David is back - yeah!!!!
You think you know, but you have no idea
“When nothing is going on what do you write about, Dave?” That’s the question I get a lot from those around me. My answer is always the same. “I have to look deep.” The other day one of my best friends, Daniel Simco, was roaming the halls in the wee hours of the morning. As he shuffled by, he gave me a suggestion out of the blue. “Hey, Dave you should write about what we do when there’s nothing going on, showing people back home that it’s not all that bad.” As he walked gracefully on by I stopped in my tracks. My eye’s shifted back and forth as I thought about it. By the time I twisted around to tell him that it was a great idea he had vanished like some kind of ghost roaming the cold barracks. In the past two weeks everything that has been going on seems so boring and uneventful that even if I wrote about it those who read it would be highly disappointed in me and may never pick up the article to read it again. But this was a chance I was willing to take. Hell, I take them all the time, why not now?
As things rapidly change in Iraq, our jobs as infantrymen somewhat change too. One of the jobs that we are responsible for is training the National Police and the Iraqi Police. We are to teach them how to conduct patrols, checkpoints, fundamental police tactics and an array of other infantry basic knowledge. The last time I was in Iraq the platoon I was in did something similar, but we conducted the basic training portion. That was fun and astonishingly frustrating all at the same time. Having been a part of that operation made me appreciate the hard work and discipline a red-blooded soilder takes pride in daily. The years have come and gone, and those who have been through our training and other units’ training have been spread across Iraq. Every now and then I look at old pictures from those days and try to see if by chance I am working with any of them. To this point I have not come across any. The unfortunate sad thing that goes through my mind now is that some of those men have paid the price for serving their country, and to this day, the real change has not been as prevalent as it should be. This is the question I present: Who remembers those men and their sacrifice when so much more travesty has occurred?
Just like in every job, there is always that guy who can’t chew gum and walk at the same time. I actually know a guy who has that problem. But in this job men carry guns, putting everyone around them at risk. There are many times when you will walk by an IP or NP and his AK-47 will be on fire. Asking him to put it on safe is like fishing in a mud puddle, so you just place it on safe for him. After that, he just smiles, which usually is followed by laughter, making it obvious that he hasn’t once thought about the importance of his weapon being on safe. Just the other day while we were conducting a patrol our patrol happened to be rolling through the checkpoint when suddenly three mortars started raining down 15 meters away from our rear truck. This was followed by small arms fire. Now our underlying common sense discipline is if you can’t positively identify where the contact is coming from you are to continue scanning, looking for muzzle flash or something that presents a threat. On the other hand, you have some ambitious or somewhat scared IP or NP who decides the best course of action is to spray and pray. Soldiers who have been to this country and are reading this are shaking their heads north and south right now. When this happens the best thing to do is either duck or hope for the best or, better yet, drop ramp and do some on the spot corrective training — whatever gets the point across that spraying and praying is not the right thing to do. See, for every shot we fire out of our weapon we are required to submit a sworn statement. This action is a safety net, because when bullets fly they must land somewhere. Even if you have suppression fire, s@#% happens. Having a detailed account of what happened and why you shot helps immensely. The only problem that has occurred is that many guys, even I, have been hesitant to shoot. No one wants to come back from a patrol and write a sworn statement for shooting a dog that was attacking you, but I digress.
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That is some bull@$%& that you have to attest to every round being fired. BS command decisions like that make troops second guess their actions and potentially put the troop at greater risk.
Good luck to you and all my warrior brothers and sisters over there.
Posted by: Zak 172 SIB | 09 March 2007 at 22:21