i served in iraq in the city of Ramadi during the year 2004. i remember well the difficulties some of difficulties that we faced during our time in that place.

one morning after my turn on the E.C.P (entry check point) i returned to the hooch. i was in the infantry serving as an infantryman. i couldnt sleep (which was unusual) but i did see several combat engineers attempting to get a generator working that powered lights and A/C units for the hooches. i saw around 2 or 3 engineers look at this generator over the course of a few days. finally the verdict was, it would be better to simply buy a new one (which was ultimately done) but a few things happened before a new one was bought and i learned a valuable lesson about the way our enemies, potential and actual think:

i saw an iraqi man around the age of 35-40 come onto base. we hired more than a few iraqi citizens to do odd jobs and work around camp as a way of employing iraqi citizens. i saw this man, who had no more than the equivalent of an 6th grade american education if that examine this machine for a great deal of time. maybe 2 hours. not that i sat and watched the whole time mind you but from time to time i had cause to go out and id see him still examining this generator. sometime later that day the generator ran for another 2 or 3 weeks: every time it broke down we simply called him up and he came and fixed it. it was always something different wrong with it apparently. for our engineers could never find out what was wrong.

then i got to thinking: this man at the age of around 35-40 was old enough to have lived through the iran/iraq war, saw his nation defeated by the america and our allies during the persian gulf war and again during this current one. yet he has no real formal education to speak of and was able to do what 3 professionally trained engineers could not. after considering this aspect i thought:

if this man forms the average iraqi male and/or middle eastern male, then what might be said of our enemies resourcefulness? in our society education equates with "know how". i began looking for answers and i found a book called "the small wars manual". in it men used mules and such in guerilla type warfare. i also read about "Chesty" Pullers victories against insurgencies. i wondered why he was successful. i think its because he did not have college educated men leading men with good edcations as well against poor formally uneducated people. these educated are for the first time, operating at a disadvantage: they have no ability to understand or relate to these "enemies" or people. i can speculate all day but the answers are far from concrete. bombs, missiles, and better firearms will not solve this problem: only "boots on the ground" i.e. more skilled men who are willing to "go native" and mix with the populace, learn its customs without prejudice or rancor. these men must make the insurgents fear to operate inside iraq: period. it goes without saying that War is terrible. Sometimes i think terrible things must be done in order to win. guerilla warafre seems to operate off of a kind of "attrition" style warfare. meaning that it tries to win by making the other side give up. it even says this in the Marines 8000 series in the book titled: Warfighting. one of the very first lines reads: war is a contest of wills. however it does not say whose will. in vietnam ho chih mihn was willing to bet that the will of his people and army was greater than that of americas. all he did was simply kill a few americans here and there (he didnt have to kill many) maybe capture a few and make damn sure that as much as he could get on T.V. got there and into american homes. the images of soldiers returning home from war wounded would suplly the rest of the details.

to "sum up" i think the rules of engagemtn formulate the topping off if you will of what american soldiers must contend with in an insurgency/guerilla warfare style war: a soldier walking around in uniform is AUTOMATICALLY losing the fight. because the enemy knows where he is at all times (hes wearing a uniform) but the soldier doesnt know where he is. the enemy chooses when and where to strike (the soldier ahs now lost the advantage of terrain to an extent), quick escapes through holes made in the walls that formulate modes of travel, lines of communication, supply lines , etc (logistics, communication, travel lines all unable to be cut through means of bombing).

these are but a few of the real iussues in fighting the war that have come into play. bombs are of minor use here. while they make a hell of a noise and might scare the death out of nearby enemies potential or actual one explosion unless proplerly placed does little strategic good in winning that kind of war.

any commentary is more than welcome.

We set patterns and must do certain things every day. All Hadji has to do is watch and wait for the right moment to strike us.

Boatraider i see what you are saying and fully agree. We put out battle plans on CNN and Fox news but the insurgent does not. Everybody can see out plans. You should DEF. look up a book called The ugly american.
I wish you well on your future deployments

'Semper Fi to the Few, Much later to the rest'

quote:

Originally posted by joshua_r_powell:
Boatraider i see what you are saying and fully agree. We put out battle plans on CNN and Fox news but the insurgent does not. Everybody can see out plans. You should DEF. look up a book called The ugly american.
I wish you well on your future deployments

'Semper Fi to the Few, Much later to the rest'

It always blows my mind when I turn on CNN and they begin to discuss what our strategies are going to be and how and when we are going to execute them. Here's an idea just send an email or better yet a donkey express to our enemy with the plans of when, where, and how we are going to attack them. Stupid. It's unfortunate but the media has done a great job of displaying these horrific images of dead and wounded Iraqis, which don't get me wrong by all means is horrible and sad, but for the love of God there are so many Americans that are being killed and all our media focuses on is the "innocent Iraqi" who was killed. Not to mention there have been numerous you tube video's showing dead Iraq civilians, and yet we come to find out that is was the insurgents that have killed them to help spread the bullshit propaganda.

It also doesn't help when you have dumbass soldier’s video taping themselves being dicks and abusing their power on the innocent civilians and then putting it on you tube. This war needs to be kept a little more under wraps, not for any other reason than for the protection of our soldiers.

CNN is a death sentance to the regular grunt, how ever CNN has never been close enough to my team or any other of simular compacity to report our actions in combat... A good cover for us snipers, also recon, Seals, spooks or ODA what ever you like to call them... The point is... They ie. the insergents see the game, but they are missing the plays... Semper Kill!!

Expect nothing less from the liberal media!

i have a military website and was wondering if i could chat with you more and post your expieriences/ stories on my site
i would be placeing it on the pages dedicated to the men and women who are overseas now

pm me or email me from profile if you would be ok with letting me do that

--flink

sure. gimme your info.

quote:

Originally posted by jactor5:

quote:

Originally posted by joshua_r_powell:
Boatraider i see what you are saying and fully agree. We put out battle plans on CNN and Fox news but the insurgent does not. Everybody can see out plans. You should DEF. look up a book called The ugly american.
I wish you well on your future deployments

'Semper Fi to the Few, Much later to the rest'

It always blows my mind when I turn on CNN and they begin to discuss what our strategies are going to be and how and when we are going to execute them. Here's an idea just send an email or better yet a donkey express to our enemy with the plans of when, where, and how we are going to attack them. Stupid. It's unfortunate but the media has done a great job of displaying these horrific images of dead and wounded Iraqis, which don't get me wrong by all means is horrible and sad, but for the love of God there are so many Americans that are being killed and all our media focuses on is the "innocent Iraqi" who was killed. Not to mention there have been numerous you tube video's showing dead Iraq civilians, and yet we come to find out that is was the insurgents that have killed them to help spread the ******** propaganda.

It also doesn't help when you have ******* soldier’s video taping themselves being ***** and abusing their power on the innocent civilians and then putting it on you tube. This war needs to be kept a little more under wraps, not for any other reason than for the protection of our soldiers.

It's even used when people post how they wait for BUD/s students to post when HELL WEEK will be,and they
show up at that time and watch the show? It's quite foolish to creep on military business.