News Article

By: Capt. ROBERT MATHIS
Source: The Greeneville Sun
05-18-2005

Capt. Rob Mathis, a school teacher from Newport who is serving in Iraq with the Army National Guard’s 278th Regimental Combat Team, recently sent to The Greeneville Sun this May 4 entry from his journal.

TUZ, Iraq — Today was one of the greatest adventures that I have experienced to date during my time in Iraq.

Several days ago, Capt. Lenhart, our squadron’s Iraqi police coordinator, asked me if I wanted to accompany him on an upcoming dismounted patrol trough the market district of Tuz. I appreciated his invitation and happily agreed to go.

"We left (Forward Operating Base Bernstein) at a little after 0930 (9:30 a.m. local time) this morning en route to the Tuz police station/Joint Command Center. When we arrived at our destination, I visited for a bit with some of the friends I had made during the elections in January. Muhammad, the director of the Joint Command Center, told me that the JCC crew still asked him about me and when I was coming back to see them. I was very flattered.

Mark and I then visited with Lt. Col. Hussein, the Tuz police chief. We told him about the patrol we wanted to conduct, and he assigned six of his officers to accompany us. It was then that Mark told me he would not be able to join the patrol and that I would be leading it. This was very unexpected.

I was a little uncomfortable with the idea since I did not know the area that we were to patrol, and I had never worked with any of the men on the patrol before. I was uncomfortable, but I was confident. We would all be fine as long as we stuck to the basics and used common sense.

I went outside and found Sgt. 1st Class Mullins, who was the leader of the quick reaction force (QRF) of three HUMVEEs that would come to our aid if we got into trouble in town.

We went over the plan and my patrol’s route.

We discussed a few coordination issues such as how to find us if we needed help, etc. He then asked me to get plenty of pictures in order to better record our squadron’s public relations efforts. I told him I would be glad to.

"Just so you know … If you call us, were coming in with sharp teeth." Mullins said. "I would be disappointed by anything less," I replied.

We gathered the American soldiers for the patrol. We were accompanied by two interpreters.

One of them, named Bruce, stayed by me. Bruce and I have worked together before on several occasions. He has always performed admirably.

We totaled 15 men all together.

We briefed our men first as to the route we would take, and went over what actions we would take in the event our patrol was attacked.

We then gathered smoke grenades, and I secured a flare in case it was needed to guide any support to our location.

After that was finished, we brought our Iraqi policemen into the group and briefed them on the route we would take and what was expected of them during the patrol.

Upon finishing the briefings and the pre-patrol inspection, we moved out toward the market district. After marching a hundred meters or so, we conducted a short halt to adjust our dispersion and then moved on.

I gave my camera to Bruce to take pictures since I would have to direct all of my attention to the mission at hand.

Patrol’s Objectives

Some of the soldiers with us were also psychological operations specialists. They brought some leaflets to be passed out to the public as we walked through the area. The patrol also had two other objectives: The first was to encourage our Iraqi police officers to interact with the citizens of Tuz and, by doing so, create a bond with them. The second of these objectives was for us (the American forces) to continue to maintain a visible presence in the city.

One of the first sights that greeted us upon approaching the outskirts of the market district was a small roadside stand that sold live chickens.

The proprietor of the stand was apparently very proud of the quality of his poultry because he pulled one of them out of the wire cage he kept them in and showed it off to us as we passed so Bruce could get a good picture of him.

The next thing we knew, we were in the heart of the marketplace. Sights, sounds, and smells of all kinds met our senses at once.

The street narrowed as we moved on. The buildings on each side were mostly two to three stories high and were of cinder-block construction and sported the same sand colored stucco as many of the town’s residential buildings. Power and phone lines crisscrossed one another above our heads. Decorative multicolored lines with streamers and small flags, the type you would normally see at a car lot, were fixed to some of the taller structures and stretched across the road above us as well.

I alerted the rest of the patrol and, using hand and arm signals, told them to keep a close watch on the rooftops and upper floors of these buildings.

Although most of the townspeople were very friendly, we knew that the area still was sure to contain its share of insurgents.

This is still a very dangerous place. If we encountered any terrorists, we weren’t going to make ourselves an easy target for them.

