March 26, 2006, Hit, Al-Anbar Province, Iraq
This photo was taken 20 years ago today.
That’s me, Staff Sergeant Josh Hall, a Counterintelligence Agent of the 205th Military Intelligence Battalion, Fort Shafter, HI. I had spent the first four months of my unit’s year-long deployment to Iraq in the safe Baghdad International Airport complex. But in mid-March of 2006, I was sent to a town called Hit, Al-Anbar Province, in mid-March to take charge of a Tactical Human Intelligence Team, working outside of my job field.
This was the first time I had ever left a fully locked-down U.S. base with a loaded M4 carbine and M9 pistol, stepping into the unknown. Just days earlier, on my first day at Firm Base 1, a soldier from the infantry task force we supported had been shot in the head and killed by a sniper. Welcome to reality.
This first patrol was deliberately kept simple for me – the greenhorn. We moved house-to-house on a “census” patrol with an infantry team and several Marines from a combat correspondence unit out of the near-by Al-Asad Airbase. Funny side note: it’s entirely possible—though unlikely—that I walked that patrol with a Marine Corporal you may have heard of named J.D. Vance, who was with that same combat correspondence unit. Also, although we had no idea at the time, another soldier, Specialist Michael Humphreys from 1-36 Infantry Regiment was the actor who played the young Forrest Gump.
We were there to gather demographic data and, as the intel guy, I was looking for potential sources of information and indicators of bad guys in the homes. The patrol went off without a hitch. As did the second… and the third. The fear was still there, but far less than I expected. Danger, however, was never far away. A week later, a convoy I was in experienced an Improvised Explosive Device attack (so far back I did not even hear it). Two months later my own truck was hit with one. In the seven months I spent in Hit our supported unit lost two more soldiers killed, and my own team had two wounded when an IED detonated on a dismounted patrol to meet a source.
In the end, our time there was almost entirely fruitless. Local commanders did not know how to use us effectively, none of us were properly trained for the mission, and the locals understandably wouldn’t talk—threats to their own lives were too real. But I learned some of the most valuable lessons of my life.
Lessons
Life is Precious. – I will always be grateful that every one of my guys came home alive. Many others didn’t, including friends from previous units and the infantry task force we supported.
Critical Thinking Matters. – I can tell more stories than I would like of how poorly thought-out decisions cost soldiers their lives. My own team’s casualties likely happened because I failed to adequately vet and validate a source. My guys walked out there like we always did, and people could have died because of it.
Accountability is Non-Negotiable – That lack of critical thinking and the consequences that follow demand real accountability—the willingness to own one’s mistakes, take responsibility, and, most importantly, learn from them. That mindset is a big reason the American fighting man and woman have historically been so formidable.
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff – It can always be worse. Be accountable. Then shake it off and carry on.
No, life in the following 20 years has not been combat, but those lessons still guide me every day. I bring this commitment to critical thinking, owning mistakes, and taking responsibility to everything I do.
I live. I love. I listen. I learn.
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