Posted on 08/05/2006 6:55:24 AM PDT by Bulldaddy
BAGHDAD — The extension to the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s Iraq deployment has sown chaos in the personal lives of many soldiers in the brigade’s cavalry squadron and imposed tremendous logistical burdens on the unit, problems that could have been avoided, soldiers say, if only the Defense Department had given them a little more warning.
The 172nd deployed to Iraq in August 2005 and the bulk of the unit was due to return to Fort Wainwright, Alaska, early this month. But the Pentagon announced July 27 that it was extending the 172nd’s deployment for up to 120 days and moving the unit to Baghdad to counter the worsening violence in the Iraqi capital.
Soldiers in 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment received word of the extension July 27 as they were preparing to depart Combat Outpost Rawah, in central Anbar province, where they had spent most of the previous 12 months. The news hit many hard.
After a year of harrowing combat missions in which eight colleagues were killed in action, and every trip outside the wire carried the risk of death or dismemberment, 4-14’s soldiers were finally letting down their mental guard.
More than 80 of the squadron’s soldiers had already returned to Alaska. Lt. Col. Mark Freitag, 4-14’s commander, has asked that all those soldiers be returned to Iraq, which requires approval from U.S. Pacific Command.
Many of those still in Iraq were within a day or two of leaving. Stryker crews had celebrated their last missions “outside the wire.” There was an end-of-semester atmosphere at COP Rawah, with soldiers playing practical jokes on each other as they prepared to head home.
Then came the news that rather than flying home into the arms of their loved ones, they would be heading into the heart of the violence in Baghdad, where more than 1,600 people died in July as sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi’ites spun out of control.
Some soldiers greeted the news with disbelief and tears, others with shrugs.
“We all volunteered, and sometimes these unexpected things happen to us,” said 1st Sgt. Roy Stoehr of 4-14’s A Troop.
“The American people pay us to fight and win the nation’s wars,” said Capt. (P) Tom Hart, 4-14’s fire support officer. “We deployed for a year, and at the end of that year they’ve asked to stay and fight some more. This is why soldiers serve in the military.”
Not everyone reacted with Hart’s equanimity. Capt. James Foster, 4-14’s chaplain, said he believes the soldiers will be physically and emotionally ready for their missions in Baghdad, but he acknowledged that some are still coming to grips with the reality that they’ll be in combat for up to another four months.
“It’s kind of like a grieving process,” he said. “A lot of shock and denial, then you kind of get angry. The wives got angry back home. The soldiers got angry. Everybody’s going through these phases. Some go through them faster than others.”
Wedlock woes
The extension might well doom the marriages of several soldiers in the squadron, according to Foster and other NCOs.
“Some [marriages] have already been strained to the max, so when you throw another straw on the camel’s back, it’s hard for the family members to accept,” Foster said. “Some [soldiers] were holding on to come home and maybe work things out, and may not take that opportunity now.”
Stoehr agreed. “I had a few guys [with troubled marriages] that sucked it up all the way to the end,” he said, but the last-minute extension appears to have been the breaking point for their wives.
The extension “is creating more problems with the families,” he said. “Sometimes the wives just don’t understand, and it’s hard.”
Almost every 4-14 soldier had made plans for the next several months that the extension has disrupted. In some cases, the extra months spent in Iraq will cost soldiers opportunities they will never be able to get back.
Sgt. Ryan Forney, who works in the 4-14 tactical operations center, was excited at the prospect of attending the birth of his first child. “My wife’s due Oct. 29,” he said. “I was hoping to be able to go back and help her with the last couple of months of her pregnancy, seeing as I’d missed the first six months.”
When his wife heard about the extension, “she was pretty angry and upset,” said Forney, who like all the squadron’s soldiers was able to take two weeks rest and recuperation leave at home during the deployment.
“She’s trying to be supportive of me,” he said, but was finding it hard because the 4-14 has not been told either what its mission will be in Baghdad, or given a firm return date inside the 120-day extension window.
“I know a lot of guys whose wives have either had babies while they’ve been deployed or just before, and they feel like when they get back after 16 months, their kids aren’t even going to recognize them,” he said.
