"Another practitioner of the counterinsurgency war was General David Petraeus. I first met him at Fort Campbell in 2004. He had a reputation as one of the smartest and most dynamic young generals in the Army. He had graduated near the top of his class at West Point and earned a Ph.D. from Princeton. In 1991, he was accidentally shot in the chest during a training exercise. He endured a sixty-mile helicopter flight to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where his life was saved by Dr. Bill Frist, later the Republican leader of the Senate. Early in the war, General Petraeus had commanded the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul. He sent his troops to live alongside the Iraqi residents and patrol the streets on foot. Their presence reassured residents that we were there to protect them. Petraeus then held local elections to form a provincial council, spent reconstruction funds to revive economic activity, and reopened the border with Syria to facilitate trade. His approach was textbook counterinsurgency. To defeat the enemy, he was trying to win over the people. It worked. While violence in much of Iraq increased, Mosul remained relatively calm. But When we reduced troops in Mosul, violence returned. The same would happen in Tal Afar."