Citizen-soldiers of 81st Brigade face convoy duties in Iraq

If Washington National Guardsmen returning to Iraq find the security situation dramatically different than when they were there last, at least the scenery will look familiar. Soldiers from the 81st Brigade Combat Team will operate from many of the same bases where they were stationed during the brigade’s first deployment in 2004-05, officials said.

Their missions will be familiar as well: Most soldiers will be assigned to protect the U.S., Iraqi and contractor convoys that criss-cross the country each night, or to secure or operate a handful of forward operating bases. Some soldiers will work as security teams for military and civilian government officials.

Units from the 81st’s six battalions will be stationed in Balad, Tikrit, Qayyarah, Mosul and elsewhere in northern Iraq, said Lt. Col. Paul Morgan, the brigade chief of staff.

As for the brigade headquarters?

“That’s the one we don’t know yet,” Morgan said. “We know where most of the companies are going, we know where most of the battalion headquarters are going.”

Officers at the headquarters are assuming they’ll be responsible for day-to-day functions at the base where they wind up, as well as working with U.S. and Iraqi civilian and military reconstruction officials.

The brigade headquarters had a similar mission in 2004, when it was based at Logistical Support Area Anaconda, the massive U.S. base at Balad. Other units in the 81st ran security missions at U.S. bases in Baghdad.

This time, the brigade’s units will likely be put in charge of the “mayor’s cell” at a couple of bases; that means they’ll be responsible for housing, transportation and other support services for base residents.

Others will operate in one of four force protection companies that will perform security details for VIPs, government officials and others who need to move around the country, said Lt. Col. Kevin McMahan, the brigade’s operations officer.

But the bulk of the brigade will be on the roads each night working in one of 18 convoy security companies.

 

LOTS OF TRAINING TIME

 

“I think about two-thirds of our guys are going to be doing convoy security,” Morgan said.

That’s why convoy operations will take up much of their training time this month at Yakima Training Center and then at Fort McCoy, Wis. – and then again when soldiers get to Kuwait for a last round of training before Iraq.

“We need to get as much time on the vehicles and the weapons systems as possible,” McMahan said.

In Iraq they’ll use mostly armored Humvees and some of the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs. Soldiers will fall in on those rigs when they arrive in the Middle East, said the brigade’s chief logistician, Maj. Pete Hudspeth.

They’ll use their own training sets of Humvees at Yakima and then work with another training set at McCoy. They’ll also get training time on the new vehicles in Kuwait, officials said.

Every soldier on a vehicle needs to know the basics – how to clear, charge and fire the .50-caliber machine gun, for instance – and how to operate electronics systems that are used to counter roadside bombs, McMahan said.

The Army sent a team of explosives experts to train about 50 brigade soldiers at Yakima last week in the latest tactics for defeating improvised explosive devices, which remain the top killer of U.S. service members in Iraq. Those soldiers in turn will be in charge of training their fellow soldiers at Yakima and McCoy.

The brigade is also building broader emergency medical expertise. By the time it leaves Yakima and heads to McCoy, Morgan said, it will have between 900 and 1,200 soldiers with combat life-saver training, a 40-hour advanced medics course. That’s in addition to the brigade’s corps of full-time medics.

“Nothing is rolling right now without medevac support,” Morgan said of the helicopters that rush the wounded to combat support hospitals. “If it’s cloudy, or dusty, to the point that the helicopters can’t fly, the convoys aren’t rolling.”

 

‘IT’S WHAT WE DO’

 

The number of bomb attacks has dropped dramatically in Iraq in recent months, as has the number of U.S. casualties, according to U.S. military and media reports.

The 81st arrived in Iraq on its first deployment in April 2004, just as the insurgency was reaching full boil. The 135 U.S. service members who died that month were the most of any month to that point in the war.

The brigade lost nine soldiers during the 2004-05 deployment, and a 10th soldier who volunteered to stay on with another unit was killed about a month after the 81st returned to Washington.

This year, there were 29 U.S. deaths in Iraq in June and 19 in May.

Sgt. Ken Cummins, who will work on one of the convoy security companies, said he’s cautious about the recent trends in Iraq. It will still be dangerous when he gets there, he said.

But he said he’d rather be working security missions out on the highways than be stuck on a base.

“It’s what we do, get out and on the move,” Cummins said. “And it will definitely make the time go by faster.”

The 81st Brigade’s leaders say they’re encouraged by news out of Iraq these days. But as Hudspeth put it, he knows there are still “a number of people in Iraq that would prefer that we weren’t there.”

“Am I nervous about going someplace where I know people don’t like me? By all means.

“But I know I’m going to be sent into harm’s way with the best equipment and the best training that the Army has to offer,” he said. “And I’ve got a great group of soldiers I can share the burden with.”

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