Category Archives: iraq

January 6, 2016 · 07:00

I Left My Heart in Al Anbar: Memories & Nightmares

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I have been having a lot of Iraq memories lately, and with them nightmares.

I deployed to Iraq in the summer of 2007. My experience of Iraq was far different than most Americans. I served as chaplain to a large number of teams of advisers in American advisors to Iraqi forces in Al Anbar Province. Most were teams working with the Iraqi 7th Division and 2nd Border Brigade, the 1st and 3rd Brigade of the 1st Division, Iraqi Police, Highway Patrol, and various other sundry groups.

During the deployment I travelled thousands of miles hot cramped HUMMVs in tiny convoys and in tightly packed aircraft with my assistant and bodyguard RP1 Nelson Lebron. The teams consisted of 12-30 Americans who were embedded with the Iraqis in far flung locations between the Syrian border at Al Waleed, Al Qaim and various small outposts along the border, back to Fallujah and almost everywhere in between, including a lot of trips to bases in Ramadi. There were times that the convoys or helicopters that we traveled on took enemy fire, and there were other times that we were in places where we were in meetings with groups of Iraqis where we didn’t know the good guys from the bad guys, and of course I was the only person not armed.

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Crossing the Bridge on way to Camp Blue Diamond and the Snake Pit

For those unaware of geography Anbar Province is about the same size in area as the State of North Carolina. The Euphrates River runs through it, a shimmering blue swath bordered by a narrow green valley that cuts through an endless sea of yellow brown sand speckled with small towns and a few larger sized cities. The Provincial Capital, Ramadi is in the east central part of the province about 65 miles west of Baghdad. It was a city of about 440,000 people at the time of the US invasion.

In 2007 Ramadi and Al Anbar Province was the turning point for the United States in the Iraq War. The Sunni tribes of the province decided that their interests were better served by cooperating with the United States Forces rather than continue to endure the terrorism of foreign Al Qaida members. When the region fell to DAESH I was heartbroken, for I had gotten to know too many Iraqis, military, police, and civilians in the region. I had broken bread with them, been asked to pray for them, to bless their vehicles on missions.

As I said, I have been thinking a lot about Iraq lately with the retaking of Ramadi, and I am surprised by how strong the memories those memories still are. I have not slept well and have had plenty of strange dreams and nightmares, many which include surreal Iraq memories mixed in with others. PTSD is something that keeps on giving.

Mission Prep

I remember one of my experiences at a small base on the banks of the Euphrates in Ramadi. At least part of it was known as Snake Pit. The base was north of the Euphrates and included a Joint Security Operations Center run by the US Army, a Police training facility, Iraqi Military and Police forces, Marine advisers working with the Iraqi Army 7th Division, and an Iraqi Detention Facility. The base was surrounded by Hesco Barriers and walls, and immediately adjacent to a number of high-speed avenues of approach. It was an easy target for any attacker. In fact the area was overrun by DAESH and only recently retaken by Iraqi forces.

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Me with RP1 Nelson Lebron on a Flight

When I visited the base Iraqi forces were in charge of the perimeter security while a small number of Americans worked at three isolated areas within it. For me strongest memories of that visit were of walking through the prison as well as getting to address the first class of female Iraqi Police cadets in Anbar.

The memories of that visit are still etched deep in my mind. When I close my eyes I can see the inside of that prison. I have been to prisons and jails in this county, but that was a wake up call, the prisoners were hard-core jihadists and the conditions were to put it mildly were harsh. But then, the nowhere in the Middle East are prisons anything near as civilized as they are here.

Neither will I forget the faces of those brave Iraqi women who risked their lives and those of their families to become Police officers in war torn Ramadi. Those women were eager to serve their people and their country and the memories of how they received me are still so strong. I wonder how many are still alive.

For most people the Iraq war is not even a memory. Most Americans are untouched by war and cannot imagine what either our troops or the Iraqi people went through and it is hard to explain.

I will stop for now but to paraphrase Tony Bennett’s immortal song I Left my Heart in San Francisco, I left my at least part of my heart in Al Anbar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBsZEZrcOo

Peace

Padre Steve+

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January 2, 2016 · 07:00

Ramadi: Liberation and Destruction

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

A few days ago the Iraqi military recaptured the city of Ramadi from the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or DAESH. When DAESH captured Ramadi last May it struck me very hard, I cried for the people of Ramadi as I knew that they were going to suffer terribly both from DAESH as well as in the campaign of the Iraqi military to retake the city.

