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Remie de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka ęape-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basin Ózełi

A Marine’s tale ■ By Glen G. Butler

Over Najaf, fighting for my hometown

August 24,2004

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NAJAF, Iraq

I’m an average American who grew up watching “Brady Bunch” reruns, playing dodge bali and listening to Van Halen. Now, I’m a Marinę heli-copter pilot who has spent the last two weeks heavily engaged with enemy forces here. I’m writing this between missions, without much time or care to polish, so please look to the heart of these thoughts and not their structure.

I got in the country a little morę than a month ago, eager to do my part here for the global war on terror and still get home in one piece. I’m a mid-grade of-ficer, so I probably have a better-than-average understanding of the complex-ity of the situation, but I make no claims to see the bigęer picture or offer any strategie Solutions. Two years of my military training were spent in classrooms in Quantico, Wirginia. I’ve read Sun Tzu several times; I’ve flipped through Mao’s Little Red Book and de-bated over Thucydides; I’ve analyzed Henry Kissinger’s “Diplomacy” and Clausewitz’s “On War”; and I*ve walked the battlefields of Antietam, Belleau Wood, Majuba and Isandlwana.

Fve also studied a little about the cul-ture I’m deep in the middle of, know a bit about the caliph, about the five pil-lars and about Allah, but know I don't know enough. I am also a believer in our cause — I put that up front just so there isn’t any ąuestion of my motivation.

We Marines are proudly apolirical, yet stereotypically right-wing conser-vative. Fm both. And Fd be here with my fellow devildogs, fighting just as hard, whether John Kerry or George W. Bush or Ralph Nader were our commander-in-chief until we’re told to go home.

On Aug. 5, after a few days of building intensity, war erupted in Najaf (again). When we had first come to Iraq, we were told our mission would be to con-duct so-called SASO, or Security and Stability Operations, and to train the Iraqi military and police to do their jobs so we could go home. Obviously, the security part of SASO is still the empha-sis, but our unit’s area of operations had been very quiet for months, so most of us wererft ezpecting a fight so soon.

That changed rapidly when Marines. responded to requests for assistance from the Iraqi forces in Najaf battling Moktada al-Sadr’s militia, who had at-tacked local police stations. Our heli-copters were called on the scene to provide close air support, and soon one of them was shot down. That was when this war became real for me.

Since then my squadron has been pro-viding continuous support for our engaged Marinę brothers on the ground, by this point sluęging it out hand-to-hand in the city’s ancient Muslim cemetery. The Imam Ali shrine in Najaf is the burial

place of the prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law, and. is one of the most revered sites in Shiite Islam. The cemetery to its north is gigantic, filled with erypts and mausoleums. We had been wamed it was an “exclusion zonę” when we got here, that the local authorities had asked us to not go in there or fly overhead, even though we knew the bad guys were using this area to hide weapons, make impro-vised explosive devices, and plan against us. Being the culturally sensitive force we are, we agreed — until Aug. 5. Sud-denly, I was conducting support missions over the Marines’ heads in the graveyard, dodging anti-aireraft artil-lery and rocket-propelled grenades and preparing to be shot down, too. My per-spective broadened rapidly.

At first there were no news media in Najaf; now, I assume, it’s get-ting crowded, although the authorities have restricted access after a group of joumalists “embedded” with the Mahdi Militia muddied the problem and jeopardized others’ safety. I haven’t had time to catch much CNN or Fox News, and although I’ve seen a few headlines forwarded to me by friends, I don’t think the world is seeing the com-plete picture.

I want to emphasize that our military is using every means possible to min-imize damage to historical, religious and civilian structures, and is going out of its way to protect the innocent. I have not shot one round without good cause, whether it be in response to machinę gun fire aimed at me or mortars shot at soldiers and Marines on the ground.

The battle has been surreal, focused largely in the cemetery, where families continue burying their dead even as I swoop in Iow overhead to make surę they aren’t sneaking in behind our forces’ flanks, or pulling a surface-to-air missile out of the cofFin. Children continue playing soccer in the dirt fields next door, and locals wave to us as

Journalists are crowding into Najaf, but I don’t think the world is seeing the complete picture.

we fly over their rooftops in preparation for gun runs into the enemy’s positions.

Surę, some óf those people might be waving just to make surę we don’t shoot them, but I think the majority are on our side. I’ve learned that this enemy is not just a mass of angry Iraqis who want us to leave their country, as some would have you believe. The forces we’re fighting around Iraq are a conglomera-tion of renegade Shiites, former Baath-ists, Iranians, Syrians, terrorists with ties to Ansar al-Islam and Al Qaeda, petty criminals, destitute citizens look-ing for excitement or money, and yes, even a few frustrated Iraqis who worry about Wal-Mart culture infringing on their neighborhood.

But I see the others who are on our side, appreciate us risking our lives, and know we’re in the right. The Iraqi soldiers who are fighting alongside us are