September 2004
Karl Zinsmeister
American Enterprise Institute
We seem to be inundated with information about the war, but a side that is much less covered and understood is the stories of the soldiers. Who are they? What are they doing, and from where did they come? What motivates them and how are they doing it?
As a “backpack style” reporter, embedded in Iraq for three months I have a view different than most reporters. Everywhere the soldiers went, I went. For every newsworthy event there were hours of downtime spent reaching out to communities and families. Soldiers, today, have a diverse set of responsibilities that exceeds blowing things up and operating machine guns. They work inside the communities where they are stationed. People are going about their daily lives while all around them a style of urban guerilla warfare is being fought that has never been fought in military history; and that is one of simultaneous destruction and rebuilding. Soldiers are not only fighting a military war but also a psychological war. They have been charged with the task of befriending local citizens and trying not to turn them off from the war or the presence of the soldiers while remaining cautious and aware of their circumstance and objectives. An example of this: a soldier heard that a school did not have paper supplies. He made some calls and put together a care package to take over and while en route he was ambushed and killed.
In Fallujah, an extremely hostile area in Iraq, soldiers went in to secure a section of the city so the counsel could meet to vote on a counsel president. This was the first ever democratic vote in the country. Immediately following the conclusion of the election, as we had piled in our Humvees, a bomb went off about two cars ahead of me, and I thought to myself, “Boy, those guys spent three or four hours securing this site, risking their lives walking around in a tight, jammed city without physical protection so the Fallujians could watch their first democracy, and this is how they get rewarded!”
But you have to remind yourself immediately after something like this happens that the people inside the counsel and the people who are hostile are not the same people. There is a very distinctive middle consisting of people who are not militant; but do want to move forward and live a modern life.
On Friday nights there would be holy gatherings in the mosques, and the soldiers would go and listen to gain insight into the culture and to secure the area and prevent riots. Three-fourths of the religious leaders at these gatherings said positive things about the soldiers and the war being fought. They asked their people to work with the U.S. soldiers so that the country could move forward and modernize. The other fourth consisted of the militants, the cultish followers and roughly 10 percent of this group is the people causing the hateful uprisings and attacks on their people and the soldiers. This group is watched closely. Two of the militant leaders were approached by Col. Curt Fuller and brought into his office. Col. Fuller went over the Riot Act with them and explained that this was the last warning and they needed to stop the hostility. This goes far beyond the call of duty for a soldier. Col. Fuller needed to be a diplomat in this instance, and he was. Previous to the war, Col. Fuller read the Koran and memorized important parts so that he could more effectively establish a relationship with the people and so that he could communicates with the hostile 10 percent and say, “I have read the Koran. Show me where it says you should kill and murder.” Soldiers are not there always to fight.
There are many skeptical people, people who for political reasons, who have a long-standing view that soldiers are just people who could not get a better job and had nowhere to go but the service. Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize Winner, said at one point, “[Our soldiers] are just poor kids from Mississippi, Alabama and Texas who not get a decent job or healthcare and joined the army because it was all we offered them.”
At first glace, Chris Sorreno’s looks like the picture of Chris Hedges’ soldier. He is a high-school dropout; in fact, he was asked to leave his high school one week before graduation. He is from Long Island. His father ran a library, and his mother taught French. He did not have anywhere to go, so he joined the army. But instead of being an escape, the army turned into a passion. It changed his life. He served his four years and got a GED, and then went to college and earned a BA and a Masters in Asian studies. He applied for the Secret Service, and when he had just about finished up his training he came across an article on two soldiers and realized how much he missed the army and joined again.
I met a private who had his CPA and joined the army and was assigned as a driver. His supervisor wanted to know why he gave up the money and the life. He responded, “I have a lot of time to live and make money and I wanted to make sure I did something that mattered.”
Soldiers speak multiple languages, have PhDs and Masters in their fields, and they own businesses. They never stop; they are technical wizards, football players, Ivy League grads, immigrants, skilled professionals, rich, and poor. You name it, the army has it. There is this huge breadth of talent, and I am talking about the middle and lower ranks of the army. But it is in the top ranks too; these men and women are extremely intelligent. They gave up careers, multimillion dollar contracts, families and friends to serve their country. Surprisingly, I didn’t find aristocracy within the ranks. I did, however, find an enormous amount of structure. While embedded with the troops, I found that there was a lot of debate and discussion between the ranks on what is right and what should be done while maintaining discipline and professionalism. This was a team. Even the general washed his dirty socks.
In the Middle East there has been a vastly different experience with the Russian and U.S. armies. Russia has good soldiers but the United States has citizen soldiers, who have head and heart and that make a difference in war, especially guerilla warfare.
The soldiers speak of seeing women and children used as shields by the opposing side; they have seen men who have surrendered under a white flag and then stood feet away from the U.S. soldiers and started an attack. The temptation is to give in and fight dirty and to reciprocate but it is rare when these men and women falter under the pressure.
These soldiers are not all saints or scholars, but nonetheless they make up a very interesting cross section of our country. They are diverse and under enormous pressure to fill many different rolls. They have, undoubtedly, done us proud.
AEI Intern Hilary Cooper prepared this summary.
