2-32 Field Artillery: 'Iraqi Freedom' Deployment

Homecoming

2008-04-25T10:40:00.002-04:00

Redeployment Ceremony, April 22nd 2008

Fort Riley Troops — R&R Earned

2008-04-22T19:30:00.002-04:00

Fort Riley Troops — R&R Earned
Topeka Capital-Journal
Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Welcome-home celebrations for soldiers returning from Iraq have become a regular occurrence at Fort Riley this month.

More than 3,400 soldiers with the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division who were deployed to Iraq 15 months ago are returning to the fort, and to their families and friends, in groups of several hundred at a time. More than 3,000 had returned by Monday, and the remaining 300 are expected to arrive today.

Fort Riley officials say the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team during its 15 months in the Rashid Security District of southern Baghdad conducted operations that resulted in the capture of more than 200 "high-profile targets" and reduced the number of enemy cells in the area from 20 to five. The team also repaired sewer, water, medical and education facilities and electrical projects.

By all reports, it was a job well done.

Deployment of the brigade was part of a large troop buildup in Iraq designed to combat increasing violence from and among the different Muslim sects and by terrorists.

We join the soldiers, their families and friends in rejoicing at their safe return. We also express our condolences to the families of those soldiers who didn't make it back safely. A spokeswoman for Fort Riley said the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team lost 38 soldiers in the war.

Since the war began March 20, 2003, with the invasion of Iraq, more than 4,000 members of the U.S. armed forces have died there.

That human toll, coupled with the absence of any indication our forces won't be fighting and dying in Iraq for a long time to come, has contributed mightily to the public's growing concern that the country has become bogged down in a civil/religious war that has no end.

The emotional strain the war in Iraq and the war against terrorism being fought in Afghanistan are placing on our men and women in uniform is another source of growing concern across the nation. Any soldier who has been in uniform any length of time likely has served at least one tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan. Some have served two or even three tours in those hostile environments. National Guard units in Kansas and across the country also have been called upon regularly to contribute.

The Fort Riley spokeswoman said the Army's goal is to give soldiers returning from a 12- or 15-month deployment at least 12 months in the states before they are deployed again.

But repeated deployments to a war zone in a relatively short number of years can weigh heavily on even the bravest, and the families who can only stand and watch as one of their own heads once again toward danger.

We admire the courage of the soldiers and their families and honor the sacrifices they make.

It's our hope that members of 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team receive the time they need to decompress from the rigors of war and reconnect with family and friends before they are sent into battle once again.

Sand storms cancel air flights, stop US helicopters in Iraq

2008-04-17T11:10:00.001-04:00

Sand storms cancel air flights, stop US helicopters in Iraq
Middle East News
Apr 17, 2008

Iraqi airline companies cancelled Thursday all air flights due to a strong sand storm hitting Baghdad and different Iraqi cities.

An official in one of Iraq's airline companies told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that strong sand storms hit Iraq since the early morning of Thursday, which resulted in postponing and cancelling all domestic and foreign air flights.

The storm is considered the strongest since 2008, stopping US helicopters from hovering over Baghdad.

500 soldiers returning to Fort Riley after 15 months in Iraq

2008-04-10T10:36:00.000-04:00

500 soldiers returning to Fort Riley after 15 months in Iraq
Kansas City Star
The Associated Press
April 8, 2008

After 15 months in Iraq, a batch of soldiers from Fort Riley are about to return home.

The soldiers were part of the 4th Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division that was sent to Iraq last year, when the U.S. beefed up its troop levels. The units were sent to Baghdad, where officials sought to keep civil unrest in check to allow the Iraqi government time to develop.

Fort Riley officials said Thursday that the first 500 soldiers will return to Kansas, with more expected to arrive over the next two weeks. In all, 3,400 soldiers from the brigade will return.

Gen. David Petraeus told members of Congress that troop levels will continue to decline by 20,000 through this summer, before taking a break. Petraeus is the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Security Incidents

2008-04-03T16:37:00.002-04:00

Security Incidents
McClatchy News
April 3, 2008

A roadside bomb exploded targeting an Iraqi Army patrol in Qahtan Square, Yarmouk neighbourhood, west Baghdad at 11 pm Wednesday, killing 1 serviceman, injuring 3.

A roadside bomb exploded between Qahtan Square and Yarmouk Hospital injuring 2 civilians at 7 am Thursday.

MND-B Soldiers Capture Key Criminal Suspect, Seize Weapons Cache

2008-03-25T09:49:00.000-04:00

MND-B Soldiers Capture Key Criminal Suspect, Seize Weapons Cache
DVIDSHUB
03.24.2008

BAGHDAD – Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldiers capture key criminal suspects also led to the seizure of a weapons cache in the Mansour District in northwestern Baghdad, March 19.

Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, attached to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), captured the individual during a mission to capture him.

While the Soldiers detained the individual, Iraqi security forces provided a ring of security.

The suspect is allegedly a mid-level leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who is believed to be responsible for conducting several vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attacks throughout Baghdad and southern Iraq.

“His capture will likely provide us with the information we need to capture other AQI members” said Capt. H. Eric Perez-Rivera, assistant military intelligence officer for 2nd BCT.

After Soldiers detained him, they searched his house and discovered a cache of weapons behind a hidden wall.

The cache consisted of 14 AK-47 rifles, three rocket propelled grenade launchers, six 9 mm handguns, various hand grenades and other munitions. The cache also contained seven landmines, detonation cord and other improvised explosive device making materials.

The cache was turned over to an Explosive Ordinance Detachment for disposal.

“This is another example of what the partnership of Iraqi security and coalition forces can produce”, said Maj. David Hollis, 2nd BCT spokesman. “This arrest, coupled with the cache find, is another step toward a safer and more unified Iraq.”

FACTBOX-Security developments

2008-03-18T17:53:00.001-04:00

FACTBOX-Security developments
Reuters
March 18, 2008

BAGHDAD - Seven people, including three Iraqi soldiers, were wounded when a bomb in a parked car blew up near an army checkpoint in western Baghdad's Yarmouk district, police said.

Feeding the Fire: Dragons Take Home More Retention Awards

2008-03-14T00:00:00.001-04:00

Feeding the Fire: Dragons Take Home More Retention Awards
DVIDSHUB
by Spc. Nathaniel Smith
Posted on 03.06.2008

Dragons Take Home More Retention Awards

BAGHDAD – For the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, a new year and a new division didn’t change the ‘Dragons’ retention fortunes.

The Fort Riley, Kan., based unit, which led Multinational Division-Baghdad in reenlisting Soldiers for fiscal 2007, started 2008 off in style by being awarded the commanding general’s award from Command Sgt. Maj. John Gioia, the senior noncommissioned officer of the 4th Infantry Division and MND-B, for the first quarter of the new fiscal year in a ceremony at the 4th BCT headquarters on Forward Operating Base Falcon, March 4.

The 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, 4th BCT, currently attached to the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, earned the battalion-level retention award as a key contributor to the 744 Soldiers who have reenlisted in the task force, tallying up to almost $8 million in bonus money.

Sgt. Phillip White, the retention noncommissioned officer for the 610th Brigade Support Battalion, 4th BCT, said the brigade’s success has been collaborative effort.

“Everyone’s come together to reenlist the most Soldiers in the Baghdad area in the first three months. As far as being part of that, it’s just part of my job,” the Salem, Ill., native said. “Any time you get honored, it’s great. It kind of reiterates the fact that you’re a part of something larger than you are. The teamwork and everything else is great.”

Command Sgt. Maj. Jim Champagne, the senior noncommissioned officer of the Dragon Brigade, said the award reflects on every Soldier in the brigade.

“This is a great day for the brigade. This recognizes the brigade for your mentorship, for your leadership, for your coaching,” he said. “If it wasn’t for the Soldiers doing that on a daily basis, our retention would not be where it is today.”

White agreed that some of the brigade’s retention success is due to its leaders.

“It all boils down to the leadership of the Soldiers,” he said. “If the Soldiers didn’t think they were being led, they didn’t like their NCO’s or their commanders they probably wouldn’t be stepping forward to reenlist.”

During the ceremony, Gioia said the retention noncommissioned officers of Task Force Dragon do a good job in a very difficult field.

“Retention right now is hard. The retention NCOs have the hardest job, trying to retain our force,” he said. “We have to make sure we have somebody to replace us. It’s important that we retain as many Soldiers as we can and keep them in the Army.”

Keeping Soldiers around is something Task Force Dragon has done very well, with 50 percent of those eligible, roughly a third of the brigade opted to extend their Army careers.

White said he agreed.Keeping Soldiers in the Army is not always easy, he said. Getting them the right prospects for a career in the service is often easier said than done.

“The toughest part is coupling the needs of the Soldier with the Army. You have Soldiers on their second, third and fourth deployment and they want downtime, but they either don’t have the rank or the knowledge to get that downtime,” he said. “Trying to get those Soldiers somewhere where they won’t deploy for the next year-and-a-half or two years, that’s the hardest part, but for the most part, we’re doing pretty well on it, taking care of Soldiers who have done multiple deployments.

“When you get them that long shot, though, that’s the probably the most rewarding part of the job.”

Even when Soldiers do get the right situation, Col. Ricky Gibbs, the 4th BCT commander from Austin, Texas, said it takes a special person to enlist and reenlist in a time of war.

“After Sept. 11, if you raised your hand, you have something in your heart other Americans don’t have,” Gibbs said. “These Soldiers stepped up to the plate in a time of war, with no draft, and elected to serve their country, knowing their chances of going to combat are very high, and right now, their country needs them even more.”

Radar Team Keeps Eye on Falcon

2008-03-13T23:50:00.003-04:00

Radar Team Keeps Eye on Falcon
DVIDSHUB
By Spc. Nathaniel Smith
Posted on 02.29.2008

Radar Team Keeps Eye on Falcon

BAGHDAD – In a small corner of Forward Operating Base Falcon there is a team from an artillery unit, not even on the base, performing a job a lot of Soldiers have no knowledge about.

Such is the life of FOB Falcon’s radar team, detached from Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Multi-National Division – Baghdad which performs all their duties in the shadows, working hand-in-hand with the counter-rockets and mortars cell, quietly keeping an electronic eye out for enemy indirect fire attacks.

Staff Sgt. Matt Richter, the radar section chief with HHB, 2nd Bn., 32nd Field Artillery, said while his job may not be high-profile, he gets a sense of fulfillment from performing his day-to-day duties.

“It gives us the opportunity to have a significant impact in places where there’s a lot of indirect fire. If we do a good job, it allows the brigade and their sub-units to do a great job, too. We help the (Iraqis) and we help ourselves,” the Topeka, Kan., native said. “This job has satisfaction; it’s challenging and every day I learn something new. It’s an $8 million radar; there’s a whole bunch of electronics involved. You can’t know everything about it. When you have any problem, it makes it interesting because it’s always something new.”

With more than 1,300 acquisitions, more than 500 rounds tracked, and a 98 percent operational rate since March 21, 2007, things have been interesting for the Falcon radar team.

Spc. Adam Hovelson, from Brookings, S.D., and a radar operator with HHB, 2-32 Field Artillery, said he enjoys the quiet occupation he chose.

“I love my job,” he said. “It’s something that is really technical, but not terribly tough to do. It’s a fun job; I really enjoy doing it.”

Richter said his favorite part of being a “radar Soldier,” which he has been doing for seven years, has been the unique assignments he has received.

He said being in a small, dynamic field has afforded him the opportunity to work with a wide range of elements, from Special Forces to Marines. Richter, who is on his fourth deployment as a radar operator, said he enjoys having the chance to be in situations that most Soldiers would rarely find themselves.

Despite having a rewarding, one-of-a-kind job, like every other Soldier, the deployment has not been without challenges.

Among the difficult parts of the radar teams job is maintaining focus during what can be long hours of inactivity.

Hovelson said he keeps himself sharp over what can be very boring stretches by studying the radar system’s manual.

Despite the team’s difficulties, Hovelson said the camaraderie in the section became stronger due to the team’s relying on each other throughout the course of the deployment and being away from the rest of the 2-32 Field Artillery, “Proud Americans.”

“It’s helped bring our section closer together; it really helped to establish lasting relationships,” Hovelson said. “It’s given us a chance to meet a lot of people.”

Richter also found a silver lining.

“The cohesion of the section definitely went up quite a bit,” he added. “The opportunity to network and work with other people not in the same unit has been great.”

Dismounted Patrol

2008-02-25T22:35:00.005-05:00

Dismounted Patrol
DVIDSHUB
Photographer: 55th Combat Camera
Date Taken: February 17th, 2008

Dismounted Patrol 20080225

Gallery includes: 'Controlling a Possible VBIED', 'Daklea Neighborhood Patrol', 'Dismounted Patrol'
Battery B
Staff Sgt. Peter McCabe
Sgt. Benjamin Stoddart
Pfc. Steven Robbins

Audio: Ironhorse Tracker #48

2008-02-25T16:27:00.001-05:00

Audio: Ironhorse Tracker #48
DVIDSHUB
Produced By: Sgt. Marshall Pesta, 27th Public Affairs Detachment
Date Taken: 02-20-2008

Audio Summary
Download MP3

Video Location:
IQ||

Unit(s) Involved:
• 4th Infantry Division
• 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment

Submitting Unit:
Headquarters, 4th Infantry Division Public Affairs

Spc. Christopher Herff reports on improvements in security and technology in Yarmouk's hospital, thanks in part to Soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, Fort Riley, Kan. Spc. Christopher Herff, 27th Public Affairs Detachment, produced the story.
Staff Sgt. Brian Rhodes discusses the significance of the 4th Infantry Division's motto, "Mission, Soldier, Family, Team," with the 4th Inf. Div.'s commander, Maj. Gen. Jeff Hammond. Staff Sgt. Brian Rhodes and Sgt. Marshall Pesta, 27th Public Affairs Detachment, produced the story.

Fire Station in Yarmouk

2008-02-19T21:49:00.002-05:00

Fire Station in Yarmouk
Army.Mil Images on Flickr

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Patrick Henson, from Bravo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, sprays a fire house at a station in Yarmuk, Iraq, Feb. 17, 2008. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Sharhonda R. McCoy)

Soldiers Provide Security at Hospital

2008-02-19T21:43:00.002-05:00

Soldiers Provide Security at Hospital
DVIDSHUB
Photographer: Sgt. James Hunter
Date Taken: February 16th, 2008

Soldiers Provide Security at Hospital 20070219

Cpl. James Baker
1st Lt. Quinn Robertson
Spc. Terrill Welge
Sgt. 1st Class Samuel Popple

Troops on Patrol in Hateen

2008-02-19T21:20:00.001-05:00

Troops on Patrol in Hateen
DVIDSHUB
Photographer: 55th Combat Camera
Date Taken: February 13th, 2008

Troops on Patrol in Hateen 20070219

Sgt. 1st Class Daniel McKim
Spc. Daniel Hinojosa
Sgt. 1st Class Daniel McKim
Sgt. James Daniel
Staff Sgt. Frank Woode

Security Incidents

2008-02-11T16:56:00.001-05:00

Security Incidents
McClatchy News Service
Feb 9, 10, 2008

Sunday, Feb 10, 2008
Gunmen opened fire targeting Lieutenant General Mohammed Basim Abdul Redha and Colonel Farqad Salman Alwan, both work in the directorate in the general inspector of the defense ministry. The incident took place at 9:00 am in al Yarmook neighborhood west Baghdad.

Saturday, Feb 9, 2008
Around 8 a.m. a roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi police commandos patrol at Qahtan square near Yarmouk neighborhood ( west Baghdad) .Two of them were injured with some damage to their vehicle.

Known Area of Interest Control

2008-02-10T15:51:00.001-05:00

Known Area of Interest Control
DVIDS
Feb 3, 2008

Known Area of Interest Control

Sgt 1st Class Rickie Jackson
Staff Sgt Jeremiah Brennan
Sgt Jason Billings

Video: U.S. Army Soldiers Enroll Iraqi Police Volunteers

2008-02-08T08:01:00.001-05:00

Video: U.S. Army Soldiers Enroll Iraqi Police Volunteers
DVIDS
Date Taken: 11-21-2007

Video Location:
IQ||Yarmuk

Unit(s) Involved:
• 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment

Submitting Unit:
Joint Combat Camera Center

DVIDS Summary Page
Direct Link to Video

B-roll of U.S. Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment enroll Iraqi Police Auxiliary volunteers. Scenes include Iraqi volunteers walking in a line, getting their photos made and performing various exercises.

Assessment Mission

2008-02-05T23:47:00.000-05:00

Assessment Mission
DVIDSHUB
Photographer: 1st Sgt. Adrian Cadiz
Date Taken: January 21st, 2008

Assessment Mission

A U.S. military joint civil affairs team comprised of U.S. military personnel from various military units and branches of service go on an assessment mission of the Hateen Industrial Park in Baghdad, Iraq, Jan. 21, 2008.
U.S. Army Spc. Gregory Marchand
U.S. Army Spc. Joshua Barmer
U.S. Army Cpl. James Baker
U.S. Army Spc. Daniel Schmidt
U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Samuel Popple
U.S. Army 1st Lt. Quinn Robertson

Bravo Battery's Christmas Party - II Updated

2008-01-31T22:41:00.000-05:00

Bravo Battery's Christmas Party
DVIDSHUB
Date Taken: December 25th, 2007

Bravo Battery Christmas

Continued Coverage of LTC Gadson and the Giants

2008-01-31T21:48:00.000-05:00

Here are just a handful of the articles about LTC Gadson, his courageous spirit, and inspiration for the Giants:

CBS Early Show: Wounded Iraq Vet A Can-Do Spirit Giant
Hartford Courant: Wounded Veteran Brings Out Giants' Best
Orlando Sentinel: Gadson has been inspiration to Giants
New Jersey Star-Ledger: THE MAN WHO AWOKE THE GIANTS
ESPN: Source of inspiration: Injured soldier produces Giant emotions

Video: Fox News Interviews LTC Gadson

2008-01-30T00:37:00.000-05:00

Video: Fox News Interviews LTC Gadson
FOX News

Army Hero Greg Gadson Uses Personal Tragedy to Inspire Giants

St Barbara's Day Celebration

2008-01-29T23:07:00.000-05:00

St Barbara's Day Celebration
DVIDS
Photographer: Pfc. Nathaniel Smith
January 28th, 2008

St Barbara's Day

St. Barbara's Day Ball at the Al Faw Palace in Baghdad, Jan. 25. The ball is held annually in honor of the patron saint of field artillery.

Lieutenant colonel Greg Gadson is Giants' inspirational co-captain

2008-01-22T09:22:00.001-05:00

Lieutenant colonel Greg Gadson is Giants' inspirational co-captain
NY Daily News
Mike Lupica
January 22nd 2008

His name is Lt. Col. Greg Gadson and he used to wear No. 98 for the Army football team and was with the Second Battalion and 32nd Field Artillery, on his way back from a memorial service for two soldiers from his brigade when he lost both his legs to a roadside bomb in Bahgdad. It was the night of May 7, 2007, and Lt. Col. Gadson didn't know it at the time because he couldn't possibly have known, but it was the beginning of a journey that brought him to Lambeau Field Sunday night.

He was there as an honorary co-captain of the Giants, there on the sideline at Lambeau because this Giants' season has become his season now and he wasn't going to watch from some box. This is a Giant at the Super Bowl worth knowing about, as much as any of them.

"Me being a part of this team," Gadson was saying Monday night from his home in Virginia, having made it back there from Green Bay, "really starts with the team I played on at West Point."

He played at West Point between 1985 and 1988, and one of his teammates was Mike Sullivan, who played cornerback and some safety and is now one of Tom Coughlin's assistants with the Giants. When Sullivan and so many other of Gadson's teammates found out what had happened on the night of May 7, found that Gadson had first lost his left leg to arterial infections and then his right, it brought that old Army team back together.

"My injury turned out to be a catalyst event," Gadson said. "These were guys who hadn't talked in years, but now were rallying around me, and my family. Some of us had stayed in contact, but not to any great degree. But now an incident in a war reminded us that we were still brothers."

Sullivan visited Gadson at Walter Reed, came back in June, this time with a No. 98 Giants jersey, Gadson's own name on the back, signed by several Giants players. When Sullivan left that day in June, he said to Gadson, "What else can we do?"

Greg Gadson said he'd love to take his family to a Giants game.

