The Al Anbar Awakening from the Perspective of a Marine

Prior to 2007, August in Ramadi, Iraq was just another month of Al Qaeda bullying, gunfights, and all the things one would expect from a war. However, August 2007 was profoundly different for the citizens of Ramadi than August 2006. Instead of fierce firefights for US Soldiers and Iraqi police there were birthday cakes and birthday celebrations; parades and dancing in the streets.

Aug. 14 is Marine Lance Corporal Steven Hayes' birthday. Dropped off at a Ramadi based Iraqi police station in May 2007, Hayes and 16 fellow Marines were to live with, train, and work alongside 330 Iraqi policemen until late October.

And on Aug. 14, rather than being bunkered down inside the police station as Al Qaeda mounted attacks from the streets, Hayes was receiving a birthday cake baked by the mother of Iraqi policeman, Mohamed Abd Sattar.

"Him and a few police officers came in that day with a cake and a hookah for me for my birthday," said Hayes. "It was a vanilla cake with no icing."

What about Al Qaeda? What about the terrorists and the insurgents? What about IEDS and suicide bombers? How is it that the Iraqis could find the time to bake a birthday cake when their country was in the midst of war?

After the assassination of a sheikh by Al Qaeda operatives, who hid the body for 3 days in order to prevent the family from burying it, Sheikh Sattar approached a U.S. commander at Camp Ramadi, asking for an alliance. Al Qaeda's attempt to intimidate the citizens of Ramadi by hiding the sheikh's body had the opposite effect as it empowered both the people and local tribes who once saw the U.S. as the problem.

It was this single event that would be the turning point for Ramadi and Al Anbar province, a region that was once considered lost. Now it is a place where Iraqis can walk freely down the light gray streets that are lined with sandy tan buildings.

"You have to credit the people of Ramadi and Sheikh Sattar Abu Risha for turning the city around," said Hayes, who spent 7 months in Ramadi. "They asked the U.S. Military for help and we supported them in their mission."