February 10, 2005


Almaden native Capt. Craig Macina reports on Iraq’s reconstruction

By Jeanne Carbone Lewis
Staff Writer

As a child growing up in Almaden, Craig Macina led an idyllic life exploring the railroad tracks that passed through neighboring streets and the New Almaden Quicksilver Mine. Fast forward a few decades and National Guard Capt. Craig Macina has just returned from Umm Qasr, where he was assigned to command his U.S. Army’s 133rd movement control team at Iraq’s solitary deep water port.

CPT Craig Macina, SSG Mike Dodson, Sgt. Maurice Carr, Sgt. Tim Schweppe, SPC Amanda Fisher and SPC Antonio Gayton. Not pictured is Warrant Officer Lynch.

Commanding six soldiers, two females and four males, Macina successfully controlled all traffic from truck, train, rail and ship movements for the U. S. Army in Umm Qasr on the Khorazzubyr River near the Kuwait border. Working alongside the Iraqi Port Authority, eight additional U.S. Army soldiers for ships and communications respectively and 95 British soldiers assigned for security of the port, Macina and his soldiers were respected and made friends with the indigenous people.

“They were loyal to me,” said Macina about his experience with Iraqis. “They just want to be like you and me. Their culture is slightly different than ours and they see things a little differently. The bottom line is that I could leave the perimeter and go downtown to Umm Qasr in my uniform with my pistol and not be shot at or molested. I was treated with respect.”

“My soldiers and I went out of our way to help the Iraqis,” added Macina about Umm Qasr’s population of 50,000.

“The people in town, when they didn’t have water, we delivered bottled water. We brought two 20-foot containers of water to the town council so they could give it out to the children who needed it. If they needed plywood to rebuild the doors of the school, we found the plywood somewhere. Whenever there was a small job that needed to be done, we would hire some of the local kids to give them a job.”

Life at Umm Qasr
Macina’s soldiers stayed within a 2-acre perimeter surrounded by a cement wall, living in tents from January to November of 2004 as temperatures sometimes soared to 115 degrees. And just like the rest of the city’s inhabitants, they only had electrical power four hours a day. Their 24/7 job provided management of reconstruction materials, container traffic delivering U. S. Army supplies, vehicles for rebuilding, and oil production and pipeline equipment as well as keeping an eye on civilian passengers throughout the busy port. Macina’s soldiers left when the U.S. Army opted not to use the trains for container traffic to the port because they were under attack on the desolate, flat areas of Iraq. The British soldiers are still guarding Iraq’s only waterway as reconstruction equipment and vehicles continue to arrive the next two years.

A crane moves a 20-foot container onto a train in Umm Qasr. Photo courtesy of Capt. Craig Macina

“We told [the Iraqis] what, when and how to do it,” said Macina about managing the port. “We’re paying them to do this. There is no leadership from Baghdad or anyplace else in Iraq.”

The Umm Qasr port was decimated at the beginning of the war. USAID paid out contracts for private companies to dredge and get the port running. It was then left to the Iraqis to manage with the assistance of maritime experts sent from the United States. The U.S. Army was a customer and had certain requirements they didn’t want overlooked. Macina commented that support didn’t come in a timely manner and the outdated business mindsets of the Iraqis were sometimes problematic.

“Sadaam isolated their country since the early ‘80s,” said Macina. “So their way of doing business and running a port is 50 years out of date. Their banks don’t even have a way to receive a wire transfer for business so people would show up with briefcases filled with a half million dollars to pay for taxes.”

There is also a commission set up that is an everyday way of business with the Iraqis. Above the normal cost of goods and services, a tip is paid on top of the initial fee. It is expected and done as a part of a business transaction with the Iraqis at the port that employed 4,000 Iraqis. The U.S. Army never participated in the tradition.

“I had 55 Iraqis who worked directly for me every day,” said Macina. “My foreman was a doctor of hematology who was thrown out of his position by Sadaam.They were no different than you or I. They were all college educated.

They all wanted air conditioning in their house. They all wanted a computer and the Internet. They wanted their kids to go to a good school, not what they had to live with. They wanted their streets cleaned. They wanted to drive down the street without being shot at. Everything you and I take for granted, they want it too.”

Noting that his direct experience of Iraq was at the Umm Qasr port, Macina maintains that it was an interesting experience. He hopes it will continue to improve with reconstruction money pouring into the port so rebuilding can continue, providing more jobs and making the waterway work at full capacity. It was a relatively safe place though care was always administered. Macina was proud that there were relatively no incidents; he was only shot at once.

Medical facilities are sparse. People die from appendicitis, colds and sore throats. Umm Qasr was in the process of rebuilding the hospital while Macina was deployed there. An injured or sick person would have to pay an ambulance to take them to a hospital. The Iraqi police come and take a report because there is no such thing as an accident in Iraq. Macina quoted an example where an Iraqi friend was hit by a motorcycle while driving his car.

A 5-ton truck modified to serve as a gun truck escort for a convoy. Notice that there is no armor on the truck and the custom gun platform in the back. The bumper of the truck indicates the truck and crew belong to the 980th S & S Company of the California National Guard.

The motorcycle driver lost his leg. Under Iraqi law, his friend is at fault and must pay the driver who hit him $3,000 American dollars and relinquish his 13-year-old sister to him. In the end, he didn’t deliver his sister because the motorcycle driver was paid $5,000 by the company he worked for. Such stories are prevalent the Iraqi society.

