Task Force 2-7 IN Newsletters
ABLE 6 Sends (1 Jul 07):
We've now passed our 6-month mark in the Iraq Theater of Operations and are excited to be close to the halfway mark of our 15-month deployment. We successfully fought off a second attempt to move us to another location in Anbar last month and continue to enjoy making good progress in our main population centers of Hit, Muhammadi, Abu Tiban and Kubaysah. Temperatures remain above 110 degrees from 10AM - 7PM daily and certainly take their toll on our daily operations...and our bodies! We were fortunate to receive two large orders of replacement air conditioners last month so most everyone is sleeping and working in relative comfort once again! Nearly half of the task force has already enjoyed their R&R leave with the rest scheduled for August - November. We continue to approach life one mission, one day, one week at a time....and slowly but surely, the months keep passing by!
We will probably refer to the month of June as "the month Hit went without electricity." Around the 10th of June, terrorists destroyed two electrical line towers in a sparsely populated region well north of Hit. Our entire area of responsibility was without power for 4 days before we were ever able to isolate the problem. Because of the remote location of the downed towers, the perceived security risks, and the sheer size of the towers which needed to be re-erected, the job was very challenging for the Iraqis. We helped where we could by providing security, expertise from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and a daily sense of urgency and organization, but mostly, this had to be an Iraqi solution. it was, by far, the most challenging time of our deployment for our Soldiers who deal with Iraqis daily because of the Iraqi's lack of faith in their own government (and eventually even coalition forces) to fix the problem. With temperatures over 110 degrees and the kids out of school, you can imagine how no ceiling fans or air conditioners would tend to make you a little cranky too! On 7 July, after more than 3 weeks with only emergency power (which generally amounted to about 1-hr per day, per neighborhood), the final tower was repaired, the wires restrung, and power reestablished. Within minutes, the normally crowded streets of Hit were noticeably empty and the entire population retreated indoors to enjoy the luxury of electricity. If 250,000 people in the United States were without electricity for nearly a month, it would be front-page news nationwide. In contrast, I don't think any Arab media even mentioned our situation.
Replacing destroyed Electrical Power Tower and restringing electrical
wires
Our efforts to professionalize our Police Force continued during June. Our new District Police Chief, Colonel Sallah, officially took office on 11 June and has brought some much-needed dignity, maturity and responsibility to our 1100-man police force. He brings 23 years of experience as an officer in the Iraqi Army to the job and is working hard to earn the respect of his police and the population they support. We are nudging our Police leadership to take more and more responsibility for planning and conducting their own operations and they are making tremendous progress processing intelligence, detaining criminals, conducting investigations, and even handling tribal disputes.
COL Sallah assumes command as the new District Police Chief
Our local and regional governments have also made some great progress lately. The Mayor of Hit has now moved into the newly renovated municipal building where he conducts business with his municipal leaders about 4 days a week. Our city council complex next door is also complete and we expect our 20-member city council to move there from their temporary facility very soon. We received our third visit from the Al Anbar Governor in June and he and his staff finally approved the Hit Council and officially recognized them - another milestone event. The Governor also recently approved several million dollars of additional reconstruction projects for the Hit District which we hope to be a good source of local employment.
Hit's newly renovated municipal building
The legal system in Hit has also reached some very important milestones lately. Establishing a "Rule of Law" has been a crucial step toward Iraqi self-sufficiency sine we established a relative safe and secure environment back in February. Hit is now one of the few cities in western Anbar Province with a fully-functioning courthouse with a full staff of lawyers, clerks, paralegals, and ...a judge. The courthouse is open 5 days a week and processes marriages, divorces, property deed transfers, wills, estate settlements, etc. We're helping the Iraqis make improvements to their courthouse and have also established a groups of investigators to serve as the link between the Police who arrest the criminals and the judge who determines their punishment. Like a group of detectives, the investigators investigate alleged crimes and gather evidence to support any decision made by the judge. We've actually had our Police arrest a man for kidnapping based on evidence gathered by the investigators. The judge was able to issue a warrant for his arrest and the individual is now in Iraqi Police custody awaiting his trial. None of this would have been possible even 3 months ago.
TF 2-7 IN continues to run a week-long Iraqi Police Academy on camp Hit. It's a crash course in the fundamentals of marksmanship, ethics, and police work and it's run by CPT John Busa and our Headquarters Company. We just graduated our 6th 50-man course recently and the Cottonbaler IP Police Academy has truly grown into a first-class product. After a cadre training session lat month, we now use Iraqi Police officers from our current force as the primary trainers. They really enjoy the instructor role and the instruction is much more exciting since we no longer have to use interpreters. We even let the Iraqis redesign the graduation exercise to make it more what they thought it should be rather than what we were accustomed to.
Marksmanship training at the Cottonbaler Iraqi Police Academy.
As we enter the final quarter of the fiscal year, reenlistment in on many Soldiers' minds. We reenlisted 26 Soldiers during the past 30 days including 7 (PFC Sotello, SPC Welch, SPC Sneathen, SPC Wilson, SPC Marquez, SPC Llamas, and SPC Fuller) who flew to Baghdad to be reenlisted by GEN Petraeus in a special ceremony on the 4th of July at the Al Faw Palace in Baghdad. In addition to the sense of pride in reenlisting to serve their country in a time of war, most of these Soldiers also will stand to gain a nice tax-free bonus for signing up while we're deployed! Our Nation and our Army clearly recognize the tremendous sacrifice our Soldiers and their families are making in support of the War on Terror. As a result, the Army and 3rd Infantry Division are offering some excellent incentives to those Soldiers ready to reenlist for 2, 4 or 6 years. From duty station of choice to an MOS reclassification; and hefty bonuses to college options, there are some great deals to be had. We hope you'll consider some of these as you're making your decision to Stay Army!
Reenlistment by GEN Petraeus.
We also were fortunate to have 6 Soldiers sworn in as U.S. citizens in Balad on the 4th of July. As one of the many fringe benefits of serving our nation in combat, PFC Dias, PFC Miller, PFC Bontuyan, PFC Cyrulik, PFC Rosado and PV2 Mayen had an experience they'll never forget.
PFC Dias, PFC Miller, PFC Bontuyan, PFC Cyrulik, PFC Rosado and PV2 Mayen display their new US citizenship papers.
The men and women of TF 2-7 IN continue to make me and their nation proud as they go about their business making our little piece of Iraq a better place. Hopefully, these notes and pictures help illustrate to you the many contributions your loved ones are making for the people of Iraq every day. I only hope you find opportunities to share these stories with those who may not believe our continued presence here is making a difference.
As always, I must thank our wonderful Rear Detachment Leaders, FRG Leaders, co-leaders and POCs who also do so many things that we never hear about. We are able to remain focused on our jobs here because we know that our families are well cared for by a competent and caring group of professionals back home.
Thanks for all you do!
LTC Doug Crissman...Able 6
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