Entry # 69: August 25, 2006

Camp Slayer, Baghdad, Iraq

Every other day I send my guys outside the wire to track down and find the den of the insurgency. On the whole, these guys weren’t specifically trained for combat. They were trained to find the enemy, but not destroy him. However it seems they have done well on both accounts.

I finally have my whole platoon back together. I’ve had my guys scattered across the Iraqi landscape, from Balad to Ramadi to Tikrit and now, to Baghdad. My last Soldier returned to me from Ramadi today, greeting me with a half-awake smile that accompanies finally reaching one’s destination after multiple hops on a UH-60 Blackhawk across the barren land between Ramadi and Baghdad. He is my prodigal Soldier. First thing he asks me is “Sir, when can I go out on the missions?” This Soldier has been imbedded as an infantry company intelligence collector, stayed weeks camping out in downtown Ramadi, the epicenter of the Sunni insurgency. He’s been shot at, returned fire, experienced explosions that literally took his breath away, and still wants more. He spent his 21st birthday, not at a bar in his hometown of Rochester, NY with friends, but on a cot in a room shared with 24 other Soldiers. And he is typical of the men and women I lead.

We’re just now getting in the thick of things here in Baghdad. As one of my Soldier’s remarked to me the other day, “How are we, a third party in this, supposed to convince a populace to trust its own government?” A good question, but not really our job. That’s the job of the religious leaders of this country, both Shi’a and Sunni. Our job is to remove those who seek to divide this country. The imams and local leaders will be the one’s who will ultimately decide their own country’s fate. Whether they care to inspire civil war or to cooperate and work with the government leaders is their decision. The future of Iraq depends on it. We are but a third party in this country. The real decision makers are the other two. And so the Soldier’s life continues…