Some Americans, even other military members do not understand this, but for me Ramadi is more than an Iraqi city, but a place that I have a great deal of feeling. I spent a significant amount of time in and around Ramadi, as well as the distant reaches of Al Anbar Province. I care deeply about the people of Iraq, and I grieve because the horror that they are now experiencing is mostly due to the actions of the Bush administration; first for launching a war that met no standard of the being a just war, a war that was condemned as unjust by Pope John Paul II, and a war that many of our closest allies refused to support. Then there was the totally bungled occupation policy which destroyed the country and brought about a massive insurgency and civil war. The results of that war have been devastating, for Iraq, Syria, the Middle East, and yes even for the United States.

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In fact the aftermath of that 2003 invasion opened a Pandora’s Box of chaos, and opened the door to what T.E. Lawrence warned about in 1919: “A Wahhabi-like Moslem edition of Bolshevism is possible, and would harm us almost as much in Mesopotamia as in Persia…” DAESH is exactly that, a fulfillment of Lawrence’s warning.

Whenever I read about Iraq I am reminded of how much of my life has been intertwined with that country and people. As I have said on more than one occasion I left my heart in Al Anbar. Back in 2007 and 2008 things were different there. Sunni’s and Shia were at least in the Iraqi military working with Sunni tribesman cooperated with American forces to destroy or drive out the forces of Al Qaida Iraq. I was meeting regularly with Iraqis who are some of the most hospitable people you would ever want to know. I remember meeting with the women who were going to become the first female Iraqi police officers in Ramadi.

Of all those people I wonder how many are still alive, how many have been driven out of their homes, lands, or have suffered the loss of family, friends, and their livelihoods. I grieve for what is happening to them and their once proud country. The towns, cities and bases that I served at have almost all been taken over by DAESH, or have been scenes of terrible fighting. Fallujah, Ta’quadum, Habbinyah, Ramadi, Hit, Haditha, Al Rutba, Rawah, Al Qaim, Al Waleed, Al Turbial, Baghdadi, and so many others devastated by invasion, insurgency, civil war, and the battle against DAESH.

When I left Iraq in 2008 I had hopes that the country might survive, as did many of the Iraqis that I met. I hoped one day to go back and travel to the places that I served, and maybe had the opportunity to see the gracious people that I love again. Maybe in 15 or 20 years there might, God willing be an opportunity. I hope and pray that those I know who were so good to me are safe. Until then I can only pray and hope that for them things will one day be better.

When I think of the Iraq war and its costs I am reminded of the words of Major General Smedley Butler in his book War is a Racket: “What is the cost of war?…this bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all of its attendant miseries. Back -breaking taxation for generations and generations. For a great many years as a soldier I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not only until I retired to civilian life did I fully realize it….”

For the Iraqis, the Syrians, Americans, and so many others, the cost will be with us for at least a generation. But I do always hope and pray that things will be better.

Inshallah (إن شاء الله)

Padre

Padre Steve+

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October 12, 2015 · 07:00

Have You Ever Been a Leaf? Memories of Iraq

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Just a sort note on this Columbus Day…

I was taken back to Iraq this weekend when the author of a book that will be published next year sent me next year sent me the excerpt of a section that he included on me. It was very well done, something that even Judy agreed. That being said it was so well done that I was immersed in thinking about my time in Iraq in 2007 and 2008, and my sleep was interrupted by dreams of those times. In fact it felt like I was back there, in a place that I knew so well…

I think that my thoughts and memories were also jogged by re-reading Michael Korda’s biography of T.E. Lawrence, (Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia) and the current battles occurring in Iraq and Syria.

It seems that no matter how far I get from Iraq that a part of me will always be there, and I think that a fair amount of me will be in that land. If I was 20 or 30 years younger and not married I might even go back, because of how connected I still feel to Al Anbar Province and the tribes who live there.

My experience in Iraq was different than many, if not most Americans who have served there or in Afghanistan. I knew something of the history and culture of that land before I went there, and had a respect for the Arabs that most Americans do not have. I was greeted with hospitality, and had the opportunity to spend time with Sunni and Shia Moslem, as well as Christian Iraqi Arabs. I will never forget those times, meetings that occurred during missions where at times the troops that I was with took fire from insurgents.

