Howdy,
And welcome to a new “newsletter.” In this little section, I’m going to tell war stories. What the hell is a war story? Well, it’s part of fiction, part fact, and part myth. If you want 100% accuracy, run along, child, and go somewhere else.
Tim O’Brien, one of America’s greatest storytellers, wrote it best:
A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things they have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.
Without further ado. . .
On 1 September 2010, then Capt Selber woke up in Diyala, Iraq, and was no longer a “combat soldier.”
Why?
Because President Obama ended Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF—acronym, boom!) and began—wait for it, wait for it—Operation New Dawn (OND). Not to be outdone by W, Obama ended “combat operations” in Iraq.
So, did everything change for those of us still deployed to Iraq?
Absolutely not.
In 2010, I was stationed in Tampa and worked at United States Central Command (CENTCOM) inside its Insurgency and Resistance Team. One day, in the land of cubicles, my boss walked up and asked for volunteers to deploy to Iraq on a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). Without asking my then-girlfriend, I quickly volunteered.
Less than a month later, I flew to Diyala to help out. It was exciting and a tad bit nerve-wracking. My then-boss, Greg, made some drug deals (technical terms) to get the deployment, but it was a very fluid situation.
“Don’t fuck this up, Will,” Greg said before I departed.
Those are the words of confidence every man needs to hear before leaving his country behind. LOL. Nevertheless, I was eager to help where needed. Having already served on an Afghan PRT led by the military, I had some experience in this space. However, this time would be different—the State Department would be in charge.
For six months or so, I served as a Political Officer in a State Department-run Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). Here’s a little primer on PRTs.
On January 10, 2007, President Bush announced a ‘surge’ of U.S. military forces to Iraq and the creation of 10, new-style PRTs, known as “ePRTs,” that would be embedded with the deploying combat brigade teams (CBT) in Baghdad, Anbar province and Babil. These new PRTs were small, State Department led units that included eight to 12 political advisers and development experts that supported counterinsurgency operations and helped build the capacity of local governments to foster development. Members of these ePRTs lived with their military counterparts, worked with mayors and grassroots representatives, and functioned as members of the BCT commander’s staff. By 2008, the number of ePRTs had risen to 14, but the program began a rapid drawdown with the departure of the ‘surge’ brigades. The last ePRT closed in August 2010.
A lot of DoD personnel hate the DoS. That’s stupid. That doesn’t mean the DoS isn’t fucked up like a football bat—they are, but no more than the DoD. The DoS is a writing organization, especially its political officers. Luckily, I had a great political officer as my boss, who taught me how to write diplomatic cables. As a seasoned spook, I knew how to run-sources and get intelligence, but I knew jack shit (another technical term) about diplomacy.
Thus, I zipped my mouth and learned from him. And boy, did I learn quite a bit. I began to see the world through a different lens—a non-DoD lens. I began to see us as a big, lumbering organization that often lacked self-awareness. This isn’t a knock on the troops, but something that has been written about for decades.
As my deployment continued, we started preparing to transition to OND, knowing this would be a big deal for the Obama administration. When 1 September hit, we were prepared, and every American service member stopped being a combat troop—instead, we became advisors.
We were no longer Brigade Combat Teams; we were now called Advise and Assist Teams. What changed?
Nada.
We were still shot at. People still were trying to kill us. We still received combat pay. However, it allowed President Obama to tell the American people that we were no longer in combat.
LOL.
This isn’t a knock on Obama, whom I admire. Instead, it’s just a little insight into the semantic nonsense our leaders play with the American people. Both Trump and Biden do it. VP Harris recently said something similar at the debate.
Thus, when you hear Trump or Harris talk about “boots on the ground,” “combat troops,” or whatever nonsense they spew, remember: American forces are in combat.
Don’t believe me? Ask our seamen (their words, not mine) currently sparring with Iranian proxies Iran in the open seas if they’re in combat. Or perhaps ask those soldiers in Jordan? Maybe those in Iraq and Syria? I bet they feel like they’re in combat.
It would be better for our civic discourse if our politicians spoke truthfully about the wars fought in your names, and that starts with ending this semantic nonsense. If you’re receiving combat pay, then, bruh, you’re in combat.
I’ll leave you with this fantastic picture from the Diyala Provincial Center (think state government offices). They had a monkey outside the main doors!
A monkey!
My mother was a Civil Service Mathematician working for the Navy. She used to write instructions for the fleet on the deployment of new systems. She said the hardest part of the job was preparing casualty probability estimates knowing that in the field Commanders would at least partially rely on those estimates in decisions regarding deployment of a given system. She told me that she did the best she could but it never ceased to bother her that she had some involvement in deployments resulting in casualties.
Writing is your gift. Always insightful.