wasn't close to where I was sleeping), chopper got shot at, and the electricity went out, so I spent one night sweating my ass off and wishing I was dead. I somehow attracted some sort of insect, so had what looked to be about 80 bites on me -- turns out it was some sort of allergic reaction.

The complaints of the Iraqi locals about the electricity not being reliable becomes a lot more real when you are laying a pool of your own sweat, hoping it is daylight soon, but also not wanting it to be because it will be hotter...

Day 73: Iran's woes = good for us

Over here, all the televisions in the dining facilities have been tuned to the anti-government protests in Iran that were sparked when charges of election fraud were leveled against the current President Al...

It started as a peaceful, massive rally. No one really knew how the regime would react. We soon found out. Rhetoric about banning the protests led to police and the army being readied, to the on-air killing of a female student protester by a militiaman's bullet, to the latest -- violent confrontation by both sides.

I certainly think that if I were Iran I would have played this with a little more savvy. Allowing statements to go out like, "We will crush this protest" (from a leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard) don't really help legitimize your nation in the international arena. Many have clamored for more aggressive public support by the US government (mainly the Republicans), but I think that would play into Iran's hands. When your enemy is destroying himself, sometimes the best course of action is to stay out of his way.

This is definitely helping in the Iraq theater though, where anything that can distract the Iranians from their covert influence over Iraqi goings on -- whether anti-coalition force propaganda, economic influence (through cheap imports, for instance, which destabilize domestic Iraqi agriculture), and the smuggling of lethal aid to insurgencies, is welcome.

Day 72: Seventh time's a charm

It only took seven tries (and countless wasted hours), but I finally caught a flight out. This time it was on a Blackhawk -- it had been years since I'd been on one, and I forgot the rush you get from lifting off quickly, the ground only about 6 ft from your face, the "whup-whup" sound of the rotors, and the hot wind hitting you through the open windows. We flew over blue-green water, and it really did remind me of that scene from Apocalypse Now, where the Air Cavalry flies over Da Nang Beach with Wagner playing in the background. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!" Quick 45 min flight and we touched down.

I'm on another sector visit, this time to the provinces of Dhi Qar and Muthanna, which are sort of in the center of our area of operations. This belt has been fairly quiet in terms of violence, but there have been attacks that flared up recently and a few days ago a soldier was killed in an IED attack during a routine route patrol not far from here. The patrol had elements of the Iraqi security forces mixed in, which is our marching orders as we increase the force drawdown and try to legitimize the Iraqi police and Army who we have been training for the past few years. I can't relate the details, but apparently someone in the Iraqi police element snitched, leading to the patrol being targeted. Things like this make it very frustrating to hear dissatisfaction from both people who want us to stay around and those that want us to leave. For those of you that may think that the military is gung-ho and wants to stick around, I wish you could spend some time here. The planning around responsibly pulling out is not at all haphazard and consumes the waking hours of a lot of people here, whether in terms of what do we do with all our bases and equipment and hazardous materials, to what happens to the civil capacity building projects we leave behind, to probably the most important -- setting up the Iraqi security forces to enforce and defend the rule of law and defeat the insurgency.

Everyone wants to get out of here, but the military leadership has decided that we are not going to just run and leave even if that would be the easy thing. Trying to give up control of how we believe things should be done is probably the toughest thing to do. Even if we have a perfect plan, part of this working is that the plan must be bought in by the Iraqi leaders. Even better, it needs to come from them. That's our primary mission right now, is to be advisors and try not to step in unless asked. It sure is frustrating though.

On this trip, I am spending more time visiting the provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) and civil affairs troops to get a rounder perspective on how the civil capacity building mission is going and whether we are organized the right way for the Army and the civilians to work together. This is, as we'd say in business school, "soft, squishy stuff", but it's very important and there are lessons to be learned that we can implement to improve. At least I hope so, because I'm spending a lot of time talking to people about it.

