When I started this blog over a year ago I had meant it more for myself than anything. This medium was just a way for me to put my thoughts and ideas out there and used the blog concept as a way to force myself to continue and add updates since I knew family and friends would likely swing by from time to time to see what was on my mind.
I knew it would also be a good way to keep everyone posted and up to date on the daily happenings and events of 3-2 SBCT and 1-14 CAV while the brigade was deployed, although I assumed that I would have more free time than I actually did and it turned more into a monthly update if I was lucky. There were no expectations that anyone outside of a few friends and family would find or even bother reading anything on this site.
However, over the course of the deployment I became aware that my little corner of the internet was getting some attention. Girlfriends of soldiers in the squadron would leave comments; fellow officers would come up to me and ask if I was the creator of this site they had discovered; and even some folks at Brigade stumbled upon Warhorse Intel. Part of reason my blog gained the little popularity that it has is because I was really one of the few sources out there discussing what was going on in NE Diyala. If something went boom, or civil war was on the verge of breaking out, it wasn't CNN covering it, it was me.
Not bad for what is in reality nothing more than an online journal for me, but who else is reading? I decided to "google" the site and see what came up. Here's a breakdown of what sites are quoting me:
1. A site discussing SSG Tirador's death. Unfortunately, due to the nature of her death there is some controversy as to whether or not it was suicide or homicide. The author of this blog used my posting back in November '09 to provide a little more information on SSG Tirador and the incident. Apparently some believe there is a coverup going on by the Army in regards to SSG Tirador. I'm 99% certain there isn't, but that's a different discussion for a different time. Another blog, quoting the the first site word for word, also uses my comments.
2. My comments on Somalia got me linked on this blog. That's kind of cool, not that I really wrote anything spectacular.
3. No idea why I'm linked here. I think the author was just linking any site that mentioned warhorse.
4. This guy used a picture I had on the blog for his website on Greenland. I'm linked down at the bottom of the site. Uh, dude, you could have used Google images.
5. Another site just using pictures I have. For whatever reason my site is linked for the image of H.R. Giger's alien used.
So there you have it. Maybe I should add a counter in order to determine just how many visitors I'm getting. Am I up to triple digits yet?
Monday, August 2, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
A chapter ends
The latest deployment for 1-14 CAV and 3-2 SBCT is at a close. Many of the Brigade's soldiers are now back at Joint Base Lewis McChord with the remaining soldiers either sitting at Al Asad Airbase outside of Ramadi, in Kuwait getting equipment prepped and loaded onto ships, or waiting the last few days at various FOBs as part of a REARVON ensuring everything that is ours gets to where it needs to go.
Relief in place/Transfer of authority, or RIP/TOA as it is known, was quick but smooth. I only had about 10 days with my replacement and while I would have liked to have more time with him to discuss the operating environment and go into more detail about some of our successes and failures as an intel shop and a squadron, I believe 2-14 CAV's S2 will do fine.
As we started RIP I jokingly told my replacement that to really get to understand how we operate we'll need the enemy to conduct some attacks, activity had been quiet for a bit. The insurgents would not let me down and during RIP we had the standard indirect fire against a checkpoint, an IED attack on a patrol, and a VBIED in Qara Tapa. The carbomb targeted civilians and was not something we had really seen our entire deployment so it was an excellent opportunity for both myself and the 2-14 S2 to sit down and try to figure out the puzzle...who and why.
I left Northeast Diyala a little down, however. As much as I am ready to go home and as difficult and challenging as this deployment was, I really felt like the mission was incomplete. There were still pieces of the puzzle that needed placed, key insurgents I should have enabled the capture of, and goals for myself and my section that were not completed. Kurd-Arab tensions are still at the point of breaking out into civil war...but to be fair, there's nothing I believe we as a cavalry squadron could have done or could do to prevent that.
My first deployment didn't feel like that, primarily because we were a military intelligence battalion whose mission was to support the Corps HQ, so when it was time to go it was time to go. The mission was complete. The second deployment we had been in country so long, mentally and physically exhausting, that handing over the battlespace and going home was a relief more than anything.
This was different. I put my heart, soul, and best effort into this. There was some trouble letting go. But at the end of the day I look forward to getting back to my Xbox, beer, and friends.
Good luck 2-14.
