Herculean Patience...

K, ready for the second article? If so, let's push...this is another interesting read courtesy of David Smith, Guardian Unlimited, who is embedded with the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment. I blogged on his 2nd report here. Interested in reading his other reports? Here they are:

More from David Smith's Embed Diary
15.11.2007: 'I'll be in the history books one day'
14.11.2007: Bound and blindfolded
13.11.2007: Apprehensive? Oh, yes
11.11.2007: Inside the green zone

A word of caution...the end of this article may be disturbing to some as David describes an attack on a Stryker vehicle near the Green Zone. Proceed at your own choosing...

War and Counseling
David Smith goes out on a 'hearts and minds' operation

Friday November 16, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

First, as a postscript to one of my previous entries, I was told that the three men I had seen arrested, handcuffed and blindfolded had been proven to have been involved in the kidnapping of Shias at false checkpoints and had provided some useful information.

My first instinct was to feel rather silly for the way I'd reacted like an ivory tower liberal to the whole scene. But then I reminded myself: the seriousness of the charge makes it all the more important that these men receive a fair trial. I was also reminded yesterday that anyone who perceives Americans only as imperial bullies, blundering around Iraq purely for oil or some other selfish interest, has failed to explain men like Captain Francisco Lopez.

On a Stryker patrol in south-west Baghdad I watched him tirelessly listen, negotiate, cajole, advise and sympathize with anxious members of the public, displaying a bedside manner and Herculean patience that would make you think he was running for president.

Much is written about the soldier of the 21st century with his arsenal of hi-tech sensors and weapons but the reality on the ground in Baghdad is that troops are taking a crash course in counseling, diplomacy, family welfare and social skills.

During the hot afternoons they kick footballs with children, reassure parents, take cups of tea out of politeness to their hosts and deal with a whole range of complaints about electricity, healthcare, rubbish collection, schools, sewage and water.

They are the police, social services and local councilors rolled into one, and their concerns are with the here and now of making the drains work rather than the big picture of George Bush's war on terror. Lopez began the day talking to the Iraqi police, an organization that has been riddled with sectarianism and corruption, losing all public trust.

A previous meeting with the Americans was conducted, bizarrely, in near total darkness; yesterday's meeting with Lopez took place in a shabby room with the TV still on in the background, although they did at least switch the volume off. Then came a school in need of electricity, its rows of empty desks still forlornly empty.

Lopez looked in at a baker's to see if some previous damage had been repaired. People looked over their garden gates or wandered up to him in the street to air their grievances. "We are not 911," he had to explain.

Lopez visited a dentist's waiting room and found himself ambushed by outspoken mothers clutching their children. When will the bridge be fixed? Why is there no power? Why is there still rubbish in the street that could make our daughters ill? The captain pulled up a chair and did his best to answer all the questions.

Finally, a few meetings later, he arrived at the scene of a recent accident. As we entered a darkened house, a light shone on a young, frightened boy, his hand wrapped in bandages and burns on his lower neck, caused by a grenade he had picked up outside his home.

The American military's rules forbid intervention in healthcare, except in life-threatening situations, on the grounds that the Iraqis will become dependent on them. They had bent the rules a little on the day of the accident by providing the bandage before telling the boy's father to take him to a doctor. Last night they returned to the house only to find that the father had done nothing and was relying on the Americans for more help. They told him it was not an American grenade, but he insisted the responsibility was theirs.

Lopez told him: "It's not our fault that your son picked up a grenade and injured himself. We have helped your son by providing bandages and are not allowed to help any more. There is an Iraqi medical facility up the road." The man pleaded: "Do you have children? Consider him your own son." But Lopez replied: "If I did that, then I'd have to consider all Iraqi children my own." When military histories are written, they tend to focus on the acts of derring-do under fire that win medals, but Lopez's indefatigable quest to make Baghdad a more civilized place to live surely merits at least a mention in dispatches.

'Tony', an Iraqi informant who helps the captain with intelligence on suspects in the area, told me: "We need a man such as Captain Lopez as our leader. He has more patriotic Iraqi feeling then the Iraqis themselves." But as we headed back to base, we learned that a Stryker vehicle had been hit by a roadside bomb - an explosively formed projectile - near the green zone, killing a young lieutenant who was on only his second patrol in Iraq. Two other soldiers were smashed in the face by shrapnel.

A soldier traveling with me, who knew the injured men, said of one: "Apparently his face was all red, like blood. If he hadn't been wearing eye protection he'd have lost at least one eye." After 12 hours on the road, it was a sombre journey back.

--------------------------

These are the challenges that confront our warriors everyday.

Combat ops, counseling, diplomacy, family welfare and social skills...how do you prepare for all of this?

Furthermore, aren't you proud of them? Wouldn't you like to look Captain Lopez in the eye and say thank you? I would...

How do you explain men like Captain Lopez and the rest of our warriors with the 2nd SCR?

Never let anyone tell you they have it easy...they do not...

Your thoughts?

v/r,
- Collabman