Soldiers Record Lessons From Iraq - Unvarnished Tales Serve as Warning

[Barrett808]

Soldiers Record Lessons From Iraq
Unvarnished Tales Serve as Warning
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 8, 2004; Page A01

As the insurgency in the Sunni Triangle was heating up last fall, Lt. Col. Steve Russell was dealing with a new wave of attacks in which bombers were using the transmitters from radio-controlled toy cars: They would take the electronic guts of the cars, wrap them in C-4 plastic explosive and attach a blasting cap, then detonate them by remote control.

So Russell, who commands an infantry battalion in deposed president Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit, mounted one of the toy-car controllers on the dashboard of his Humvee and taped down the levers. Because all the toy cars operated on the same frequency, this would detonate any similar bomb about 100 yards before his Humvee got to the spot. This "poor man's anti-explosive device" was "risky perhaps," Russell writes in a 58-page summary of his unit's time in Iraq but better than leaving the detonation to the bombers.

...

As one of the biggest troop rotations in U.S. history gets underway in Iraq, with almost 250,000 soldiers coming or going, the seasoned units that are leaving are doing their best to pass on such hard-won knowledge to their successors, in e-mails, in essays, in PowerPoint presentations and rambling memoirs posted on Web sites or sent to rear detachments. And in the process, these veterans of Iraq have provided an alternate history of the Army's experience there over the past nine months -- one that is far more personal than the images offered by the media and often grimmer than the official accounts of steady progress.

Taken together, these documents tell a story of an unexpectedly hard small war that has been punctuated by casualties that haunt the writers. At the same time, they show how a well-trained, professional force adjusted last year to the first sustained ground combat faced by U.S. troops in three decades, relearning timeless lessons of warfare and figuring out new ones.

...

Although some of the commentaries argue that progress is being made, as a whole they tend to paint a harsher picture than the public statements of senior officials. In his advice to incoming troops, Capt. Ken Braeger, a company commander in the 4th Division, which is headquartered in Tikrit, in the middle of the Sunni Triangle, states that "what they have to understand is that most of the people here want us dead, they hate us and everything we stand for, and will take any opportunity to cause us harm."

(more)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22307-2004Feb7.html

[acmavm]

1. The American public (most of us anyway) understand that the Iraqis

hate our troops and want them dead. It's the lunatics in the Bush* administration that will not accept that fact.

And the Iraqis don't care that it's not the fault of the soldier that they see patrolling their streets, they just see them as the enemy. And it's not their fault (the American troops). They are just pawns in a horrible game that this bunch of neo-conservative thugs cannot win. And what they are wagering are the lives of our sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, neighbors, etc. And why not? It's not like any of their children or family will ever be at risk. That's what the middle and lower classes of America are for, cannon fodder.

[DuctapeFatwa]

4. Each person makes his or her own decisions based on his/her own

priotities and values.

Every single person has the free will to choose whether to obey or refuse to obey an order that he or she feels is not in accordance with his or her moral standards.

Even the poor.

[Mari333]

2. Just as I thought.

and I wish I could have shown this to my stepson BEFORE he decided to go over.
I might have been able to talk him out of it. a few months in jail would have been better then what hes walking into.

[teryang]

3. Perhaps our brilliant defense contractors

...could have thought of this and saved a few lives. If they are not working on it they need to start.