It was the Giants-Redskins game, in Washington, third Sunday of the season, Giants 0-2 by then. The tickets were arranged and then the Friday before the game Mike Sullivan called and asked if Gadson would be interested in addressing the team on Saturday night.

Gadson's wife Kim drove him to the Giants' hotel. Lt. Col. Greg Gadson, Second Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, old outside linebacker from Army, spoke to the Giants. And just as no one knew that the Giants would begin a 10-game road winning streak the next day, just as no one knew this could ever become a Super Bowl season, no one in that room including Gadson himself knew that the soldier in the wheelchair was joining the season that night.

"I just spoke from the heart, as a soldier and as a former football player," he said, "for about 10 or 15 minutes. I talked to them about appreciating the opportunities in their lives, how special and privileged they were, how everybody needs to understand what they truly have. And I talked to them about the power of sports in people's lives, especially soldiers' lives, how many times I'd watched soldiers get up in the middle of the night after a 12-hour shift if there is a chance to watch a game, or how soldiers would do anything to watch a game before they went on that kind of shift.

"I told them that of course after all the exteriors had been stripped away, they played the game for themselves. But that they had to play the game for each other. Then I talked about myself, how my old teammates came to my need, and how I was reminded again the power of a team, the emotional commitment teammates have for each other, that when a team finds a way to do things greater than they thought they could do, that they couldn't have done individually, that a bond is formed that can live forever.

"I told them that truly great teams usually form that bond by going through something together, and how whatever they were going through at that point in the season that no success ever came easy. And finally I reminded them that nothing is promised to anybody in this life, starting with tomorrow."

The Giants won the next day against the Redskins, and began a six-game winning streak, and began that road winning streak that now takes them on the road to Super Bowl XLII. It began Greg Gadson's road to Lambeau, and being wheeled out by his 13-year old son Jaelen as an honorary co-captain of the Giants along with the great Harry Carson.

"I can't even remember the last time I was actually out on the field," he said. "Maybe when I played."

Gadson had been on the sidelines when the Giants won their first playoff game against the Bucs. The team wanted him in Dallas, but he was having more surgery, on what is left of his right leg, and his right arm, which had also been damaged by the IED. But he was well enough to travel to Green Bay, and strong enough to spend the whole game on the sideline with his son, the players calling him what they have all along:

Sir.

"I wouldn't say I was warm," he said. "But I was comfortable enough not to be hugging one of those heaters all day."

He watched from the sidelines at Lambeau as the team he met at 0-2 played the way it played against the Packers and played itself to the Super Bowl, watched as the Giants came back from that missed field goal at the end of regulation, finally saw Lawrence Tynes kick it through from 47 yards out.

"When the ball went through, you could feel the elation on our sidelines, and hear the stadium go quiet at the same time," Gadson said. "It was like the air being let out of a whole state's soul. And then the next thing I saw was my son jumping in the air and running on that field."

The boy ran for both of them.

Al Qaeda in Iraq's shrinking area of operations

2008-01-19T21:14:00.000-05:00

Al Qaeda in Iraq's shrinking area of operations
The Long War Journal
Bill Roggio
January 17, 2008

Nearly one year to the day of the announcement of the "surge" of US forces to Iraq and the change in counterinsurgency plan, Iraqi and Coalition forces have shrunk al Qaeda's ability to conduct operations inside Iraq, a senior US commander said
...

Article with excellent maps, detailing progress in Baghdad and throughout Iraq, through the past year.

Video: Iraqi Police Screening

2008-01-19T21:00:00.000-05:00

Video: Iraqi Police Screening
DVIDS
Date Taken: 01-17-2008

DVIDS Video Summary
Direct Link to Video

B-roll of U.S. Army Soldiers, along with Iraqi army and police, screening 175 applicants applying for positions in the Police Auxiliary in Hateen, Iraq. Scenes include Iraqis applicants waiting to be screened, filling out personal information and taking part in health and physical tests. Produced by Spc. Charles W. Gill.

Video: U.S. Army Soldiers Conduct a Traffic Control Point Inspection and Patrol

2008-01-17T22:50:00.000-05:00

Video: U.S. Army Soldiers Conduct a Traffic Control Point Inspection and Patrol DVIDS
Date Taken: 11-09-2007

DVIDS Video Summary Page
Direct Link to Video

B-roll of U.S. Army Soldiers conducting a traffic control point inspection and patrol in Hateen, Iraq. Scenes include Soldiers searching cars, speaking with local market owners and playing with Iraqi children. Produced by Spc. Sharhonda R. McCoy.

Activities at Yarmuk Hospital

2008-01-17T22:45:00.000-05:00

Activities at Yarmuk Hospital
DVIDS
Date Taken: December 30th, 2007

Activities at Yarmouk Hospital

Troops Visit Yarmouk Hospital

2008-01-17T22:27:00.000-05:00

Troops Visit Yarmouk Hospital DVIDS
Date Taken: December 30th, 2007

Troops Visit Yarmouk Hospital

Dismounted Patrol

2008-01-17T22:11:00.000-05:00

Dismounted Patrol
DVIDSHUB
Joint Combat Camera Center
Date Taken: November 28th, 2007

dismounted patrol 01042008

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Kevin Hudson and Pfc. Wesley Bass, Alpha Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, and Iraqi soldiers search vehicles at a traffic control point in a market area of Hateen, Iraq, Nov. 29, 2007.
U.S. Army Sgt. Thomas Ciurro, Alpha Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, provides security outside a market shop during a dismounted patrol in Hateen, Iraq, Nov. 29, 2007.

Video: Controlled Burn

2008-01-17T21:51:00.000-05:00

Video: Controlled Burn
DVIDSHUB
Joint Combat Camera Center
Date Taken: 10-26-2007

DVIDSHUB Video Page
Direct Link to Video

B-roll of U.S. Army Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery supervising a controlled burn led by the Iraqi Fire Department. Scenes include starting the fire and placing barriers around the blaze.

Giants name Honorary Captains

2008-01-17T21:14:00.000-05:00

Giants name Honorary Captains
Giants.com
By Michael Eisen
Jan 17, 2008

Harry Carson and Lt. Col. Greg Gadson Named Giants Honorary Captains for NFC Championship Game.

Lt. Col. Greg Gadson has been inspiration to the Giants.

One of the men is very well known to the Giants and their fans: Harry Carson, the Hall of Fame linebacker who played for the team from 1976-88. Carson remains a frequent and valued presence around the Giants.

The other honorary captain has become a special figure to the players and coaches this season, but is unknown outside the immediate team family: U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Greg Gadson, who lost both of his legs in May when an IED (improvised explosive device) detonated while he was serving in Iraq. Gadson spoke to the Giants prior to their victory in Washington in September and he attended their Wild Card victory at Tampa Bay two weeks ago.

Coach Tom Coughlin selected Carson and Gadson as the honorary captains for their leadership abilities and the respect they command from the players and coaches.

�I�ve always been a very strong advocate of Harry in terms of what he accomplished on the field and the quality of person he is,� Coughlin said. �Harry Carson, to me, represents the Hall of Fame, the New York Giants and New York Giants pride, and I think this is another excellent opportunity for us to express our gratification to Harry for the great player that he was and the quality of person that he is.

�Lt. Colonel Greg Gadson � is a real hero. There is a real man. His sacrifice, what he has done in his young life so that we all are able to sleep under the blanket of freedom is an incredible testimony to the quality of man that he is and his belief in the values that we all aspire to believe in.

"We just thought that this was a natural at this point in time. Since John Mara met Greg way back when, John has wanted him to be with us on the sideline as much as he can. The only reason he wasn't in Dallas was because he had surgery. It's a tremendous opportunity for us to thank him, first of all. His son will be with him, and this opportunity means as much to us as it does to Greg and his family. And I think it's good for America. The NFL is an extremely, extremely popular game and we are in the final four, one step from the Super Bowl. And really what's important is that we honor someone like Lt. Colonel Greg Gadson. Every player on this team is touched by that guy."

Carson and Gadson haven't met, but they sound as if they're mimicking each other each other when they speak about leaders, teamwork and their opportunity to stand in the center of Lambeau Field for the coin toss on Sunday.

"I was really surprised and really honored, much like when George Young passed away and at his funeral service I was the only player asked to speak," Carson said. "Another example is when we went to the Super Bowl in '86 and (Bill) Parcells sent me out for the coin toss as the lone captain. It's an honor and I don't take it lightly. It made me feel good."

As it did Gadson.

"It's overwhelming and I'm completely honored that they felt that way about me," Gadson said. "I certainly feel that way about them. It's really been a unique experience. Eight months ago I never would have imagined that my life would have been turned upside down and I'd have these things happen to me. I'm just fighting to get it back together again. Here I am now going out as an honorary captain for the New York Giants. I don't know that you ever have dreams like that. So I'm really very honored and very flattered. And to be out there with Harry Carson, who was one of my heroes growing up, makes it even more special."

Both Carson and Gadson are leadership specialists. Carson was a team captain (either with others or solo) for most of his last decade with the Giants. To the Giants of the 1980s, and particularly the 1986 team that won Super Bowl XXI, Carson is still the team�s leader.

That point was driven home to Coughlin in May, when he was honored as the 2007 Man of the Year by MAN (Minority Athletes Networking) Inc., a non-profit organization co-founded by former Giants Ron Johnson and George Martin and a group that Carson is intimately involved with. MAN Inc. is dedicated to positively influencing the lives of disadvantaged youth in the tri-state area.

Approximately 15 members of the 1986 Giants attended the MAN dinner. Coughlin was impressed with the deep bond that still exists among the players, one that is constantly fostered by Carson.

"I could just sense the tremendous respect and admiration they all had for each other and they had fun being back together," Coughlin said. "It's hard to separate anybody out, but right in the middle was Harry."

That's where Carson has been since he first wore a Giants uniform almost 32 years ago.

"Tom looked at the relationships that we have as players after all these years," Carson said. "The guys still call me their captain. When Pepper Johnson sends me an email he says, 'My captain.' You have those bonds, you have those relationships. As you prepare for battle and you're going to war - but in a different way - you go to war with the guys that are around you. And you hold those guys up with the utmost respect. Those guys - Carl Banks, Jim Burt, Pepper Johnson - they still refer to me as their captain.

"I'm happy that the organization looks at me in the same way. I'm almost 20 years out of football, but I still have a relationship with the organization, and I'm very honored to have been asked to be an honorary captain for this game.

Gadson, 41, was in a war - a real one - and it cost him his legs. He also suffered less severe injuries. Gadsen had surgery on his arm last week - "For the first time in eight months I'm able to touch my nose and eat with my right hand," he said yesterday - and he is learning to use prosthetic legs. But as much as he's looking forward to Sunday, he would return to the battlefield in a heartbeat if he could.

"The opposite side of the coin is I could be in Iraq leading my soldiers," Gadson said. "Honestly, as special as this is, that's where I want to be first. I could also be dead, because I almost died. But I'm thankful I'm alive and having a chance to participate in this."

Gadson was introduced to the Giants by wide receivers coach Mike Sullivan, his teammate and fellow member of the Class of 1989 at West Point. Gadson was a three-year starter at linebacker. The two men have remained close friends. Sullivan visited Gadson at Walter Reed Army Hospital just outside of Washington in June. He was taken by Gadson's upbeat attitude and determination in the face of tremendous adversity. Sullivan told Gadson he wanted him to attend the game when the Giants visited the Redskins.

As the game approached, Sullivan told Coughlin about Gadson. The coach arranged for Gadson to speak to the then 0-2 team the night before they played the Redskins. Gadson talked for 15 minutes and received a standing ovation when he was finished.

"His message and the lessons that he spoke of in terms of team - the seriousness of his team and how he prepared his team and the thoughts that he had about the people that served under him in Iraq were just tremendous lessons," Coughlin said. "I told our players that it's not often in our lives that we meet an individual who can have a profound influence on our lives just simply by the value of the character of the man and what he stands for. This guy is something very special."

The day after Gadson spoke to the team, Plaxico Burress scored a touchdown and immediately presented the ball to Gadson, who was sitting in his wheelchair on the sideline. The Giants trailed at halftime, 17-3, but rallied for a 24-17 victory that turned around their season.

When the Giants arrived in Tampa, Gadson, to the surprise of everyone but Coughlin and Sullivan, was waiting for them in the hotel. He was greeted warmly by everyone.

"I'm honored that the players and I have developed a bond in the short time that we have," Gadson said. "They're a special group of men that is playing well as a team. They got it. It's a team sport. Their accomplishments are greater as a team than they are as individuals."

Carson believes that teamwork is the key to the Giants' success.

"I'm very happy for the team," Carson said. "I'm not overly surprised. I always felt that this was a team that if it played smart, and regardless of what happens, keeps playing as hard as you can play, good things can happen. This is a team that Tom has put together and has done a good job of instilling the concept of team in these guys. It's about playing for one another. It's not about the individual, it's not about stats - it's about winning. Whenever guys are called on, it's about stepping up and making a play."

The Giants will need to make many plays on Sunday if they are to win the conference title and advance to Super Bowl XLII. Carson and Gadson hope they can use their position as honorary captains to help inspire the team to greatness.

"Plaxico tells the story of his first year with the Giants when he got hurt in a game," Carson said. "He looked over on the sideline and saw me and one or two other (former) players. He said the look that we gave him, he knew, "I better get back into the game." We sort of laugh about that.

"But when you have guys that have been there, guys that have won it all, guys who know what it takes, perhaps that can help inspire some of the younger guys. I hope that I can be an inspiration for them."

Gadson will be accompanied on the field by his 13-year-old son, Jaelen.

"When I was in Tampa, it was the first time I saw everybody since Washington," Gadson said. "I felt that I was as special to them as they are to me. I was in the team hotel when they filed in and I had my prosthetic legs on. The eye contact we made with each other as the players came in, I felt then that I was part of the team."

He's correct. And on Sunday, Gadson and Carson will be with the Giants on the field for the NFC Championship Game.

Combat team provides barrier security in Iraq

2008-01-14T14:12:00.001-05:00

Combat team provides barrier security in Iraq
The Leave Chronicle
By 101st Airborne Division Public Affairs
January 14, 2008

Since arriving in theater, Company A, 526th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, has been providing barrier movement and emplacement support throughout the greater Baghdad area.

Recently, the company was tasked with another mission of significant importance. The new task also involved concrete barriers; however, these barriers are not your ordinary highway dividers found on roads in the United States.

The barriers used in Iraq are a lot bigger. In fact, there are several types of barriers, all with different heights, lengths, widths and even shapes. Some barriers have the capability of interlocking with each other. These interlocking barriers are used to secure roads leading into a neighborhood or to divert vehicles through a checkpoint controlled by Iraqi security forces.

During the most recent barrier mission, Company A was tasked to support the 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment. By supporting the artillerymen, they are helping them improve their relations with the local nationals. The soldiers accomplished their mission in the nighttime hours by providing a forklift, operator and ground guide for safety while using night-vision devices.

The crew has also emplaced barriers in Baghdad neighborhoods for protection or as a trash collection point. The trash collection points provide the people of those neighborhoods a place to store their trash before it is burned or disposed of.

"The challenges that these neighborhoods face in protecting themselves is totally different than what we go through in the U.S. We have to respect that," said Sgt. Jesse Veeser, with Company A, 526th BSB.

The gesture of creating trash points and walls for the neighborhood watch groups to defend themselves helps create a strong bond between the Iraqi people and the coalition forces.

"Working with 2-32 to improve these neighborhoods is easy for us," says Sgt. James Aycock, Company. A, 526th BSB. "They (2-32 FA) protect us and our forklift and talk to these guys [Iraqi citizens from each Muhallah] before we come out to get exactly how they want the barriers emplaced in their [Iraqi] neighborhood."

Yarmouk leader killed by extremist attack

2008-01-12T15:08:00.000-05:00

Yarmouk leader killed by extremist attack
Multi-National Corps – Iraq
Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory
January 11, 2008

A Baghdad neighborhood council chairman was killed by an extremist who detonated a car bomb Jan. 8 in western Baghdad.
Dr. Faleh Mansour Hussain served his community as the chairman of the Yarmouk Neighborhood Council.
Following the detonation, Soldiers with 2nd Battalion, 5th Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, sealed off the area and assisted in the aftermath of the attack.
Iraqi first responders transported him to the Yarmouk Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
“Dr. Faleh was an honorable man who always held the interest of the Yarmouk neighborhood first,” said Maj. J. Frank Garcia, public affairs officer for 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division. “Attacks on civilians like this are done by those who are trying to prevent the peace and stability Iraqi citizens deserve.”
The incident is under investigation.

Video: U.S. Army Soldiers Award Grants to Business Owners

2008-01-10T10:26:00.001-05:00

Video: U.S. Army Soldiers Award Grants to Business Owners
DVIDSHUB
Joint Combat Camera Center
Date Taken: 10-10-2007

B-roll of U.S. Soldiers awarding grants to local business owners in Baghdad, Iraq. Scenes include Soldiers meeting with a local business owner, speaking with the individual and paying out money to the individual. Produced by Senior Airman Geneva Stone.

Video: U.S. Army Soldiers Site Weapons

2008-01-10T10:24:00.001-05:00

Video: U.S. Army Soldiers Site Weapons
DVIDSHUB
Joint Combat Camera Center
Date Taken: 10-10-2007

DVIDSHUB Video Description Page
Direct Link to Video
B-roll of U.S. Soldiers siting weapons in at Camp Liberty, Iraq. Scenes include Soldiers at a shooting range siting in their weapons, firing rounds and checking their targets. Produced by Senior Airman Geneva Stone.

Black Lions capture suspected extremist (Baghdad)

2008-01-10T00:05:00.000-05:00

Black Lions capture suspected extremist (Baghdad)
Multi-National Force Iraq Website
January 9, 2008

Multi-National Division – Baghdad forces captured a suspected extremist in the southern portion of the capital during a raid in the early morning hours of Jan. 3.

The 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division received word from the 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Inf. Div. that one of their targets was in the “Black Lions” area of operations.

Company A, 1-28 Inf. raided a house in the western area of the Rashid District after receiving reliable information to the suspect’s whereabouts.

In addition to capturing the suspected insurgent, “Attack” Company detained another individual who was in the house.

“This is a strong example of cooperation between units to identify an individual who we believe has been conducting extremist actions outside of our operational area,” said Maj. Kirk Luedeke, Task Force Dragon spokesman.

Daily Security Incidents

2008-01-08T23:53:00.000-05:00

Daily Security Incidents
McClatchy News
Jan 8, 2008

Around 11 a.m., an IED was planted inside the car of the head of Yarmouk council ( Dr.Falah Mansour Hussein ) who was killed in the incident with two other people who were injured .

Iraqi Police Badging and Market Dismount

2008-01-02T23:50:00.000-05:00

Iraqi Police Badging and Market Dismount
DVIDS
Photographer: Spc. Sharhonda Mccoy
Date Taken: November 28th, 2007

Iraqi Police Badging 20071230

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Shurland Pierre from Bravo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan., provides security during a dismount outside a market in Hateen, Iraq, Nov. 28.
U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Brown and 1st Lt. Patrick Henson from Bravo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan., dismount outside a busy market intersection to gather intelligence in Hateen, Iraq, Nov. 28.
U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Terrance Goff, Alpha Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, holds an Iraqi boy after helping him down from a tree during a dismounted patrol in Hateen, Iraq, Nov. 29.
U.S. Army Soldiers from Alpha Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, conduct a dismounted patrol in a market area of Hateen, Iraq, Nov. 29.

Yarmuk Carpentry Shop

2008-01-02T23:46:00.000-05:00

Yarmuk Carpentry Shop
DVIDS
Photographer: Spc. Charles Gill
Date Taken: November 27th, 2007

Yarmouk Carpentry Shop 20071230

Local men work on a project at a carpentry shop in the Yarmuk neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq, Nov. 27. U.S. Army Soldiers from the Civil Military Operations Company, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, were in the area conducting a routine patrol.

