Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
April 29, 2008 By Louis Hansen, The Virginian-Pilot
NORFOLK -- For just over a year, Navy patrol boats have been trolling the Euphrates River, uncovering caches of weapons and guarding a dam that provides electricity to 1.2 million Iraqis.
It’s work that requires sailors to be “up-close-and-personal with an enemy, which we haven’t done for a while,” said Capt. Michael Jordan, commodore of the riverine group’s three squadrons.
The Navy stopped active-duty inland and coastal patrols after Vietnam. Last year, they reclaimed the mission, taking over river patrols for an overburdened Marine Corps.
On Sunday, about 150 sailors from Riverine Squadron 3 left for Iraq – the third unit to deploy since last March. Jordan left the command Monday in a ceremony at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.
Jordan started the group a little more than two years ago with a few dozen sailors and borrowed office space. Thirteen months into the mission, the squadrons have conducted 800 combat operations with more than 200 shoreline sweeps, discovering nearly 100 weapons caches. They have worked with Iraqi forces, with the goal of training them to take over the patrols in western al Anbar province.
The Navy’s force is three squadrons and 700 sailors , though it could be expanded to take on important future roles in combat and in training other navies, said Rear Adm. Michael Tillotson, head of Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.
The Cold War strategy of warships battling in deep seas needs to be supplemented by a force than can secure harbors, ports and rivers, Tillotson said. “We need to be there,” he said.
Petty Officer 3rd Class David Smith came straight from advanced training into the first squadron. Smith, an engine mechanic, said the new squadron had to come to terms with worn equipment and a new mission.
“It was a bit of a discovery,” he said. “I learned to work under pressure.”
Chief Petty Officer Gary Rhodes also deployed with the first unit.
The training and deployment “all happened so fast,” he said. “We didn’t even try to think about it.”
Rhodes, a patrol leader, and his crew discovered thousands of pounds of weapons – AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades and materials for homemade bombs – on the river banks and islands.
“I really felt I made an impact,” he said.
It was unlike anything he experienced aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise, he said, watching the war from “a couple of hundred miles off the shoreline.”
April 29, 2008 By Louis Hansen, The Virginian-Pilot
NORFOLK -- For just over a year, Navy patrol boats have been trolling the Euphrates River, uncovering caches of weapons and guarding a dam that provides electricity to 1.2 million Iraqis.
It’s work that requires sailors to be “up-close-and-personal with an enemy, which we haven’t done for a while,” said Capt. Michael Jordan, commodore of the riverine group’s three squadrons.
The Navy stopped active-duty inland and coastal patrols after Vietnam. Last year, they reclaimed the mission, taking over river patrols for an overburdened Marine Corps.
On Sunday, about 150 sailors from Riverine Squadron 3 left for Iraq – the third unit to deploy since last March. Jordan left the command Monday in a ceremony at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.
Jordan started the group a little more than two years ago with a few dozen sailors and borrowed office space. Thirteen months into the mission, the squadrons have conducted 800 combat operations with more than 200 shoreline sweeps, discovering nearly 100 weapons caches. They have worked with Iraqi forces, with the goal of training them to take over the patrols in western al Anbar province.
The Navy’s force is three squadrons and 700 sailors , though it could be expanded to take on important future roles in combat and in training other navies, said Rear Adm. Michael Tillotson, head of Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.
The Cold War strategy of warships battling in deep seas needs to be supplemented by a force than can secure harbors, ports and rivers, Tillotson said. “We need to be there,” he said.
Petty Officer 3rd Class David Smith came straight from advanced training into the first squadron. Smith, an engine mechanic, said the new squadron had to come to terms with worn equipment and a new mission.
“It was a bit of a discovery,” he said. “I learned to work under pressure.”
Chief Petty Officer Gary Rhodes also deployed with the first unit.
The training and deployment “all happened so fast,” he said. “We didn’t even try to think about it.”
Rhodes, a patrol leader, and his crew discovered thousands of pounds of weapons – AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades and materials for homemade bombs – on the river banks and islands.
“I really felt I made an impact,” he said.
It was unlike anything he experienced aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise, he said, watching the war from “a couple of hundred miles off the shoreline.”