A 'surge' unit sees change, but questions its permanence

As the US Army soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment prepare to return home this month, many question whether the sacrifices they made will have been worth it in the end.

from the July 3, 2008 edition

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From the Adel outpost, the soldiers served as cop, community benefactor, and mentor to Iraq's fledgling security forces.

On a recent drive with Lt. Col. Edward Chesney, the 1/64's commander, through his area of operation, he recounted how the local Iraqi police unit was rebuilt from scratch in many of the mainly Sunni neighborhoods he oversees. It's now staffed with men, some ex-insurgents, mostly on the US payroll.

He spoke of how commercial thoroughfares are being slowly revitalized with US grants to shop owners and of the public-works projects initiated and paid for by the US military.

He described with enthusiasm how US funds are being spent on creating municipal outposts, known as public-works substations, in many of these once no-go neighborhoods to encourage the Shiite-led Baghdad municipal authorities to pitch in.

But when it comes to broader Iraqi reconciliation, he says, that's something you can't impose. "That's something they are going to have to work through," he says. "I think foundations have been laid in our areas, but if progress does not continue there is potential for things to unravel again."

The toll of multiple tours

At the 1/64's headquarters inside Camp Liberty, framed photos pay tribute to the 12 US soldiers and one Iraqi interpreter that the unit lost during its deployment in Iraq.

Among them is Maj. Sid Brookshire, from Willard, Mo., who died June 20, 2007, when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb. Five soldiers and one interpreter died March 10, 2008, when a suicide bomber attacked them. They had been conducting an "economic assessment" in a Mansour market in order to provide local shopkeepers with grant money.

The losses quickly took their toll on the men and women of the unit, many who had already served several tours.

"At first I was shocked, because we had not had a casualty in six months. People were talking already about going home," says the unit's public-affairs officer, 1st Lt. Tabitha Hernandez, from Wellsville, N.Y. "The worst part for me was seeing grown-up men cry."

She says the March attack was a "hard hit" for the platoon to which the dead officers and soldiers belonged and the battalion as a whole, which comprises a core force of about 830 plus an attachment of about 170.

Lieutenant Hernandez says nearly 40 percent of the battalion's members are in Iraq for a third time since the start of the war in 2003. "It's astronomical," she says.

For Sgt. Mark Martin, a father of three from Chatsworth, Ga., on his third tour, the toll of the multiple and almost back-to-back deployments for many units is grueling. "We are so stretched that constantly, if we are not training back home, we are here."

And many within the battalion wonder just how long the war will – or should – go on.

Maj. Chris Budihas recalls how in 2004 – while he was serving in Najaf to the south – he had asked the commander of US troops in Iraq at the time, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, whether there would be an Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) 12 or 13, the US military's term for tours of duty in Iraq.

"He looked down, shifted the sand with his boots, and told me 'maybe'," says Major Budihas, who is finishing up his 17-month tour as part of OIF 6.

In 2007, Budihas, of Jacksonville, Fla., had already been in Iraq for three months working at division level in Baghdad but was seconded to the 1/64 after it lost Major Brookshire.

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