My job in Iraq: Responsible for Iraqi Commerce in our Area

Iraq is a sovereign nation. As of June, 2004 the Iraqi's became responsible for managing their own affairs. Over 135,000 soldiers remain in Iraq and will so for the foreseeable future to ensure for the world that the nation remains as secure as possible and that terrorists do not roam freely.

The United States Congress has approved $18 billion to be spent on re-building Iraq. This is a large sum of money given the size of Iraq. This is roughly equal to all goods sold throughout all of Iraq in a given year (excluding oil). The total GDP of Iraq is roughly $22 billion. Several US agencies are helping to spend this money and to re-build Iraq. Contractors bid to receive these funds in exchange for services rendered. The USAID (Agency for International Development) has personnel throughout Iraq who work with the local Iraqi government to spend this money on projects deemed critical in re-building Iraq's infrastructure. Many other government agencies as well as charitable organizations operate throughout Iraq attempting to build and re-build critical components of the Iraqi infrastructure so that a the Iraqi's can live freely and prosperously.

The US Army's main role is to provide security for the Iraqi people. Since an insurgency has developed and is trying to derail the re-building of Iraq, the Army's main role is to seek out and destroy or capture the insurgents. Insurgents have targeted each of the major pillars that will be needed to make the life of the average Iraqi comfortable. The insurgents have targeted police stations, national guard recruiting stations, electricity grids, oil pipelines and other critical components needed to allow the Iraqi people to live freely under their own sovereignty.

The Army's primary mission is to provide security. My division, the 42nd Infantry Division, has responsibility for roughly one quarter of Iraq. The secondary mission of the Army is to help re-build Iraq. My role is to focus on commerce throughout our area of operations (excluding oil- there is a dedicated group focused solely on oil). Within my responsibilities are all areas of trade to include agriculture, tourism (when security will permit), foreign investments, small, medium and large businesses, and all areas related to interstate and international commerce.

My role is not to run any of these industries or even to tell the Iraqi's how to run any of these industries. They are in full control of their own country. My role is to be an advocate and a facilitator for the Iraqi's within my area. For instance, the farmer's in our area of operations may be in need of technical expertise to determine crop rotations in order to optimize the output of their farms. This expertise may not already exist within Iraq. In consulting with the farmer's and the government workers in my area we determine this to be a need and a priority- I will work to gain these resources through US agencies- such as USAID and USDA. Funding for any project can be gained through multiple sources- and my role will be to help facilitate the funding of a project such as this once it is identified and recognized by the Iraqi's as one of their priorities.

Agriculture is the second largest industry in Iraq after oil. Unfortunately, the United Nations' Oil for Food (OFF) program caused agriculture within Iraq to be seriously destroyed. The OFF program helped feed the Iraqi people during the years 1992-2003 but had the downstream effect of destroying the agricultural system within the country. The reasons for this are many and will be addressed in a separate article.

The result is that the agricultural system has the ability to become a major industry again within Iraq and to be the breadbasket of the Middle East. The challenges after a decade of neglect are many: irrigation canals have been destroyed and need to be re-built; the state owned farms need to be privatized if they are to maximize their potential; artificial pricing needs to be established and subsidized in order to get some inertia for the farming community to compete effectively against established farms in neighboring countries; COOPs need to be established and effectively managed in order to protect farmer's investments and predictable outcomes so that investments will be made each year, and other major hurdles.

Thus, I am in essence a consultant, facilitator and advocate for the Iraqi people in our Area of Operations (AO). I will work to get them funding and assistance, much as a member of Congress represents his/her district in Washington, DC, helping to gain much needed funding and support.

Ft. Drum, NY: the pre-deployment phase- getting ready to go to Iraq

After being activated I had to report to Ft. Drum, New York. Ft. Drum is 70 miles north of Syracuse- up near the Canadian border. I arrived and was assigned to a National Guard unit that was preparing for deployment to Iraq. I was assigned to the 42nd Infantry Division.

Funny story about the 42nd Infantry Division. It was formed in 1917 during the mobilization for World War I. At the time, each state wanted to be the first to send it’s National Guard unit to Europe to combat. Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur decided to “build” a unit comprised of soldiers from across the 47 states. Thus was born the 42nd Infantry Division. MacArthur, always the articulate orator, said that the unit was comprised of soldiers from coast to coast, much like the rainbow going from one side of our country to the other. Thus, the 42nd Infantry Division became the “Rainbow Division”. Little did MacArthur know that Gay Pride would eventually take the Rainbow and use it as it’s national symbol (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) So nowawdays, when we walk into a room full of soldiers, we hear all kinds of comments about the Rainbow that we wear on our left shoulder……As if that weren’t enough…after going to combat with a unit, a soldier also wears that symbol on his right shoulder. So after going to combat with the 42nd we will all wear colorful rainbow patches on both shoulders. MacArthur must be rolling over in his grave!

I spoke with my commander prior to reporting to Ft. Drum and we discussed my background. It turned out that he had many positions that were not standard military positions due to the unconventional war that we were fighting in Iraq. He had a job that was responsible for all types of trade/commerce within his area of operations. It seemed like a good fit and we agreed that would be my job.

