Chaplain: Different War Imposes Different Stresses

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

FORWARD OPERATING BASE LOYALTY, Iraq, Dec. 18, 2005 - A different kind of war produces different kind of stresses on the servicemembers fighting it, said the 2nd Brigade Combat Team chaplain here.

But recognizing those stresses enables the soldiers of this 3rd Infantry Division unit to begin to deal with them, said Chaplain (Maj.) Peter Brzezinski.

Brzezinski, a Presbyterian minister, called uncertainty the greatest stress to the brigade's troops. "Every time you go out the gate, there is the chance that something will happen," he said.

Brigade soldiers work with Iraqi security forces but also patrol East Baghdad on their own.

Soldiers moving off the FOB stand the chance of being engaged by suicide bombers, suicide car bombers and small-arms fire. Improvised explosive devices are the big killers in this war, and enemy fighters are constantly changing their tactics and procedures. A route near the FOB has a reputation for being laced with IEDs.

"I know it's stupid, but every time I go on (the route), I keep wondering if this is the last thing I'll see," said one soldier.

Soldiers here operate far differently than in 2003, during their initial run up to Baghdad at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The rules of engagement are far more restrictive, as troops recognize they need to be. In many cases, the soldiers are working in jobs they never received formal school training to carry out. For example, field artillerymen work as infantrymen and air defense artillery soldiers, as military police.

"They've done very well in these new jobs," Brzezinski said. "This is a great, flexible force, but it does provide stress."

Even soldiers on the FOB have combat stress uncertainty. Rocket and mortar attacks, while rare, are a possibility. On the FOB, people don't even look up when they hear the occasional rifle or machine gun fire off base.

Uncertainty in an institutional sense also contributes to the problem, the chaplain said. Army researchers who did a survey at the FOB found the lack of predictability in deployments to be the greatest concern to soldiers. "If the Army could say, 'you will be home for this period and then on this date you will deploy,' the soldiers would be much happier," Brzezinski said. "Not knowing is a stressor on the troops."

Access to the Internet and efforts at Fort Stewart, Ga., the brigade's home, help reduce concerns about family, the chaplain said. The FOB's Internet Caf�, which enables soldiers to stay in touch via e-mail, Web cams and instant messaging, is packed at all hours.

"Of course, if there is an incident here, then the infrastructure here is quickly overloaded," he said.

Also helping reduce stress is a sense of accomplishment. Brigade soldiers feel they are doing a good job with the Iraqi security forces and see daily progress in the region around their base, the chaplain said. "And everyone here is very proud of the way the elections went," he said. "When you feel good about your mission, you can put up with a lot."

The brigade's year-long deployment is drawing to a close. The 506th Brigade Combat Team from Fort Campbell, Ky., is replacing the 2nd Brigade. While the 506th is part of the 101st Airborne Division-remembered as the "Band of Brothers" of World War II and for operations at Hamburger Hill in Vietnam--it will serve as part of the 4th Infantry Division.

As the brigade goes home, the chaplain will work with unit commanders and top NCOs to make sure the soldier's reintegration with their families goes smoothly. The unit will arrive back in Georgia, reunite with their families, go through a week-long decompression routine, then start a month of block leave.

"Then we will come back and begin the process all over again," Brzezinski said.

_______________________________________________________
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Iraqi Citizens Support Ongoing Anti-Terror Ops

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18, 2005 - As Iraq progresses militarily and democratically, citizens there are stepping forward to inform indigenous and coalition forces of terrorist operations and covert weapons caches, Multinational Force Iraq officials reported today. Iraqi citizens sometimes even are apprehending suspected terrorists themselves, officials noted.

For example, on Dec. 17, a group of Iraqi citizens near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, captured two suspected terrorists who were observed digging up a weapons cache. The citizens reportedly subdued the suspects and called the Kirkuk Joint Coordination Center, which then relayed the information to a nearby patrol. The combined Iraqi and U.S. patrol responded and secured more than 20 artillery rounds, while detaining the terrorist suspects for questioning, officials said.

Also on Dec. 17, another group of Kirkuk residents flagged down a U.S. Air Force patrol and led the airmen to a small weapons cache. The airmen reportedly found two mortar rounds, two rocket-propelled grenade warheads and several anti-aircraft artillery rounds. An explosive ordnance disposal team destroyed the weapons in a controlled detonation, officials said.

A tip from a local citizen in the Tissa Nissan area of Baghdad Dec. 16 led a group of soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Brigade, to a large, buried mortar cache of seven 60 mm mortar rounds. The soldiers reviewed the site and reportedly discovered another suspicious site, which had 19 60 mm mortar rounds. An explosive ordnance disposal team destroyed the ammunition, officials said.

Iraqi soldiers, too, are stepping forward to take the lead, officials said. Iraqi army troops from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Iraqi Intervention Force, reportedly found and cleared two weapons caches near Husaybah Dec. 17.