Troops Celebrate Christmas With Dinner, Candlelight Service

2007-12-29T22:32:00.000-05:00

Troops Celebrate Christmas With Dinner, Candlelight Service
DVIDSHUB
Photographer: Spc. Charles Gill
Date Taken: December 25th, 2007

Christmas in Yarmuck

Sgt. Vincent Passero and 2nd Lt. Patrick Henson from Battery B, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) discuss strategies while playing a game of Risk at the battery's Christmas party at Joint Security Station Torch in Yarmouk, Iraq, Dec. 25.
Soldiers from Battery B, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team show some holiday sprit and love at the Battery's Christmas party at Joint Security Station Torch in Yarmouk, Iraq, Dec. 25.
Soldiers from Battery B, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), prepare snacks at the Battery's Christmas party at Joint Security Station Torch in Yarmouk, Iraq, Dec. 25.
Soldiers from Battery B, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), enjoy a special holiday meal brought out to the Battery's Christmas party at Joint Security Station Torch in Yarmouk, Iraq, Dec. 25.
Staff Sgt. Valentin Pena, Battery B, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Staff Sgt. Valentin Pena, Battery B, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), serves a special holiday meal brought out to the Battery's Christmas party at Joint Security Station Torch in Yarmouk, Iraq, Dec. 25.
Soldiers from Battery B, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), take part in a candlelight ceremony at the Battery's Christmas party at Joint Security Station Torch in Yarmouk, Iraq, Dec. 25.
Chaplain (Capt.) Troy Parson, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), leads Soldiers in a prayer at a candlelight ceremony at the B Battery's Christmas party at Joint Security Station Torch in Yarmouk, Iraq, Dec. 25.

Field Artillery Troops Train Volunteers

2007-12-27T13:15:00.000-05:00

Field Artillery Troops Train Volunteers
DVIDSHUB
By Sgt. James P. Hunter
2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division Public Affairs
12.26.2007

Field Artillery Troops Train Volunteers 20071226
When one thinks of a police force, he may think of a two-man team, patrolling through a neighborhood in their white-Chevy Monte Carlo, with blue and red lights, and the word “police” written on the side.

They move throughout talking with local citizens at the diner, coffee shop, or on the streets corners. No matter what community, country or religious sect, policemen are there to “protect and serve.”

Take away the type of vehicle, re-write it in Arabic, from right to left, and an average policemen in Iraq is no different.

One of the biggest areas of focus in northwest Baghdad, which has been seen widespread, is the volunteers stepping up throughout the various muhallahs, giving way to freedom and democracy.

In Ameriyah, Kahdra, Jamia, and Adil, men are volunteering their efforts. Now, in Hateen, there are Iraqi police auxiliary forces, focused on maintaining a stable, secure neighborhood.

In the Strike area of operations alone, units have been very successful with establishing volunteer forces, said Capt. Brian McCall, commander and native of Junction City, Kan., with Battery A, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regt. If they apply and adapt too what they have learned from other units in dealing with volunteers, they too will be successful.

Just two weeks ago, U.S. troops with both Battery A and B of the 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, began volunteer recruitment drives in the Hateen and Yarmouk muhallahs, the Mansour District of Baghdad.

From 300 men, they were able to, through background checks and various means of investigation, narrow the field to 150 volunteers.

At the Operation Ace Academy in Hateen, the Iraqi police auxiliary began their training, Dec. 17. Twenty-five volunteers will train over a four-day period for the next four weeks, until all volunteers are trained. Also, in Yarmouk, Battery B troops are training auxiliary forces.

These men will patrol their homelands, almost acting as a neighborhood watch, until called up to begin training at the Baghdad police academy where they will officially become Iraqi policemen.

In the meantime, troops with Battery A, 2nd Bn., 32nd FA, are training these men on basic military and policing skills, said Sgt. Anthony Williams, instructor and native of Fresno, Calif., with 2nd Platoon, Battery A, 2nd Bn., 32nd FA. They are training on everything from weapons and countering-improvised explosive devices, to proper police ethics and values training.

For every two Soldiers there were seven Iraqis at the training grounds in Hateen.
Through interpreters they were able to convey their message of training and the importance of their role.

Their goal, during the course, is to ensure these men are fully capable of patrolling and maintaining ethics policemen live by, said Williams.

“We are trying to instill certain core values…” said 1st Lt. Douglas McDonough, platoon leader and native of Bonham, Texas, with 2nd Platoon, Battery A. They are tailoring their training to the Iraqi society, but ensuring they instill the basic skills and situational awareness each policeman must be keen on.

Even Iraqi army commanders in the area came to talk with these men on their importance; for their job is important to the future of Hateen and the future of Iraq.

Everyone knows military forces are used for aggressive actions against a known enemy force. Pushing police forces out into the muhallahs allows Iraqi military troops the opportunity to focus on training and military operations.

It also gives the Hateen IPA a sense of ownership for their homeland, said McCall. These men want to help their neighborhood, and in doing so, it puts more jobs into the community and gives them a sense of pride for security in their neighborhood.

“(Being a volunteer) is very important to these people,” said Williams. “These guys want to save their neighborhoods.”

With their will to save their neighborhoods, they should have an immediate impact in the area.

“I think initially the people will see friendly faces in their neighborhood – guys they have known all their lives there working to protect them,” McCall said. “… if a guy they know and trust is patrolling the streets in front of their house (should) make them feel a lot better.”

In the area, with a population of 30,000 Iraqis, McCall is eager to see how the good initiative of the Iraqi volunteers will play out.

“I think it can be a turning point for this community,” he said.

Bush Thanks Servicemembers, Military Families for Sacrifices

2007-12-24T23:50:00.000-05:00

Bush Thanks Servicemembers, Military Families for Sacrifices
DefenseLink News Article
Melinda Larson
Dec 23, 2007

President Bush used his weekly radio address yesterday to thank America’s servicemembers who will spend Christmas far away from their homes and loved ones.
“America is blessed to have men and women willing to step forward to defend our freedoms and keep us safe from our enemies. We are thankful for their courage and their dedication to duty,” Bush said.

Families of the nation’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen serve their country too, Bush said.

“America is also blessed to have military families willing to sacrifice for our country. And this Christmas, many will sit down to dinner thinking of their loved ones half a world away,” the president said.

Bush also praised the families of wounded warriors who help their loved ones recover from injuries suffered in combat. “Through their encouragement and devotion, they help heal the body and spirit, and they remind our wounded warriors that our nation stands behind them,” he said.

For the military families who have lost loved ones in battle, Bush commended them for turning their grief into acts of compassion and love.

“One such inspiring example is the family of Army Spec. Michael Rodriguez, of Knoxville, Tenn. During his deployment in Iraq, Michael often wrote home to his family about the children he met on patrol. In April, Michael was killed by a suicide bomber,” Bush said.

Bush added that Rodriguez’s family honors his memory by helping to collect school supplies for students at an Iraqi school for girls. “At this time of year, we acknowledge that love and sacrifice can transform our world,” he said.

While thousands of military families are apart this holiday season, Bush expressed his hope for all of America’s families to tighten their familial bonds.

“As Christmas approaches, Laura and I extend to all Americans our best wishes, and we hope every family is brought closer together during this season of reflection and rejoicing,” the president concluded.

Mission in Yarmuk

2007-12-14T10:47:00.001-05:00

Mission in Yarmuk
DVIDS
Photographer: Spc. Charles Gill
Date Taken: November 27th, 2007

Mission in Yarmuk 20071115
Staff Sgt. Whaley
1st Lt. Quinn Robertson
Spc. Shedrick Franklin

Audio Stories: Cav Roundup

2007-12-13T08:18:00.001-05:00

Audio Stories: Cav Roundup
DVIDS
Headquarters, 1st Cavalry Division Public Affairs
11-23-2007

Direct Link to Audio

This edition features stories on Soldiers from Bravo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery part of 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division from Fort Riley, Kansas, held a security force recruiting drive in Yarmook; Multinational Division-Baghdad and 1st Cavalry Division Commander, Major General Joseph Fil, Jr. Presenting retention awards to 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division at Forward Operating Base Falcon. Hosted by Sgt. Robert Owens.

Video Location:
IQ||Baghdad

Unit(s) Involved:
• Bravo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, (US)

Security Incidents

2007-12-12T12:26:00.000-05:00

Daily Security Updates
McClatchy News
December 11, 2007

Around 5.30 p.m., gunmen riding a sedan car opened fire on an Iraqi army check point near Um Al-Tiboul mosque in Yarmouk neighborhood ( west Baghdad) injuring three [Iraqi] soldiers of that check point

Mosque Monitoring

2007-12-12T12:19:00.000-05:00

Mosque Monitoring
DVIDS
Date Taken: October 12th, 2007
Photographer: Spc. Sharhonda Mccoy

Mosque Monitoring

U.S. Army Cpl. Matthew Whiting and Spc. Jose Tavarez from Bravo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan., provide security in Yarmuk, Iraq, Oct. 12.

U.S. Army Sgt. Zhuoang Cao from Bravo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan., have a conversation with Iraqi children while providing security in Yarmuk, Iraq, Oct. 12.

U.S. Army Cpl. Matthew Whiting and Spc. Jose Tavarez from Bravo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan., converse with Iraqi civilians while providing security in Yarmuk, Iraq, Oct. 12.

Security Incidents

2007-12-12T12:17:00.000-05:00

Daily Security Updates
McClatchy News
December 10, 2007

2 national police members were injured in an IED explosion that targeted their patrol in Qahtan square in Yarmouk neighborhood west Baghdad around 5,30 pm.

Thekhar Primary School

2007-12-05T23:40:00.000-05:00

Thekhar Primary School
DVIDS
Photographer: Spc. Charles Gill
Date Taken: November 9th, 2007

Thekhar Primary School 20071130

Iraqi Police Auxiliary Recruiting Mission

2007-12-05T23:29:00.000-05:00

Iraqi Police Auxiliary Recruiting Mission
DVIDS
November 19th, 2007
Photographer: Spc. Charles Gill

Iraqi Police Auxillery Recruitment 12052007

Security Incidents

2007-12-05T23:26:00.000-05:00

Security Incidents
McClatchy News
December 5, 2007

Around 11.30 a.m., a roadside bomb targeted a police patrol near Yarmouk hospital on the way to Nisour intersection injuring two policemen

Video: Iraqi Auxillary Force Recruiting Drive (unedited footage)

2007-11-30T09:34:00.000-05:00

Video: Iraqi Auxillary Force Recruiting Drive
Digital Video and Imagery Distribution
Date Taken: 11-29-2007

DVIDS page
Direct Link to Video

Interviewee(s):
• Spc. Justin Henckel (US)
• 1st Lt. Neal Rice (US)
• Capt. Jason Morgan (US)
B-roll made of "Iraqi Auxillary Force Recruiting Drive" in the package section of an Iraqi auxiliary force recruiting drive. Scenes include the processing of Iraqi citizens, medical screening, background checks, Iraqis taking a fitness assessment and interviews. Produced by Sgt. Marie Exley.

Video: Iraqi Auxillary Force Recruiting Drive (finished video)

2007-11-30T09:30:00.000-05:00

Video: Iraqi Auxillary Force Recruiting Drive
Digital Video and Imagery Distribution
Date Taken: 11-29-2007

DVIDS page
Direct Link to Video

Video Location:
IQ||Yarmouk

Interviewee(s):
• Spc. Justin Henckel (US)
• 1st Lt. Neal Rice (US)
• Capt. Jason Morgan (US)

Package of an Iraqi Auxiliary Force recruiting drive in Yarmouk to try and become Iraqi police. Also see "Iraqi Auxiliary Force Recruiting Drive" in the B-roll section.

Iraqis Line Up to Join Auxiliary

2007-11-27T22:16:00.000-05:00

Iraqis Line Up to Join Auxiliary
Digital Video and Imagery Distribution
Sgt. 1st Class Robert Timmons
11.27.2007

iraqis line up to join auxillery 20071127

It has been a long, hard deployment for the Soldiers serving in Iraq. Threats of improvised explosive devices, snipers and chaos seemed to hide around every corner.

Yet through it all, the rates of attacks against coalition forces and their Iraqi counterparts are dropping. The Associated Press reported U.S. commanders as saying violence is down 55 percent since the surge of 30,000 troops arrived in the city.

Is this decrease a matter of more Soldiers patrolling the troubled streets of the Iraqi capital or is it because more Iraqis are standing up to the extremists to take their part and end the cycle of violence?

Amid the myriad reasons for the decrease, one thing is certain; Iraqis are lining up by the hundreds to join Iraqi police auxiliary forces.

These forces, though paid less than Iraqi policemen and may one day becoming full-fledged police officers, are tasked with protecting their own neighborhoods or muhallahs.

On Nov. 17 and 19, troops from 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment along with their Iraqi security forces brethren held recruitment drives to sign up these volunteers in the Hateen and Yarmouk neighborhoods.

At the Nov. 17 drive, sponsored by Battery A, over 175 recruits volunteered, while at the Battery B drive in Yarmouk, 47 went through the recruitment.

“It is extremely important,” said Dana, Ky., native Sgt. Michael Webb, a petroleum supply specialist from Battery A, 2nd Bn. 32nd Field Artillery, who manned the final out processing station at the event. “We are giving back to the Iraqi people. It is very important for them to help take care of themselves.”

During the drives, the recruits had to pass through a security checkpoint, a brief medical screening, a biometrics check, an interview with local ISF commanders and a physical fitness test before they could see Webb to get their final processing.

“This was planned for a couple weeks,” the 32-year-old said. “We have been able to move people through efficiently through good communications.”

He added that there was a good deal of interpreters at the event which helped speed it along.

One of the most important steps in the process was ensuring no recruits had a suspicious background.

“We do biometrics checks to see if they come up on any list,” said Staff Sgt. Steven Guiffre, a military policeman with the 401st Military Police Company who oversaw the taking of fingerprints and retinal scans. “This helps eliminate those you don’t want as a policeman.”

The data gathered is put into a computer database which checks to see if the person is who they claim to be and if they are suspected of criminal activity.

The Waterbury, Conn., native whose unit helps train Iraqi police officers said it is important for Iraq to have a good strong police force.

“You don’t have a totally free society with the Iraqi army pulling security,” he said. “Let the police take care of the towns and let the army take care of the country.”

To ease any sectarian tensions, any male over the age of 17 was allowed to volunteer regardless if they were Sunni or Shia.

“Everybody is allowed to volunteer as long as they live in the area,” said Bloomington, Ind., native, Staff Sgt. Patrick Whaley, the battalion’s Civil Military Operations platoon sergeant. “This is a good step in the right direction for the Mansour area, especially Hateen. It gets the locals working with the (Iraqi security forces) as they police their communities.”

The 37-year-old father of a 19-year-old private said during the Hateen recruitment drive that a few months ago the idea of this many people showing up would have been laughed at.

“We had over 175 people show up today,” he said. “Six to seven months ago you wouldn’t even have had half that many.”

While the numbers seem small compared to larger neighborhoods like Saydiyah or Doura where the numbers reached up into the high hundreds, the IPA will soon hit the streets to help rid the city of criminals.

Guarding Principles

2007-11-26T23:13:00.000-05:00

Guarding Principles
Digital Video and Imagery Distribution
Sgt. 1st Class Robert Timmons
November 25th, 2007

guarding principles

Newaygo, Mich., native Spc. Ron Lethorn, a 30-year-old cannon crew member with the 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, personal security detachment, stands guard as Lt. Col. Michael J. Lawson speaks to local Iraqis during an Iraqi Police Auxiliary recruitment drive in Hateen Nov. 17. The 2nd Bn. 32nd Field Artillery is currently attached to the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, but is an organic part of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Inf. Div. based at Fort Riley, Kan.

Platoon Sells Itself to Help Iraqis

2007-11-26T23:07:00.000-05:00

Platoon Sells Itself to Help Iraqis
Digital Video and Imagery Distribution
Sgt. 1st Class Robert Timmons
11.26.2007

to help iraqis 20071126

The Iraqi children come up to the Americans with broad smiles on their faces. Some ask for soccer balls like thousands of other kids across the country, but some of these just wanted to talk with the heavily-armored troops who have brought calm to their little corner of the Iraqi capital.

These are the children at the Daklea Market in Baghdad and on Nov. 18 Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment’s Civil Military Operations platoon were there to take a census of sorts among the shop owners.

The platoon was finishing up documenting all the shop owners in the area. That day they catalogued the last shops.

“It’s all about sales,” said 1st Lt. Quinn Robertson, the platoon’s leader from Richmond, Va., who sold stocks before joining the Army. “It’s all about selling yourself. That’s how you talk to them.”

Robertson’s strong background in the business world and his time as a battery executive officer and battalion intelligence officer have served him well with the platoon he said. He said it gives him the chance to help reintroduce the Iraqis to the process of rebuilding their nation.

“It’s all about the relationship building,” he said after meeting and greeting various Iraqis at the market. “They don’t come from the same backgrounds as we do, so we are reintroducing them to the process – the who and where you get the money from to get things done. The way you talk to them goes a long way.”

The CMO platoon, which was created in September was the brainchild of former Civil-Military Officer, 1st Lt. Alex Barnett, who saw its creation as a way to free up combat power, said Lancaster, Pa., native 1st Lt. Neal Rice, the battalion’s civil military operations officer.

“Before we had the platoon, line platoons were escorting us all over the battlefield,” the 27-year-old said. “CMO became such a big part of our mission that we were getting inundated. So the commander said, ‘Let’s get a platoon.’ Now CMO has freedom of movement anywhere in the area of operations.”

The platoon made up of various military occupational specialties including administrative, medical, infantry and cannon crewmembers has helped calm a once restive market.

The battalion, and the platoon, brought a religious leader over to their side with signs of progress Robertson said.

“He was not exactly on the fence,” he said. “But we brought him onto the fence then our actions brought him over. We asked if he was the power in the neighborhood and he said, ‘Yes.’ So we put him together with the neighborhood council. With the NAC and him together the bad guys could only take him so far.”

And the neighborhood began to steadily improve, he added.

Besides helping get the Daklea Market back on its feet the platoon is tasked with “getting sewage off the streets, getting the pumping stations working, assessing schools and assisting the Iraqi police auxiliary in Yarmouk,” said Staff Sgt. Patrick Whaley, an infantryman from Bloomington, Ind., and CMO platoon sergeant.

The platoon also helped with IPA recruitment drives in Hateen and Yarmouk.

But, the success of the platoon goes back to one thing, Robertson said.

“It’s all about relationship building,” the 33-year-old five-year Army veteran said.

‘Like a Pit Crew,’ Mechanics Keep Batteries Firing

2007-11-26T23:00:00.000-05:00

‘Like a Pit Crew,’ Mechanics Keep Batteries Firing
Digital Video and Imagery Distribution
Sgt. 1st Class Robert Timmons
11.26.2007

mechanics 20071126

To support Operation Iraqi Freedom all units, whether infantry, engineers, armor and even artillery, have been called on to fill non-traditional roles and hit the streets.

Such is the case with the 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, a part of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division back at Fort Riley where they call home, but while deployed are attached to the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division. They have traded in their howitzers for Humvees so they can mingle with the residents of Hateen and Yarmouk.

While the artillerymen walk the streets, of arguably one of the quietest neighborhoods in the city, mechanics at base camp keep the battalion’s wheels to the road.

The troopers of Company G, 610th Brigade Support Battalion, the “Proud Americans” forward support company, don’t just wait for vehicles to break down: they provide all types of support for the battalion including recovering disabled vehicles and getting them repaired for the next mission.

“It’s important here to keep the trucks on the road,” said Vero Beach, Fla., native Chief Warrant Officer Richard Jones, who heads the company’s mechanic shop. “We are here 24/7; after the mission is over and the (after action reviews) are done they bring their vehicles here to see if anything is broken.”

While the battalion had to change its focus from pounding the enemy with high-explosive shells to pounding the streets, the mechanics had to learn on the fly how to assess and fix the different style of Humvees used here.

“They didn’t have a lot of experience in these types of vehicles,” the 16 and half year Army veteran and father of three said. “But we have an outstanding bunch of mechanics here. It took time learning to troubleshoot the vehicles. The vehicles are different from that in the rear, they have different electronics and generator systems.

“It took a good 90 days for them to get used to the (M1151s) – now they are a regular pit crew.”

M1151 Humvees are the latest generation of Army vehicles which are built with heavier armor and sturdier drive trains than older models.

“The M998 Humvees we worked on at Fort Riley were a little different,” said shift supervisor Sgt. Thomas Shulte, a 29-year-old from Detroit. “They don’t have all the armor on them and it made it a lot easier. In the 1151s, a lot of stuff is packed into the work area. It’s much easier to work on once you know what you are looking for.”

