06-11-2003

Hey, Everything Is Just Peachy Keen In Iraq

Dear Col Hackworth,

I am currently on the ground in Iraq and have been since I came over the LD on 31 March.

While the Army did a great in winning the war, what is not being covered is how broke the Army logistics system is and the damage it is doing to the long term readiness and moral of the Army. The Army seems to have this NTC rotation mentality, which consists of fuck it live in the dirt and filth you only have to be here for a month. That works at NTC, but it seems no one has thought of how to sustain an Army in the field for weeks and months at a time. The answer has always been, "after a month or so, we will contract with the locals for everything."

The problem is that outside of a few areas in Kurdistan and the north, Iraq is so poor that there is nothing to contract for. Moreover, we don't trust the locals enough to contract with them even if they did have something of value. Units all over the Army came to Iraq without basic things necessary for life support in the field. I a m talking about portable shitters with cans that you can burn. You can't live somewhere and have everyone shiting in cat holes for weeks at time. Units came here without tents. The 855th MP Company, a guard company from Arizona was allowed to mobilize without any tents. They lived on the ground in the most God aweful piece desert you have ever seen for over two weeks. Units came here without proper heaters for the water in their MKTs, so that when they started serving T rats, they didn't cook them enough and didn't clean the serving treys properly and everyone who ate from there got sick. If its not a life or limb issue, its nearly impossible to get medical care.

Soldiers get literally hundreds of flea or mosquito bites and they can't cream or benedril to keep the damn things from itching. The army issued mosquito netting, but didn't give anyone any poles for their cots, so the stuff is basically useless. I am not talking about bringing in the steak and lobster every week. I am talking about basic health and safety issues that continue to be neglected by the Army. Even beyond that. If we are going to be here for a year, we need to start thinking about MWR and R&R for people. You can't just lock people up in a compound and feed them T-rats and MREs for a year and exect them to be as effective at the end as they were at the begining. To my knowledge no one has given any thought to any kind of pass or MWR activities for soldiers. Division staff sits around in their air conditioned vans watching sattilite AFN goffing off on the internet and just don't give a shit about anyone else.

Meanwhile, soldiers are living in the dirt, with no mail, no phone, no contact with home, and no break from the daily monotony at all. I went to a division rear in May and practically got in a fist fight with this Captain up there over letting my private, who hadn't contacted home since we left the U.S., send an e-mail over his office's internet. This clown spends his days sending flowers to his wife and surfing the net and he won't let my private send an e-mail to her husband. Fucking discraceful and all too typical of today's army.

The fact is, soldiers can put up with anything and will do the right thing. The problem, however, is that at some point they are going to go home and hit their ETS date. I can tell you right now, a lot of good people are going to get the hell out over this deployment. The good soldiers won't put up with this crap. They will get out and get good jobs on the outside. We are breaking the Army and the reserve corps with this deployment needlessly. I understood when the war was going on.

But the war is over. This is peacekeeping and gurilla warfare. Our supply lines are clear. There is no excuse why basic health and safety issues and moral issues like mail cannot be addressed. They are not being addressed because the army doesn't know how anymore. Units spend their lives preparing for 2 week warfighters and one month NTC rotations and never think, "okay, how are we going to live out here for six months or a year." Its just not part of the Army's thinking anymore and it s a shame.

Pissed Off Army Officer

06-19-2003

Leadership and Logistical Failures Hurt Troops

Editor's Note: The following memo was sent from a senior NCO in the 3rd Infantry Division still serving in Iraq. Certain details have been omitted to protect his identity.

From: A Concerned Soldier
To: Col. David H. Hackworth

Subj: Leadership Failures in Iraq

I am a senior enlisted soldier in the Army, and I have a few points of view I would like to discuss in this forum with the intentions of confirming or alleviating some misnomers that I have seen communicated recently.

I would first like to both confirm and dispel some of the misunderstandings concerning logistics in Operation Iraqi Freedom. It is absolutely true that the logistical portion of the campaign was the biggest downfall both in planning and execution. The biggest travesty is, while there was an obvious miscalculation of what it would take to support us on the battlefield, there was little to no evident planning for sustaining the soldiers upon completion of the main war effort. Here are some prime examples that cannot be disputed by any twist of fact or camouflaging by the "spin doctors" in public relations:

1. We crossed the line of departure [from Kuwait] and finished the missions in a pretty much "as is" state of readiness with our vehicles. We did not receive a single piece of parts support for our vehicles during the entire battle. If a vehicle went down we had to cross-level parts from a more seriously damaged or mission incapable vehicle. We brought common replacement parts as part of our basic load configuration but they were limited due to the amount of vehicles and the limited carrying space. Now the [supply] system is turned on, but with the amount of soldiers in theatre and the subsequent amount of equipment that require repairs, not a single repair part has made to our vehicles to date. (This system applies to the units that have received follow on missions to places like Fallujah.)

2. The primary method of policing up broken equipment, on the battlefield and in enemy territory, was self-recovery. This meant that if you did not have tow capability between vehicles, you had very little chance of being moved forward to a maintenance control point, and you were forced to transfer personnel from one vehicle to another and abandon the broken vehicle. When it was all said and done, my unit had abandoned around 12 vehicles and transferred the soldiers to others in very cramped riding conditions.

This did two things detrimental to combat effectiveness. It overcrowded the vehicles that we fought from, thus reducing our ability to effectively defend or attack as warranted. It also provided a possibility of greater soldier casualties if the vehicle took and RPG round or other significant attack. To our amazement, our people made it to our objective, but others did not. I firmly believe that the conditions I just described contributed to the loss and injury of soldiers on the battlefield.

