The Cool Blue Blog

Sgt Bellavia's House

I just finished reading SSG David Bellavia's (with John Bruning) book House to House. It is a well written, first-person view of the war in Iraq circa 2005. It is written from the point of view of an infantry squad leader on the front line.

It is written from SSG Bellavia's point of view.

And that point of view is brutally honest. And it is a brutal, unflinching look at the war.

The book recounts a number of missions Bellavia and his team in Dialya Province but the main focus is his crew's involvement the 2nd Battle for Fallujah in November 2005. A good portion of the book involves telling of the battle for which Bellavia was nominated for the Medal of Honor. He has already received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star (v), and the Conspicuous Service Cross from New York State.

Blackfive said of him "SSG Bellavia is badder than John freakin' Wayne" Michael Ware, who famously (at least to me) embedded with my son's unit during Operation Baton Rouge in Samarra, also embedded with Bellavia's crew, the 3rd Platoon, Alpha Company of Task Force 2-2 of the 1st Infantry Division and recounted his time with them in a piece for Time Magazine called Into the Hot Zone.

SSG Bellavia is a hero, no doubt about it. But this book illustrates that heroes are not men of stone, but of flesh and blood. And Bellavia not only takes the reader on a brutal journey through a dystopian nightmare whose backdrop is a destroyed city whose inhabitants are dedicated Jihadists drugged to the max, but he also takes us on an inward journey of deprivation, dedication, horror and fear. He shows us that heroes act in spite of their fear and self-doubt.

What makes Bellavia and people like him heroes is the very fact that they do what needs be done despite their normal human reaction which is to run far, far away and hide under a rock.

This book is written so harrowingly I had PTSD from just reading it.

He has since left the Army. And in his book he says of that

After I returned home, I witnessed another battle raging on the television over Iraq. From Washington, the rancor and defeatism over the war shocked me. As other veterans of the Global War on Terror started to trickle home, we shared the feelings of the disenfranchised. We who sacrificed were being ignored by the World War II and Vietnam generations now holding seats of power in our government. I joined Wade Zirkle in forming Vet for Freedom, a nonpartisan political action committee dedicated to supporting our troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I want to believe the war is a noble effort, but I fear it may end ignobly.

From the Vets for Freedom website

Vets for Freedom is a nonpartisan organization established by combat veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our mission is to educate the American public about the importance of achieving success in these conflicts by applying our first-hand knowledge to issues of American strategy and tacticsnamely "the surge" in Iraq.  We support policymakers from both sides of the aisle who have stood behind our great generation of American warriors on the battlefield, and who have put long-term national security before short-term partisan political gain.

He may have left the Army, but the battle still rages

Click below for the amazing narrative accompanying his nomination for the Medal of Honor

Straight from the fronts

Matt Burden is a former Army Intelligence officer better known in the MilBlogosphere as BlackFive. The reason he started his blog was to redress the failings of the general media to highlight and appreciate the men and women who are willing to leave their comfortable lives and loved ones to go out into the dark, surrounded by enemies, and protect those who can't or won't do the same.

And it was to give these same people a voice to tell you about the good, the bad, and the ugly of life in combat that he collected the stories of those on the front lines and put them in a book called The Blog of War.

From the Philidelphia Inquirer's review

Lest you think this is merely a collection of hyperpatriotic rants, it is not. If it were, it would be no better than the reportage pumped into the 24-hour news cycle every day. No, unfettered by editors or agendas, these soldiers tell both the good and the bad of the war on terrorism. In short, they're free to tell the truth about what they see and live every day....

The postings also remind us that the war on terrorism includes a home front, where spouses and children struggle with separation from their loved ones. It's also where soldiers return less than what they were, physically and emotionally, and struggle to find their place in a world that seems oblivious to the one they just left in Iraq.

"This year has been the worst, and it's been the best," wrote Wendy Marr as she waited for her Iowa National Guard husband to return from Afghanistan. "I've been so fortunate in life. A wonderful husband, two great kids, lifelong friends. But now I've added more, another family so to speak. A group of wives and children that I can't imagine me surviving this last year without."

You want the truth? Can you handle the truth?

Get Matt's book and find out what it's really all about.

An example from the book: Stephen Wilbanks is a veteran who reenlisted in the Marines after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks:

Why? After all, I've already served my country, "paid my dues," or "done my time" as some say.

