Reason NCOs Rock, #243

This just cracked me up.


Soldier becomes a sheik, helps boost base security

Sheik Horn floats around the room in white robe and headdress, exchanging pleasantries with dozens of village leaders.

...a local sheik friendly to U.S. forces, Dr. Mohammed Ismail Ahmed, explained the inner workings of rural Iraqi society on one of Horn’s first Humvee patrols.

Horn says he was intrigued and started making a point of stopping by all the villages, all but one dominated by Sunni Arabs, to talk to people about their lives and security problems.

Moreover, he pressed for development projects in the area: He now boasts that he helped funnel $136,000 worth of aid into the area. Part of that paid for delivery of clean water to 30 villages during the broiling summer months.

Ahmed, known for his dry sense of humor, eventually suggested during a meeting of village leaders that Horn be named a sheik.

The sheiks approved by voice vote, Horn said.

Some sheiks later gave him five sheep and a postage stamp of land, fulfilling some of the requirements for sheikdom. Others encouraged him to start looking for a second wife, which Horn’s spouse back in Florida immediately vetoed.

He lately has been prodding the Iraqi Education Ministry to pay local teachers, and he closely follows a water pipeline project that he hopes will ensure the steady flow of clean water to his villages.

To Horn’s commanders, his success justifies his unorthodox approach: No rockets have hit their base in the last half year.

“He has developed a great relationship with local leaders,” said the 2-8 commander, Lt. Col. Bradley Becker. “They love him. They’re not going to let anyone shoot at Sheik Horn.”

Only an NCO could pull this off. A commissioned officer would look silly doing this (and it would probably be forbidden anyway) and a junior enlisted guy would lack the gravitas.

I say this even though my husband is a commissioned officer who could pull of just about anything he set his mind to (IMHO).

I'll go into the many hundreds of other reasons why NCOs rock on my other blog at some point.