The state of corrections in Iraq has made national headlines during the past few weeks, with many questions being raised about how the American presence in Iraq has impacted prisons and prisoners there.  But, having Americans overseas participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom has had an effect on correctional systems and facilities in the United States, too, with many officers and staff members being deployed to Iraq to support the war effort.

Many people working in corrections have been called to duty, taking leaves of absence from their jobs to go to Iraq and serve their countries.  John F. Czarnecki, Support Services Administrator for Fleet Management at The Florida Department of Corrections' Central Office, is just one example of a corrections employee turned soldier who left his wife, two small children and job behind for nearly a year to go to Iraq and help rebuild a torn country.

With 26 years of Army experience, Czarnecki was deployed to Iraq in April 2003 and returned the following February.  While there, he served as a Deputy J9 for the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force - Arabian Peninsula.

Czarnecki was originally supposed to go to Afghanistan, but, while his orders were pending for that assignment, he received a call from an old acquaintance who asked him to join the Special Forces and go to Iraq.  The decision, he said, was between deploying on a "squared-away mission" in Afghanistan or an invasion in Iraq. 

"For a professional soldier, there's not really a choice to be made there," Czarnecki said.

And so, he went to Iraq.  This is his account of his time there:

I was assigned to the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force - Arabian Peninsula as the Deputy J9.  In plain English that means I was the deputy Civil Affairs officer for the Special Operations HQ for Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

During the combat phase, the HQ was composed of US Special Forces, British and Australian Special Air Services (SAS), and the Polish Army's GROM, which is an exceedingly capable version of our Navy SEALs. 

After the combat phase, the British and Australian SAS split off and we then picked up a Task Unit of Navy SEALs. My companions were mature, highly trained professionals adept in the art of warfare.  My first projects involved the reconstruction of 14 of the elementary and middle schools in the surrounding area.  One elementary school was in such bad shape, with four tiny rooms, a sand floor, mud bricks and a thatched roof, that I had it bulldozed.  In its place we put up a new 12-room masonry school with 2 administrative offices, bathrooms, and a courtyard for basketball/volleyball.  Altogether, it cost only $30,000. (Labor is VERY cheap in Iraq - the construction supplies are the most expensive part of the equation.)  

Other early projects included the restoration of three drinking water treatment plants.  These simple units, comprised of sand filters and chlorine injectors, had been looted for their parts and pumps.  When they were operable they provided all the drinking water for the entire region.  Without them, the people had to drink their untreated irrigation ditch water, so it was imperative that they be brought back on line. 

In the meantime, I took a 2001 Renault firetruck we had appropriated from the Saddam International Airport, sterilized the water tanks, and used it to haul clean drinking water to the 15 schools and to another 5 villages on a daily basis until UNICEF could take the job over. The main downside was that bouncing around the countryside in a bright red firetruck for weeks on end made me quite the distinctive target.  God only knows why I was never targeted.  Work of this nature generally kept the locals happy, and therefore out of our wire.  As long as they were not attacking Coalition forces, the work I was doing was having a positive result: winning the hearts and minds  [of the Iraqi people]. 

Later, as the summer wore on, I became involved in irrigation, and was successful in securing funding from USAID for the reconstruction of 200 kilometers of the Abu Ghraib canal system, a major irrigation canal branching off the Euphrates, which serves all of Southwest Baghdad.

 In late summer, a new threat was emerging-- the use of explosive devices along the roads as a means of attacking US forces rather than engaging us directly with troops.  I was attached to a Special Operations Counter Ambush Advisory Team.  Our mission was to gather intelligence on how these attacks were being conducted and to conduct field training for those soldiers in the field who were being hit the most--the Special Operations forces, but particularly the Civil Affairs teams. 

These CA soldiers are Reservists, and are always out in the sticks rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure.  Their equipment and training isn't always the best, and they have taken a huge percentage of the casualties because of their exposure, being out in front as they are. 

Our team was composed of a Special Forces Captain and Sergeant First Class, one Navy SEAL Master Chief and one Senior Chief, two Navy Explosive Ordnance Technicians, one Civil Affairs Sergeant, and myself.  Together we toured the majority of Iraq, training dozens of units and returning from most missions with invaluable forensic evidence for the FBI's lab there in Baghdad - these attacks on US troops are crimes, after all, and the evidence must be preserved for possible criminal prosecutions.  This association with the FBI forensic and bomb folks soon developed into our working with the FBI HRT in Baghdad for a few missions.  This all lent itself to the third and final aspect of the Counter Ambush Advisory Team's mission: to put together competent training packages including current intelligence, combat convoy techniques, and some home-grown common sense advice on how to get out of trouble should things go bad. 

The program is intended for presentation to soldiers attending various training courses throughout the Army, and particularly to the Reserve and National Guard units who are now being mobilized to go to Iraq. 

In the closing months of my year I was looking forward to getting home, was working on a unit transition from one SF Group to the relieving Group, and concentrated on the construction of a governmental office complex for the Abu Ghraib district of Baghdad. 

This project was nearing completion when I redeployed in the middle of February 2004.  Summed up, and with apologies to Jerry Garcia, It was definitely a Long, Strange Trip, but one that I am happy to have made.  We lost a few friends, and made some new ones, too.  Thinking of those still in the box, it is my prayer that they return safely home soon.