Hits to the wallet
There are also numerous financial costs involved. Many soldiers and their families had bought plane tickets in anticipation of the block leave the brigade had scheduled for September. Helping to ensure that that money wasn’t wasted is one of the tasks of an action cell Fort Wainwright has established to help 172nd families with problems related to the extension.
Because the 172nd is the first brigade to go through the Army’s three-year unit manning cycle, most of the unit’s soldiers were due to change duty stations or leave the Army upon their return. Now many are unsure of whether jobs they had lined up in either the Army or the civilian world will be waiting for them when they get home. In some cases, these soldiers had already put down-payments or security deposits on new homes in areas where they had planned to move.
Even soldiers whose next jobs the Army has promised to hold open until they return can get caught in this trap. Hart is due to assume a new position in Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Va., and had put a $2,000 security deposit on an apartment near the command, with a view to moving in at the beginning of September.
Although Human Resources Command says the job will still be waiting for him when he redeploys, it makes no financial sense for him to pay rent for the next four months for an apartment he’s not living in. But his would-be landlord has refused to refund his security deposit. Army legal officials in Alaska are working on his behalf to try to get the money back.
In other cases, Forney said, soldiers’ families have already moved into new homes and now are stranded thousands of miles from Fort Wainwright with no support network in place.
There are smaller complications that will end up costing soldiers money. “We could list a million ways that people are getting screwed,” Forney said.
By the time the Pentagon ordered them to extend in Iraq, 4-14 soldiers had mailed most of their personal gear home, and given away comfort items like televisions and pillows to soldiers newly arrived in Iraq, retaining only the uniform items and toiletries they would need for their last week in Iraq. Now they have to buy replacement items out of pocket.
Forney spent $250 on books for online courses he had registered to take via Troy State University in Alabama. “I’m going to eat that,” he said.
Another frustration, he said, was the knowledge that the soldiers likely would not be returning to Wainwright until Alaska’s bitter winter has set in.
“Getting back in the middle of winter is going to be a pain for everybody. There are unique challenges to an Alaskan unit going back in the middle of winter as opposed to the summertime,” Forney said, explaining that moving house and retrieving belongings from storage would be hard when the temperature is 20 degrees below zero. Forney said.
Complicating the mission
Of course, financial benefits are available to soldiers who are extended beyond their 12-month deployment. All money earned in theater, including re-enlistment bonuses, is tax-free, and soldiers extended beyond a year can expect to receive about $1,000 a month in extra incentive pays.
But the Pentagon’s late decision to extend the 172nd’s deployment has done more than extract an emotional and financial toll on individual soldiers. It has also made the job of getting ready for whatever missions the brigade will be ordered to conduct in Baghdad much harder, said 4-14 officers.
Two days before receiving the extension order, Task Force 4-14 signed over 12 of its 62 Strykers to “other coalition forces” — a catchphrase for special operations forces — and sent four others to the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry. The 172nd is working through the theater supply system to get the first 12 replaced, but will have to continue without the four given to 1-14, Freitag said.
Three days prior to the order to extend, the squadron had turned its theater permanent equipment — that gear that a unit receives upon arriving in theater — over to 1-14, the Stryker unit originally tapped to relieve 4-14 in Rawah. That included trucks that carry the squadron’s heavy loads, engineering equipment used to construct defenses, and individual soldier items like all the M14 rifles for the unit’s squad designated marksmen.
“The line elements were left short of war-fighting equipment,” said Capt. Sean Skrmetta, executive officer for 4-14’s Headquarters and Headquarters Troop.
The squadron expects to get re-issued most of the essential items from the list before it goes into combat, Skrmetta said, “but it would have made the process less painful for us” to have had it from the start, because in the meantime 4-14 has had to borrow gear from other units.
“When you move, you definitely need all that equipment,” he said. “When you’re in steady state, you don’t need it as much. So we’ll be getting the equipment when we don’t need it as much.”
The process of getting new equipment has been complicated by the fact that the squadron had already closed out the codes it used to order gear through the logistics system, Skrmetta said. New codes are being issued to the unit, but the process can take up to 15 days, costing the squadron precious time.
“Where the squadron really got hurt was the supply side of the house,” Skrmetta said. “All that stuff we’d given out and we can’t get it back.” He cited a long list of items that 4-14 had handed over to 1-14, including protective eyeglasses, Nomex gloves, chemical lights and stationery.