I left Iraq in 2008 with hopes, hopes fueled by my visits with Iraqis who believed that the country had reached a point where things would continue to get better. However, that was not to be, the corruption of the Shia led Iraqi government and its disenfranchisement of the Sunni and Kurdish minorities opened the door to the so-called Islamic State, something that is neither Islamic, nor a state.

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I grieve for my Iraqi friends, and pray that those who I know have survived the chaos in the region. Like Lawrence, who left the Middle East disappointed and dejected by the outcome of the war and by the actions of governments, I have felt the same way about successive American administrations and those of the Iraqi government. That disappointment often leaves me bewildered and discouraged, and I sometimes feel like Lawrence when he penned this note to one of his friends in 1935:

“You wonder what I am doing? Well, so do I, in truth. Days seem to dawn, suns to shine, evenings to follow, and then I sleep. What I have done, what I am doing, what I am going to do, puzzle and bewilder me. Have you ever been a leaf and fallen from your tree in autumn and been really puzzled about it? That’s the feeling.”

Anyway, I do hope that somehow that things will get better, for my Arab friends as well as those of us who served there.

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

P.S. When the book that includes some of my story comes out I will let folks know.

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September 12, 2015 · 07:00

You Can’t go Back: The Aftermath of 9-11-2001

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World

I wrote a reflection yesterday on some of my reflections on the 9-11-2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, today a continuation of those thoughts.

I can still remember the day like it was yesterday. I was getting out of my office at Camp LeJeune after an early morning counseling case and some administrative duties I was getting ready to head to the French Creek gym.  I was about to close out my browser when I saw a little note on the Yahoo.com homepage: “Airplane crashes into World Trade Center.” It was about 0900 that tragic morning.  I thought to myself, “Some dumb ass just crashed his Cessna into the building.

The day was clear and absolutely gorgeous, a slight north wind and low humidity, a well-deserved break from what had been a hot and humid summer.  Not that I had seen much of the Carolina summer having returned from a deployment to Okinawa, Mainland Japan and Korea in late July. When I got to my car the local talk radio station was broadcasting a second or third tier national talk radio host and he was screaming “oh my God another plane just flew into the towers!”

I drove over to the gym where I joined a large crowd of Marines and Sailors transfixed as we watched the towers burn.  I went back to my office showered and went over to my battalion headquarters and was there when the South Tower went down at 0959.

Since then a lot has changed.  I have made two deployments and traveled to the Middle East many more times.  I came back from my deployment to Iraq with a serious case of PTSD and a health distrust of the media, politicians, preachers and especially the talk radio hosts that I used to listen to as often as I could.  I remember being in Iraq in between missions to the far reaches of Al Anbar Province and watching the news on the televisions at the dining facility and wondering just what war that they were covering.

Before Iraq I could be considered a pretty solid “conservative” but eight years after going to war I am decidedly liberal.  However, despite many allegedly conservative  talk pundits, politicians  and right wing preachers say just because a person is “liberal” does not mean that they are unpatriotic or do not care about our country or freedom.  After serving in Iraq and seeing how certain people have equated patriotism with adherence to their political agenda I wholeheartedly believe that a person’s patriotism has nothing to do with their politics or their religious beliefs.

Before Iraq I was jaded by what happened to my dad’s generation after Vietnam when liberals called returning Veterans “baby killers” or “Nazis.”  In fact I had a Sunday school teacher tell me that my dad was a “baby killer” in 1972 and in 1981 had some ass at UCLA call me a “ROTC Nazi.”  As a result I had little love for the Left.  After September 11th I followed the “conservative” talk radio crowd and Fox News more than I had ever before.  The emotions that they stirred up were primal.  But experience and reflection caused me to get beyond the pain of my past and the emotion of the present.  Just as I detest those that characterized my dad’s service or my service as being criminal I also detest those that say one cannot be critical of those that advocate for war regardless of the human and economic cost or actual strategic benefit.

I rejoiced when our SEALS killed Osama Bin Laden and every Al Qaeda leader that we have ushered into the arms of Allah.  They have caused unmitigated suffering around the world, not just to us but to their own Islamic neighbors and deserve no pity and since they refuse to give quarter should be shown none. I feel the same way about ISIS and ISIL who are killing the Iraqis that I served alongside and their families, and if that sounds harsh I can’t help it. The attacks of 9-11 and the wars that have followed are all too personal.

