Iraq War General Lloyd Austin

1. f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 1 / e b o n y. c o m 129
With Iraq war
heroics,
Lloyd Austin
has secured
his place as one
of America’s
greatest
generalsB y K e v i n C h a p p e l l
p h o t o g r a p h s b y
d u d l e y m . b r o o k s
Four-Star General Lloyd Austin, during the last days of the Iraq war,
opens up about this three tours of duty: leading troops into Baghdad
during the first days, making the one key decision during the troop surge
and commanding all military operations during the drawdown.
battle
tested
ebony exclusive

2. y now, if all goes as planned, Iraq should be a
sovereignnation.✪ Bynow,ifallgoesasplanned,
U.S.combattroopsshouldbeoutofthecountry,
andIraq’snewconsensusgovernmentshouldbe
well on its way to building an economic, if not
political,powerhouseinthe Middle East. ✪ And
by now, if all goes as planned, U.S. Command-
ing General Lloyd J. Austin III, 58, should be in
Washington, D.C., preparing to take over as vice
chief of staff of theArmy afterPresidentObama
nominated him to become second in command
ofthemilitary’slargestbranch.✪ Atleast,those
aretheplans.Butas AustinsurveystheBaghdad
countrysideaboardaBlack Hawkhelicopterjust
weeks prior to officially ending the nearly eight-
year war, the four-star general in charge of all
militaryoperationsinIraqknowsonethingbetter
than most: A well-thought-out plan can be your
best friend, but learning to make the best of a
bunchofbadrelativesmaybeyourbeststrategy.
Austin’s three tours of duty in Iraq since 2003 have been full of
comparatives akin to fresh pockmarks along a convoy’s southern
entry route into Kuwait. Years of constant workarounds, more-or-
lesses, give-and-takes, and “Iraqi good-enoughs” have produced
scars, stars and lessons that he will carry with him well after he
leaves the Middle East.
Relatively speaking, al-Qaeda, which created so much havoc dur-
ing much of the war, has been somewhat dismantled and is expect-
ed to attempt to regroup. The Iraqi government is relatively stable,
its military relatively prepared; however, Iran is next door trying to
shake up its young democracy. And Austin is more or less convinced
that the chance of a roadside bomb has been significantly reduced,
relative to this time last year. But he knows that a well-disguised
one could not only upset the military’s road home, but also reignite
an insurgency that has suffered a good old-fashioned beat down
under his command.
EBONY traveled to the combat zone during the last days of the
Iraq war to embed with a reflective and humble Austin. As con-
voys roll out and tons and tons of equipment are shipped, it soon
becomes obvious that the general hasn’t even begun to mentally
check out. “This is not a permissive environment. There are people
out there still trying to hurt us,” he says, his deep baritone voice
competing with the roar of the helicopter. “We’re still trying to
work our way out of a job.”
130 e b o n y. c o m / f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 2 f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 2 / e b o n y. c o m 131
B
Gen. Austin
awards medals
to troops for
extraordinary
service in war.

3. Austin is the ultimate war gamer, even in the last days of conflict,
which is perhaps fitting because it is very likely that future stu-
dents of war will study his masterful battle strategies for decades
to come.
Make no mistake, as the war effort draws to a close in Iraq, it is
already being sliced and diced in Washington, with everyone from
Pentagon officials to White House advisors to Capitol Hill politi-
cians glad-handing as much credit as possible for its success. But
here on the ground, with those in the know, Austin is considered to
be the one man who played the most instrumental role in America
not only winning the war, but also securing the peace. “General
Austin is one of the most distinguished American military com-
manders of his generation,” says U.S. Ambassador to Iraq James
Jeffrey, emphatically adding that during the Iraq War, “Nobody
has done more, or sacrificed more, in defending this country.”
very eye was fixed on me’
OIF 1.
Say that you were a part of it, and you get
mad props in military circles.
When it comes to combat missions, it
doesn’t get more courageous than Opera-
tion Iraqi Freedom 1—the name given to the
first wave of troops to cross into Iraq during
the start of the war in 2003. These were the
warriors who took the fight to Saddam Hus-
sein’s Fedayeen, an elite fighting force—40,000 strong—that put up
strong, sometimes suicidal, resistance.
