the ‘greywolf brigade,’ 1st cavalry division

34 ARMY n March 2010

The ‘Greywolf Brigade,’ 1st Cavalry Division

cramped U.S. Army base called

Scorpion, named for its creature

inhabitants and the reason

soldiers shake out their

boots each morning, sits in

the middle of a sprawling Iraqi army train-

ing base about 12 miles south of Mosul.

Surrounded by a perimeter wall, the base

March 2010 n ARMY 35

consists of two barracks buildings with a

mobile kitchen trailer parked in back. Its

parking area is crammed hub to hub with

mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP)

vehicles, Humvees and various other

pieces of equipment. Arrivals and depar-

tures require an exacting choreography

akin to moving planes around an aircraft-

carrier deck, and life there requires strong

tolerance for the mundane existence of a

cloistered living revolving around mission

schedules, mealtimes, and late-night Inter-

net and phone contact with home.

Scorpion, known by various designations

over time—patrol base, combat outpost or

joint security station—is nondescript (gray

A guard keeps watchat the Scorpion base

gate as a nighttimelogistics package

convoy approaches todeliver supplies.


concrete, tan trucks and a coating of dust) and not unique.Over the years, many American bases in Iraq have sharedits isolation and austerity. Situated near the town ofHaman Alil, Scorpion is important because it is one of a di-minishing number of small American forward bases inIraq as agreements with the Iraqi government and chang-ing missions have resulted in consolidation of Americanforces on larger camps outside Iraqi urban areas.

More than 115,000 American troopsremain deployed for Operation IraqiFreedom, a significant force requestedby the U.S. commanders to maintain astrategic bulwark against turbulencethat might follow the next Iraqi na-tional elections, which are scheduledto take place this month. The politicalground established by the last na-tional elections was the foundation forescalating sectarian clashes, a result ofthe new balance of political poweramong major sectarian factions andwhich culminated with an Americantroop surge to help quell the violenceat its height. Apprehensions persist ofattacks to disrupt the election or toundermine security preceding it (anda rash of major bombings has recentlyoccurred in Baghdad) or a new roundof sectarian clashes following it, soAmerican forces remain in place tosupport Iraqi security forces if re-quested. Meanwhile, U.S. units havefilled in the gaps as allied nations re-duced their forces and then withdrewaltogether. For example, U.S. forcestook over area responsibility in south-ern Iraq, principally around Basra, asBritish forces left.

American headquarters in Iraqwere redesignated recently to reflect changes, both interms of allied participation and the fact that Iraqi securityforces are independent of the U.S. forces and in charge.Multi-National Force-Iraq is now U.S. Forces-Iraq, andMulti-National Division (MND)-North, MND-Center andMND-South are now U.S. Division (USD)-North, USD-Center and USD-South.

Currently, the U.S. order of battle in Iraq also is being

A soldier from Company D,1st Battalion, 12th CavalryRegiment (D/1-12 Cavalry),1st Cavalry Division, guidesa mine resistant ambushprotected vehicle.

SSG Walter Hoard, left,uses a flashlight to check

supplies delivered to Scorpion base.

Above, D/1-12Cavalry soldiers

eat in the Scorpionbase dining area.Below, soldiers atScorpion watch a

football game.


filled by brigade combat teams that are augmented for andfocused toward the advise-and-assist mission, supportingand training Iraqi security forces. All American “combat”forces are to be withdrawn by the endof August under President BarackObama’s orders, with a residual forceof some 35,000 to 50,000 U.S. troopsremaining to conduct the supportmission until American forces leave atthe end of 2011 under current terms of

a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement.As 2009 drew to a close, Scorpion

was home to Company D, 1st Battal-ion, 12th Cavalry Regiment (D/1-12Cavalry), part of the 3rd HeavyBrigade Combat Team (HBCT), 1stCavalry Division, known as the Grey-wolf Brigade. It was about to be re-placed by a unit from the 3rd InfantryDivision (Mechanized); the 3rd In-fantry Division Headquarters hadtaken over responsibility as USD-North, and its brigades were deploy-ing as advise-and-assist formations.

