Thread: Perspective on Iraq's war from those who are fighting it.

New York Times
October 2, 2005

From Team Players In War To Competitors In Games

By Juliet Macur

CAMP NORMANDY, Iraq - The rivalry started with a friendly soccer match between the American and Iraqi soldiers who live on opposite sides of this base. Col. Thaier Dhia Ismail Abid al-Tamimi, the leader of the Iraqi battalion, said it did not matter who won. He insisted that his soldiers were not that competitive and would just be glad to play.

"Oh, yeah, not competitive," said Lt. Col. Roger Cloutier, the American commander, laughing as he recounted the conversation they had last spring. "That's why they were the ones who showed up with a trophy for the winner and even had one for the M.V.P."

The scrawny Iraqis then beat the buff and brawny Americans, 5-4.

What followed was a relationship forged in part through sports competitions, including footraces, Humvee pushes and a particularly heated volleyball game in August at this sprawling base, where the main mission of the Americans is to train the Iraqis to become better soldiers.

Along the way, the American 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and the Iraqi 2nd Battalion, 2nd Brigade of the 5th Division have become a rare pairing of the two armies in Iraq. While some Iraqi soldiers have been criticized by their American counterparts for a lack of discipline and commitment, the Iraqis at Normandy have become so efficient that they took the lead in military operations in their 1,200-square-mile area.

"When people say it's horrible that you are training those Iraqi soldiers because they will never be as good as we are, they are missing the point," said Capt. Mike Whitney, commander of the 1-30th's Alpha Company. "No, the Iraqis will never be as good as we are, but they don't have to be. They just have to be better than anybody they face here."

Reaching that goal has meant accepting the differences. Those contrasts can be mundane, as when the Iraqis showed up barefoot for a race while the Americans wore fancy sneakers; and more complex - the Americans wear body armor and the Iraqis often do not.

They found common ground in one area: sports. That didn't surprise Cloutier, who played football, wrestled and competed in track and field at the University of San Diego. "The military is exactly like a sports team because it's all about achieving goals," he said.

He soon learned how important it was for the Iraqis to win.

Finding Common Goals

When the stout, bald Cloutier, 40, arrived at this outpost near the town of Miqdadiyah, 60 miles northeast of Baghdad, he gave Thaier a two-foot-long ceramic tiger, in honor of the Iraqi battalion's mascot.

Thaier, 38, a thin, mustachioed man and a former intelligence officer in Saddam Hussein's army, placed the tiger on his desk next to a gilded copy of the Koran. Then tiny glasses of sugary, steaming chai were served to celebrate the union of their battalions. Their base, once a bustling complex used by 35,000 soldiers in Hussein's army, is home to 1,800 American and Iraqi soldiers. Here, the two colonels learned that each culture mourns the loss of a soldier differently. When the Iraqis' highest-ranking enlisted man was assassinated while taking his wife to the hospital after she was injured in a previous assassination attempt, Cloutier suggested that the Iraqis hold a memorial the way the Americans do, with speeches and salutes. The Iraqis held that kind of ceremony only once. They would rather mourn privately, Thaier said.

And not long after the Americans arrived in February, Thaier, who studied military operations and English in college, learned that they tend to rely on technology more than the Iraqis. "If I drive through the city, I don't use G.P.S. because I know the roads," he said. "Sometimes being human means more than having technology."

After the two battalions conducted some joint missions, Thaier proposed that they play a soccer game so they could bond. Cloutier said yes, but then wondered if it was a good idea because the Americans might embarrass the Iraqis.

"I was worried," he said. "Until we played the game and they started kicking the snot out of us."

That is when the Americans realized that, like them, the Iraqis placed great weight upon success. The Iraqis came to the game with uniforms and a referee, and also a sergeant who is their coach and sports coordinator.

After the American loss, the two battalions began organizing competitions. The Americans pushed to play baseball and football, and the Iraqis asked for soccer and volleyball. But first came a five-kilometer run. The Americans arrived wearing running sneakers. Some Iraqis showed up in sandals, some were barefoot and one was wearing something similar to bowling shoes.

The man in bowling shoes won the first heat. An American won the final, but with the Iraqis close behind. "When the dudes showed up barefoot or in the weird shoes and took off, we were like, 'Wow, they live by their hearts,' " Cloutier said.

