Posted on 03/01/2006 6:19:41 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Watsonville soldier returns from Iraq an accidental spokesman
BY JON CHOWN
After serving a tour of duty in Iraq as the commander of the Fourth Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, stationed in south-central Baghdad, Col. Ed Cardon is in Georgia, back on duty after a short leave. Register-Pajaronian readers should be familiar with his weekly column, Letters from Iraq, which began running in the R-P in March 2005, soon after Cardon’s arrival there.
The Watsonville native is scheduled to change command in June, becoming the chief of staff to the 3rd Infantry Division, though he said that might change. The 3rd Infantry Division has 25,000 soldiers spread among four different posts.
Cardon will work directly under the commanding general, a post that has not been decided. Currently Gen. Webster commands it. The move will be a promotion for Cardon, who had been commanding a brigade. There are 41 active brigades in the Army, making up 10 divisions. As chief of staff of a division, it will be Cardon’s duty to translate the general’s intentions into orders that can be carried out. Cardon said that sometimes a general’s instructions can be quite vague, such as “take that hill” or “train these men,” and it is up to the chief of staff to figure out how to accomplish it.
“All I tell my XO (executive officer) is ‘you handle it.’ He’ll organize the staff, find out when equipment comes in and so forth,” said Cardon in a phone interview recently.
The 3rd Infantry Division is not projected to return to the Middle East for at least 18 months, but Cardon said he would be working on preparing the division for a possible return to Iraq. He will work at Fort Stewart, Ga., the largest Army base east of the Mississippi River, to reset the brigade and the division. Cardon said that with equipment and tactics being constantly updated, the troops will have to be retrained and the vehicles and weapons upgraded.
“We’ll be dealing with new equipment, tearing down and upgrading equipment and retraining everybody — the howitzer, Bradley and tank crews and so on,” said Cardon.
Cardon, who graduated from Watsonville High School in 1978 and was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2003, could be termed a “rising star” in the U.S. Army. While in Iraq, he appeared on news broadcasts including “60 Minutes,” “NBC Nightly News,” various CNN shows and others, giving Cardon a sort of celebrity status on the national news scene.
“That was new and not intended, to be honest,” said Cardon. “It was a function of where I was. Some of it was a function that I felt that the true sense of what was happening in Iraq wasn’t being told to the American people.”
Cardon said he took the press with him on missions and sent reporters with members of his battalion. For instance, Cardon wanted to correct the notion that the road to the Baghdad Airport was treacherous. He said he had been in charge of making it safer and was successful, but news reports were still focusing on the problems that had existed. Cardon invited reporters to see for themselves and the result was broadcast by several networks.
“Everybody was talking about how dangerous Airport Road is,” said Cardon. “That was true a few years ago, but now it’s one of the safest roads in Iraq. But it continued to be reported as dangerous after it wasn’t.” Of all the media outlets Cardon dealt with, he had the most praise for National Public Radio, which he said portrayed the story most accurately.
Cardon worked with Iraqi media as well. “In Iraq, it’s hard for news to get around,” he said. He pointed out that Iraqis now get their news from satellite television, something they couldn’t do under Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Cardon said the situation in Iraq is much more complex than often portrayed.
“Iraq is a very complex society. It’s a 5,000-year-old civilization and it has a lot of history; it has a lot of different religions and different sects of those religions,” said Cardon. “It has a lot of different tribes, different neighborhoods. These families are very, very strong. When you put all that together it makes for a very complex situation. There are no simple solutions in Iraq. There are Iranian influences, Turkish influences, Saudi Arabian influences.”
Cardon said Iraq’s history can also compound problems, such as corruption. Cardon said that reports of corrupt military contractors and others are accurate, he said. “There are troubles with contracts over there. … There’s a lot of corruption. If you go back to Iraq before the war, everything was done with kickbacks and bribes. So I don’t fault some of these businesses for what they are doing. But what I do fault is that with some people, it’s all about the money,” said Cardon. Cardon said that at one school construction project he witnessed the school nearly finished and then when he went back later everything had been completely stripped out of the school.
“So from then on, every project we did, we got it approved by the Iraqi government and then we would only pay them based on work completed,” said Cardon. Cardon said the military also made a black list of contractors, checked up on their work and demanded the work be finished before anybody was paid. “Over time, we developed all this,” said Cardon. “But before the war, all construction was done by Saddam Hussein’s henchman and who they hired. So when you come over and start to work in this environment, it’s real hard. There just wasn’t’ enough oversight.” Iraqis’ feelings toward the occupation is a complex issue as well.
“The people don’t really want us there, but they don’t want us to leave until the Iraqi security forces are capable of protecting them. They do want us to leave, but not quite yet,” said Cardon.
As calls for bringing the troops home ring louder and louder here, Cardon said soldiers there remain optimistic. He firmly denied that their morale is affected by the debate at home. Cardon said debate is necessary in a democracy but “the discussion of the war does not demoralize the troops. The troops are there. They see progress. They know what is right and what is not right. A lot the war debate, they tend to discredit themselves by saying things that aren’t true and the soldiers know it. If it was affecting them, it would affect my retention rate — soldiers would want to get out.”
Cardon pointed to the fact that his retention rate is 160 percent greater than his target numbers. “It says soldiers believe in what they are doing and are confident in their mission and each other,” he said. Cardon said he has not seen any of the anti-war feelings carry over to the individual soldiers — all sides have been supportive of them, he said. “There may be a lot of people who disagree with the administration and its policies, but I never saw that carried over to the American soldier,” said Cardon. Cardon looks back at his time in Iraq with solemn reverence. He said it could definitely be a rewarding experience at times, but was very difficult.
“There were a lot of things that happened. I had some really hard days,” said Cardon. “I had a day when one of my battalion commanders was killed; a day when four soldiers where killed at once. … I had some great days, too. The day of the constitutional election — to see kids playing in the street made your heart feel good.” Cardon said he hopes to return to the Pajaro Valley with his wife and children some time in March to see his parents, Ed and Corrie Cardon, who still reside in Watsonville. He said he would definitely be back in the summer.
“It’s a life-changing experience,” he said of his time in Iraq. “You have perspective on what is important: your families. You have a lot more appreciation for your families, for America. When you are bound together by some tough days, you have to keep things in perspective.”
4th Brigade ping list reunion ping.
Very nice. They might not be tired of fighting the war over there, but we're sure getting sick of fighting the war with the media over here. I'm thinking of calling in the 3rd ID to take out the enemy :o)
Thanks for the update news.
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