Artillery Soldiers Begin New Mission in Qadisiyh

FORWARD OPERATING BASE UNION III, Iraq, April 3, 2007 — Since arriving in Iraq, the soldiers of 3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, have demonstrated their wide-ranging abilities by taking on missions atypical for field artillery.

Until recently, the majority of the battalion’s soldiers have been responsible for providing VIP escorts for officials around Baghdad. Now the battalion is taking on a new mission and their own area-of-operations -- an area of Baghdad known as Qadisiyh.

“We’re just going to try to give them some of the things that we sometimes take for granted and try to improve their standard of living.” 1st Lt. Todd Martin

“We picked it up about two-and-a-half weeks ago officially,” 1st Lt. Todd Martin, a platoon leader for Battery A, said of the new mission. The Suffield, Conn., native said that he and his soldiers are still going through the process of familiarizing themselves with the area.

“Right now we’re just trying to map the ground basically. We’re just figuring out where everything is -- where schools are, where mosques are, and then also trying to find out who the key personnel are -- District Action Council officials, imams, sheiks -- people who really influence what happens on the ground,” he explained.

According to Martin, the change of mission comes at a good time and his soldiers are eager for the new challenge.

“I think the soldiers and NCOs (noncommissioned officers) and even the officers are all really excited about this change in mission,” Martin said. “It’s good too because we’re almost at the halfway mark of our deployment, and complacency is starting to take over and be our real key threat. So with this change of mission, everybody’s got to reassess what they’re doing out there and kind of relearn everything all over again. It’s like it is brand-new again ... which is good.”

One soldier, a Humvee driver from Anchorage, Alaska, was positive about doing the atypical experience.

“It’s not exactly what I thought, but I’m always up for the challenge,” Pfc. Aaron Buckley said. “It’s pretty much like being an 11B (infantryman), I guess you could say.

It’s a good experience, and this is just additional training ... which is pretty nice.”

Martin and his soldiers went out for their second patrol of Qadisiyh March 30 with the intention of looking for threats and areas that need to be cleaned up, as well as to spend a little time talking to the locals.

“We’re really just trying to make an impact right away. With the trash and these abandoned vehicles, some of them are just burnt out or upside down and obviously no one’s using them,” Martin said.

As they drove through the neighborhood, Martin would have his driver stop his truck periodically and talk to the locals; the people appeared to be glad to see them and took some time to talk about problems in the area.

“Most of them seem pretty friendly,” Kansas City, Mo.-native Pfc. Aaron Black said of the residents of Qadisiyh. “We’ve got a good area that we cover and not a lot of violence or things like that. Smiles and waves are what we get most of the time.”

The soldiers said they look forward to the prospect of being able to interact with the people, which is something that their previous mission didn’t give them much of an opportunity to do.

“Before we were mostly doing QRF (quick reaction force) and escorts, but now we’re actually in the neighborhoods with the people, and it’s a lot more interesting,” Black said.

According to Martin, in preparation for their new mission, his soldiers have been undergoing some additional training during the past few weeks.

“About three weeks ago, we started putting together classes on the different things we thought we needed to get better at to take this mission on,” he said. “We identified a couple of key things like weapon marksmanship, battle drills, detainee ops and sensitive site exploitation. And then we put together some classes that we could teach to the TCs (truck commanders) and above, and the TCs could turn around and teach that to the soldiers.”

One of the most noticeable aspects of the area during their patrol was the numerous roadblocks that the locals had made out of anything they could find and that were set up throughout the neighborhood.

“I think that’s just the people trying to take control of their area and trying to keep the bad people out. The only way they can do that is by blocking the roads and hoping that the guys are going to choose the path of least resistance,” Martin said. “The people were helping us move the stuff out of the way, and they weren’t worried about us rolling through. But I think it’s the insurgents and AIF (anti-Iraqi forces) they’re trying to keep out of their neighborhood.”

By setting up these roadblocks, Martin said the residents appear to be proactive about maintaining the security in their area and he is hopeful that he and his soldiers can develop a productive relationship with the locals.

“We’re going try to find out what the people need with the biggest thing being essential services -- sewer, water, electricity, trash pickup,” Martin said. “We’re just going to try to give them some of the things that we sometimes take for granted and try to improve their standard of living.”

I am downright puzzled. The three elements it would seem that the Iraqi ground forces need more than anything else right now, the icing on their cake, are significant numbers of trained artillery, air defense and anti-tank units.

This is to protect them from Iran. With those three things, and the tubes, they are capable enough *right now* to defend their country against an Iranian invasion—the #1 threat they face.

So what is our rationale for *not* making these three priorities obvious priorities? We could readily ship 5,000 Iraqis to Ft. Sill for artillery training; 2,000 to Ft. Bliss for ADA training; and create anti-tank units out of their task organization, since they are a lot easier to train.

In the limited period of time we have left we could at least prepare them for when their government buys the equipment they need.

There is some hint we are training some Air Force elements in Alabama, but little real information. But even that may be more along the lines of transport and helicopter than fixed wing fighters and bombers.

These obvious omission are such that I have to assume that they are intentional. But why?

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