I'll give you an example. The PRT teams typically are about 10 people, consisting mostly of subject matter experts, some project managers, and a couple bilingual bicultural advisors. They don't have admin and logistical support, security, or the resources to move around the sector to do their mission. Yet, they administer and "take the lead" for as much as $100M in projects. So, they depend on the Army to partner with them and provide these services. A common sentiment heard from the PRTs are, "We need help from you." In response, the Army sent them what's called a Movement Support Element (MSE). These are about 8-10 soldiers who act as a staff for them and provide logistical support. At one PRT that I met with today, the PRT leaders kept 2 of the 8 soldiers they got and "fired" the other 6. This action certainly must confuse leaders on the Army side who are now scratching their heads saying, "You said you wanted help and now you say you don't want it. What gives??" Instead of just scratching this up to personality or culture conflict, it's helpful to look deeper. The reason the PRT didn't want the MSE was because what they got didn't match what they needed. The MSE, while good in theory, actually was a non-cohesive group of individual soldiers thrown together, without a leader, clear mission, equipment, and worst of all, few specialist skills. So, the PRT had to spend a lot of time explaining to them what to do, only to start losing some of them a few months later. The management overhead was too much of a headache.

So, the simple lesson here is that someone really needed to sit down and spend time with the PRTs to understand where there gap was and then put together a solution that was didn't have a lot of management drag, yet really freed up the PRT principles to focus on doing what they do best -- get the Iraqi leadership to come up with their own ideas and then turn them into feasible projects.

There are lots of other stories around managing expectations... an extreme one being the civilian woman who showed up to her first patrol wearing a skirt and heels, a more minor, but common one being civilian's lack of understanding why the military needs so much information so far in advance. So, another recommendation I am making is to require an inbrief for both soldiers who will be working with civilians and also for civilian PRT members who are coming to work with the Army. The content would be drawn from the experience of what both sides have said most surprised them or what they wish they knew coming in. There is no silver bullet, but I think common understanding of roles and expectations and clarity in a common goal really makes a difference, and where we help is recommending what mechanisms are good tools to make that happen.

I never really had an organizational design background or did much of org change projects, but now I wish I did. It's not rocket science, but after this, I don't think I'll necessarily take lightly some of those challenges.

Day 68: Blown out

When I first heard about average time to do an air medevac extraction (by helicopter) for Iraq and Afghanistan, I thought there was a typo. It was about 30 min in Afghanistan and 2-3 hrs in Iraq. Seemed backward because in Afghanistan, our forces are spread thinner and the combat outposts are more remote and less built up.

After being "snowed out" for 2 days and having had 4 flights cancelled on me, I now understand why. In early summer, the dust storms in this area are legendary. Looking outside, it's hard to see 100'. A brown haze hangs everywhere and people with any breathing problems are sucking hard. At night, when you turn on a flashlight, it looks like a light saber.

I'm trying to go back out to check out 3 PRT teams -- they're coming together for a key meeting tomorrow morning, and unfortunately, looks like I'm going to miss it.

At the end of that trip, I am going to piggyback along with one of the generals to observe a mutual "show and tell" -- he's bringing two of the Iraqi Army division commanders together to look at one of their camps first, and then we'll all fly over to the other commander's camp. The tricky thing is to not give the impression of this being an inspection and also not making it a direct comparison, which could lead to some loss of face/honor. It will be really interesting. I spoke with one of my counterparts who works 70% of his time with Iraqis and the main advice he gave me was: talk as little as possible, don't have your agenda that you push through, and yield to them. Again, as with civil capacity building, they must confront and work through their own problems.

I read in a local Iraqi newspaper today (translated) an interesting episode:

"In a sign of the need for Iraqi officials to show their independence, a senior American military officer was turned away from a major meeting in Baghdad between Iraq's civilian and military leaders. 'We apologize to you, but this is an Iraqi meeting and you're not invited,' an Iraqi general told the American."

You go girl.

Day 64: A clash of civilizations

Today is Sunday and it's the half day out of the week that I take off, so I have a bit of time to share a little bit of a subject that I've been investigating for awhile now:  the cultural clash between civilians and the military.  This is nothing new.  Since ages past, soldiers, airmen, marines, and sailors have used the word "civilian" in tones that are usually used to described snails and other things that crawl along on their own slime.  Similarly, ask most human resources professionals what they think of when they think about career military guys joining the civilian workforce and they'll usually use the words, "inflexible," "domineering," "no sense of humor," and "puckered tight."
 
Times have changed however.  First, the role of citizen-soldiers has increased since 2001 to a vital part of the war effort.  Used to be that the stereotype shown in the movie "Stripes" was pretty accurate.  Reservists were weekend warriors who were untrained, didn't look like soldiers, and didn't act like them.  You wouldn't send them into war and for a hard-charging active duty soldier, telling them that they would be sent to the reserves was like a death sentence.  I enlisted into the Army National Guard in '92 and remembered that during my first several drills at my unit, a lot of people didn't bother showing up and the admin NCO would call them and politely ask where they were and didn't they want to come in to drill this weekend?  No significant training -- just some PT, a lot of admin work, and then ceremonies and dinners.
 