Even the gear the squadron retained had been stripped and prepared for transport back to Alaska. Troops had removed the sights from all 4-14’s M240B and .50 cal machine guns. Now the soldiers have to remount the sights and re-zero the weapons.
“That’s a painful process that generally takes a long time,” Skrmetta said.
Much of the frustration within the unit is due to the fact that even though the situation in Baghdad had been deteriorating over a period of several months, senior leaders waited until the last possible moment to change their orders.
The soldiers “didn’t like the fact of getting almost one foot onto the plane and being told, ‘You have to go back,’ ” Stoehr said. “Had we known at least a month out, it would have been much better.”
“Even if we could have known a week earlier, it would have made a huge difference to us,” said Capt. James Vogelpoehl, a 4-14 battle captain.
Some officers also expressed confusion about why, if it was so important to keep the brigade in country and send it to Baghdad, no one in the chain of command could tell them what the mission there would be.
But few officers or NCOs doubt that when the time comes for 4-14 to roll outside the wire and back into combat again, their troops will be ready.
In the first few days after the extension announcement, “the guys were pretty down,” Stoehr said. “They were stunned. But by the second day, they were picking up and ready to get on with their new mission.”
ping
They'll bitch but they'll still get the job done because their the best!
Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day-by-day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils, which beset them; hold our troops in your loving hands.
Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
My sympathy is with them and their families. God bless each and everyone.
That sucks...
And all of Gods' children said AMEN.
When I was in the Marines, they used to say.."If the troops stop bitching, THATS when you should be concerned."
These guys are professional and they will do their duty... We could call upon the Demorats to change places with them, ..think they would go for that?
Meadow Muffin
Amen,with tears.
I can never repay them for what they are doing.
They are the Heros of today. what a great sacrifice.
Pleas give to soldier's aid groups as a way to say thankyou.
God Bless America.
God destroy the Liberals who are traitors.
Thanks for posting. Ping. BTTT!
These men and women will do their duty but that doesn't take away from the fact that this should not have happened to them on such short notice. At the Senate Armed Services hearing the other day I believe it was Gen Pace who said the decision was made after days of consultation among all the high level players involved. The chain of command knew the disruptions it would cause. It just points out how stretched the military is.
I've said it before but the dems are licking their chops over this for November.
This completely sucks.
I hope these guys are brought back to 100 percent equipment readiness before they head into Baghdad.
Was this written by AP, the terrorist newswire? Oh, sean naylor, never mind.
If you are suggesting a bigger Military, then voting Democrat is NOT the solution.
Thanks for the ping.
I served 21 years in the Army. Two tours in Vietnam and two and a half years in Munich in the early 60s. I have a son who is leaving for Iraq on Monday. You obviously have no clue what this does to morale and how it will effect recruiting. It's crisis management at the highest level of DOD. We won WWII with over 10,000,000 draftees. Soldiers and their loved ones will begin to ask why just them and why three and four and more tours. Israel is fighting for their survival with conscripts and so should we be. We should have asked ALL of America to participate in the WOT and there should have been a Universal Service Bill on the Presidents Desk before 15 Sep 01.
I appreciate your tough talk. Where'd you serve?
Stupid comment.
I couldn't stand to read your complete post. Would you like for me to tell you what you can do with your "whining" and "white flag" comments? I can't stand keyboard warriors.
"I'm a civilian...."
One of the deepest "hidden" costs of this campaign...another is the extended parental absences. :-(
Great letter, and it conveys the same sentiments that lead me to post this article in the first place. I am constantly awestruck at what our military men and women do for this country - and for many citizens of other countries. Sometimes we need to be reminded of the real-time difficulties that the family's as well as the soldier's endure, all of it for us. I know I do!! And this article describes just some of the details that we can't even imagine in our couch-potato lives.
And I have no doubt that in future years many of our brave military personnel will have similar experiences, as your Hungarian and British/former-RAF co-passengers did, in re-connecting and realizing how in some way they were responsible for episodes of happiness or help in each other's lives in previous years.
Like one of the other's quoted in the above article, my nephew (West Point class of 2000, grew up in the Chicago suburb of Bensenville) was hoping to be home for the birth of his first child. Now his wife is going from Fairbanks to Washington, D.C., where her mother lives, to deliver.