The roles and missions of outgoing3rd HBCT units had been evolvingthroughout their deployment andmade a seismic shift on June 30, whenagreements called for Iraqi security

forces to take the lead in all operations and for U.S. forcesto leave Iraqi cities.

Throughout the cities, combat outposts—established as

Military police (MP) soldiers attached toD/1-12 Cavalry provide overwatch for a

traffic control point.

SPC Stephen LaBadie stands in thegunner’s hatch of a D/1-12 Cavalry

vehicle while on patrol.

1LT Greg Gober, aplatoon leader withthe D/1-12 Cavalry

task force.

SGT Aris Duncan, a 204th MP Companysquad leader assigned to the D/1-12

Cavalry task force.


a mainstay of the surge “clear andhold” strategy—were dismantled. Vari-ous local interpretations (and degreesof friction) concerning the Americans’role followed as the new securityworking environment found footing.Many U.S. units were effectively re-stricted to waiting for a call from Iraqisecurity forces, and a call never came.

Some units were given a more ac-tive cooperative operational role, es-

pecially in northern Iraq, where manysurviving hardcore insurgent cells dis-placed by the surge had fled (chieflyal Qaeda in Iraq and its factions anddisparate Sunni insurgent groups),bringing escalated violence to areasalready experiencing a high level ofstrife. Subsequently, a series of U.S.-Iraqi operations were launched tocapture, destroy or disrupt the insur-gents, which crippled several orga-

nized cells and forced others to go toground.

Violent acts still occur in Iraq, andU.S. troops remain in danger, butAmerican casualties in Iraq have de-creased significantly, and Iraqi secu-rity forces have taken the lead formaintaining security, which was thelong-term goal of the Coalition effortall along. At Scorpion, soldiers adapt-ed to the new operating conditions andmissions.

“Initially, our mission was to inter-dict [insurgent] supplies going intoMosul,” explained CPT Brian Panaro,the D/1-12 Cavalry commander. It wasa high-operational-tempo mission thatkept his soldiers outside the wire to es-tablish traffic-control points on roadsleading to Mosul and screen lines to

CPL Brandy Brewer, 204th MPCompany, directs traffic on the mainroad linking Scorpion base and Mosul.

A D/1-12 Cavalry soldier watches asection of the perimeter as his platoon

visits an outlying village.

CPT Brian Panaro, D/1-12 Cavalrycommander, talks with an Iraqi policemanand store owners during a market check

near Scorpion base.

watch open ground; they even inter-dicted boats travelling on the TigrisRiver. Tasks included intelligence gath-ering and then conducting raids whenthe intelligence was good. One Com-pany D raid captured the number-twoperson on the regional most-wantedlist, breaking up a vehicle-borne impro-vised explosive device (IED) cell thathad plagued Mosul.

The low point was the day last Maywhen an Iraqi army soldier, an in-structor at the surrounding base, ap-proached the gate at Scorpion, shoot-ing soldiers guarding the gate andbarging into the base’s parking area,firing at troops working there. Hekilled two American soldiers andwounded three others in the momentsbefore he was gunned down.

After June, Iraqi forces assumed theprimary interdiction mission, andCompany D soldiers operated underthe new agreements, conducting jointoperations and patrols and concen-trating effort on counterinsurgency-related operations such as initiatingreconstruction projects, rapport build-ing and providing humanitarian assis-tance to Iraqi civilians in the sur-rounding area.

The unit’s most mundane mission—which could prove to be its greatestcontribution, considering the second-and third-order effects—was checkingfuel quality at the nearby Iraqi oil dis-tribution center. It may not seem likemuch at first blush, but the inspec-tions addressed, and eventually clearedup, several major problems.