Schulte, who took up fixing cars as a hobby, said the mechanics rotate between working the day shift and night shift. “There is a non-commissioned officer and several Soldiers here at night.”

During the dayshift, the Soldiers concentrate on routine servicing of vehicles, ensuring preventative maintenance checks and services are done on the trucks before they are dispatched and any other problems the trucks may have.

When doing routine maintenance, the Humvees are examined top to bottom, front to back, as the mechanics look for anything out of the ordinary.

“We make sure there is no dry rot,” Schulte said. “In these conditions the ball joints fail and tie rods bend. In this environment they fail a lot.”

Even with that challenge, Shulte and his team are proud of what they do and look forward to rejoining the rest of the Dragon Brigade once they redeploy.

Baghdad Set to Serve up Turkey

2007-11-21T12:02:00.000-05:00

Baghdad Set to Serve up Turkey
Army News Service
BY Pfc. April Campbell
Nov 21, 2007

CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq - It can be hard for Soldiers deployed in Iraq to remember what day of the week it is sometimes, but troops visiting the dining facilities here Thursday will be sure to know it's Thanksgiving.

"The Thanksgiving Day dinner is the meal of meals for the Army," said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Shawn M. Malinowski, the food service advisor with Multi-National Division - Baghdad. "There is no money, no effort, nothing wasted on this day."

While dining facilities feed a lot of mouths at every meal they serve, they can expect to see a significant increase in that number on Thanksgiving Day, CWO4 Malinowski predicted.

The Pegasus Dining Facility, near the MND-B headquarters, served approximately 2,500 people Thanksgiving dinner last year, when only 1,500 people were served at an average meal. This year the dining facility is serving approximately 2,500 people at an average meal, so it can be expected to serve anywhere between 3,000 and 5,000 people for the holiday meal, CWO4 Malinowski said.

Unlike the average Turkey Day dinner at home, where most families don't even begin thinking about meal preparations until some time in November, planning a holiday meal for thousands can take months. Preparations for this meal began in July and August, CWO4 Malinowski said, and much of the food, including the turkey, had to be ordered ahead of time.

"The DFAC employees are working on their time, after shift, in the back (of the facility) making decorations such as cornucopias, gingerbread houses and fruit carvings," said CWO4 Malinowski. "They will bring them all out and set them up the night before."

In order to give direction to the holiday festivities, each dining facility focuses on one topic or theme related to Thanksgiving.

"Each dining facility has its own theme chosen by the manager," said Sgt. Maj. Terry L. Stewart, a Bridgehampton, N.Y., native and food service sergeant major for MND-B. Adding a competitive edge to the decorating helps to reward the DFAC workers for the time and effort they spend preparing their crafts.

"We give medals sent from Fort Hood to each of the commands that has a dining facility and they judge the decorations in their dining facility," said CWO4 Malinowski. "Workers within each DFAC compete against each other."

Being halfway around the world for a holiday traditionally spent at home around the family dinner table can bring Soldiers closer together.

"It humbles me," said Stewart. "Even though we are away from our families at home, those of us here are family, and we come together in fellowship and give thanks for being alive."

Helping to make sure those serving their country have a pleasant memory of the Thanksgiving they spend in Iraq is important to CWO4 Malinowski and Sgt. Maj. Stewart, who plan to greet everybody who comes through the Pegasus Dining Facility door this Thanksgiving.

"It's especially rewarding to see the Soldiers smile and the joy in their faces when they come through," said Sgt. Maj. Stewart. "They see the effort that the DFAC workers put into the meal."

Video: Transfer of Authority 2BCT to 101 ABN

2007-11-20T21:51:00.001-05:00

Video: Transfer of Authority 2BCT to 101 ABN
Digital Video and Imagery Distribution System
Nov 19, 2007

Link to DVIDS page
Direct link to video

B-Roll of the Transfer of authority between the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division and 2nd Brigade Combat Team 101st Infantry Division. Scenes include a Soldier raising and lowering flags, speeches at the ceremony and a brief interview.
Unit(s) Involved:
2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st infantry Division (Schweinfurt, DE)
2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Fort Campbell, US)
Interviewee(s):
Col. JB Burton (US)
Col. William Hickman (US)
Submitting Unit:
2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (AA) Public Affairs

Baghdad Comes Alive

2007-11-20T09:34:00.000-05:00

Baghdad Comes Alive
NEWSWEEK
By Rod Nordland
Nov 17, 2007

For someone who has returned periodically to Baghdad during these past four and a half years of war, there has been one constant: it only gets worse. The faces change, the units rotate, the victims vary, but it has always gotten worse. Brief successes (elections, a unity government) collapse as still greater problems rear up (death squads, Iranian-made bombs). The country's sects grow ever more antagonistic; the killings become more depraved; first a million, then 2 million, then 4 million Iraqis flee their homes. Al Qaeda loses its leader when Jordanian Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi is killed. But it steadily replenishes its ranks of suicide bombers, and morphs from a largely foreign force into a far more dangerous indigenous one. And so on.

For the first time, however, returning to Baghdad after an absence of four months, I can actually say that things do seem to have gotten better, and in ways that may even be durable. "It's hard to believe," says a friend named Fareed, who has also gone and come back over the years to find the situation always worse, "but this time it's really not." Such words are uttered only grudgingly by those such as me, who have been disappointed again and again by Iraq, where a pessimist is merely someone who has had to endure too many optimists. It doesn't help that no sooner have I written these words than my cup of coffee spills as a massive explosion shakes our building—the first blast near our place in weeks, and the more shocking for that. We grab body armor and helmets and await the all-clear. It is "only" an IED near the entrance to the Green Zone, targeting a U.S. convoy and killing two civilians and one American soldier.

The explosion is the exception to the rule—but one of the reasons the U.S. military is gun-shy about claiming success too soon. IED attacks across the country are at their lowest point since September 2004, down 50 percent just since the surge peaked last summer. There hasn't been a successful suicide car bombing in Baghdad in five weeks, and the few ones in recent months have been small and ineffective. There used to be four a day, many of which claimed scores of lives each. "Very sustained trends," the official military spokesman, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, says cautiously. "But it's far too early to call this a statistically significant trend."

So the following observations do not come so much from the brass: Al Qaeda in Iraq is starting to look like a spent force, especially in Baghdad. The civil war is in the midst of a huge, though nervous, pause. Most Shiite militias are honoring a truce. Iran appears to have stopped shipping deadly arms to Iraqi militants. The indigenous Sunni insurgency has declared for the Americans across broad swaths of the country, especially in the capital.

Emerging from our bunkers into the Red Zone, I see the results everywhere. Throughout Baghdad, shops and street markets are open late again, taking advantage of the fine November weather. Parks are crowded with strollers, and kids play soccer on the streets. Traffic has resumed its customary epic snarl. The Baghdad Zoo is open, and caretakers have even managed to bring in two lionesses to replace the menagerie that escaped in the early days of the war (and was hunted down by U.S. soldiers). The nearby Funfair in Zawra Park—where insurgents used to set up mortar tubes to rocket government ministries, and where a car bombing killed four and wounded 25 on Oct. 15—is back in business. "Just four months ago, you could hardly see a single family here," says Zawra official Hussein Matar. One of our translators succumbed to the tears of his son recently and took him to Zawra for his 9th birthday. It was the boy's first visit to a Baghdad amusement park; the war has robbed him of nearly half his childhood.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has gotten so carried away by it all that during a heavily guarded walkabout on Abu Nuwas Street earlier this month he declared "victory against terrorist groups and militias." Even many of his cabinet thought the remarks premature. "That was a mistake," says the minister of migration and displaced people, Abdul Samid Rahman Sultan. "It's too early to say that. Maybe Al Qaeda has gone to sleep, and yes, they lost Baghdad, but maybe they'll go other places." The U.S. commander in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., was even more cautious. "Baghdad is a dangerous place," he said at a recent lunch. "Al Qaeda, though on the ropes, could come back swinging." Victory, he suggested, "is within sight, but not yet within reach."

The generals have good reason to be, as one officer puts it, "wary of that 'Mission Accomplished' thing." (He declined to be identified criticizing the commander in chief's May 2003 gaffe.) Their biggest concern—other than a Qaeda resurgence—is that the Iraqi government has been slow to take advantage of the relative peace to restore services and speed reconciliation between Shiites and Sunnis. "Security and stability has created a window of opportunity the government needs to seize," says Lt. Col. Steve Miska, the outgoing deputy brigade commander in charge of the long-troubled northwestern part of Baghdad. The capital's neighborhoods have calmed in large measure because each is now dominated by one sect or another, with tens of thousands of U.S. troops temporarily holding them together (or keeping them apart, as the case may be). "We cannot sustain the surge," says Miska—and once we go, the two sides could well turn on each other with renewed fury.

Meanwhile, though, I can contemplate activities that were once unthinkable: like going out to dinner. Baghdad's famous mazghouf restaurants, selling barbecued river carp on the banks of the Tigris, have come back to life. At one of them, called the Karrada Sports Club, owner Mundar al Haidar recently checked the big circular pools of live carp, and watched as his workers splayed the fish on staves to grill them over a bonfire made of lemontree wood. They were preparing for the evening rush, when these days the restaurant fills to capacity. "You go out now and you feel safe," he says. "The only explosions are far away. I myself left here at midnight last night." Haidar even invited me to lunch at his home, something both of us would have considered foolhardy, even suicidal, only last summer. If insurgents didn't kill me before I left, they would have killed him after.

People who have long lived like fugitives can now do the most normal things. Zuhair Humadi, a high-ranking Iraqi official who lives in the Green Zone, recently attended a public wedding celebration in Baghdad without a massive security detail. The Shorja bazaar in old Baghdad, hit by at least six different car bombs killing hundreds in the last year, is again crowded with people among the narrow tented stalls. On nearby Al Rasheed Street, the famous booksellers are back in business, after being driven into hiding by assassins and bombs. People are buying alcohol again—as they always had in Baghdad, until religious extremists forced many neighborhood liquor shops to close.

This, however, is the new normal. Baghdad's safest neighborhoods are those with blast walls around them. A thousand mini Green Zones have bloomed on the urban landscape, tormented fortifications of steel, concrete and barbed wire. Once wide boulevards are subdivided to channel traffic into search lanes, and divided again by barriers to slow suicide bombers. Both Shiites and Sunnis still take long, circuitous routes to work to avoid each other's neighborhoods. Salih al-Moussawi is a young Shiite doctor from Yarmouk, which became an all-Sunni area after five Shiite greengrocers were set afire and burned to death in public last April. He fled the area then, and avoided it until recent weeks. "Now Yarmouk no longer terrifies me," Moussawi says—he goes shopping there. But he's not ready to move home.

Sunni neighborhoods like Yarmouk have been quieted largely by what the military calls "concerned citizens groups," volunteers who have sprung up all over Baghdad and are being paid by the Americans to combat Al Qaeda in their districts. Many of them are former Iraqi insurgents. "It's huge," General Fil says of the impact of these groups, which go by various names in various communities—the Awakening, Freedom Fighters, Knights of the Two Rivers. In Baghdad, the U.S. military says it has forked over about $17 million to the volunteers, to enroll some 67,000 fighters. "That's less than the cost of one Apache helicopter, and it's done a lot more good," says Fil. "I don't know how many hundreds of lives it's saved."

The volunteers have even calmed neighborhoods like Ameriyah, in western Baghdad. When tribal sheiks in Anbar province declared war on Al Qaeda, this is where its fighters fled; last spring it declared Ameriyah the capital of its Islamic State of Iraq. It was already a bad place, and by last May it was arguably the worst place in Iraq—14 American soldiers died there that month in a series of attacks. Now the district has gone three months without a U.S. casualty or a single "sigact," military-speak for significant action.

The last time I'd entered the neighborhood, for a quick visit to the hard-line Sunni Islamic Party of Iraq three years ago, I thought it was possibly the dumbest thing I had ever done. Even now, getting there is not reassuring; something like commuting to work in an armored submarine, actually just a convoy of Humvees with armor so thick it takes two hands to pull the doors closed. Six-foot-high walls surround the community of 25,000 people, many of them former officers in Saddam's Army (hence the success of the insurgency in recruiting here). Inside it's not a cheery-looking place, but it's bustling: 130 shops are open where only a few were last May. Most of the soldiers of the First Battalion, Fifth Cavalry Regiment, in Ameriyah now patrol on foot some of the time, with little worry of being fired upon. Locals greet the American soldiers easily, and acquaintances come up and shake hands, even kiss cheeks in the Arab way.

The cheek-kissing begins in earnest when the Roughnecks, a company of police and military trainers attached to the battalion, arrives at the bustling headquarters of the Sunni volunteers, who here call themselves the Forsan al Rafideen, Knights of the Two Rivers. (The Americans shortened that to its acronym, FAR, until one of their interpreters pointed out that the word sounds like "mouse" in Arabic.) Capt. Eric Cosper, a big man to begin with, looks like a bear in his flak vest as he bends down to hug and kiss the FAR officers he knows best. "What you see here," he says proudly, "has taken six months to build." Like most of the American officers here, the captain is not on his first tour in Iraq, but it's the first one in which he's made a lot of Iraqi friends. "The last six months have been the most rewarding of my career, and my whole attitude to Iraqis has changed," he says.

That kind of sudden camaraderie has raised suspicions among Shiites in particular. They wonder if the Americans aren't letting their hunger for good news blind them to their new allies' true motives. The FAR commander, Abu Abed, is a former Iraqi Army intelligence major who the Americans say had joined a Sunni insurgent group aligned with Al Qaeda. (Abed politely maintains he never fought against the Americans, but his skill at dismantling IEDs has convinced them otherwise.) By way of introduction, he flips out his cell phone and scrolls through pictures, showing two of his brothers in the morgue, the victims of Shiite death squads. One has had his left hand cut off and his other fingers and toes removed; the other had a nail driven into his skull. Both had been taken from their homes by Iraqi police, and were found dumped with 20 others during the height of sectarian violence. The Sunnis of Ameriyah did not allow the police, dominated by Shiites, to build a post in the neighborhood then, and they still don't.

Abed sticks to the script, however. Though Shiite extremists killed his brothers, he blames Al Qaeda instead, for fueling the sectarian conflict that led to their deaths. And the tale of why he sided with the Americans, while familiar, doesn't sound contrived. In May, when two Qaeda fighters tried to kidnap an elderly Christian in the neighborhood, the man's wife clung to his leg. In dragging her away, the kidnappers pulled her skirt off. That touched a nerve with locals already fed up with all the bodies dumped in rubbish and booby-trapped, the 10-year-old boy who was beheaded and then eaten by dogs because everyone was too afraid to get involved. The imam of the Firduz mosque, Sheik Waleed al-Asawi, who witnessed the kidnap attempt, was so angry he went to the mosque and prayed for Allah to kill the Qaeda men. "We were guilty," he says, "because we made Ameriyah a safe place for Al Qaeda." Abu Abed and his men confronted the kidnappers and ended up in a fire fight that the terrorists looked to win, until the sheik called the Americans to come to their aid.

"My men thought I was nuts," says Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl, commander of the First Battalion. "I went into a house, surrounded by former insurgents, thinking this could go either way. They were ready to go on operations [against Al Qaeda] right away. It was surreal, fighters jumping on our vehicles." Since then the Americans have picked off one Qaeda cell after another with information Abed and his followers have provided.

Now Abed's men—300 paid fighters, and another 300 unpaid volunteers—play soccer with the Americans, and even with the Iraqi Army soldiers assigned to the area, who are mostly Shiite. Abed has become a regular at battalion headquarters, where Kuehl's staff officers bend the rules and let him come into their command post armed. "At first we were worried about them learning our TTP [tactics, techniques and procedures], but here they were giving us theirs," says Kuehl. Abed once showed the Americans how to search vehicles for weapons. "He said, 'Give me 20 seconds to hide this gun'," says Maj. Chip Daniels, the battalion's Ops officer, " 'and then I'll give you five minutes to find it'." The soldiers couldn't; he had broken it down and secreted it inside an armrest.

"Everything in Iraq is shades of gray," says Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Third Infantry Division. Sunni groups like FAR include "a lot of guys that may have been involved with the insurgency yesterday and may become involved tomorrow. But we have reconciled with enemies before. Right now they're part of the solution, not the problem."

The question is how healthy or sustainable that solution is. Abu Abed's relations with the Iraqi Army are noticeably cooler than with the Americans, and he worries about what will happen when they leave. "If the U.S. Army doesn't stay with us, we can't do anything," he says. The success in Ameriyah owes something to the fact that it's almost entirely Sunni now. Most Shiite neighborhoods, on the other hand, are still controlled by groups like the Mahdi Army, whose ceasefire has contributed greatly to the drop in attacks on U.S. troops but who are still feared by Baghdad's Sunnis.

The plan is not to create warlords in hundreds of little fiefdoms, but to gradually enlist the volunteers in Iraqi police and Army units, to be stationed at first in their own areas. U.S. commanders complain, though, that the Iraqi government has been deliberately dragging its feet on processing the volunteers. Sunni neighborhoods like Ameriyah have also been last in line to get municipal services—a few hours of electricity a day, and trash pickups so infrequent the place looks more like a slum than the bullet-riddled upper-middle-class area it actually is. When the locals were in open rebellion, that neglect may have been understandable. Now it's not, says Humadi, a senior adviser to Shiite vice president Adel Abdul Mahdi: "The Americans have done their part. But the Iraqis have not." (Last week the Iraqi government announced a new $900 million capital budget for Baghdad, double this year's.)

The most important repairs—to Baghdad's psyche—may be out of anyone's control. "The greatest obstacle [to reconciliation] is what the social fabric was subjected to," Tareq al-Hashemi, the Sunni vice president, said last week. For the first time in years, Baghdad's citizens now feel reasonably safe in their own neighborhoods. But they remain fearful of moving between them, across the capital's myriad sectarian borders, some invisible, others marked by high concrete. There continues to be a handful of sectarian killings daily in the city, most attributed to rogue Shiite militias ignoring the ceasefire, but each one leaving a family with a potential vendetta. Patching up Baghdad's social fabric may prove a lot harder than defeating Al Qaeda. And, yes, it could still get worse again. A pessimist is also an optimist who has too often been proved wrong.

101st Airborne's Strike Brigade sends Dagger Brigade homeward bound

2007-11-18T14:51:00.000-05:00

101st Airborne's Strike Brigade sends Dagger Brigade homeward bound
BlackAnthem Military News
Sgt. James P. Hunter, 2nd BCT, 101st Abn. Div. Public Affairs
Nov 18, 2007

The 2nd "Dagger" Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, from Schweinfurt, Germany, handed over responsibility of northwest Baghdad to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), from Fort Campbell, Ky., during a transfer of authority ceremony Nov. 17, at the Camp Liberty Field House.

"... It is with great humility, but with great confidence in the abilities of the Strike Brigade Combat Team, that I relinquish responsibility for Coalition Force efforts in northwest Baghdad," said Col. J.B. Burton, commander, 2nd BCT, 1st Inf. Div. "We have achieved the tasks that you put before us, but we leave knowing that there is still much to do."

The Dagger Brigade helped transition a hostile northwest Baghdad from heavy, kinetic and costly fighting to a secured population, rid of extremists, criminals and terrorists, he said. Throughout their 15-month deployment, they played a vital role moving Iraqis into the political process and the formal reconstruction of Baghdad and Iraq.

Burton said all Iraqis, regardless of sect or religion, received equal municipal services, education, opportunity and a total improved quality of life.

The Dagger Brigade capitalized "on the opportunities provided by the noble efforts and sacrifices of Coalition Forces, Iraqi Security Forces and brave Iraqi citizens who have delivered an opening for enduring victory and a future where Iraqis are not measured by religious sect or special group affiliation," Burton said. "Our combined efforts have set the conditions necessary for re-integration, reconciliation and reconstruction here."

Though the day was a great one for the Dagger Soldiers, who will be returning home to their families in Germany, Col. William B. Hickman, commander of the 2nd "Strike" BCT, 101st Abn. Div. (AASLT) said, "It is truly a great day to be a Strike Soldier and now a part of the First Team serving in Multi-National Division - Baghdad."

The brigade redeployed from southern Baghdad in September of 2006 and spent the last 12 months preparing themselves for this deployment where, through combined efforts, they expect to set the conditions for a strong, prosperous Iraqi future.

