Commander: 48th's morale high despite tragic losses

<p>Morale among the 4,300 members of the Georgia Guard's 48th Infantry Brigade remains high, despite the deaths of 14 soldiers during a string of bloody attacks, and some of their Iraqi allies are even crying and hugging the citizen-soldiers as they prepare to move on to a new mission next month, the brigade's commander says.</p><p>Georgia's largest National Guard unit recently set a milestone by completing its 13,000th combat patrol in a hazardous area south of Baghdad, said Brig. Gen. Stewart Rodeheaver, the brigade's commander, during a telephone interview from Iraq with The Associated Press.</p><p>The brigade has lost 22 soldiers, 17 in combat and five in other circumstances, such as accidents, said 2nd Lt. Selena Owens, the brigade's public affairs officer. Two of the soldiers who died were assigned to the 48th from other states; the rest were from Georgia, she said.</p><p>Considering the "in-your-face combat" the brigade has faced and the number of patrols it has made since its arrival in mid-May, the percentage of casualties is "very, very, very small," Rodeheaver said.</p><p>"The casualties hit the brigade real hard," he said. "That much loss drops anybody to their knees, but our guys did a tremendous job of coming back and doing great things after that."</p><p>After the combat deaths, including 11 soldiers killed in 10 days by roadside bombs and a suicide bomber in late July and early August, the brigade established a new patrol camp known as the "Lion's Den" to curb insurgent attacks in the area, Rodeheaver said.</p><p>"We did a couple of things that improved things for us, but it's not like we were making mistakes," he said. "We were moving into some new territory when our guys got hurt. What we decided to do was take that territory away from the enemy. We did that by building a new patrol base.</p><p>"I just decided that was the tactical way to stop them from hurting anyone else," he said. "So we ... did that as a way to take the initiative away from the enemy."</p><p>Since establishing the new base, there have been no more brigade combat deaths although the soldiers are shot at every day.</p><p>The soldiers are working 12-hour shifts, the general said. They are approaching the six-month mark of their tour in Iraq. The brigade has been told it will be leaving Iraq in May or June 2006, Rodeheaver said</p><p>"Morale is extremely high," he said. "They're proud of what they're doing and they do a great job."</p><p>Besides the combat patrols, the brigade has opened health clinics and schools and brought drinking water and electricity to communities that never had such amenities, he said.</p><p>Rodeheaver said the 48th, which has been headquartered at Camp Striker south of Baghdad, will be split up in mid-November to provide security for all of Iraq. Its missions will include convoy and base security and some "very specialized security and control missions" that he said he could not discuss.</p><p>He said he could not say where individual units will go because the plan has not been finalized.</p><p>"Everywhere in Iraq is a dangerous place, but some are less dangerous than others," he said. "The mission we've had for the last five months has been full-spectrum, in-your-face combat," he said. "The next mission we've got is not quite as intense.</p><p>"They needed a very large fighting force and we've got a very big brigade," he said. "Because we've got a big brigade, they gave us the whole country. It had nothing to do with anything else."</p><p>Recently, brigade representatives have been visiting some of the Iraqis they have worked with to inform them of the new mission and the 48th's departure from the area, Rodeheaver said.</p><p>"To a person, they've all cried and hugged our necks," he said. "Little kids are hugging us .... They appreciate what we're doing over here."</p><p>The Georgia soldiers appreciate the strong support they have back home, the general said.</p><p>"They see it every day by the truckloads of goodie boxes and letters that come in here," he said.</p><p>A gift of two tons of boiled peanuts, funded by 4-H clubs around the state, was a big hit with the Georgia soldiers, but not with Northerners assigned to the brigade, said Rodeheaver, who still had one pouch of the peanuts left on his desk.</p><p>"I run the brigade, so I teasingly tell everybody it's my brigade," said Rodeheaver. "But it really ... belongs to the people of Georgia. This is their brigade, not just when we're over here fighting a war, but when we're out there helping during a hurricane, or a tornado, or a snowstorm or whatever _ the floods of '94. This is the brigade that comes out and helps the people of Georgia."</p><p>Rodeheaver said the 48th was the best equipped brigade in the Army, not just the National Guard, when it arrived in Iraq.</p><p>"Our guys have done a tremendous job because we were so well trained and so well equipped," he said. "The soldiers are not just leading the way with military stuff. We've opened up medical clinics, we've opened up schools, we've done three water projects that put drinking water in people's houses who have never had water before in their lives and we've turned on electricity in places where there's never been a light bulb."</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1cdf454)</p>

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