I’m dropping in today to give you all some important news and to ask that some of you join me on a unique journey. As part of my ongoing Notice of Disagreement claim with the VA (Wouldn’t you know we are past the year mark now?!) I made the decision to continue investigating my deployment on my own. I’ve had nothing but time and I figured anything I learned could find its way in the memoir I am building to help broaden discussion about modern deployments and help me discuss service with those who visit this blog. Today, I am writing to inform you I came up empty-handed.

It is important to let you know why I am empty-handed and how we can resolve this matter. I am not asking you to contribute to help my VA claim. I have an avenue to help with that matter (when and if it becomes necessary, which I’ll discuss a bit later in this post). I am asking you–if you’re one of the qualified Iraq veterans I’m looking to find–to share a bit of your journey because our government is doing everyone a great disservice by not having these records already.

I left Iraq in 2005. Thirteen years have gone. If there were viable records, we are out of the woods in regard to operational security. I can understand my government keeping the casualty reports and significant activity reports under wraps during an operation to protect individual units’ safety in country, but I honestly thought I’d learned something about my deployment I didn’t know before beginning this new path.

So what was this path?

I put in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request. I figured if any organization had something useful this was where I needed to go. Old news articles haven’t been helpful since the data isn’t easy to gather or necessarily aligned with my deployment. Then again, other sites like the DoD’s website gives the larger picture but it doesn’t allow individuals to break down the casualty information for their respective purposes.

In 2016, when I provided my Final Reveal of my graduate applied project, I came to you all with incomplete data. I am not embarrassed by my lack of progress, but frustrated. How many of the 31,958 wounded military casualties belong to my first deployment? The service members who died during my deployment made up 6.2% of the total deceased for OIF. My job was to process the activity reports that came in from units with this information and yet, two FOIA requests have produced nothing.

This reality is NOT the fault of either the U.S. Central Command FOIA office or the U.S. MARCENT FOIA office. The individuals who worked with me on the matter have been great and I am glad I took a risk to place a FOIA request. The Central Command office couldn’t locate records and encouraged me to take a chance and reach out to MARCENT (Marine Corps Forces Central Command). The second FOIA request is what really opened a door for me.

I learned the Headquarters Marine Corps (HQMC) Casualty Branch is the record keeper of the Personnel Casualty Reports. This information is what can aid me if the VA comes back yet again and doesn’t believe me about my deployment work and the casualty information my unit handled. Apparently, the VA claims representatives can contact HQMC Casualty Branch if they want to confirm casualties from my deployment. So, while we put in a pin in that for me, I do hope for anyone in similar circumstances you now know you have another avenue to get the VA informed by having the VA contact your service branch’s Casualty Branch.

I want you to know my FOIA Coordinator at MARCENT went two steps further than I expected. She coordinated with the specific FOIA office for 1st Marine Division. Their office has no records. In the depths of the email, I was presented a gift,an article, I am sharing with you today. The article shared with me is Peter Sleeth’s Lost to History: Missing War Records Complicate Benefits Claims by Iraq, Afghanistan Veterans. I do not know if our unit records were intentionally destroyed or wiped clean from computers but it is truly a shame our service branches did not leave behind records that can aid veterans, help educate the academic community, and build the transparency with the general public.

I do not think it is appropriate to stop at this step.

I know my fellow veterans (and perhaps active duty personnel) who served in the Al Anbar Province from August 9,2004 to February 25, 2005 can help reconstruct the history of this deployment. This project won’t allow us to have an official record of the deployment, but it will fill in the blanks. For anyone who wants to contribute, I will set up a new tab on my page soon specifically to reconstruct the deployment. I would like anyone who wants to share some information to do so at their comfort level although I provided a guideline below. I expect this process will be quite slow but I am ok if this project takes us years to complete. I think it’s worth it to honor the truth of our experiences.

At a minimum, here’s what I am hoping to compile, but again, I am open to more information:

Date of Injury:

Type of Incident:

Location in Iraq (city or military base, if known):

Branch of Service/ Rank:

Gender:

If you’d like to join me in this endeavor, please email your date of injury information to shewearsdogtags@gmail.com and feel free to share this post with other individuals you served with in Iraq. Thanks for listening and being willing to share your story.

~Cheryl