While not out on combat missions strictly speaking, these rear troops face danger and do their jobs well:
But not all the troops going “beyond the wire” are infantry or armor types. Fobbits run the convoys that move supplies all over Iraq, and its fobbits with guns who go out to recover, or repair, vehicles (combat, or otherwise) that break down, or get battle damage. The fobbits are also responsible for the security of their FOBs. This security has been much better than in Vietnam, where infiltrators and enemy commandoes often got inside the wire and did damage. Not so in Iraq, where the armed fobbits have, with very few exceptions, kept the enemy out. Perhaps in appreciation of that, the REMF term has fallen into disuse, largely replaced by the kinder and gentler “fobbit” (a play on the "Lord of the Rings" creatures, the little guys with big feet who lived in bunkers, were not known as warriors, and were called Hobbits.)
The security aspect is the one that stands out the most to me. Since the insurgency and terror campaign has gotten going in late summer 2003, I've worried that spectacular attacks on our bases might harm our home support for the war. While I've worried about something as bad as the Beirut barracks bombing in 1983, we've only had one--the mess tent bombing in Mosul a little over a year ago--that I'm aware of. A couple helicopter downings and a few IEDs have led to large losses of life at one blow (though nothing more than 10% of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing), but the rarity of these events has been fairly astounding to me.
Much credit goes to the fobbits for keeping our bases so secure.
