The Importance of Shaking Hands

The Imortance of Shaking Hands
2BT Newsletter: Daggers Edge V1, Iss15
1LT Matthew Offiler
June 23, 2007

When our Battalion first began patrols in Baghdad in early March, it was a shock to hear that our commander wanted us to dismount for our patrols and just talk to the locals as if they had been our long-time neighbors. It was a shock because on every one of our first patrols, we had been shot at. While it was an event we gradually became accustomed to, we continued to ask ourselves, “Why would I leave the relative safety of my HMMWV to get out and walk around in a neighborhood where people are shooting at me?”

It was a relevant question, but we began to dismount anyway. We would use our vehicles forgetting to and from our area and would spend the rest of the patrol conducting dismounted operations. It was an uneasy feeling at first since we were still new to combat. Keep in mind that the majority of the Soldiers in our platoon had never deployed and all of them, being Field Artillery, were new to the infantry mindset.

We learned quickly which tactics worked in which neighborhoods. In some areas, there were only certain people who would speak with us, while the rest ran back into their homes. In other areas, the locals would empty out of their homes and into the streets at the sound of our patrol coming around the corner. We adapted our vehicles’ maneuvering depending on the neighborhood as well. We either pull them up the middle of the patrol or let them stay towards the back. It is a balance between having your protection there if something happened and lowering your appearance of aggression when speaking with the friendly locals. This tactic adapted well for our platoon since our area has changed several times since our first patrols.

Correctly maneuvering the vehicles was only one part of creating a friendlier, but still safer atmosphere for the locals and my Soldiers. The one thing I never learned in any officer training course was how to be a politician, but it feels like that is where I have ended up. When I dismount, I greet the locals with hand shakes and smiles, feeling more like I am running for an election than fighting a war. But shaking hands has worked. It helps give them an understanding that you are there to work with them, not for them.

We shake hands and then begin the “small talk” of tactical questioning. Questions like “How long has the sewage been here?”, “Do you have a weekly trash service in this area?” and “How are the schools that your children attend?” Those questions get them to talk about their major problems and let us know what they are willing to speak about. Those questions, however, can also lead to more helpful intelligence. Information like, “We don't walk that way when we take our kids to school because we don't like the men in that house; they are dangerous men”. This is information which leads us to weapons caches and targets, information we would not have been able to gather if we had conducted our patrols by remaining in our “urban submarines” instead of shaking hands.

By talking with the locals, it shows them that you care and are at least trying to help. They all know you are just doing your job and we have encountered many locals who do not believe we are going to change anything. I cannot count the number of times I have heard, “You have been here for 4 years and you haven't fixed anything!”

Things have been fixed though, and it shows. Since we started dismounting, we have not received any small arms fire attacks on our patrols and have not had any IEDs placed in our area. There may be a number of factors to account for that, but I do not question for a moment that our tactics, shaking hands and sampling the local food offered to us have contributed greatly to this result.