To Iraq and back

London man home for the holidays after nearly 14 months in battle zone

By James Foley

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of three stories on London’s Staff Sgt. Eric Caudill. The first two, published today and Monday, were written by free-lance writer James Foley while he was imbedded in Iraq with Caudill’s unit, Bravo Company of the 2/327th Infantry Regiment. The third, which will be published Wednesday, was written by Sentinel-Echo Staff Writer Dean Manning after Caudill returned to London on Dec. 13.



JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq — If there is a story to tell from this war, it should be told by the men who fought in front. The men who led the fight — whether the fight meant kicking in a door, helping build Iraqi checkpoints or delivering medical supplies — whenever it called for a soldier to lead, more than likely the person in the lead was a sergeant.

If there is a story to tell, it will be told by the sergeants who did more than one tour here, those who spent more time in Iraqi in the last four or five years than in their home states, more time working and mentoring their young soldiers in a war zone than with their own families, raising their own kids.

Staff Sgt. Eric Caudill, of London, is 29 and an infantryman from Bravo Company of 2/327th Infantry Regiment. He has a story to tell. Even after a 12-hour training patrol with members of the Air Force unit who would take over his company’s missions around Joint Base Balad, he spoke with passion for more than an hour.

The 2/327th arrived in the country almost 14 months ago with their unit, the 2/320th Field Artillery Regiment of the 1st/101st Brigade from Fort Campbell. Caudill’s company was assigned to conduct infantry operations around Joint Base Balad.

“When we first got here they were hitting us pretty hard,” he said. “A lot of IED activity, sporadic small armed fire. The citizens weren’t coming out of their houses.”

One of the most difficult things was changing perceptions, he said.

“To come into a foreign country where you’ve heard everyone’s out to kill you with an insurgency going on, it’s hard for anyone to change that mindset to — I have to build a relationship with this guy. He has to be able to trust me and I have to be able to trust him. We do joint patrols with the Iraqi Army and police.”

Caudill rattled off the name of every local sheik and checkpoint leader in the area they worked with.

His regiment had a mandate to push counter-insurgency operations in this ring of towns just outside Joint Base Balad. The Sons of Iraq movement was just starting to take hold in the area.

“We started to actually go into the towns,” Caudill said. “Something the previous unit didn’t do, period. They wouldn’t go on the canal roads.”

But to preserve the security gains, winning over the local population is critical, so Army units like the 2/320th give direct aid to the local municipalities.

“The big thing is water and electricity,” Caudill said. “They want money, money, money. And (our regiment) has been good at saying hey, listen this is your town. It’s only as good as you make it.”

Over their more than a year deployment, the infantry regiment was able to push the main insurgents out of their area. They captured many, killed some.

“We raised four Sons of Iraq checkpoints since we’ve been here. We sat on checkpoints, brought out all bunker building material and C-wire. We stood by the Iraqis for three days setting up the checkpoints to show the locals we’re here, we have your back, we’re here to support you,” Caudill said, proudly.

This tour, his platoon was hit by several IEDs, but none directly hit Caudill’s vehicle. During his last deployment, north in Kirkuk in 2006, Caudill’s vehicle was bombed several times by IEDs and grenades, and hit by small-arms fire. He remembers the day when he and his men had to respond to three vehicle-borne IEDs in one day.

The challenge this tour was to fight complacency on missions.

“There’s a lot of (meaningless) missions that come down, that the soldiers really don’t understand why I’m doing this. You can’t just send them out on a patrol and say, ‘Hey, the chances of being attacked are not that high.’

“It’s a challenge as a leader, but when you step back and look at the big picture, you find a task and purpose in anything you do and you have to portray it as a task and purpose to the soldiers — whether it’s a presence patrol, going to a Sons of Iraq checkpoint or on a raid to capture real bad guys.”

Coming Monday: Caudill’s proud family deals with his long deployments.