At the same time I question the strategic purpose and value of the campaign in we conducted in Iraq which seems to me has opened the gates of hell. I still think that the words that T.E. Lawrence wrote in 1920 about the British in Iraq are as applicable today as when he penned them; only the empires are different:

“The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Bagdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are to-day not far from a disaster.”

The British who Lawrence wrote about, gave their people reasons for going into Mesopotamia which were similar to those of the Bush administration over 80 years later. They cloaked their intentions in the words of liberation and protection, the British from the Turks, and the Americans from Saddam. Lawrence noted in words that are hauntingly familiar to those that paid attention to the American war in Iraq:

“Yet our published policy has not changed, and does not need changing. It is that there has been a deplorable contrast between our profession and our practice. We said we went to Mesopotamia to defeat Turkey. We said we stayed to deliver the Arabs from the oppression of the Turkish Government, and to make available for the world its resources of corn and oil. We spent nearly a million men and nearly a thousand million of money to these ends. This year we are spending ninety-two thousand men and fifty millions of money on the same objects.”

At the fourteen year mark I grieve for those that have lost their lives as well as loved ones in the attacks or in the wars that have followed.  On September 11th 2001 2977 people were killed at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or on United Flight 93 which went down in Pennsylvania.  One of those killed at the Pentagon was Lieutenant Colonel Karen Wagner who I had served with at the Academy of Health Sciences Brigade in 1987-1988.

Since then 4492 American military personnel have given their lives in Iraq and 2363 in Afghanistan.  NATO or coalition allies, excluding the Iraqi and Afghani military or police forces have lost another 1270 military personnel. Another 45,170 Americans have been wounded.  I know a decent number of those wounded and some of those that have died.  The losses are intensely personal and to think that we have lost well over twice the number killed on September 11th 2001 in two wars; many of whom were children aged 8-12 years old on that tragic September day. Of course the numbers do not count those that died by their own hand after they returned from the war, a number that grows daily. I have known too many of them as well, heroes who could not make the adjustment coming home. Likewise I cannot forget the devastation that I saw in Iraq, the deaths of so many, some estimates of over a million civilian casualties, not county what has happening during the current ISIS/ISIL era.

I have been changed by that tragic event. I still shudder when I see the video of United Air Lines Flight 175 crashing into the South Tower or see the videos of the towers crashing down.  They are hard to watch and while I will observe the anniversary with prayers and a lot of reflection as I do not know how much of the continuous media coverage of the anniversary that I will be able to watch.

The events of that tragic day changed me, and changed countless numbers of other Americans as well as others around the world.  While we yearn to return to the day’s before9-11-2001 that is impossible, there is too much water and too much blood that has passed under the bridge.   I know I can’t go back, but I wish that I could, so as I have for the last fourteen years I will continue to learn to live with it.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 25, 2015 · 00:41

They Shall Not Have Died in Vain: Memorial Day 2015

Remembrance_Day___Poppy_Day_by_daliscar

In Flanders Fields

John McCrae, 1915.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

There is a poignant scene in the film The Longest Day in which Richard Burton, playing the wounded British Royal Air Force Flying Officer David Campbell looks at the body of a dead German soldier and says to an American paratrooper who is lost from his unit: 

“It’s funny isn’t it. He’s dead, I’m crippled, you’re lost. Suppose it’s always like that. I mean war.” 

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Back when the movie was filmed in the early 1960s there were still many World War II veterans around and the United States and most Western European nations still had some form of draft or conscription which ensured that most people still had some connection with the military. It’s not like that now. In the United States far these than 1% of the population is serving in the military, and this includes the National Guard and reserves. The numbers are similar throughout Western Europe. Those who have served in combat or even deployed to combat theaters are far fewer. As a result the people of the United States and Western Europe as a whole are so disconnected from military service, not to mention the terrible human cost that is war. As William Tecumseh Sherman said: War is Hell. 

I came back a different man from Iraq. It seems that for me with every passing year Memorial Day becomes more of a melancholy observance. It is a weekend and observance that I feel deeply having lost friends in war and served in Iraq as well as Operation Enduring Freedom. It is also a day in which I feel more and more disconnected from the vast majority of my fellow Americans. I don’t know, but just from my observation it seems that for most Americans the weekend serves as not much more than the end of the school year and the beginning of the summer holiday and vacation season.

