A Return To The Mean Streets

It has been quite a while since I went on any real operations outside the FOB. The past 6 weeks have been so filled with intense training of the Iraqi Army recruits that I haven't even had time to go to the green zone to restock medical supplies. The time is drawing nigh my friends. I remember a Sgt Schultz (http://www.iraq-songs.com) telling me that his stay here consisted of 4 months of relative peace, followed by 4 months of intense fighting and bombing. It seems as if that cycle is perpetuating. All things considered, we had relatively little enemy contact our first four months, the past couple of weeks, bombings and ambushes have become much more frequent. The insurgents know they hold a strong hand with their car bombs and hidden explosives. I don't know a soldier here who is scared of a firefight, but isn't petrified of a bomb. I was talking tonight with some of my friends about the upcoming assignment, and we each expressed nearly identical feelings of impending danger. I do think the Iraqi Army will be much more professional than the ING. Although they are effective as a fighting force, the ING are too much like cowboys for continued use. The country needs a professional soldier who is civic minded and posseses a unique desire to aid in the protection of their community and expansion of personal freedoms. The problem is going to lie in convincing their officers that the common soldier deserves to be treated well, because as it is now, the enlisted men get next to nothing, while their officers live the easy life. Even such things as basic sustenence and and hygeine are denied these men.