The first thing I needed was a place to live. The bachelor officer’s quarters (BOQ) were full- and even when rooms opened up in the BOQ- they were given to enlisted soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division, Ft. Drum’s full time Army Division’s soldiers. As National Guard officers, we didn’t have any connections. The officers who lived on Ft. Drum were full time active duty- and none of them were going to go out on a limb to help us. The post was run by full timers- and the 42nd Infantry Division was just “renting” part of Ft. Drum to process through on the way to Iraq.

The housing I was given was typical army-going-to-war temporary housing- very utilitarian, desolate World War II barracks that had hardly changed since World War II, except for some horrible aluminum siding that had been added in what must have been the ‘70’s, colored in blues, greens and yellows that made them look even more depressing than they probably would have looked when they were wooden. I was assigned to a room with another captain, an artillery officer. He had the bottom bunk and had been there for five months- so I took the top bunk. Because the heater was broken in the “on” position, and the fact that there were no air conditioners, the heat in the barracks would rise and the top bunk bed would become unbearable. So I pulled out a sleeping bag and slept on the floor of wooden WWII barracks preparing to go off to war. I was a Captain, but felt like a Private……this feeling would soon be confirmed.

The first “what have I gotten myself into?” question that I had for myself was the morning of the second day, when I was in the shower and heard someone yell from the toilet section of the open bay latrine “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”…which is what a soldier says after pulling a grenade and before it detonates- basically saying “watch out!”…...I thought “that’s a little odd…..what’s that all about?” and planned to just ignore it as some overly intense soldier making a joke that I didn’t get. Seconds later I was scolded by hot water as the toilet had sucked all the cool water out of the pipes, thus leaving only sizzling hot water in the system to scold my back. My memory had wiped out that apparently useless information from the ‘80’s when I last was in a WWII barracks- that “fire in the hole” also in this context (latrine) meant a flush was about to occur and to step out of the shower before you get scolded. It was a memory that I forgotten, or stored deep, deep down in my memory- hoping never to need that piece of information again- never wanting to be in a communal shower in a World War II wooden barracks building.

The unit had been activated in May and had been at Ft. Drum for four months prior to my arrival. I certainly had nothing to complain about once I realized that the Army was going to cram the same schedule of training that had taken these soldiers five months- into one month for me. Going to Iraq was one thing, having to leave your family and your job to go to Ft. Drum for six months prior to going to Iraq for a year was another. Good rules of thumb in life- don’t complain too loudly- there is always someone worse off!

The training schedule was pretty casual and not “mickey mouse” like the Army tends to get during peacetime. I was given a list of classes and training sessions that were required to go to war- and was given a schedule of when/where the classes were being held. The list of “things to do” when sending an American soldier to war is quite extensive!

I needed to get a physical, dental exam, inoculations of every kind, M16 training and qualification, attend briefings on Iraqi culture, briefings on the political and military situation in Iraq, sexual harassment training (with women in the combat theatre the dynamics were very different than extended combat operations of previous wars), communications’ equipment training, emergency first aid training, Improvised Explosive Device (IED) training, land mine training, grenade range qualification, and many other refresher training courses.

One of the first things that struck me when I arrived on Ft. Drum was both the seriousness of the situation- but also the comedy of the situation. Extreme situations tend to bring out humor in people, both for the stress relief for everyone involved but also for the “gallows humor” that the camaraderie that a dangerous situation presents.

The last station at Ft. Drum was to ensure that I had passed all of my training and that I was qualified to deploy to combat. The last room was in a large building and had several hundred people in the room. Several stations were set up throughout the room, where soldiers would stop one by one, to review their records, before moving on to the next station. Each of the people checking the records were civilians- and most were women- wives or daughters of soldiers stationed on Ft. Drum.

I had read about these stations during World War II - and the bureaucratic automatons who would man these stations- they had a reputation of being cold and robotic. Every person who was working on the opposite side of the table, processing us through these stations- were all women. These women were incredibly nice and cordial. They had obviously sent tens of thousands of soldiers off to Afghanistan and Iraq over the past three years, and they were very sensitive to making the experience as painless as possible. There was a lot of humor and a lot of caring.

Soldiers’ wives on military bases tend to be very connected and very wired as a group. The CIA should hire only women- they do an incredible job of networking between themselves! Wives of soldiers tend to know what units will go where, what patches mean on each uniform, which jobs are more risky than others (Infantry vs. Quartermaster) and everything a soldier would know, but more. These woman knew every time a soldier from Ft. Drum was killed or wounded, and there had been many.

At my last station, there was a woman who had to review the entire packet. The woman behind the last station reviewed my file, pulled out a big ink stamp, and stamped my file “DEPLOYABLE” then looked up, and had kind of a tear in her eye and said “come back alive will you?” Wow! That kind of freaked me out!!! Hey, we were all just joking around and then you hit me with something serious like that…. I thought “is there some form I can fill out to guarantee that?!” I was kind of dumbfounded….what did she know that I didn’t? How dangerous WAS my job going to be??

Just then the guy behind me jokingly says “She stamped you “DEPLORABLE”? That’s cold!” Another guy yells out “Hey she stamped me “EXPENDABLE”- how did I get that??? Can I get “DEPLORABLE? That sounds a lot better!” Humor tends to get people through pretty bizarre times!