Vendors Everywhere

The sidewalk and adjacent street were dotted with vendor carts selling all manners of wares, including candy, vegetables, cheap plastic toys, and prescription narcotics to name but a few. One of these vendor carts was selling fresh fish that were nearly as long as my arm.

It appeared to be a very popular place, judging by the number of customers around it. In addition to the vendors, the sidewalks were also cluttered with trash of all descriptions. Piles of empty cardboard boxes sat next to the street at regular intervals. Empty plastic bottles and aluminum cans were everywhere.

A trench full of dark-colored water ran between the sidewalk and the road. It was a part of the town’s drainage system. I wondered if this particular trench doubled as a sewer system like some of the others that I had seen in the city.

I detected no aroma coming from it, so I concluded that either it was merely rainwater in the trench or it was sewage, and I had just become used to the smell.

The only scents that I could readily distinguish were those of spices, sweat and auto exhaust.

Thankfully, the weather was unusually cool for this time of year. It was in the mid to upper 80s. This kept the smell of sweat from becoming too offensive.

The cool weather eased the burden of the approximately 55 pounds of equipment that each of us wore. This basic load consisted of our body armor, helmet, rifle, pistol, ammunition and water.

There were other additional but necessary items dispersed about the men in the patrol such as smoke grenades, flares, first-aid bag, man-pack radio, etc.

The streets became more and more crowded with people. It was now about 10:45 a.m., and the market was already in full swing.

The sounds of car horns and people conversing with one another in Arabic, Kurdish and Turkish became the tune to which we walked.

We arrived at an intersection where a side street that was too narrow for cars to travel split off from the road that we were on. I decided to take this route and wind our way through the rest of the marketplace in order to get better coverage of the area for the public relations part of our mission.

The narrowness of this street made the buildings on each side seem taller than they actually were. Large canvasses were stretched across this alley about 12 feet or so off of the ground in order to provide shade to the merchants and customers alike.

Shortly after turning down this alley, Staff Sgt. Krych, our psychological operations representative, told me that this would be an ideal place to conduct a short halt and let the Iraqi policemen accompanying us mingle with the citizens.

I ordered the patrol to halt and got Bruce to give the policemen a quick briefing to remind them of our intent. We then set them loose to interact with the public. The intelligence specialists in the patrol also went about talking to the locals.

While the policemen were mixing with the crowd, we kept an eye on them and established 360-degree security for ourselves.

During this halt, Bruce and I just happened to be next to a dress shop. I noticed some very pretty scarves hanging by a rack at the front of the shop. I asked Bruce to find out how much they were and where they were made.

He informed me that they were made in Syria and Turkey and that the price was very reasonable.

I quickly picked out some scarves that I thought my wife, Missy, would like and offered the merchant $20 for the lot, and he accepted.

It was during this halt that I noticed that the market district was loosely organized by the kind of products that each of the shops offered. The area we were currently in was between the produce and garment districts.

Looking farther down the alley, I could see more shops selling dresses, shoes and cloth. Looking back in the direction from which we had come, I saw vendors selling all manner of vegetables, beans and spices.

There were vegetables of all kinds such as potatoes, tomatoes, onions and olives. I could only identify a few of the spices that were sold.

Most were in large open baskets in front of the shops. They ranged from finely ground aromatic powders of assorted colors to small dried roots similar in appearance to ginseng.

As we passed one shop, the smell of fresh curry overpowered every other aroma on the street.

There were no shops selling fruit, though. I was surprised to see that.

Reminded Of Gatlinburg

About this time, I was also struck with the impression that the way this district was laid out reminded me very much of walking through Gatlinburg. The main street by which we entered the market place was a little less than half the width of the main strip that runs through Gatlinburg.

The businesses were arrayed in exactly the same way in both towns, and there were little side streets branching off from the main thoroughfare that lead to pedestrian-only alleys that contained more shops.

It was one of these side streets that we now occupied. After giving the police and the intelligence guys a few more minutes to chat with the crowd, it was time to move on.

We continued down the alley. The deeper in we went, the more exotic it felt. In these close confines and away from the automobile traffic, the smells of the market were intense. It felt like literally walking back in time. In our helmets and armor, we could have almost passed for Roman soldiers walking through this same market 2,000 years ago.

