Dear Golf Company Families,

Another week has passed, and your Marines continue the same excellence they have exhibited throughout our time here. The next week is going to be a busy one for us with the elections occurring here. The challenges are going to be many, the nature of the most dangerous threats are known and have been measured, and I feel confident that the result of the elections will be the same positive result as we have seen since we arrived in Mahmudiyah 123 days ago.

The first item I wanted to address in this week's update is 3rd Platoon. As you all know, they have been attached to the Army for a few weeks now. It is my understanding that a number of concerns had been expressed by the parents at the Family Day at the HTC this past weekend, after talking to their Marines. Understanding that I am responding to concerns that have been passed on through several hands before they were brought to my attention and I might not be responding to exactly the same concerns that were expressed, let me explain a few items, as I think the hardest position for anyone to be is in the dark on things, and you deserve as good of information on what is happening here as is possible.

I will warn you that some of this information is somewhat detailed on what your Marines have faced from time to time here, and if you don't want the details, please move on to the next paragraph:

• Let me preface what I know with this - I am in NO way upset that concerns are being raised by the parents. At the end of the day, it is information that allows me to make decisions. If that information comes from what I see…great. If that information comes from the Marines…great. And if that information comes from parents…great! This only shows that you are concerned enough about your children, friends, and loved ones and courageous enough to speak out when something needs to be changed or clarified in your minds. I don't view this as a breach of the chain of command; rather I view it as one more source of information. What you must know is that I will never tolerate retribution on Marines for anything that is passed to us in this manner. We have had several instances on this deployment where concerns were voiced by families, from as small of an items as 3 volt batteries to as large as Up Armored "HUMVEES." In all cases, it has allowed me to evaluate information that I may not have had. In some cases, what the family member was purporting turned out not be what was happening or was only partially correct; however, on other occasions, they were right on the money. The bottom line is this is your company too, and there is a whole Key Volunteer Network (KVN) in place who will help to raise your concerns in the quickest way possible. I would be a hypocrite if on one hand I accepted all of the support and help all of you have given us, and then on the other hand refused to you the ability to have input to what is happening here. Besides, in then end, as it relates to the company, no matter how many inputs there are, ultimately I alone will make the decision. So, please continue to pass on your concerns. Major Race and Barb W know they are just an e-mail away from me and 1st Sgt Eastwood and they have done a fantastic job of passing on issues that were raised by family members.

• One of the concerns that was voiced to me from the family day at the HTC (again this is what was passed on to me and my have already mutated into something different than how it was offered up) deals with 3rd platoon's relationship with the Army unit they are attached to. A version of a story is floating around that says the army unit abandoned 3rd platoon one day during a mortar attack. Let me tell you the truth of what occurred. On that day, there indeed was a mortar attack. On that day, there were two Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles that were delivering food to our Marines where they are located when the mortars started landing. It is true that the Bradleys left after they had finished dropping off the food, and just after the mortars had stopped landing. It is also true that our guys did not do what we should have to call in for artillery support to crush the insurgents who were shooting at them. For some reason, we became very fixated on those two Bradleys being at the position and were ready to ascribe blame when they left. Now, put in the same situation, would our guys have left the site? Almost certainly not…they tend to run towards a fight and not away from it. But on that day, those two Bradleys were tasked with dropping off food, and they were doing what they were ordered to do. Them leaving in no way put the Marines in 3rd platoon in any more danger than what they already were. The barriers that are constructed there can have an 82mm mortar (the mortar of choice for the enemy here) land within 5 meters of it, absorb the blow and leave everyone behind them absolutely unharmed. Now, don't get me wrong….being mortared is not fun.

  In November, we went a stretch of about 14 days where we were mortared in Lutayfiyah every day with very accurate fire. It took us a while then to find and decommission the individuals who were doing that. It is a nerve-wracking experience to have mortars exploding 50 feet away from you, and we know well that it can have deadly results. However, on that day that is in question, the rounds were landing a few hundred meters away from our platoon, who was in a well-fortified position. The army did not abandon us on that day, and have stood side by side with us in this thing. Unfortunately, some of our guys, placed in situation fraught with friction, lost their cool. Even as good as our Marines are, this is going to happen from time to time, and is a natural outcome to being here for an extended period of time.

