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Rocinante's Burdens, a milblog from Iraq:
US Forces have been directed to take the signs off of the backs of our vehicles. No longer do we say, "DANGER, STAY BACK 100M".He adds, "This is a big deal and demonstrates the real confidence senior army leaders (a real risk averse bunch of guys if ever there were any) have in the current security situation here in Iraq."
And it is a big deal. It's one of those little things that indicate something bigger. As far as that "risk averse" bit - it probably could have been done a while back. I supect that (as when I was there) people got so used to seeing them all the time that they no longer saw them. And one day someone finally asked, "hey, why the hell are these still here?"
Last year (October '07) Badger 6 and I were conversing via MilBlogs (we were in different parts of Iraq at the time.) He had linked a report quoting Colonel Richard Simcock, Commander of USMC Regimental Combat Team 6, who had said of al Qaeda in Anbar "I would characterize them as a defeated force from my perspective."
B6 was rightfully proud: "Team Badger supported RCT 6 from their arrival in theater in January 2007 till when we rotated out in September." (He himself had taken another assignment elsewhere in Iraq.)
My response: "Badger 6, one of the key points that made me realize we'd won this thing was your New Glass post."
I'd link that actual "New Glass" post here, but it's no longer available. Like the brief mention of "US Forces have been directed to take the signs off of the backs of our vehicles" it's a little thing. The sort of thing a "real" reporter, eager to get some quotes from disgruntled troops or heroic resistance fighters wouldn't notice. And if they did they certainly wouldn't tell you. At least, they certainly wouldn't have in August, 2007 - with something as critical as the Petraeus report to congress mere weeks away.
There at the first corner, I see it. New glass. Someone has put new glass in a shop. Someone only installs new glass when they think it won't get broken. New glass is confidence.Little things.As we roll though Ramadi I see more stores and small shops open. And more new glass.
Several days later we return to Ar Ramadi. We take the western highway this time which takes us north and around the city of Falluja. The north and east sides of Falluja are the most devastated. That is the direction from which US Forces attacked during Phantom Fury in November 2004.
As we round the northeast corner, I see one house that looks different from the others. People are living there. Coming and going. It has something the other places don't.
New Glass.
Read.