Now I could be wrong, but it seems to me that for most Americans, the vast majority who have themselves never served a day in uniform and who have no more than a passing relationship with anyone who is either serving in our current wars or has served in any war, that war is at best a spectator sport.

This is an attitude that has been nurtured by our politicians of all parties, political pundits and preachers for decades. As a result there is a grave disconnect between the society at large and the men and women who serve in the military and in our wars.

To be fair I don’t think it is a matter of ordinary people not caring, not that at all. Many do and I am thankful to them. That being said there are many who though they say they support the troops find war to be some sort of sporting event where we send our heroes out to do battle against the enemies of freedom, while making no sacrifices themselves and even call military health care, retirement benefits and disability pensions “entitlement programs” which need to be reigned in. Yes, that is right. Send the volunteers to war and then abandon them. Sadly, with the exception of the end of World War Two, this is always how this nation has treated its veterans and their families.

The real fact of the matter is that the wars that we have fought since World War II have not been national affairs. If they were we would not be continually fighting wars that most people neither understand and which in many if not most cases we would be better off staying out of completely. That being said I am appreciative of those who do things to care for and honor our veterans, honor our fallen and do practical things for the survivors. There are some really wonderful people, many who have never served who do what they can for those who fight and die in or come back forever changed from these misbegotten and unpopular wars.

At the same time there are a lot of what I call War Porn addicts, especially the pundits, politicians and preachers who cannot get enough of war. As a Christian I hate to say that many of the worst of the war porn addicts are the supposedly Christian pundits, politicians and preachers who cannot seem to find enough new wars to get us involved in even as we struggle to deal with what is on our plate already. If you ask me these sons-of-bitches are traitors who do not love the troops, do not love this country and should be forced into the front line so they can see, smell and taste death.

What I find the most offensive are the war mongers and profiteers who have never served. I feel this way about those who did all that they could to avoid serving in the military and those who did the very minimum to satisfy outward appearances of service while avoiding anything difficult, especially deployment to combat zones. Of the latter I can think of five to six currently serving and very outspoken conservative members of the House of Representatives and the Senate that fit the description. I shan’t mention the members of the previous Presidential administration who through their outright lies caused the deaths of nearly 4500 American military personnel in Iraq. I speak about men who in their writings, their appearances on news networks and their think tanks and corporations that do nothing but profit off of war. Some are current or former politicians, others supposedly “academics” and others men who smell a profit in war. 

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I find such people to be loathsome and wonder how on Memorial Day weekend they can show their faces. But then they are rather shameless. Sometimes their actions make me wonder if the sacrifices made by those who serve are in vain. However, I strive to resist that and pray that our sacrifices will not be in vain. While they profit from war others pay the bill and it has always been this way. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, a two time winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor wrote after World War One in his book War is a Racket:

“This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all of its attendant miseries. Back -breaking taxation for generations and generations. For a great many years as a soldier I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not only until I retired to civilian life did I fully realize it….”

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Maybe I feel this way because I grew up in a military family where my dad was frequently deployed and served in Vietnam, a place where some of my friends fathers died, and because I have been in the military 32 years between the Army and the Navy. Maybe it is partly because I am a military historian, theologian, priest and chaplain who has seen the horrors of war and the wounds that remain for life in the bodies, minds and spirits of those that fight in them. I cannot speak of how my heart feels when I see young men and women, wounded in war, their lives forever changed bravely struggling to go on even as the war mongers, war profiteers and chicken-hawks profit off of their suffering. As I said before, these people are traitors and if I had my way we would drive them at bayonet point into the arms of the Islamic State so they can taste what war is all about. Maybe then these sons-of-bitches would think twice before sending another young American to die so they might make a profit.

So for me this is a rather melancholy time. A time where I struggle a time when I get so angry. That being said I also echo the words of Civil War Veteran and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who spoke these words in 1895:

“even if those who come after us are to forget all that we hold dear, and the future is to teach and kindle its children in ways as yet unrevealed, it is enough for us that this day is dear and sacred…. nevertheless, the generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience. Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, and do not pretend to undervalue the worldly rewards of ambition, we have seen with our own eyes, beyond and above the gold fields, the snowy heights of honor, and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us.”

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I honor the fallen, my brothers and sisters who have given the last full measure of devotion in serving this country, those that I know personally or have served with and those who did so before I was every born. Why you might ask? 

