U.S. troops return to Iraq, fueled with new optimism

McClatchy Newspapers

NINEVAH PROVINCE, Iraq — The violence of his past deployments in Iraq still haunts Daniel Clemons, a 32-year-old National Guard staff sergeant who’s back for his third tour.

This time, however, Clemons, like a lot of returning U.S. troops, is encountering something new: political and security improvements so dramatic that he can imagine the war ending and his memories of past bloodshed dimming.

“I think it’s winding down. I think I’ll be able to let go of this place,” said Clemons, who barely survived a 12-hour firefight in Baghdad’s Sadr City district nearly four years ago.

Clemons, who’s from Sacramento, Calif., now is with the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment, based in Modesto, Calif. The battalion lost 17 of its roughly 700 Baghdad-deployed troops in 2005, its last Iraq tour.

This time, it’s stationed at a former Iraqi airfield in a safe corner of northern Iraq. Empty desert surrounds the base for miles, protecting the battalion from surprises.

The troops face dangers that are familiar from past deployments, mainly homemade bombs, but they encounter them far less frequently. They drive heavily armored vehicles that give them protection they didn’t have from those threats in previous tours.

Their new assignment has them traveling to volatile cities, such as Mosul and Kirkuk, to guard long supply convoys. The two companies from the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment have run across a few homemade bombs — the military calls them “improvised explosive devices,” or IEDs — but none that’s done any damage.

“The engagements we get out here in a month, we used to get them in two or three days,” said Capt. Guillermo Adame, a company commander who was deployed in Baghdad with the same battalion in 2005.

His company lost five soldiers in September and October 2005, when he was a lieutenant. He keeps their photographs and the dates of their killings in his office.

“Hopefully, things will continue, and I’ll bring all my guys home,” said Adame, 37, a chemist from Ontario, Calif.

The battalion overcame an exceptionally difficult first deployment in 2005. The Army ousted its first commander in Iraq, Lt. Col. Patrick Frey, in the wake of a controversy over abused detainees in one of his companies. A roadside bomb killed his successor, Col. William Wood, in October 2005, three months after he’d taken over.

The group persevered and returned home with fanfare in January 2006. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dubbed the troops “true action heroes.”

Veterans from the first tour describe it as marked by constant roadside attacks and ambiguous results. Some left with mixed feelings about Iraq’s future.

“My experience last time wasn’t the greatest,” Adame said. “When we left, it hadn’t gotten any better. It was just as active as when we started. We took hundreds of detainees, hundreds of rockets, off the streets, and there were still IEDs.”

Other veterans who’d joined the battalion since that tour said they had similar doubts about Iraq after they finished deployments with different Army and Marine contingents.