Web site gives veterans’ perspective

Take a look at a fascinating Web site called Operation Truth ( http://www.optruth.org), which was recently started by a group of military veterans to present the views of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The group pledges to educate the American public about the wars in both those countries from the perspective of soldiers who have served there, especially when “political approaches to military operations” cause problems on the front lines.

It also offers soldiers’ perspectives on issues that affect the troops, from the role of private contractors in military operations, to the efforts to cut combat pay and the closing of Veterans Administration hospitals. Not to mention the effects of “Stop-loss” (preventing soldiers whose tours are completed from leaving the service).

Is this an antiwar group? I asked its founder executive director, Paul Rieckhoff, a first lieutenant in the New York National Guard who served in Iraq from the spring of 2003 to February 2004.

“We are not VVAW,” Rieckhoff replied, referring to the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, in which the young John Kerry famously played an active role. “We are not against the war. A lot of us, me too, feel that it is salvageable.

“But it will take a dramatic change of strategy” to succeed in Iraq, Rieckhoff continued. “We want to force the politicians to be accountable and to devise a successful exit strategy,” he said. He also wants to force politicians – many of whom have no military experience – to take responsibility for mistakes that have cost soldiers their lives.

Rieckhoff recalls how members of his unit asked, when deploying at Fort Stewart, for their body armor. Like tens of thousands of reservists, they were told they weren’t getting any. The lack of Kevlar vests and ceramic plates caused untold numbers of casualties, and forced families to raise money to buy their sons and husbands the vital equipment. It took nearly a year to rectify the situation.

“It became a joke,” said Rieckhoff, “that we were going to get our body armor off dead guys when we got to Baghdad.”

The Army as presently constructed is not equipped to fight prolonged urban warfare, says the Operation Truth leader. The recent refusal of a reserve unit in Iraq to deliver contaminated fuel to a dangerous area in unarmored vehicles provides a perfect example. In a war without front lines, American soldiers are often inadequately trained and equipped.

A former investment banker who joined the reserves and conducted over 1,000 patrols, Rieckhoff watched in dismay as U.S. officials disbanded the Iraqi army, creating an enormous pool of jobless Iraqis with guns who provided a recruitment bonanza for insurgent leaders. “In the South Bronx,” he says, “if you gave a gang member $1,000 to throw a grenade at a cop car, he’d do it. In Iraq, they’d throw it at a Humvee for $10.”

It bothered him to see big companies like Bechtel brought in to fix buildings, while jobless Iraqis stood around and watched. “We would find Iraqi electricians to do the work,” he said of his unit. It also bothered him to see some military commanders insist that their units kick down Iraqi doors in the middle of the night, even if the same door had been bashed earlier.

“You have to be strong and generous and try to understand their culture,” he said of dealing with Iraqis, otherwise there are bound to be repercussions.

“Grunts are the ones who see what works,” Rieckhoff points out. So he and his staff are trying to provide grunts, or officers, with a place to tell their stories and blog about their worries. You can see photos taken by servicemen, and footage of life in Iraq on the Operation Truth site.

Rieckhoff’s hope is that the site will help link civilians with the human concerns of soldiers – a sensitivity he fears has diminished now that we have a professional army.

What does he think of the argument that it is unpatriotic to criticize Iraq operations while a war is on?

“To say you blindly support a policy is reckless,” says this citizen-soldier. “In the military, you do an after-action review after every mission, about what went right and wrong. We need to do that as a country – about the war in Iraq.”