I just arrived in Washington today via Kuwait.  It was a whirlwind ride from leaving Iraq Monday night.  I was still actively working right up to when i loaded my bags onto the truck for the airport.  I have a pass for a few days to enjoy the beautiful greater Seattle area then back to Ft Lewis for outprocessing.  More will follow later.  Time for sleep.

While I’m talking about RFI gear I’ll give a plug to the Interceptor body armor, also called IBA.  I’ve worn body armor for extended periods of time off and on for a few years.  Of all the body armor types I’ve worn, the IBA is actually the most comfortable despite its bulk and weight.  The IBA has webbing which matches the accessory pockets of the new Mollie system so you can choose to use the separate vest or place your ammo and other necessities right on your body armor.  The best part though are the ceramic plates, called SAPI .  One of our soldiers is alive today because his SAPI plate stopped cold an AK47 round that struck him in the chest.  IBA is heavy but well worth the weight.  It has proven itself in combat time and time again.  

 

So, if you got an invitation to the party despite other plans at least you can be assured you’ll be dressed for success.  The IBA and the new helmet are solid protective equipment actively saving soldier’s lives and will give you confidence knowing you have the best, most advanced protective equipment available on the battlefield today. 

I met some new IRR's arriving in town today and was surprised to learn that civilian law enforcement officers are curiously over-represented in the mix.  The Army's reserve components require all soldiers to update their civilian employment information yearly.  It’s the law.  The stated intent is to ensure that individuals in certain critical skills specialties like law enforcement, paramedics and firefighters, are identified so as not to leave the communities that depend on these first responders without proper service. In fact, (got to love the internet) I just found the quote:

"One of the key intents of this program is to help employers and DoD better identify those Army Reserve Soldiers with civilian jobs which are essential to maintaining national health, safety and homeland defense," said Maj. David Limmer, project manager for the Civilian Skills database at HRC-St. Louis.

Examples include police officers, fire fighters and other "first responders," he said.

It also helps the military ensure that its assets are used to the fullest extent and to develop career paths in the military which are more consistent with civilian career momentum," he said. "Overall, the key is to improve communication between the military and civilian employers"

If your crap detection alarm hasn't sounded yet it's time to get it re-calibrated.  Governors and legislators have been hammering the Defense Department for gutting police departments by mobilizing officers, troopers and deputies for multiple and/or extended deployments.  If the spirit of this law was to protect those agencies and the citizens they serve, it backfired.  Instead, civilian skills make persons in the categories listed above more selectable for deployment as individuals--especially from the IRR.  Let’s face it, cops are a hot commodity in theater.

I admit it, this is my own personal opinion based on anecdotal rather than empirical evidence.  But it is persuasive.

Earlier last year I was running a web search on IRR issues and ran across a document from a conference on IRR mobilizations.  My first surprise was that there was a need for an IRR conference in the first place but my mobilization orders were a clue.  One of the issues was whether or not emergency responders, like police or paramedics for example, would be exempted from mobilization due to being critical to homeland defense.  The decision listed stated that no, there was no need for an exemption as the National Guard was available to each state to assist with managing crisis.  I wonder if the level of National Guard and Army Reserve mobilizations were accounted for before reaching this conclusion.  The Spirit of the law and the Letter of the law are clearly two distinct entities and a decision was made somewhere to go with the latter.

The buzz right now is that we are preparing to focus more on training and advising as the Iraqi security forces take on more of the direct combat role.  I read reports recommending that the number of advisers be doubled or tripled.  I have to admit, this would be a good step for many reasons but who will do the training?  Will it be career Regular Army Officers and their units or National Guard units with a bunch of IRR’s thrown together for a few months before deployment?  And who will advise the Iraqi Police?  Military Police have an entirely different skill set and are over-tasked with other priorities right now.  The reserve components have the only readily available source of trained civilian law enforcement officers that can be ordered anywhere, unlike civilian contractors or even the Justice Department.  My guess is that the answer has already been determined.

A lot of IRR officers and NCO’s are finding themselves headed for AST’s in charge of training missions in Iraq.  We really must be running out of troops when we ship out the IRR to play such a pivotal role in reshaping Iraq’s security. 

Incidentally, a lot of soldiers I know are getting emails on AKO to update their civilian skill information right now.

I caught a ride on a convoy to Mosul last week and took my first real trip outside the wire.  I was really nothing more than a tourist but seeing the country, even through a small armored window, is enlightening.  All I have seen otherwise are the few square miles of Anaconda.  Something that really surprised me was the long lines of cars at every gas station we passed.  And nothing was moving at them.  It looked like people were camped out for days waiting to get fuel.  I haven’t read anything about the gas situation here but I expected that it would be more available.  Driving through various villages and cities you could also see a striking unevenness in living standards.  Tikrit, for instance, looked modern.  Some of the small villages we passed appeared to be in the stone-age.  I finally got a first hand look at how Sadaam took care of his favored people.

 

Starting out on a convoy you can sense the tension.  Everyone is at least a little anxious wondering what may come, if anything.  In my case I had no idea what to expect.  While it dissipated a bit as the hours passed I still felt a bit nervous every time we passed stalled cars along the roadside or saw vehicles in the median waiting to make a u-turn.  At one point, a vehicle that passed our convoy outside Mosul by driving the wrong way on a divided highway was suddenly stopped on the right side of the road.  As we passed it, the vehicle pulled out and began following the convoy.  We kept a careful eye and a large machine gun on it.