The reason is simple and I think that Abraham Lincoln said it best as he closed his Gettysburg Address:

“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 18, 2015 · 20:31

Tears for Ramadi

  

“We had been hopelessly labouring to plough waste lands; to make nationality grow in a place full of he certainty of God…among the tribes our creed could be only like the desert grass – a beautiful swift seeming of spring, which, after a day’s heat, fell dusty.” T.E. Lawrence 

Tonight I write about Ramadi, a place where I spent some of the best worst days of my life. A place where like T.E. Lawrence I gave of myself to help the Arabs, in my case the Iraqi tribes, in his those of the Arabian Peninsula. 

  
My life was changed forever in Iraq and in my time there I came to appreciate the Iraqis that I met. 

I am not writing tonight to talk a bunch of military-political analysis, God knows that I do enough of that as it is. As my own life settles down I probably will do this, but with just a couple of observations will avoid that tonight. It will suffice to say that Ramadi, the capital of Al Anbar Province fell to the Islamic State over the weekend. The city has been besieged for months by ISIL forces and fell to them, surviving military and police units fled the onslaught accompanied by thousands of residents. The Iraqi Governmnet claims that it will retake Ramadi and the local Sunni government officials are now reluctantly supporting the introduction of the Iranian backed Shia militias which recently recaptured Tikrit. The significance of this cannot be overstated, the people of Ramadi are caught between the Sunni fanatics of ISIL and the the Shia dominated central government in Bahgdad who they neither love or trust and with good reason. 

  
I have no doubt that eventually the Iraq government supported by the Shia militias will re-take Ramadi for the city is far too important to be allowed to remain until ISIL control. But it will not happen overnight and the battle will be fought to the death between the radical Sunni and the radical Shia whose bloodlust and hatred of each other will create an even more catastrophic situation for those who cannot escape the city or who have been forced into refugee camps or into the open desert. 

  
When I think of the appalling decision of the Bush administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein, his Ba’ath Party and military, which is the major reason this is now happening I get very angry. I think of the thousands of American Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen, as well as those of our coalition allies and the Iraqis who lost everything by supporting us and I weep. I still see the carnage, devastation inflicted by us on Iraq, as well as that done by the Al Qaida Iraq insurgents and the suffering of the people of Anbar whenever I close my eyes and try to sleep. 

  
We did hope for better days, especially after the Anbar Sunnis rose up against AQI and helped us drive them out. However, that hope was like the desert grass, squandered by the inept, corrupt and insanely treacherous Maliki regime which as soon as it could turned on the Anbar Sunni in 2010 and 2011 and planted the seeds of another, even more viscious insurgency. 

  
Iraq is now ground zero in the war being waged between Sunni and Shia Islam, a war which will devastate the Middle East much as the Thirty Years War waged by warring factions of Catholic and Protestant Christians did to Europe. Like that war it is a war which will go on until the borders are sealed by the blood of hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of Arabs, sadly including the best and brightest of this and maybe the next generation, the very people who like men like me dreamed dreams. 

 

Today the places that were often my home away from home, places that we Americans new as Ramadi Main, Blue Diamond, the Shark’s Tooth, and so many others are under ISIL control. Places like Hit, Haditha, Ar Rutbah. Al Qaim, Waleed, Korean Village, Fallujah, Habbinyah are either under the control of ISIL or besieged. I travelled thousands of miles across Anbar working with our advisors and Iraqis, it is so much a part of me, and so tonight my heart breaks for the people of Ramadi and Al Anbar. 
  
Peace,

Padre Steve+

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May 5, 2015 · 00:37

Bitter Feelings I wish Never to Experience Again: Tuesday Musings

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World

It is funny how a single event, or a number of seemingly unrelated events can change all the plans for a week of writing. Tonight I am struggling with my own feelings as I try to make sense out of my own experiences as well as the events of the day. I am still awake and writing because of how upset I am about a number of things that really  on the surface shouldn’t be so upsetting but wound me deeply. 

This weekend I will be leading a group of my students to Gettysburg and I have been working on my Gettysburg text as well as revisions to that text. My plan is to place a number of the short biographic articles on a number of leaders in that battle who I find particularly interesting and not just for what they did in the battle. I find complex and contradictory people fascinating. Likewise I will be posting an article about the classic action of the first day of the battle between the Union cavalry under Brigadier General John Buford, a fascinating man in his own right and Confederate general Harry Heth who led the Confederate army into the a battle that would help turn the tide of the war.