The least we could all do is to repeat, many times a day, a prayer similar to the one SandRat posted (#3). My whole family (my nephew has 3 siblings and 21 first cousins) is very apprehensive about this new assignment to Baghdad. After surviving an hellacious year, the unspoken fear in every one's mind is "what if during these next four months, when he was supposed to be home and safe ..."
And I agree with leadpenny's belief that a Universal Service bill, requiring some service of us all, should have been enacted.
Stryker
Thanks for your opinion. Please don't post to me.
This is a bad idea. For morale, and all of the obvious other reasons.
They need to rotate these Troops ASAP.
This is America, we do not have second class citizens here. It is all or nothing! I wish that people would point that out to the political hacks that they continuously send back to Washington.
That was a very nice letter and a joy to read.
Thanks for sharing it.
Sorry, you post on the forum, it's there for the world to see - and comment on.
Actually, they were scrambling around trying to get back all the equipment that they'd given away when they thought they were headed home. :-(
On the 21st of July I watched a tele-conference press briefing with the CO of the 172nd. It was like many others the Pentagon folks put on for the press from time to time. I'm going to watch it again now but I don't remember even a hint that anything was up. Supposedly, the decisions to hold the 172nd was made on the 27th and something had to be in the works on the 21st. The grunts can figure this out too, and it ain't good.
http://www.c-span.org/VideoArchives.asp?CatCodePairs=,&ArchiveDays=100&Page=18
Iraq Briefing with Army Col. Michael Shields
Army Col. Michael Shields, commander of 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, briefs live from Iraq to provide an update on ongoing security operations.
7/21/2006: WASHINGTON, DC: 30 min.
I meant to ping you to 33.
The 'Welcome home, soldiers' signs will remain up all over Fairbanks. The parades will be rescheduled.
"The process of getting new equipment has been complicated by the fact that the squadron had already closed out the codes it used to order gear through the logistics system, Skrmetta said. New codes are being issued to the unit, but the process can take up to 15 days, costing the squadron precious time.
“Where the squadron really got hurt was the supply side of the house,” Skrmetta said. “All that stuff we’d given out and we can’t get it back.” He cited a long list of items that 4-14 had handed over to 1-14, including protective eyeglasses, Nomex gloves, chemical lights and stationery.
Sounds like the bean-counters are in charge. What a bunch of BS.
"Much of the frustration within the unit is due to the fact that even though the situation in Baghdad had been deteriorating over a period of several months, senior leaders waited until the last possible moment to change their orders.
The soldiers “didn’t like the fact of getting almost one foot onto the plane and being told, ‘You have to go back,’ ” Stoehr said. “Had we known at least a month out, it would have been much better.”
“Even if we could have known a week earlier, it would have made a huge difference to us,” said Capt. James Vogelpoehl, a 4-14 battle captain."
Somewhere, someone in the chain of command needs to lose their head over this. If this was the only time something like this happened, it would still be a big deal. But this seems to happen way too often over there.
I can't imagine how crushing a blow to morale this was. I'm in the navy and we bitched pretty good when we found out our 6 month deployment was extended to seven.
That's nothing compared to what these guys are dealing with.
Civilians can't comprehend how stressful deployments are on families. Yeah, sure, we signed up for it. That doesn't make it any easier though.
I see marriages crumble all the time in the navy. Infidelity among military spouses (and the deployed soldiers themselves) is rampant and the destruction it brings is devastating. It is hard to blame the cheating spouse. They thought they could be strong only to find that they couldn't. The loneliness was just too much to take.
My heart breaks for these soldiers and their families and I only hope that they have the strength to see this through. It is not easy.
They don't need to be at 100%. My unit was at about 60%, at best, when we arrived to START our year long tour in Bagdhdad. Rolled right through the middle of town in Hummers with NO armor. Most of our Hummers didn't even have doors on them. Those that did had the vinyl doors.
Those Iraqis looked at us like we were crazy. After a couple of days, everyone realized we weren't crazy, we were just bottom of the food chain National Guard soldiers, and poorly equipped as a result. I have some pictures of one 5-ton truck that the crew tried to up-armor with layers of cardboard, which I guess is all they could find.
