Mike Yon; Achievements of the Human Heart

[xoxoxoBruce]

Four months ago, Mike Yon wrote about the efforts of the 1-4 CAV, from Kansas, to transform an abandoned seminary into an outpost in a Baghdad neighborhood that had been all but deserted after more than a year of sectarian violence.

Here is a report on their success.

1-4 CAV Update #7

September 07
Family and Friends of 1-4 CAV,

War is a very personal endeavor. We find ourselves here involved in close friendships with one another as well as with the many Iraqis we interact with every day on the streets. We are also very close to our interpreters who share every danger with us. We are all intertwined and nothing happens to one group without it affecting the other.

Recently, I found myself in the 28th Combat Support Hospital emergency room where one of our most loyal interpreters was being treated after being injured in an attack. While his prognosis was excellent, he was very shaken. As he lay on a gurney with his head wrapped and an oxygen mask on his face, he saw me approach and immediately grabbed my arm and began to ask me about each soldier in the truck. He referred to them all as his “brothers” and he meant it. Not knowing his own condition he told me he loved Americans and America. He made me promise that I would take his heart to America if he died. He was going to be fine (he left the hospital the next day) but I could not convince him, so I promised.
~snip~
While conditions in our area of responsibility are vastly improved from about four months ago, it remains a dangerous place. Since my last update, we have lost three of our best.
~snip~
We are not fighting a faceless enemy here, however. We have detained at least 120 criminals and insurgents in just the past few months to include those directly linked to the attacks on our soldiers. While most detainees end up in a holding facility run by the Army in Baghdad, a very small percentage are prosecuted in the Iraqi Criminal Court System. To date, we have had one prosecuted in this manner and two more selected for such prosecution. This is a big deal because someone found guilty in the Iraqi System can go to prison for 10-30 years as opposed to 1-5 years under our detention.

The personal relationships built by the Troopers of 1-4 CAV with individuals on the streets here is the key. Like any good relationship, we care for the people in our area without condition. We are there every hour of every day and do our best to change the conditions on the ground that allow an insurgency to flourish. We will never detain or kill them all so we work to create an environment where they cannot survive.

One other example, recently we had seven IEDs discovered or detonated in a single seven day span. On every one, we got a phone call from a local national telling us exactly where it was or we were called immediately after and told who emplaced it. For the record, not one IED was effective.

C Troop even caught one emplacer who videotaped his buddies setting in the IED and then blowing it (no one was injured!). Thinking quickly, the 1st Platoon maneuvered through some side streets and the perpetrator literally ran right into them with the video on a thumb drive in his pocket! Perhaps one of the tightest cases ever!

While the situation is always fragile, we have the initiative and the enemy here spends much more time reacting to us than we do to him. He can hide from us but he cannot hide from his neighbor.

Once abandoned streets are now filled with families and budding entrepreneurs who continue to open new small businesses every week. We have made available grants for small businesses in our area and they have become immensely popular as you can imagine. I cannot walk the streets without children asking me for a soccer ball and “chocolate” (meaning any kind of candy) and adults asking for a micro grant application or for the status of the one they already filled out. They use these grants to open new businesses or improve their existing one and it is working well.

Our area now has a men’s fashion store, fish markets, pharmacies, bakeries, and even two new gyms. We recently helped refurbish a once neglected clinic into a first class location for health care. They have a small lab, dentists, a sonogram machine, x-ray machine, and other new equipment. Our medical platoon recently spent several hours with local doctors and nurses treating patients for every day aches and pains with donated medical supplies from a humanitarian organization. I even watched our physician’s assistant pull a watermelon seed out of a young girl’s ear (sound familiar to any one?).

We also recently completed work on a soccer field that is used nightly by the young people here. Much to our surprise, on the opening night, each team had “1-4 CAV” printed on the back of their soccer jerseys. It is not uncommon for us to see guys with these jerseys on walking down the street. A second soccer field will open shortly.

Next we are working to repair transformer and powerline issues, open a private doctor’s office, and recruit locals to serve in the Iraqi Police. There is always plenty to do.
~snip~
PREPARED AND LOYAL!
DUTY FIRST!

LTC Jim Crider

This is first class progress, and I suggest you read all the links, for a true picture of whats happening "on the ground".