News Fro The Front
- From: PaPaPeng <PaPaPeng@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:14:08 GMT
US soldiers shy from battle in Iraq
By Dahr Jamail
October 26, 2007
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IJ26Ak07.html
WATERTOWN, New York - Iraq war veterans now stationed at a base here
in upstate New York say that morale among US soldiers in the country
is so poor, many are simply parking their Humvees and pretending to be
on patrol, a practice dubbed "search and avoid" missions.
Phil Aliff is an active duty soldier with the 10th Mountain Division
stationed at Fort Drum. He served nearly one year in Iraq from August
2005 to July 2006, in the areas of Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, both west
of Baghdad.
"Morale was incredibly low," said Aliff, adding that he joined the
military because he was raised in a poor family by a single mother and
had few other prospects. "Most men in my platoon in Iraq were just in
from combat tours in Afghanistan."
According to Aliff, their mission was to help the Iraqi army "stand
up" in the Abu Ghraib area of western Baghdad, but in fact his platoon
was doing all the fighting without support from the Iraqis they were
supposedly preparing to take control of the security situation.
"I never heard of an Iraqi unit that was able to operate on their
own," said Aliff, who is now a member of the group Iraq Veterans
Against the War (IVAW). "The only reason we were replaced by an Iraqi
army unit was for publicity."
Aliff said he participated in roughly 300 patrols. "We were hit by so
many roadside bombs we became incredibly demoralized, so we decided
the only way we wouldn't be blown up was to avoid driving around all
the time."
"So we would go find an open field and park, and call our base every
hour to tell them we were searching for weapons caches in the fields
and doing weapons patrols and everything was going fine," he said,
adding, "All our enlisted people became very disenchanted with our
chain of command."
Aliff, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), refused
to return to Iraq with his unit, which arrived in Kirkuk two weeks
ago. "They've already lost a guy, and they are now fostering the
sectarian violence by arming the Sunnis while supporting the Shi'ites
politically ... classic divide and conquer."
Aliff told Inter Press Service (IPS) he is set to be discharged by the
military next month because they claim his PTSD "is untreatable by
their doctors".
According to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the number of
Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans seeking treatment for PTSD increased
nearly 70% in the 12 months ending on June 30.
The nearly 50,000 VA-documented PTSD cases greatly exceed the 30,000
military personnel that the Pentagon officially classifies as wounded
in both occupations.
VA records show that mental health has become the second-largest area
of illness for which veterans of the ongoing occupations are seeking
treatment at VA hospitals and clinics. The total number of mental
health cases among war veterans increased by 58%; from 63,767 on June
30, 2006, to 100,580 on June 30, 2007, according to the VA.
Other active duty Iraq veterans tell similar stories of disobeying
orders so as not to be attacked so frequently.
"We'd go to the end of our patrol route and set up on top of a bridge
and use it as an over-watch position," Eli Wright, also an active duty
soldier with the 10th Mountain Division, told IPS. "We would just sit
with our binoculars and observe rather than sweep. We'd call in radio
checks every hour and say we were doing sweeps."
Wright added, "It was a common tactic, a lot of people did that. We'd
just hang out, listen to music, smoke cigarettes, and pretend." The
26-year-old medic complained that his unit did not have any armored
Humvees during his time in Iraq, where he was stationed in Ramadi,
capital of the volatile al-Anbar province.
"We put sandbags on the floors of our vehicles, which had canvas
doors," said Wright, who was in Iraq from September 2003 until
September 2004. "By the end of our tour, we were bolting any metal we
could find to our Humvees. Everyone was doing this, and we didn't get
armored Humvees in country until after we left."
Other veterans, like 25-year-old Nathan Lewis, who was in Iraq for the
invasion of March 2003 until June of that year while serving in the
214th field artillery brigade, complained of lack of training for what
they were ordered to do, in addition to not having armored Humvees for
their travels.
"We never got training for a lot of the work we did," he explained.
"We had a white phosphorous mortar round that cooked off in the back
of one of our trucks, because we loaded that with some other ammo, and
we weren't trained how to do it the right way."
The "search and avoid" missions appear to have been commonplace around
much of Iraq for years now.
Geoff Millard served nine years in the New York Army National Guard,
and was in Iraq from October 2004 until October 2005 working for a
general at a Tactical Operation Center.
Millard, also a member of IVAW, said that part of his duties included
reporting "significant actions", or SIGACTS, which is how the US
military describes an attack on their forces.
"We had units that never called in SIGACTS," Millard, who monitored
highly volatile areas like Baquba, Tikrit and Samarra, told IPS. "When
I was there two years ago, there were at least five companies that
never had SIGACTS. I think 'search and avoids' have been going on
there for a long time."
Millard told IPS "search and avoid" missions continue today across
Iraq. "One of my buddies is in Baghdad right now and we email all the
time," he explained, "He just told me that nearly each day they pull
into a parking lot, drink soda and shoot at the cans. They pay Iraqi
kids to bring them things and spread the word that they are not doing
anything and to please just leave them alone."
(Inter Press Service)
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