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An American in Sparta
by Pamela Hess

RAMADI, Iraq -- Living on a Marine base on the edge of restive
Ramadi is a shock to a civilian's senses. It's endlessly dusty and
loud; the latrines smell; it's beastly hot. There is no color
other than brown, and everyone is armed. But mostly you marvel at
how they go about their days: run with M-16s flapping against
their backs for miles at high noon when it's topping 115 degrees
just for the exercise; how they wear long sleeves, pants, suede
desert boots, 30 pounds of armor and man a gun on top of a Humvee,
faces encrusted with dust; how they work at least 12 hours a day,
every day, with no days off, under a constant threat of mortars and
rockets. You wonder where they find the energy to play basketball
at midnight (the military police do, reliably, every
night, sometimes listening to rap, sometimes heavy metal and once
Michael Jackson's greatest hits.) How they detach themselves
sufficiently from the danger to teach fellow Marines to salsa
after dinner. How in the dark of night they practice martial arts to a
hypnotic drum beat, lit only by pale green chemlights broken at
their feet. It probably has something to do with the fact most of
them seem to be around 20 years old, and many are in a combat zone for
the first time - something they actually relish.

"Marines run toward gun fire, not away from it," a senior
commander told me. And the worse conditions are, the better
Marines seem to like it. Marines at a dusty outpost on the Syrian
border take great pride they are not serving instead at "Camp Chocolate
Cake," as they refer to Al Asad, home of the 7th Regimental Combat
Team. Everything here is relative. To an American eye it is
downright bleak. But inside row upon row of plywood buildings it is
cool. A Marine doesn't care how hot he gets as long as he
knows he has a cool place to sleep, I'm told.

An air conditioned place to sleep is one of the things 1st Marine
Division Commander Maj. Gen. Jim Mattis requires for his troops.
It's a change from some previous practices in the military. In
Afghanistan in the blistering hot summer of 2002, Army soldiers were
chided for complaining to me about their rudimentary tents. Once
the sun came over the mountains, they heated up quickly and it was
impossible to sleep - a bad situation for soldiers mostly carrying out
night missions.

Mattis has also introduced the notion of making the regimental command
headquarters a
psychological safe haven for battle-weary Marines. If they get jittery
at the front, they can fall back on the RCT headquarters where
they can get cleaned up, a shower, sleep, counseling from other
Marines, and medical attention.

"The regiment is safe in his mind. It allows him to catch his
breath. When he's ready to go (he returns to his unit) and he
regains his manhood, right there with his buddies," Mattis
explained, over breakfast at Camp Chocolate Cake, where he has
come by helicopter to welcome a new set of Marines to the front.

"We never want to evacuate a combat stress (Marine) behind the
regiment," Mattis said.

The approach is paying dividends, according to Mattis'
statistics. "We've only had one guy leave in a division of 20,000
(in the last six months) and that was a preexisting psychiatric
disorder," he said proudly. Last year only three left of the
25,000 in the 1st Marine Division in Iraq, a testament to what
Mattis calls a humanistic approach to keeping military personnel healthy
in both mind and body. The 1st Marine Division has had a
remarkable record by anther grim measure: suicide. Only two
Marines have committed suicide in the entire expeditionary force.

"We just do not understand what happened.

He was doing good," Mattis said of one case. He has clearly
reviewed the details. Some of his success in maintaining morale so
far may be attributable to Mattis' policy of assigning every
Marine a "combat buddy" - someone they trained with at home and with
whom they are deployed, so a Marine is never alone in a unit as
the new guy.

"People fight better then they know each other," he said. "The
more stability we give them, the more anchors they have the better.
(At this age) they don't have the emotional shock absorbers that
you and I do."

He derides the experience in Vietnam when the newest guy - FNG,
in profane military parlance -- - was sent out his first night to
stand point to see if he'd get shot.

"You don't do that with human beings. You bring them in and let
them be part of a team," he said.

A recent report on military mental health showed an alarming
number of combat veterans from Iraq are suffering from
post-traumatic stress disorder, something Mattis believes can be
mitigated, albeit not wiped out, by hands-on commanders who watch for
signs of stress and help troops deal with it. "I don't have any
use for the strong silent type," he said.

Mattis commands a powerful loyalty and respect from his troops.
"He leads from the front," one Marine noted in the cool and noisy
morale, welfare and recreation tent at Camp Blue Diamond. It has a
pool table, a ping pong table, foosball, Nintendo, a large-screen TV, 20
Internet monitors, a library filled with cast off magazines and
paperbacks, and a seemingly perpetual dominos game that somehow
the Marines have turned into a full contact sport.

