I don't know why they fly the Iraqis in from Detroit. Send the National Guard there!
December 27, 2003
National Guard at War at Home to Prepare for Real Thing in Iraq
By ROBERT F. WORTH New York Times
One day last week, Capt. Vincent J. Heintz and his men were trying to quell an unruly demonstration by a group of Iraqi villagers when a lone suicide bomber rushed the crowd. A blast rang out, and the scene dissolved into a chaos of smoke and angry Arabic voices.
But not for long. Within minutes, the soldiers were dusting the snow off their uniforms and bantering with the villagers, actually Iraqi-Americans flown in to Fort Drum, N.Y., from Michigan. Everyone filed into a nearby warehouse, sat down and listened patiently as an Army officer gave some tips on how to survive when these National Guardsmen face the real thing in Iraq, three months from now.
The drill — part of an elaborate four-day simulation at this snowbound Army base near the Canadian border — represents the Army's best effort to prepare its new civilian soldiers, who will soon begin heading to Iraq in ever larger numbers.
Captain Heintz, a 36-year-old prosecutor from the Bronx, belongs to a battalion of bank clerks, police officers, firefighters and even a 46-year-old biologist. Most National Guard volunteers lack the full-time experience of regular Army units, and they signed up without expecting that they would ever fight in a real war.
Since the war in Iraq began, much has been said about the unexpected burden being carried by the National Guard and reservists. More are being sent abroad, and for longer tours of duty, than at any time in decades. But recent months have added a grimmer element: large numbers of American men and women who are not battle-tested are being killed in Iraq. A quarter of all deaths since May 1 have been reservists or members of the Guard, many of them older, less physically fit and lacking the combat experience of their recruit counterparts. The Guard and reservists, who share the same assignments as other military personnel in Iraq, make up about 30 percent of all American troops there, and by March that figure is expected to grow to 40 percent.
The challenge to the military, then, is much more urgent than dealing with frustrated National Guard families who want to see their loved ones during the holidays. It is how to keep these civilian soldiers alive, and to teach them the skills they will need in a very short period of time.
Some of Captain Heintz's men say they worry that their inexperience will make them targets for the insurgents who have been killing American soldiers on an almost daily basis. Others insist that their hybrid background is ideal for dealing with terrorists.
Many responded at ground zero when the National Guard was called up in the days and weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"My knees aren't quite as strong as a 26-year-old captain's," said Captain Heintz, a squarely built man who exudes a bullish confidence and works in the rackets section in the Manhattan district attorney's office. "But we have guys who work on the electrical systems for the Long Island Rail Road. We have 11 languages spoken in this company."
One thing is certain: The newly minted soldiers are being given a vivid taste of what they will face in Iraq during their five months of training. The drill at Fort Drum, which is being replicated at bases across the country, required six weeks of preparation and battle scenes worthy of a Steven Spielberg film.
More than 100 Iraqis were flown in from Dearborn, Mich., to play the angry villagers of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's birthplace. The call to prayer blasted from a makeshift mosque, and there were even angry signs — as in Iraqi cities — hanging from the walls. To complete the simulation, real Red Cross workers and soldiers dressed as journalists milled about, getting in the soldiers' way at every opportunity.
If not for the snow, the fir trees and the fact that the temperature hovers around 15 degrees, the scene might almost have been mistaken for central Iraq.
For Captain Heintz's battalion, which is headed for the central Iraqi region near Tikrit, the drill began much the way a real mission will take place.
Early Sunday morning, they headed out in Humvees into a fenced area of woods and ponds about 50,000 square kilometers in size. Their mission was to take command from a departing Army battalion, and then quell a loose-knit group of armed insurgents in and around the town.
The action began almost immediately, with a few hidden insurgents firing mortar and rifle rounds from behind trees and buildings. Most were inaccurate, but a few hit their mark.
To help the soldiers become accustomed to real combat, they carried rifles that fire laser signals, and sensors on their jackets that register a laser hit. Soldiers who were shot — the sensor emits a high-pitched whine — had to open a special envelope placed in their front jacket pockets that contained the key to their wounds. Their fellow soldiers would have to respond accordingly, like arranging an evacuation by helicopter for serious casualties, or calling in a medic for a minor wound.
Around noon on Day 2, a group of theoretically wounded soldiers stood inside an unheated canvas tent, shivering and cursing.
"That's our sand out there," said Staff Sgt. Sean Goodridge, aiming a sarcastic grimace at the falling snow. More than 18 inches had fallen since the drill's start the day before, making the desert fantasy seem a little less plausible.
