In the Gray Area

by Seth W. B. Folsom

  An operation scheduled for 12 March was canceled due to a command visit to COP South by the new commander of 28th Brigade, Aqeed (Colonel) Ra’ed. A squat, wide-eyed officer, Ra’ed closely resembled a burlap sack of potatoes wrapped in woodland camouflage material. His undersized legs tended to dangle above the floor when he sat, and the nickname assigned to him by the Americans—“Stumpy”—was a fitting one. He waddled everywhere he went, and his overstuffed appearance epitomized the commonly accepted fact that Iraqi officers were better fed than their enlisted soldiers.

  After arriving at COP South Ra’ed and his entourage toured the area in a whirlwind inspection of the camp while I hung back in the formation with Lt. Col. Ron Gridley. A wiry, angular infantry officer who shared with me a common background in the LAV community, Gridley was the leader of 28th Brigade’s advisor team. He and his Marines had been assigned to the brigade since August 2007, and while he was not yet my boss (but would eventually assume that role later in the deployment), I knew it would be foolish to discard his guidance when it came to dealing with the IAs. As the advisor to the brigade commander he was routinely privy to the brigade’s plans and operations, and he would be there to assist me if and when I ran into roadblocks when dealing with my own counterpart. He was atypical of most lieutenant colonels I had met, and he understood the unconventional nature of advisor team operations. During our first meeting his guidance had been simple: “Follow your counterpart around, make your recommendations to him and his staff, and don’t get butt-hurt when he doesn’t take your advice.” “It can be a frustrating job,” he had told me. “And all you can do is make sure you and your team laugh a lot, and wake up each morning and go to bed each night with a smile on your face.”

  His experience thus far as an advisor had told him that being directive in nature when it came to the Iraqis—or when dealing with the MiTT team members—tended not to work. And I understood exactly what he was saying. It was one thing to tell a subordinate Marine to accomplish a task. It was something else entirely to tell the Iraqis to do something. It was similarly fruitless to order a subordinate on the team to make his Iraqi counterpart do something. I knew I couldn’t make Ayad do something he didn’t want to do; accordingly, I couldn’t expect my team members to make their counterparts do something they didn’t want to do. And so, in time, I began to phrase my taskings to the Outlanders in these terms: “Try to convince your counterpart to do this or that . . .” That was all I could do. Whether the Iraqis did the right thing in the end was an entirely different matter. Such a lack of authority—an inability to demand compliance—was thus one of the most maddening aspects of being an advisor. Marines are action-oriented creatures. They receive tasks, they make plans, they execute missions, and they demand results. Advisors do the first three, yet the fourth—tangible results—frequently evades them.

  The inspection moved swiftly throughout the camp, and as the group shuffled from building to building we were closely flanked on all sides by the armed personal security detachments (PSDs) of both Colonel Ra’ed and Lieutenant Colonel Ayad. Neither officer went anywhere without his PSD, even within the safety of his own camp. Ayad even had an armed guard standing post outside his hut at all times. It made me wonder what the real purpose for all the security was. Was it a genuine concern by the commanders for their own personal safety? Or was it merely for appearances—the fact that the commander was so important that he rated his own bodyguards everywhere he went? American commanders often traveled with their own PSDs as well, but there seemed something almost sinister about the ever-present AK-47-wielding junood shadowing the Iraqi commanders.

