Stryker Brigade News

We began our movement into Iraq at the beginning of December. We occupied a Forward Operating Base (FOB) north of Baghdad near the city of Samarra where we worked with the 4th Infantry Division to clear that city of former Saddam loyalists and other enemy factions. That city was fairly unstable due to the fact there are a lot of former Iraqi soldiers living there and there has not been a lot of money put in to rebuild that town. Unfortunately, C Troop lost a Stryker to an improvised explosive device, luckily, and to their credit, only one person was injured (broken leg). We targeted not only the trigger-pullers (usually poor people paid to shoot at us) but also those that paid them to do it. Our Brigade was very successful in maintaining peace there through confiscating illegal weapons and arresting those responsible. After about a month of operating in that area, we began our move north to replace the 101st Airborne Division.
1-14 CAV led the Brigade movement north in the beginning of January to begin the relief in place of the 101st. We have occupied the area near the city of Mosul toward the Syrian border. Since we have a Brigade that is occupying the area that a Division was in, it basically means we have a third of the number of soldiers to cover the same area. This means that our troop is covering the area that an Infantry Battalion was covering. This may sound difficult to do, and it is. The good side of this story is that we are slowly working ourselves out of a job. There is no unit scheduled to replace us when we redeploy. We are slowly decreasing the size of the unit that is necessary to do the job so that we can eventually turn this country back over to it’s people. Let me tell you a little about the area and our job here.
The northern sector of this country was virtually untouched by the war. This means that there is not as much animosity toward US soldiers as there is down south. Most of the problems that we have found here is a result of the corrupt government that held this country back from advancing for the past 35 years or so. The other problems result from looting, and black market. Every once in a while we will still have problems with people that do not want us here. There are a number of reasons for this, everything from the typical “we are the occupying infidel” to “you are running our country and want to take over” to “somebody paid me $20 to shoot this RPG at the Americans”. This has been very rare in this area though. Most of our time is being occupied by building support for the local government and working projects to fix the local infrastructure. For example, we meet with the city council of the major city here twice a week to discuss their needs. Some of them are: new roads for the smaller villages, new wells for some towns, electricity and water run to other towns. We also monitor the security of an oil pumping station, pipeline, and a water pumping station and aqueduct. This will become even more important during the harvest time since most of the people in this area are farmers. Our troopers will become experts in farming, water management, oil pumping, and dealing with local government. Not exactly what we had planned for, but a whole heck of a lot better than being shot at. We are made to feel at home here, they invite us to their homes for meals and offer us all kinds of help. I can give you my assurance that we are in the safest place that I have seen in this country. The people here want our help, but they are most eager to fix what has been wrong with their country for the past three and a half decades.
As far as quality of life goes, the troop is split between a Forward Operating Base (with most of the Squadron), and an outpost facility near the Syrian border. At the outpost we have access to internet but no phones. At the FOB there is access right now to local phones (30 cents a minute) and internet ($3.00 per hour). Eventually, I expect to have free internet and AT&T phones available there. I do not know how long it will be, but rest assured we have good people working on it. The mail situation is not good. Since we have moved our area of operations again, it means another delay in mail. I have no idea how the outgoing mail has been working, but I know that mail that I personally sent around the 19th of December has not made it home yet. This to me is unacceptable and I will do what little I can to fix it. Incoming mail is delayed, but that is to be expected since the Brigade has not yet finished moving into sector. Come the middle of February, I expect some of the incoming mail to clear up. I know that pay and entitlements has been an issue, I am working with 1SG Gano and the finance people here to get an accurate assessment of who is not getting the right amount and how we can fix it from here. We do not have free access to finance, we will probably only get to see them about once a week, so whatever can be done from home will probably help out.
Again, I’d like to say what a great job everyone has done since the beginning of the deployment. Your troopers have set an example for others to follow, and they are doing things on a daily basis that will affect the lives of thousands and how they live. Separation is difficult, but with your support on the homefront our men will be able to do anything. I will try to make this a regular newsletter and I will do what I can to mix up the pictures a little. Please let me know if there is anything I can do from my position.

BRONCOS!
CPT Dan Bard