Then 2001 came and suddenly we had 360,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Army, stretched near capacity, had to draw upon its reserve and national guard component.  Funny how knowing that you are going into combat makes you suddenly get your mindset turned around.  The first couple years I'm sure there was a lot of adjustment as well as the active duty vs. reserve attitudes.  By 2005, because of the way that different units were mix and matched and thrown together, you could not tell who was a reservist and who wasn't.  As much as 70% of the deployed forces left their civilian jobs to spend 12-18 months fighting a war.  I was no longer surprised that some of the most experienced and competent NCOs and officers were reservists or guardsmen.  You just cared that they did their jobs well, not whether they were active or reserve.  In fact, in the type of mission we're in now, where the emphasis is no longer on breaking and blowing stuff up, and we are focused on civil-capacity building and the training/advising of Iraqi security forces, reserve components bring their civilian experience to the fight.  Just imagine -- how can a 23 year old lieutenant mentor his Iraqi police chief counterpart?  On the other hand, a 32 year old Reserve lieutenant, who's been a state trooper for 9 years would bring a lot more experience to bear.
 
So, in addition to the reserves getting a lot better and integrating into the overall Army, the role of civilians has come to the forefront as well.  In most of Iraq, we know that the end is near -- we are no longer working towards a defined endstate objective where we will leave when security forces are trained, the rule of law has reached a certain level of adoption in the judicial system, and clean water, electricity, and sewage treatment is available to everyone.  Now, we are leaving at a certain time and we just need to do the best we can before we pull out. 
 
We as "green suiters" have to leave because we are a very visible reminder of conquering occupiers and that strikes a certain religious and social chord that has been played on by extremist and religious and political groups.  As an aside, if you read the newspapers and ask anyone publicly whether coalition forces should leave the cities by the end of this month per the Security Agreement, the universal response will be "yes".  However, one on one and privately, most local Iraqis do not want us to leave.  They know that when one of theirs is taken away by a coalition forces soldier, he may be charged, he may be locked up, but he will be seen again.  They are afraid of another sectarian civil war. 
 
However, civilians can continue working and overseeing reconstruction.  This happens through Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs).  To borrow from my friend Wikipedia, a PRT includes a military component (Civil Affairs/Force Protection, etc.), civilian police advisors, and civilian representatives of US (or other national) government foreign affairs agencies. In a US-led PRT, this generally includes a representative from USAID, the Department of State, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Justice. They are assisted by public diplomacy and reporting staff.
 
An Afghan PRT is commanded by a military officer, generally of the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He is supported by a civil affairs team and platoon of National Guard soldiers for security. The staff generally numbers between sixty and one hundred persons. There is no lead agency or department; the US government civilians and the military commander form an executive committee of equals which develops a strategy for the PRT, drawing on the expertise of all contributing agencies. Activities in Afghanistan focus on extending the reach of the central government into the provinces.
 
In an Iraq PRT, the Team Leader is a civilian who reports to the US Department of State, and his deputy is generally a military officer. While civil affairs members are present on the team, there are more civilians than military personnel on the team. Functional areas include rule of law, reconstruction and development, agriculture, and governance. Some Iraq PRTs are embedded into the Brigade Combat Team (BCT) with which they are colocated (ePRT). The BCT retains responsibility for providing security for the civilian team members. In contrast to Afghanistan, Iraq PRTs focus on building the governance capacity at the local levels of government.
 
So, if you read a lot of the mission statements of units here now, the main efforts are keeping security, training the Iraqi Security Forces (Army, local police, national police, and border enforcement), and building civil-capacity.  The last line of effort is led by the PRT with the Army supporting.
 
This briefs well.  However, in practice, it's often ugly.  Imagine if you threw the schoolhouse tough with the Montessori kid and told them that they needed to play together.  What usually happens?  Either they resent each other, try to screw each other up, or in most cases, end up doing their own thing and ignoring the other as much as they can.  I saw that this seemed to be the case in one province, but also heard that in another province, the PRT team leader and the brigade commander were as tight as frat brothers and I really wanted to see why that was the case.  Plus, maybe I thought that my being a reservist would help me see both sides.  Oh, and I wanted to be able to say that getting a degree in social studies paid off somehow.
 
So, I spent time with both sides, and as you might have read, came back from spending nearly two weeks with a team that worked fairly well together.
 
In my next post, I'll share some of my preliminary findings (those that I can share).