BlackFive

Shawn Bryan Reports

Now we are cooking with grease.  After what seemed an eternity I am now with the 10th Mountain Division.  What a bangup bunch of soldiers.  They are headquartered at Camp Victory and operate a lot of the southern Baghdad AO.  WOW.  What else can I say.  We started today off meeting with different leadership elements of the Div. Maj Dan Elliot is one of the PAO's and once we talked shop for a few began getting me busy for the duration of the trip.  He disappeared for a few and came back told me to grab my stuff that the CG General Buchanan was willing to see me......bitchin, face time with a General....I'm in.  The General comes in sets down takes out his M4, that's right HIS M4 and starts cleaning it while we talk.  He lets me know he is going on patrol in 15 min so he wants to kill 2 birds with one stone.  What a badass leader he is....a General with an M4 going on patrol.....but enough of that.  We cut to the purpose real fast and that was to discuss the surge.  In our time around Baghdad this week their is no doubt in anyone's mind that General Petraeus' surge has worked....no gray areas its working leaps and strides.  But Gen Buchanan gave me a perspective that unfortunately our mainstream media hasn't put out and that is, the surge has had a domino effect with Iraqi people.  The Iraqi Army{IA} and IP Iraqi Police has grown roughly 20% in the last 12 months.  That's over 100,000 Men have joined.  Now on that subject for a second, that is huge.  These men are starting to stand up on their own.  In 2005 when we were here there were plenty of IA, ISF to show up but would go home and never return due to fear of either being attacked or their families being attacked......there is a sense that this fear is going away because now they are staying around.....hmm could Iraq be moving forward????  The General also let me know their is a sense of pride in the Iraqi people and that the IA is building a proud and disciplined military that someday will be able to take care of itself.  They are already taking over various regions and sectors on their own and even forming their own ways of sustainment to become independent.

Another huge part of the surge that seems to not be talked ENOUGH about are The Sons of Iraq.  These cats are the real deal.  They have had enough of these jackasses coming into their country and causing trouble, so they handle things themselves.  From what I have gathered they are the good ole boy network..the SOI are the locals and when  in the past guys in black masks would roll in and do their chickenshit destruction and these guys would stand down and let it go.....somebody somewhere grew a set and said enough.  They have in their own ways organized and in these villages and neighborhoods when the non-locals show up these guys roll up on them and handle things.  And I mean handle things.  One Iraqi I talked to told me of a guy who had been released from a local prison because terrorist's get attorneys and rights and due process.  He returned to his neighborhood in the AO and a few days a local kid  later picked up a bottle of water that was rigged to an IED.  The child was killed.  The locals knew instantly that the same asshole released was a bomb-maker and immediately went to the home and snatched him up...a gunfight erupted and somehow the guy blew up later in the day...suicide vest out in an open field, I cant imagine that they helped him put his vest on, but who knows....hmmm. Iraqis handling Iraqi problems more on that later.

Did the surge work? Not even Americas grandest, backstabbing, two-faced, scumbag, sell his soul to whoever will vote for him, John Murtha can deny the incredible work that our troops have been able to do here and the greatest sense is that the Iraqi's are standing up with them.  We are far from out of here but our guys on the ground are carrying the load and making us proud...words can't describe the motivation I feel as I am seeing the progress that we attaining. More to come soon......OUT