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4ID Mission Accomplished - Support Those Now In Iraq
It continues to be an interesting week in our world. Led off by a great appearance by MG Ray Odierno on Fox News early Monday morning, he made all of us who watched him very proud of our 4ID/TF Ironhorse leader and our troops. The continuing actions in Iraq, the 9/11 hearings, and President Bush's news conference last night all make for an interesting, and also frustrating, week in the news. For the first time in a long time, I just turned it off several times to get a break from the constant chatter of self annointed 'experts'.
I did write down two things from President Bush's speech last night that I haven't seen in today's media. He talked about our troops "leaving a legacy of lasting importance." He also talked about the "historic significance of what we are doing." I firmly believe that we have lived through a historic time with our troops in Iraq over the past year - and the legacy left will be one of historic significance and lasting importance. I'm proud of all of our troops and families and friends who have done their part in defense of our way of life. And the legacy of lasting importance and the historic significance continues with the troops coming in behind us.
No news from Iraq about 4ID or TF Ironhorse, but we do have some interesting items reported from here in the US. No update tomorrow, next update will be on Friday.
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>From Fort Worth Star-Telegram - Posted on Wed, Apr. 14, 2004
SILENCING THE ENEMY
The commander who led the raid that captured Saddam is convinced that Tikrit is now a safer, quieter place
By Chris Vaughn
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT HOOD - The recent litany of restive and bloody cities in Iraq has one notable exception -- Tikrit, the cradle of Saddam's power base and the epicenter of what is referred to as the Sunni Triangle.
Once a flash point of armed resistance and mounting U.S. casualties, Tikrit in recent months has been overshadowed by ever-growing battles in Baghdad, Fallujah, Ramadi and other cities.
And Army Col. James Hickey, the stern-faced, all-business brigade commander who led the capture of Saddam in December, believes he knows why.
"Did the capture of Saddam Hussein have a positive impact militarily on my force? The answer is an unequivocal yes," Hickey said in an interview last week, seated in his bare-bones office at sprawling Fort Hood, outside Killeen.
"It decompressed the area. You could see that in the attitudes of the people."
When Saddam was discovered in a hole on Dec. 13, many Americans and Iraqis rejoiced, believing that it would reduce the effectiveness and coordination of the resistance by his supporters.
Seen through the lens of what is happening now in Iraq, where Shiite uprisings across much of the country and continued attacks in mostly Sunni-populated Fallajuh have killed more than 80 U.S. military personnel in April, some say the initial euphoria may have been premature, even misguided.
"The capture took away one of the principal deterrents to opposition to the foreign occupation," said Clement Henry, a Middle East studies professor at the University of Texas in Austin. "Many Iraqis were saying long before his capture that the chief impediment to a national resistance was Saddam Hussein."
Hickey commanded the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division in a small portion of Iraq until mid-March and is unwilling to talk about what is occurring in provinces with which he is largely unfamiliar.
"I think I can comment with some degree of authority on my area, albeit things are probably changing right now," he said.
And when he stepped off an airliner onto Fort Hood on March 21, he did so with the conviction that his former area of responsibility was now "probably the quietest area" in Iraq.
"In our little part of Iraq, an area people thought would be the most violent and contentious area, we think we had a positive military impact," Hickey said.......
Saddam's capture
Hickey is 43 years old, a native of Chicago and the child of Irish immigrants.
Married with no children, he graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1982, learned Russian in the Army and despite 21 years in the war business, had never been in a combat zone.
But he earned a reputation as a serious soldier, given more to the blunt talk of a war-fighter than the nuances of a peacekeeper.
"I go there to win," he said at one point. "It's all about winning."
In June, he took command of the 1st Brigade, which was responsible for an area with strong anti-American sentiments that was a stronghold of former Baath Party officials.
The most surprising revelation Hickey made in a recent conversation is that he never saw Saddam. Nor did he try to.
The day of Saddam's capture -- Dec. 13 -- is still quite fresh in Hickey's memory. He's had plenty of occasions to relive it; some 600 news reporters moved through the area in the seven days afterward, each clamoring for time with Hickey.