When Mattis' "jump platoon" goes out in a convoy - it is
regularly attacked and has been hit by improvised explosive
devices at least twice - it is not uncommon for the general to have his
head out the turret, assuming the same risk as the gunners, say
Marines.

A lieutenant colonel gave a more specific example of leading from
the front: when the Iraqi-led Fallujah Brigade was created, Mattis
decided it needed a test run to see if the native force could
actually keep order in the city after weeks of fighting. He sent a
Marine convoy through town to see if it would be shot at. He was
in the convoy.

For all his tenderness to his Marines - whom he usually addresses
as "gents" - he clearly enjoys a battle.

"The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant
event," he tells about 200 Marines, sitting on the ground under a
metal windbreak against a cliff in Al Asad.

"That said, there are some a--holes in the world that just need
to be shot. But you go on and find your next victim or he's gonna
kill you or your buddy. It's kill or be killed," he said.

"There are hunters and there are victims. By your discipline,
cunning, obedience and alertness, you will decide if you are a
hunter or a victim. ... It's really a hell of a lot of fun. You're
gonna have a blast out here!" he said, with marked glee. "I feel
sorry for every son of a ***** that doesn't get to serve with
you."

He is also icily clear with what he expects of the new Marines in
the theater, who are much needed reinforcements and relief for
departing troops.

"You must know the commander's intent: (Our motto) is 'no better
friend, no worse enemy.' But I have added: 'First do no harm.' No
harm to the innocent. No harm to a prisoner, ever. This is the
Marine Corps, not the National Guard," he barked, referring to the
prison abuse at Abu Ghraib by an Army National Guard unit.

"They were undisciplined, sorry-ass excuses for soldiers. We will
not cost America one ounce of its moral authority," he said.

"How you treat people is very, very important. We're not gonna
become racists. They (the enemy force) want you to hate every
Iraqi out here. ...You treat those women and children the way you
do your own. You make certain you don't do anything that would
smear the Marine Corps. It is absolutely essential you know what I
won't f--ing tolerate," he said, and related the details of a
recent case in which a Marine administered an electric shock to a
detainee he had in jail. He was swiftly court-martialed.

"He thought it was funny. It is, if you like five years in
Leavenworth (prison)," Mattis said.

"You are free men. No one forced you into the Marine Corps. You
are going to prove the enemy wrong out here," he said.

Mattis is as likely to mention a battle in ancient Rome as he is
in Vietnam when making a point to his troops. Every conversation
with his Marines seems an opportunity for some history and
criticism, usually so subtly the Marine doesn't realize he has been
corrected. He feels like he is changing his path on his own.
Mattis is thoughtful without being calculating, and includes his
team - which includes me by sheer proximity from time to time - in on
his leadership decisions.

While in Asad after a brief stop on the Syrian border, he learned
of a coordinated and deadly mortar attack on his headquarters base
at Blue Diamond. It seriously injured five. At least one - a
well-loved sergeant -- died from his wounds.

Mattis sat on the information for the duration of a solemn
helicopter ride. When we landed he gathered us together and broke
the news.

"Now we're going to go in there like nothing is wrong. Cool and
calm. Cool and calm," he said, imbuing everyone in the circle with
responsibility for maintaining morale.

There are plenty of Marines who have concerns about the original
case for the war. They are certainly a minority, and one that no
doubt singled me out to discuss their views because of my fairly
unusual uniform on base (straw hat, long skirts, braids). But none who
question the case for war doubt what will happen if they are
pulled out before the job is done: this place will devolve into
murderous anarchy, and quickly. There is a mental separation here. The
debate about the war is one thing. The commitment to
fighting it is quite another. They mourn every loss of a comrade, but
they accept it as part of the job. There is an obscene bumper
sticker Marines are fond of. It says "U.S. Marine Corps:

Because a Natural Death is for P-----s."

Late one night, a female officer was leaving the command
operations center when she said pleasantly to a corporal standing
guard: "How are you, Marine?"

The corporal was completely alone in the pitch-black loggia of
one of Saddam's former palaces, and would be there for hours more
before he was relieved.

"Motivated!" he thundered back, cheerily, from the dark. -
- - -

I have followed the rise of MGen Mattis for a few years now. Back
when we were both captains of Marines, my squadron deployed with
the 31st MAU. I remember MGen Mattis as a quite, studious infantry
leader who has certainly risen to the occasion.

All for the night. Got to go.

greg out...

[buffman]

Awesome post.
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