Third Way Dispatch

We have just returned from 28 days straight in the field. Taking that first shower after getting back to the rear has never been so heavenly!

This last stint in the field was the culminating phase of our four-month pre-deployment workup. Now that we have finished our training, we are preparing to embark very shortly for Iraq to begin our seven-month tour.

Our destination in Iraq is no longer confidential, so I can share that at this point. Reporters were embedded with us during our last phase of training and articles have now been published about both our training and our mission. We are headed to Fallujah, where we will be responsible simultaneously for training Iraqi soldiers and conducting counterinsurgency operations.

Over the last month, we conducted combined-arms exercises with machineguns, mortars, and rockets. At times, we worked in integration with tanks and other mechanized assets. Our final week of training was spent in a mock Iraqi city/village, working on urban patrolling, searches and raids, vehicle check points, and anti-sniper and anti-IED drills. There were a good number of insurgent and civilian role players in the city/village to help make the training as realistic as possible, though clearly it is impossible to hire enough role players or to gather together enough vehicles to really replicate the environment in a fully-populated Iraqi city.

We have worked hard for the last four months, with very little time off, but the training has paid off. We have gained confidence in each other’s abilities and we are working well as a team. We have received favorable feedback from the Iraq-war veterans who have served as our instructor-evaluators. None of us knows exactly what to expect when we finally get in country, but we are all a great deal more confident than we were when we first arrived at Twentynine Palms.

We were granted a bit of R&R time this weekend. My wife came out and we had a lovely couple of days in Palm Springs. Now that she is on a plane back East, it is time to focus on packing my gear and getting mentally prepared for the mission ahead.

That’s all for now.

SB