Day 400
OK, another milestone passed today: DAY 400 on my deployment away from home. I left home from New York City on Labor Day 2004 to go upstate to Ft. Drum, NY for this deployment. That seems in some ways like a lifetime ago and in other ways it went by in the "blink of an eye". I can't complain- many of the soldiers with me from both the Massachusetts National Guard and the New York National Guard left their families and their civilian jobs on Memorial Day 2004- over 500 days ago. Think about that...five hundred days living away from their families!
We all trained up at Ft. Drum and shipped out on October 27, 2004 to come over here. The day we left the US last year the Red Sox won the World Series. That was a long time ago- think about it- the Red Sox are already back to losing... We are only days away from leaving. In fact, some of our guys have already left on their flights home.
Morale right now for most of my friends is through the roof! People are so excited to be leaving Iraq shortly that it is hard to really express in words. But there are still risks so everyone is being excessively careful and there is a nervous tension amid the excitement. When I arrived here a year ago I replaced a Captain named Keegan Cotton- a West Point graduate from the class of 2000. I've been in touch with him since he left Iraq (he left the Army after his five year commitment). He sent me a message in August saying "I hate to tell you- but everyone will be more nervous in their last thirty days in Iraq than they were in their first thirty days!". I didn't believe it, but now we're within thirty days and he was right!
People who had become accustomed to the noises and the environment of a combat zone are now jumpy and anxious again- even more so than when we first arrived. Amidst the excitement and high morale there is a tension- and in the past week I have seen several confrontations between soldiers over petty issues. People are ready to fight each other over ridiculous issues. We hadn't seen that at all in the last eleven months.
An Army division is roughly 25,000 soldiers. Anyone who has seen the "Band of Brothers" is familiar with the Army division depicted in the series: the famed 101st Airborne Division. This unit has the "Screaming Eagle" as its symbol. The 101st has arrived here in Iraq and is relieving us. To say that we love seeing that Screaming Eagle would be an understatement!
We arrived here one year ago and relieved a full time (regular army) unit called the 1st Infantry Division- called the "Big Red One" and we're being replaced by the 101st Airborne. In between the the "Big Red One" and the "Screaming Eagles", our National Guard division- the "Rainbow Division" has held the ground and fought the insurgency. Tens of thousands of citizen-soldiers were deployed here with our division- in the first National Guard Division to deploy to combat since World War II (most leaving home for eighteen months similiar to the long deployments of WWII.) We have served through one of the most tumultuous times in Iraq- arriving in a liberated/occupied country under coalition control and then serving through the first democratic elections in Iraqi history in January.
Now we're about to pass through a second national election: the ratification of the Constitution- our last milestone before we can head home. TWO Iraqi elections in one deployment! In the next week millions of Iraqis will risk their lives to vote on October 15th. History has a tendency to repeat itself and in this case I hope so. While I don't want to make predictions- I'm hopeful that on October 16th the world will again see editorials in every major newspaper about the "shock and awe" over the success of the elections. I'd say that there is a high probability that there will be a positive outcome at the end of this week. But there will certainly be violence just as there was in January and there will certainly be a massive turnout just as there was in January.
If the elections are successful I hope that the world will have more patience for Iraq during the one year deployment of the 101st Airborne than it had for Iraq during our one year tour. In our year the world went from near universal negative press about Iraq a year ago- to "shock and awe" over the success of the elections...back to claiming Iraq was a "quagmire" and a "failure" several months later. The world seems to have little patience for creating democracies right now. Millions of people risked their lives to vote in January and will do so again this week and deserve a little patience.
My job here is done. I've transitioned over to my replacement. Now I'm pretty much waiting out the completion of the tour and waiting for that long awaited flight home. It is Day 400 and I have only a handful of days left in Iraq. First however, I get to see the results of the second elections in our one year tour!
We all trained up at Ft. Drum and shipped out on October 27, 2004 to come over here. The day we left the US last year the Red Sox won the World Series. That was a long time ago- think about it- the Red Sox are already back to losing... We are only days away from leaving. In fact, some of our guys have already left on their flights home.
Morale right now for most of my friends is through the roof! People are so excited to be leaving Iraq shortly that it is hard to really express in words. But there are still risks so everyone is being excessively careful and there is a nervous tension amid the excitement. When I arrived here a year ago I replaced a Captain named Keegan Cotton- a West Point graduate from the class of 2000. I've been in touch with him since he left Iraq (he left the Army after his five year commitment). He sent me a message in August saying "I hate to tell you- but everyone will be more nervous in their last thirty days in Iraq than they were in their first thirty days!". I didn't believe it, but now we're within thirty days and he was right!
People who had become accustomed to the noises and the environment of a combat zone are now jumpy and anxious again- even more so than when we first arrived. Amidst the excitement and high morale there is a tension- and in the past week I have seen several confrontations between soldiers over petty issues. People are ready to fight each other over ridiculous issues. We hadn't seen that at all in the last eleven months.
An Army division is roughly 25,000 soldiers. Anyone who has seen the "Band of Brothers" is familiar with the Army division depicted in the series: the famed 101st Airborne Division. This unit has the "Screaming Eagle" as its symbol. The 101st has arrived here in Iraq and is relieving us. To say that we love seeing that Screaming Eagle would be an understatement!
We arrived here one year ago and relieved a full time (regular army) unit called the 1st Infantry Division- called the "Big Red One" and we're being replaced by the 101st Airborne. In between the the "Big Red One" and the "Screaming Eagles", our National Guard division- the "Rainbow Division" has held the ground and fought the insurgency. Tens of thousands of citizen-soldiers were deployed here with our division- in the first National Guard Division to deploy to combat since World War II (most leaving home for eighteen months similiar to the long deployments of WWII.) We have served through one of the most tumultuous times in Iraq- arriving in a liberated/occupied country under coalition control and then serving through the first democratic elections in Iraqi history in January.
Now we're about to pass through a second national election: the ratification of the Constitution- our last milestone before we can head home. TWO Iraqi elections in one deployment! In the next week millions of Iraqis will risk their lives to vote on October 15th. History has a tendency to repeat itself and in this case I hope so. While I don't want to make predictions- I'm hopeful that on October 16th the world will again see editorials in every major newspaper about the "shock and awe" over the success of the elections. I'd say that there is a high probability that there will be a positive outcome at the end of this week. But there will certainly be violence just as there was in January and there will certainly be a massive turnout just as there was in January.
If the elections are successful I hope that the world will have more patience for Iraq during the one year deployment of the 101st Airborne than it had for Iraq during our one year tour. In our year the world went from near universal negative press about Iraq a year ago- to "shock and awe" over the success of the elections...back to claiming Iraq was a "quagmire" and a "failure" several months later. The world seems to have little patience for creating democracies right now. Millions of people risked their lives to vote in January and will do so again this week and deserve a little patience.
My job here is done. I've transitioned over to my replacement. Now I'm pretty much waiting out the completion of the tour and waiting for that long awaited flight home. It is Day 400 and I have only a handful of days left in Iraq. First however, I get to see the results of the second elections in our one year tour!
posted by Dan at 8:51 AM
