Two American Soldiers, Two Iraqi Brides

[thedrifter]

11-24-2003

Two American Soldiers, Two Iraqi Brides



By Matthew Dodd



PATROL WARNING ORDER: 16 Aug 2003/Baghdad, Iraq



SITUATION: Despite the ongoing threats to all coalition forces helping to maintain order and provide stability for the Iraqi reconstruction efforts, two patrol members wish to put themselves before unit mission accomplishment and get married to women they have known for only four months.



MISSION: On 17 Aug 2003, our 3rd Battalion, Florida National Guard 124th Infantry, 1st Armored Division patrol will conduct a covert marriage patrol, under the guise of conducting a routine security patrol, in order to allow the impulsive marriage of two patrol members to native Iraqi women.



DESIRED ENDSTATE: The desired endstate of this mission is to deceive the chain-of-command; show blatant contempt for authority; tarnish the credibility of the U.S. armed forces? presence; and create an international social, cultural, military and political quagmire.



SPECIAL EQUIPMENT: Two golden wedding rings.



SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS: This patrol is to be planned and conducted in complete secrecy from our chain-of-command, but we will have an American reporter present to observe the ceremony.



That warning order was never published, but, believe it or not, it was actually executed.



According to an article in The Chicago Tribune on Aug. 28, 2003:



?The two brides, one in a print dress, the other in slacks, and a few family members came to a city street corner at mid-morning. From there, an Iraqi intermediary led them to the route of their fiances? foot patrol. The grooms marched up in their regular Army uniforms, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying M-16 rifles. Finally, a nervous Iraqi judge arrived separately, coaxed from his courthouse to complete the ceremony. The group ducked into a grassy courtyard where the vows commenced [with the grooms removing their helmets and laying down their weapons] .? Finally, with an American reporter watching, it took less than a half-hour in the morning sun to hear the judge?s recitations of the vows. The two couples exchanged rings, signed the paperwork and were married.?



From reading many articles about this bizarre event, it is obvious to me that the grooms, Sgt. Sean Blackwell, 27, and Cpl. Brett Dagen, 37, were very determined to get married and they had been planning the event for quite some time. The soldiers converted to Islam a couple of weeks prior to the ceremony. They arranged a specific time and place for the ceremony. They ensured that a judge would conduct the ceremony, and enlisted the support of an escort to guide them to the appointed marriage site. The Tribune article accurately assessed: ? ? the nuptials took on the secrecy and synchronization of a commando operation.?



They even coordinated to have a reporter present at the ceremony. At first I thought they wanted their ceremony documented for purely romantic reasons, but Sgt. Blackwell?s comments have me wondering about his true motives: ?I am confident that it will be a very welcomed story back home. I feel the American public needs a story about something good that happened over here.?



I was not aware that he was in a position to know what is best for the American public.



From my perspective as a career military officer, this culminating event is totally unacceptable for many reasons.



The most obvious reason is that the two soldiers blatantly disobeyed orders. The Tribune reported that ?as friendships deepened into romance, U.S. officers considered the relationships a security problem. The guardsmen were prohibited from ?fraternization? during ?combat.? ? I suspect there was a lot of fraternization involved in the four months between the couples? initial meeting and their wedding ceremonies.



According to Baghdad-based Florida National Guard spokesman, Capt. Jack McClellan, ?We are accomplishing a mission on the street and protecting our forces. We cannot develop relationships with the locals unless they are mission-related.?



Second, time spent developing their relationships and planning and coordinating their marriage ceremonies was time taken away from their individual and unit readiness responsibilities in a hostile combat zone. They selfishly pursued their own interests and disregarded their fellow soldiers? safety and security.



Third, all their planning and coordinating was done in secrecy without their command?s knowledge. I am guessing that there were other soldiers who knew about and allowed this charade to continue without command influence. If true, then there was an active conspiracy going on within that unit. A conspiracy in the ranks spells disaster for good order and discipline for a deployed unit in a combat zone.



If these illicit marriages were conducted without the prior knowledge of the rest of the patrol, then these two soldiers literally gambled with and knowingly put the lives of their fellow soldiers in jeopardy. Once small unit trust and integrity is destroyed, chaos and catastrophe cannot be too far behind.



Finally, now the chain of command must deal with an unexpected, complex emotional and political situation. According to many reports, the Iraqi brides are now receiving death threats from angry Iraqi fanatics who view their unconventional marriages to unwanted occupiers as disloyal to their own people. What is hard for me to understand is that the two soldiers responsible for this situation are 27 and 37 years of age. I am used to hearing about impulsive marriages of deployed warriors who are still in their teens or early twenties, but not late twenties and late thirties. The bottom line is that now the chain-of-command has become distracted from focusing on its important mission.



I am left wondering this: How common are these types of shenanigans in Iraq? I am sure that U.S. soldiers marrying Iraqi women is not common, but what other blatant breeches of trust are happening and being tolerated or rationalized away, and how are these breeches affecting the overall conduct of ground operations in Iraq? Is this type of event limited to this particular unit, or are they just as likely to happen in other National Guard, Reserve, and active-duty units?



It is said that the truth is stranger than fiction. Although my warning order was purely fiction, it was a truthful reflection on a strange and terrible reality.



Lt. Col. Matthew Dodd USMC is a Senior Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at mattdodd1775@hotmail.com.

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/...550023947370418


Sempers,

Roger