A Retrospective on Captain Travis Patriquin: America’s “Lawrence of Arabia” in Ramadi
The events of September 11, 2001, had a profound impact on what became known as the Global War on Terror (GWOT) generation, who found themselves fighting terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan, Iraq, the African Sahel, the Philippines, and places in between. Within four years, I met someone who would influence my outlook on our nation’s GWOT campaigns to this day. That unique individual was Captain Travis Patriquin, whose unique approach to life and our counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq led to the success of the Anbar Awakening in Ar Ramadi, Iraq. Sadly, on December 6, 2006, Travis was killed in Ar Ramadi, and I wrote a tribute to Travis here in Small Wars Journal (SWJ) in 2010. Thankfully, the article helped encourage William Doyle to write A Soldier’s Dream: Captain Travis Patriquin and the Awakening of Iraq. Since his death, I have reflected upon the lessons I gained from my interaction with Travis since meeting him 20 years ago in Germany and the legacy he left behind, and I will share those here.
Travis and Occam’s Razor
Travis was not your typical Infantry Officer when he joined the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division in Friedberg, Germany, in 2005. He had a background serving as an enlisted Intelligence specialist in Special Forces units before transitioning as an Officer. Additionally, Travis was a polyglot capable of speaking Spanish and Arabic and claimed to have learned Pashtu, among others. More importantly, he was an outside-the-box thinker who always strived to understand the core issue. The foundation for his thinking was Occam’s Razor, the principle of understanding a problem down to its simplest components. He used Occam’s Razor to inform his analysis of the conflict he and I faced in Tal’Afar, Iraq, which became the basis for his article published after his death.
Travis expanded upon this philosophy when he and most of my Brigade relocated from Tal’Afar to Ar Ramadi in the Spring of 2006. He quickly understood the dynamics of the conflict occurring between the Sunni Sheikhs and the extremists from Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) that exploded into open conflict and led to the Anbar Awakening, guided by the charismatic Sheikh Sittar. In October 2006, my battalion rejoined the Brigade in Ramadi. I worked with Travis and Sheikh Sittar as the movement grew to expel AQI from the city. However, one nagging issue I raised a few times during our meetings was the prospect that the Awakening forces would morph into a Sunni army capable of threatening the Iraqi government. This sentiment was shared by others, including Carter Malkasian, who attributed the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2014 to the Awakening and the broader Sons of Iraq program.
While there have been a multitude of factors to the rise of ISIS, Travis would say that Occam’s Razor implies that the most plausible explanation for the rise of ISIS was that the quarrel between the Sunni tribes and AQI was less about ideology and more about internal power dynamics that saw it change from an externally influenced organization led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to an internally led organization of Iraqi extremists led by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. What I learned from Travis in Iraq would influence my observations in Afghanistan and later in Iraq and Syria.
Overcomplicating Afghanistan
My conversations with Travis about his deployment supporting Special Operations during Operation Anaconda shaped my impression and understanding of Afghanistan, and it gave me an appreciation of how different it would be from my experience in Iraq. Primarily, Travis pointed out that while Islam was the common framework between Afghanistan and Iraq, the history, geography, and tribal dynamics were very different.
From 2012 to 2013, I served in the Commander’s Action Group (CAG), International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. I was privileged to observe the intersection between politics and strategy as General John Allen and General Joseph Dunford navigated the complex environment. The central challenge at the time was the planned transition in 2014 when the Afghan government would assume the lead in the counterinsurgency fight. However, during that time, there was a spike in green-on-blue incidents that saw Afghan soldiers turn their weapons on their fellow Afghan security forces and their Coalition partners. Additionally, the coalition’s inability to isolate the Taliban, Haqqani Network, and their Al Qaeda allies from their sanctuaries in Pakistan meant the fighting could go on indefinitely. I remember attending strategy and campaign planning events where I stated we were not answering the key question. In line with Travis’s approach to Occam’s Razor, the key question I raised was, “How do we get the average Afghan to choose between a 7th Century Medieval-minded Taliban that was known quantity vs. a predatory and corrupt Afghan government many believe were propped up by foreigners?” It was a similar question that the British in the mid-1800s and the Soviets in the 1980s faced during their campaigns in Afghanistan. I also noted it was the same fundamental question we failed to ask and answer in our own experience in Vietnam.