 

Iraqi’s have a habit of driving on the wrong side of the road at high speed from what I’ve been told and I saw several monuments to this behavior littering the roadside.  The collisions are quite spectacular I’m sure.  I would have suspected the wrecks were VBIED’s had I not seen what little remains after one of them go off.

 

Anaconda is a tropical oasis compared to most of Iraq.  North of Tikrit the land is almost completely barren.  The landscape has a surreal mystique with stark contrasts.  I saw a few lonesome trees occasionally but very little groundcover of any sort.  Nothing but gray dust.  Close to Mosul the ground had a faint tint of green, like someone spray painted the dirt, but nothing substantial.  

 

We made an overnight in Mosul and hit the road back the next day.  The FOB in Mosul made Anaconda look like a paragon of order by comparison but it had a pulse I haven’t felt anywhere else.  The war is happening there and you can feel the urgency, the excitement of a combat arms operation.

 

We were lucky and didn’t find any excitement ourselves that day but we passed a convoy that was hit by an IED.  Two tractor-trailers had flat tires and a few small holes in body panels.  I have no idea if there were any injures or not.  It was one of the large supply convoys comprised mostly of civilian trucks.  As we approached the entrance to Anaconda we passed throngs of kids anticipating candy that troops on convoys often toss out to them.  One enterprising teen was trying to sell porn but didn’t get any takers.  I’m glad I had the opportunity to go.

 

Michelle's post about LTG Helmly's memo prompted me to find the document.  You can view it here.  Unfortunately, it is in Acrobat 5.0 so I couldn't copy it into an article format directly.  It amazes me that this document was publicly released.

I also found a report from the Washington Times regarding proposed changes in tour lengths/multiple connsecutive tours for reserve and National Guard troops.  I heard some rumors of this back in October stating that the issue was being quitely guarded until after the election.  Well, here it is.  Read and evaluate it for yourself.  From my perspective, this is not good news for reservists.

I ran across this article/email on the SFTT website regarding new guidance from USARC G-1 on procedures for approving or disapproving Unqualified Resignations of Reserve Component Officers.  For those not familiar with the term “unqualified resignation” in the Army sense, it is a resignation initiated by the individual officer for their own reasons, whatever they may be, like career, family, etc....  A qualified resignation is where the Army has a vested interest in removing you from the service.  In addition to serving a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan you need to be free of stop loss and in a specialty currently above 50% authorized manning in your rank.  That last little detail is bound to trip up a lot of captains trying to move on given how short the Army Reserve is on captains system wide (currently 59%) regardless of specialty.  You have to wonder who's driving this train wreck.  I may end up retiring yet.

It started drizzling this morning and the drizzle built into a steady rain.  The soil here is a fine clay that forms choking dust when dry and heavy, slimy mud when wet.  The ground is already saturated and the gravel spread out all over base to keep the dust down is now sinking into the quagmire.   Once firm ground now feels like walking on a sponge.  I think the rainy season has officially begun.  If the temperature drops another ten degrees we could even have snow. 

 

Despite the weather spirits are high and good cheer prevails.  We had a party last night complete with stockings for everyone.  They were stuff full of candy and a great new leatherman tool.  But best of all, the matching sock came with it!  I now have a second pair of white athletic socks that comply with regulations on PT Uniform wear.  Cool.  I can now enter the DFAC (Dining Facility) without fear of being challenged by the ruthless mess hall guards.  Around midnight some of the battalion staff drove out to deliver hot drinks and sing Christmas Carols.  From what I’ve heard, some were more appreciative than others but no carolers were shot or otherwise injured.   I made my rounds before midnight so I personally missed the event. 

 

As on other holidays, the DFAC put together a big spread for dinner to include turkey, shrimp, hen and the requisite pork product which was ham today.  Oddly, pork and pork products are forbidden to be mailed into the country but we usually have at least three forms of pork offered every meal.  Humm…  Then again, before I boarded the plane to fly over here I was actually wanded with a metal detector to ensure I had no weapons on me while I held a handgun.  Anyways, it was nice to gather with everyone for awhile before heading back out into the rain.

 

It was a very good day.  We are still safe and amongst friends.  In only three months Iraq will be a memory.  We took a few pictures of our crew together before calling it a day.

I returned from R&R last week refreshed and ready for another round.  Well, maybe that was the wrong choice of words for around here but prepared for duty none the less.  The R&R program is one of the outstanding successes of this war.  It breaks up the deployment into manageable lengths and really lets you get your feet out of the fire for awhile.  IRR's get to participate in the program just like anyone else and it does help.  You can fly home on the Army's expense or jump off on Europe for a couple of weeks and get a guaranteed fifteen days boots on ground at your destination of choice.  I took the home option and had wonderful time with my wife and managed to get some skiing and ice climbing in too.  You can't possibly get farther from Iraq, both physically and mentally, than by playing in the Colorado mountains in the winter.

All of the troops in my battalion have had the opportunity to take R&R.  This is a great achievement driven by determined support of the Battalion and Brigade chain of command.  It is such a powerful morale booster that even watching someone else leave for their R&R lifts the spirits of both those who have yet to go and the ones who have already returned despite the personnel strains it creates.  Several of my NCO's recently took R&R and I'm seeing renewed energy in everyone. 

You are eligible for R&R after 90 days in theater and it can be taken up until 90 days prior to departure.  Units have different methods of determining who goes when based on the number of slots that are available at any given month.  I was quite surprised that I got the opportunity to go at all given I arrived here almost halfway through my unit's deployment.  It is something to look forward to when you make that unexpected trip over here.