Weeks later came the tug of war. When the rope broke, the two groups switched to pushing Humvees down a road. It was an event Cloutier - who has 20½-inch biceps and is the strongest man in his battalion - was sure the Americans would win, considering their gym is filled with weights. They did win, in a tight finish. The Iraqis said they could have won if they had had a weight room. But the sergeant enlisted to pick up the weight equipment in Baghdad was shot and killed on patrol.

A Memorial Wall

To commemorate the soldiers killed since the 1-30th arrived in Iraq, Cloutier hung their photos on a wall in the chapel. As he touched the photograph of an Iraqi, he grew teary and said, "You come here and train these Iraqis, and watch some guys get wounded and bleed and die, then you realize that they are just the same as us."

Every day, the soldiers pass through a gate that separates the American and Iraqi sides - blocked by a tank that moves each time someone passes - on their way to train, eat meals in the chow halls or just hang out.

One afternoon, Whitney, 29, the Alpha Company commander, met First Lt. Khatan Mohammed Hamid al-Obade, 28, the acting commander of the Iraqi Alpha Company, in the Iraqi company headquarters.

"Shaku maku?" Whitney said, using Iraqi Arabic slang for "What's up?" as a Jordanian belly-dancing music video played on a television and a bowl of freshly picked dates was placed in front of him.

"Maku shee," Khatan answered, just as the electricity went off again. ("Nothing much.")

Whitney, who says friendship comes before business for the Iraqis, has spent many days with them, once to go fishing. That day, Iraqi soldiers threw ignited TNT into the river, stripped to their boxers, then swam out to collect the fish that floated to the top. They grilled the catch on the river's edge.

Whitney helps train the Iraqis to conduct raids and patrols, and to arrest and process insurgents.

The Iraqi battalion took control of its area of operations on July 31, and uses the Americans mostly as consultants. ("The upcoming elections?" Thaier said. "Too easy for us to protect.")

Still, there is a learning curve. In August, the Iraqis rode to a village in their pickups and went door to door, looking for Baath Party loyalists making roadside bombs. The Americans waited in armored Humvees and had helicopters on alert. The Iraqis detained three suspects, including one who refused to reveal where his brother, a suspect, was - until an Iraqi soldier smacked him in the face.

"I know respectable soldiers aren't supposed to do that," that soldier told Whitney. "But when I asked him nicely, he said: 'I don't know where my brother is. I think he's in Baghdad.' But after I hit him, he said, 'O.K., my brother is in the backyard.' So which way is better?"

Whitney shook his head. He knows that it will be difficult to change the mind-set of Iraqis who once belonged to Hussein's army, where one missing bullet would send a soldier to jail for a week. Many don't believe in wearing body armor because, as Thaier said, "If God wants to take a life, nothing can stop him."

To forget about the war one day, when temperatures soared well over 100, some soldiers went swimming in the Diyala River. Whitney and Khatan challenged each other to races from the dock to a collection of reeds.

"Hey, get real tired for the volleyball game tonight!" Whitney yelled as Khatan struggled to swim against the current.

That evening, the Americans, in their gray Army T-shirts and black shorts, went to the Iraqi side for the volleyball game. More than 70 spectators were waiting.

'Yellow Is Our Hero'

The Iraqis were on the rocky dirt court, looking serious in knock-off yellow Manchester United soccer jerseys that their coach had bought in a local market.

On the sideline, they had set up two dozen folding chairs for spectators and a plastic table to display a gold metal trophy wrapped in plastic and six medals, each with a yellow ribbon and a picture of a rainbow soccer ball, for the winning team. The colonels chatted as their soldiers dived and leaped on the dusty ground. Each time the Iraqis made a substitution, the incoming player took the yellow jersey from the player going out. There were not enough to go around.

The Iraqis won the first game of the best-of-three match, 26-24. "Dig deep now," one American said. "We can't let them send us packing."

In the next game, though the Americans looked stronger and were taller, they lost, 25-23. The Iraqi cheering section sang, "Yellow is our hero!" while the Iraqi players hugged and danced.

The teams shook hands before Cloutier presented the trophy to the Iraqis and hung a medal around each player's neck. Then all the soldiers assembled for a photo, everyone smiling.

"In our little kingdom, I think the Iraqis have become as close to us as brothers," Cloutier said.

Taking a drag on his cigarette, Thaier nodded and said, "Ah, yes, I think we will be friends for many, many years."

Cloutier slapped Thaier on the back as they walked off, their soldiers still mingling behind them.

The right spirit.

I agree.

BTW, I like your sig, Shek