News Article
By: BILL JONES/Staff Writer
Source: The Greeneville Sun
05-16-2005
SEVIERVILLE — The Second Squadron of the Tennessee National Guard’s 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment (2/278th) is known by the collective nickname "Peacemakers."
A Middle East expert just back from an extended visit with the unit’s members in Iraq said here on Friday evening that the nickname is an accurate description of the role local National Guardsmen are playing in that conflict-ridden country.
Dr. Graham Leonard, a 79-year-old Kingsport native who has spent 35 years of his life in the Middle East, said he had returned to Tennessee earlier this month after five weeks in Iraq with the 2/278th, which includes many National Guardsmen from that unit’s Greeneville-based Troop G.
Leonard described what he had seen in Iraq during an address at the Sevierville Civic Center to an audience that included several family members of National Guardsmen from this region. The Sevier County Democratic Club organized the event.
Jim Anderson, the club’s president, said at the beginning of the meeting that it was a “non-partisan” gathering to which the families of National Guardsmen and the general public had been invited.
While introducing Leonard, Anderson referred to the white-haired educator from Kingsport who is a Middle East expert, as a "contradiction."
Anderson described Leonard as "a Quaker and a pacifist who supports the troops." During his remarks, Leonard said he does oppose the war, but supports the troops who have been sent to fight it.
Leonard proceeded to deliver a 90-minute presentation on Iraq and the role local National Guardsmen are playing there.
Speaking in a booming baritone voice without a hint of an East Tennessee accent, Leonard used maps of Iraq that were projected onto a large screen behind him.
Doing Wonderful Job
"Our group (as he called the 2/278th) is doing a wonderful job of peacemaking," Dr. Leonard said of the 2/278th citizen-soldiers near the end of his presentation. "They are the Tennessee Peacemakers, and that’s what they’re doing. And we’re all very proud of them."
The comment drew loud applause from the audience of slightly more that 100 people who attended the Friday night meeting of the Sevier County Democratic Club. He noted during his remarks that Forward Operating Base Bernstein, where the 2/278th citizen-soldiers are based, is located on a flat plain that apparently once was a lake bottom near the Iraqi city of Tuz.
FOB Bernstein, Leonard said, formerly was an Iraqi air base built by Eastern Europeans during the reign of Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s former dictator.
The facility is not being used as an air base by U.S. forces, Leonard said, adding that its facilities are spread out over a wide area.
He said Tuz is an an area of Iraq populated by three distinct ethnic groups: Kurds, Turkomen and Sunni Arabs. The three ethnic groups speak different languages, adding to the linguist challenges for U.S. soldiers.
Despite the potentially explosive ethnic mix of the Tuz area’s population, the 2/278 soldiers have made “great progress” in preparing the area for transition to control of the new Iraqi Army and the Iraqi government, Leonard said.
He noted that when he spoke with Iraqi residents of the Tuz area in Arabic, they wanted to know "who these people (the 278th soldiers) are?"
He said the Iraqis with whom he spoke told him that 2/278th soldiers "showed respect" to the area’s population and were unlike the soldiers of other military units who had operated in the same area earlier.
"These are people who pray," Leonard said he told the Iraqis of the 2/278th’s soldiers.
He noted that the 2/278th soldiers seemed especially popular with Iraqi children, to whom they frequently give candy.
He said the National Guardsmen have worked to improve restroom facilities and build classrooms at Iraqi schools.
But Leonard noted that he feels the Iraqi education system must be drastically changed if the country is ever to succeed in becoming a flourishing democracy.
The current system, he said, is based on rote memorization and doesn’t teach students to think for themselves.
He said the Iraqis also told him they had difficulty understanding the accent of the English spoken by the 2/278th soldiers.
He noted that the 2/278th soldiers, with an average age of more than 40, are "more mature" than the soldiers of most regular U.S. Amy units. That, he said, may account for some of the good relations between the unit and the Iraqis.
But he said he feels there may just be something in the character of soldiers from East Tennessee that strikes a chord with the Iraqis.