"We know this mission comes at a pivotal time and that our actions will make a lasting impact," Hickman continued. "I know our Soldiers and units are ready for the upcoming challenges and opportunities to serve with the Iraqi Security Forces."

As the Strike Brigade assumes responsibility of operations in northwest Baghdad, they will have four combat-tested battalions, who have spent the last several months conducting operations throughout northwest Baghdad, fighting by their side.

Joining the 2nd BCT, 101st Abn. Div., will be the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment; 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment; 1st Squadron, 5th Cavalry Regiment; and the 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment.

"Your efforts in this area, partnered with local Iraqi leaders and citizens, has made a tremendous impact and is receiving a great deal of attention throughout the world," Hickman said.

These battalions, alongside 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment; 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment; 526th Brigade Support Battalion; and 2-101 Brigade Special Troops Battalion are ready for the mission, Hickman said.

"Finally, to the Soldiers of the Strike Brigade Combat Team - the next chapter in our distinguished history will be written in the next 15 months," Hickman said. "That history will start with the commitment to serve honorably with the Iraqi Security Forces for the Iraqi people. Maintain high standards and discipline and never stop learning. These things will make us successful. In time, we will look back and see the results of our partnered efforts."

The Silent Fight

2007-11-15T10:37:00.000-05:00

The Silent Fight
Dagger's Edge Magazine: Vol 1, Issue 25
Capt George Morrison
November 12, 2007

Pictures Include:

US Army Soldiers from A co, 2-32 FA and Iraqi Army Soldiers deliver educational supplies and Dental Hygiene products to a school in Hateen, Iraq on Oct 29th.
Staff Sgt Mullen speaks with residents about their security and essential service concerns in their neighborhoods.
Iraqi Police distribute Handbills created by the 2-32 FA Battalion IO Officer about a rocket attack in AO Patriot.

Task Force Patriot fights with a steady presence in Hateen and Yarmouk to stop the terrorism that infects these neighborhoods. We do it through combat patrols in the area, capturing terrorists and removing caches. We also wage a campaign to persuade the people to reconcile their sectarian differences and help put an end to the violence. The myriad of ways in which we influence the people is part of our information operations campaign. Outward effects on the people are only a portion of the overall campaign.

The information operations campaign also includes our efforts to understand the people, specifically what their feelings and opinions are about various aspects of their day to day lives. An example of this is the popular opinion of the progress of the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police developing into legitimate professional forces. Every neighborhood, every block, even every house can have a different opinion about this issue and many other issues like it. Our information operation campaign looks at all of the different feelings and opinions from throughout all of these different areas; this information is then consolidated to show commanders and staff what people are saying and how they feel based on the demographics of the area. These feelings and opinions aid the staff in the planning process and the Commanders in their decision making and daily engagements.

TF 2-32 influences the people of Yarmouk and Hateen through several different methods. The most common form is through face-to-face engagements with the populace. During these engagements, Soldiers, first line leaders and commanders discuss themes and messages that the battalion information operations officer recommends based on the Battalion Commander’s mission intent. These themes and messages focus the discussion on topics that will communicate our ideas to the populace and influence them to think in a certain way. An example of this is the idea that the Iraqi Security Forces need the support and help of the Iraqi people in order to defeat terrorism, and that the Iraqi Security Forces are the ultimate solution to stopping terrorism in Iraq.

The populace is persuaded not only through spoken means, but printed and broadcast means as well. Handbills are an effective and common method used by Task Force Patriot. Handbills are simply flyers that communicate a message, much like you might find under the windshield wiper of your car. Sometimes the handbills are created and printed with the help of the Tactical Psychological Operations Team (TPT) that is attached to our unit, but also sometimes by the Battalion S7. Posters, newsletters, and newspapers are other print methods that can be produced by the TPT, billboards are another print product but on a much larger scale that requires coordination with other units responsible for their contracting. The TPT, led by Staff Sgt. William Mullen, consists of three specialized Soldiers that go on patrols with each battery and our Civil-Military Operations Platoon. These Soldiers talk to the populace to gather atmospherics about the opinions and feelings of the people in each neighborhood, convey focused messages in their discussions, advise the S7 on the planning of his information operations campaign and act as a liaison between the Battalion and other Psychological Operations units in utilizing different print and broadcast products.

Broadcast methods are the most effective ways to influence the local population, but also are the hardest asset to obtain. Broadcast forms of communication include radio and television advertisements and announcements. These mediums influence a wide range of people, exceptionally larger than our area of operations. In order for our Task Force to communicate a particular theme or message through broadcast means the message must affect the majority of the listening area, such as a Baghdad-wide curfew change or the institution of a new law. Broadcast methods are rarely used at the Task Force level because of these requirements.

The information operations campaign compares closely to the marketing campaign of a corporation. The scheme of the campaign centers on understanding our customers’ (the Iraqi people) wants and needs (security, governance, economic and essential services concerns) and then convincing them to buy our product (believe in the Iraqi Security Forces, support their local government, revive their local markets, put trash in its place, be active in their community). The campaign encompasses aspects from research and development to publication and advertising.

Task Force Patriot’s Information Campaign is strong and effective and an important part of the fight. Much like man cannot live on bread alone; our fight cannot be won only through combat actions. It takes a fine-tuned, culturally aware, mission ready Soldier to accomplish today’s mission. This means our Soldiers are trained to fight the enemy when necessary and talk to the people to help them with their problems. Our Soldiers are more than just war fighters in a combat zone; they are ambassadors in a foreign country and they are making progress every day.

True American Hero

2007-11-14T10:36:00.000-05:00

True American Hero
CNN.COM
Barbara Starr
November 11, 2007

Video Interview with Lt. Col. Greg Gadson

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides

2007-11-12T21:26:00.000-05:00

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides
Dagger Brigade Combat Team Official Site
Week: Nov 5 - Nov 11
Slides: 22, 23

Proud American Medics Provide Valuable Training to Iraqi Army
SPC Cox explains how the Israeli Bandage works.
SPC Cox demonstrates how to assess a casualty
SPC Ackerman continues the medical training class
Alpha Battery Works With Local Firefighters
1LT Neal Rice discusses the controlled burn with the Chief Firefighter
An Iraqi Firefighter lights the tall weeds on fire to clear the open field
Soldiers from A/2-32 prepare for the controlled burn with local Firefighters

Daily Security Round-up

2007-11-12T13:55:00.000-05:00

Round-up of Daily Violence in Iraq
McClatchy Newspapers
Reuters
By Mohammed Al Dulaimy
12 November 2007

Around noon an IED detonated inside the car of an Iraqi army officer LC Salam Ismaeel as he was driving his car in Al Yarmouk neighborhood, Ismaeel was injured.

School Supply Mission

2007-11-09T23:55:00.000-05:00

School Supply Mission
DVIDS
Photographer: Spc. Charles Gill
Date Taken: October 29th, 2007

school supply mission

Soldiers Give Students a Head Start

2007-11-09T23:45:00.000-05:00

Soldiers Give Students a Head Start
DVIDS
Photographer: Spc. Charles Gill
Date Taken: October 29th, 2007

soldiers give students a hand

Iraqi Security Forces and U.S. Special Forces capture seven extremists in Baghdad raid

2007-11-07T12:28:00.000-05:00

Iraqi Security Forces and U.S. Special Forces capture seven extremists in Baghdad raid
Blackanthem Military News
MNF-IRAQ Press Release
By Multi-National Corps - Iraq PAO
Nov 7, 2007

6th Iraqi Army Division Soldiers, advised by U.S. Special Forces, captured seven al-Qaeda in Iraq extremists during operations in Mansour Nov. 4.

Captured was the primary target for the operation, a suspected AQI leader who reportedly organizes and personally conducts kidnappings, murders, car-bombings, and improvised explosive devices attacks. He reportedly runs a criminal network thought to be behind terrorist attacks carried out in the Ahdimiyah, Al Kahdra, Al Ameriyah, Yarmouk, and Mansour districts of Baghdad.

According to intelligence reports, the suspect is believed to have ordered the murder of a family of three and the killing of eight construction workers. He is also thought to be behind the attempted murder of a Mansour City Council Chairman and an IED attack that killed three Iraqi checkpoint guards.

During the operation, Iraqi and U.S. Forces detained eight additional suspects for questioning.

No Iraqi or U.S. Special Forces were injured during this operation.

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides

2007-11-06T12:31:00.000-05:00

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides
Dagger Brigade Combat Team Official Site
Week: Oct 29 - Nov 4
Slides: 25, 26, 27

1st Platoon, Bravo Battery Makes More Friends
SPC Brown bandages a minor scrape for a local girl.
SGT Hinna, 1LT Henson, SGT Christian, and SSG Olmeda enjoying their time in Yarmouk
1LT Henson is a favorite among local children
Bravo Battery Helps Renovate and Open Local Park
Local children help clean up the park before the Grand Opening
CPT Morgan looks on during the ribbon cutting ceremony to open the newly renovated park
Children help themselves to snacks to celebrate the park opening
SGT Levi Panting prepares to hand out soccer balls to local children
Bravo Platoon Leaders Getting the Job Done
Lt Alex Barnett scans the area during one of his first patrols as PL
Lt Pat Henson makes the job look easy after months of experience
Lt Aaron Rubin and SFC Efrain Fuentes pose outside the local Iraqi Police Station

Hateen Controlled Burn

2007-11-06T12:25:00.000-05:00

Hateen Controlled Burn
DVIDS
Photographer: Spc. Charles Gill
Date Taken: October 26th, 2007

Hateen Controlled Burn 20071105

Practice Makes Perfect

2007-10-31T23:16:00.000-04:00

Practice Makes Perfect
DVIDS
Photographer: Sgt. 1st Class Robert Timmons
October 30, 2007

practice makes perfect

Staff Sgt. Matthew S. Richter re-enlists

Soldiers Practice First Aid

2007-10-31T23:05:00.000-04:00

Soldiers Practice First Aid
DVIDS
Photographer: Spc. Sharhonda Mccoy
October 30, 2007

soldiers practice first aid

Spc. Bobby Rodriguez
Golf Company

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides

2007-10-30T22:46:00.000-04:00

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides
Dagger Brigade Combat Team Official Site
Week: Oct 22 - Oct 28
Slides: 26, 27, 28, 29

2LT Drewelow Promoted to 1LT
LTC Mike Lawson promoted Nathan A Drewelow from Second Lieutenant to First Lieutenant. 1LT Drewelow serves as the Medical Platoon Leader for Task Force Patriot.
Alpha Battery Commander Shows Balance Daily
CPT McCall tants the competition
Alpha PSD on patrol
CPT Brian McCall accepts micro-grant applications from local residents in an
effort to spur local economic growth
Soldiers Exert All Their Energy During the Tug of War Battle
Soldiers from Alpha Battery work hard during the Tug of War event during the Task Force Patriot Organizational Week
SFC Allen gives everything he has to stay one step ahead
Patriot Soldiers Enjoy Downtime During Organizational Week
LT Chris Lowry serves like a pro during the volleyball competition with
Headquarters Battery
Patriot 6 & 7 find time to enjoy the organizational week events
A silhouetted soldier from Alpha Battery prepares to serve an Ace.

Patriot Call: Vol 1, Iss 9

2007-10-25T21:17:00.000-04:00

The Patriot Call
Volume 1, Issue 9
October, 2007

CHANGES THEY ARE A COMIN’: LTC Lawson

CSM CORNER: CSM William R. Huffin

ONE DAY CLOSER TO SOMEDAY: CH (CPT) Troy Parson

ORGANIZATIONAL WEEK: SGT MATTHEW WOODBURN

THE INFAMOUS ROUTE POPEYES: PFC Stephen Williamson

THE SILENT FIGHT: CPT George D. Morrison

WELCOME BACK TO PAD 10: CW2 Richard Jones

TOP OF THE TRUCK: Adam Wocjik

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides

2007-10-24T08:09:00.000-04:00

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides
Dagger Brigade Combat Team Official Site
Week: Oct 15 - Oct 20
Slides: 21, 22

Alpha Battery Spends the Day Meeting Local Youths
SSG Adam Freeman talks with a local man as Iraqi Policemen look on
SGT Nathan Vorenkamp greets an Iraqi girl
SGT Miguel Rodriguez talks with local children
SPC Garth Croft provides security as curious children look on

Alpha Battery Sets Up Hasty Checkpoint With Aid of Iraqi Army
SSG Adam Freeman and SGT Nathan Vaughn confiscate two AK-47s found during a hasty traffic inspection
SGT Vaughn uses a metal-detecting wand to search local citizens during the traffic stop
SGT Miguel Rodriguez and an Iraqi NCO during a break from the operation

Iraqi Emergency Responders Work Together

2007-10-22T22:06:00.000-04:00

Iraqi Emergency Responders Work Together
DVIDS
MNF-IRAQ
Pfc. April Campbell
10.22.2007

Emergency Response Training

Iraqi security forces took another step toward self-sufficiency when several Iraqi security elements participated in a civil defense drill in Yarmouk, an area in the Mansour District of western Baghdad, Oct. 20.

Iraqi soldiers from the 2nd Battalion “Falcons”, 5th Brigade, 6th Division, as well as policemen from three Iraqi police stations and firefighters from the Yarmouk Fire Department planned and executed the drill. The different security elements reacted to two simulated vehicle-borne improvised explosive device explosions in a populated area.

The 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division (Task Force Patriot) along with a Military Transition Team (MiTT) with the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, helped to coach the different elements.

“We proposed the idea several months ago,” said Cape May, N.J., native Lt. Col. Michael J. Lawson, the commander of Task Force Patriot. “Then, the Iraqi army took the lead in planning the drill along with the Iraqi police and the local fire department.”

While coalition forces helped guide the Iraqi security forces, the Iraqis were in charge of planning and executing the drill.

“The drill enabled the Iraqis to develop an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem,” Lawson said. “Reacting to VBIEDs is something that they will have to be able to do.”

The exercise allowed the different response elements to understand each others’ roles as well as how they, themselves, fit into the bigger picture.

“The most important gain happened in the area of coordination between all the (security forces),” said Iraqi army Col. Ali Fadil, commander of the Falcon Battalion. “It is not just the work of (the Falcon Battalion). There is a much bigger force involved in controlling events other than just the Iraqi army.”

Different sectors of the local police and fire departments will be interacting with the Iraqi army to coordinate a response to such a terrorist attack, added Fadil.

Emergency response drills, such as this, may also help to increase the quality of life for the citizens of Baghdad. Enabling the different organizations to work together can help them develop a more systematic approach to their emergency planning.

“If (a terrorist attack) happens, (the citizens) can see that the fire department will come here and do this, the police will do this, and the Iraqi army will be doing (its) part,” said Woodbridge, Va., native Capt. Gregory Wooton, MiTT executive officer and civil military officer advisor, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment. “They’ll start seeing who’s responsible for what.”

Through this type of training effort, Wooten said the Iraqi emergency response agencies can learn to coordinate with each other, and Iraqi citizens can gain confidence in the quality of their civil service agencies.

The Joint “Service Station”

2007-10-22T09:54:00.000-04:00

The Joint “Service Station”
Dagger's Edge Magazine: Vol 1, Iss 23
Capt. Brad Bandy
October 2, 2007

Being a 63B Light Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic in a Field Artillery battalion serving as an infantry unit is a tough task, but rotating to Joint Security Station Torch makes being a mechanic even more challenging. At any given time, the JSS is manned by two full platoons, the quick reaction force and the force protection platoon, and numerous other patrols use the JSS as a staging point throughout the day. With upwards of 20 HMMWVs coming through the JSS every day, the mechanics have learned that it takes plenty of duct tape and shoelace quick-fixes to keep the trucks going… and this isn’t even the hard part.

With a notoriously unreliable, 20-plus year-old 100KW generator powering the lights, air conditioners, radios, computers, televisions, and security cameras at the JSS during its first six months, the mechanics quickly found themselves cross-trained as MOS 52D, generator mechanics. Of course, several field grade officers were always there to inspire and motivate them, since the generator always seemed to break during important security meetings.

Repairing generators is only one half of the 52-series’s training, so the mechanics figured why not go all the way and qualify as a 52C Air Conditioner Repairer. The JSS boasts no less than fourteen split-unit air conditioners haphaphazardly installed with as much as thirty feet of tubing and wires running between the condensers outside and the cooling units inside. They provide endless opportunities to learn how to recharge Freon and re-do the electrical wiring.

Speaking of wiring, the mechanics have become part-time electricians as well. The eleven perimeter flood lights mounted on the JSS’s concrete barrier walls are connected by hundreds of feet of cable to a switch panel featuring a combination of European, Asian, and Middle Eastern plugs and outlets, each with its own peculiar amperage and voltage. Somehow, the mechanics have made them all work together on a nightly basis.

Welding often comes into play, too. Whether it is constructing a man-size security gate, fabricating brackets to mount anything and everything imagin-able, or re-sealing the metal rooftop water tanks that constantly develop leaks, the mechanics have become artists with a welding arc. By the way… those water tanks have a whole lot of pipes running throughout the house, and a good plumber goes a long way too!

While the HEMTT wrecker dedicated to the JSS has not been used to recover any disabled vehicles yet, the wrecker and its crew of mechanics have certainly gotten plenty of work as a heavy lift asset. Whether it is repositioning barricades at the entry control point, downloading pallets from cargo trucks for the twice-a-week logistics push, or going out with the distribution platoon to emplace concrete barriers in the middle of the night, a ten-ton capacity crane with a skilled operator at the control levers is never short of work.

The mechanics’ trips back and forth from JSS duty are usually a quiet half-hour ride… usually. However, one maintenance team can boast of a slightly more exciting experience. When their escort platoon halted to conduct a dismounted inspection of a wire obstacle, AIF engaged the platoon with heavy small arms fire from the opposite side of the highway. In the twenty-five minute engagement that ensued in the early morning darkness, the mechanics-turned-gunners fired 70 rounds from their .50 caliber machine guns at enemy muzzle flashes to provide covering fire while the dismounted personnel maneuvered back to their vehicles.

This group of maintenance specialists has truly given new meaning to the term “multi-functional logistics,” and has demonstrated that every Soldier is a rifleman first. When it comes to getting the job done in, on, or outside of the JSS, you can count on a couple of good mechanics to be your one-stop service shop.

THE INFAMOUS ROUTE POPEYES

2007-10-21T23:45:00.000-04:00

THE INFAMOUS ROUTE POPEYES
Dagger's Edge Magazine: Vol 1, Iss 24
Pfc. Stephen Williamson
Oct 16, 2007

It was early evening in late September and I found myself appreciating the chill in the air for the first time in a long time. I sat in the gunner’s hatch scanning the rooftops as I swiveled to the right and to the left. This was our first mission since the later Ramadan curfew had gone into effect, and I was shocked to see so many people out so late. I adjusted quickly to the crowd, however, and kept a vigilant eye on them. Our mission that night was to provide security for barrier emplacement along Route Popeyes, and as I scanned my sector I noticed the huge billboard from which the road derives its name.

Popeye the Sailorman, a character created by the American cartoonist Elize Segar in the late 1920s, adorns the front of Popeye’s Coffee Shoppe, one of the most prominent structures on the road. I always found it ironic that this stretch of road was named for the rough seaman because just as he was always ready to take the fight to the bad guys with a can of spinach and his arms a-swinging, it was on this road that the men of Bravo Battery so often had to face the IEDs of the enemy in the early stages of our deployment. I will never forget hearing things like, “When we turn onto Route Popeyes the mood just sort of tightens up,” or “We just cross our fingers and push through.” Remembering these eye-opening comments as I sat in my turret, often made by hardened veterans, I looked out at the crowds of people and thought of how far this area had come in the past seven months.

Thanks to the steadfast commitment of the Bravo Battery Bulldogs and the rest of Task Force Patriot, the Yarmouk neighborhood of western Baghdad has experienced a myriad of successes since our arrival here in March. From the countless reconnaissance patrols to combined training operations with the Iraqi Army personnel who man checkpoints along Route Popeyes, we have all put in long hours in this area and many others like it throughout the Patriot sector.