That day -- it was a Saturday -- started ordinarily enough. But by midmorning, after a telephone call from commanders in Baghdad, the day's events turned extraordinary.
A man close to Saddam whom the 1st Brigade had been hunting for weeks turned up in a raid in Baghdad. He was flown to Tikrit immediately and interrogated.
Hickey alerted some of his most valued troops and top commanders that they may be going after High Value Target 1 -- militaryspeak for Saddam -- that night.
As the intelligence came in that Saddam was in Adwar, less than 10 miles southeast of Tikrit, Hickey thought that he understood what had been happening there since October, and in particular, that week.
"When we saw the objective area on the map, ... my mind-set was we're going to go right into a fight," he said. "All those small, direct-fire contacts we'd had were put into context. There was a reason why our patrols were receiving so much contact. That's why I made the decision to go in with a lot of combat power."
At 5 p.m., Hickey issued orders by radio to commanders of the 10th Cavalry, 299th Engineers and 4th Battalion, 42nd Field Artillery Regiment. Everyone began moving out at 6 p.m. to seal off the area.
All the soldiers were in position at 7:30. Five minutes later, Hickey, his tactical
support soldiers, a troop of reconnaissance soldiers and a team of super-secret special operations troops moved into Adwar, in absolute radio silence, with lights off and heavily armed.
At 8 p.m., they were in the complex of farmhouses. Fifteen minutes later, Hickey, sitting in a vehicle about 150 meters away, heard from the special operations soldiers that they thought they had Saddam.
At 8:26, they were sure of it.
Hickey couldn't relax. He expected an attack as soon as the soldiers were spotted. He wanted Saddam out of there as soon as possible. Within minutes, Saddam was whisked away by helicopter to Baghdad.
Hickey went to the so-called "spider hole" where Saddam was found and talked with the soldiers who had seen him. At 9:15 p.m., he placed a phone call to Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division.
"We were all quite pleased that we had executed this coup du monde, grabbed him and gotten him out of there without a shot being fired," he said.
After Saddam's capture, there were some demonstrations in Tikrit and Baiji and a sharp increase in drive-by shootings at soldiers, something Hickey called "irrational behavior."
But after three days, it stopped.
"Things got extremely quiet," he said. "What we had estimated back in October indeed played itself out in December and January. The sensing was different, too."
The political atmosphere changed. ... The atmosphere became much more relaxed."
Fewer targets to raid
Voluntarily, Hickey produces a secret report, portions of which he agreed to release publicly.
Attacks on 1st Brigade troops dropped, from almost five a day in October to a little more than one a day in February and March. The number of explosive devices planted and discovered fell off dramatically after December.
And most importantly, the number of casualties decreased. There were four soldiers killed and 13 wounded in October, the high point for attacks. Four months later, in February, 1st Brigade had none.
He also said there was never a shortage of men willing to become Iraqi police officers and work with U.S. troops, nor was there ever a shortage of people providing tips and intelligence on targets.
To be sure, soldiers were conducting fewer raids -- fewer than half as many in February as in December -- which may account for some of the lessened tension.
Hickey said his troops were conducting fewer raids because there weren't as many targets.
"Many of the worse people in the former regime who did reside in the Tikrit area were forced to leave," he said.
"The enemy knew living within the 1st Brigade area was a risky proposition. ... I think it had a lot to do with the offensive stance of the brigade, the aggressiveness of its soldiers and our level of understanding of the people, the terrain and the enemy."
On March 15, Hickey and 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division formally passed control of the Tikrit area to 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division.
1st Brigade left its tanks in Kuwait when the soldiers boarded airplanes for the long ride home. The brigade's Bradley Fighting Vehicles are making their way back by ship.
This summer is scheduled as downtime. Many of the soldiers will be taking vacation; others will be moving on to other assignments. This fall, the brigade gets new tanks and Bradleys.
