Publication Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Our Town: A warrior's hard questions
Our Town: A warrior's hard questions
(January 26, 2005) by Don Kazak
Ray Kimball is thoughtful and careful when he voices his concerns about the war in Iraq. While some think the war was a mistake, Kimball doesn't go that far.
He can't, even if he thought so. As an active Army captain, he can't criticize his superior officers or Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
But what Kimball says carries weight. A West Point grad, he served in the Iraq invasion as commander of 3rd Squadron, 7th Calvary, which flew Kiowa scout helicopters.
His unit was the first to cross the Euphrates River --120 soldiers with six armored vehicles to support the helicopters. On the way to the river, his unit drove through a series of night ambushes.
"The next day, we crossed the Euphrates, and for two days we were the only American unit across the Euphrates. And that got very, very lonely," he said. His unit dug in to defend itself in heavy fighting.
"At one point, our ground troops ran out of ammunition and were fighting with captured enemy rifles," he remembers. Extra ammunition was flown in and the Air Force and Navy provided close air support.
"It was a very anxious couple of days." His unit didn't lose any soldiers, a point of pride. Kimball was awarded a Bronze Star for his leadership.
Kimball tells the stories from the living room of the Menlo Park home he shares with his wife Mindy, their brightly blond 2-year-old son, Daniel, and Ike, a Jack Russell terrier mix. A small, gold Kiowa helicopter sits on the mantle. Mindy is also a West Point grad and an active Army captain.
Kimball is at Stanford University finishing a master's degree in history, Mindy is studying for a master's degree in geology at California State University, Hayward. Next fall, both will return to West Point, where he will teach history and she will teach environmental sciences.
The majority of West Point faculty are officers who go back to school to get master's degrees and then teach two or three years before returning to the field Army. It's a highly competitive program to get into.
Kimball was in Iraq when Mindy e-mailed him: "Hey, you got into Stanford. Come home in one piece."
Kimball is also part of a group of active and retired veterans, Operation Truth, which has been critical of significant parts of the war effort. The criticisms included the lack of vehicle armor that led to a publicized flap Dec. 12 when Rumsfeld was publicly asked about it by a soldier while touring a base in Kuwait.
"(With) what I've learned and what America has learned since the war, certainly I think it is appropriate to question some of the reasons and some of the justification for why we went to war," Kimball says.
Kimball believes it is his duty to ask hard questions about the war. "That's just part of what is expected of me as an officer because my oath is to support and defend the Constitution, and part of that is examining the reasons we went to war," he said.
Military service is a family tradition for Kimball. Both his parents and a grandfather served, and his sister is an Army physician.
He keeps current on the war through contact with West Point classmates still in or returning from Iraq.
"The active force I think will be OK," he said. "It will be strained and it will be incredibly stressed, and God help us if we have to do another major conflict, but the active force will be OK."
Kimball is more worried about the National Guard and Army Reserve units, which comprise about 40 percent of the troops in Iraq. Recruitment is off 30 percent for the Guard and 10 percent for Reserve.
"I'm really worried the National Guard especially may potentially cease to exist within the next couple of years," he said.
Operation Truth has called for Rumsfeld to go through reconfirmation hearings so questions about the war could get a public airing.
Could Kimball get in trouble for speaking out?
"All I can say to that is the Army I love and the Army I serve with is an organization that encourages informed, instructive and professional dissent," he said.
The best kind.
Weekly Senior Staff Writer Don Kazak can be emailed at dkazak@paweekly.com.
E-mail a friend a link to this story. | 