Mosul and the surrounding regionreceive fuel by truck. Tanker convoystravel from the south and must stop atthe distribution center to have theloads measured to ensure they arrivewith the same amount of fuel in thetanks as when they started. Fuel had ahabit of getting lost on the way to itsdestination. After the tankers startedbeing measured, the problem was thatfuel was still getting lost, but the vol-ume was being made to look right bydumping cheaper (and inferior) chem-icals into tanks to make up for fuelthat had been stolen for eventual saleon the black market.

The effect was felt on multiple lev-

A truck driver draws a fuel sample at theoil distribution center.

SSG Billy Watts, a squad leader in theD/1-12 Cavalry task force.

SSG Kirk Fuller tests a fuel sample at the oildistribution center.



els. Citizens who bought fuel through the standard marketwere cheated; their cars conked out, and it further under-cut their faith in the government to provide the simplest ofservices and protection. They not only blamed Baghdad of-ficials, but also leveled some of that blame at Americanforces, which tend to get part of all blame, warranted ornot. Also, profits derived from black-market fuel wereused to fund insurgent groups.

When Company D started checking the fuel quality ofevery truck, using the same handheld chemical identifica-tion devices used by explosive ordnance disposal teams,the problem cleared up quickly as word got around. Citizensstarted receiving decent fuel, and insurgents lost one oftheir primary revenue sources, a loss that can only be esti-mated in the millions of dollars.

During the year at Scorpion, the overall situation in thecompany’s area of responsibility improved. “When I gothere, the biggest challenge was the proficiency of the Iraqi

police [IP]. There was no investigation,no follow-up, on an attack,” CPT Pa-naro said. “But one of the biggestthings I’m proud of now is the im-provement in the IPs. The cooperationand partnership level is up tenfold.When I first took over, it was a strug-gle to get anything from them, butnow they call me instead of the otherway around.” He noted that the secu-rity situation has improved so muchthat he no longer hears the usual secu-rity complaints.

CPT Panaro said the other majorchallenge concerned the local popula-tion: “Changing their perceptions ofwho we were … took time; the firstcouple of months were difficult. Wedid a few [reconstruction] projectsand gave out some micro grants, andthey started coming around. Theydon’t give us dirty looks anymore.”

Still, Iraqis ask for services and im-provements that the Americans can’tgive them—things that the Iraqi gov-ernment will have to provide or theywill need to provide for themselves.“We can only push the rope out so far;they have to pull it,” CPT Panaro said.

Final Days, Final HoursOne must give credit to the soldiers

of Company B, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cav-alry Regiment (B/3-8 Cavalry). Theywere working right up to the last tickon the transfer-of-authority (TOA)clock—the packing up, loading on theplane, leaving Iraq in one piece, goinghome clock. And it was round in the

chamber, going outside the wire kind of work, rolling intothe center of Mosul; it wasn’t the inventorying, cleaningweapons, staying out of the first sergeant’s direct line ofsight work they were doing between missions.

Part of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 3rd HBCT and operat-ing from Camp Marez on the far fringe of Mosul, the com-pany had been on the city’s streets for a year—the worstparts of Mosul, routes that at times were practically a guar-anteed IED incident and neighborhoods where ambusheserupted suddenly if not unexpectedly.

During the first part of the company’s deployment, Mo-sul had been one of the most violence-prone areas in Iraq,as insurgents and zealots driven north from Baghdad bysurge operations were running scared or in the throes ofmaking a last stand, both acts of desperation and, there-fore, dangerous.

The B/3-8 Cavalry commander, CPT Shane Aguero, vis-ited Iraqi federal police brigade headquarters to coordinate

Left, SSG RonnyQuinn distributes

heaters and blanketsduring a D/1-12 Cav-

alry humanitarianmission to an out-

lying village. Below,soldiers from Com-pany B, 3rd Battal-

ion, 8th CavalryRegiment (B/3-8

Cavalry), conduct apatrol in Mosul to

familiarize their re-placements from the

1st Battalion, 9thField Artillery Regi-

ment, 3rd InfantryDivision (Mecha-nized), with their

area of responsibility.

the missions and show his replacement the ropes of gain-ing cooperation under the post-June 30 restrictions on U.S.presence and activity in Iraqi cities—in a nutshell, notmuch presence, not much activity and never without Iraqiforces alongside.