Austin was there, on the front line, maneuvering the 3rd
Infantry
Division from Kuwait into Iraq’s capital city. “I was the guy calling
the shots when we captured Baghdad,” Austin, who was a one-star
general at the time, says. “I was commanding and controlling all of
the brigades that were in the fight, and I was actually at the front
end of the column coming in.”
It’s early morning at the massive U.S. Embassy compound in
Baghdad. As he eats his pancake-and-bacon breakfast in the caf-
eteria, Austin talks about how he studied Desert Storm—what went
right and what went wrong—to decide how to best attack the Iraqi
military. Unlike many commanders who kept a relatively safe dis-
tance from the actual fighting, Austin came to the realization that
he needed to be thisclose to the action. “In order to command a fight,
I had to see the battlefield,” he says. “I studied what happened [in
Desert Storm]. [There,] the fight moved so fast that it outran the
ability of the command post to keep up. It was very easy for the
command post to be irrelevant because of the fast pace. So one of
my goals was to develop a command post that was mobile enough
to be relevant to the fight and to be in the fight; to be far enough up
front so I could see the battlefield [and] what was going on.”
While his plan put him physically in the middle of a fierce tank
battle—in his makeshift mobile station as dust storms kicked up—
it also put him mentally in the middle of a moment for which no
amount of study could have prepared him. “I can remember be-
ing in this room full of people … looking up, and every eye in that
command post was on me as a leader,” he says. “Every eye was
fixed on me.”
These were not the eyes of grizzled war veterans. These were the
eyes of kids—some, baby-faced teenagers—who had put their lives
in his hands. “These kids didn’t know whether we were going to
make it through this fight, whether we were going to live or die,” he
says. “Artillery rounds zoomed back and forth overhead. They were
seeing stuff blow up around them.”
Barely 30, Master Sgt. Demetrius Johnson was there, one of the
young enlisted soldiers with the fixed eyes. “There were units run-
ning low on ammo, visibility was low, the enemy was closing in,”
says Johnson, Austin’s driver back then who has been with him ever
since. “You could hear a lot of the uncertainty in the voices of the
commanders on the radio.”
If ever the scene was set for Austin to make his best kick-ass
speech, this was it. A little banging on the table and lots of profane
language from the 6-foot-4-inch, 250-plus pound man—who admits
that his sheer size “can be intimidating at times”—would surely
whip his soldiers into a fighting frenzy.
Instead, Johnson says, Austin calmly took to “the radio and gave
guidance that turned the tide. Everyone knew he was in control.
He knew what was going on, and he knew how to take care of the
situation,” Johnson says. “When you heard him … you got a sense
of calm and peace, and you knew that you would be OK, just by his
voice and how he talked to soldiers.”
trusted leader
That day, Austin says, he learned “the enor-
mous responsibility” of leadership.
That day, Johnson says, Austin became
more than a leader. “I trusted him. Everyone
he comes in contact with trusts him.”
To this day, Austin believes that being on
the front line with his troops spoke louder
than any orders he could have barked out.
“Leadership is a fascinating thing,” Austin
says, looking up from his plate, his mind seemingly churning at
the thought of what all had to go right that day for him to even be
sitting here now. “If you look at what the average American envi-
sions the general to be, the commander to be, there’s this [Gen.
George S.] Patton image. There’s this guy who is loud and forceful,
the finger-in-the-chest kind of guy. That works well in the movies,
but it won’t make a guy get up and charge a machine gun for you.”
Austin prides himself on embodying more character than cari-
cature. “I want people to understand that I’m not going to break
[them] in half when I talk to [them],” Austin says. “I’m going to
listen to [them]. I take the time to reach out to people and put
them at ease.”
In fact, Austin has been such a calming influence on the battle-
field that it’s sometimes easy to overlook the mastery of his meth-
ods. He rarely raises his voice or seeks publicity. In fact, those
within Austin’s immediate circle have encouraged him to toot his
own horn more. But for a man who says his “goals in life are simple:
to be loved by my family, respected by my peers and feared by my
enemies,” seeking publicity and praise are not on the top of his
to-do list. “I talk enough to the media,” he says, shrugging off the
clear distinction some have made between him and his more media-
savvy predecessors, Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Ray Odierno.