3. During operations, it seemed impossible to maintain our necessary supplies of water and food. We all carried five days of supply with us at LD with the intent of utilizing it only in an "emergency" situation. The problem being that because our logistics lines were so poor, we had to break into them during the trip rather than in an established emergency situation. One of the biggest reasons for this is the mismanagement of the haul assets available for the support of the operation. The logisticians were forced to make a decision, haul food and water on their limited hauling assets, or haul ammunition and parts. With the continuous "Go! Go! Go!" mentality of our movement to Baghdad, I guess it was more important to continue the fight.

4. We had a very elaborate plan of attack going into the operation. However, we failed to realize that the enemy had a vote in how exactly we were going to conduct our operation and the changes to the plan that they could affect. We, as we planned, would "take Baghdad in a matter of days" and were told that "There is no expected contact for a significant piece of our movement." We were even told not to place a round into our weapons when we LD'd because "We won't see the enemy for quite sometime." and "will have plenty of time to react." The intent was that this would reduce the risks of a "negligent discharge or fratricide incidents." Well, we know what the truth is: We received ambush and guerilla warfare tactics from almost the very beginning.

Don't get me wrong, all of our soldiers were very well trained and they reacted well to contact. We didn't lose soldiers as a result of this oversight, but I wonder how many support or follow-on units made the same mistake and weren't quite as well prepared?

5. The movement to the objectives was pure chaos. It was poorly orchestrated and executed. I was witness to several vehicle accidents, where soldiers lost their lives, that were a direct result of the "Go! Go! Go!" mentality. Units were getting separated by their inability to maintain convoy continuity due to the extremely dusty conditions, better known as "brown out," and the sheer number of vehicles traveling the exact same path. I cannot adequately put to words the absolute confusion caused by the movement north. The tanks and Bradleys were not stopping for anything, and that very mentality caused several problems. Imagine having only soft-skinned vehicles, small caliber firearms, overcrowded vehicles, no communications ability (except internal to your immediate group), and hearing sporadic transmissions of ambushes and close contact firefights. That is exactly what many units had to endure and it cost soldiers their lives. (I can think of a certain maintenance support unit that made the news.)

6. Once the objectives were reached and seized, we established our operations within Baghdad and started the humanitarian effort. The supply lines have yet to come into fruition and simplicities such as bottled water have yet to make their appearance on a consistent basis. We have had no potable ice since our arrival. I have personally been forced to buy ice from the Iraqis so that my soldiers were not drinking hot water day in and day out. It is bad enough that they have been forced to drink water that tastes like it came straight from a swimming pool (because of the sanitization process). Don't get me wrong - bottled water is showing up, but not with anything that can be remotely considered consistent.

We are steadily providing bottled water to the citizens of Iraq though, and you can bet your next paycheck that anyone who is of any rank that allows them to work on a brigade or higher level staff position hasn't had to drink warm sanitized water lately. As a matter of fact, I have witnessed several "higher ups" in my particular unit with private shower facilities, private porta-johns, and ice chests full of bottled water and potable ice in their immediate work areas while their subordinates (meaning the soldiers) are struggling every day to get a cold bottle of water. These very same senior soldiers are living in an air conditioned room while their soldiers are trying, in vain, to keep mosquitoes from consuming them nightly, and using hoses from an Iraqi latrine stall to get water enough to maintain their hygienic needs.

7. 3ID, in particular, 2BCT is now conducting operations in Fallujah and its surrounding area to "rid that area of Ba'ath Party loyalists and make the area safe for the citizens." Bullshit! We are conducting operations in Fallujah to rid the United States of a political black eye that we have received in the world of public opinion. Now we have to control their citizens, they are the very same citizens that are throwing rocks at passing soldiers, ambushing them, and sniping them. We are spending millions to provide fuel and propane and facilities to people that spit in our direction the second the stop waving. We are patrolling their streets, executing raids, and checking everywhere in an attempt to rid the community of those that are influencing the behavior of the masses. (All of these operations are being conducted in vehicles that have not received any repair parts since our original LD) I have no idea if this is working, but I do know that we have provided these people with countless creature comforts that are not being provided to the soldiers throughout the theater. Sure there are some soldiers that are receiving air conditioning, electricity, and bottled water with their hot meals. These soldiers are the exception to the rule, not the rule. There are soldiers, to this day, that live in squalor.

I can only ask that these points be made available to everyone. I am sure that many have no idea about what their husbands, sons, wives, and daughters - their soldiers - are going through or have gone through.

We have been America's war-fighters, we have liberated a country from conditions that are indescribable, and in return we are being kept here and are living in conditions that we liberated the Iraqis from. How is it that the people that fought and spilled blood on this soil against Iraqi forces are now given the responsibility of providing them comfort and humanitarian aid?

There are many units here that were brought here specifically to replace us and no replacement is being conducted. We have done our job and have done it well, we have fulfilled our obligation to this operation, but we are still here and are still being mistreated and misled. When does it end? Do we continue to keep the liberators of Iraq here so they can continue to lose soldiers periodically to snipers and ambushes? My unit has been here since September and they have no light at the end of the tunnel. How many of my soldiers need to die before they realize that we have hit a wall? We are ordered to stay and ordered to continue the mission, but at what cost? Doesn't the soldier count for anything?

It is an absolute travesty that our leaders allow politics and public opinion to betray the heroes of this great nation. I was once the greatest voice for the command and our leaders, now I am a defeated leader who is forced to support without question and lie to my soldiers so that they can maintain a forced motivation. We have been told to "suck it up, get through it, and execute." With leadership like that, what else can we do?