Posted on 08/24/2005 12:34:31 PM PDT by strikhedonia
Yorktown Heights, NY - Twenty three year old Christopher Arnold, a Yorktown Heights native, returned late last month from Iraq after a year long tour with the 411th Civil Affairs Battalion.
Mr. Arnold had been serving in Tikrit, Iraq, the home town of deposed despot Saddam Hussein.
“Our primary focus was along key lines of operation”, said Arnold.
“The economic area included massive development projects in public utilities, and agriculture. Thanks to our public works team, some areas that had only eight hours of power per day ended up with the lights on for twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, by the time we left. The locals were shocked, Saddam told them that eight hours per day was the absolute limit. Any thing else was impossible.”
“Our agriculture projects included farm co-operatives, water initiatives, and equipment modernization. One of our Public Health team leaders, a veterinarian, visited nomadic Shepards to check thousands of sheep for hoof-in-mouth disease.”.
Civil Affairs, 97% of whom are found in the Army Reserve, is primarily composed of civilian experts such as doctors, lawyers, bankers, policemen, engineers, school teachers, and urban planners. They are among the most highly trained and dedicated soldiers in the military, which has led to their seemingly constant use in contingency deployments from Kosovo, to Haiti, to Africa, to Afghanistan, to Iraq.
“In Civil Affairs, there are peace time missions, and war time missions. Providing technical expertise to the local government and minimizing civilian interference in military operations is one. Providing cultural expertise to the military commander and maximizing military support to the civilian populace is another. We do this through internationally funded reconstruction projects, and enlisting the aide of non-government organizations (NGOs). We also are responsible for maintaining lists of protected targets such as hospitals, mosques, and schools, and caring for civilians on the battlefield. There are tens of thousands of people who were displaced by Saddam Hussein and have no home to return to, and we needed to clothe, feed, and house them.”
Arnold said that the unit’s involvement didn’t stop there. Responsible for a large geographic area, the Danbury, CT based Civil Affairs unit was split between heavily Sunni areas such as Salah ad Din and Diyala, and northern Kurdish areas such as Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah. As part of Army Special Operations Command, the unit was comprised of four person teams which would team up with a regular army unit to assess a local area’s needs, and help train the local government of the fledging democracy.
“They haven’t had any form of governance like this [in Iraq] as long as most Iraqi public servants can remember”, said Arnold. “every little thing used to be centralized. Before we arrived, a town highway superintendent would not be able to fix a stop sign with out sending a request to a national director in Baghdad that would have the request personally signed off by Saddam’s inner circle”.
Teaching Iraqis to deal with problems at the local level could be challenging, but after a while they gained confidence and began placing contracts to fix or build new infrastructure.
“It was also our responsibility to make sure the contractors did their work properly on time, and got paid”, said Arnold.
“Our direct support teams would go to a site every few days to make sure the schedule of work was being followed. They did not simply pass out money with out getting results. I’m proud to say that we committed over one point eight billion dollars to reconstruction projects, and ensured their completion. Between building new power plants, fixing dilapidated bridges, making the trains run on time from Kirkuk to Baghdad (for the first time in a decade), hiring thousands of new teachers, constructing new clinics and schools, and training our Iraqi Army Civil Affairs counterparts to do our job; we did a lot to marginalize the insurgency in the long term.”
Arnold’s civil military operations mission also included helping coordinate the election, “but we tried to follow a hands off approach”, he said. “Many questions we simply referred back to the Iraqis, and said, ‘this is your country, you’re going to have to learn how to deal with this yourselves at some point’. We advised them on their options, but left the ultimate decisions up to them.”
Arnold credited heavy involvement in planning by the US State Department and major international organizations to make for a historically successful turn out, “and luckily there were no casualties thanks to the heavy involvement in security by Coalition and Iraqi forces”.
His most rewarding moments were spent soliciting donations for Operation I CAN, the Iraqi Children Assistance Network (www.operationican.com). The program was created by the Army to raise donations of school supplies for direct distribution to the Iraqi people.
“We raised twenty thousand tons [of supplies] in all”, he said, “and the program continues to this day. Our replacement, the 445th Civil Affairs, has taken over the program”.
Arnold said that national organizations, local churches, and even congressman, had personally pledged donations of money, shoes, school supplies, and hygiene items.
“It is the largest donation program in all of Iraq, inspiring many similar programs for other regions of the country. The supplies are now mainly being distributed by the Iraqi Army as well. It was such a great feeling to go out and give blankets, pencils, backpacks, even hand sanitizer, the things we take for granted in the U.S.; to children, and see the smiles on their faces”.
Arnold managed to get local schools in Westchester involved, and they often sent letters and packages to him. While on leave, he attended an assembly at Crompond School in Yorktown Heights, hosted by Town Supervisor Linda Cooper and County Legislator Michael Kaplowitz, where the students sang two songs they had written for him. Arnold says he is told that he still receives thank you letters to his address in Iraq and would like everyone to know the new address is now:
Operation I CAN c/o MAJ Lawrence Aguilar 445th Civil Affairs Battalion FOB Danger APO AE 09308
Affected by the tragic events of 9-11, Arnold chose to join the Army. He comes from a family with military traditions. His great-grandfather, Robert Slattery, was the first New York City Police Officer killed in World War I. A park in Brooklyn now bears his name. Arnold’s great-great grandfather, David Kelly, was a Civil War Artillery Officer.
“I wanted to defend America, and all the things that make it the greatest nation in history. I wanted to defend freedom. The right to speak freely, and the right to dissent. I take pleasure in confronting nay-sayers now, because I’ve been there, I’ve seen it first hand, and I know there are one thousand good news stories for every piece of bad news. The free discourse of ideas is something all Iraqis are experiencing for the first time. And now I can say that I have not only defended our liberty abroad, I have helped to bring it to others.”
During his time in Iraq, Arnold’s efforts were recognized with the Bronze Star Medal, the Armed Forces Reserve Medal, and the Iraqi Campaign Medal.
“My Bronze Star means very much to me”, he said. “My grandfather earned one in World War II”.
As for what’s next, Arnold plans to take the summer off, enjoy seeing friends and family, and continue to raise awareness about good news in Iraq and ways for Americans to get involved and help soldiers help Iraqis.
For more information on Civil Affairs, visit the 411th on the web at http://411ca.org.
Interesting stuff. I just started holding my breath until I see this on MSNBC and CNN
Welcome home Mr. Arnold! Great work!
Another good news story, thanks for posting it here (cuz I sure as heck won't see it on the alphabet news channels)
You could email it to them.
Let me know when you start turning blue...but yes, this is a good story. Lot's of good people out there doing good things, bless them all.
Thank you for serving your country with honor.
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This is really uplifting. Thanks for sharing the good news.
Bump, good read.
bttt
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