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Town Clerk Brings Democracy to Iraq
Snips of the article. Upstate NY soldier
During David J. Shenk’s assignment to Iraq with the 1982nd Forward Surgical Team, the Boston town clerk’s compatriots spent most of their time at Camp Warhorse, waiting between the times when their services were needed. Shenk, meanwhile, drove a white sport utility vehicle into downtown Baqubah, where he went to work trying to help the provincial governor and assistant governor set up a government. "I felt safer in an SUV than in a Humvee, because a Humvee is more like a bull’s-eye," said Shenk, who returned to Western New York in late November. "With a white SUV, you could blend right in."
With the NGOs, anyway. Those that are left...
It also beat sitting at the base, and it gave him a chance to use some of his skills from his day job back home to do a little nation-building. Shenk, who might be the only elected official in Erie County to serve in the Iraq campaign, said a chaplain friend had suggested that he talk with the chief civil affairs officer in his brigade, given his background. "I didn’t even finish it," Shenk said of the interview, "and the colonel said, "I want you to come work for me.’ There were some people who didn’t have a tremendous amount of experience in government. In fact, none of the people I worked with had my number of years in government."
What about the guys waiting to get their blood pressure taken?
So Shenk, a sergeant in the Army Reserve, started commuting from the camp to Baqubah, running interference for the colonel in charge as U.S. officials tried to guide local officials in the province of Diyala toward creating a government...

The surgical team ended up treating captured Iraqis who were fighting the Americans after the local hospital refused to take them. "Once the hospital administrator heard they were the bad guys, he said, "If they shoot at Americans, I won’t treat ’em. Don’t bring ’em to my hospital,’ " Shenk said. "So then we had to treat them."

Shenk said that he was tempted to volunteer to stay in Iraq to see the projects through but that when his company was scheduled to come home, he came. His wife, Polly, and his father, Gene, wouldn’t have forgiven him if he hadn’t, Shenk said. The reservist said that he had no regrets about the mission. "I may be an elected Democrat, but President Bush is my commander in chief, regardless of how I felt about us going over," Shenk said. "A lot of the reasons for us going over have been clouded, and the full answers will come out over time. But the fact that we’re there now, we can’t leave. That would be the worst thing to do. We’ve made a commitment." He added that "we need to stay in charge" until the mission is accomplished.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2004-01-12
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=24220