Gen. Oates prepares to leave Fort Drum

FORT DRUM — Maj. Gen. Michael L. Oates has served in the Army for 30 years and says he doesn't know what's next. But he said he's not sure he could do much better than commanding general of an infantry division such as the 10th Mountain.

"I've enjoyed my time here. This is it for me. When you leave a division, that's it, there is no other place to go. This is where I've wanted to finish up," he said. "I'll continue to serve if they find another job that they want me to do, but really, every other job after this will be not quite as rewarding as being in an infantry division. It's all I've ever known."

Gen. Oates has not announced a retirement date, but the Department of Defense has not announced his next duty station, and that makes his next permanent move uncertain. He does know that on Sept. 3 he will relinquish his command to Maj. Gen. James L. Terry after serving as the commanding general of Fort Drum and the 10th Mountain Division since April 2007.

FOCUS AT HOME

Gen. Oates, those who know and work with him said, put soldiers and families first. He was the first general to open himself up using a blog, dubbed Mountain Sound-Off. He started multiple initiatives to improve soldier and family care — and, according to some, he prevented some problems from bubbling over.

"Their influence has been felt in a number of ways and if it had not been for their enlightened leadership approach, we would have more problems to react to," said F. Anthony Keating, the civilian aide to the secretary of the Army for Fort Drum.

Mr. Keating referred to Gen. Oates and his wife, Barbara. "If it had anything to do to improve services for soldiers and families, he was out in front of it. That was maybe his greatest attribute. He was trying to do more than react and was trying to foresee what kinds of problems would arise for soldiers and their families."

Mr. Keating said Gen. Oates rarely missed anything that was happening on or off post. He said Gen. Oates was always ready to improve on traditions and relations between the military and the community.

Mary M. Parry, longtime United Services Organization volunteer, agreed with Mr. Keating.

"I think that he and Barbara were so family oriented and they had so much compassion for the soldiers and I think they will be remembered for that," she said. "I was talking to him the other day about how hard it is to go to all these remembrance ceremonies and funerals, and he told me that every single one is like family."

Since he took command April 13, 2007, there have been 71 Fort Drum soldiers killed while fighting overseas. Twenty of those deaths have happened since he returned home from his deployment in May, and 19 were soldiers with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team stationed in eastern Afghanistan. Those 71 soldiers represent more than one-third of the 202 10th Mountain Division soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Beth C. Fipps, the state president of the Association of the United States Army, vice chairwoman of the Fort Drum Regional Liaison Organization and co-chairwoman of Operation Yellow Ribbon, said Gen. Oates should get credit for reaching out to those in the community and in the military.

"One of the things with Mike Oates is that he has always been a leader amongst his peers and willing to try new things and very aware of the technological changes and expressed an interest in hearing thoughts from those inside the military and in the community on how to strengthen Fort Drum and the soldiers," she said.

Mrs. Fipps said she thinks the hardest thing for Gen. Oates has been dealing with the multitude of stresses that has come about as a result of numerous deployments and eight years of war.

That is something that Gen. Oates said he and the Army have realized and have begun to tackle by changing the way soldiers prepare for war.

He said it's not just about preparing for combat anymore, and there has been a shift toward building resiliency for soldiers and families. That is done by providing information and support and taking the extra steps to help soldiers and families be as prepared as possible for multiple deployments.

But not all of the problems are identified, and he said the Army is a learning institution that is still figuring out how to better serve soldiers and families.

"We were busy focused on combat and we didn't know how long it was going to go and we certainly at that point didn't anticipate, at least I know I didn't think I would go back three more times, and I don't think the Army did and in 2005 that settled in," he said. "While we've always known that we had to prepare soldiers to go overseas, we did not adequately anticipate this was much broader and much deeper and that we would have to look at the soldier and the spouse and the family going over multiple times, and that has opened all kinds of doors for us."

Gen. Oates said not all stresses come from multiple deployments, and he does not believe that a soldier will misbehave and commit criminal acts just because he or she served overseas.

He said that is a "simplistic" view and the question needs to be "did they misbehave because they are criminal or did they misbehave because there is something else at work? That is what is really hard to get at."

He admits that he and the Army haven't quite figured that out yet, but he thinks the Army is ahead of it.

"It's much better to try and build strong coping mechanisms to handle these long deployments," he said. "And the learning won't stop in 2009. We'll start to discover new things in this next rotation and more doors will open to us."

IRAQ DEPLOYMENT

Since taking command, he deployed to Iraq for 12 months, commanded Multinational Division-Center and oversaw eight Iraqi provinces. At the end of that tour, his mission expanded to control a ninth province, Basra, when British forces withdrew.

In the 12 months the 10th Division was in the southern portion of Iraq, all of the provinces came under Iraqi control, and the Iraqi army and police took charge in security operations. Gen. Oates said this partnering with the Iraqi army and police was his mission before deploying and his proudest accomplishment upon leaving.

"That actually succeeded much more than I ever anticipated and much faster," he said. "We tried to do it the last time I was there and it was not universally accepted that the Iraqis should be the ones to take the lead. It does require us to take more risk and it does require more patience. We've got huge dividends of taking this on. They solve their problems in their own way and I think in the past we may have been a little reticent about waiting for them to solve their own problem."

Gen. Oates said that during the annual Ramadan holiday last fall, he and his staff asked their Iraqi counterparts what the security plan was. In the past, he said, the Americans would tell the Iraqis what the plan was to be, but this time he gave the Iraqis the responsibility. In return, it was the safest Ramadan holiday since the war began, he said.

"They were forced to come up with their own plan and they did, and it worked like a charm," he said. "They had a better read on the security situation than we did."

He and his staff returned from Iraq in May, three months ahead of schedule, and were not present when American combat troops pulled out of Iraqi cities June 30. Over the past month, there have been calls for a faster drawdown in Iraq to fight the growing violence in Af-ghanistan. Gen. Oates said it's too soon to tell if all American forces should leave Iraq.

"We don't quite know yet what will change if we have a rapid reduction in force," he said. "Until the national elections, caution is useful. Americans are so impatient. This is not going to end like a football game where the clock runs out and we all leave the field."

National elections are scheduled for January, one year after the provincial elections. Gen. Oates said he was encouraged by the provincial elections because the Iraqis did not elect ideologues. He said they elected educated people who stood for something other than a religious sect.

If the national elections follow the same trend, he said, the country could be on the path to start governing rather than "argue just for the hell of arguing."

Gen. Oates also said he is encouraged by the news that the Iraqi security forces are not asking for American help. He said that means the Iraqi forces are headed in the right direction. But any decision on reducing troop strength in Iraq needs to be made by the commanders on the ground, he said.

"What drives our participation is the desire to win and we won't want to fail and right now we've agreed and have made a commitment to the Iraqi people to stay and support them through the duration of the security agreement," he said. "We have to be able to see clearly when it's time for us to reduce our force. Nobody wants to stay there longer than we have to."