The Long Road Home
Last week I had to go down to Southern Iraq to give a presentation at one of the “Regional Embassy Office’s” or REO.
Pretty much now the only safe way to travel is by helicopter and as you might have seen on the news, even helos have come under fire and several have been downed in the last week or so.
I was scheduled to fly the day following two having been shot down. The crew that was flying me were part of the same squadron that had lost their lives. It was a pretty somber 45 minute trip down to the REO. We were pretty much all on high alert the entire trip.
We arrived safely in Babil (part of Babylon) in one of their largest towns called Hillah. The REO is housed in a large, and I understand the only, hotel in the city. This is a bone of contention with the local government who understandably wants it back. The Blackhawk lands right in front of the hotel. One could feel quite special being whisked around from place to place and put down right in front of where we need to be. It’s not nearly as glamorous as my trip back will show.
I arrived in the afternoon with one of my USAID colleagues. We spent the afternoon discussing a way forward for the presentation the next day. We’re in the process of rolling out a national montioring plan that we’ve put together for USAID. It’s been developed for each governorate, or what the US calls “province” for what is called “provincial reconstruction teams” or PRTs. There are pros and cons of implementing programs at this level - mostly pros, I think but our job is to evaluate what’s being done and provide recommendations for a way forward. Folks have many questions about what we do and many want to be copied on our findings - which isn’t going to happen in this lifetime. It pays to be highly discreet for a variety reasons!
The day after our arrival, we had our meeting. It was well attended. I have a power point presentation about what monitoring and evaluation is all about and what exactly we will be looking at in their areas. The meeting lasted about 3 hours after which we headed back to the REO. I didn’t feel at all unsafe from the locals but did feel hugely unsafe the way the PSD team were driving - cutting off traffic - sirens going - and for what”? We used the Department of State security - not my own.
Back safe and sound on the REO, we found out that we hadn’t been manifested on the flight back and therefore it would be highly unlikely we’d be able to leave until the following Monday (a week later). Hmmm - lets see if this is good use of my time? I take a 45 minute flight down to the REO, give a 3 hour presentatives with questions and answers and somehow find out it’s now going to take me another 6 days to get home? How hard can it be to get on a helo and fly 45 minutes? Harder than I thought. I was about to have a real adventure.
The sergeant on the flight line really wanted to help and decided that he could get us on the helo “Space A” - which means space available. The helo was going to another FOB called Echo to pick up some more passengers and then on to Baghdad. Echo is run by one of our coalition partners - not the US. We got to Echo and put down for two hours until dark. We don’t fly when the sun is setting for security reasons. Because we are flown by the military, they always want to know what our “quivilent rank” would be IF we were in the military. I’m told my equivalent rank is a Brigadier General. I’m not sure what that means but is does sound quiet nice. If push comes to shove, as it did, I’m supposed to outrank most others and get on a flight. Until I opened my big mouth…
The Prime Minister of the coalition force (Poland) had been visiting the day we landed and he with his entourage arrived on the flight line wanting seats on the helo going to Baghdad. There are always two helos flying together in case one goes down - and now we are also flying with Apache attack helocopters as well, although they don’t put passengers in the Apache’s. The two Blackhawks can handle 20 passengers in total and it seemed to me we were well on our way back to Baghdad. While the Poles have their own helos do you think they wanted to use them? No… “lets go with the Yanks” - granted, we fly as protected as possible with the latest equipment but wouldn’t one think that they would have given all of this thought before bringing the Prime Minister to the base? Guess not. We were asked if anyone would be willing to give up their seat… me being me, said sure, I’d give up my seat thinking how hard can it be to catch another helo? If I’d only known!
As I watched the helos lift off without me, I was sure I’d be on the next flight out. There were helos coming in and out of there all the time - huge Chinooks - medivacs - Blackhawks - how hard could it be? None were going to Baghdad and while I could have gotten on, I’d have been flown further away instead of closer and could have ended up sleeping or trying to, on the desert floor somewhere. The kind folks at Echo provided billeting for me - such that it was - but I did have a bed. Shower facilities quite a hike away, but no towels… a base full of Poles and Mongolians. I didn’t even KNOW we had the Mongols here! Very few US servicemen and women. I was told that “there should be a flight tomorrow….” tomorrow didn’t come for three days. So, there I was - no way to shower, no internet connection - couldn’t use my computer to work… you might say I was a little cranky.
I finally got on a Blackhawk two nights and three days later - but Baghdad was going to be the 4th stop. We hit our first stop at sundown so had to wait until dark before we could leave. By this time, I’ve become friends with some of my traveling companions. We decided to take off and find the mess hall somewhere on the base. We eventually found it - and found that this base was also run by the Poles - with a few El Salvadorans thrown in for good measure. Everyone was very nice but we had to wonder as we were wandering around this base whether or not it was secure. No one stopped us asking who we were and where we came from. The only time we had to show our ID’s was when we went into the Mess Hall. Strange to me. Granted, the perimeter of the base I’m sure has been secured and I suppose that one can’t get on it without the correct ID but it still seemed strange.
After eating we sat down and talked with our flight crew about their experiences. They flew Bill O’Reilly when he was here - and guess who happened to be here with him? I suppose you already know this, but I didn’t. John Kerry happened to be here at the same time and while they weren’t traveling together, ended up on the same flight together. Interesting to me, these guys had no time for Kerry - and loved O’Reilly. They flew Hillary when she was here - found her to be very difficult but felt it was due to her being very afraid during the flight. They said she looked like a deer caught in the headlights. We had a good laugh. They didn’t have much good to say about her - or her staff who took photographs even though they were told not to - due to flying blind at night and any flash of light is visible to the enemy. They weren’t impressed.
I find it very strange that at least with this flight crew, two of the three visitors who are anti-war were dissed by these guys - and the conservative, O’Reilly, was loved. It’s interesting that many would want us to believe that the troops don’t want to be here - don’t believe this is a winnable war - and don’t support this Administration. I haven’t found this to be true and I ask every soldier I meet because I really want to know. I don’t think they’re just being “politically correct” - I believe they really mean it.
You all know my feelings about this war - but we simply have to give Bush’s plan a chance. While the situation here seems to be getting worse instead of better, I’m thinking it has to - we have more troops on the ground - we are now forcing the Iraqi troops to step up to the plate so of course there’s going to be more fighting, more casualties as we route out the bad guys. I’m more hopeful than I have been in a long time that just maybe we will be able to bring some control to the country.
Back to my trip - after dinner at the FOB, we took off after dark, flying blind and landed on three more FOBs and refueled once before landing inside the IZ. What should have been about a one hour flight from ECHO, took six hours.
I wish I could say this is an exception but unfortunately, it’s the rule. Traveling around Iraq is not easy. At one point, my security team was going to drive down by road and pick me up - but I couldn’t let them do that as there’s one well known stretch of the road they’d have to travel that is very dangerous. So, I waited - and am telling myself that once again, I’m having to learn to be patient…. something I guess I’m not learning well -or quickly! I guess God is going to keep pounding me with experiences to make me patient until I learn.
Blessings to all of you!
