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Written by JD Johannes
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Friday, 05 September 2008 |
In May of 2007, during one of the blooodiest months of war in Iraq, there stood a sign in a doorway.
Some would consider the words on the sign a bold prediction, but the man who put it there was confident in the abilities of his Soldiers and other commanders across the battlefields of the Iraq to make it true.
"When historians write about Iraq," the hand written words started, "they will write about the march to Baghdad and our Victory in The Surge."
A bold prediction in May of 2007. Only a month earlier the Senate Majority Leader had declared the war lost.
The American public had all but written the effort off at that point. Even just this week, Senator Obama said , “I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated.”
But for Lt. Colonel Patrick Frank, Commanding Officer of the 1-28 Infantry Battalion--The Black Lions--it was not a bold prediction. It was a fact waiting to be made certain.
At the time the sign stood in doorway of Frank's forward command center in the West Rashid district of Baghdad. Gun fights were still the order of the day. Explosive Force Penetrators daily ripped humvees and soldiers to shreds. The Shia and Sunnis were still exacting blood-debt assassinations on each other. Mortars rained down on Forward Bases--one landing kill zone close to this writer. (I still marvel at how I came three inches from being shredded by shrapnel.)
And the sign stood there.
Lt. Colonel Frank and his soldiers knew in May of 2007, what the American public is just now coming to grasp fifteen months later--the surge was working and would work.
How could Frank have known it would work?
A skeptic would say he was just being an optomistic commander. But they didn't get to spend the time I did with Frank, his officers and Soldiers.
In the 'Baghdad Surge' episode my documentary trilogy , Frank describes what he planned as the knock-out punch against the violence in West Rashid--electricity, running water, sewage lift stations.
His staff officers became public works directors. Company Commanders became ex-officio Mayors by day, while sending their platoons to hunt Al Qaida and JAM assassins like Malik and 'The Wolf' by night.
He knew a fundamental truth of counter insurgency--it is not about winning hearts and minds, which is impossible, rather, it is about doing what the enemy cannot--electricity, running water, sewage lift stations.
And then standing between the factions and saying, "stop!" Those that refused to stop found themselves flex-cuffed and stuffed in the back of a humvee, or were otherwise permanently stopped.
Lt. Colonel Frank always knew. History and others are just now begining to grasp the reality that Frank saw and his Soldiers created.
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