Our class was taught by two former U.S. Army Special Forces Delta operators who spoke to us about winning the fight against IEDs and the various enemy techniques, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) that we may face in Al Anbar Province. The class was lame, as we had been through numerous similar courses in predeployment training. What I did find interesting was that this was my first chance to witness some men who were in the fabled Delta Force.
Delta Force operators are supposed to be the baddest of the bad, the guys who kill you with their stare and have lighting bolts fly from their asses at their discretion. I cannot remember the names of the instructors, but I am going to guess they were Max and Stone Cold. The main speaker, Max, talked about how he had not killed many people face to face but had killed hundreds of people with the radio (either with indirect fire, air support, or calling in a quick reaction force). He suggested we follow suit and ensure our communication procedures are tight. Max summarized his advice: “The radio helps you figure out who is coming to help out if you are stuck in an ambush, who is calling for fire, who is calling in the MEDEVAC [medical evacuation], who is calling EOD [Explosive Ordnance Disposal] teams, and so forth. Without proper radio procedures, you are fish bait for the insurgents.”
As a follow-on to the JIED TF classes we were given a brief on a brand-new piece of gear the Marines were fielding in Al Anbar called the Chameleon. By the time we hit the deck in the Triad we were supposed to have Chameleons on all of our Humvees. We had heard rumors of the device before the deployment, and the word on the street was that it came straight from the hands of God. It is an electronic countermeasure (ECM) device that sets the gold standard for stopping radio-controlled IED attacks. The specifics are classified, however. The U.S. Navy lieutenant junior grade teaching the class confided to everyone, “I can’t get into the details, but I can tell you that the Chameleon will block any radio-controlled device the insurgents currently have and anything they will have in the foreseeable future.”
Hearing the lieutenant junior grade’s news was outstanding. I was glad we would have large force fields around our Humvees, blocking all the IEDs in Al Anbar Province. There had to be a catch, right? Well, the catch was that the Chameleon blocks all radio-controlled IEDs—the IEDs triggered by cell phones, garage door openers, wireless telephones, and so forth. Sadly, the Wile E. Coyote method of connecting a group of explosives to a long copper wire with a trigger device attached to the end worked like a charm.
I came away with four pieces of advice from the IED classes. First, if you do not hear the IED, do not worry about it because you will be heading to heaven soon. Second, if you do hear the IED, praise God, because you are alive and still have a chance to kill the bastard who tried to blow you up. Third, if you see wires on the side of the road, odd shapes in the form of an artillery shell, people loitering around batteries, or other suspicious happenings, get as far away from the site as possible. Finally, before you go on a Sunday drive in Al Anbar Province, turn on your Chameleon. Pretty simple stuff, really.
After IED lectures I engaged in my second important endeavor of the day, which was to sit through a brief by Gen. George Casey, the commander of all forces in Iraq. I was humbled as I sat through the presentation. Despite his diminutive stature (five feet six inches tall) and placid temperament, it was exhilarating to hear the powerful words come out of his mouth. General Casey was an impressive man. All the same, one thing disturbed me as I listened to him during the question and answer session. A soldier asked, “General, are the Iraqis in a civil war?” Casey replied, “No.” He paused, letting his words sink in, and continued. “We are moving away from an insurgency fight against coalition forces in Iraq to an internal sectarian fight in Iraq where the Sunnis are fighting for control over what they believe to be a Shia-led government.” The small crowd of fifty advisers laughed at the response. It was obvious the general did not want to be tagged as being the one who said Iraq was in a civil war.
Sensing the crowd’s distaste with the general’s response, Major General Everson, General Casey’s deputy, commented, “Gents, seriously, if a civil war was upon us, would we ever be able to call a spade a spade without getting in trouble with our bosses?” The crowd chuckled as Casey gave Everson a disapproving look.
At the end of the question and answer session, I was vexed by what General Casey had said. He was so political in his response that he seemed disingenuous. We were not CNN or the New York Times; we were his troops and looking for honesty and straight answers, not some crap we would expect from a politician.
I am not sure why the “civil war” term is such an issue. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a civil war is “a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country.” What I saw in Iraq were Sunnis and Shias, citizens of the same country, who were violently fighting each other for political control of Iraq. To me it seemed cut and dried that a civil war was happening in Iraq. I wished someone would call it that and not beat around the bush.
The next day I showed up twenty minutes early to class. This was not my MO because twenty minutes wasting away in the classroom was twenty minutes I could be learning Arabic, doing PT, or sleeping; however, I was glad I showed up early since I had a unique opportunity to talk with a U.S. Army reservist lieutenant colonel who would be leading an adviser team north of Baghdad.
I quickly discovered that U.S. Army adviser teams did not have many of the advantages our MiTT team had prior to deployment. All the soldiers on their teams were meeting one another for the first time at Camp Taji. Moreover, their predeployment training consisted of two weeks at the camp. That was it. This was a scary proposition. Before my conversation with the lieutenant colonel, I felt the Marine Corps was short changing me by only giving me five months to prepare for the same mission for which Special Forces spend two to three years training. Guess I was wrong.
In addition to having no substantial training and no time to create unit cohesion, the U.S. Army personnel sounded naïve about the embedded adviser mission. For example, when I was speaking with the reservist lieutenant colonel, he said, “I am excited about going to the 4th Motor Transport Army Brigade to help support the Iraqi army.” As he explained the concept of what he thought he was doing as a MiTT team leader, I concluded that the lieutenant colonel was lost in the sauce. He thought the Army had assigned him to a U.S. Army unit that would be supporting the Iraqi army versus assigning him to embed as an adviser with the Iraqi army.
I addressed the lieutenant colonel with confidence and tact. “Sir, you know your mission is to be embedded with the Iraqi army as an adviser, right? The 4th Motor Transport Army Brigade is an Iraqi unit. You will be living with the unit and training with the unit. You won’t be working within a U.S. Army unit that is supporting an Iraqi unit from afar.” The silver-haired lieutenant colonel addressed me as a grandfather would a grandson, “Young lieutenant, I think you are sadly mistaken. I am sure I know what unit the Army assigned me. I doubt the U.S. Army would be stupid enough to put me in an Iraqi unit. However, thanks for your concern.” At the conclusion of his lecture I suggested, “Sir, seriously, I would ask one of the instructors to double check for you.” He obliged and found out the truth. His silver hair turned white.
Staff Sergeant Buff taught a class on maintaining personal health in Iraq. Buff was Chris Rock in camouflage: skinny, short, and hilarious. He had served in the U.S. Army for seventeen years and over the years he had developed a unique teaching style. He enjoyed bringing up shocking examples of what not to do in a particular situation and then assumed we had enough common sense to know what to do in a particular situation.