Barnes Blog
As the conflict in Iraq continues, U.S. News has dispatched Pentagon correspondent Julian E. Barnes for a frontline view.
Barnes, who has periodically reported from Iraq since the war began in 2003, is blogging his impressions for usnews.com.
Monday, 12/05
Cache and carry
The Air Force explosive ordnance disposal team blew up a huge pile of explosives today outside Kirkuk—some 3,000 pounds of explosives extracted from more than 15 tons of mortar rounds. But what exactly did they blow up? When soldiers find a hidden trove of artillery shells, mortar rounds, or ammunition, they say they found a weapons cache. The dictionary would tell you that cache, meaning hiding place, is pronounced "cash." But in the military if you say "cash" you mean a hospital, specifically a CSH, a Combat Support Hospital. (Like a MASH but not so mobile.) So when it comes to hidden troves of weapons, the soldiers like to pretend they are either French or Stephen Colbert. They pronounce cache "ka-SHAY." That's the wrong pronunciation of cache but is the correct pronunciation of cachet, which means prestige. And given how important it is to find weapons troves before they can be turned into roadside bombs, it is certainly true that units that find large caches earn a good bit of cachet.
Sunday, 12/04
A Naderite on the battlefront?
Ralph Nader voters are not as scarce in the Army as you might think. I've actually met two in previous trips to Iraq. Spc. Linsay Burnett was the third. But that was just the beginning. Burnett, a 2003 graduate of the College of William & Mary, is probably the least likely soldier I have ever met. What caught my attention was that she was reading Johnny Got His Gun, a classic antiwar novel of World War I. Then it turned out that she was a Nader supporter, vegetarian, labor organizer, founder of an Amnesty International chapter, and former war protester. Not the typical model of a modern soldier.
At the time of the initial invasion, Burnett thought it was a mistake.
"When it first happened," she says, "I was on the streets protesting with everyone else." She says she was supportive of the effort to remove Saddam Hussein but skeptical about how America went about it.
Today, she supports the military's efforts to help create a democracy in Iraq. She says she believes the United States is trying to teach the Iraqis useful things, trying to improve their organization–something near and dear to her heart. But she still wonders how feasible it will be to help make Iraq into a functioning democracy.
Curiously, she didn't think very much about deploying to Iraq when she enlisted in February 2004. She needed a job and health insurance; the Army offered both. So she signed up for Army public affairs and broadcast communications. Now, though, she seems to have fully embraced the experience of being in Iraq.
"My best friend was freaked out," Burnett says. "She said, 'I will find a way to get you out.' But now she's like, 'I really respect you.'"
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