April 2007 Newsletter
ABLE 6 Sends (1 Apr 07):
Greetings to family and friends of TF 2-7 Infantry! Today is April Fool’s Day and we celebrate the arrival of a new month…and the passage of another month here in Iraq! The temperatures are getting warmer – 80s now during the day and 50s at night – and the Soldiers, Marines, and even a few Sailors of TF 2-7 continue to do great work here in our piece of the Anbar Province.
The month of March saw us working closely with our Iraqi partners from both the Iraqi Army and Police. Both groups continue to mature and contribute to the security of the region. Despite plenty of rumors that insurgents want to get back into the city to disrupt our progress, there has not been a single successful attack or event inside the city of Hit in nearly 6 weeks. This has allowed the people of Hit to get more and more comfortable with each passing week. Local citizens are moving back into shops, homes, and other facilities that haven’t been occupied in months. Clean up, building repairs and new construction are occurring throughout the city and the locals’ biggest complaints are with the driving restrictions the Iraqi Police still enforce inside the city. The Hit marketplace is the largest in the immediate area and all its shops are open most everyday.
We also continued to expand our presence into new areas in our sector. After tripling the number of police stations in Hit in February, we’ve now added police stations in the towns of Muhammadi and Abu Tiban to the south. We’re partnering closely with those new police forces to train and equip them as they establish themselves. We even started our own Police Academy on Camp Hit. The Cottonbaler Iraqi Police Academy is a 5-day course which teaches the fundamentals of marksmanship, ethics, detainee handling, police investigations, etc. We ran two courses which each produced 50 graduates in March and these new recruits were immediately placed in the police stations in Hit for on-the-job training with the existing police force. In April and May, most of these new police recruits will attend a 5-week Iraqi Police Academy near Mosul to get their formal training, receive uniforms and equipment, and be added to the payroll.
CSM Coston and I were able to visit Charlie Company in Ramadi in late March and found them to be in good spirits and ready to move on to a new location outside of downtown Ramadi where they’ll live on Camp Blue Diamond and operate in TF 5-7 Cav’s old sector. We hope to get an opportunity to visit them in their new area once they’re settled.
I am sorry to report that the TF did lose its first member to an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) on 24 March. Marine Lance Corporal Trevor Roberts was a member of one of our Police Transition Teams. We conducted a memorial service for him here on Camp Hit on 30 March and although we only knew him a short time, we consider him one of our own.
Our first batch of 10 Soldiers are already headed back to the States for their R&R leave and we’ll send about 80 more back during the month of April. We appreciate the Easter packages which have begun to arrive and all the other “surprises” you’ve been sending our way! Thanks again to our wonderful Rear Detachment Leaders, FRG leaders, co-leaders, and POCs who are doing a great job taking care of our Soldiers and their families!
Until next month…
LTC Doug Crissman…Able 6