By next spring, the soldiers will begin war-fighting training in earnest, assuming that another rotation to Iraq can't be far off.
"I think anybody who is going to stay in the Army had better be prepared," he said.
Chris Vaughn, (817) 390-7547 cvaughn@star-telegram.com
Copyright 2004 Star Telegram and wire service sources.
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Uprising didn't hold up Carson troops
Most soldiers sent to Iraq from post are back in Colorado
By Dick Foster, Rocky Mountain News
April 14, 2004
COLORADO SPRINGS - Fort Carson's homeward-bound combat units weren't held in Iraq to fight the recent upsurge in hostilities, officials said.
Few Fort Carson solders are actually in Iraq. More than 10,000 of the 12,000 who went there last April have returned to the Colorado post since early March.
The 1st Armored Division, which was to begin returning to Germany, was held in Iraq to bolster U.S. troop strength to confront the uprisings. Rumors circulated that Fort Carson's remaining soldiers might also be held, but their departure was well under way.
"Our troops are in Kuwait right now, loading equipment onto ships and getting manifested onto flights," Fort Carson spokesman Richard Bridges said this week. "We expect all of our soldiers to be back by the end of the month."
A welcome-home parade is planned for June 5 in downtown Colorado Springs.
Fort Carson's three biggest units - the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the 3rd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division and the 43rd Area Support Group - went to Iraq to support the March invasion and to stabilize the country after the fall of Baghdad.
Forty-five Fort Carson soldiers died in the yearlong deployment.
Top Army officials said last weekend that Fort Carson troops probably won't return to Iraq or any other destination for one year, allowing them to rest and reconstitute the units.
The time back home will be used to train replacements for soldiers whose enlistments are up or who are leaving for other units. In a visit to the post last weekend, the Army's top noncommissioned officer outlined plans to send units for shorter periods, to reduce time away from families.
Sgt. Maj. of the Army Ken Preston said the Army hopes to implement six-month rotations rather than one-year deployments. A scheduled desert training exercise this summer at Fort Irwin, Calif., for some Fort Carson soldiers has already been rescheduled to early 2005.
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Reservists relieved to return to Beaver County from Iraq
Fallujah violence almost delayed return of Beaver's 475th Quartermaster Company
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Nearly 200 soldiers of the 475th Quartermaster Company are happy to be home, and feel lucky to have left Iraq when they did.
The reserve unit returned to the reserve center in Beaver yesterday in two chartered buses, preceded by the Blackhawk High School marching band, police cars with flashing lights and fire engines with sirens blaring.
They were greeted in a driving rain by hundreds of friends and family who were waving flags and cheering.
The soldiers left Iraq April 2, just before units scheduled to go home began to be "locked down" -- departures put on hold -- because of the escalating violence in Iraq.
On March 31, four civilian contractors were murdered and their bodies mutilated in Fallujah, a city in the "Sunni triangle" about 90 miles west of Baghdad. The following weekend, supporters of the militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr launched a revolt in Baghdad and several southern Iraqi cities.
"Wow, I feel real lucky to be here," said Spc. Tairay Nickens, 25, of Carnegie. "A couple of days after we left, they put everybody on hold because of what was going on in Fallujah."
Service in Iraq was hot, exhausting and frustrating, said Nickens, a student at Community College of Allegheny County in civilian life. But the welcome made it all worthwhile, she said.
"The real reward is when you come back and see everybody who supports you," Nickens said.
"Thank God we made it," said Sgt. Eric Miller, 25, a firefighter for the city of East Liverpool, Ohio. "I was worried about having been trapped there [by the lock down order]."
"I'm grateful that we got our chance to come home," said Spc. Christina Wilhelm, 21, of Pittsburgh. "I don't ever want to go back there again."
But Spc. Chris Barczak, 23, of Johnstown, an engineering student at the University of Pittsburgh, said: "If they want me to go back, I would. We're all part of a big [Army] family. We're all in this together."