To that, I have this to say: It is a lifelong commitment. Nor is it a 'due' to be paid like some cheap membership fee. It is a deeply personal obligation. And it is certainly not 'time' that has to be 'done' like some felony prison sentence. It is nothing short of an honor that I hold in the highest regard, an honor that I must prove worthy of, an honor that must be earned every single day

Catching up on books

So it's Summer. And while I often read a decent balance of fiction and non-fiction, lately I've been reading more fiction. So I'll catch you up on what I've read and what I've liked and didn't like recently.

The Good

Let's start with one of my favorite authors, Robert Parker. One of my favorite characters in fiction is Spenser so I'm always excited when a new Spenser book comes out. The latest outing School Days finds Spenser in bachelor mode, not that he's married or anything, but Susan is out of town and the Boston gumshoe takes a case offered by the grandmother of a boy accused of a Columbine-like school shooting. And though the humor and snappy one-liners are there, the story itself is flat. It was good, don't get me wrong, and for first time readers of Spenser's adventures especially, but for us old-times we wish the meatier stories of days-yore. Give it 3 stars because Spenser is still Spenser.

(more reviews---->

444 Days Down

I just received in the mail the new book by Mark Bowden, author of the fabulous Blackhawk Down. The new book, Guests of the Ayatollah

Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naïve captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages' cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure. Bowden dedicated five years to this research, including numerous trips to Iran and countless interviews with those involved on both sides.

I'm looking forward to reading this.

Thieves of Baghdad: Review

A while ago I noted that I received Matthew Bogdanos' book Thieves of Baghdad in the mail. Well I finally got around to reading it and its a great story. One that reminds us of just how bad the media reporting was shortly after the capture of Baghdad. And Matt Bogdanos sets the record straight.

After the fall of Baghdad, looting was prevalent. One of the stories that emerged in the Press starting with an AP report on April 12th, 2003 was that "Looters Plunder Iraq National Museum, Smashing and Stealing Artifacts" followed by a New York Times article the next day which made the incredible statement "It took only 48 hours for the museum to be destroyed, with at least 170,000 artifacts carried away by looters." And that "US generals reject plea to protect priceless artifacts from vandals".

Academic experts, who knew nothing but what the media was telling them, engaged in some over the top rhetoric given the lack of actual information. Matt Bogdanos points out Piotr Michalowski, professor of Near East Studies at the University of Michigan as one of the most hyperbolic

The pillaging of the Baghdad Museum is a tragedy that has no parallel in world history; it is as if the Uffizi, the Louvre, or all the museums of Washington D.C. had been wiped out in one fell swoop. Some compare the event to the burning of the Alexandria Library. The full range of losses will probably never be known because the catalog records were scattered and destroyed and the living record of more than eight thousand years of human history has been erased in two days.

Well, little of this turned out to be true. The gold jewelry collection from the Treasure of Nimrud was found in a vault in the Central Bank of Baghdad having been placed there by Qusay Hussein. He was going to spirit it out of the country if things went south. Well, things went way south and he never got to make his withdrawal.

Most of the other stuff was hidden away by the Museum workers themselves and were safe all along. And the vast majority of the real valuable stuff that stolen was stolen was stolen by professionals with inside help. And while there were looters, they stole few valuable pieces because the staff had replaced many of these with fakes for display.

Matt Bogdanos does a great job of detailing his investigation and debunking most of the stories written by the New York Times, the Guardian, the Independent and others.

And as for the charge that the US stood by while looters sacked, he points out a number of facts. One was that the Museum was on the "no-hit" list for US armed forces yet it was a fighting position used by the Iraqi Army. Any attempt to "take" the museum and secure it would have destroyed it. US forces had to wait until the Iraqi Army units were confirmed to have left the area which wasn't until April 14th.

The other was what exactly were US forces supposed to do with looters? Shoot them?

Bogdanos strategy after he got on the scene was to both offer an amnesty program and to go out to the local markets and buy back what was looted. More importantly, he alerted world wide customs officials in order to recover artifacts that were professionally stolen.

All of these strategies resulted in the vast majority of the what was stolen being returned.

And the story that 170,000 items being stolen was completely false.

If you want to know the real story of what happened, or didn't, read the Thieves of Baghdad because stories about this are, to this day, circulating on the net.

Waging Peace

All those who really want context in which the War in Iraq should be placed need to read Waging Peace by Rob Schultheis. First you should know that Rob is an aid worker and human rights investigator in addition to being a reporter and an author. And though he's critical of the Big Army, the CPA and various and sundry REMFs, he's all for the guys in uniform on the front lines. And he's most especially for the Civil Affairs troops. Troops who he considers to be the guys who if anyone can win the war, they can.

