[December 18, 2016] In early 2005, my military unit returned from a one-year stint in Iraq and my first tour in that country. Once back in the United States, I jotted down a few of my thoughts about the war, the Iraqis, terrorists, combat, contractors, home town folks, reporters, and politicians. Over the next few weeks, I’ll provide some of my thoughts at the time; straight from those notes. And while my thinking changed over time, it is nevertheless instructive of how many of us soldiers viewed the War in Iraq in those early days.
I’ll give you my unadulterated viewpoint on what we experienced. But first, some perspective … I’m not an Infantryman. I’m an engineer. My job was to plan, design, fund, obtain labor and materials, and build projects throughout our division’s sector for the U.S. military. I traveled extensively, either on the ground in an armored vehicle or by Blackhawk Helicopter. Thus, a lot of time was spent out among Iraqis, in their neighborhoods where they lived. Thousands of Iraqis were employed to help the U.S. build secure military bases. Furthermore, I worked firsthand with Iraqi professionals, their leaders, business owners, soldiers, and just the average man.
IRAQIS: Wow, so much to say here. First, let me say that I’m a big fan of the Iraqis. They could do things, that I would never consider doing.
No matter what I ever asked, they would anything for me. If I needed someone to crawl up onto the top of a five-story bombed out building to bring me back a sample of the concrete, they would argue among themselves who got the honor to doing it. And they wanted to do it immediately and not wearing any safety gear. Remember that there’s no Workers Comp there; if you don’t work, you don’t get paid.
I paid $7 per day for laborers and $10 per day for foremen, workweek was 6 days Saturday thru Thursday (Friday is their religious holiday like our Sunday). Engineers were normally paid $500 per month (works out to about $2.50 per hour). All pay in U.S. dollars in cash (no taxes). There was no minimum wage, wage increases, holidays off, vacations, or comp days; no work meant no pay.
Cultural differences: like anywhere you go, there are differences. To an Iraqi, their honor is critical. Many Iraqis will lie to save their honor, so remembering this is important. Phrase your questions to ensure you don’t put them in a position from which they would have to lie about it. I learned this once when a building roof collapsed while being reinforced. 9 Iraqis were seriously injured. I asked the contractor if he personally designed the reinforcing plan. He said “no”, that the collapsed was due to bad work by his employees. It was their fault. Obviously, his design (which I saw) was inadequate. Later when I had a similar problem and more Iraqis were injured, I asked the contractor what caused the collapse of the structure. He told me it was his assistant engineer’s fault with the design. At least it was admitted that it was the design and not the workers.
A special day of great interest was during the Iraqi’s first free elections. The world media had been playing this up in advance as another failure for weeks. Saying the elections were too early and that turnout would be low. I knew the Iraqis would do well on election day because, by then, I had a better understanding of them. On their election day 30 January 2005, as you remember the first in half a century, Iraqis turned out in large numbers, far surpassing the turnout you find here in the United States. I remember the beginning of the day, slightly overcast, cool, and heard about a dozen explosions in the distance. Traffic was banned for the day to deter VBIEDs (Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Devices) for killing large numbers gathered at the polls.
More on my thoughts later about the war in Iraq. Next up will be my view of the U.S. soldier.
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