In December 2020, serving in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) CAG, I traveled to Afghanistan with General Frank McKenzie, where I “fist-bumped” President Ghani as he walked in for a meeting. Afterward, I observed General McKenzie, as he extensively detailed in his book The Melting Point, working with the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), and his subordinate commanders to develop options to achieve the President’s policy of withdrawing all combat forces from Afghanistan. 8 months later, I watched the collapse of Afghanistan during the first month of my war college fellowship in Canada. Applying the lessons from Travis, I believe we overcomplicated the war in Afghanistan by not understanding the nature of the fight. While we called the Taliban insurgents, they viewed themselves as an exiled government fighting to reclaim their right to rule. Sadly, the average Afghan knew that time was on the Taliban’s side as the West looked for the exits and, therefore, never put their complete faith in the Afghan government.
The Rise and Fall of the Caliphate
In 2011, I served as one of Army Chief of Staff General Odierno’s speechwriters who helped draft the memorandum he and the Secretary of the Army signed indicating the conclusion of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation New Dawn (OND). In 2014, I would find myself dealing with the failed conclusion of the war in Iraq and the consequences of my observations from Ramadi as ISIS swept through Iraq and nearly toppled the Shia-led government.
In December 2014, I arrived at U.S. Special Operations Command – Central (SOCCENT), the command responsible for providing the bulk of Special Operations Forces (SOF) in Iraq and Syria to combat ISIS. The SOCCENT Commander was dual-hatted as the Director of the Combined Joint Inter-Agency Task Force – Syria (CJIATF-Syria), tasked with developing a Syrian 5,000 Syrian Force to resist ISIS in the middle of a full-fledged Syrian Civil War. Additionally, SOCCENT, with Allied SOF, supported the Iraqi Government’s Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) to combat ISIS. The initial success of ISIS in both Iraq and Syria stemmed from several factors. First, the bulk of the Iraqi Security Forces were trained during OIF/OND for static counterinsurgency operations and were not prepared for the ISIS lightning war of maneuver. Second, the top-heavy U.S. and coalition command relationships led to the phrase, “Never have so few been led by so many.” Third, the CJIATF-Syria mission of attempting to build a standardized infantry-style unit while trying to screen potential candidates proved nearly impossible, especially while encouraging them to focus solely on ISIS and not the Assad regime.
After General (later Secretary of Defense) Austin’s testimony in September 2015, SOCCENT planners were tasked with revising our SOF approach to Iraq and Syria. Several planners had experience with the initial response to 9/11 in Afghanistan, and others cut their teeth during the initial invasion of Iraq and the fight against AQ. The changes included streamlining the command relationship by merging CJIATF-Syria and the Combined Joint Task Force – Iraqi (CJOTF-Iraq) into Special Operations Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (SOJTF-OIR). Second, the focus in Syria switched from training and equipping 5,000 Syrians to a more specialized form of training that allowed a small group of trained Syrians to train their fellow Syrians. It was the perfect example of applying the SOF “Dark Arts” I wrote for SWJ previously, which saw the development of the Syrian Democratic Force (SDF). Travis would have been happy to see the adjustment and the subsequent success of militarily defeating ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Of course, it is hard to tell if some of the Syrians we trained included elements that led to the overthrow of the Assad regime.
Travis and Ukraine
My connection between Travis and Ukraine is born from loss. Travis was one of the first to comfort me when my little brother was killed in Baghdad, Iraq, in August 2005. Additionally, Travis’s death, my brother, and ten other friends whose names I wear on a remembrance bracelet daily remind me of the sacrifice in war. I arrived at U.S. Army Europe-Africa six months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I spent the first couple of months directly supporting efforts to assist the Ukrainians in defending themselves. However, once the support to Ukraine shifted to the Security Assistance Group – Ukraine (SAG-U), my efforts shifted toward the broader planning to support NATO and deter aggression. One element from my experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan shaped by the loss of Travis and others was the large-scale attrition seen in Ukraine that exceeds what I and many of my fellow GWOT veterans faced. Therefore, it helped focus the emphasis I placed on my planners to plan for reconstitution operations in a large-scale combat operational environment. Additionally, the WWII generation informed my thoughts on reconstitution, including my interaction with my childhood barber, a Coast Guard veteran of D-Day.
20 Years Later
Since meeting Travis 20 years ago, I have learned a lot. First, relax and do not take life too seriously (Ferris Bueller influenced Travis and me). This sentiment is best reflected in the parody video he played of British Soldiers performing the song Is This the Way to Amarillo. This advice is why I come across as stoic and try not to let little things get to me. Second, Occam’s Razor should be applied to reduce a problem with its essential components and not try to overcomplicate a solution. This factor also means recognizing that some solutions take a long time to have an effect, and other solutions require simply managing the problem at an acceptable tolerance level.
Travis was the right man at the right time in Iraq. His simplistic approach, best captured by his infamous “stick man” presentation on how to win in Iraq, will forever cement his legacy in our nation’s history of counterinsurgency operations.