• The other major concern was that the Army was using our guys to do menial tasks that they didn't want to do. This stems from the day they put one of our guys on radio watch back at the main base. These "extra" requirements are no different than what are levied on us (and in turn we levy on the Marines) by our parent command. As a matter of fact, the platoon from the Army that has been working with our company to plug the whole that exists from having 3rd platoon taken from us has had a number of the same requirements placed on them as well. We never like when one of our guys are placed on guard duty, detainee watch, radio watch, FOB escort duty, etc…but it is just a matter of reality that these extra requirements have to be filled to accomplish the overall mission, keep the unit sustained, and keep the unit protected as much as it should.

We had a fairly atypical visit to our company's FOB yesterday. Dan Rather of CBS News came to Iraq to do a story for 60 Minutes II on fighting the insurgency and the upcoming elections. His two-day visit was hosted by Colonel Johnson, our MEU Commander (who is the boss of Lt Col Smith, our Battalion Commander). They spent time on the first day of the visit solely with the MEU Commander, and then yesterday, they visited two sites in our zone, with ours being one of them. The visit here in Lutayfiyah went great from my perspective. There were a few one-on-one interviews, and a group "discussion" with a squad from mostly second platoon and some of weapons platoon (I wish that I could have him talk to everyone, but with operations going on, many of our guys were outside of the wire at the time he visited). If I had to guess, I would say a clip from the group discussion will end up in the final story. I felt good that Rather had the opportunity to talk to enough of the Marines here to get a real sense of the "spirit" of Golf Company. Regardless of what "angle" he was looking for the final story, your Marines did a phenomenal job yesterday in laying down for him how they feel and what the reality on the ground actually is. The producer told us as they were leaving that the story will air this Wednesday night (Thursday morning here) on 60 Minutes II. I would ask as many of you as possible to tape the episode, as I am not sure we will actually get it on the satellite TV here. We have one channel that tends to shift back and forth between news and shows on the major four stations, so we are not guaranteed to get the show here at all.

It has been passed on to us that the recommended cutoff date for mail and packages has been set by our Battalion as Feb 1. Based off of the timetable for retrograde that has been briefed to me, here is what I think makes sense. I would use Feb 10 as a hard cut off date for packages, and even then, I would only send the necessities that your Marine is requesting. We still have our "Wal-Mart" here in Lutayfiyah stocked with all kinds of extras. For regular letter mail, I would recommend sending out no later than Feb 20th. And lastly, the MotoMails that all of the Marines have been receiving can be sent out right up until just a few days before we leave the country. If you have not yet used MotoMail used, it an easy to use, web-based, FREE, service (www.motomail.us). You can sign up for an account and then type in a message much like you are sending an e-mail. The message gets sent to post offices over here in Iraq and then printed out and delivered to our unit. I am looking at a MotoMail right now that was written in the states on January 19 and was delivered to me yesterday (January 23).

The next week will be historic and it may also be the hardest week of our lives. There is so much uncertainty on what we will see. As a commander, my assessment of what we will encounter ranges from not much violence at all (due to the extensive shaping operations we have conducted the last few months) to large-scale suicide bomb attacks on the polling sites and our base. There are just a lot of unknowns, not of what the threat are, but where, when, and how often they will come. The elections clearly are going to be treated as a huge symbolic target for the Mujahadeen and other insurgent forces in this country. Regardless of what occurs, this I am certain about - your Marines and Sailors are ready for any eventuality. I am as proud of the 181 men of this company as the day I took command, and I thank God for every single day that I have the opportunity to serve with them. Have a great week, and I promise I will send out an update as soon after the elections are complete as I can.

Best regards,
Adam Y. Holton
Major, United States Marine Corps Reserve
"Semper superbus...nunca plenus!!!"
"Always proud...never satisfied!!!"