While Macina was at Umm Qasr, he witnessed schools that had no doors, windows or air conditioning. The teachers and students write on the walls because there are no chalkboards. There are very few desks. The children play soccer on fields of dirt, which are full of scrap metal. But everyone wants to learn English and how to use computers.

While there, he worked closely with many Iraqis who became friends and who he has heard from since returning from the war torn country.

“Craig did some great things he wasn’t prepared to do,” said Bea Macina, his mother who still lives in Almaden.

“The Iraqis deeply respected him and his leadership. We have had telephone calls from them since he has returned.”

“They were a real asset there,” said Carl Macina, Macina’s father. “They built schools and got water and power for the Iraqis. That was not a part of their job. When his Iraqi friends call they revere the parents and tell me I raised a wonderful man.”

Macina’s initial assignment changed when he arrived in Iraq. He was assigned to command the port operations.

He reports that when the transition of power occurred in early summer of 2003, a nervous anticipation enveloped the port because of the concern about possible attacks. But the Iraqis came to work everyday because they knew the soldiers were there to protect them, even asking the soldiers why there weren’t more American soldiers there.

Macina maintains that the Iraqis knew that if they helped the soldiers, the soldiers would help them.

“I couldn’t help but like them,” said Macina of the Iraqis he worked with. “They were good, honest people. During the recent voting, one of my Iraqis that worked for me called because he was so excited. It was the first time he had voted in his life but what he was really excited about was that everyone in town got to vote. He said the best thing about it was all the pretty ladies that are normally in the house, were out and he could see them now. He thinks there are great days ahead.”

Women in Iraq
The culture dictates that the women stay in the house, covered in a burqa when they go out to market. Interacting with a westerner is forbidden for these women. However, the modern Iraqi women who have gone to college work for some of the civilian contractors and they did have interaction with westerners, speak English and work with computers. The difference is that their father or brother must bring them to work once they have approved the employer and are confident that he is a trustworthy, honorable person. By extension, you become a guardian of the females who work for you and must maintain a chaste and modest environment. It was considered an honor to be given this responsibility.

“The Muslim religion permeates all elements of their life,” said Macina. “Banking, cultural, political. Here in the United States being a Catholic doesn’t define you as a person but in Iraq being a Muslim does. But they do want their children to be educated and if they have daughters they want them to go technical school and learn computers. They know that there is no way they will survive in the future unless they are computer literate and speak English.”

In the Iraqi culture, the women are hidden. Their houses have a front area where guests are greeted. The room in back of it is where the women take their veils off and dress in regular clothes. One of Macina’s sergeants was invited into the back room and attended several Iraqi weddings.

In contrast to the Iraqi culture, Macina had two female soldiers working with him.

“We had seven people and did the work of 60 people,” he added. “I couldn’t have asked for a greater unit. My two female soldiers—I couldn’t have asked for better soldiers. My youngest female soldier developed a database for tracking. The other was a warrant officer whose technical expertise made life easier for us. Being female soldiers in Iraq wasn’t that difficult for them because the Iraqis who worked for me knew that they were in charge and that you treat American women different than you treat Iraqi women.”

As far as fraternization between Iraqi women and male soldiers, it was nonexistent in Iraq because there was no opportunity to meet. Macina shared that in Kuwait U.S. soldiers cannot leave the base because of an agreement between the U.S. government. Kuwait suggests that one of the reasons they keep them separate is because of their high divorce rate. There is a belief among Kuwait men that if American soldiers were out on leave, with money to spend and their differing social treatment of women, the fear is that their women would marry American soldiers and there would be no females left for them.

Iraqis in Umm Qasr were appalled that Macina was 40 years old and unmarried and offered to find him a 21-year-old to marry if he stayed in Iraq. Marriage rituals include the edict that a male must have a house, air conditioning, TV, VCR, DVD, computer, washer dryer and furniture. The wife must be paid a thousand dollars or more and in the event of a divorce or death, the husband leaves the wife with the house.

Two classes
Iraq has two classes of people according to Macina—the cosmopolitan, well-educated group and the illiterate group who listen to the local holy man. The latter live on rumor, innuendo, listening to a holy man who may hate Americans and causes many of the problems. In Umm Qasr, the holy man would preach at Friday prayers the philosophy “the Americans are here, Sadaam’s gone, let them spend their money here. They will leave and we will have everything the way it was. They are not going to be here forever, why blow it up?”

“They’ve had propaganda preached to them since they were infants, that Sadaam is right and that Americans are evil,” said Macina. “Many believe it is a Jewish conspiracy. I’ve had college-educated Iraqis who speak fluent English working for me who told me that on 9/ll the World Trade Center had no Jews because the Israelis were told not to go to work that day and that the hijacked planes were flown by Jews.”

Macina maintains that Umm Qasr was relatively safer than other parts of Iraq and that the people there were happy that the Americans were there. He feels that the American military is doing a better job than the media reports because more convoys are now getting through. And while stationed there, he witnessed many positive changes. For instance, cell phone users were subject to execution under Sadaam, now everyone has one. Computer use is also widespread.

“What I want to get across is that not all Iraqis hated us,” said Macina. “Some were very happy we were there and we did do some very good things even though [the media] never made it anywhere. If we could give two kids bottles of water on the way to driving somewhere, that was a victory.”

As for now Macina is contemplating his options. He has been offered a civilian job with a computer support company and the U.S. Army has asked him to stay. He has plans to marry his fiancée—who prefers he does not return to the Middle East—this spring. For his Iraqi tour, the U.S. Army awarded him the bronze star for superior achievement and operational readiness in a combat zone. His unit will receive its Army commendation medals in May.