  Ra’ed was impressed with the camp, commenting frequently on the cleanliness of the facilities and the tight ship that Ayad ran. The train retired to Ayad’s hut, half of which had been converted into his office. Every time I sat in Ayad’s office I laughed to myself at the interior decoration. Plush rugs covered the floor, a tall television cabinet stood next to the door, and big, comfortable couches and chairs lined the walls. The furniture was a gaudy explosion of golds, browns, and oranges. Cracked glass-topped coffee tables were permanently stained with rings from tea saucers and bottles. Day-Glo pink tapestries had been fitted into a makeshift drop-ceiling for the office, and the clash of loud colors screeched like an optical banshee. To top it off, the lavish, professional atmosphere of the room was offset further by the baby-blue wallpaper covering the office’s walls. Outlandish cartoon monkeys blowing pink bubbles adorned the paper, the announcement “Don’t burst my bubble!” imprinted under each gum-chewing primate. Other officers’ huts were similarly decorated, often with brightly colored or flowered wallpaper, and plastic flowers were familiar decor throughout the living areas. It was a far cry from the dusty, bare, simple huts the Marines occupied. The only way we could explain the disparity was that the Marine advisor teams occupied COP South for a mere seven months at a time before returning to the United States. The officers and soldiers of 3rd Battalion were there for the long haul. It was only natural that they made the place as much like home as possible. I wondered if Ayad’s real home in Ramadi was as garish and exaggerated as his office at COP South.

  As we all sat down for chai I witnessed an interesting Iraqi military custom. Upon entering the office the brigade commander sat at Ayad’s desk, and Ayad placed himself on the couch next to Ra’ed. I began to notice the same tradition each time a senior Iraqi officer visited a camp, whether it was the brigade or division commander visiting COP South or the battalion commander visiting one of his company battle positions. Each time the senior officer would assume the position behind the desk, as if he had taken command of the unit, and the on-scene commander would subordinate himself in a seat off to the side. It was a peculiar custom, as I had never seen a Marine commander do the same to a subordinate leader. It screamed, I’m in charge here! but it didn’t seem to bother the IAs. They had their way, and we had ours. Who the hell was I to judge?

  The group sat around for close to two hours, drinking chai and smoking cigarettes, socializing about nearly everything but work. What businessrelated discussion there was centered on topics that seemed minor compared to the larger issues confronting the Iraqi army at the time. Ra’ed offered his wisdom on such critical subjects as the correct way to run a chow hall and how to more efficiently speed the soldiers through the serving line. Issues such as fuel and spare-parts shortages were ignored. Instead, Ra’ed entertained his audience with an epic tale describing the fate of the old Iraqi army’s 9th Division, which supposedly had been annihilated during the Iran-Iraq war. As the officers present vigorously nodded their heads in agreement, Colonel Ra’ed made a casual comment that piqued my interest.

  “We need to go back to the old days of discipline,” he said, pointing to the officers surrounding him. “Only then will we be able to continue forward.”

  It was the first time I had heard an Iraqi officer make such a proclamation, but it wouldn’t be the last. We had defeated the Iraqi army in battle, yes, but remnants of the old regime still existed in the officer corps. I began to wonder if perhaps they were merely waiting out the Americans, waiting for us to rearm them, waiting for us to leave so they could return to the old ways. Such talk made me uneasy. Surely they would eventually see the light . . . wouldn’t they?

  Throughout his visit Colonel Ra’ed frequently suggested a visit to BPs Okinawa and Vera Cruz to inspect 1st and 2nd companies. Knowing how fast the Iraqis tended to pick up and move—and not wanting to get caught unprepared—I radioed Lieutenant Bates on my Motorola and directed him to prep two vehicle crews in case we needed to head out quickly with the brigade’s convoy. As the socializing continued throughout the afternoon the chances of visiting the two companies seemed to get smaller and smaller, but just as I prepared to cancel the convoy planning Colonel Ra’ed put down his tea glass and loudly announced, “Let’s go visit First and Second companies!”

  The entourage walked briskly to a line of waiting Ford F-350 pickup trucks mount
ed with armed soldiers and heavy machine guns, and I scrambled back to the MiTT compound to grab my gear and jump into the back seat of a waiting Humvee. Our departure was so rushed—and I had so little time to prepare myself—that I left the wire missing half of my gear. As we rolled past a spray-painted sign at the camp’s exit that asked, “Got your rifle?” I suddenly patted myself down and realized my error. I had no identification, no NVGs. I didn’t even have my rifle and magazines. I was a bag of shit, and I felt naked and stupid. The long line of vehicles rolled out of the ECP, and I keyed my headset and sheepishly spoke to Staff Sergeant Leek in the vehicle commander’s seat.