Company B’s missions in the last hours before TOAwere not really presence patrols; they were reconstructionrelated, providing security for Civil Affairs teams conduct-ing surveys inside the city. Whether a security mission orpatrol doesn’t make much difference, however—soldierscan see what’s going on in town whatever the mission iscalled.

Working with Iraqis in the lead requires a good measureof patience. It takes time, sometimes hours, to make alinkup and get on the road. Sometimes it doesn’t happen atall. The Iraqis can shut down an American mission for hav-ing one too many vehicles or for having one too few—anyreason they choose or no reason whatsoever.

2LT Marcus Harness, a B/3-8 Cavalryplatoon leader, points out a route to an

Iraqi federal police officer.

SFC Gregory Hererra, a B/3-8 Cavalryplatoon sergeant, watches street activity inMosul as his platoon makes a stop.


Soldiers from B/3-8 Cavalry conduct anight patrol in a Mosul shopping area.

The burst of final patrols wasn’t bravado. Besides sup-porting Civil Affairs efforts, the missions gave CompanyB’s ride-along replacements some measure of familiariza-tion with the area, showing them as much as possible theroutes, layout, nuances and dangers before they assumedresponsibility and giving them a better chance to stayalive.

Back at the B/3-8 Cavalry command post, CPT Aguerosaid, “The difficult part of a TOA is trying to give them ayear’s worth of knowledge without being a know-it-alland obnoxious, and without insulting their intelligence.”

This deployment marked CPT Aguero’s third Iraq tour.On the first, he served as a platoon leader in Baghdad’s SadrCity section; on the second, he served with the reconcilia-tion program; this time, he served as a counterterrorism-targeting staff officer first, then shifted to take companycommand.

“I’ve seen it at every level—platoon to echelons abovecorps. Individually, each is a valid view, but each is ascaled view. At the platoon level, you have the same viewas at the theater level, but in microcosm. Nobody has awrong view of the war, but nobody should view one thingas the whole,” he said. “Week to week, you may not see it:It’s only at the end of a tour that you can see how each ro-tation has changed overall security.”

His assessment of the security situation in Mosul at theend of his tour was that the major insurgent cells were pretty


SSG John Nightingale, B/3-8Cavalry, checks damage caused bya vehicle-borne improvisedexplosive device detonated atMosul’s main train station. Hisplatoon provided security for aCivil Affairs (CA) team making asite survey.

SSG Nightingale stands at the edge of ariver of sewage in Mosul as a CA team

assesses what can be done to help.

2LT Harness finds coordinates on a mapbefore leading a patrol into Mosul.


much whipped or had shed the mantleof freedom fighters and degenerated totheir true core—criminals and thugs.The problem as he sees it now is to getregular crime under control.

“Mosul is a crime-ridden city like… Rio de Janeiro. The [insurgency]situation is not what it was a year ago.AQI [al Qaeda in Iraq] is not dead, butit is bleeding on the ground and los-ing the will to live,” CPT Aguero ob-served. “AQI is hurting. The trigger-pullers are still around, the low-leveldudes. The big AQI guys have beenskimming off the top of their ownfunds, so there have been a lot of rota-tions in leadership.”

He noted that the insurgents’ mainasset is their mobility on foot inside

An Iraqi federal police officer voicesconcerns to an interpreter as soldiers

from B/3-8 Cavalry conduct a jointpatrol in Mosul.

SSG Tim Jalbert, a B/3-8 Cavalrysquad leader, in Mosul.