The first cache, northwest of the city, held six 40 mm rounds, three AK-47s, a single assault rifle and assorted small arms ammunition, officials said. The second cache of 50 82 mm fuses was found in a water tank, northeast of town. The ordnance was collected and slated for subsequent destruction, officials said.

Elsewhere in Iraq, on Dec. 15, soldiers with the Task Force Band of Brothers discovered a large cache of improvised explosive device components near Hawijah. The components reportedly were found by a pair of scout helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division.

The helicopter pilots spotted suspicious activity by several individuals, officials said. They then relayed the suspects' location to a nearby patrol from the division's 1st Brigade Combat Team. The patrol found a weapons cache buried in several 55-gallon drums.

The cache consisted of 414 two-way radios, 48 circuit boards, and more than 100 timing devices -- all of which are used to manufacture IEDs. The cache also included small amounts of AK-47 ammunition, detonation cord, batteries and several bomb-making manuals, officials said.

This was the second time in less than a month that 1st Brigade Combat Team has uncovered a major cache in its area. The team discovered more than 4,200 mortar rounds in a single cache Nov. 27 near Kirkuk, officials said.

Meanwhile, at several locations near Tikrit on Dec. 17, soldiers from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade detained 15 suspected terrorists as part of Operation Eagle Watch.

The 101st soldiers reportedly were conducting an area reconnaissance near Forward Operating Base Speicher, when they observed the terrorist suspects at two separate sites. Unit UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters swooped down to investigate. They found several AK-47 rifles, two sniper rifles, an RPK Soviet machine gun, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, officials said.

The contraband was confiscated from the suspects, who then were taken to a nearby detention facility for questioning.

Officials reported one American fatality in Iraq Dec. 16. A Marine assigned to the 2nd Marine Logistics Group, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), died from a non-hostile gunshot wound in Camp Fallujah.

The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense. The incident is currently under investigation, officials said.

(Compiled from various Multinational Force Iraq news releases.)

Related Site:

Multinational Force Iraq [http://www.mnf-iraq.com/]

_______________________________________________________
NOTE: View the original version of this web page on DefenseLINK,
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Visit the Defense Department's Web site "America Supports You" at http://www.americasupportsyou.mil, that spotlights what Americans are doing in support of U.S. military men and women serving at home and abroad.

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America Supports You: Groundbreaking Set for Home Renovation

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18, 2005 - The Armed Forces Foundation is planning a ground-breaking ceremony Dec. 19 to begin a remodeling effort that will make a disabled veteran's home in Hope Mills, N.C., handicapped-accessible.

Tom Caldwell, a retired Special Forces soldiers left paralyzed from the waist down after a helicopter crash in Panama, is the recipient of the Armed Forces Foundation Housing Assistance Program effort.

The foundation, along with the Department of Veterans Affairs and Caldwell's hometown of Fayetteville, N.C., will make the upgrades needed for Caldwell to use his bathroom and wheel around his house independently for the first time in 15 years, Mitchell Schwenz, the foundation's marketing director, told American Forces Press Service.

In addition to widening hallways to make them wheelchair-friendly, the group will remove walls to make the house's floor plan more open and accessible to Caldwell. The project also includes enlarging the master bedroom, installing wood floors, building raised planter boxes and constructing a workshop where Caldwell can pursue his passion of woodcarving, Schwenz explained.

The effort, the foundation's largest home-improvement project to date, is likely to be the first of more to come as the foundation strives to meet the needs of wounded veterans, he said.

"There's a large need out there, with people like Tom all over the country," Schwenz said. "They've all had to learn to live with their injuries, and we want to help them do that."

Veterans like Caldwell who have sacrificed for their country deserve its support as they live with their injuries, he said. "Caldwell is a great man who has done a lot for the country," Schwenz said. "He deserves to have the country do something for him."

The Armed Forces Foundation is a nonprofit organization committed to serving the needs of U.S. men and women in uniform, particularly in their time of greatest need. Toward that end, the foundation organizes a variety of activities and programs that provide support, recreation and educational services.

The foundation is a partner in the Defense Department's America Supports You program that spotlights efforts by American citizens and industries to support the nation's men and women in uniform.

Related Sites:

Armed Forces Foundation [http://www.armedforcesfoundation.org/]

America Supports You [http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/]

_______________________________________________________
NOTE: View the original version of this web page on DefenseLINK,
the official website of the U.S. Department of Defense, at
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Visit the Defense Department's Web site "America Supports You" at http://www.americasupportsyou.mil, that spotlights what Americans are doing in support of U.S. military men and women serving at home and abroad.

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Cheney Visits Iraq, Officials Laud Historic Vote

By Petty Officer 3rd Class John R. Guardiano, USN
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18, 2005 - Vice President Dick Cheney made a surprise visit to Iraq today to hail the country's successful Dec. 15 parliamentary election in which more than 70 percent of Iraqis -- 11 million-plus voters -- participated. Meanwhile, the vice president's wife, an historian, took to the airwaves today to provide historical context for the elections.

