 It's a dark place, at least it was. The term Triangle of Death, we refer to as an area within the Makhmadiya Qadda. From the period of 2004 to 2007, Makhmadiya Qadda was one of the most violent sectors in the Baghdad province. There was a great deal of sectarian violence, Sunni on Shia and Shia on Sunni. Very few places had any electrical power or running water. It was kind of sort of like the Wild Wild West, as one might imagine. I lost 54 soldiers killed in action, another 267 wounded. Within the 15 months we spent in South Baghdad, we could clearly see that there are political needs, economic needs, but we frankly don't have that level of expertise resident in our organization. In June of 2007, I received a call at our Baghdad office from officers of the Second Brigade Combat Team asking for assistance in consolidating recent security gains against al-Qaeda armed groups and insurgents. There was a lot of mistrust between the tribes. It was difficult to get beyond a desire for retribution. I went to Jordan to meet the 10 people who left Iraq, because sheikh Al-Asheera was supposed to be an accomplice and was active in the establishment of stability in the region. The fact that we could get Iraqis to help in these negotiations was something that there was no other U.S. entity that could give us something like that. We designed the structure of the conference. We helped craft the final agreement with the sheikhs themselves. The tribes of the Mamadiya district laid out what it was they truly wanted to achieve and made it their reconciliation conference. We were able to leave South Baghdad better than we found it. This is what civilian military cooperation looks like when it's working in a conflict zone. South Baghdad became one of the third tribes of peace and well-being.