Relief in place/Transfer of authority, or RIP/TOA as it is known, was quick but smooth. I only had about 10 days with my replacement and while I would have liked to have more time with him to discuss the operating environment and go into more detail about some of our successes and failures as an intel shop and a squadron, I believe 2-14 CAV's S2 will do fine.
As we started RIP I jokingly told my replacement that to really get to understand how we operate we'll need the enemy to conduct some attacks, activity had been quiet for a bit. The insurgents would not let me down and during RIP we had the standard indirect fire against a checkpoint, an IED attack on a patrol, and a VBIED in Qara Tapa. The carbomb targeted civilians and was not something we had really seen our entire deployment so it was an excellent opportunity for both myself and the 2-14 S2 to sit down and try to figure out the puzzle...who and why.
I left Northeast Diyala a little down, however. As much as I am ready to go home and as difficult and challenging as this deployment was, I really felt like the mission was incomplete. There were still pieces of the puzzle that needed placed, key insurgents I should have enabled the capture of, and goals for myself and my section that were not completed. Kurd-Arab tensions are still at the point of breaking out into civil war...but to be fair, there's nothing I believe we as a cavalry squadron could have done or could do to prevent that.
My first deployment didn't feel like that, primarily because we were a military intelligence battalion whose mission was to support the Corps HQ, so when it was time to go it was time to go. The mission was complete. The second deployment we had been in country so long, mentally and physically exhausting, that handing over the battlespace and going home was a relief more than anything.
This was different. I put my heart, soul, and best effort into this. There was some trouble letting go. But at the end of the day I look forward to getting back to my Xbox, beer, and friends.
Good luck 2-14.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Random thoughts on LDRSHIP
There are 7 values in the Army that as professionals we strive to uphold. Those values form the acronym LDRSHIP (everything in the Army must be an acronym).
1. Loyalty
2. Duty
3. Respect
4. Selflesss Service
5. Honor
6. Integrity
7. Personal Courage
My favorite is the last, personal courage. But what exactly is personal courage?
Personal courage is when GEN Ordierno, the commanding general in Iraq, asks you what will happen to attack levels in your battlespace when US forces leave and you give him your honest opinion:
"Sir, attacks will significantly drop. Attacks occur because we are here."
Giving the honest answer, even when it's not popular...especially when it's not the popular answer...is personal courage.
This place is hard, challenging, frustrating, and painful. But I leave soon.
1. Loyalty
2. Duty
3. Respect
4. Selflesss Service
5. Honor
6. Integrity
7. Personal Courage
My favorite is the last, personal courage. But what exactly is personal courage?
Personal courage is when GEN Ordierno, the commanding general in Iraq, asks you what will happen to attack levels in your battlespace when US forces leave and you give him your honest opinion:
"Sir, attacks will significantly drop. Attacks occur because we are here."
Giving the honest answer, even when it's not popular...especially when it's not the popular answer...is personal courage.
This place is hard, challenging, frustrating, and painful. But I leave soon.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
If it's not one thing...
Less than a month left and many of our replacements have arrived. It's actually beginning to feel like we may get to go home. This is always a surreal time for me; I'm still busy doing work but don't want to put too much effort into things because there are new guys here getting ready to take over and I'll be drinking beer and enjoying the States again in about 3 weeks.
However reality likes to remind me that we still have issues to face.
Issues like our ongoing Kurd-Arab tensions which flared up a couple days ago in Qara Tapa...over a parking infraction. No this is not a repeat of May when I wrote about this. Some IA soldiers were wounded in the flair up but overall we are lucky everyone here is such a bad shot otherwise things could have gotten really bad.
The Kurd-Arab tension issue is so much of a problem that GEN Odierno wants the U.N. to send peacekeepers to the region when we leave. Good luck with that.
In other news, 1-14 Cav made the news again, and not in a good way. Nobody stepped on any cultural landmines but some officers said a little more than they should have. Especially CPT Adams and 2LT Dudzinski. Mark didn't say anything we weren't already thinking, although I would argue we had some success in detaining those most likely responsible for the suicide car bombing on June 11th. Jalula is a pain in the ass with the ethnic tensions and a large, hostile, Kurwi tribal population and it's possible we went at that problem incorrectly, but we did what we could. LT Dudzinski, however, should know better than to call out our security partners like that.
I really look forward to forgetting all this.
However reality likes to remind me that we still have issues to face.
