The 2d Cavalry Assn News Center

A Navy flight officer serving in Baghdad, Iraq, has become the first (to my knowledge) active duty Navy officer to wear the Toujours Pret patch of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. In his own words: “Being a Naval Flight Officer, I am familiar with squadron patches. Every squadron has a unique patch worn on the flight suit or flight jacket that announces to everyone, you are a member of this team. Patches represent great pride and I almost got into a bar room fight over my patch (an Air Force officer took exception to the fact that his girlfriend thought my squadron’s patch was “way more cool” than his - I can’t help it that she was right! BTW, we ended up drinking together the rest of the night so sorry, no honor needed defending in this story. But I digress.) When I started to see soldiers in the new Army digital uniforms, I couldn’t figure out why some only had one patch on the left arm and some had a patch on the left and right arms, but they were apparently patches from different units.”

“Since arriving in Iraq, I have learned the patch on the left arm represents the unit to which that soldier is currently assigned. The patch on the right arm represents any previous unit to which that soldier has been assigned while serving in a combat environment (the “combat patch”). Well, last night, I became a full-fledged member of 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment (”Dragoons”) and was welcomed in during our Patch Ceremony by the unit Commander. So, on my left arm I proudly wear the patch representing my Navy command here.”

“And now, rather than a blank expanse of green velcro, I now wear with equal (or admittedly greater) pride, the patch of my adopted Army unit, 2SCR.”

“Feels pretty good to be a part of this team involved in this fight.

Toujours Pret! (”Always Ready”), Pearl”

Editors note: Always one to blindly forge ahead, I really stuck my foot in my mouth when I left a message on his blog, congratulating him for being the first AIRFORCE officer in the 2nd Cavalry Stryker Regiment. His mother was quick to respond and stick a fork in me, as I was well done! His father soon followed up and sent me an article about his son’s NAVY unit, Joint CREW Composite Squadron One (JCCS-1), and their mission in Iraq.

One Bomb At A Time

On receiving timely intelligence of a champion snorer among Admiral Mullen’s travel staff, I held on to the earplugs from our helicopter ride and was rewarded with a good night’s sleep.

The bathroom off the bunkroom is spacious and clean. Cases of bottled water are stacked beside the sink because, even in a palace, Baghdad tap water isn’t safe for drinking by visiting Westerners.

After an American breakfast in one of the palace’s chandeliered dining rooms, our entourage returns by convoy to Al Faw Palace, where Mullen receives a classified briefing on progress being made against the IED threat in Iraq.

Mullen’s interest in the topic is keen, not only because roadside bombs remain the No. 1 killer of Americans here, but also because, at Mullen’s initiative, the Navy’s role in fighting remotely-detonated IEDs has been expanded sharply since his last visit to Baghdad in December 2005.

During that trip, Mullen learned that ground convoys equipped with CREW [Counter Radio-controlled IED Electronic Warfare] systems, to block electronically detonated bombs, were also blocking routine communications gear. Thus for soldiers or Marines to talk to their base, or even to another vehicle, they had to turn off the very equipment needed to interfere with remotely-detonated IEDs as their convoys passed.

After learning of the problem and consulting separately with a trio of Navy electronic warfare experts in theater, Mullen sent an e-mail in January 2006 to Army Gen. George Casey, then commander of multi-national forces in Iraq, saying that Navy EW skills could be used effectively against electronically-triggered IEDs.

U.S. Central Command soon thereafter officially solicited the Navy’s help. By May, 290 Navy personnel had arrived in Iraq to form a new unit, the Joint CREW Composite Squadron-One [JCCS-1]. Its members, led by electronic warfare officers, were reassigned throughout Iraq to embed with battalions up through divisions and given responsibility for installing and maintaining CREW systems on U.S. ground convoys and for training convoy soldiers and Marines on the equipment to avoid interoperability problems with other communications gear.

Before JCCS-1, explains Navy Lt. Scott Oliver, an electronic counter-measures officer from EA-6B Prowler community, soldiers in vehicles equipped with CREW systems here in Iraq had very little understanding on how it worked [or] the electromagnetic spectrum. “Nobody could talk to each other, because pretty much nobody had carefully looked at the spectrum and looked at the threat and figured out we need to jam these specific threats and not jam the communications.”

Mullen tells me later that it was just logical for the Navy to begin playing a greater role to counter the IED threat.

“I mean we grow up in the Navy learning about a very challenging electronic environment that is out here. You have nothing but radios, communication gear, electronic gear. At sea, it gets into your blood pretty fast, because it can cost you your life not understanding the electronic environment.”

“Our efforts have saved lives”, Oliver says. “I know that because I’ve had guys come back and tell me about scenarios where they actually found [roadside bombs before detonation] and they know the CREW is working.”

While Mullen receives his classified briefing on JCCS-1 and other counter-IED efforts, I have time to sit down in the Al Faw domed foyer with Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Justin Hamaker, who works the IED problem one bomb at a time. He is an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team leader with EOD Mobile Unit 8 out of Naval Air Station Sigonella, Sicily. Twenty sailors from Unit 8 are on a six-month assignment to support the Army’s 79th Ordnance Battalion by disarming bombs.

When soldiers on patrol find weapons caches and convoys come across IED threats, an EOD team is called. Hamaker’s three-man team is on call 12 hours a day.

Despite the efforts of JCCS-1 and of an entire allied task force spending billions on the IED threat, IEDs remain the deadliest weapons used by insurgents. The number of IEDs found by coalition forces has doubled in the past year. In December, roadside bombs will kill 74 U.S. service members, the highest monthly total since IEDs first began to appear along Iraqi roadways in July 2003.

Hamaker’s three-man team clears a route that run from Taji, 20 miles north of Baghdad, through the capital and as far south as Mahmudiya. Since early September, when Hamaker’s unit first arrived in Iraq, IEDs have killed almost 200 Americans, most of them soldiers and Marines. But in the past year IEDs also have killed nine sailors in Iraq, including four EOD technicians.

Hamaker’s team hasn’t suffered any casualties, but there have been close calls, he says. His convoys have been hit by IEDs and by rocket-propelled grenades and get hit with small arms fire “pretty regularly”, Hamaker explains.”The most dangerous part” of his job, he says, “is just getting to wherever we’re going.

As the interview concludes, as if on cue, Cmdr. John Kirby, Mullen’s public affairs officer, explains that bad weather will prevent us from traveling by helicopter that afternoon to the Green Zone as planned. Instead, he says, we’ll go in a convoy of armored Humvees.