And Spc. Jonathan Merrill, 25, of Youngstown, Ohio, said: "I kind of wish I were still there." His attitude was not shared by his fiancee, Katie Greenslade, 23. They were engaged a month before the 475th shipped out. They plan to get married Oct. 23.
"Life can go back to normal now," Greenslade said.
The 188 soldiers of the 475th, a part of the Coraopolis-based 99th Regional Readiness Command, were based in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. Their mission was to supply bulk fuel to the vehicles of the 4th Infantry Division.
The 475th suffered no casualties from hostile fire, but one soldier was injured in a fall. He is recovering.
"It was our fuel in the vehicles that captured Saddam Hussein," said the acting commander of the unit, Lt. Eric Gass, 38, of Irwin.
Gass, who was executive officer of the company for most of the deployment, took three weeks off from refueling duties to teach sniper techniques to soldiers of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, based along the Syrian border.
Gass said he was happy to be home, but sad to leave Iraq.
"Our brothers and sisters are still there," he said.
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Posted on Sun, Apr. 11, 2004
Olympia-Tacoma, Wash.-Area Specialist Fixes Part of Saddam Hussein Statue
By Bill Hutchens, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Apr. 9 - The sword-wielding left arm from a demolished Saddam Hussein statue has traveled from Tikrit, Iraq, to Yelm for repairs.
In July 2003, the 555th Combat Engineer Group -- the "Triple Nickel" based at Fort Lewis -- blew up two statues of a horse-mounted Saddam Hussein in Hussein's main palace in Tikrit.
An Iraqi artist melted down much of the metal and fashioned a memorial to U.S. 4th Infantry Division soldiers who died in Iraq.
But Command Sgt. Maj. Gregory Glen decided the 555th should preserve at least part of the rubble and procured the broken left arm and hand holding a sword. It fell to Chief Warrant Officer Jeffrey Dugle to handle the pieces.
In a Humpty Dumpty turn of events, Iraqi and U.S. Army welders couldn't put Hussein's arm together again prior to shipping it to Fort Lewis. The impure metal made it nearly impossible to fuse the sword back to the hand, Dugle said.
"We tried a bunch of different welders," he said. "They just couldn't get it together."
Dugle, a maintenance officer, was responsible for safeguarding and shipping the piece. He's also a Yelm resident.
So when he returned home in February, ahead of the bulk of his unit, he brought the statue with him and went straight to the man he felt could handle the project: Walt Foss of Yelm's Foss Industries/Fosscraft.
Seven years ago, Dugle built a home near Foss's main shop. He had heard that no job was too difficult for the veteran welder who has worked on a variety of other Army projects.
"I needed a specialist," said Dugle, who delivered the statue on March 26. "Evidently, he was the exact right man for the job."
Foss and shop general supervisor James Lewis spent about eight hours fixing the arm the next day -- which was Saturday, normally their day off.
"It wasn't an easy job," said Foss, who has taken on his fair share of strange metal-working tasks. He welds and fabricates metal. And he and Lewis do a lot of specialty work such as building and fixing metal fencing, replicating antique tractor parts and welding difficult-to-reach spots on out-of-the-way bridges.
The metal in the 250-pound piece of the Hussein statue is an unusual amalgam of impure bronze, brass and an odd red clay, Foss said. The statue piece is about 6 feet high.
He and Lewis used more than 7 additional pounds of brass to mend the broken sword and then weld it to the hand. During the operation, clay melted from the piece in eerie blood-red trickles, Lewis said.
"It was quite a feat," Lewis said of the daylong procedure. "But we did it for the guys that are over there. It's a piece of history."
The fixed arm and sword sit in a crate near Dugle's Fort Lewis office. Dugle said Glen, his boss, wants the piece shipped to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., in time for an Army engineers' conference later this month.
After that, the well-traveled curiosity should end up at the United States Army Engineer Museum, one of four Army museums at Fort Leonard Wood.
Rick Lorenz, a former military lawyer who lectures at the University of Washington, said that while there probably are no international laws governing the removal of such souvenirs from foreign soil, each branch of the service usually has strict rules for the process, especially where museum-bound pieces are concerned.