His first experience with CA was in Bamiyan, Afghanistan with the six member Chiclet-5 of the 489th CA Battalion. He made this observation:

They were underfunded, overworked, and they had to keep a constant eye out for snipers, mines and ambushes: the Taliban had put a $5,000 bounty per man on their heads. But they were still outperforming all of the UN agencies, NGOs, and aid programs in the valley put together. All you had to do was ask the locals; almost everyone I talked to expressed scorn for the overpaid, overbureaucratic civilian aid workers and praised the job the Chiclets were doing.[pg. 6]

The book though is primarily about the time he spent with CAT-A 13 of the 425th Civil Affairs Battalion who were working an little area in Baghdad known as al-Khadimiyah. Since the teams are so small, and he didn't want to be a burden, he carried his own weapon, a 9mm handgun and would "borrow" an M-16 if the shit hit the fan and he was needed to help defend the team. But getting in the shit was not CAT-A 13's primary mission, they only engage the enemy defensively

"Remember, if we're threatened, always use the graduated response - shout, shove, show and shoot." Sergeant Paul continues, "If someone makes a threatening move, first shout at him. If that doesn't work, shove him. If he keeps on coming, show your weapon, and point it at him. If he doesn't stop then, go ahead and shoot him, and aim to kill..." [pg xxv]

Their primary mission is to win the hearts and minds. Find out what people in the AO need and try to make it happen. The CA folks are trained in everything from Civil Administration to fixing generators. Spending time with these five men and two women through this book is a lesson in how and why things have been able to steadily improve in Iraq.

Two more excerpts that I just have to share. The first is about the difference between how the war is being reported especially with regards to the work the CA teams are doing.

When I turn on the news, the war is barely mentioned: there will be a whole raft of reports on celebrity trials, the tribulations of Scott Peterson, Kobe, Michael Jackson and company, and exaltations of the latest box office hit or reality TV shooting star: and only then they might show tens seconds of a burning Humvee, with a casual reference to "two Americans soldiers killed and three wounded." [pg 139]

...Why isn't their story being shown on the air? Why don't the American people get to see Major Clark walking out alone into a hostile crowd to find out what is wrong, or Sergeant Venters distributing fish to his Iraqi workers? It drives me crazy, frustrates and alienates me, makes me so angry I could shoot somebody, if I could figure out who. [pg 141]

And then this about Iraqi forces

If there's a problem with the INGs, it's that they are almost too serious about their job. Both of them are in the back of the second Humvee, and as we weave through the traffic they point their weapons at any drivers who don't get out of the way fast enough, cursing in Arabic and shouting bloodcurdling threats. Any Iraqi who talks back gets a raise middle finger from Zien, and an AK-47 pointed right at him to drive the point home. Major Clark has to counsel the two INGs to be more polite to their countrymen: "We want you to help us make friends here, not start a new war." He grins.

Over the next weeks we get used to working alongside the Iraqis, and I can't help but notice the positive reaction they get from the civilian population. Kids point and cheer, motorists honk and give the thumbs-up: you can tell Iraqis, at least in our predominantly Shi'a neighborhoods, are excited and proud to see their countrymen patrolling the streets. If we are ever going to succeed here, this is a vital part of it. [pg 159]

This is an important book to those who want the full story of what is going on in Iraq. Often, Rob points out how the bureaucracy can't get out of its own way, but what makes out armed forces so great is not the Organizations themselves, its the men and women who get out in the street and accomplish the mission despite all the roadblocks, both foreign and domestic.

This is a story about brave, smart and compassionate soldiers and soldiering.

Quite the opposite of Senator Kerry's portrayal.

Thieves of Baghdad

Last week Matthew Bogdanos' Thieves of Baghdad arrived in the mail and my daughter immediately stole it.

A New York prosecutor and Colonel in the Marine Reserves, Bogdanos and his crew hunt terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. When in Baghdad, the ameteur archeologist discovers that priceless antiquities have been stolen from the museums, he makes it his task to recover what he can. From the liner:

Thieves of Baghdad takes you from his family’s flight to safety at Ground Zero on 9/11, to his mission to hunt down al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan, and into the war-torn streets of Baghdad on the trail of antiquities. Colorful characters and double-dealing are the norm as Bogdanos tries to sort out what really happened during the chaos of war. We see his team going on raids and negotiating recoveries, blowing open safes and mingling in the marketplaces, and tracking down leads from Zurich and Amman to Lyons, London, and New York. In an investigation that led to the recovery of more than 5,000 priceless objects, complex threads intertwine, and the suspense mounts as the team works to locate the most sensational treasure of all, the treasure of Nimrud, a collection of gold jewelry and precious stones often called “Iraq’s Crown Jewels.”