Like many others in his unit, Sergeant Goodridge, a firefighter with Squad 252 in Brooklyn, has four children. He worries about them, and wonders whether he will come back from Iraq.
But he does not question the need for him to go. He sees his military service as an extension of what happened on Sept. 11, when the six men who were on duty at his firehouse went to the World Trade Center, and all six were killed.
"Personally, it's like me coming full circle," said Sergeant Goodridge, who was off duty that day. "My firehouse is totally behind me."
The Guard troops say they understand that there is no evidence linking Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks. But most of them were called up to respond at ground zero in the days and weeks afterward, and many say they see Iraq as part of that broader antiterrorist mission.
Captain Heintz, for instance, was walking his 6-year-old daughter to school on Sept. 11 when the first plane struck the north tower. A few hours later, driving toward the unit's headquarters in Queens, he told a fellow volunteer that he believed Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks, and that the unit would soon be mobilized and sent to Iraq.
"It took two more years, but it finally happened," Captain Heintz said.
By midafternoon on the drill's second day, when Captain Heintz and some of his remaining soldiers arrived in Tikrit, they were already exhausted. But they had no opportunity to rest: an angry crowd of villagers ran out to meet the Humvees, pelting them with snowballs and complaining about a lack of running water. Another group of soldiers, it turned out, had taken over the town's water station, resulting in a total cutoff of supply.
It was then that the town's mayor emerged — a tall, impressive-looking man in full-length Iraqi garb. He managed to calm the protesters, and invited the men inside to talk.
Captain Heintz and the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Mark Warnecke, in civilian life a biologist, entered the town hall and began trying to explain themselves, via a young Egyptian translator. The discussion began badly, with the mayor accusing the soldiers of having killed innocent townspeople. But after a half-hour, and several promises of assistance, the meeting ended more or less amicably.
For the Iraqis being paid to play their parts in the drill, many of whom lost relatives or did prison time in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, it was a strange, double-edged experience.
The mayor, for instance, was played by David Saloman, a 44-year-old Iraqi immigrant. He and his translator, Mohamed Farrag, have been traveling from base to base for the past five weeks, always playing the same roles. Mr. Saloman was born in Baghdad; he returned to Iraq in August for the first time in 20 years.
While he was there, Mr. Saloman said, he saw misunderstandings between American soldiers and Iraqis that led to injuries on both sides, and the experience made him want to help better prepare the United States soldiers in the future.
"We must teach them how to handle it, for their safety and for the safety of the Iraqi people," he said.
But even for old hands like Mr. Saloman, the drill at Fort Drum was unusual. The original script called for Saddam Hussein to be captured, and for the soldiers to bring him out of Tikrit, alive.
Then, a few hours after simulation began, news of the deposed dictator's real-life capture broke. The drill's planners decided to integrate that fact into their script, and called for the villagers to celebrate in the streets. They did not have to be forced.
"We were singing, dancing, playing music," said Ali al-Hacham, an engineer from Detroit, who added that Saddam Hussein's government killed 17 members of his family. "This was not acting."
The next day, Mr. al-Hacham and dozens of other Iraqi simulators were at it again, shouting "Go home!" at the soldiers and banging their fists on the Humvees.
On the drill's third day, things got tougher. There was still no water in Tikrit, and when Captain Heintz and some of his men drove back to the village, a full-scale riot broke out. The soldiers tried unsuccessfully to keep them at bay, and watched helplessly as one middle-aged woman, her face shrouded in a cotton kaffiyeh, got into two of the Humvees and made off with about $20,000 of military equipment.
Then came the suicide bomber, smiling deceptively in the simulation, and the loud bang.
Captain Heintz, who was standing next to him, was killed — in theory, of course. Several others were wounded, including one who was attacked later by an enraged villager with a knife. Before long, it was all too clear that this part of the mission had gone disastrously wrong.
Shortly afterward, everyone gathered in the heated warehouse for a critique. Sgt. Major Jeffrey Mellinger, a lanky specialist in training operations from Georgia, enumerated the lessons to be learned from the day's disaster. The officers should have stretched a wire around the area where they were working, he explained, to keep the attackers from getting close. They should have secured the Humvees, to keep from getting robbed. And some soldiers had gotten separated from their units — a fatal mistake.
Just two months before, he said, a soldier had been separated from his unit while buying a soda near the real Baghdad. He was shot in the back of the head and killed.
There would be more chances to practice, Sergeant Major Mellinger reminded the men. After their simulation was over, they would be on their way to Fort Polk, in Louisiana, for three more weeks of drills and training before the trip to Iraq.
"You're here to make mistakes," Sergeant Major Mellinger said.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |
