A Soldier's Journey: Michael Mundell

Things are a bit black now, as we all feel the pressure and it feeds off of one another. Oh, the joking and laughing continue, but they are of a bit darker nature—"If you get killed, can I have your laptop?", that kind of thing. I guess we will see what happens. Sometimes, I feel like a sacrificial lamb that the Army is tossing out to the wolves, sometimes I really believe in this mission, what it represents and what good we may accomplish.
Love
m

Farewell
6/14/06  2:14 PM

Hello to all family, friends and assorted loved ones.
And, perhaps, goodbye. It is Wednesday, the somethingth of June. Our plane, as noted earlier, leaves on Sunday at 2035 hours, give or take a few minutes. ... I will have limited or no capability to get to the internet once I arrive in Kuwait and no address. I will be able to send letters, but not recieve them. And, my cell phone will not work. This is the Army at it's best. And worst. Once I arrive at FOB Ghost, my home away from home for the next year, those issues will be solved to some extent.

Our team, of 11 stalwart soldiers, has been assigned to the 1st Battalion, 2d Brigade, 1st Iraqi Infantry Division. They are, as noted above, based out of FOB Ghost, which is SOMEWHERE along highway 10, between the oasis of Fallujah and the soon-to-be-rubble of Ramadi. I say soon to be, as all signs point to an offensive to re-take (so to speak) that volatile city. An offensive, according to published US reports, that will be wholly Iraqi, with support (air, artillery) provided by us. This does not bode well for yours truly or the remaining 10 stalwarts. City fighting just plain SUCKS. No one likes it, but that is what it is going to be. One of the reasons we all hate it is that it soaks up troops like a sponge. Warning to all news watchers—should (when) this little tiff breaks out, watch CNN—you may see me or some of the other Banshees on TV. We will be, in the current parlance, up to our asses in a street fight. Which, as I have already said, sucks about as bad as it can.

We call ourselves the Banshee Battalion, a name selected and ram-rodded thru by me. The ground swell of discontent is growing, with a contending nickname of the "Fighting Squirrels". The symbol, drawn by our own Cpt Warren Snook, shows an angry squirrel, holding a spear, and guarding two really large acorns. I leave it to your imagination as to what the acorns represent. The motto is "These we will defend". Also perhaps best left to the imagination. The guys have taken to shouting "Crouching Banshee, Hidden Squirrel!" at odd moments. The pressure, I suspect, effects us all in different ways. A bunch of my guys watched the movie "Jarhead", which has the memorable phrase "Yes. It sucks. But EMBRACE the suck!".

At the risk of sounding maudlin and exceedingly melodramatic, this may indeed be the last time I speak to some of you. Make no mistake, we are going into (pardon the language) a "shitstorm" in and around Ramadi. The guys we are replacing are down 30-40% and one team is down to 50% of its original numbers. If I wanted to go to jail, I could quote exact numbers of IEDs and car bombs and ambushes that are occurring daily in the Anbar province (for some reason, it's secret, even though the bad guys already KNOW). It is evident that the death of Zarqawi has spurred action, rather than quieting it. Our job is to make the [Iraqi Army] an effective fighting force. The bad guys want the opposite and thus we are becoming choice sniper targets, or so we are being told. All in all, the mood is downcast, yet determined. What will be, will be. There has been a raft of late night "pacts"—if this happens, do this for me and so on. Sometimes I feel like I am in a really bad movie about WWII. Nevertheless, we are 11; they are in legion, unseen and unknown and more slither across the Syrian and Iranian border every day. I have been staring at this last line for about ten minutes, as I seem to have run out of words. Good luck, Godspeed and love to all. I cant think of anything else to write. I will see you all on the far shore, what ever that holds for all of us.
Mike