Of course I am cognizant of the the fact that events can change my plans as far as what I intend to write and tend to plan accordingly. But sometimes such events actually give me a chance to reflect and actually cause me to think about the significance of those events. Since I do a lot of that the attack in Garland that I wrote about yesterday has triggered some more of those thoughts.

When I wrote yesterday’s article I began thinking about some of the things that I wrote in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris as well as other terrorist attacks, those of Moslems as well as those who attack and hate Moslems. Some critics might think I am being “politically correct” but truth is truth and terrorism no matter what the ideology or religion of those who kill innocents is evil. So I think I will probably re-package one or more of those articles because of the attack in Garland because when I went back and re-read the series I saw that so much of what I wrote then was still pertinent today, and because of the seriousness of what is going on probably need more attention.

I will also be writing something about the Battle of Dien Bien Phu which sealed the fate of French colonialism in Indochina. That battle was concluded sixty-one years ago this week. Having been a participant in the Iraq war, a war which like Indochina was a disaster for the colonial power and a war in which the soldiers who sacrificed so much were so rapidly forgotten by the nation even as they were thrown into other hopeless wars.

I have been reading a book on the experiences of the Union soldiers when they returned home from the Civil War and that book has stirred up a lot of my emotions concerning my return from Iraq and what I have experienced over the past six years.

Sadly I have a hard time containing my bitterness about my sacrifices and the insults I have endured even from the incredibly irrational and insensitive military bureaucracy and even my own Chaplain Corps. Some of that I was reminded of today in dealing with a bureaucracy that ensures that you are caught in a permanent state of “catch-twenty-two” when simply trying to get the appropriate credit for what you have done. I ran into that today in regard to an administrative catch-twenty-two regarding my Joint Qualification credit and I am so angry that I can scarcely contain myself. Sadly, that is just one more reason that I will be glad to retire in 2017. 

The past week I have had terrible nightmares, some dealing with those issues and I can fully understand the words of Union General Gouverneur Warren who wrote his wife after the war:

“I wish I did not dream so much. They make me sometimes to dread to go to sleep. Scenes from the war, are so constantly recalled, with bitter feelings I wish never to experience again. Lies, vanity, treachery, and carnage.”

I fully understand how Warren felt, because he was not only a victim of the war but of Army bureaucracy. In Warren I have found someone that I can completely understand and relate to in what he had to deal with during and after the war.

People ask me sometimes why I will remove my name from consideration for promotion to Captain in the Navy Chaplain Corps and retire instead of remaining on active duty and possibly make Captain. This my friends something that many men and women would consider the pinnacle of accomplishment, and which a number of senior chaplains tell me I would be very competitive. In fact even two years ago I would have almost sold my soul to be promoted to that rank. But I know that don’t need to sacrifice any more of my life for a promotion that I no longer want. 

Maybe I’m a bit bitter, not terribly, but enough to make me realize that I don’t want to deal with the bullshit that I would have to deal with at a higher rank as I now realize that I am rank enough in my own right. Frankly, somehow I need to let go of the bitterness and disappointment that I have, but I realize that I may never fully let it go. Not because I do not want to, but because whenever I turn around there is yet another reminder which twists the knife in my belly that the bureaucrats in the service do not give a damn about me, or for that matter anyone else. 

But I am now rambling and I should stop writing for the night before I get myself in trouble by being too honest by naming names. 

Until the next time, pray for me a sinner.

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

 

 

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April 19, 2015 · 14:40

A Question for Tom Cotton and Other War Mongers

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I have been at my denominational Chaplain and Pastoral Counselor conference and we were talking about the concept of Moral Injury.  Sadly the concept while real is so misunderstood. Many in the Christian psychotherapy and pastoral counseling world have reduced the concept to what the soldier did on a battlefield that causes him problems and which he must confess to God to be forgiven. But the bigger issue in moral injury is not that, it is the betrayal of trust by the nation of those that they send to war for the most spurious and often illegal and immoral reasons.