Whether you work in the motor pool maintaining the vehicles, in the TOC tracking the battlefield, at the Aid Station providing for the health and welfare of the Soldiers, or on patrol providing security for the Iraqi people, we must all remember that successes like the crowd along Route Popeyes are the reason that we are here. Thanks to us, the Iraqi people can sit at their coffee shops enjoying a cup of chai. Thanks to us they can come to their businesses to work and shop without fear. Thanks to us they can move to and from the Al-Showaf Mosque, a prominent mosque on Route Popeyes, in safety. And for giving the Iraqi people the opportunity to do all of these things, we members of Task Force Patriot can all truly feel like Proud Americans.

Brigade Reports Progress in Northwestern Baghdad

2007-10-19T08:39:00.000-04:00

Brigade Reports Progress in Northwestern Baghdad
Army.Mil:News
BY Master Sgt. Dave Larsen
Oct 15, 2007

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq (Army News Service, Oct. 15, 2007) - A reduction in violence in neighborhoods on Baghdad's northwest side and an improved security situation is allowing reconstruction efforts and economic gains to flourish, the commander of the brigade which has patrolled the area for nearly a year said during a press conference Oct. 12.

Col. J.B. Burton, commander of the 2nd "Dagger" Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, met with members of the Pentagon press corps for a briefing via satellite. He highlighted the progress made in his area of operation, which spans most of northwestern Baghdad.

"In order to stop the cycle of violence we set about to defeat sectarian expansion by Shia Extremists, while simultaneously defeating Al-Qaeda and denying their access to the population," said Col. Burton, a native of Tullahoma, Tenn. "In short, we had to get out into the city, live among the citizens, fight alongside the ISF, and deny insurgents, criminals and extremists access to the population."

The implementation of the Baghdad Security Plan, Operation Fardh Al-Qanoon allowed the Dagger Brigade to move into neighborhoods with a permanent presence, Col. Burton added, with the end result being an 85 percent reduction in violence in the area since May.

"Of our 95 'Mulhallas,' or neighborhoods-58 of them are now considered under control, 33 remain in a clearing status with violence continuing to go down, and four remain in a disrupt status," Burton noted. He said murders in the area, which a year ago occurred more than 150 times each week, are down to an average of five a week.
He said a major contributor to the improving security situation in northwestern Baghdad is the commitment of concerned citizens, who have stepped forward to aid Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces provide safe neighborhoods and put a stop to sectarian violence and terrorist acts in their midst.

"These volunteers are actively providing security in partnership with our combined forces and concurrently increasing the citizen's confidence in the Iraqi Security Forces as a whole," Col. Burton said. "To date, we have a total of 1,772 volunteers and recruits who are fully screened and ready to attend academy for integration into the ISF, with 500 scheduled to attend (the police) academy this month."
With an increased confidence in the security efforts in their neighborhoods, Col. Burton said each of his 14 joint security stations have seen an increase in tips from residents, helping to thwart terrorist activity. Likewise, he said residents are becoming more involved in the local governmental process, addressing community issues together.

"Further, we are focused on extending the reach of the government by providing businesses access to financial capital and through the development of public works substations that employ locals in local areas to deliver essential services within their capacity," Burton told the media members. "Our Embedded Reconstruction Team and Joint Project Management Office are helping us achieve these effects."
Col. Burton's brigade headquarters is slated to return to its home base in Schweinfurt, Germany beginning next month. The Dagger Brigade commander said he is pleased with the progress he's seen during his year in the Iraqi capital.
"We leave an area of operations that has shown significant improvement in terms of reduced violence, improved essential services, improvement in the task of daily governing, Iraqi Security Forces that get better each and every day," Col. Burton concluded. "And most importantly we are seeing citizens who are rejecting extremist organizations and standing up and volunteering to help improve the security and well-being of their families and their neighbor's families."

(Master Sgt. Dave Larsen serves with 1st Cav. Div. Public Affairs)

LTC Gadson to be Featured on Sesame Street Special Production

2007-10-13T17:07:00.000-04:00

Children’s show films Belvoir Soldier
Belvoir Eagle
By Julia LeDoux
Thursday, October 11, 2007

Sesame Street came to Fort Belvoir last week, as producers of the children’s show interviewed an Army family about how they are coping with their Soldier’s war wounds.

Lt. Col. Greg Gadson, 41, lost both his legs when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle in Baghdad around 9:30 p.m. May 7. The force of the blast threw the 1989 West Point graduate from his vehicle, leaving his legs seriously injured and him bleeding badly. Four days later, after being airlifted out of Iraq, Gadson was undergoing treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where doctors determined his left leg had to be amputated above the knee. Gadson and the doctors decided to amputate his right leg, which he said was not going to be any use to him, shortly after that.

“We are still working through this,” Gadson said. “Communication is very important. We have to take care of each other.”

Gadson, his wife, Kimberly; daughter, Gabriella; and son, Jaelen; are a tight-knit family whose bonds have only been made that much stronger as a result of his injury.

“I have a lot more time to spend with them now,” Greg Gadson said.

Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organization that produces the hit kids’ show, is working on a DVD that will be distributed to military families, which is designed to help injured veterans talk about their disabilities with their children.

The Gadsons spent a couple of hours filming their portion of the DVD at their home last Thursday.

“It does help sometimes to talk it out,” said Gadson. “It cleanses it out of you.”

The DVD is expected to be available in January, a Sesame Workshop spokeswoman said. Military families will be able to download it at no cost from http://www.militaryonesource.com.

While he was in the hospital, Gadson had plenty of visitors, including his West Point classmate, Mike Sullivan, who is now a New York Giants receivers coach. Sullivan, in turn, told Giants head coach Tom Coughlin that the team might benefit from hearing Gadson speak. On Sept. 21, the former Army football player spoke to the New York Giants on the eve of their 24-17 win over the Washington Redskins.

Gadson currently spends about three to four hours a day working out and plans to be at Fort Riley, Kan., when his battalion returns from its deployment.

Gadson also served in Bosnia and Afghanistan and fought in the first Gulf War.

Before the Mission

2007-10-11T21:41:00.000-04:00

Before the Mission
DVIDS
Photographer: Tech Sgt. Andrew Rodier
Date Taken: October 2nd, 2007

Before the Mission

Alpha Battery
Sgt. 1st Class, Ricky Jackson

U.S. Army Sgt. Talks With Assistant Iraqi Police Commander

2007-10-11T21:36:00.000-04:00

U.S. Army Sgt. Talks With Assistant Iraqi Police Commander
DVIDS
Photographer: Tech Sgt. Andrew Rodier
Date Taken: October 2nd, 2007

U.S. Army Sgt. Talks With Assistant Iraqi Police Commander

Sgt. 1st Class, Ricky Jackson

Security Provided During Dismounted Patrol

2007-10-11T21:28:00.000-04:00

Security Provided During Dismounted Patrol
DVIDS
Photographer: Tech Sgt. Andrew Rodier
Date Taken: October 2nd, 2007

Security Provided During Dismounted Patrol

Staff Sgt., Roger Richards

Activities in Yarmouk

2007-10-11T21:22:00.000-04:00

Activities in Yarmouk
DVIDS
Photographer: Tech Sgt. Andrew Rodier
Date Taken: October 2nd, 2007

Activities in Yarmuck

Alpha Battery
Sgt. 1st Class, Ricky Jackson
Sgt. Rob Cervantes

Overwatch Provided in Hateen, Iraq

2007-10-11T21:11:00.000-04:00

Overwatch Provided in Hateen, Iraq
DVIDS
Photographer: Tech Sgt. Andrew Rodier
Date Taken: October 2nd, 2007

Overwatch Provided in Hateen, Iraq

Staff Sgt. Jonathan Theodore

Activities at the TCP in Hateen Neighborhood, Iraq

2007-10-11T21:00:00.000-04:00

Activities at the TCP in Hateen Neighborhood, Iraq
DVIDS
Photographer: Tech Sgt. Andrew Rodier
Date Taken: October 2nd, 2007

Activities at the TCP in Hateen Neighborhood, Iraq

Alpha Battery
Staff Sgt. Adam Freeman
Spc. Pete Lopez
Sgt. Rob Cervantes

Security on Dismounted Patrol in Baghdad

2007-10-11T20:39:00.000-04:00

Security on Dismounted Patrol in Baghdad
DVIDS
Photographer: Tech Sgt. Andrew Rodier
Date Taken: October 2nd, 2007

Security on Dismounted Patrol in Baghdad

Alpha Battery
Staff Sgt. Adam Freeman
Spc. Adam Siegel
Sgt. Rob Cervantes
Sgt. 1st Class, Ricky Jackson

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides

2007-10-09T16:10:00.000-04:00

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides
Dagger Brigade Combat Team Official Site
Week: Oct 1 - Oct 7
Slides: 30-32

Bravo Battery Change of Responsibility Ceremony
1SG Robert Cooke, the outgoing 1SG, hands the ceremonial saber to the Battery Commander, CPT Jayson Morgan
CPT Morgan hands the saber to 1SG Joseph Ballard, the incoming 1SG, charging him with the duties of the 1SG

NCO and Officer Promotions
1LT Danny Morrison stands ready to be promoted
Newly promoted CPT Morrison recites the Oath of Office
LTC Lawson Promotes Daniel Holtz to SGT and "affixes" the rank to SGT Holtz
LTC Lawson congratulates the Army's newest NCO
06 October 2007 Promotion and Awards Ceremony
LTC Lawson pins the Combat Action Badge on SGT Thomas Schulte
Lawson awards the Army Achievement medal to SGT Jonathan Horowicz for being named Battalion NCO of the Quarter
Lawson and 1LT Ryan Stidum exchange salutes after LTC Lawson awarded him the Combat Action Badge
LTC Lawson and SGT Michael Webb exchange salutes following Webb's promotion to SGT and his receipt of the AAM

Video: U.S. Soldiers Conduct a Clearing Mission

2007-10-08T12:00:00.000-04:00

Video: U.S. Soldiers Conduct a Clearing Mission
DVIDS
Aug 20, 2007

Direct Link To Video

DVIDS Page

Video Location:
IQ||Baghdad
Unit(s) Involved:
• 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment
Submitting Unit:
Joint Combat Camera Center

Disabling the Insurgency

2007-10-04T09:36:00.000-04:00

Disabling the Insurgency
Dagger's Edge Magazine Vol 1, Iss 21
Sgt. 1st Class Sean O’Brien
September 5, 2007

The Distribution Platoon of G Company, 610th BSB (Forward Support Company for 2-32 FA) continues to do an outstanding job here in Iraq, providing “service to the line, on the line, and on time.” This diverse group of Soldiers is comprised of various military occupational skills ranging from mechanic to cook to driver; all of whom come together as one team to issue ammo, transport food, deliver fuel, dispose of trash and provide barrier emplacement in support of Task Force Patriot and the
2nd Brigade Combat Team.

On occasion, enormous transportation requirements arise to which the platoon must react quickly and aggressively. These requests have become somewhat of a learning experience and a challenge. This month, besides the normal weekly battle rhythm, Task Force Patriot called on Distribution Platoon to transport over 2,500 50-kilogram bags of ammonium nitrate from an abandoned factory in Hateen to Camp Liberty’s hazardous material disposal area.

We began the planning process with the idea of using connex inserts and ratchet straps, an idea which seemed great until one of the maneuver platoons brought us a bag of the material in question. At first glance, the awkward shape and solidity of the 110-pound bag presented a problem. The adaptive Soldiers of the platoon experimented with multiple configurations using an insert, reaching the conclusion that about 10 bags would maximize an insert without compromising its structural integrity. In doing the math, 2,500 bags of ammonium nitrate would require about 250 connex inserts. This meant Distro Platoon would have to make multiple trips to and from Camp Liberty to accomplish the mission. In order to maximize the capabilities of our five heavy transport vehicles and save time, we knew we had to adjust fire.

We next acquired Air Force pallets and cargo nets and coordinated forklift support from B Company, 299th FSB. The platoon made training on the Air Force pallets its priority, since none of the Soldiers had any experience with the Air Force’s nets and pallet systems. The platoon pulled together in preparation for the mission and became proficient on the equipment, experimenting with the best ways to use it until a new plan was in place.

At “O’dark thirty”, we staged our vehicles and conducted PCC/PCI, the mission
brief, and battle drills. The convoy moved out and set up at an abandoned warehouse in the Hateen Industrial Area. When the contracted Iraqi workers arrived, the security platoon searched them and led them into the factory, where they would upload the ammonium nitrate bags onto our equipment. All of the workers were excited; most had not been able to find work in nearly a year. The first warehouse was covered with inches of bird droppings, which we inadvertently stirred up into a kind of dust as we worked. We provided the workers with face masks and rubber gloves, but it was a dirty and hot first day’s work for everyone involved. Fortunately, the second and larger warehouse storing ammonium nitrate was not nearly as bad.

Over the course of five days, each truck averaged about an hour or so to upload and then a little extra time to tie and secure each load with cargo nets. On the final day, we loaded damaged and ripped bags into connex inserts for containerized transport. Despite the mid-afternoon heat, which soared each day to over 120 degrees, everyone consistently displayed exceptional motivation and teamwork throughout the duration of the mission.

Distribution Platoon, in conjunction with local national contractors, and elements of Alpha Battery, 2-32 FA, removed over 250,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, preventing the insurgents from using the volatile compound against our forces in the form of home made explosives. With ingenuity, teamwork, and dedication, the Soldiers of this platoon continue to live up to the spirit of the Big Red One. “No Mission Too Difficult, No Sacrifice Too Great, Duty First!”

A Blast In The Darkness

2007-10-03T19:24:00.000-04:00

A Blast In The Darkness
Washington Post

The individual pictures can be viewed with the link below, but the original slideshow at the Washington Post includes a brief interview with LTC Gadson.

LTC Gadson: Washington Post Article

Left Of Boom

2007-10-03T16:04:00.000-04:00

Left Of Boom
Rick Atkinson
Washington Post
October 3, 2007

The article is an interesting look at the strategies used to combat IEDs -- The last section is about LTC Gadson, and the actions taken by 1st Sgt. Frederick L. Johnson and Pfc. Eric C. Brown that helped save his life.

BAGHDAD -- In the early spring of 2006, perhaps the most important document in Baghdad was known as the MOASS -- the Mother of All Spreadsheets-- a vast compilation of radio frequencies that insurgents used to trigger roadside bombs.

In some areas of Iraq, 70 percent of all improvised explosive devices were radio-controlled, and they caused more than half of all American combat deaths. An overworked Army intelligence officer tracked the frequencies, and an equally overworked Navy electrical engineer matched them against 14 varieties of electronic jammer used by coalition forces.

As new frequencies popped up, the updated MOASS was analyzed by the National Security Agency, by Navy electronic warfare specialists in Maryland and by Army specialists in New Jersey, which led to recommended adjustments in the jammer settings. Those modified "loadsets" were then e-mailed to U.S. military forces throughout Iraq so that the jammers could be reprogrammed. The cumbersome process took weeks, by which time new frequencies had been logged into the spreadsheet, requiring further analysis and further reprogramming even as hundreds of new jammers arrived in Iraq each month. "It was a mess," a senior defense official recalled.

By the end of 2006, the Department of Defense had spent more than $1 billion during the year just on jammers. Fielding them "proved the largest technological challenge for DOD in the war, on a scale last experienced in World War II," according to Col. William G. Adamson, a former staff officer for the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), the Pentagon office coordinating the campaign.

The U.S. strategy was defined in six words: "Put them back on the wire." By neutralizing radio-controlled bombs, the jammers would force insurgent bombmakers to use more rudimentary triggers, such as command wire. Those triggers would be simpler to detect, in theory, and would bring the triggermen closer to their bombs, where U.S. troops could capture or kill them.

That strategy has succeeded. In the subsequent 18 months, radio-controlled bombs would shrink to 10 percent of all IEDs in Iraq. Today, bombs triggered by simple command wire have increased to 40 percent of the total.

But the threat from IEDs has barely diminished. In the first seven months of this year, there were 20,781 roadside bomb attacks in Iraq, one every 15 minutes. And as of this morning, IEDs have killed 440 U.S. troops this year. Putting them back on the wire has proved a mixed blessing.

***

Different jammers worked by different means. Active jammers screamed constantly, disrupting radio-controlled bombs with a barrage of radio waves on pre-selected frequencies that drowned out the triggering signal. Reactive jammers "scanned and jammed" by monitoring the electromagnetic spectrum -- like a human ear in a crowded restaurant listening for a voice that whispered "detonate, detonate, detonate" -- and then blocked the frequencies they were programmed to block.

Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, a hodgepodge of jammers had arrived in Mesopotamia, both active and reactive, weak and powerful: Warlock Green, Warlock Red, Warlock Blue, ICE, MICE, SSVJ, MMBJ, Cottonwood, Jukebox, Symphony. Collectively they were now known as CREW, an awkward acronym within an acronym: counter radio-controlled IED electronic warfare.

As more jammers flooded the war zone, the mess grew messier. For many months, the shortcomings in electronic warfare expertise had been evident among Army and Marine units. "We had all these boxes over there and people didn't know how to use them," said Rear Adm. Arch Macy, commander of the Naval Surface Warfare Center. "They'd turn them on, thinking they were protected when they weren't."

Electronic "fratricide" intensified, with more instances of jammers disrupting coalition radios and even the radio links to unmanned aerial vehicles. More troops switched off their CREW systems rather than risk disrupting their radios; rumors circulated that jammers actually detonated IEDs.

In some instances, according to a senior officer in Baghdad, investigations of fatal IED attacks revealed that "the device that killed them was triggered by a frequency that could have been stopped by proper jamming." A now-retired Army lieutenant colonel said, "There were a whole lot of things that made you just want to cry."

Among the biggest problems was simply the crowded electromagnetic environment in Iraq. Most fiber-optic and above-ground telephone lines had either been destroyed during the 2003 invasion or subsequently looted by copper-wire scavengers. Now 27 million Iraqis used unregulated cellphones, walkie-talkies, satellite phones, long-distance cordless phones and, in hundreds of instances each month, radio-controlled bombs.

About 150,000 coalition troops also sent out a great spray of electronic emissions, which mutated dramatically every time new equipment or a new contingent of soldiers arrived, including some with old Warsaw Pact electronics. "People have said it's the most challenging electromagnetic place in the world," a Navy captain said. "It's very complex." Trying to make sense of the signals, he added, was "like having your head underwater."

This was especially true in Baghdad, where the electromagnetic environment seemed to vary between neighborhoods, between seasons, between times of day. "No one realized," the senior Pentagon official said, "how much tougher jamming was going to be in the ground plane" -- the ground-air interface, where earth meets sky. The Army logistician added: "We didn't scientifically map out the problem set, so we didn't know the normal electronic noise of a taxi driver doing his thing, the doorbells, the garage door openers, the satellite communications. . . . You have to know the normal program of life."

The Pentagon would spend millions of dollars trying to replicate Baghdad's idiosyncratic airwaves in laboratories and at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Senior commanders in Baghdad "were going bonkers," the Army colonel recalled. "They were saying, 'How do we fix this?' "

Worse yet, there were problems with Duke, the sophisticated reactive jammer the Pentagon had decided would replace the various models being used in Iraq. Syracuse Research Corp., a not-for-profit company created by Syracuse University in 1957, had won the competition for Duke using design concepts developed by Army engineers at Fort Monmouth, N.J. The contract was signed in June 2005, with the first Duke -- a big box with a big antenna -- completed in November. But deployment to Iraq was delayed to allow adjustments and more tests.

This state of affairs pleased no one, but it particularly displeased the Marine Corps. Marine casualties had been severe in Anbar province, where high-powered radio-controlled IEDs were pernicious. Some Marine officers also feared that they could be shortchanged as Dukes reached the field, that the Army was "taking all the good stuff," as one source put it. "The issue got ugly with recriminations."

"It was part service rivalry, part delivery schedules, and partly that no one could make stuff fast enough," said Macy, the rear admiral. "You can't walk into Circuit City and say, 'I want 25,000 high-powered jammers.' "

The Marines had already hedged their bets. Med-Eng Systems, a Canadian firm, made an active jammer that worked by "blasting away, locking up everything," according to a retired Navy captain. As a foreign firm, Med-Eng needed a U.S. partner to work on classified programs. Soon a corporate marriage was arranged with General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products in Charlotte.

If inelegant, the jammer had showed promise in tests conducted in the summer of 2005. Because it could be reprogrammed to meet changing insurgent threats, from key fobs to cellphones, the gadget was named Chameleon.