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740th Transportation Company, 6 days or delayed
SIOUX FALLS (AP) - A South Dakota National Guard unit has been delayed from returning home this week. The 740th Transportation Company of Brookings and Milbank has been in Kuwait for 51 weeks. They were deployed in February 2003 and were set to come back this week.
Now they've been told they'll stay longer.
Lisa Bambas, whose husband is a chief warrant officer with the unit, said the group was already delayed once.
She said she doesn't know how much longer the unit will be overseas.
The 740th deployed to Kuwait and arrived in theater April 19, 2003. Recent support missions have been based out of Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. Guard members have hauled equipment from Arifjan to the Port in support of the 4th Infantry Division. To date the unit has completed 296 missions and accumulated 2,087,604 mission miles.
In addition to the 740th, two other South Dakota Guard units, the 842nd Engineer Company of Spearfish, Belle Fourche and Sturgis, and the 1742nd Transportation Company, Sioux Falls and Flandreau, are nearing 365-boots on the ground tour of duty days.....
The Black Hills Pioneer contributed to this article
Copyright The Black Hills Pioneer, Newspapers, South Dakota, SD 2004
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Welcome Home Ceremony on April 22 at Fort Hood:
A few points on the Welcome Home Ceremony on Thursday, April 22:
1) You do not require an invitation to attend the ceremonies. If you supported our 4ID and TF Ironhorse soldiers in Iraq, you are welcome to attend. The comment in an earlier update about an invitation was in error.
2) Be sure to allow plenty of time to get a temporary pass at the Clear Creek entrance to Fort Hood. You will need driver's license, vehicle registration (or rental car contract), and proof of insurance. The checkpoint is open 24 hours per day and you can get a permit up to 7 days early.
3) All adults over 18 entering the post must have a picture id - drivers license is great.
4) For those who have said you want to meet me and missed it in my update last week, I will be around the Gazebo outside the 4ID Museum, just west of the parade field, all afternoon and into the evening on April 22. I'm anxious to meet many of my new email friends.
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59 Years Ago Today - 4ID in Germany:
13 April 1945 - D+312
CT 22 reported stubborn resistance with good artillery support until approximately 2030. At 2045, elements of CT 12 forced the enemy to withdraw from Creglingen but the enemy succeeded in destroying the bridge after this withdrawal. CT 324 advanced opposed only by harassing small arms and artillery fire, mines and undefended road blocks. Enemy artillery fire showed a decrease during the period.
The 4th Infantry Division continued the attack and prior to the close of the period had secured the Division objective line extending from Freudenbach southwest to Flaufelden.
The 8th Infantry maintained positions in the vicinity of Markbreit.
The 12th Infantry resumed the attack at 0730. The 1st and 2nd Battalions continued their advance against light resistance and were successful in securing the regimental objective line in the vicinity of Freudenbach.
The 22nd Infantry resumed the attack at 0750 with three battalions abreast. Enemy opposition was negligible and by the close of the period, the regimental objective line in the vicinity of Lichtel had been secured and contact established with the 324th Infantry on the right.
14 April 1945 - D+313
Elements of CT 12 made contact with the enemy in the vicinity of Tauberscheckenbach and cleared the towns of Giekelhausen, Oberscheckenbach, Ohrenbach and Gailshofen. CT 324 reported the enemy holding a line of strong points in the woods. The enemy resisted strenuously. The enemy employed small arms and automatic weapons fire supplemented with artillery support to delay the advance of CT 22. In approaching the wood line south and east of Ober Rimbach and east of Schmerbach, advance elements encountered stiffening resistance. At 1530 the enemy counterattacked with 175 men in the vicinity of Blaubach and was repulsed with heavy casualties. Approximately 120 rounds of artillery fell in CT 22's sector during the period.
The 4th Infantry Division resumed the attack and advanced approximately four to five kilometers in the direction of Rothenburg along the entire Division front.
