In 2006, a young lieutenant was assigned to a newly formed “Surge” Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division. Over the next two years, he and his fellow soldiers built the unit from the ground up, deployed to Iraq, and fought a fifteen-month battle to stabilize a small piece of war-torn Baghdad. Through the ups and downs of combat, these soldiers and their families learned difficult lessons in leadership, camaraderie, communication, and hardship, and in the end, they were all impacted significantly by the experience.
It Was What It Was is an engaging and visceral first-hand account of the strange and often contradictory difficulties of small unit leadership and family life in 21st century warfare.
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Praise for the Book
"An engrossing, compelling, often raw account of combat over 15 tough months in Baghdad during the Surge. "It Was What It Was" captures brilliantly the timeless tale of a young leader and his soldiers on the ground seeking to find meaning and purpose in the gritty, visceral reality of war at the small unit level." General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.), former Commander of the Surge in Iraq,
US Central Command, and NATO/US Forces in Afghanistan, and former Director of the CIA
“A terrific read and one that fills an important gap in the literature on the Surge in Iraq and the challenges faced. A brilliant demonstration of American ingenuity in the gritty real-world of war so alien to policy makers today.” Rob Ritchie, Associate Professor of History, Liberty University
"It Was What It Was offers a riveting and deeply personal account of violence and sacrifice experienced during the pivotal surge of forces and focus on Baghdad. As a Green Beret, Dan brings a unique and insightful viewpoint, blending gritty combat experiences, personal conversations, and sage strategic analysis. His vivid storytelling transports readers to the heart of the conflict, revealing both the challenges and triumphs faced by soldiers on the ground. " Buck Elton, Major General, USAF (ret), former Commander of the Special Operations Joint Task Force - Afghanistan and former Deputy Commanding General of JSOC
"It Was What It Was tells it like it was - better than anything else written by a ground level commander in Iraq. Dan relays the highs and lows of being a newly minted leader during the Surge. Written with equal parts humor, humility, and insight, his account should resonate for years to come. In fact, this should - nay, better - become a classic. I say that based on 20 years of assigning reading to once-and-future GWOT veterans. Anyone who served during the GWOT should be able to relate to this book, to include spouses since, as Dan makes clear, 15 months was a painfully long time for a young family like his to be separated. But actually, anyone seeking a better feel for the surreality of war in the early 21st century would do well to read It Was What It Was. The writing alone is as good as writing gets."
Anna Simons, Author of: The Company They Keep: Life Inside the U.S. Army Special Forces
Selected Images from the Deployment
The mine roller was McDowell’s latest toy and one of the newest tools the squadron had received to combat IEDs in sector. Because of the damage IEDs inflicted on U.S. forces, the IED countermeasure effort was a major Army undertaking. In addition to the robots we’d been issued, our platoon had received bomb-proof suits, bomb-resistant underwear, and shark fin-like contraptions that mounted to the front of our trucks to disrupt EFP detonation. We’d covered our turrets with camouflage netting to deflect grenades and strapped cans of water to our doors to mitigate shaped charge damage. All of these measures were effective in their way, but the enemy was clever enough to adapt, so our countermeasures always had an expiration date. Since so many of our recent IEDs were activated by pressure-plates, and because McDowell usually took point on our convoys, he had decided to draw a Self-Propelled Adaptive Roller Kit (SPARK–commonly called the mine roller) from the motor pool to try clearing IEDs before his truck hit them. The mine roller was 6,500 lbs. of steel and rubber rollers that attached to the front of the Humvee and made it look like a giant lawn mower. It was designed to roll over everything in front of the vehicle to set off any mines it encountered.
It Was What It Was, Part 3
A photo of one of the Raider Battalion's memorial services for a fallen soldier.
"May we all remember the costs of war and ensure the desired ends are worth the price we pay to accomplish them."
A 1st Platoon soldier surveys the remains of an HBIED in mahala 838.
"House-borne explosive devices, or HBIEDs, were the fad with terrorists in Baghdad this month, and they were a real problem. Baghdad was full of abandoned buildings, and seeing U.S. forces regularly search them, terrorists recognized an opportunity. By filling a building with a huge pile of explosives, and then rigging a detonator to one (or more) of the entrances, a well-built HBIED could collapse the entire structure as the forces entered the building and potentially kill them all."
It Was What It Was, Part 3.
Night had fallen while we were in Fi-Fi’s house, so as we stepped out onto the warm, damp main street air, Abu Tayara was bathed in the harsh white light of the newly functional streetlights. In their glow, we saw what looked like the entire population of the neighborhood enthusiastically dancing in the streets. Old men in dishadashas clapped to the exotic sounds of the Oud and the Ney blaring from ‘80s style boomboxes as young men in track suits hugged, shouted, and danced enthusiastically.
A local Iraqi man had dressed himself up in a furry orange bear costume to advertise his business. He hadn’t been able to find a head for the costume though, so he’d hollowed out a two-foot-tall orange stuffed bear, cut a hole in its stomach, and stuffed it on his own head in place of a hat. The name of the business was scrawled in Arabic across the stomach of his suit in black marker. To help his cause, Van Awesome and McDowell had hoisted the man onto their shoulders and were carrying him around the neighborhood as he waved and shouted.
It Was What It Was: Part 4
IEDs were often put together rather simply, combining readily available explosive material with cheap initiation devices. However, the lack of sophistication required to assemble and employ them didn't prevent them from shredding even heavily armored vehicles. This Humvee was hit from below by a large buried charge that almost off the front quarter of the truck entirely.
During our deployment, we often found enormous caches of explosive material and weapons. Sometimes they could be safely recovered. Other times, though, the material was too unstable to move, so it had to be detonated in place.
These explosions could be quite dramatic.
COP Amanche, an amalgamation of the words Apache and Comanche–the two units that would live and operate from the base–was a beautiful building constructed in the style of a medieval European monastery with a pleasant but overgrown garden in the center surrounded by a shaded, colonnaded walkway.[1] The interior of the two-story building was lined with heavy wooden doors leading to rooms along the exterior walls. The first floor held offices, storage closets, and a chapel built into one of the corner rooms. The second floor was entirely devoted to the former occupants’ rooms, and most of them still contained the beds, dressers and the odd piece of religious literature from that period. The entire structure was well maintained, if a bit neglected and in need of a good cleaning, but from a military point of view, it needed a lot of work to function as a base for the troop.
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