Since Vietnam I've been comparing and contrasting my two tours (67 and 69/70). I didn't get married until after my second tour but a lot of my friends were. The typical scenario was they gutted it out for the first tour and had a wonderful R&R in Hawaii. When it came time for the second tour, the fire was gone and the wife waited about two and a half minutes before getting involved with someone else. My room mate on my second tour got a 'dear john' a couple of months in. Not being married I didn't understand his breakdown.
The daughter of some friends is in this unit. I haven't talked to them lately, but they're a military family, and they know they have to be flexible.
Thanks. Very interesting.
I see marriages crumble all the time in the navy. Infidelity among military spouses (and the deployed soldiers themselves) is rampant and the destruction it brings is devastating. It is hard to blame the cheating spouse. They thought they could be strong only to find that they couldn't. The loneliness was just too much to take.
My heart breaks for these soldiers and their families and I only hope that they have the strength to see this through. It is not easy.
From leadpenny:
Since Vietnam I've been comparing and contrasting my two tours (67 and 69/70). I didn't get married until after my second tour but a lot of my friends were. The typical scenario was they gutted it out for the first tour and had a wonderful R&R in Hawaii. When it came time for the second tour, the fire was gone and the wife waited about two and a half minutes before getting involved with someone else. My room mate on my second tour got a 'dear john' a couple of months in. Not being married I didn't understand his breakdown.
It appears this is what happened to Andrew Velez (Army: Second son's death was suicide). Comments by the father on local TV and radio last night indicate she was cheating on him:
Mr. Velez says the combination of day-to-day forces of war, the loss of Freddy and marital problems likely influenced Andrew’s decision to take his life. He called this a “monster.”
“You’re overseas fighting a war for a country, a flag, and a family and then you get news that there is another man in your home trying to run your household,” Roy said. “What are you suppose to respond? We know that it was a self-inflicted wound, from a .249 rifle, we know that there was a last phone call made. Veronica told me that Andrew was upset. I asked her ‘at what?’ and she said it was just personal stuff…and it was none of my business. Is it because he didn’t get enough psychological evaluation? Or was it because of the marital problems? His wife had asked him for a divorce. Who holds the smoking gun?”
Lubbock Soldier Laid to Rest
I served with conscripts, and with vounteers.
I much prefer the volunteers. The use of volunteers avoids the problems of conscription which include corruption. At least when you give bonuses, the soldier gets the bonus. By comparison, conscription denies those who serve compensation, and does not spread the burden of service.
Heartbreaking.
I first enlisted in 61 at 18 and the guys I still remember, mostly, were the draftees. They were older, usually had some real work experience and generally had more sense than the rest of us. Twelve years later, after doing lots of growing up myself, I got to command a Basic Training Company at Ft. Knox in the same barracks area where I had taken mine. My first of six cycles had some of the last draftees. Call it beginners luck but I never again equaled the numbers of that cycle (fewest AWOLS, Range, PT, End of Cycle Test). Vietnam gave the Draft a bad name, and getting rid of it was a knee-jerk reaction and a cowardly act by Congress and the Administration. imo
William Techumseh Sherman wrote a nice litte essay on military recruiting. He noted that during the Civil War, they had tried every means possible: volunteers, bought substitutes (mercenaries), and conscripts.
I submit his sample size was larger than anything you or I could muster.
He preferred the volunteers.
Suck it up time for our adopted companies in the 172nd Stryker Brigade.
Now you all know why I was pushing so hard to send them so many items for the 4th of July. I had a baaad feeling about this.
Too bad I'm too old and decrepit to serve. They sure could use some help with their strategic thinking.... especially when it comes to biting the bullet and git 'er done.
GODSPEED, Amen and Amen
We are both *absolutely against* the draft - unless the Nation is at stake, which it is most definitely not. Let the Services do what they must to get members, but not the draft.
Please note changes in demographics - in the 40s America had larger families - 6 or more children. I come from a family of 7, my wife, a family of 10. Now a days, two or three children are the norm. No way today a draft would be tolerated.
Thanks for the ping Patty. After reading the entire thread I think it best that I simply say, God bless our troops. I love them all. Let me know if I need to adjust my contact address.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.