The sign on an American Humvee reads“assistance team authorized by the Iraqigovernment” to identify it for movementinside Mosul.

B/3-8 Cavalry commander CPT Shane Aguero coordinates amission with an Iraqi federal police officer as required; U.S.soldiers must be accompanied by Iraqi soldiers or police.

the old town neighborhoods, with “cellularity”—the abil-ity to break into smaller and smaller cells for survival—their second asset. “But the result is a cell of three or fourjihadists with 8,000 dinar and an AK. They have to robstores, steal money, for attacks,” he ex-plained.

On the other hand, CPT Aguerosaid the Iraqi security forces “havecome a long way this year.” Militarytransition training teams have beensuccessful in teaching planning andcoordination, and American unitsaligned with Iraqi units have beensuccessful in teaching them how tosuccessfully execute plans.

“They get it,” CPT Aguero said.

“They have come a long way in be-coming an actual army.”

Helping Them ReachThe Next Level

LTC Loren Schriner, commander ofthe 3rd HBCT’s 215th Brigade Sup-port Battalion and responsible forsupplying and maintaining the bri-gade combat team, had a second jobduring the brigade’s deployment. Hementored and assisted the 2nd IraqiArmy (IA) Division and 3rd IA Divi-sion logisticians toward achieving amodern logistics system. The down-

side was the commute: The more distant IA division head-quarters was situated more than two hours away byMRAP, and he made a trip to visit one or the other divisionabout twice a week.


A suspect’s office is searchedby an American soldier and his Iraqi counterpart.

2LT Harness on patrol.

SSG Trevor Hall,B/3-8 Cavalry.

SPC Emily Laird, a medic assigned toCompany C, 215th Brigade Support

Battalion (C/215 BSB), instructs Iraqipolicemen during combat lifesaver training

at Camp Marez outside Mosul.

“This is my third rotation to Iraq, and the thing that isdifferent this time is steady improvement of the IA. Thisrotation, they have gone from night to day,” he said.“Think about what we in the U.S.Army take for granted, such as usingthe Internet to order parts. Well, theIA is doing that now, and that’s a ma-jor step.”

LTC Schriner explained that the IAdivisions have established a “full-cir-cle logistics system,” which in over-simplified terms means that a unit or-ders a part, the order is accepted andprocessed by the various levels of thesystem, and the part gets to the unit tocomplete the circle. “They don’t use

an American solution; it’s their sys-tem, and we just help them fix it,” hesaid. “That’s been unique during ourrotation.”

It is a significantly different environ-ment from his last deployment. “Dur-ing 2006–07, I was giving them food,water and fuel and fixing their vehi-cles for them,” he said. “I have notgiven them a gallon of gas or a singlerepair part in the past 11 months.”

The thing the Iraqi army needs nowis what it has needed most all along,according to LTC Schriner: “Time.”

Guarded Optimism for the FuturePainted on a wall of the brigade

command group offices at CampMarez, a large yellow-and-black ren-dition of the 1st Cavalry Divisionpatch remained, but the portable dec-orations had been removed andpacked for shipment back to the 3rdHBCT’s home at Fort Hood, Texas.Transfer of authority to the incoming2nd HBCT, 3rd Infantry Division(Mechanized), would take place soon,and the 1st Cavalry patch would re-main visible only until enough blueand white paint was unpacked tocover it with the Marne patch.

Unit decorations are temporary, butaccomplishments are not. The Grey-wolf Brigade would leave a lasting ef-

fect on Mosul and Ninawa Province, a chunk of territorythe size of West Virginia in northern Iraq and the 3rdHBCT’s area of responsibility for the previous year.