Issues like our ongoing Kurd-Arab tensions which flared up a couple days ago in Qara Tapa...over a parking infraction. No this is not a repeat of May when I wrote about this. Some IA soldiers were wounded in the flair up but overall we are lucky everyone here is such a bad shot otherwise things could have gotten really bad.
The Kurd-Arab tension issue is so much of a problem that GEN Odierno wants the U.N. to send peacekeepers to the region when we leave. Good luck with that.
In other news, 1-14 Cav made the news again, and not in a good way. Nobody stepped on any cultural landmines but some officers said a little more than they should have. Especially CPT Adams and 2LT Dudzinski. Mark didn't say anything we weren't already thinking, although I would argue we had some success in detaining those most likely responsible for the suicide car bombing on June 11th. Jalula is a pain in the ass with the ethnic tensions and a large, hostile, Kurwi tribal population and it's possible we went at that problem incorrectly, but we did what we could. LT Dudzinski, however, should know better than to call out our security partners like that.
I really look forward to forgetting all this.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Less than a month left...
A whole month without posting, apparently I'm slipping back into my old habits. It's not as though there was nothing to discuss, we had one hell of a rough week about 3 weeks ago, I just haven't gotten around to writing anything. Although I am hesitant to write about certain events for fear of getting another phone call from Brigade (HELLO BRIGADE!).
Essentially in one week period we had some RKG-3 grenades thrown at us, several IEDs throughout the Operating Environment across several insurgent network territories, an indirect fire attack, a non combat related death, and a suicide car bomb that took the life of 2 soldiers attached to the squadron from 5-20 IN.
That week I nearly tore out what little hair I have left.
Life is better now. Our replacements have started to arrive and I'll be out of here by the end of July.
Some random thoughts:
- What is 1-14 up to these days? Clearing all of Jalula. Or at least a good chunk of it. That's what happens when carbombs go boom; hammers get brought down.
- Favorite book read during the deployment: Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi...absolutely hilarious
- Book I am reading now that I should have read 11 months ago: Accidental Guerrilla by David Kilcullen
- Favorite movie watched: Avatar...although I haven't seen District 9 yet.
- Worst movie watched: G.I. Joe...I didn't think a movie could be worse than Transformers 2.
- I am having trouble recalling the first 5 months of the deployment, I must have repressed those memories.
- Best unit patch in the Army? The unit patch of the guys replacing you after a year long deployment.
SPC Christopher Opat, SPC William Yauch, SGT O'Bryan...you will be missed, but not forgotten.
Essentially in one week period we had some RKG-3 grenades thrown at us, several IEDs throughout the Operating Environment across several insurgent network territories, an indirect fire attack, a non combat related death, and a suicide car bomb that took the life of 2 soldiers attached to the squadron from 5-20 IN.
That week I nearly tore out what little hair I have left.
Life is better now. Our replacements have started to arrive and I'll be out of here by the end of July.
Some random thoughts:
- What is 1-14 up to these days? Clearing all of Jalula. Or at least a good chunk of it. That's what happens when carbombs go boom; hammers get brought down.
- Favorite book read during the deployment: Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi...absolutely hilarious
- Book I am reading now that I should have read 11 months ago: Accidental Guerrilla by David Kilcullen
- Favorite movie watched: Avatar...although I haven't seen District 9 yet.
- Worst movie watched: G.I. Joe...I didn't think a movie could be worse than Transformers 2.
- I am having trouble recalling the first 5 months of the deployment, I must have repressed those memories.
- Best unit patch in the Army? The unit patch of the guys replacing you after a year long deployment.
SPC Christopher Opat, SPC William Yauch, SGT O'Bryan...you will be missed, but not forgotten.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Trapped with too much chai
So there I was one beautiful Iraqi morning, drinking chai, discussing upcoming operations with the squadron commander, the 3rd Peshmerga commander, the 4-1 Iraqi Army commander, and several of the Iraqi Army and Peshmerga operations and intelligence officers when a thought came to my mind...
...in reality the thought came to my mind after 3 cups of chai and 2 1/2 hours of me sitting in our conference room listening (zoning out) to everyone discuss which random area or villages we should be clearing next. Too much boredom and too much chai led to this masterpiece:
Written out in scribbly writing in my notebook which when I finally escaped the meeting turned into scribbly writing on my whiteboard. Good luck de-cyphering it. Here's my attempt at an explaination:
There are certain events occuring in the Province which may be happening due to various reasons to include drawdown of US forces, perceived election manipulation, on going operations, and overall crankiness due to hot weather. My notes on the whiteboard are supposed to show the progress of an insurgency (phase I, II, and III) and what attacks are likely to occur in each phase that may indicate a growing insurgency or dying one.