Looks like a good read to me and I'll be stealing it back soon, I think.

No True Glory

In No True Glory, former Marine and assistant Secretary of Defense under Ronald Regan, Bing West set out to accomplish two seemingly contradictory goals: to tell the strategic and political story of the battle for Fallujah, while at the same time telling the stories of the individual soldiers who fought it. You would think that it would be difficult to tell a story both on the strategic level and the tactical level, and it is. But Mr West pulls it off.

The title makes reference to the Iliad, Homer's enduring tale of the Siege of Troy where a Greek soldier on the front line says "Let us win glory for ourselves, or yield it to others." Bing West opines

For Greek warriors, there was no true glory if they were not remembered afterward in poem or in song. There will be no true glory for our soldiers in Iraq unless they are recognized not as victims, but as aggressive warriors. Stories of their bravery deserved to be recorded and read by the next generation. Unsung, the noblest deed will die.

So he meticulously tells the stories of the heroic acts Marines performed on the ground not only in Fallujah, but in Ramadi as well.

Stories like that of 1st Sgt Bradley Kasal who went into the House From Hell during the final battle in November to help save Marines who were trapped inside and under fire from terrorists.

Stories like that of Cpl. Timothy Connors, of the First Battalion, Eighth Marine Regiment, who engaged in 12 gunfights inside houses; and survived.

Bing also tells the stories of soldiers who were killed in action like Cpl Daniel Amaya, a squad leader who took point during an assault on a building where the terrorists had laid a trap.

Aside from these stories of individual courage and bravery, and there are scores of them in this book, Bing West takes us inside the political drama that first had the Marines take on the city in May after the four Blackwell employees were mutilated and hung from the "Brooklyn Bridge", to the decision to stand down and let an Iraqi force govern the city, to the realization that the most of the Iraqi military leaders appointed were aligned with the enemy and the Marines were once again called upon to take the city. This time for good.

Bing points to the problems in the command structure at the time, and the political dilemmas faced not only by the US administration, but the Iraqi political structure as he details the reasons why the Marines were not able to press, and win the battle in May and instead fought a much tougher battle in November.

Here is what I took away from the facts presented by the book, an interpretation with which the author may or may not agree.

It was clear from the beginning that Fallujah was a problem. It was a place loaded with everything from thieves and hooligans to terrorists and former Ba'athists. It was almost exclusively a Sunni city. And it had a bad rep throughout Iraq as a place of liars, theives and thugs.

When the Blackwell employees were massacred, the chain of command from the President to the CentCom commander General Abazaid overreacted, or more precisely, reacted emotionally. With echoes of Mogadishu playing in their heads, they wanted the terrorists to pay an immediate price. As a result, the Marines were ordered in, without a plan. But more importantly, without the political backing of the Iraqi leadership. Prime Minister Allawi was a Shi'ite, and although he understood that Fallujah was a problem, the Marines attack presented him with a number of political problems.

First, was the media. They were wrongly reporting that thousands of civilians were being killed and wounded. And almost all of this reporting was coming from al Jazeera and picked up by the Western media. As a result, several Sunni leaders involved with the CPA threatened to quit if the attack continued. This was a political problem for the CPA and the Administration especially during the Presidential Campaign where John Kerry was accusing the President of vacillating on Fallujah. All of the major political and religious leaders in the city were either criminals or terrorists, often both. But it was very difficult for Allawi to justify pressing the attack in the largely Sunni city while the Shi'ite terrorist leader, al Sadr was not similarly being oppressed.

As a result of all of this, the compromise that was reached was the creation of the so-called Fallujah Brigade which would replace the Marines within the city. When at first a joint Marine-Iraqi security operation was floated, the city leaders, the Sunni leaders within the CPA and the Fallujah Brigade itself all rejected the idea. The Marines were told to withdraw to the perimeter of the city.

The turn-around came only after a number of things happened:

1. it became clear the Fallujah Brigade was supporting terrorists, not rounding them up
2. it became apparent to everyone, including the Sunni CPA leaders that Fallujah was the center of Zarqawi's murderous group
3. al Sadr was taken down in Najaf

This last gave Allawi standing to go after a Sunni city without looking like he was pursuing a vendetta against Sunnis

There is little doubt the Marines could have finished the job in May despite the lack of preparation. There is also little doubt that the fight in November was tougher than it needed to be had the "feint" in May not occurred and both the Military and Political preparations had been done prior to the assault.

