How We Roll, Ctd

RIP/TOA. This is the Army acronym for “Relief In Place / Transfer Of Authority.” It is shorthand for the transition process, when one unit comes in to replace another unit that is leaving. The incoming unit assumes the responsibilities of the outgoing unit, but there is a period of overlap when the new group is assisted in finding their bearings, learning how things are, what to do and what not to do. New units are said to be ripping in and old units are said to be ripping out. This week, we’ve fallen victim to a clumsy rip.

We had scheduled an ambitious mission with three stops in the Shatt al Arab district across the waterway from the base and the city. We intended to stop first at Shalamsha, the “port of entry” for goods coming into the province from Iran. We had made arrangements with the Iraqi Army general in charge of the border crossing to meet with him very early in the morning, when most of the deals are made to bring vegetables and fruit across the border.

We set out in our usual convoy of Humvees, meeting an Iraqi Army special forces unit at the front gate. There were a few sergeants from the movement team that we had been rolling with for the last few weeks sitting in with the new team, including one in “my” truck. To get across the waterway, we had to pass through a part of the city that had obviously seen some fierce fighting because it lay in ruins and finding the right way through to the other side was not obvious because of the lack of landmarks. We took several wrong turns, with the entire convoy having to turn around on narrow streets each time. Having been across the waterway a couple of times already, I more or less had a feel of how we needed to go. We were getting close to the bridge but then the lead vehicle veered away and headed toward downtown. I was puzzled but kept my mouth shut, took a deep breath and sighed in frustration. Now we were clearly headed in the wrong direction. I couldn’t figure out why the guys in the old unit hadn’t yanked the leash on the new team. After passing through the heart of downtown, grinding to a halt in heavy traffic, and going down yet another wrong way, I lost my cool. With authority that I did not have, I finally lost patience and yelled at the green lieutenant who was in “my” truck: “Stop right now! I need to talk with my teammates and you guys need to get your f****** act together!!” Amazingly they stopped and had a meeting in the middle of the neighborhood. Out team got together and we decided that it was getting too late to visit the border crossing and we would head to the second scheduled stop.

We finally made it to one of the waterway crossing points, a floating pontoon bridge that was put in place after the first Gulf War in the early ‘90s and not yet replaced with a permanent bridge. It’s narrow and rickety. One of the Humvees hit the side of the bridge during the crossing, gashing the tire. We limped through the crowded urban market area on the other side of the waterway and picked our way to the city outskirts, to a place where there weren’t big crowds and enough open space to set up a perimeter and change the tire. The tire change was actually rather entertaining, despite the frustration all of us were feeling. First, a Humvee tire has about a dozen lug nuts to wrench off, a task complicated by the lack of lubrication on the bolt threads, a characteristic aided by the dry dusty climate. The guys took turns horsing the lug wrench, with even some of the Iraqi Army guys getting in on the work of loosening the stubborn lugs and setting the jacks. We milled around, chatting with the Iraqi Army guys, passing time, trying not to get too worked up by how screwed up the day had become.

After 45 minutes or so, we finally resumed out mission, now late for our second appointment, a return trip to Moosawi’s farm, the place we had visited on my birthday, to discuss the location for a demonstration project we are putting together. Because of our late arrival, the sayed (cleric) and the Director of the Extension Service had left, but we spoke with some of the technical people working on the farm. They prepared a little snack for us, with lassi (yoghurt), bread, cheese, kebabs, dates, fruit, and tea. Very restorative. Definitely the attitude adjustment that I needed.

Our intended third visit was to an agricultural association. We had arranged to meet at a well-known checkpoint. Despite our best explanations to our security team, they went to the wrong place and we failed to meet our contact. At this point, someone made the decision that we needed to return to base. We had made only one of the three scheduled visits!

What a mess! So much went wrong, but s much worse could have happened. We were perhaps lucky not to have gotten ourselves into trouble in the heart of downtown Basra. Certainly that was a case where the presence of the Iraqi Army was or would have been helpful. The Iraqi Army did not lead because their role in these missions is to follow. To me the blame squarely lies with the sergeants from the old unit who are ripping out. They should have been more active in leading the mission and telling the lead vehicle when they were going astray.

The worse part was breaking the appointments we had painstakingly set up with the Iraqi Army general at the border crossing, the director of the extension service, an important cleric-businessman, and the farmer-members of the local agricultural association. My sense is that the Iraqi people are rather unfazed by our breaking these appointments. Life has been so hard here and there has been so much disappointment, especially when it comes to promises made, that putting an additional spoonful of disappointment on that mountain doesn’t amount to much. Nonetheless, that’s not the way we on Team Borlaug like to roll and we have tried our best all along the way not to promise what we can’t deliver and to be honest and realistic in what we can do in partnership with our Iraqi colleagues.