  “Hey, Staff Sergeant, I’m all fucked up here.”

  “What?” he replied, turning back to look at me. “What are you talking about, sir?”

  “We got out of there so quickly, I forgot all my shit.” I motioned to my body armor and its empty ammunition pouches, and then held up my empty hands. “I guess I have to rely on you guys to protect me if the shit hits the fan.”

  “Don’t worry, sir,” he replied, laughing. “We got your back.”

  I was mortified, and throughout the long trip to the company battle positions I mulled over my grievous blunder. Boy, I thought. That’ll look great if we get hit while I’m out here with nothing. Really leading from the front now.

  The trip ended with a brief visit to the site of the new brigade compound that was under construction near the Al Qa’im phosphate plant. Both the brigade headquarters and 3rd Battalion were scheduled to eventually relocate to the new facility, but in the meantime it was unfinished. Again Colonel Ra’ed and Lieutenant Colonel Ayad stood around, pontificating about specifics of the facility that to me seemed superficial. The hot topic of discussion centered on how to properly divide the chow hall between brigade and 3rd Battalion personnel. As Lieutenant Colonel Gridley and I stood back and examined the exposed wiring, leaking pipes, and crumbling plaster, I wondered aloud if perhaps the two Iraqi commanders weren’t focused on the wrong things.

  The long convoy of vehicles returned to Camp Phoenix, the Iraqi brigade headquarters camp colocated with Camp Al Qa’im. Our two Humvees broke away from the convoy to refuel before the trip back to COP South, but by the time we returned to link up with Ayad’s convoy they had left without us. I was pissed off. Coalition convoys were not authorized to go outside the wire in groups of fewer than three vehicles (unless they were partnered with IA vehicles). The sun had set more than an hour earlier, and as darkness shrouded the desert I faced a dilemma: Did I keep my Marines at Camp Phoenix overnight, or did I violate orders and set out on our own, alone and unafraid in the dark? I chose the latter. I knew it perhaps wasn’t the safest thing to do, but by leaving us Ayad had placed me in a difficult position. As we exited Camp Phoenix I remembered something the previous team had once told us: Don’t be surprised when the Iraqis leave without you. It didn’t do a lot to boost my confidence in our newfound counterparts.

  As we made our way back through the night our tiny convoy slowed to a stop. The Wadi al Battikah was a deep, dry streambed that cut through the middle of our route, and previously established SOPs dictated that it be cleared on foot for pressure strips or command wires before any vehicles traversed it. Leek stepped out of the Humvee, and, grabbing the vehicle gunner’s carbine, I hopped out and followed him down into the wadi. We split up, Leek moving off to the right side of the trail while I took the left. Deep cuts lined the trail’s banks, forcing me to hop from ledge to ledge every ten feet or so. Stumbling along in the dark, the path to my front illuminated only by the glow of my flashlight, I lost my footing and tumbled down into a ditch that bordered the trail. I went crashing down into the dirt, the full weight of my body and equipment coming down hard on my ankle. My foot on fire inside its boot, I abandoned the craggy border of the trail and instead limped along the trail itself, continuing to scan the powdery earth for pressure strips and booby traps. The pain in my ankle and my irritation at the Iraqis over abandoning us eclipsed my concern about getting blown up as I walked along in the dark, and when we finally reached the other side and paused for the Humvees to pick us up Leek looked at me.

  “Damn, sir,” he muttered, shaking his head. “You’re crazy walking in the trail like that.”

  “Fuck it,” I said. “Just . . . fuck it. Come on, let’s get back to camp.”

  I was too tired, mad, and sore to care much. It had been a long day, and it was time to go home.