PART II: Soldier’s family also serves



JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq — Staff Sgt. Eric Caudill, a 29-year-old infantryman from London, is proud of the work he and his unit — Bravo Company of 2/327th Infantry Regiment — did in Iraq.

In the installment of this article published Wednesday, he talked about the two-step process of fighting off the insurgency and then winning over the Iraqi natives so they knew it was safe to trust Americans and that the United States would be in the fight for the long haul.

Still, when pushed, Caudill admits that being an infantryman for 10 years is starting to take its toll on his body — and his life.

"I’m coming up on my 10-year mark. I just re-enlisted for another six years. My knees are going out, my back’s going out. My long-term goal is to retire in 20 years. I definitely want to broaden my career.”

While Caudill is deployed overseas, his family is also serving and suffering — especially his wife, Anna, and parents, Paul and Carolyn.

“My wife understands,” Caudill said. “She’s a military wife. She knows she’s going to be a military wife. We both know we’re going for the long haul.”

But the long haul is not easy on young families, especially since the entire 1/101st Brigade did more than 15 months in Iraq.

“I’ve only spent 30 days of my son’s life with him. A big fear is I won’t ever get to see them again,” he said. “That’s a reality you see every day, but in the same respect, it’s a reality you push to the back of your mind when you put on your gear and grab your weapon and go outside the wire. You hear about a friend that got wounded, you hear about a friend that got killed, it really heightens that sense of how real this is.”

“I’ll probably do another deployment with the 101st. It’s my way of honoring my Dad, to serve in the same unit he served in,” Caudill said of joining the 101st. “He (Caudill’s father) got injured on an airborne jump and was forced into a medical retirement. Probably one of his proudest days was when I told him I was joining the 101st.”

Caudill talked about other highlights.

“Being able to promote one of my soldiers from private to sergeant, to be able to watch him grow, and come into his own as a leader,” he said.

“To watch them reunite with their families will be one of the greatest things I’ll see. As a squad leader being deployed, all you have is your soldiers and if you don’t love your soldiers then you’re not doing your job.”

He said things are changing in Iraq and that he’s seen proof of it. “We had a Shia Sheik and Sunni Muktar form an alliance. Saying ‘hey, we’ve had religious differences, I don’t believe what you believe, you don’t believe what I believe, but at the end of the day we have a safer Iraq.’ It’s the most amazing thing I’ve seen this deployment.”

The saddest thing he saw?

“A refugee camp — people who’ve been pushed out from their village and told never to come back. One of the Sheiks invited them into his village. But to actually sit and talk to them, they don’t feel sorry for themselves. The American population hasn’t really seen poverty for what it is. To see 74 people, men, women, and children living in one house, it’s hard not to love them.”

“The biggest thing to emphasize (to the incoming unit) is Iraqis are human beings — they’re no different than you and I, treat them as such,” he said. “Iraqis are just like Americans. You got good ones and bad ones. Until you know the difference, give them respect. Insurgents only make up only one percent of the population of Iraq. Let’s look at ourselves. Are we any better than the Iraqis? It took America hundreds of years to get here. It takes hundreds of years to rebuild a country, to run it free of corruption. We’ve liberated the country. Now we’re walking side-by-side. One of two things is going to happen. We’re either going to stay and help them, or leave and let them fall.”

Caudill said he loves being a soldier.

“It’s an amazing profession that in a 24-hour span you can put someone in jail, who has killed countless people, and you can make a small kid smile by giving him a high five. The way of treating people today sets the standard for how this country will be 15 years from now.”

Caudill said there’s no better feeling than to know that people back home understand their sacrifices, but he said he is suspicious of people who criticize the war.

“There’s a very thin line between not supporting the war and not supporting the soldier. Americans need to understand it’s not just American boys coming over here to die. There’s a greater good behind this. In my opinion, every American should have some level of respect for an American who goes off and fights a war. They need to understand there’s a greater cause going over here. If they could live a day and walk one day in a soldier’s shoes, they’d understand.”

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