“I have mixed feelings about these guys. There’s a few bad seeds in there, I’m sure. For lack of better funding options, some of them probably participated in the insurgency. But around here, most of these guys were just farmers.”
1st. Lt. Chris Timmerman
SALMAN PAK, Iraq — One year to the day of this quiet June afternoon in Iraq, 1st Lt. Chris Timmerman had completed the first phase of Ranger School. The instructors gave him eight hours to pack, say goodbye to his wife Tracy, and leave for the mountains of northern Georgia.
Timmerman, a 24-year-old Wright State University graduate, expected to spend his first deployment in heavy combat, in Iraq or Afghanistan.
But the Iraq of 2009 doesn’t look like that.
Instead, the former catcher for the Russia High School baseball team sits on a plastic chair, helmet off, and helps Iraqi government officials stack files in a canvas bag. A line of Iraqi men — members of the local Sons of Iraq security group (known as Sahwa to the Iraqis) — are here for their monthly $300, paid in a stack of Iraqi dinars. The SOI program was started and originally funded by the United States, but has slowly transitioned to Iraqi control.
Timmerman is a platoon leader with Charlie Company, 1st/505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. The soldiers of his platoon are present for security and to keep a record of who and how many Iraqis are actually getting paid. A U.S. soldier counts the Iraqis, and puts a hashmark on a notepad.
He expected more
Like many junior officers, Timmerman is frustrated with this sedentary mission, and plans to put in an application to join the Rangers or Special Forces. He is disappointed the unit didn’t deploy to Afghanistan, where the 82nd’s light infantry background would be at home, and where a war is in full swing. It’s not that he’s a war cowboy, but he isn’t doing the job he trained and enlisted for.
“This is my deployment,” he said. “Of course I want it to be more than this.”
Timmerman notices the Iraqis tossing their payday files into the bag as rolled up tubes, and it quickly fills. He tries to convince them to flatten the files, so they stack more easily.
“Like this,” he mimes to an Iraqi, mimicking a flattening motion with his hands. He asks the interpreter how to say “flat,” in Arabic. Soon, a rudimentary system begins to develop.
Timmerman lobbies an Iraqi army sergeant major to task a junior Iraqi soldier to make sure the Sahwa members dutifully stack the files. But the SOI members look to the closest U.S. soldier for guidance, and the Iraqi soldier wanders off. Soon the U.S. soldiers find themselves in charge again.
“While our being here encourages the Iraqis to be honest,” Timmerman said, “it’s not changing their behavior.”
Changing of the guard
In 2009, the Sons of Iraq program has successfully transitioned to Iraqi control. The plan is for 20 percent of the current SOI members, about 400 in the Salman Pak region, to eventually transition into Iraqi Army or National Police positions. The vast majority will be offered jobs in the service industry — heavy equipment operators, plumbers, dump truck drivers and sanitation men. They could become vital cogs in a country with an infrastructure ravaged by years of war, neglect and apathy.
There’s not a pressing need any longer for thousands more police and soldiers, but instead a focus on training those currently in service. Even with the country’s ongoing security problems, that many security positions can’t be accommodated, and many SOI members are simply unqualified. It’s much more important that Iraq has people providing services, said Capt. Michael Thompson, Charlie Company commander.
“I have mixed feelings about these guys,” Timmerman acknowledged. “There’s a few bad seeds in there, I’m sure.
“For lack of better funding options, some of them probably participated in the insurgency. But around here, most of these guys were just farmers.”
Timmerman wonders if the Iraqi government pays most of these men so they won’t return or begin insurgent activities, and questions if the members of Sahwa really perform a serious, effective job at all. A recent roadside bomb was placed just 200 meters from an SOI checkpoint.
“If the guys at the checkpoint aren’t seeing that, then what are they doing?” Timmerman said.
Throughout the morning, Timmerman provides a few updates to higher headquarters about a body found about 500 yards from an SOI checkpoint on the main road. The 55-year-old man was discovered tied up, gagged and stabbed. He was found at 4 p.m. the previous day, and it’s the first the U.S. soldiers have heard about it. The victim was not connected to the Iraqi Army and he’s not an SOI member, so it might be a simple murder.
Different priorities
“If we were in Afghanistan, actually in the fight, nobody could do this, ask for updates on everything,” he said. “You think about how many people are murdered in the U.S. every day. We’re worried about one dude?”
The Iraqi police, in typical “turf protecting” style, haven’t given the Iraqi army any real information about how the body was located. The U.S. went on a joint patrol with the Iraqi army the previous night, after the body was discovered, but were not informed until this morning.
“Information doesn’t flow too well among the Iraqis, even from officer to NCO. Who knows why they didn’t tell us,” Timmerman said. “Tactically, it’s not a whole lot of importance to our mission. When something big happens, they let us know.”
Payday activities stop at 4 p.m., leaving about 30 people unpaid until the next day. The Iraqis complain to Timmerman, who is happy to tell them that the payday is not the job of the U.S. soldiers anymore, that he is there only for accountability and security.
“It’s not me, it’s your government,” he tells them. “We stopped paying you guys months ago. If you want to get paid, you’ll show up tomorrow. We have nothing to do with it.”
A senior Iraqi soldier finally puts his foot down and threatened the annoyed, hot group.
“He told them all, ‘I’m going to count to 10, and then everybody gets arrested,’ ” Timmerman laughs. “I liked that.”
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