The Marines bought 1,000 Chameleons in November 2005. After encouraging tests at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and elsewhere, the Marines announced on Feb. 8, 2006, a $289 million contract that increased the purchase to 4,000 Chameleons, which later grew to 10,000.

General Dynamics threw its considerable heft into the project, even using a corporate jet as a delivery van to pick up components nationwide, according to company sources. "Marines take care of their own," a General Dynamics talking point advised, but the company also eyed a bigger prize. The first Dukes had deployed overseas in February 2006, yet the jammers' difficulties in Iraq's electromagnetic environment persisted.

Noting an "Army requirement of 20,000 systems" worth $1.5 billion by 2008, General Dynamics intended to "pursue the Army requirement and displace Syracuse Research," according to a defense industry document. A corporate information campaign would promote Chameleon's virtues to Army and congressional leaders.

"We've pursued business opportunities," a General Dynamics spokesman said last week. "We were well aware of the Army requirement." A spokesman for Syracuse Research declined to comment, citing "contract restrictions."

In Baghdad, confusion only intensified as hundreds and then thousands of new jammers flooded in, some active and others reactive. Duke's shortcomings -- "it was looking like a turkey," the senior Pentagon official said -- grew so grievous by late spring that officials considered scrapping the jammer altogether in favor of Chameleon.

A naval officer, Capt. David J. "Fuzz" Harrison, had spent the winter of 2005-2006 in Baghdad trying to figure out how to fix the jammer problem. "The ground electronic warfare fight that's killing so many soldiers and Marines would be greatly aided by having people here who know electronic warfare," Harrison reported. That meant the Navy, which had extensive experience in electronic combat and had recently been chosen to coordinate all of the military's CREW systems.

Retired Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, head of the Pentagon's counter-IED effort, returned from Baghdad in early February 2006 with similar conclusions. Expertise was needed in divisions, brigades, regiments and battalions. Harrison and Col. Kevin D. Lutz, commander of Task Force Troy, the counter-IED brigade in Iraq, calculated that nearly 300 electronic warfare officers would be required. The Navy agreed to provide them.

After brief training at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Washington state, the first batch of 33 Navy electronic warfare experts -- including submarine, aviation, surface ship and engineer officers and sailors -- arrived in Baghdad on April 15, 2006. Hundreds followed. Distributed throughout the force, they made an immediate impact.

Now soldiers and Marines had an expert to adjust those finicky boxes and antennas, and to offer advice on using jammers as a weapon against radio-controlled bombs. "It was," Meigs later said of the Navy's commitment, "a stroke of genius."

***

By the summer of 2006, radio-triggered IEDs had dropped to less than half the total, and they would keep plummeting for the next year. Duke became a valued battlefield asset in Iraq, and 2,300 eventually reached Afghanistan to begin replacing the venerable Acorn, which had first arrived in 2003. The integration of active and reactive jammers in both theaters proceeded apace. "Scar-tissue learning," as Meigs called the process, turned soldiers and Marines into capable electronic warriors.

Yet insurgent bombers found other options. Simple pressure plates -- two metal strips that completed an electrical firing circuit when pressed together by a tire or an unsuspecting boot -- appeared in great numbers. More than one-quarter of bomb triggers were soon classified as "VO": victim-operated.

These included growing numbers of explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), which often used passive infrared triggers tripped by a passing victim. EFPs became as flamboyant as they were deadly; a bomb with 54 warheads configured in nine "arrays" was discovered before detonation on May 17, 2006. Despite increasingly sharp warnings from the Bush administration to Iran, which was accused of supplying the bombs and other war materiel, EFPs continued to take a horrific toll in Shiite-controlled sectors of Iraq.

Six cavalry troopers would be killed in a blast on March 15 of this year, and from April 1 through July 31 roughly 300 EFP attacks occurred. EFPs still account for only about 3 percent of all roadside bombs in Iraq, but the 250 Americans killed by the devices since 2004 amount to 17 percent of all bomb deaths, according to military sources.

Underbelly or "deep buried" IEDs continued to take an even greater toll -- more than half of all coalition forces killed early this summer, for example, although only 15 percent of all bombs were classified as deep buried. The Pentagon agreed to buy at least 7,800 sturdy Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles with V-shaped hulls for approximately $1 million each. Prudent soldiers on patrol now searched every road culvert; some units began welding shut manhole covers.

An incident on June 28 in the East Rashid neighborhood of Baghdad illuminated a disquieting trend: A single underbelly IED, so violent that investigators initially believed the blast came from several car bombs, killed five soldiers and wounded seven.

Bombmakers increasingly used homemade explosives brewed from fertilizer-based urea nitrate in kiddie swimming pools or huge aluminum cauldrons, then spread on flat rooftops to dry and packed in rice bags. On July 17, bombers detonated 1,500 pounds of homemade explosives in a culvert north of Baghdad. The blast heaved a 26-ton armored vehicle 60 feet through the air, killing two Navy crewmen, according to investigative documents. Other bombmakers in late 2006 began using acetone to leach the explosives from artillery and mortar shells; much lighter and more portable, the stuff could then be molded into car wheel wells or hidden almost anywhere.

Multiple suicide truck bombs were orchestrated to penetrate sturdy perimeter defenses, like the twin blasts in late April of this year that killed nine soldiers from the 82nd Airborne in a schoolhouse command post north of Baghdad.

Another nasty variation first appeared in October 2006 with the first use of chlorine gas in an IED. Sixteen more chlorine attacks would occur, but insurgents found, as World War I soldiers had, that "it is very difficult to create a lethal concentration of chlorine gas," an Army colonel in Baghdad reported. "The gas cloud rapidly dissipates."

***

Defeat the device. Train the force. Attack the network.

Meigs, a retired four-star Army general, had repeated those three phrases a thousand times since becoming JIEDDO director in December 2005.

In the early years of the Iraq war, the U.S. government's counter-IED efforts had focused overwhelmingly on defeating the device, and more than half of Meigs's budget still went to preventing detonation and, if that failed, mitigating the blast. In fiscal 2007, for example, $113 million would be spent on mine rollers, a World War II technology using heavy cylinders to trip pressure plate triggers in front of a convoy.

The "molecular sniffer" long coveted by U.S. Central Command arrived on the battlefield in the guise of Fido, a $25,000 machine developed by an Oklahoma company as part of a Pentagon program called Dog's Nose. Modern explosives have very low vapor pressures, and therefore emit few molecules for a sniffer to detect; but Fido's sensor -- heated above 200 degrees Fahrenheit -- was effective enough that hundreds were deployed, including more than 70 mounted on mobile robots. "This is the closest thing we can get to a dog," a government engineer said.

Some technologies thrived: Warrior Alpha drones; surveillance cameras on towers and blimps; ground penetrating radar mounted on a South African-built Husky vehicle to detect buried IEDs. In trying to "pre-det" -- prematurely detonate -- bombs with radio signals, EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare planes flew above roads in Iraq and Afghanistan. The missions were called "burning the route."

Other technologies flopped. Forerunner, an unmanned vehicle carrying counter-IED gear, was to be "tele-operated" with remote controls by soldiers in a trailing vehicle. It "simply did not work" and was banished from the theater, according to a JIEDDO document. The controls proved sluggish, and some operators developed motion sickness while trying to drive Forerunner via a television monitor in the jouncing trail Humvee.

Still more disappointing was Blow Torch, a high-powered microwave emitter built at Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania after besting four rivals in a government competition. Similar to an Israeli gadget called Dragon Spike, Blow Torch was intended to defeat the electronic circuitry in EFPs. At $175,000 each, 101 of the devices took to the field for operational testing early this year. But enduring shortcomings halted the deployment and Blow Torch was diverted to New Mexico for more testing.

Also frustrating was the scientific effort to detect the gossamer-like copper wires increasingly used to arm or detonate bombs, including about one-third of all EFPs by this summer. Certain airborne search radars gave good resolution -- a clear picture -- when looking for a thin wire strung from a hidden roadside bomb to a triggerman. But those radars failed to penetrate beneath the surface for wires slightly buried, while radars that penetrated gave poor resolution. Different soils produced varying results, depending on moisture content, alkaline levels and other arcane variables. False positives were legion in wire-strewn, trash-cluttered Iraq.

Meanwhile, the jammer saga rolled on. By midsummer, 13,000 Dukes had arrived, to be followed by an improved Duke 2. The Pentagon also signed contracts with EDO Corp. for more than $535 million to buy the first 7,450 of an eventual 11,000 jammers -- known collectively as Spiral 2.1 -- intended as the next CREW generation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Research and development has already begun on Spirals 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3, according to the Navy.

Few issues were more emotionally charged. Since early 2006, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, had urged a "Take Back the Roads" campaign in Iraq. Among other solutions, he advocated a backpack jammer known as the Quick Reaction Dismounted (QRD), which would succeed the little Warlock Blue he had pushed into the field a year earlier. When a staffer called Hunter from Yuma and told him that "they have 163 more iterations of the tests still to go" on the QRD, the chairman angrily accused Meigs of "the slows" and of "delaying things from getting into the hands of the troops," according to sources familiar with the incident.

Meigs was furious. The backpack jammer was not ready for deployment, he countered, and the Duke's persistent difficulties had disrupted the test schedule at Yuma. Eventually the Pentagon announced that 1,400 backpack jammers -- a QRD model called the Guardian won the competition -- would be sent to the theater by spring of this year. (Hunter lost his chairmanship in January when Democrats took control of the House.)

Armor remained the last line of defense, and armor grew ever thicker, heavier and more expensive. Seven major vendors toiled to build the V-shaped MRAPs, and the Pentagon pondered whether to triple the buy, to 23,000 vehicles, in order to replace all Humvees in Iraq, according to senior officials. By the end of 2007, 1,300 MRAPs were to be built each month, compared with fewer than one a day a year earlier. For expediency, plans were made to fly at least some MRAPs to the war zone at a cost of $135,000 each, seven times the expense of sea transport.

A Marine general this spring publicly declared the MRAP to be "four to five times safer" than an uparmored Humvee, but Pentagon officials conceded that it remains vulnerable to EFPs and large underbelly bombs, as well as to anti-tank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades. An even stouter model, designed to better parry EFPs, is under consideration.

The Pentagon in the past year also financed more than 8,000 anti-fragmentation kits, known as Frag Kit 5, which added still more armor plating to Humvees. Frag Kit 6, a still heavier version, will have doors weighing 650 pounds each -- so bulky that soldiers may need a "mechanical assist device" to open and close them. "It's over the top," said an Army colonel in Baghdad.

***

Training the force, Meigs's second imperative, has saved innumerable lives over the years. Soldiers who once spotted few roadside bombs in Iraq now detect more than half before detonation.

The "Mark 1 Human Eyeball," as troops sardonically call it, is more adept at finding IEDs than any machine. Studies to determine which soldiers made the best bomb spotters found that "it's those who hunted and fished and were much closer to their environment," an Army scientist reported. Because approximately half of all casualties occurred in the first three months of a soldier's deployment, according to a senior intelligence official, units headed overseas began receiving extensive counter-IED instruction at the Army's National Training Center in California and elsewhere.

In Iraq, SKTs -- "small kill teams" -- of five to eight soldiers learned to ambush bomb emplacers, often hiding for hours or days near IED "hot spots." Under a $258 million contract, Wexford Group International of Vienna, Va., and the Asymmetric Warfare Group, a new Army unit formed last year at Fort Meade, Md., dispatched field teams to the theater to help sharpen tactics and techniques. Troops were advised to "get off the X" -- the blast seat in an IED attack -- and to "build a box," with surveillance cameras, for example, in which to spot and trap insurgent bombers.

The new unit, now 250 strong, adopted an eccentric motto: "Normal is a cycle on a washing machine." Field commanders were urged to be unorthodox, by leaving an eavesdropping bug after searching a suspected insurgent hideout, or by shutting down microwave towers to neutralize cellphone triggers before entering a dangerous sector.

"Our mission is to challenge the culture of the whole Army," said Col. Robert Shaw, the group commander. "The institution is not designed to react as fast as our enemy reacts."

Last winter, another new Army unit, Task Force ODIN -- the acronym derives from "observation, detection, identification and neutralization" -- began hunting IED emplacers with unmanned aerial vehicles, attack helicopters and spotters in C-12 airplanes. Operating from Tikrit in northern Iraq, the task force eventually averaged "40 to 50 engagements per month," according to a senior Army official. A sequence of operations in northern Iraq -- code-named Snake Hunter, Snake Killer and Black Widow -- increased the number of suspected emplacers killed from a weekly average of 22 last fall to 71 per week this spring, an Army lieutenant colonel said.

"The enemy's killing us with a thousand cuts, and we're trying to kill him with a thousand cuts, too," the lieutenant colonel added. "Can you kill your way to victory?"

***

Ultimately, eliminating IEDs as a weapon of strategic influence -- the U.S. government's explicit ambition -- is likely to depend on neutralizing the networks that buy, build and disseminate bombs. Military strategists have acknowledged that reality almost since the beginning of the long war, but only in the past year has it become an overarching counter-IED policy. "Left of boom" -- the concept of disrupting the bomb chain long before detonation -- is finally more than a slogan.

"If you don't go after the network, you're never going to stop these guys. Never. They'll just keep killing people," the senior Pentagon official said. "And the network is not a single monolithic organization, but rather a loosely knotted web of networks."

The resemblance of bomber cells to a criminal enterprise has meant a greater reliance on law enforcement techniques, an approach Meigs had stressed as commander of NATO forces in Bosnia in the late 1990s. In Iraq, that has included such tactics as analyzing the copper found in an EFP slug to determine where it was mined and bringing modern forensics to Mesopotamia.

"We were policing up guys on the battlefield and turning them over to the Iraqi judicial system, which was releasing them because we didn't have any experience in gathering evidence," the senior intelligence official said. Convictions in 2006 ran as low as 20 percent in some areas.

Eventually, 18 weapons intelligence teams, drawn largely from the Air Force, began collecting evidence both from bombs that detonated and from those that did not. At Task Force Troy in Baghdad, four cyanoacrylate fuming chambers now use a concoction of Super Glue and high humidity to tease latent fingerprints from electrical tape or IED components. One million known Iraqi fingerprints are stored at a Pentagon biometrics center in West Virginia. In the first seven months of this year, technicians examined 112,000 items and recovered an average of 600 latent prints each month.

In June, for example, 17 fingerprint matches led to the detention of 10 Iraqi suspects and a hunt for seven others, officials said. Because the Iraqi judicial system traditionally has relied on confessions, witness statements and photographic evidence, two American forensics experts on July 13 gave 30 judges at the Central Criminal Court in Baghdad a 90-minute tutorial on fingerprinting. U.S. officials hope to begin introducing fingerprint evidence in Iraqi trials this year.

Ninety retired agents from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies also have been hired as field investigators in a $35 million pilot program that began a year ago. About 150 prosecutions for bombmaking activities have taken place in Anbar province alone, according to a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst.

Other unconventional initiatives include "human terrain teams," made up of anthropologists, social scientists and sundry experts who advise brigade commanders on tribal structure, local customs and cultural nuances. A preliminary assessment last month of an HTT in eastern Afghanistan concluded that the team had "a profound effect" in reducing "kinetic operations" -- gunplay -- and had even discerned that a local village would help stop Taliban rocket attacks against U.S. troops in exchange for a volleyball net. From an original $20 million plan for half a dozen teams, the Pentagon now envisions nearly 30.

To anticipate future bomb designs, scientific "red teams" last year began building IEDs that insurgents might build, while "blue teams" calculated how best to defeat them. Other red teams include 100 cadets and midshipmen from the nation's military academies, who have also been recruited as surrogate bombmakers. "Show me how many different ways you can flip a switch at a distance," the students were told. "Be conceptually sophisticated, but use the most simple, cheap and available material that you can."

Last fall, in an office building in Northern Virginia, a JIEDDO operation began fusing data from the CIA, the DIA, the NSA other organizations in an effort to give brigade commanders timely intelligence for targeting IED networks. Telephone eavesdropping, surveillance video, spy reports, roadside-bomb trends: all are packaged electronically and sent forward. The operation can build in 12 hours a three-dimensional video showing, for example, a street in Ramadi or Baqubah where an Army patrol intends to drive tomorrow, with extraordinary detail about past IED events on this corner or down that alley.

Attack-the-network results have been heartening in recent months, according to Pentagon officials, who cite the seizure of bomb caches and the destruction of several cells. Still, scarcely an hour passes in Iraq without someone planting a bomb.

"It's a hard problem. There is no solution, just better ways of dealing with it," Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England said in an interview. "You keep mitigating as much as you can, but at the end of the day, it's warfare."

***

At 9:30 p.m. on Monday, May 7, a convoy of four uparmored Humvees rolled through the heavily fortified gate at Camp Falcon in southern Baghdad before turning north onto Route Jackson at 35 mph. Each Humvee carried a jammer against radio-controlled bombs, either a Duke or an SSVJ. Each had been outfitted with Frag Kit 5, and a Rhino II protruded from each front bumper as protection against EFPs detonated by passive infrared triggers. As recommended, the drivers kept a 40-meter separation from one another.

The senior officer in the third Humvee, Lt. Col. Gregory D. Gadson, 41, had driven to Falcon to attend a memorial service for two soldiers killed by an IED. Now he was returning to his own command post near Baghdad International Airport. As commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 32nd Field Artillery, a unit in the 1st Infantry Division, Gadson was a gunner by training. But as part of the troop "surge" that President Bush announced in January, the battalion had taken up unfamiliar duties as light infantrymen in Baghdad.

After 18 years in the Army, including tours of duty in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and in Afghanistan, Gadson was hardly shocked by the change of mission. He knew that, proverbially, no plan survived contact with the enemy. Raised in Chesapeake, Va., he had been a football star in high school and an outside linebacker at West Point before graduating in 1989. The nomadic Army life suited him and his wife, Kim, who had been a classmate at the academy before resigning her commission to raise their two children.

In the darkness on Route Jackson, no one noticed the dimple in the roadbed, where insurgents had loosened the asphalt with burning tires and buried three 130mm artillery shells before repairing the hole. No one saw the command wire snaking to the east through a hole in a chain-link fence and into a building. No one saw the triggerman.

They all heard the blast. "The boom is what I think about every day," Gadson would say three months later at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A great flash exploded beneath the right front fender. Gadson felt himself tumbling across the ground, and he knew instantly that an IED had struck the Humvee. "I don't have my rifle," he told himself, and then the world went black.

When he regained consciousness, he saw the looming face of 1st Sgt. Frederick L. Johnson, who had been in the trail vehicle and had brought his commander back from the dead with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Lying on the road shoulder 50 meters from his shattered Humvee, Gadson was the only man seriously wounded in the attack, but those wounds were grievous. Another soldier, Pfc. Eric C. Brown, managed to knot tourniquets across his upper thighs. Johnson hoisted Gadson, who weighed 210 pounds, into another Humvee, an ordeal that was "extremely complicated due to the extensive injuries Lt. Col. Gadson sustained to his lower extremities," an incident report later noted.

Thirty minutes after the blast, Gadson was flown from Camp Falcon to the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad's Green Zone. For hours he hovered near death, saved by 70 units of transfused blood. "Tell Kim I love her," he told another officer.

Two days later, he was stable enough to fly to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany; two days after that, he reached Walter Reed, where Kim was waiting for him. On May 18, a major artery in his left leg ruptured; to save his life, surgeons amputated several inches above the knee. The next day, the right leg blew, and it, too, was taken off at the thigh.

Gadson would be but one of 22,000 American casualties from IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that isolated incident along Route Jackson on May 7 was emblematic of the nation's long struggle against roadside bombs.

He had been wounded despite the best equipment his country could give him and despite the best countermeasures American science could contrive. His life had been saved by the armored door that shielded his head and torso, and by the superior training of his soldiers, the heroic efforts of military medicine and his own formidable grit. He had lost his lower limbs despite flawlessly following standard operating procedure. He faced months, and years, of surgery, rehabilitation and learning to live a life without legs.

Gadson's war was over, but for his comrades and for the country it goes on. An additional $4.5 billion has been budgeted for the counter-IED fight in the fiscal year that began this week. JIEDDO, which started four years ago this month in the Pentagon basement as an Army task force with a dozen soldiers, now fills two floors of an office building in Crystal City and employs almost 500 people, including contractors.

