Local Guard anxious about more time in Iraq

Valley Press ^ | Sunday, April 18, 2004 | Dennis Anderson

[BenLurkin]

Have you heard of Operation Iraqi Freedom II? That is the reference troops overseas are already accustomed to using, and they are anticipating operations that will endure as OIF III and OIF IV. These designations, of course, refer to approximately one-year increments for stationing troops in the shooting gallery that is present-day Iraq. One year, plus another 120 days. Or more.

At this writing, California National Guard troops from companies with home bases in the Antelope Valley, Riverside and Sacramento are anxiously awaiting word as to whether they will be extended past their yearlong "boots on ground" tour of duty in Kuwait and Iraq.

A nearly Christmas-season hopeful air prevailed until just last week with troops of the 1498th Transportation Co., who spent the last 11 months traversing the lethal, explosive highways of Iraq, carrying everything from M-1 Abrams tanks to lumber in support of the mission.

The light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel hope dimmed for many when the often hostile town of Fallujah ignited a frenzy of violence with locals first killing, then desecrating, the bodies of four American private security contractors.

That brought the Marines into Fallujah and nearby Ramadi. Scores of Marines were killed and wounded in the first stage of a battle in which the proud and the few killed about 10 times as many as they lost.

The Fallujah battle in the Sunni Triangle erupted just as a gangster in cleric's robes named Muqtada Al-Sadr roused his thug Al-Mahdi militia to battle coalition forces south of Baghdad.

The good news, so far, is that few of the Shiite majority of Iraq have seen fit to join with Al-Sadr's gang. Worrisome news is that Al-Sadr is holed up, using some of the Shia Islam's holiest shrines as a barricade barring U.S. attack.

The United States, so far, has succeeded in damping Shiite hostility to coalition forces' attempts to achieve a peaceful transition in Iraq. If the shrines fell under U.S. attack, Shiites likely would see that as the equivalent of carpet bombing the Vatican.

Meanwhile, for the past week, the main supply routes such as Tampa and Sword have been shut down. Those are military names for arterial roads needed to resupply the military. They are the roads the 1498th combat truckers drive on a daily basis.

At this writing, 1498th convoy elements have been stuck at various base camps across Iraq while the Marines and 1st Armored Division sort out where the fight goes, and when.

Fighting during the past week has been intense, in locations ranging from Baghdad where hostages have been seized, to Fallujah, which former Saddamists and foreign terrorists want to turn into some kind of Alamo in Iraq.

While the Shiites calm has held, 30,000 or so refugees quit Fallujah at the same time Marines were sealing the entrances and exits to the town, which is about the size of Palmdale and Lancaster together.

Many GIs in the region for a year or more are as glad that the Marines are taking the fight to the insurgents in Fallujah as they are shocked and saddened by the deaths of their comrades.

"Something had to be done," said Capt. Paul Peterlin, a 1498th platoon leader. "A place like Fallujah is a bad apple that, left alone, can threaten peace across all Iraq."

Many 1498th trucks convoyed through Fallujah and Ramadi in the past year, and they have repelled and responded to ambushes there. They call themselves "combat truckers."

"I think the reason we have been lucky, so far, and haven't had anyone killed is because we fight back every time we are ambushed," said Sgt. John O'Hern of Riverside.

That said, many Guard soldiers are willing enough, and ready as ever, to follow orders and accomplish the mission. But they are also mission-weary, having completed nearly a year in one of the world's harshest environments, with summer temperatures recorded past the 150-degree mark, and constant tension and anxiety marking all the trips out onto the road.

Of 220 remaining soldiers of the original 300 activated for this National Guard unit, the ones still in Kuwait and Iraq are more than ready to come home.

They join their fellow citizens in skepticism about whether enough troops were ever committed to assure the pacification of a dangerous and over-armed, restive and under-employed populace. A spot CNN survey conducted Thursday night indicated that 89% of those responding believe the extension of units in theater shows too few troops were sent to pacify Iraq.

Uneasy about possible extension, but fatalistic toward the prospect, the Guard soldiers are proud of their achievements and want to claim that sweetest fruit of victory, which is physical survival.

The soldiers are bitter about some fellow Guard troops who wangled a trip home through some dubious complaint or circumstances, and are even angrier at other Guard troops who managed to evade deployment through complicated negotiations about personal and medical problems.

Doubtless, many of those who returned from OIF to Fort Lewis, Wash., had legitimate injuries or family emergencies that prompted their evacuations. Others, the soldiers still serving, believe they were slackers and do not deserve the pay and benefits they received "during the easy times." What relatively few Americans may realize is the aggregate age of the National Guard and Reserve troops who sustained this understaffed combat theater. The 1498th, for example, has a median age of about 38, meaning many soldiers are in their 40s, and not a few are in their 50s. Without reference to any prejudice against the skills and experience of these older soldiers, even they know that the peak combat soldier years for physique go to the young and the athletic.

Nevertheless, many of these older soldiers are the ones who endured and survived where their younger comrades flagged. Likewise, the women. Of the 50 or so soldiers returned early to Fort Lewis, only a half-dozen or so were women, according to Staff Sgt. Linda Freeman. Two females returned to OIF after adjusting to stress. Virtually all the male soldiers that left early stayed gone.

Gone also are the "Gung Ho" John Wayne types who anticipated movie heroics and cheap glory.

"The 'Hooah Hooah' types aren't here anymore," Freeman said.

The company's executive officer, Lt. Hatem Abdine, said many women soldiers have more patience and more team play instincts than some of their male counterparts.

The unit's topkick noncommissioned officer, 1st Sgt. James Earl Norris, said the soldiers remaining tend to be the quiet and conscientious soldiers "who just want to get the job done." They want the job to be done. Of course, their wives and families want their mission to be complete.

The Guard troops head toward home discovering the "Army of One" trumpeted on recruiting ads is really a socially segregated two-tier Army, where regulars get first call on everything from rations to uniforms to bulletproof vests and even latrine availability. This is a bitter pill for many soldiers who once were regulars, but felt treated like second-class citizen soldiers during many encounters with their regular Army counterparts.

This unit, like many, has much to be proud of and a number of things to be frustrated with. They will return home, proud of their achievements, but more hardened in their views about the ways of the "Army of One" for which they volunteered to risk their lives in service to their country.

The soldiers hope they are heading home sooner than later. They would like to know when. When they return, they will have stories to tell.

[BenLurkin]

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