It is yet another reminder that emotional responses to war, and peace, often don't turn out well, but as humans, we are all subject to mistakes of this sort.

It also is a reminder that politics plays as big a role in any military operation but especially in those where you are not simply tasked with destroying the enemy, as was the case during the Major Military Operations phase, but also when the military must simultaneous preserve the peace as is the case now.

I recommend you read Bing's book so the fighters whose tales he tells will have the true glory they deserve and for the insight it gives to the difficulty involved in birthing a new nation when there are those who are bitterly opposed the very idea that people should breathe free.

General Franks, not Carl Rove

It turns out it was General Tommy Franks, not Carl Rove who who requested that the President address the troops and thank them after major combat operations (Gen Franks' term, not the President's) had ended.

Referencing pp 523-4 of American Soldier, General Franks writes:

"Mr Secretary," I said to Donald Rumsfeld at the end of our scheduled phase VTC." We've been talking about the timing of Phase IV. The British are going to hold a victory parade when their first combat units return from the Gulf. But our soldiers aren't going home yet. I'd like to figure out a way to acknowledge their sacrifice and service. There's a lot of work to be done over there, but major combat operations are over." I wanted the Secretary - or the President - to publically acknowledge this fact for the troops.

And there was another reason to make a public statement about the end of Phase III. There were Coalition members who didn't want to participate in combat, but had said they would help once that phase was over. "I'd like to see some of them start bringing in their reconstruction and humanitarian assistance troops," I told Rumsfeld.

"What do you have in mind, Tom?"

"It would be good if the President could acknowledge the success of major combat operations, Mr. Secretary." I tried to find the right words. "The troops have accomplished every mission we gave them. There's never been a combat operation as successful as Iraqi Freedom."

"I'll talk to the President," Don Rumsfeld said.

Unintended consequences.

I was grateful on the first of May for the President's words. Little did I know the criticism he would face for doing what I had recommended."

Also, on the post-war situation, General Franks writes (page 254):

"Jay Garner is going into this situation badly handicapped," [Franks' J-5 Director Rookie] Robb said. "His organization is behind. They haven't gathered the financial support and resources they require. And Jay doesn't have the kind of open checkbook he'll need to immediately rehire the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis put out of work by the Coalition." A key point I thought. When so many in Iraq's military laid down their weapons and simply walked home, it made ORHA's job much more difficult - and costly.

Before the war had begun, Garner had spent weeks walking the corridors of Washington, hat in hand. He needed people and money. But he could only suggest a hypothetical situation: If the United States went to war, could your department provide....?

No experienced bureaucrat would refuse a hypothetical request. They would meet it - with hypothetical resources, vague promises that cost their department nothing in terms of funds or personnel.

But the situation on the ground today was real, not hypothetical.

Tommy Franks' book is not only a good read but revealing of many behind the scenes facts. One extremely interesting piece has to do with how the Coalition successfully used the three-day sand storm to extremely effective military use while back home armchair commanders were calling the invasion "bogged down", and "stalled".

Also, the it is revealing just how imminent the threat of WMD use was perceived to be by coalition forces.

By all means, get and read this fascinating book.

Wisdom of Dune

Frank Herbert's Dune Chronicles is a masterwork of insights into politics, economics, religion, and ecology.

Listed here are a few of the many gems (swine? no swine here. Swine don't read my blog):

Liberty and Freedom are complex concepts. They go back to religious ideas of Free Will and are related to the Ruler Mystique implicit in absolute monarchs. Without absolute monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling by the grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would never have gained their present meaning. These ideals owe their very existence to past examples of oppression. And the forces that maintain such ideas will erode unless renewed by dramatic teaching or new oppressions. This is the most basic key to my life. -Leto. II, God Emperor of Dune: Dar-es-Balat Records

Most civilization is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. you restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.
-The Stolen Journals

Do you know what guerrillas often say? They claim that their rebellions are invulnerable to economic warfare because they have no economy, that they are parasitic on those they would overthrow. The fools merely fail to assess the coin in which they must inevitably pay. The pattern is inexorable in its degenerative failures. You see it repeated in the systems of slavery, of welfare states, of caste-ridden religions, of socializing bureaucracies—in any system which creates and maintains dependencies. Too long a parasite and you cannot exist without a host.
-The Stolen Journals

I give you the desert chameleon, whose ability to blend itself into the background tells you all you need to know about the roots of ecology and the foundations of a personal identity.
-Book of Diatribes
from the Hayt Chronicle