“I’m not what you would consider a celebrity general. I’m a war-
fighting general.”
“He’s not the limelight guy. That’s not what he does,” says Gen.
Arthur Bartell, who has worked for Austin all three times in Iraq.
“But he’s larger than life. He walks into a room, and he fills the
room … he’s one of those leaders who people need to know about.”
It’s clear that Austin believes preparation, not adulation, is what
makes a general great. “If you’re not careful, you can begin to be-
lieve in your own press clippings,” he says. “You can become a toxic
leader. It can become all about you, not about your people and not
about the mission.”
Austin prefers to spend more time sitting in strategy sessions
than in front of cameras. His study habits are legendary. He rou-
tinely pores over everything from historical analyses of insurgency
levels to daily attack trends. According to Austin, “You have to un-
derstand the war-fighting business.” In his mind, he says, a bat-
tlefield is a three-dimensional image with constantly interacting
moving parts. “In my business, if I don’t understand it, if I don’t
endeavor to be the best, it will cost lives at some point.”
e turned this thing around’
Austin credits much of his work ethic to
lessons he learned as a child growing up in
Thomasville, Ga. His mother’s boy through
and through, Austin made it a point to talk
to her every week, even while in combat.
“She had the unique ability to give you good
advice, even if she didn’t know the specif-
ics of the circumstances,” he says, “about
dealing with people, doing the right thing
when no one is watching. She kind of drilled it into me as I was
coming up.”
It was his work ethic and deep military knowledge that proved
invaluable when he returned to Iraq for his second tour in 2008. At
the time a three-star general, he was faced with the biggest chal-
lenge of his military career: to advance the faltering war following
the troop “surge.”
While others were back home taking credit for the decision to
bring in an additional 20,000 troops, which was successful in quell-
ing the level of violence, it was Austin who was sent into Iraq to
maintain control after the surge troops had left. “He didn’t have
the luxury of the surge because it had ended,” one military official
told EBONY. “And there were folks who were here and trying to get
132 e b o n y. c o m / f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 2 f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 2 / e b o n y. c o m 133
(Far left) Austin receives a briefing on drawdown plans, which
include moving troops and equipment out of a still-hostile environ-
ment. A signpost on the Navy base in the southern port city of Umm
Qasr (left) where Rear Adm. Kelvin Dixon (above, right) is one of the
top officers working to train the Iraqi Navy on use of its new Ameri-
can-built boats to patrol the coastline and valuable oil platforms.
“I talk enough to the
media. I’m not what
you would consider a
celebrity general. i’m a
war-fighting general.”
3
E‘
A
H‘

4. the hell out because they didn’t want this
thing to go bad and get blamed for it.”
And it was going bad—fast—especially
down south. “Basra [in southern Iraq]
had gotten out of control,” another mili-
tary official says. “Insurgents had taken
it over pretty much, and they had really
ramped up the attacks against us and
the green zone,” which, until then, had
been relatively attack-free.
Operating out of Saddam’s infamous
Al Faw palace, Austin was technically
the second-highest-ranking commander
in Iraq (behind Petraeus). But for all
tactical purposes, Austin was in charge,
directing the operations of more than
150,000 troops.
And Sgt. Maj. Joseph Allen had his
back. Allen recalls the day when Austin
received word that Iraqi Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki had gone rogue, decid-
ing on his own to use the Iraqi military
to go after the Shia militia in the south
in an attempt to take control of Basra. Al-Maliki touted it as the
“Charge of the Knights,” the first solo military action that the
Iraqis had taken without U.S. assistance. Sounded good. But by
all accounts, it was going terribly wrong. “He did it without really
planning for it,” Allen says. “They were getting beaten up pretty
bad down there.”
