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The past month has seen a lot of progress in our area. We have seen a lot of families resettle into the places we have expanded to. The businesses are coming back, the children are returning to school, and the farmers are working the fields. We continued to expand our area...into a place called Busayefi. We have had the unfortunate experience of hitting a few IEDs around our area and experiencing a few more wounded. We lost CPT Nate Raudenbush as well. There will be a tree dedicated to him this month. I would also like to thank everyone that supported and/or attended last month's tree dedication for SPC Joshua Anderson. From what I understand, it was a fitting tribute and many of you came to express your condolences to the Anderson family personally.
The weather here is excellent right now. The days are comfortable with a nice breeze usually. The nights are not cold anymore either. Of course, this will change dramatically in the coming weeks, but we are enjoying what we have for now. As far as the troops:
Angry Troop is still at Patrol Base Stone. They are working with the Air Force Red Horse team to train the locals on a hard skill that will provide long term employment. They are working hard at restoring the chicken industry there. There are many chicken coops, a hatchery, a feed processing plant, and a slaughterhouse. We are also refurbishing the medical clinic and the girls' school right now. These facilities will reopen in the next couple of weeks. The school will have computers with internet even, a rarity over here.
Bushmaster Troop at Patrol Base Dolby has expanded their area into Busayefi, so they have two towns now. They have AFN and internet at the patrol base now. Just like at Patrol Base Stone, we are serving "real" food there with cooks and such. So, life has improved greatly.....it's not without its challenges, but life is much improved.
Courage Troop is whole again with the return of the platoon from 1-30 Infantry. We were very glad to see them come back to us. They are working hard in Zambraniyah to get the farms, including fish farms, operational again. This month, the kids returned to school, a private medical clinic opened, and businesses have started again. Quality of life has improved there as well. All the troopers now have a place to sleep with a mattress....albeit in a MILVAN. We are stuggling to get internet service out there, but continue to work it hard. I'm not sure how much longer we will be there.
Dawg Battery continues to do work in the southern portion of the area. In two different operations, they captured three IED makers....a good get. They are working on building a city council as well as keeping a critical road open for us as well as 5-7 Cav. This road is the only supply route for Courage Troop and 5-7 Cav. They are doing great.
Mad Dawg continues to meet the logistical requirements of the squadron. We keep upping the requirements, they keep filling them. They really are exceptional with a tough mission.
Dark Horse has been working in many different directions, of course. The staff is working hard at organizing the controlled chaos of the squadron. We have a lot of high tech gear we didn't before....you should see them operate...very impressive.
We will draw more of the MRAPs later this month as well. They are a great vehicle. We are working through some stuff that is typical with new trucks, but nothing we can't deal with.
We are still working on what the future holds for the location of the squadron. Things change with this daily....so if you've heard something be comfortable in the knowledge that it will change tomorrow. I have revised the draft twice this week alone.
The redeployment rumors continue to fly, of course. What I can tell you is that we are still on a 15-month tour. There has been some movement of people's leave dates. This was the result of us not using enough slots in January. We have had to take extra in March to get back on track to ensure everyone gets leave without jamming up the squadron's personnel later in the deployment. Don't read into it because there is nothing there. We get 18 days leave because we are on a 15 month deployment. As long as we are on a 15 month deployment we will get 18 days.
I would like to talk about one serious matter. How many of you got my email regarding casualty notification recently? Those that have, know that we had a problem involving the CPT Raudenbush incident. A trooper called his wife with the information that we had lost a trooper from 3-7 Infantry. This wife called a friend in 3-7 who called her FRG leader and so on. All this happened before Casey Raudenbush, the widow was notified. In my opinion, this is disrespectful. This trooper should never have made the call, by whatever means he made it. The wife who received it didn't have the discipline to be thankful that she was not a widow and felt she had to spread the rumor. This does not relieve anxiety...it only creates it. Imagine if the 3-7 wife that got the call from her friend was the widow but didn't know it yet. What if the 3-7 wife knew the widow and was actually going to see or talk to her? Think of the position she would have been in. Terrible. I ask your continued consideration of others by not spreading rumors or getting ahead of the dignified, correct ways of notifying the families of the hurt or killed. It is disrespectful of not only them, but yourself and your spouse's unit.
We very much appreciate all that you do to run the house, maybe have a job, take care of kids, and deal with the daily crises. It's hard work being a single parent and then add on the stress and anxiety of having a spouse at war....it's that much harder. You should be very proud of what you do to support your trooper and contribute to the great cause that we are on.
LTC Mark W. Solomon
Commander
6th Squadron, 8th U.S. Cavalry
SVOIP: 671-1406
DSN: 318-855-3206