The 8th Infantry began a shuttle movement at 1000 to the southeast within the new regimental zone of action following elements of the 12th Armored Division. All three battalions were shuttled forward during the day and by the end of the period had closed in the vicinity of Ergersheim. No enemy resistance was reported until 1845 when a small counterattack was reported in the vicinity of Illesheim.
The 12th Infantry initiated an attack to the southeast within the new regimental sector beginning at 0800 with the 1st and 2nd Battalions abreast. Progress was continuous throughout the day. The 2nd Battalion on the left advanced approximately eight kilometers when resistance increased on the left flank against Company G in the vicinity of Ohrenbach. The 1st Battalion pressed forward approximately five kilometers and secured the small communication center of Tauberscheckenbach and the high ground to the northeast. The 3rd Battalion in reserve, echeloned forward to the town of Gross Harbach.
The 22nd Infantry continued the attack with the 1st and 3rd Battalions at 0900, and initially had no contact with the enemy. Progress was continuous but slow, and enemy opposition increased in the wooded areas later in the day. By the close of the day, advances from two to three kilometers were made along the entire regimental front.
Thanks to Philippe Cornil at www.revive-it.com.
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What Our Families Are Hearing From Our Soldiers in Iraq:
1) At this point we are still being told my husband will be leaving Kuwait mid week. After all of our delays we have learned to be patient and to not set plans just yet. There is still hope that our guys stuck in Kuwait will be heading out soon, though. Keep praying!
2) We had a welcome home open house for our son this past Saturday so his relatives could see and hug him and our church friends could welcome him home after praying for him all year. It was really great. It may have been a little tiring for him and probably hard to answer some of the questions, but he and his wife handled it very well. (I am so proud of him and her for so many reasons.) I wanted to tell you about the reactions we got as we put up signs and flags in our front yard. People stopped in their cars and asked who was coming home, and they all said to tell him, "Thank you for serving our country." Those that came to the open house all told him that too. I wish those kind expressions of gratitude and love could be bottled and sent to the soldiers still over there who so desperately need to know they are doing a good, good thing. But we can let them know through correspondance and we all need to keep praying. Thank you to all our returning troops for a job well done!! And thank you to all our troops bravely stationed all over the world. May God richly bless you all.
3) I am the mother who was frustrated because my son was STILL in Kuwait. I talked to him this morning and he is 99% sure he will be home to Ft. Hood on the 17th! I feel so much for the families who's soldiers made it to Kuwait and were then turned around. My prayers are with all the troops still in Iraq.
4) Hi Bob. I enjoy still getting your newsletters, even though my son, who is with the 4ID, 1/12 IN from Fort Carson, has been "home" for just over a month now. He and his wife and 8 month old daugher were here for Easter. Our first holiday together since he deployed in April 2003. It was WONDERFUL to have him home. The irony is this. One day I asked him if he missed anything about Iraq, any of the people, or anything at all. He emphatically said, "No." Just hours later he was watching Fox News Channel when they showed the Japanese civilians at gun and knife point being held hostage. He then said, "Now I want to go back." As bad as I want him to stay home (and thankful it isn't his choice), the pride I felt for my son at that moment was unsurmountable. I told my husband last night that if he were again deployed to Iraq they would have to take him away from me screaming and kicking, but then realized that that wouldn't do my son any good. So, if he has a job to do, I'll let it get done and let him do it. As it's been said, "Freedom isn't free!" And I'm proud to be the mother of a United States Soldier!
5) As per today's update, I sent in my message to the Ft. Hood Sentinel..... hopefully with everything going on those days I will remember to purchase one and add it to my son's "scrapbook". (No need to purchase the Sentinel, it is free, pick one up at a newsbox on post). It is actually three 4" binders..... he seemed rather impressed when I showed him what I had done for those 11 mos. to keep my mind occupied.... I showed him a couple of special things, but I know that in years to come he will pour over those and be transported back in time. God I am so blessed that he is home safe..... my prayers continue for the deployed troops and their families.... I know how difficult it is.
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