Guardsman: Iraq not one big battle

LEWISTON – The more he learns, the more Lt. Col. Steve Knutzen believes Americans are not getting a true picture of what is happening in Iraq.

It is inaccurate to portray gunfire, bombings and fighting everywhere, he said, taking advantage for the first time in almost four months of the luxury of his own overstuffed leather chair.

The 46-year-old officer is among the members of the 116th Brigade Combat Team home on leave before heading to Iraq late this year. Knutzen is commander of North Idaho’s National Guard 116th Engineer Battalion, headquartered at Lewiston.

His unit is among those in the largest call-up of Idaho National Guard troops in history. About 1,600 Idaho citizen soldiers will be among the 4,300 troops deployed with the brigade.

Knutzen had a 10-day preview on the ground in Iraq late this summer and has also talked with people who have much more experience.

He said they say they don’t know where the impression of an entire country embroiled in battle is coming from.

It would be true if someone spent their entire time in Fallujah, Knutzen conceded, but outside of a couple of hotspots like that, life is more nearly normal.

The 116th will be stationed in the Kirkuk area of northeastern Iraq, and Knutzen says he’s excited.

The brigade spent over three months training at Fort Bliss, Texas, and Fort Polk, La.,

“Louisiana was better training than Texas,” Knutzen says. “It was pretty much total immersion for 10 days. You didn’t come out of character for the whole time. Everybody worked probably 16 to 20 hours a day.”

But the quarters were called “chicken coops” for the bare boards and wire mesh covering the window holes, it was hot and humid, there were bugs everywhere and the food was terrible, he said.

“We were there to replicate conditions as much as possible, and it was very realistic,” Knutzen said.

Soldiers dealt with realistic social and political situations, using interpreters to meet with sheiks and mayors and other government officials – many of them natives of Iraq or other Middle Eastern countries.

His people did well, Knutzen said, and “the ones who used their heads early did better.”

If soldiers displayed aggression, the trainers fought back, he said, and if they tried to win hearts and minds, to work with the Iraqis to make things better, they made progress.

Knutzen said the engineering battalion will take dozers and backhoes with it.

At the least, they can be used to improve the security of their own camps, Knutzen said, and possibly repair some of the roads damaged by the military’s tracked vehicles.

But the primary job will likely be working with contractors to help communities get projects set up and make things happen faster than they normally would.

Ideally, the soldiers and their equipment will be put to work on sewer and water systems and improving security at police stations and other public places that have been targeted for attacks.

“We spend a lot of time in those places. We spend a lot of time with their police and national guard.”

They have had training in public relations, he said, and one of their duties will be to appear on radio shows to answer listener questions through interpreters.

“I’d like to see when we come home that (Iraqis) understand they can trust people from Idaho and they are open and honest and down-to-earth — that we’re not there to occupy their country,” he said.

“We’re there to make things better and go home.”

As for today’s election at home, he plans to vote but has nothing to say about the impact on the war.

“All I can say is this,” he said, “we are focusing on the mission we have been given, and whether you like it or not, it’s what’s been given by the American people and their leaders.

“Whether you agree with it, and certainly there are some of us who don’t agree with it,” he said, “but we gave an oath that we would support the president and the United States, and that’s what we’re doing.

“If a new president comes in and changes our mission, that’s what we will do. We don’t follow blindly, but we believe in our country and in the system it has.”

He’s confident in the training and attitude of the troops he’s going to spend the next year with.

Knutzen says people at home shouldn’t worry about their family members and friends having basic supplies. It’s not like the first days of the war.

Soldiers will welcome packages from home, he said, and soon a request will be made to the people at home to send things for a special project Idaho soldiers intend to undertake with Iraqi school children.

They expect to need simple children’s books, paper, pencils, color crayons and the like.

The way to win this war, Knutzen says, is to turn people toward America instead of letting them go somewhere else because they will go with whoever is first to offer them a better life.