Phase I generally includes simple roadside bombs that do little damage but are intended to intimidate and deny that fundamental desire of freedom of maneuver for friendly forces and those bombs may be either detonated by command wire, some kind of remote detonation device, or detonated by the victim (pressure plate/pressure wire). Some small arms fire attacks may occur but are usually going to be quick and ineffective.
Phase II occurs as the insurgents gather and recruit more members and have more of the population on their side which enables more complex types of attacks but requires more planning and preparation. Small arms fire attacks are going to become more bold, especially if the insurgents feel they will not be actioned on or will only face a few rounds of .50 cal before the patrol they are attacking moves on.
Phase III is basically what US forces faced in many areas of Iraq in 2006-07 to include many neighborhoods of Baghdad and Baqubah. A well prepared enemy who has complete control over the population and has established defensive positions by cutting off roads with berms or emplacing bombs that are in key locations to deny movement into an area.
All those acronyms? Yeah, we speak and write in pretty much a whole other language in the Army.
...in reality the thought came to my mind after 3 cups of chai and 2 1/2 hours of me sitting in our conference room listening (zoning out) to everyone discuss which random area or villages we should be clearing next. Too much boredom and too much chai led to this masterpiece:
Written out in scribbly writing in my notebook which when I finally escaped the meeting turned into scribbly writing on my whiteboard. Good luck de-cyphering it. Here's my attempt at an explaination:There are certain events occuring in the Province which may be happening due to various reasons to include drawdown of US forces, perceived election manipulation, on going operations, and overall crankiness due to hot weather. My notes on the whiteboard are supposed to show the progress of an insurgency (phase I, II, and III) and what attacks are likely to occur in each phase that may indicate a growing insurgency or dying one.
Phase I generally includes simple roadside bombs that do little damage but are intended to intimidate and deny that fundamental desire of freedom of maneuver for friendly forces and those bombs may be either detonated by command wire, some kind of remote detonation device, or detonated by the victim (pressure plate/pressure wire). Some small arms fire attacks may occur but are usually going to be quick and ineffective.
Phase II occurs as the insurgents gather and recruit more members and have more of the population on their side which enables more complex types of attacks but requires more planning and preparation. Small arms fire attacks are going to become more bold, especially if the insurgents feel they will not be actioned on or will only face a few rounds of .50 cal before the patrol they are attacking moves on.
Phase III is basically what US forces faced in many areas of Iraq in 2006-07 to include many neighborhoods of Baghdad and Baqubah. A well prepared enemy who has complete control over the population and has established defensive positions by cutting off roads with berms or emplacing bombs that are in key locations to deny movement into an area.
All those acronyms? Yeah, we speak and write in pretty much a whole other language in the Army.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Maybe I'm just easily amused...
Two articles on Wired jumped out at me this morning and made me giggle.
The first, Jihadist Uses Ke$ha's Tricks To Kiss Osama's Ass, is an amusing article about an extremist wannabe recording a song worshiping Osama Bin Laden using an autotune. The same type of software used by pop stars today to make their music suck slightly less.
I think it was more the picture of a naked Ke$ha in the bathtub that really made me notice. If you don't know who Ke$ha is, she is complete trash, horribly horribly addictive trash.
The second article is great because I have the maturity level of a 15 year old. Fake Saddam gay sex video. As much as I credit the CIA for good initiative, this was probably poor judgement. Attempting to "leak" these vidoes would more than likely backfire painfully. I'm also not sure it would create much of a stir outside the Western press.
The first, Jihadist Uses Ke$ha's Tricks To Kiss Osama's Ass, is an amusing article about an extremist wannabe recording a song worshiping Osama Bin Laden using an autotune. The same type of software used by pop stars today to make their music suck slightly less.
I think it was more the picture of a naked Ke$ha in the bathtub that really made me notice. If you don't know who Ke$ha is, she is complete trash, horribly horribly addictive trash.
The second article is great because I have the maturity level of a 15 year old. Fake Saddam gay sex video. As much as I credit the CIA for good initiative, this was probably poor judgement. Attempting to "leak" these vidoes would more than likely backfire painfully. I'm also not sure it would create much of a stir outside the Western press.
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