Progress being made

Hey ya'll. I know, I know, it's been a while since I posted here. Sorry about that. Sometimes it's difficult to find interesting things around here to blog about. Today I wanted to give you all an update on how the fight's going over here. I got a little snippet last night at one of the VTCs (Video Tele-Conference) I attend. This was the Force Protection VTC that happens once a week and involves not only those of us here in theater, but people at the Pentagon, NAVEODTECHDIV in Maryland, the FBI, NSA, etc etc. A lot of those alphabet agencies. Anyway, as we were getting ready to sign off, Colonel Hrdy (not a misprint, really, no vowels) wanted to give everyone an update on what was happening. He said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Don't necessarily believe what the media is telling you back in the States about what is going on over here. We are taking the fight to the insurgents. We are moving into places that we haven't been in for a long time and clearing them out. This is coming at the expense of more casualties, but it will pay off in the long run."

I don't know what the mainstream media is saying back in the States. I have no television over here, and even if I did we pretty much only get AFN (Armed Forces Network) which mainly consists of last year's episodes of regular shows and current sporting events. But I get the feeling that they are not really reporting what is going on over here. I believe they don't want any good news coming out of Iraq. Don't just believe me, here's a story from an embedded reporter that tells it like it is http://www.rightwingnews.com/mt331/2007/06/exclusive_to_right_wing_news_e_1.php.

Anyway, we are taking the fight to the enemy over here. With the surge, we have put many more troops on the streets, and we are doing a lot more "getting out in the field" and finding the enemy. That said, obviously with more troops coming in contact with more insurgents the casualty rate is going to rise. It's a terrible price to pay and I am in no way playing that down. But just maybe that's the price that has to be paid to help straighten this situation out.

I will be the first to admit that mistakes have been made in the way that this war has been handled. Personally I think that some of the very early decisions that were made were terrible decisions. One in particular was the decision to fire the entire Iraqi Army after the war. I understand that there was an immediate feeling that we should rid the infrastructure of all Baathists and Saddam loyalists. However, with the firing of the Army, there were now many thousands of highly trained, unemployed, and angry men in the country. Could it be a coincidence that the first IED attack occurred within a week of the Army being fired? Maybe, but I personally don't think so.

I've gone a little off track here, but this is all to say that though we never expected our overthrow of Saddam to end up in the occupation we currently have, it has turned out this way and we can't just leave it this way. The Iraqi people deserve better than that. We need to be here until the Iraqi government can stand on it's own and provide security for the people. The steps that have been taken lately, namely the surge of troops and the efforts to get those troops out among the people and off of the big bases is having the desired effect. Not as quickly as any of us would like, and it's coming at the cost of more casualties, which we also don't like. But good things are happening over here.

I'd like to thank everyone that's been visiting my blog. This has been a lot of fun for me and I certainly intend to continue blogging when I get home. Obviously on different subjects and hopefully in a much more interesting way than I have thus far. But, thanks for the visits, thanks for the comments (although more comments are always good), and to all my family and friends, thanks for your support and prayers. I really appreciate that you've all kept me in your thoughts. Thank you.