Greeneville 'Scouts'
When a Greeneville Sun reporter, who attended the meeting, asked Leonard about his interactions in Iraq with National Guardsmen from Greeneville-based Troop G, Leonard said he had gone on missions with the 'scouts' from Troop G in Iraq.
On one such mission, Leonard told the audience, he was riding in a Jeep-like HUMVEE military vehicle with three 2/278th soldiers when they spotted a dead dog "with wires sticking out of it" beside the road ahead.
He said the vehicle's driver drove off the road and across country to avoid a possible insurgent attack.
While riding in the HUMVEE, he said, he had been told it was his job in the event it appeared the vehicle might overturn to "tackle" and pull inside the vehicle, the gunner who rides with the upper half of his body outside the vehicle’s roof-top hatch.
Should a HUMVEE overturn with with its gunner still exposed, Leonard said, the gunner could be seriously, or even, fatally injured.
He noted that the scouts often are sent out to search for Iraqi insurgents who are spotted by unmanned aerial vehicles planting the roadside bombs the military calls "improvised explosive devices."
He said groups of scouts on alternate nights leave Forward Operating Base Bernstein in search of insurgents. Other scouts, he said, do the same thing during daylight hours.
Leonard told the audience that he never saw a shot fired in anger during his five weeks with the 2/278th. He noted that no 2/278th soldier had been killed within the unit’s normal operating area.
He recalled that Sgt. Paul Thomason III, a Troop G member who lived in Jefferson City, was killed by a roadside bomb explosion in March. But Thomason died while outside the 2/278th’s normal area of operation.
The 2/278th soldiers, he said, know the roads in their area of operation so well that they quickly spot any "new patches" and other changes in the roadway that might hide an explosive device.
Cuisine Described
He said Forward Operating Base Bernstein’s dining hall is located about a mile from the 2/278th’s headquarters. That, he said, means driving or walking to meals.
He described the food served in the dining hall as "very good." He said steak was served there at least once while he was present.
"They have chicken about three times a week," he said. But Leonard said "junk food," including pizza, burgers and the like, also is available around the base and that many soldiers are eating junk food rather than the more nutritious fare available in the dining hall.
He said many soldiers had actually gained weight. "I was surprised the Army doesn’t try to run it off them," he said.
Leonard noted that among the few foods he saw in short supply at FOB Bernstein were "salads and ice cream."
He noted that soldiers must carry their rifles with them at all times, even when going to the dining hall. That, he said, requires that safety precautions be taken to ensure that weapons aren’t discharged accidentally.
Before entering the dining hall, he said, all soldiers must point their weapons into a sand-filled barrel and pull the triggers as a way of checking to ensure that no live rounds can be accidentally fired.
He also noted that soldiers leaving the base on patrol must test fire, just before leaving the base, all weapons to ensure that they are functioning properly.
On returning, he said, soldiers must, after unloading their weapons as they enter the base, test-fire them again to ensure that live ammunition has been safely removed.
Unit May be Relocated
During his presentation, Leonard said 2/278th National Guardsmen have done such a good job in their area of operations in northeastern Iraq of preparing for a transfer of control there to the new Iraqi Army that they likely will be deployed to another part of the country in June or July.
Leonard told the audience that he did not know where the 2/278th might be relocated, but said the unit possibly could be moved to the area near a base called Camp Caldwell east of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.
The 278th’s Knoxville-based First Squadron is already located there, he said. He noted that the 2/278th also possibly could be moved into the so-called "Green Zone," a heavily fortified area in Baghdad where the U.S. embassy and other important governmental facilities are located.
Leonard also said that while he hoped the 2/278th might be returned to the United States this fall, he feared the unit might be retained in Iraq until after the next round of Iraqi national elections, which are scheduled to take place in early December.
He based that guess, he said, on the 2/278th's performance prior to and during the first Iraqi election this past January.
Leonard said he has long-term concerns about the new Iraqi Army's role in Iraq after the U.S. forces turn over control and leave the country.