Most people who join the military are idealistic and have a trust of their government, their leaders, their military services and even their churches and God that is a major part of their life. Sadly, that trust is betrayed when the nation sends them into wars which are illegal, immoral and place them in situations where they do or see things that break that trust often forever. This happened to many of our Vietnam vets and is happening again to those of us who served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Sadly, most Americans, about 99% have no skin in this game. The young men and women who go to war represent far less than one percent of the American population. Many ethnic minorities and come from either the middle class or the poor. Likewise, a growing percentage are men and women who grew up as military brats. I’m one of those, but I see a lot more now. In World War II even the political and economic elites sent their sons to war, but this is not the case today. In fact it is hard to name the children of any national political or corporate leaders who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. The only one that comes to mind to me is Vice President Joe Biden’s son Beau, who served in Iraq.

But even as we still struggle to deal with the results of the Iraq blunder, there are those who foolishly desire to involve this nation in another war. A war which can have no good outcome and which when push comes to shove few will oppose, because other than the incredibly small minority that serve in the military, no one has any skin in the game.

Senator Tom Cotton, a former Army Lieutenant and Iraq veteran, with about as much sense as Doug Neidermeyer from Animal House is beating the drums of war with Iran saying that any military action against Iran would be short and easy. Senator Cotton-Neidermeyer say that it would require just a few days of bombing to complete the mission of crippling Iran’s nuclear program.

Of course he is not alone there is a rising chorus of war mongers who want yet to wage another preemptive war. This would be a war that baring a direct attack of Iran on the United States or an ally that we are bound by treaty to defend would be illegal under every international convention. It would be comparable to the actions of Nazi Germany in its wars of aggression that we sent Nazi leaders to the gallows at Nuremberg.

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert Jackson who served as the American prosecutor and worked with our allies to set up the Nuremberg proceedings made this comment which always should be for most in the mind of any American leader when considering going to war: “If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.” Justice Robert Jackson International Conference on Military Trials, London, 1945, Dept. of State Pub.No. 3080 (1949), p.330.

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If Senator Cotton-Neidermeyer gets his war, baring an Iranian attack on us or one of our allies it be illegal an tantamount to what we put the leaders of the Third Reich on trial for.  Likewise, it would be like the one waged against Iraq one waged under false pretenses which cost so many lives, bled the nation’s treasury dry and reduced our trust and standing in the world.  

We sowed the wind in Iraq, and with climatic struggle between the Islamic State and the Iraqi Shia, supported by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, are reaping the whirlwind. 

Senator Cotton seems not to get the fact that in any war the enemy gets a vote, and the Iranians, even if we manage to cripple their nuclear program will certainly exact a price in blood and treasure that Lieutenant Cotton-Neidermeyer does not seem to understand or appreciate. U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf will have to right off salvos of anti-ship missiles, swarm attacks by Iranian missile and torpedo boats as well as air attacks and submarines. No matter how well we do in defending against these attacks it is undoubtable that ships will be damaged or even sunk and many, maybe even hundreds or thousands of sailors killed, something not seen since World War Two. Likewise the U.S. installations in Bahrain and Qatar will be bombarded with hundreds of short and medium ranged missiles many which will get through our missile defense systems.

When the bodies of our dead military personnel come back, will Senator Cotton be there to meet them? I doubt it because for him, they are just the cost of war. Will he and his allies increase support for the bereaved families, or the wounded? I doubt it, because all of them are bent of cutting the benefits to the wounded, the broken and those shattered by war, because such expenditures get in the way of lining the pockets of their benefactors.

Yes, they will beat their chests and talk about “our heroes” and castigate as traitors those who opposed the war that they brought about in order to cover their guilt.

While we would eventually prevail in such an exchange it would be disastrous and further weaken our military as well as our standing in the world. But then there is the moral question, especially for those who like Senator Cotton and so many of the others who advocate an illegal, immoral preemptive war of aggression who claim to be Christians need to ask.

That question was asked by the iconic hero of the American Civil War Joshua Chamberlain on the front lines at Petersburg in the closing days of that war: “…men made in the image of God, marred by the hand of man, and must we say in the name of God? And where is the reckoning for such things? And who is answerable? One might almost shrink from the sound of his own voice, which had launched into the palpitating air words of order–do we call it?–fraught with such ruin. Was it God’s command that we heard, or His forgiveness that we must forever implore?” 

That my friends is what Senator Cotton and others of those who advocate yet another war of aggression need to answer.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under afghanistan, ethics, faith, Foreign Policy, History, iraq, leadership, Military, national security, PTSD

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