"It's an honor for me to be here to mark the tremendous success of the Iraqi people," the vice president told reporters in Baghdad. "The participation levels [in the election] all across the country were remarkable."

In fact, the biggest change in last Thursday's election was the dramatic rise in Sunni participation compared to that in Iraq's last two elections, in January and October.

Indeed, "the Sunni Arabs participated in very large numbers" this time, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told Wolf Blitzer today on CNN's Late Edition. He noted that in Anbar province, "the heartland of the Sunni world here," voter participation rose from 10 percent in January to 62 percent on Dec. 15.

Khalilzad said he does not expect the same spike in violence that occurred in the aftermath of the Jan. 30 elections. To be sure, violence and fighting in Iraq will continue. However, Khalilzad explained, it likely will "not escalate in the same way that it did after the previous election, which the Sunnis had boycotted."

"I think," he said, "if a good government is formed -- if Sunnis feel that their concerns are dealt with -- I think violence will decrease over time significantly, and terrorists and Saddamists will be increasingly isolated."

"That's exactly what needs to happen," Cheney said in Baghdad today, "as you build a political structure in a self-governing Iraq that can unify the various segments of the population and, ultimately, take over responsibility for their own security."

"This obviously has been a joint venture, with a great deal of effort on the part of the United States and our coalition partners," he said. "But ultimately, the responsibility for the future of Iraq clearly rests with the people of Iraq."

Cheney visited Iraqi and U.S. soldiers at Taji Military Training Base, observing their training and congratulations them or providing security for the successful elections, Multinational Force Iraq officials said.

While on base, the vice president was escorted and briefed by Army Lt. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, commander of the Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq, and Iraqi Maj. Gen. Bashar Mahmoud Ayoub, commander of the 9th Iraqi Mechanized Division, who discussed the unit's recent successes and their equipment.

This was followed by a demonstration of traffic control point training by Iraqi soldiers and their U.S. advisers and lunch with U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and airmen assigned to the base, officials said.

Historian Lynne Cheney said today that, in comparison to where the United States was at a comparable point in its own history, the Iraqis are doing remarkably well.

An estimated 100,000 Americans, just 3 percent of all eligible voters, participated in America's first election under the new U.S. Constitution, she noted. And more than half of the U.S. population -- all women and slaves -- were ineligible to vote. In Iraq, by contrast, women are eligible to vote, there are no slaves, and more than 70 percent of the population voted.

In fact, the Iraqi constitution gives women equal rights and a mandatory 25 percent of all seats in the newly elected parliament, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Tim Russert today on NBC News' Meet the Press. "The Iraqis are now going to engage in a process which gives them a real chance for a broadly representative government," she said.

Iraq, the vice president's wife said, obviously has benefited from U.S. experience and guidance. "We've been able to bring our knowledge to the people of Iraq," she said.

It took Iraq three months to form an interim government after its January elections, and Khalilzad said Iraq will move quickly to form a new government. However, he quickly added, the United States will not rush these efforts.

"I want to emphasize that forming a government quickly is an important value," he said. But so, too, is "having a good government, a government that has good people in it -- technocrats, people who have the confidence of Iraqis

"So will we emphasize both factors: a good, moderate, cross-sectarian, cross-ethnic government [and one that is formed] as soon as possible," Khalilzad said.

Iraq's newly elected representatives "will have to make compromises," Khalilzad explained, because "no party will have the votes to make the government by itself. So coalitions will have to be formed. And now, unlike the previous parliament, a lot of Sunnis will also be in parliament. So it's going to take time."

Iraqis "recognize that they need to sustain the momentum out of this election," Rice told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. "They need to sustain the momentum for the expectations of the Iraqi people. They need to sustain it because of the insurgency and the terrorists. And they need to send a strong message that the political process is moving forward."

"As the year ends," Lynne Cheney said, "I think it's important not only to see what's gone right in Iraq and Afghanistan, but to look at ourselves and say, 'You know, our fighting men and women have accomplished something quite remarkable.'"

"There have been missteps in our history and many a backward step," Cheney writes in her book, "A Time for Freedom." But "the overall thrust of our story has been the expansion of human freedom. And if we have not always understood that our freedom is caught up with the freedom of people around the globe, we do now, and we fight for them as well as for ourselves."

Biographies:

Vice President Dick Cheney [http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/]

Lynne Cheney [http://www.whitehouse.gov/mrscheney/]

Condoleezza Rice [http://www.state.gov/secretary/]

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/50305.htm]

Related Site:

Multinational Force Iraq [http://www.mnf-iraq.com/]

_______________________________________________________
NOTE: View the original version of this web page on DefenseLINK,
the official website of the U.S. Department of Defense, at
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2005/20051218_3697.html.

====================================================

Visit the Defense Department's Web site "America Supports You" at http://www.americasupportsyou.mil, that spotlights what Americans are doing in support of U.S. military men and women serving at home and abroad.

====================================================
Visit the Defense Department's Web site for the latest news
and information about America's response to the war against terrorism: "Defend America" at http://www.DefendAmerica.mil.

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