The Shia militia was advancing, taking control of more and more
of the city. Austin knew that “If we didn’t take care of business
in Basra, we would probably lose the war,” says Allen, who went
with Austin to Basra in the midst of the fight to personally meet
with al-Maliki. It didn’t take long for the general to make the bold
decision to help. It would be the first time Iraqi and American sol-
diers would fight side-by-side in combat. Austin quickly brought in
technical aviation and put in a tactical command post. “He started
moving elements close to the border,” Allen says. “We had to shore
that up. We put some eyes on them so we could see what was happen-
ing. That hadn’t been done before. In a matter of weeks, he turned
this thing around.”
“The Shia militia never gained strength from then on,” one mili-
tary official says. “That operation is what gave al-Maliki the politi-
cal clout to win provincial elections the next year, then go into the
national elections. That was really a pretty decisive operation, not
just for us, but for the government of Iraq.”
“Itwastherealturningpoint,”anotherofficialsays.“Therearealot
of people out there who are taking credit for what Austin has done.”
Today, the violence level is at its lowest point—from 200 attacks
per week during the height of the insurgency to about seven at-
tacks per week now. “We have a good working relationship with Iraq
because of [the general],” Allen says. “[Al-]Maliki has publically
given General Austin credit for taking back Basra, and he trusts
[him]. The door is open to him. He can go wherever he wants to go.”
In the most complex environment in which the United States has
ever waged war, it has been those types of bold actions and the care
that he exhibits for his soldiers that make Allen and others line up
to work under Austin. “My job is to cover his 6 [back], but I cover
his 3 [side], 6 and 9 [other side],” Allen says. “My life doesn’t mean
a whole lot to me when it comes to General Austin. I love the guy to
death, like a fat boy loves cake.”
he Odd Couple
In the end, perhaps no one else had the
experience—or the respect—needed to re-
build Iraq, literally from the ground up.
During the past year, Austin has returned
for his third tour of duty. This time, he’s in
charge as a four-star general, taking over
command from Odierno, who is now Army
chief of staff.
Many of those teenagers he took into battle with him in 2003
are still with him in some capacity. He chuckles when talking
about some of the tactical and strategic briefings he now gets
from them. “I have 36 years of doing this,” says Austin, who is
the first African-American to command a division and corps in
combat. “Your youngsters wind up briefing you on things—they
don’t know this—that you invented.”
The current “reposturing effort” has taken Austin into new
territory, from the battlefield to the negotiating table. In the
process, he has had to work closely with Ambassador Jeffrey and
his diplomatic staff. “We have worked hard to build a team,” the
general says. “We have these two ele-
134 e b o n y. c o m / f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 2 f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 2 / e b o n y. c o m 135
Austin shares a light moment with Sgt. Maj. Joseph Allen dur-
ing a briefing (above) before going to board a Black Hawk helicopter
(right) en route to his headquarters at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
“There are a lot of
people out there who are
taking credit for
what austin has done.”
[Continued on page 156]
‘The
Heartbeat
ofthe
Community’Mr. Lee brings
home cooking to
war zone
It’s hard to spend
any time at the U.S.
Embassy in Baghdad
without meeting Mr. Lee.
That’s what everyone
calls Floyd Lee, the head
of food service. Known
for his colorful ties and
positive disposition, the
Hampton, Va., native
has brought a little bit
of the American South
to Baghdad. Because
of Lee, soldiers and
embassy staff enjoy
everything from collard
greens to smothered
pork chops. And on
Fridays, he serves
up Louisiana gumbo,
étouffée and blackened
catfish.
Not an easy task,
considering the fact
that most of Mr. Lee’s
cooks are from India
and Sri Lanka. “They
didn’t know how to cook
the Southern-style
foods, so I had to get in
the kitchen and show
them exactly how to [do
it],” says Lee, a retired
veteran who has been
in Iraq for eight years.
“I believe that I will be
traveling to India when
I retire, and I will see
a gumbo stand there,
and it will be one of my
guys offering Louisiana
gumbo with a side order
of greens.”
Lee says it’s his goal
to make the cafeteria
“the heartbeat of the
community” and “the
birthplace of morale.”
During war, he says,
the cafeteria provides
an escape to “[people]
coming in after they
have had a rough day, a
rough convoy. It’s a place
of fellowship; a place to
have a good nutritious
meal and unwind. It
starts here at the dining
facility.”—KC
T

5. 156 e b o n y. c o m / f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 1
ments, the embassy, which comes from the
State Department, and the military, which
comes from the Department of Defense.