  Chapter 15

  Backing the Wrong Horse

  On 14 March I sat down with the battalion commander of the Marine task force and his company commander who originally had been “partnered” with 3rd Battalion. As transition teams became the norm in Iraq the original concept had called for Marine infantry companies to partner with Iraqi battalions, in effect becoming company-sized MiTTs. Experience had shown that when the partnered companies worked closely with the advisor teams notable results were achieved. Prior to my team’s arrival, however, the circumstances in 3rd Battalion had changed after a squad of embedded Marines from the partnered company got drunk one night from a bottle of liquor mailed by one man’s wife. The Marines had been permanently recalled to their company headquarters, leaving the previous advisor team alone to work with 3rd Battalion at COP South. My predecessor and I had both agreed on the necessity of having an additional squad of Marines with us to assist in our job with the IAs, but we found ourselves alone in our mutual agreement.

  After voicing my concern to the company commander over the removal of the rifle squad my exchanges with him escalated into a significant disagreement about how he and his company should partner with 3rd Battalion. The company commander was convinced that his squads could accomplish the mission by merely linking up with the IA companies and conducting operations once or twice a week. I, on the other hand, argued that by embedding a rifle squad with each IA company the Marines would be able to build relationships by living, eating, and training with the junood like my own team was doing. But I was fighting a losing battle, and eventually the battalion commander made his thoughts on the matter clear to me. The time for sitting around the campfire with the IAs and singing “Kumbaya” was over, he told me. The mission of partnering with the Iraqi army could now be accomplished by the company’s squads commuting to work on a periodic basis.

  The battalion commander went on to outline a series of directives and milestones for me to accomplish with 3rd Battalion. I was, he instructed, to tell Lieutenant Colonel Ayad where his soldiers could and could not operate in the Al Qa’im AO, as well as what types of missions they should conduct. Additionally, only after I had worked with 3rd Battalion to create a series of operationally focused training packages would the Marine squads venture back out to COP South. Once the IAs and the Marines had trained and rehearsed together they would then conduct a mission that was related to the training package.

  This was easier said than done. The Outlanders had been working with the Iraqi staff for less than two weeks, and we had not yet earned their trust. They were unlikely to just do what we told them with no questions asked. Even worse, the Marine commander expected me to accomplish all of his tasks before his battalion redeployed to the United States less than two months later. It was a tall order, and his mandates about partnering and directing what the Iraqi army could and could not do in their own battlespace reflected a lack of understanding of transition team operations. We were advisors—the consultants of the military world—and the Iraqis were not obligated to take our recommendations. We could not give orders. And we could be guaranteed that the IAs would not take our suggestions seriously until my team had forged relationships with the officers and soldiers of the battalion and had proven ourselves trustworthy in their eyes. The Marine lieutenant colonel’s misperceptions about what my mission entailed made me wonder why the battalion transition teams reported to the task force commander and not the Iraqi brigade MiTT team. It didn’t make sense, but then again often so little did.

  That evening I me
t the 3rd Battalion XO, Lieutenant Colonel Sa’id, for the first time. Lieutenant Colonel Ayad had departed for mujaas (monthly leave cycle) earlier that day, and Sa’id was placed in charge in the commander’s absence. The Iraqi army’s leave cycle, like so many aspects of its system, constantly confounded me. Each soldier and officer was authorized ten days of leave each month, and the only explanation I could get for the excessive amount of time off for the soldiers was that, because they were paid in cash, they required the time to go home and give their earnings to their families. The mujaas cycle repeated itself three times a month, and in the two or three days before a cycle began the battalion was always a hub of confusion as soldiers and officers ran around excited about going home. Similarly, little work was accomplished in the day or two after a cycle ended as the returning personnel attempted to readjust to military life. The effect such a personnel rotation had on 3rd Battalion’s operations was devastating. In any given month we could only count on our counterparts being present for twenty days, and many IA officers frequently took extended leave for a variety of issues. Ayad, like the rest of his staff officers, rarely left anyone in charge in his absence, and while he and his men enjoyed their God-given right of ten days of leave the battalion typically went to hell.