Traditionally in the Arab world, he said, armies have tended to take control of their countries.
Involvement Last Year
Dr. Leonard told the audience that his involvement with the citizen-soldiers of the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment (redesignated the 278th Regimental Combat Team for service in Iraq) began last spring after word came that the National Guard unit was being called to active duty.
He noted that, as a fluent speaker of Arabic and a veteran of 35 years in the Middle East, he volunteered to teach classes to Northeast Tennessee National Guardsmen about the Arabic language and Iraqi culture and customs.
He said he traveled to National Guard armories throughout Northeast Tennessee, including the Greeneville National Guard Armory on Hal Heard Road, to teach those classes that he thought might enable the local soldiers to better understand the Iraqis.
After the 2/278th arrived in Iraq late last year, Leonard recalled, he was invited to visit the unit.
He told the audience that U.S. military units in Iraq need Arabic interpreters and generally have been hiring, through a private contracting firm called Titan, Iraqi citizens to handle those duties.
The 2/278th, he said, has no fewer than 45 Iraqi interpreters working with its soldiers in Iraq. Unfortunately, he said, most of the Iraqi interpreters have limited knowledge of English and few, if any, have ever been to the United States or know much about American culture.
He noted that the 2/278th has one soldier who grew up in Utah and learned Arabic in high school in preparation for a possible “mission trip” with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"He handles most of the interrogations," Leonard said of that soldier.
Paid Own Expenses
Leonard told the audience that he paid his own expenses for the trip to and from Iraq and is accepting donations now during speaking engagements to help offset that cost.
He explained that he originally traveled to Iraq in association with a small Christian Peacemakers Team that flew into Baghdad airport. The members of that small group traveled around the country for 10 days wearing Arab-style clothing to make it difficult for them to be recognized as Americans.
Leonard said he had to conceal his white hair beneath an Arab head scarf to avoid identification as westerner.
"If an Arab man had white hair he would color it," Leonard said.
He said a mortar shell fired by insurgents landed near one of the three taxis that carried the Christian Peacemakers Team from the airport to Baghdad, but no one was injured.
Later, he said, the group visited a city in southern Iraq where a bomb killed several people only days after their visit.
After finishing his work with the Christian Peacemakers Team, Leonard said, he made his way to U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad and managed to arrange transportation to the 2/278th’s area of operations after obtaining press credentials.
He noted that his "Moslem godson" is the editor of an English language newspaper in Beirut, Lebanon. The godson, he said, told authorities that Leonard was representing his newspaper.
Leonard also filed reports for The International Herald-Tribune and to several Northeast Tennessee newspapers, including The Greeneville Sun, while in Iraq, he said.
But Leonard said he was not paid by any news organization while working in Iraq. Leonard said he made his way out of Iraq by bus after his stint with the 2/278th ended.
Plans To Write Book
Leonard, who ran as a Democrat in an unsuccessful 2004 attempt to unseat Republican Congressman Bill Jenkins, R-1st, of Hawkins County, said in a press release issued earlier this month that he does not plan to seek political office again.
After his Friday night speech, Leonard said he plans in June to begin writing a book about his experiences in Iraq earlier this year.
Stella Parton Sings
Leonard was preceded on the program of the Friday night meeting by Nashville recording artist, and Sevier County native, Stella Parton. Parton performed a special original song she wrote called "I Love My Country."
She described the song as "a patriotic song from a woman’s perspective." Parton has released 27 records and 17 albums, starred in five New York-based touring musicals, and played a major role in the CBS-TV movie "The Color of Love." In 2004, she won the Christian Country Music Award award as Female Vocalist of the Year.
Sun Photo by Bill Jones - Dr. Graham Leonard, a 79-year-old Kingsport native who returned to Tennessee earlier this month after being in Iraq with the 2/278th for five weeks, speaks Friday evening to family members of those National Guardsmen, including Greeneville-based Troop G.
Story Copyright to Greene County Online