Typically, they are really different organi-
zations with different DNA. So unless you
do some things to bring them together to
cause them to work together, the natural
state of affairs is that they would go in dif-
ferent directions.”
This working relationship came out of
what may go down as a historic meeting,
one in which Austin and Jeffrey, along with
their staffs, came together in 2010 to focus
on ways to span the boundary between the
military and embassy. To this day, they still
go by the combined-vision agreement that
was reached then. “There was skepticism
on both sides,” Austin says. “Someone told
me that you could cut the skepticism with
a knife the morning we entered into the
goal-setting session. We came out of that
[nearly] one organization. We committed
to doing things that would help our organi-
zations stay focused on the common goals.”
Since then, Austin and Jeffrey, who was
once the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, have
been inseparable. The two meet twice a
week, go together to discuss issues with
Iraqi officials, have worked together on
Iraqi elections and to resolve internal Iraqi
disputes. Austin has even moved his office to
the embassy compound so that he and the
ambassador can work together in the final
stages of the war “because of the signal that
itsends,”saysAustin,whodescribesthemil-
itary-embassy effort as “a team of teams.”
“We have developed total trust in each
other,” says Jeffrey, comparing their rela-
tionship to the military-diplomatic efforts
in Bosnia before and after the Dayton Ac-
cords. With one very important distinction:
“In a situation like this, something can go
wrong at any moment,” Jeffrey says. “We
are not a normal mission. We are not even
a normal big mission. We are a mission that
has to operate in a still very dangerous envi-
ronment where we are being targeted, or I
would even prefer the term hunted.”
Politics of Peace
In addition to the warriors on Austin’s
team, there are African-Americans on the
diplomatic side who will be there well after
the troops have gone. There are those like
Rebekah Dramé, who organizes cultural
and educational programs at the embassy
in an attempt to better relations between
Iraq and the United States, and lessen anti-
American sentiment. Then there are those
like Michael Jordan, an economic advisor
withUSAIDwholeadsateamofeconomists
in an assessment of the Iraqi economy that
will help guide future U.S. policy. And Oni
Blair, a foreign-service officer with the U.S.
Embassy in Iraq. She oversees more than
$150 million in humanitarian assistance to
Iraqi refugees and displaced families. And
George Murray, a former chief of the Chi-
cago Housing Authority Police Department
who now is the liaison between the U.S. Em-
bassy and the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and
works hands-on in the rebuilding of the
Iraqi police force.
If all goes right diplomatically, Iraq will
take off. Strange to say about a country
that is mostly desert and wasteland. Al-
though Iraq’s GDP was flat in 2010, the
country has the second-most oil reserves in
the world. The potential to become a very
wealthy nation very quickly is very real.
“Iraq could become the next Dubai,”
says Rear Adm. Kelvin Dixon, one of the
top Navy officers in Iraq. Dixon, who
helps train the Iraqi Navy in the south-
ern port city of Umm Qasr, can be rou-
tinely seen riding on one of the Louisi-
ana-built swift boats that now makes up
the fleet that serves as the cornerstone of
the Iraqi Navy. These boats will have the
critical responsibility of protecting the
coastline and the two valuable oil plat-
forms that produce some 90 percent of
the country’s wealth.
During the final sit-down with Austin,
this time in his office, he peers out his win-
dow and reflects on a country he has helped
to define and that has helped to define him.
His mother died last year while he was here,
but he can still hear her voice. His children
have matured during the last eight years,
as has his wife’s honey-do list. Meanwhile,
Austin says he can only hope for the best
for Iraq. In five to 10 years, he envisions a
country where the more-or-lesses and give-
and-takes give way to “a bustling economy
where people are free to move about and
enjoy life,” he says. “I would like to see a
prosperous Iraq … and Iraqi leaders who
are prominent in the region.”
Which, relatively speaking, is a lot better
than anyone anywhere—except perhaps the
general—had thought was possible when
he took Baghdad with his young troops.
General Lloyd Austin
Cont. from page 135
Men of Abuse
Continued from page 155
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