My Share of the Task(239)

                My battalion commander, then–Lieutenant Colonel Tom Graney, hosting foreign military officers as they observe our unit training on Fort Stewart in 1984. Over his right shoulder, our division commander, then–Major General Norman Schwarzkopf, watches. I learned an immense amount from Colonel Graney and his sometimes unconventional leadership.





                The burned-out wreckage of a C-141 at Pope Air Force Base on March 23, 1994. An F-16 Fighting Falcon collided with the C-141, which was parked at Green Ramp, a section of runway on the base. The resulting explosion killed twenty-four paratroopers and wounded more than one hundred others. Many of the dead and wounded were from my battalion, the “White Devils” of the 82nd Airborne.





                On the National Mall with my son, Sam, then seven years old, and Annie in 1991, shortly after I returned from the first Gulf War.





                In the late summer of 1999, speaking to the men of the 75th Ranger Regiment and wearing the signature “high-and-tight” haircut after my final physical training session as the regimental commander. Following each daily physical training session, all those assembled repeated the six-stanza Ranger Creed—a daily promise to those around them to uphold Ranger standards, and never leave another Ranger behind.





                Planning in the village of Mangretay, Paktika Province, Afghanistan, in January 2004. Rangers were conducting operations a short distance from the Pakistan border. Second from right is then–Colonel Craig Nixon, the Ranger regimental commander. At the time, our fight against Al Qaeda led us to focus primarily on Afghanistan and Pakistan, but our attention soon shifted to Iraq.





                Chaos on the streets of Karbala, Iraq, on March 2, 2004, moments after bombs exploded among the thick crowds of Shiite pilgrims who had gathered for the first time in decades for the Ashura festival. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his group targeted the crowds in Karbala and Baghdad, leaving at least 169 dead and hundreds wounded. It was the loudest opening salvo of a vicious, persistent effort to instigate civil war between Iraqi Sunnis and Shia. That spring, our central focus quickly turned from Afghanistan to Iraq.





                My friend and mentor Lieutenant General John Vines (left) in December 2005, when he commanded Multi-National Corps–Iraq.





                Then–Major General Graeme Lamb welcoming Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, into Basra, southern Iraq, in November 2003. Graeme and I served together in the first Gulf War, and again in Iraq. During 2006–2007, we worked together when he oversaw the Coalition’s sometimes controversial reconciliation efforts during a critical juncture in the war. One of my best friends, Graeme would later come out of retirement to serve with me in Afghanistan.





                My Task Force 714 command team in front of the flight line at our headquarters in Balad, Iraq. From left are Donny Purdy, Kurt Fuller, Jody Nacy, Bud Cato, me, Mike Flynn, and Vic Kouw.





                Here wearing his trademark all-black outfit, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi built a mystique as a battlefield commander. His group, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), deftly employed video and audio messages to recruit and inspire followers. This screen capture was taken from a rare public video appearance during the spring of 2006, at a time when we were trying to provoke his ego in an effort to cause him to make a misstep, and come into our sights.





                The ruins of the safe house where Zarqawi was killed, in Hibhib, north of Baghdad. On June 7, 2006, Task Force 16 dropped two five-hundred-pound bombs on the house, which was nestled among a thick grove of palm trees.





                The night after Zarqawi was killed, I thanked members of the Task Force in the backyard of our Baghdad compound abutting the Tigris River. It was not a time of celebration: They knew, as did I, the fight was far from over.





                A badly disabled Stryker armored fighting vehicle, rendered inoperable by an enemy improvised explosive device, on the streets of Ramadi during the summer of 2006. The Stryker had carried a group of Rangers, assigned by Task Force 16 to run raids into the city. At the time, Ramadi was the most dangerous place in Iraq, and tested our special operators and conventional forces who, under the creative leadership of then–Colonel Sean MacFarland, partnered to subdue it and midwife the first durable movement of Sunni reconciliation.