History
From late 2004 to early 2005, CBP teams trained over 3,700 Iraqi border enforcement officers in the areas of border patrol, customs and immigration operations at the Jordanian International Police Training Center outside Amman, Jordan.

Beginning in January 2005, CBP deployed teams of personnel to a limited number of high-threat land, sea and air ports of entry in Iraq to provide training and advisory assistance to Iraqi border control officials. Additional teams were rotated through these locations every 90 days until October 2006. At that time, with deteriorating security conditions in Iraq, CBP transitioned to a new model of support.

“The CBP deployment pattern now reflects a focus on policy reform at the headquarters level at the Ministry of Interior,” says John Sullivan, Iraq program manager, CBP Office of International Affairs and Trade Relations, “accompanied by continued training and advisory assistance in a more structured manner.”

In March 2007, CBP responded to a request from General David Petraeus, who oversees all United States forces in Iraq, for additional resources to support border control assistance efforts there. In response, beginning in July, CBP is extending the temporary duty tours of CBP personnel from 90 to 180 days and the number of personnel on site up to 22 (from between 12 and 19).

Experiences
Recently, the Office of Public Affairs had the opportunity to interview six CBP personnel who served in Iraq on the January to April 2007 rotation. They were asked about some of their most memorable experiences overseas.

Photo Credit: Robert Cole

For CBP Officer Robert Radtke (Alexandria Bay, NY), it was the sight of his partner’s terrified face as they crawled along the ground through an “exceptionally heavy rocket attack, the rockets whistling in and exploding, very close.”

CBP Officer Manuel Gomez (Hidalgo/Pharr, Tex.) recalls a couple of experiences that stand out. One is good, the other awful. Here’s the good one: “I was working with (Border Patrol Agent) Nick Harrison (Marfa, Tex.) at the Zurbatiya port of entry on the Iranian border. Some Iranians were coming back into Iran from a religious pilgrimage. There was one Iranian young man who noticed that we were Americans, and he shook our hands, was very friendly—we didn’t expect that.” They also didn’t expect what came next: “He actually gave Nick a hug and a kiss, we got a picture of that.”

The awful experience involved a close brush with death. “From Iraq I learned to never be complacent. One time me, Andy (Althoff, a Patrol Agent in Charge from Pembina, ND and the group leader) and a couple of team members were walking to the dining hall (in the U.S. Embassy compound). It was a week where we had a lot of indirect fire. A rocket landed close to us and two people lost their lives.” Gomez and the others tried to keep them alive until medical care could arrive, but it was too late.

Fearing for Their Lives
Did the group fear for their lives? “Every day,” says Supervisory CBP Officer Andrew F. Garcia (Houston, Tex.). “It wasn’t uncommon that in the mornings when we were back in the International Zone (also known as the Green Zone) that we would hear a car bomb or rocket or mortar, so every day you thought about that. And every night when you were going to sleep, you would think, is this the night that a rocket is going to hit?”

And there were numerous rockets that struck in the embassy compound.

Support from Home
These officers and agents consider themselves lucky to have had strong support from their CBP colleagues, not to mention their families, to keep them going.

Sullivan notes that senior CBP officials at headquarters insist on an extremely high level of support for our employees in Iraq. “We must communicate with our personnel in Baghdad at least once every business day,” he says, “because the safety and security of our personnel in Iraq is the highest priority for all of us who are involved with the program.”

On the family side, Harrison recalls how Gomez’s mother sent “three huge boxes full of beef jerky and all kinds of things you need over there.” Althoff’s in-laws sent “70 pounds of Little Debbie snack cakes” which they shared with others in the U.S. embassy compound. “That gesture of sending the care packages meant a lot,” he says.

A Unified Team
One of the most noteworthy aspects of this tour was the integration of CBP officers and Border Patrol agents into a unified team. Asked whether the experience brought these officers and agents together, the response was unanimously positive: It did, and it was “seamless,” says Althoff. Not only that, but it really solidified their sense of agency identity, say the team members.

Vigilance is Key Lesson
Each member of the team contributed something different to Iraq, but they all seem to have taken away the same lesson: vigilance. Radtke, who served as an advisor to the Iraqi border forces, decided quickly that when he got back home, he would “maintain a higher standard of vigilance, because you’d be surprised at the things that can happen in a split second.”

BORSTAR (Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue) Agent Albert Nevarez (Santa Teresa, N. Mex.) served as an advisor/instructor in Iraq. He, too, came away with the lesson “to be more vigilant here in the U.S. You see the lengths they (insurgents) would go through to sacrifice themselves for what they believe in.”

Garcia, who was assigned to the Civilian Police Assistance Training Team (CPATT) in Baghdad, agrees, noting that in Iraq, he was “always on heightened alert, always paying attention to my surroundings because of the threats of IEDs (improvised explosive devices), and indirect fire.”

The dangerousness of the environment was especially clear to Harrison, who worked both at CPATT and the Iraqi Assistance Group, helping with policy development and border control operations. He made several trips to ports of entry and border forts, and noted how carefully the convoys prepared for each trip because “that’s when you’d usually get hit if you’re going to get hit.”

Ceremony
On June 19 at CBP Headquarters, a formal send-off/welcome-back ceremony was held for the next group of CBP volunteers headed for Iraq, and for those who recently returned. During the ceremony, CBP Commissioner W. Ralph Basham presented six CBP personnel who served on the January to April 2007 rotation to Iraq with an Achievement Medal for Civilian Service from the U.S. Department of the Army.

Commissioner Basham told the group: “We are very grateful for your presence in Iraq and we feel good about your contributions to defending America abroad and on our home shores.”

Office of Field Operations Assistant Commissioner Jayson Ahern stated, “To those of you returning, thank you for returning home safely and thank you for your sacrifice. Thanks to your families as well. This is a very significant contribution you have made.”

Added Chief of the Border Patrol David Aguilar: “We have tremendous pride in you. It’s amazing to see the amount of people who stepped up to serve with this mission. All I can say is thank you.”

An Important Choice
The agents and officers now deploying on the next tour to Iraq are enthusiastic about their choice to serve. “I like the challenge,” says Border Patrol Agent Lee Miller (San Diego, Calif.) “and it’s a great opportunity.” Says CBP officer Jose Fuentes (St. Louis, Mo.), a former Army National Guard member, “I felt that I could do more and this is my opportunity.”

Based on his own recent experience there, says Althoff, volunteering for Iraq is good leadership training. Referring to the team he led, he says, “as future leaders in CBP – they’ve proven their ability to operate in the most extraordinary and arduous circumstances that they’ll ever see in their careers.” And in the future, “they’ll have this to draw on. Nothing will ever seem quite as difficult or dangerous.”

Thus, the CBP employees who have gone and continue to go to Iraq to volunteer to assist in that country’s reconstruction risk their lives for the sake of making a contribution to bettering that country’s welfare. And in the process, they contribute to the agency’s growing reputation as a premier, world-class border management agency.