“When we came in, the fight to de-feat al Qaeda in Iraq and violent ex-tremists in Mosul was still ongoing,”said COL Gary Volesky, the 3rd HBCTcommander. “We got in on the 19th ofJanuary, so our focus was on settingconditions for the provincial electionsthat were going to occur on the 31st.After the elections, which went verywell, we focused on clearing Mosul.What was different was the methodol-ogy we used: Isolation of the neigh-borhoods; clearing the neighborhoodswith the Iraqis in the lead; going inbehind it with the humanitarian assis-tance drop; and then hiring military-age males in that neighborhood to doa project and get them out of the AQIrecruiting line because they didn’thave any money to feed their fami-


Rows of Bronze Star Medals laid out foran award ceremony as the 1st CavalryDivision’s 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat

Team (HBCT) prepares to transferauthority and leave Iraq.

SPC GregoryMorgan, a C/215BSB medic, cor-rects a casualty-

carry positionduring combat

lifesaver training for Iraqi policemen.


lies.” Approximately 9,000 Mosul citizens would be em-ployed on reconstruction projects over the next six months.

“That gained a lot of momentum as we started to putsome economic recovery and quality-of-life improvementsinto the city as well as working with our counterparts in aclear, hold and build strategy. Mosul had been cleared anumber of times, but what we didn’t have was the force tohold the gains,” COL Volesky explained.

“When we got here, there were a lot of insurgents driv-ing to work out of the support zones—what we call thebelts around Mosul—where they were able to store lethalaid and come into the city, conduct attacks and drive back.We established a big presence, working with our counter-parts, in the support zones [to stop it],” he added.

The U.S.-Iraqi security framework gave Iraq sovereigntyafter June 30 along with responsibility for its own security,and the 3rd HBCT made the transition from directing oper-ations to supporting operations.

“It was not a significant change because we alwayswanted the Iraqis to be in front of us,” COL Volesky said.“So on July 1, we focused on enabler support—aircraft,military working dogs, explosive ordnance disposal assetsand the like. When Iraqi forces took over Mosul, manypeople thought—as they had during the provincial elec-tions—that it wouldn’t go well. It did. A lot of peoplethought we’d have to run back in after June 30. Wehaven’t. There have been a number of attacks in Mosulsince then, and the Iraqi security forces have not asked usto come back and help them.”

With Iraqi forces handling Mosul’s security, the situationfreed greater numbers of U.S. troops to expand operationsin the countryside and use the same tactics that hadworked in the city, expanding services and providing bet-ter security to villages throughout the province.

“We’ve continued to reach out with quality-of-life andessential-services improvements, and the result we’ve seenis that the insurgents have to move farther and fartheraway from Mosul to maintain freedom of movement,”COL Volesky noted.

“AQI is disorganized now,” he said. “They’re trying tofigure out how to get themselves back together becausethey are completely disrupted. Now we can target thoselines of effort, like financing, that we were never able to getat because we were always fighting the insurgents. Nowthat they are disrupted, we are able to find where they aregetting money. If you can strangle the money line, theycan’t operate. So now AQI has resorted to intimidation, as-sassination and extortion of big business to raise money,and that is turning the population against the insurgencyand giving more and more credibility to the Iraqi securityforces.”

COL Volesky said the major challenge now centers onimproving Arab-Kurd relations and resolving some oftheir major differences, something that is essential for thenorthern part of the country, directly, and all of Iraq as anation. “This can’t be solved at the local level. It can’t besolved at the provincial level. This is a national-level issuethat has to be solved,” he said.

“Nevertheless, I am cautiously optimistic,” COL Voleskyadded. “The people here are better off today than when wearrived. Recovery is ongoing. Streets are being paved.Schools are being renovated. Trash is getting picked up inthe city now. We are working on electrical projects and wa-ter projects. The stepping stones for Mosul are beingclimbed. The province is better because today the peopleare starting to see the benefits of tying into the provincialgovernment. I am cautiously optimistic that the pieces arebeing put in place.” M

COL Gary Volesky,3rd HBCTcommander, givesthe reenlistmentoath to 3/8 Cavalrysoldiers during aceremony in Iraq.

the ‘greywolf brigade,’ 1st cavalry division

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