We carefully stepped our way around a pile of trash that was covered with flies and smelled strongly of something rotten. A few paces later, I accidentally knocked some shoes off of a table with the canteen hanging from my ammo vest by my right hip.

When I turned to pick them up, Sgt. Schwartz, the RTO (radio operator), smiled and said it was the second time I had done it. I was more careful after that.

The people were all very friendly on this street as well as all the other streets we traveled. A group of four children approached me asking for some chewing gum. I happened to have a pack of Juicy Fruit in my pocket with four pieces left in it. I gave each of them a piece, and they tagged along with us for a few blocks.

We took a left turn at the end of the alley and entered the section of the market that contained the butcher shops. The smell of the animals was very strong here, and flies were everywhere. I told Bruce to be sure to get pictures of the scene. He looked puzzled as to why I would want pictures of this.

I smiled and told him that we just don’t see this kind of thing every day back in America.

One of the butchers saw Bruce taking pictures and got very excited. He grabbed one of the sheep hanging in his shop and ran to the door, holding up the carcass so Bruce could take his picture with it.

After taking a few pictures, we moved on and took another left at the next intersection, where we entered the furniture market.

We made another short halt here to conduct more public relations work. At the end of the street, we made yet another left turn. This turn brought us back onto the street that we had first used to enter the market district, the one that had all of the cars on it.

This part of the street was a half mile or so beyond where we turned off to go down the back alleys and side streets. This part of the main street contained the construction material market.

Across the street from us was a storage yard full of the thin, wooden beams used to make roofs for houses in this region. On our side of the street there was a paint store. Sgt. Schwartz said that this part of town was more in his department.

When I asked him why, he told me that he worked at a Lowe’s back home. I moved the intelligence guys and some policemen to the other side of the street to give us better coverage and to provide more security.

The construction supply stores soon gave way to electronics shops full of televisions, radios and satellite dishes.

Soon, we came to the same part of the street we had passed before turning into the alley. We passed the fish vendor, who still had a lot of customers around him. We veered right at a fork in the road shortly after passing his stand.

Stop For Ice Cream

Our last stop was at the bakery market. Both sides of the street were lined with shops selling breads, cookies and other assorted treats.

There was even an ice cream parlor that sold two cones for a dollar. Staff Sgt. Krych and Cpl. Ahn, our medic, each got a cone. They said it was very good.

We were now nearing the end of our tour of the market district. A light rain began to fall. It felt very good, but only lasted for a few minutes. The skies were overcast after that for the rest of the day.

We left the market district and made our way back to the police station. It was now almost noon. The local grade school had just let out, and a pack of little boys still wearing their backpacks tagged along with our patrol until we were completely out of the market district.

The proprietor of one of the last shops we passed gave each of us each a handful of candy as we walked by.

As we continued our march back to the station, we passed some beautiful homes whose entire fronts were covered with ornate mosaic tile work. I took several pictures of one of them.

The people were still waving and greeting us cordially as we passed. The city of Tuz has come a long way in the last six months.

Once we were back at the police station, all of our men were served a dish called "koozee." It was sheep meat on rice. It was served with Iraqi baked beans, which are like ours but firmer and have a strong tomato taste, and a soup that tasted like beefy vegetable with some exotic spices thrown in.

Flat, round bread and vegetables were also served with the meal. It tasted great. It was very similar to one of the pork dishes at La Carreta (restaurants in Tennessee). I am really craving some La Carreta food after eating this meal.

During the meal, I visited with my Iraqi friends at the police station some more, and we took some more pictures together.

Once the meal was finished, we said our goodbyes to the folks at the police station and came back to Forward Operating Base Bernstein.

Today was one of the most enjoyable that I have had since arriving here in Iraq. I look forward to doing it again.

Photo Special to the Sun - The photo above shows the bustling marketplace in Tuz, Iraq, as it appeared earlier this month when National Guard Capt. Rob Mathis, of Newport, and a patrol of other 278th Regimental Combat Team soldiers conducted a “foot patrol” there. Capt. Mathis described that patrol in the article that accompanies this photo.

Story Copyright to Greeneville Sun