The House Armed Services Committee concluded in May that the organization "has demonstrated marginal success in achieving its stated mission to eliminate the IED as a weapon of strategic influence." Others disagree, including England. "Monty Meigs was the best thing that ever happened to us," he said, "and to the [Pentagon], and to the guys in the field."

Whether because of the surge, or despite it, total IED attacks in Iraq declined from 3,200 in March to 2,700 in July, an 8 percent drop. IED-related deaths also declined over the summer, sharply, from 88 in May to 27 in September.

If heartened by the recent trend, Meigs is cautious. He notes that sniping, another asymmetrical tactic, tormented soldiers in the Civil War. "Snipers are still around, and they're darned effective," he said. "Artillery has also been around a long time. There are some tactical problems that are very hard to solve. There are no silver bullets, no panaceas."

Virtually everyone agrees that regardless of how the American expeditions in Iraq and Afghanistan play out, the roadside bomb has become a fixture on 21st-century battlegrounds.

"IEDs are a factor in the future," Macy added. "Wherever we go, for whatever reason we go there, if there are people who don't like us, we're going to have to be prepared to deal with IEDs."

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides

2007-10-01T23:20:00.000-04:00

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides
Dagger Brigade Combat Team Official Site
Week: Sept 24 - Sept 30
Slides: 25-28

Alpha Battery Spends the Day Meeting Local Youths
SSG ADam Freeman talks with a local man as Iraqi Policement look on
SGT Nathan Vorenkamp greets an Iraqi girl
SGT Miguel Rodriguez talks with local children
SPC Garth Croft provides security as curious children look on
2LT Drewelow Promoted to 1LT
LTC Mike Lawson promoted Nathan A Drewelow from Second Lieutenant to First Lieutenant on Wednesday. 1LT Drewelow serves as the Medical Platoon Leader for Task Force Patriot
Alpha Battery Sets Up Hasty Checkpoint with Aid of Iraqi Army
SSG Adam Freeman and SGT Nathan Vaughn confiscate two AK-47s found during a hasty traffic inspection.
SGT Vaughn uses a metal-detecting wand during the traffic stop
SGT Miguel Rodriguez and an Iraqi NCO take a brake during the operation
Task Force Patriot Promotes Five Non-Commissioned Officers
LTC Lawson promotes David Francis and Daniel Thompson to SSG
LTC Lawson promotes Jiberto Herra to MSG
LTC Lawson promotes Omar Rosado and Travis Ueke to CPL

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides

2007-09-26T22:34:00.000-04:00

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides
Dagger Brigade Combat Team Official Site
Week: Sept 17 - Sept 23
Slides: 26, 27

Bravo Battery Finds Cache With Aid of Local Boy
The cache contained dozens of explosives and IED-making materials.
SGT Brice Tucker shakes the hand of the boy who led Coalition Forces to the cache
PFC Waldo Reich breaks into the location of the cache
1st Platoon, Golf Company Renders Aid to Local Woman
SPC Brandon Villavisencio, medic for 1st Platoon, Golf Company, treats a victim of domestic vioence in Hateen. The woman suffered stab wounds to her head and arm, but SPC Villavisencio stabilized her in time to be rushed to the hospital.

Actor Robert Duvall visits with LTC Gadson

2007-09-26T22:19:00.000-04:00

America Supports You: Award-Winning Actor Visits Wounded Troops
DefenseLink News
Samantha L. Quigley
Sept. 26, 2007

Actor Robert Duvall talks with Army Lt. Col. Gregory Gadson on Sept. 25, 2007, during a visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Gadson, who is recovering at the facility after losing both legs above the knee fighting in the global war on terrorism, is a West Point graduate. Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Molly A. Burgess, USN

Blog: Inside Iraq

2007-09-26T09:29:00.000-04:00

A Wish To Make
Blog: Inside Iraq (McClatchy News)
September 25, 2007

Today we toured through Al Yarmouk neighborhood in western Baghdad. The neighborhood famous bread baking shop Ahalina is open again since about two weeks for the first time in years.
Looking to that shop open again and other shops inside the neighborhood and the beautiful street that is called Arbaa Shwariaa (4 streets in Arabic) clean and with no signs of violence was delightful. The improvement in several neighborhoods despite the fact it is not that big gave me some hope.

Real hero gets gift from Plaxico

2007-09-25T22:15:00.000-04:00

Real hero gets gift from Plaxico
Newsday
BY ARTHUR STAPLE
September 25, 2007

Plaxico Burress usually secrets away the balls he catches for touchdowns. After his fifth touchdown catch of the season, the play that provided the winning margin in Sunday's 24-17 win over the Redskins, Burress found someone on the Giants' sideline at FedEx Field he preferred have the ball rather than himself.

He gave the keepsake to Lt. Col. Greg Gadson, an Army commander who had spoken to the Giants on Saturday night at their hotel. Gadson lost both legs to an improvised explosive device in Iraq in May, but came to meet the team at the urging of wide receivers coach Mike Sullivan, who was a teammate and classmate of Gadson's at West Point.

"You see a guy go through the things that he has been through and he is in such good spirits," said Burress, who, like Gadson, is from southeastern Virginia. The two men talked at length Saturday. "It was just unbelievable to come across a person like that who went through a tremendous change in his life. I have never met somebody like that who had a high spirit like nothing was wrong and I was like, 'Wow.' I thought, 'I have a little ankle injury, I have to go out here and give it my best.' All I thought about when I scored that touchdown was that I wanted to find him to give him that football."

Coach Tom Coughlin asked Gadson to speak to the team Saturday. "Everyone was moved by what he said," Burress said.

"The players gave him a standing ovation and the volume kept rising," Coughlin said. "He is an incredible man. A powerful man. The power of his spirit. That is what he really did for us, just the idea that the spirit rises above all these adverse conditions. He is still the same man that he always was. He just had a terrible thing happen to him, something he is not going to let hold him back."

Giants rally after motivational speech from wounded Army officer

2007-09-25T22:06:00.000-04:00

Giants rally after motivational speech from wounded Army officer
Real Time Fantasy Sports
TOM CANAVAN - AP Sports Writer
2007-09-25

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) -As a former Army football player and the commander of a 400-man battalion, Greg Gadson was used to speaking to large groups of people.

But talking to the struggling New York Giants on Saturday on the eve of their game against the Redskins in Washington, Gadson was a little nervous.

So the lieutenant colonel who lost both legs when an explosive device detonated near his vehicle on patrol in Baghdad spoke from his heart. He spoke of concentrating on the mission, never giving up and believing in each other.

``One of the things I told the team is I love football,'' Gadson said Monday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Fort Belvoir in Virginia. ``It has been a big part of my life and it still is from the standpoint of how I am fighting through what I am going through now and how I lived in the Army.

``I don't want anyone to misconstrue that football is like combat,'' Gadson said, ``but I told the team is that it's the same type of emotional investment. If you put yourself in anything, these kinds of things demand your all.''

Down 17-3 at the half, the Giants needed their all to rally for a 24-17 win over the Redskins, getting the winning touchdown on a 33-yard catch and run by Plaxico Burress with 5:32 to play.

After the play, Burress ran along the Giants sideline with the ball and found Gadson sitting in his wheelchair near the bench. Burress handed him the ball.

Burress and Gadson had spoken the previous evening after Gadson finished his 10- to 15-minute motivational talk. The two grew up in the same area of Virginia and hit it off.

``All this happened to him just four or five months ago and just sitting there listening to his story and his determination and his will (was amazing),'' said Burress, who had all five of his catches in the big second half. ``Let's face it, things like that kind of brought a different light on me. He moved everybody in that room with his story. I just wanted to go out and give what I had.''

When the Giants handed out game balls after their first win, Gadson was awarded one.

``Those are the guys who played,'' Gadson said. ``I didn't play a down. My hope is that they take this and build on this and continue to do the hard work.''

Gadson, 41, has his own hard work ahead.

A 1989 graduate of West Point, Gadson recalls vividly the night that his convoy was attacked. It happened on May 7 around 9:30 p.m. The convoy was moving between bases when the explosive device detonated.

The force ejected Gadson from his vehicle. As he lay in the road, he remembers not having his rifle and expecting the enemy to attack.

``As I was laying there I thought to myself: 'God, I don't want to die here in this country,''' Gadson said.

Bleeding badly, his legs seriously injured, Gadson lost consciousness and was revived by a sergeant.

``The last thing I do remember in Iraq was the helicopter coming to get me, hearing the helicopter coming,'' Gadson said. ``I don't remember anything after that.''

Four days later, Gadson was being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. His left leg had to be amputated above the knee about a week later. Gadson and the doctors decided to amputate the right one shortly after that.

``It was going to be a cosmetic leg,'' Gadson said. ``It was not going to be of any use to me. I felt the quality of my life would be better with prosthetics.''

Over the next month, Gadson had plenty of visitors, including Giants receivers coach Mike Sullivan, a West Point classmate.

Sullivan told Coughlin about Gadson last week, mentioning that the team might benefit from hearing him speak.

``I wanted the team to hear from a real hero,'' Coughlin said. ``We can learn so many things about a person who has been through an extremely difficult part of his life.''

It was a message the players appreciated.

``He exemplified what we are trying to strive for as far as being a leader,'' halfback Derrick Ward said.

Gadson currently spends three to four hours a day working out. The rest of the time is spent with wife Kimberly, son Jaelen and daughter Gabriella.

His long-range goal is to walk with his prosthetics in about a year, although he admits that might be pushing it. For now, he wants to be at Fort Riley, Kan., when his battalion returns from its deployment.

``I am not bitter,'' said Gadson, who fought in the first Gulf War, and served in Bosnia and Afghanistan before his recent tour in Iraq. ``I don't have any regrets. My life had been a good life. Like any life, there are ups and downs and challenges. My faith, honestly, and my family and friends have carried me through this.''

His speech helped carry the Giants for a week in the 2007 season.

ONE HOT SUMMER

2007-09-25T00:28:00.000-04:00

ONE HOT SUMMER
The Dagger's Edge: Vol 1, Issue 22
1st Lt. Quinn Robertson

First, congratulations are in order for the Soldiers of Task Force Patriot and the rest of the Dagger Brigade for withstanding a brutally hot summer. The past three months have been filled with gusting winds and sand that seemed to blow into every crevice of our equipment, our gear and our uniforms. With temperatures soaring well into the 120s, common sense would dictate that we slow down and stay inside our air-conditioned tents and housing units. Our Soldiers, however, braved the heat on a daily basis to maintain security in Yarmouk, our area of operations in western Baghdad. Despite having to wear fifty pounds of body armor under the blazing Iraqi sun, our Soldiers found success by employing that age-old Army maxim: “Drink water and drive on.” I cannot imagine what our enemy must think when he sees us conducting dismounted operations under such harsh conditions. This is part of our arsenal, this apparent imperviousness to the heat, and I have nothing but respect for the men and women who display it with such ease day in and day out. It is still hot out, to be sure, but September marks the beginning of fall in our Western minds and though it might still reach 113 degrees this week, we all know that cooler temperatures are just around the corner, and for that we are thankful.
Over the course of this summer, the Soldiers of Bravo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, performed exceptionally well across the full spectrum of combat and civil-military operations, proving that the Field Artillery has never been more diverse in its skill set. Today’s Cannon Cocker – an affectionate term – not only knows how to shoot a projectile miles across the battlefield, only to have it impact with pinpoint accuracy, he has also mastered the Infantry skills needed to evict Al-Qaeda and Jaysh al-Mahdi from western Baghdad. Our Artillerymen have also become proficient in the kinder, gentler side of warfare, learning to plan and execute civil-military projects which have beautified our area of operations and fostered increased levels of governance and social cohesiveness. These projects have given an overwhelming sense of pride to the local residents. For those who have helped clean streets and repair schools, these projects afforded them the opportunity to participate in the reconstruction of Iraq, a process which cannot succeed without a spirit of ownership at the local level. The Iraqi people want to strengthen their communities; we have simply given them the means with which to do so.
As Soldiers, we all live by the Army Values. As Soldiers at war, we have come to see that we share our values with those Iraqis who are committed to rebuilding their nation. We identify with the Iraqis who call us to report suspicious activity in their neighborhoods; cooperating with US forces means risking discovery by insurgent elements and takes a great deal of personal courage. Iraqis are also becoming more self-reliant, in terms of governance, economy, and security, and the men and women of Yarmouk have made it clear that they will not tolerate those individuals who stand in the way of progress. The average Iraqi understands the fact that those of us in ACUs want to empower his community, while the insurgents are destructive and self-serving; an anathema to his vision of a new Iraq.
In any counter-insurgent fight, it is tempting, but ultimately unproductive to look to numbers and percentages as measures of success. We learned in the Vietnam War that the body count did not correspond to victory, and in this war no set of metrics will predict the outcome. Instead, we must turn to the subjective, to the intangibles, to get a sense of our progress, and for that we rely heavily on our interpreters. Baghdad is a metropolis teeming with millions of residents, yet, according to our interpreters the streets stood empty in the years following the growth of the insurgency. Now, however, men and women crowd markets and bustle through the streets. Our interpreters attribute this behavior to the level of security that we and the Iraqi security forces provide. As the people of Baghdad come outside to enjoy their communities, they provide us with a great sign of progress. We do not need to count the number of people on the streets to measure the effectiveness of our efforts; simply seeing them go about their lives without fear of a terrorist attack is proof enough.
Bravo Battery’s successes in Yarmouk come not from the pens and keyboards of strategists and analysts, but rather from the pounding of boots heard daily throughout the city. Our Soldiers have walked the same streets thousands of times over, shaken the same hands, and sweated through uniform after uniform. It has been a long six months so far, but we have built relationships in Yarmouk that are now paying dividends. Local citizens are taking more and more responsibility for their affairs each day, and the Iraqi Army continues to become more effective and independent. Best of all, we have made it through the hottest part of the year. Cooler days are in store for us, and I hear that Iraq even has a winter. I just hope it does not get too cold…

LTC Gadson Attends NFL Game

2007-09-24T09:16:00.000-04:00

Burress breaks out of blues
New Jersey Star-Ledger
Monday, September 24, 2007
BY STEVE POLITI

Plaxico Burress trotted up the Giants sideline with the football tucked under his arm, looking like he was ready to take home a souvenir from the touchdown reception that capped a second-half rally.
But the ball wasn't for him. Instead, Burress found Lt. Col. Greg Gadson on the sidelines, leaned forward so he could see the war hero in the wheelchair eye to eye, and handed the ball to him.

Gadson had spoken to the Giants on Saturday night, telling the players about his experience in the Iraqi war -- and the roadside bomb that destroyed his jeep in May and left him a double amputee. Burress, who like Gadson is a Virginia native, took the motivational speech to heart.

"I never met a guy in his condition who was in such high spirits," Burress said. "When you see people like that, you kind of say to yourself, 'Man, all I have is an ankle (injury).'"

Burress missed most of last week with a right ankle injury and figured he was about 80 percent coming into this game. He looked worse than that in the first half, failing to catch a pass and dropping three throws from quarterback Eli Manning as the Giants fell behind 17-3.

"I don't think I've ever started off a game like that," Burress said. "I came in at halftime, and there was nobody as disappointed as myself. Those are things I don't know. I felt bad because I let my team down. The defense was playing great and I was just stinking it up, basically.

"It was one thing after another. It seemed like we couldn't get a handle on the ball early," he said. "We came in before the second half, I sat on that chair over there, and I was telling myself that my team was counting on me to go out and play well in the second half."

Burress looked like a different player after intermission. He caught five passes for 86 yards, and with 5:32 left in the game, put the Giants ahead with a nifty catch and run on a short pass.

With the Giants facing a second-and-nine at the Redskins' 33-yard-line, Burress caught the throw from Manning at the 20, broke inside to get past cornerback Carlos Rogers and then made a move on safety Sean Taylor that he described as "one of those backyard Virginia Beach moves."

Taylor fell for it, leaving Burress a clear path to the end zone. Strong safety LaRon Landry leveled him after he crossed the goal line, but it didn't matter: The Giants had taken a 24-17 lead, and Burress, after that difficult first half, made the biggest offensive play.

"I just had to keep fighting," Burress said. If we had lost the game I would have felt horrible, but I still feel bad because I let the team down. But in the end, we finished strong and won the game."

Instead of a flashy end-zone celebration, Burress ran to the sidelines to find Gadson, a U.S. Military Academy graduate who has served in Bosnia, in Operation Desert Storm and as a battalion commander with the 32nd Field Artillery in Iraq when he was severely wounded.

The two men spoke briefly when Burress handed Gadson the football. "He had some bad things happen to him in Iraq," Burress said. "Just seeing the good spirits he was in after all he's been through, sometimes you have to say to yourself, 'Hey, you've got to go.'"

IED Set Off in Hateen Market

2007-09-23T16:53:00.000-04:00

IED Set Off in Hateen Market
DVIDS
September 20, 2007

hateen ied explosion -- sept 21

1st Lt. Christopher Lowry
Sgt 1st Class Samuel Popple
Golf Company

2-32 Field Artillery: 'Iraqi Freedom' Deployment

Homecoming

Fort Riley Troops — R&R Earned

Sand storms cancel air flights, stop US helicopters in Iraq

500 soldiers returning to Fort Riley after 15 months in Iraq

Security Incidents

MND-B Soldiers Capture Key Criminal Suspect, Seize Weapons Cache

FACTBOX-Security developments

Feeding the Fire: Dragons Take Home More Retention Awards

Radar Team Keeps Eye on Falcon

Dismounted Patrol

Audio: Ironhorse Tracker #48

Fire Station in Yarmouk

Soldiers Provide Security at Hospital

Troops on Patrol in Hateen

Security Incidents

Known Area of Interest Control

Video: U.S. Army Soldiers Enroll Iraqi Police Volunteers

Assessment Mission

Bravo Battery's Christmas Party - II **Updated**

Continued Coverage of LTC Gadson and the Giants

Video: Fox News Interviews LTC Gadson

St Barbara's Day Celebration

Lieutenant colonel Greg Gadson is Giants' inspirational co-captain

Al Qaeda in Iraq's shrinking area of operations

Video: Iraqi Police Screening

Video: U.S. Army Soldiers Conduct a Traffic Control Point Inspection and Patrol

Activities at Yarmuk Hospital

Troops Visit Yarmouk Hospital

Dismounted Patrol

Video: Controlled Burn

Giants name Honorary Captains

Combat team provides barrier security in Iraq

Yarmouk leader killed by extremist attack

Video: U.S. Army Soldiers Award Grants to Business Owners

Video: U.S. Army Soldiers Site Weapons

Black Lions capture suspected extremist (Baghdad)

Daily Security Incidents

Iraqi Police Badging and Market Dismount

Yarmuk Carpentry Shop

Troops Celebrate Christmas With Dinner, Candlelight Service

Field Artillery Troops Train Volunteers

Bush Thanks Servicemembers, Military Families for Sacrifices

Mission in Yarmuk

Audio Stories: Cav Roundup

Security Incidents

Mosque Monitoring

Security Incidents

Thekhar Primary School

Iraqi Police Auxiliary Recruiting Mission

Security Incidents

Video: Iraqi Auxillary Force Recruiting Drive (unedited footage)

Video: Iraqi Auxillary Force Recruiting Drive (finished video)

Iraqis Line Up to Join Auxiliary

Guarding Principles

Platoon Sells Itself to Help Iraqis

‘Like a Pit Crew,’ Mechanics Keep Batteries Firing

Baghdad Set to Serve up Turkey

Video: Transfer of Authority 2BCT to 101 ABN

Baghdad Comes Alive

101st Airborne's Strike Brigade sends Dagger Brigade homeward bound

The Silent Fight

True American Hero

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides

Daily Security Round-up

School Supply Mission

Soldiers Give Students a Head Start

Iraqi Security Forces and U.S. Special Forces capture seven extremists in Baghdad raid

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides

Hateen Controlled Burn

Practice Makes Perfect

Soldiers Practice First Aid

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides

Patriot Call: Vol 1, Iss 9

Dagger Brigade Weekly Slides

Iraqi Emergency Responders Work Together

The Joint “Service Station”

THE INFAMOUS ROUTE POPEYES

Brigade Reports Progress in Northwestern Baghdad

LTC Gadson to be Featured on Sesame Street Special Production

Bravo Battery's Christmas Party - II Updated