“The
Babylonian Caravan”
By
James A.
Bretney
Home
address: HSC 3/10 SFG (A) FCCO
80913
Deployed
Address: FOB CENTRAL ELM SUPCEN APO AE 09342
Phone
Number: (719) 213 – 8212 (cell) 226 8418
(home) 524
1519 (work)
Email
address: james.a.bretney@us.army.mil
Author’s
Note
I have changed the names and places to
protect the privacy of others and the operational security of our forces here
in Iraq. But the events contained
here are true as best as I can tell them.
1. No
Report
“Good morning, I am Lieutenant Sondervan,
the convoy commander. I will be
giving you your convoy brief.” The
lanky, dirty blonde twenty-something with an oblong face, Nordic last name and
dry monotone officially began the convoy brief. He pointed to his first Power Point slide behind him on a
fifty inch flat screen television which displayed the load out plan – diagram illustrating
the vehicle formation.
The load plan consisted of black rectangles
and boxes for vehicles and red circles for people. He announced each name in his roll call, “Samuels, Lopez,
Finnegan, Fitzgerald, Van Dame, Portz . . .”
The convoy consisted of three up-armored
HUMVEES and two flatbed trucks in between. The convoy from start to finish would take up most of
daylight. We would travel MSR
Tampa[1]
south from Baghdad through Marine checkpoints to Hillah, the provincial capitol
and home of the ancient city of Babylon.
Sondervan pointed to his black and white
photographs outlined in crimson with caption boxes of car bombs, mortar attacks
and sniper fire taken from a God’s eye point of view. “From north of vicinity and away from our direction of
travel, we had a mortar attack at . . .” He went on with each slide. “There was a VBIED[2]
at checkpoint north of the IP [3]
Academy. It killed two local nationals including the driver and injured two
others.”
Sondervan spoke without animation. His briefs vacillated between the
serious and the routine. This
vacillation eased and yet made his listeners edgy.
The information he had been putting out had
been pretty light from what we had been use to. There is always the unknown that comes with each convoy like
the butterflies in your stomach just before you jump out of an airplane, before
you give a speech, before you get into a fight, before you steal something or before
you communicate desire to a beautiful woman, you never know what you are going
to get. You never know if this is
going to be the one time where you have to shot your weapon or use your medical
training.
“And from Hillah, our final destination,
there is no report of enemy activity in the past week.”
Merlin, the convoy NCOIC[4] got up to speak, “I just want to add to
the LT’s threat brief,” Merlin, a fit compact man in his late twenties, wearing
E-6[5]
rank on his collar, a regulation mustache and Ken doll hair began, “Remember
there are wide fields of fire throughout our route along MSR Tampa. But there are also 200 meter[6]
hills where the enemy can take pop shots at you, so keep your head on a
swivel.”
The LT[7]
was the convoy commander, he was in charge and responsible but Merlin ran the
convoy – nothing happened on the convoy without his permission.
“No one is going to question you if you
take the shot. Just be mindful of
the secondary effects of the bullets.
We are going through some school zones and I think today is their market
day.”
Merlin too had a canned brief that he gave
as well, “The vehicle speed is 50 to 55 mph. We will leave one hour
earlier. It was pretty congested
last time so we might miss the traffic.”
Merlin went through his back briefs in the
same perfunctory manner deviating little from Sondervan’s lead. For “falling out of formations” he went
to his driver – Vo, for “accidents and break downs” he went to the convoy
mechanic – Samuels, for “a down gunner” he went to the turret gunner – Fitzgerald
who finished his answer with the following: “Lay suppressive fire and assault
through.” Merlin always asks the
same people what to do during the back briefs.
Merlin went over the convoy call signs, CT
and PT freqs[8]
for the Sheriff net and the MEDEVAC.[9] He went over the ROE[10]
one more time emphasizing a graduated response. The first thing you do is give a hand and arm signal which
was the culturally accepted hand an arm signal for “stop”, then warning shots
at the road, then into the vehicle and finally into the drivers and
passengers. The culturally
accepted hand an arm signal for stop is lifting your hand palm facing inward
extending all your fingers and thumb while keeping no space in between your
fingers and placing the tips of your fingers on your thumb as if you where
holding up an imaginary feather.
It’s a derivative of the F word which means roughly “Stop the F-word
car!”
“We are rolling out of here with twenty-two
pax[11]
in six vehicles.” Merlin closed
before he turned it over to the War Shaman, Evangelical Protestant Chaplain
Kevin Mateer.
2. Roll Out
Merlin said I would have the most
comfortable seat on the convoy when I asked him where I was on the load out
plan. He positioned me right
behind the driver in the trail vehicle – not as a driver, not a TC[12]
or a gunner but a passenger – a passenger with no responsibilities and no
control if anything should happen.
The night before I was reading my Bible
looking for consolation after my recent divorce when I cam across verses 8
through 9 from Psalms 137 entitled Sorrow
and Hope in Exile:
“Fair
Babylon, you destroyer
Happy those who pay you
back
The evil you have done to
us!
Happy
those who seize your children
And smash them against a rock.”
The children of Babylon waved
enthusiastically at their destroyers who rolled passed in a steel plated
caravan behind 50 caliber machine guns gloved fingers outside the trigger
wells. They pointed at their
mouths saying “Give me” and “Mister!”
From behind a bullet proof port, I saw the smiles and joy of the
children unchanged since liberation near two years old.
The enemy was not above using these
innocents as bait us in order turn the population against us. We feared killing these innocents more
than we did the killing or the being killed. A child had been killed by oncoming traffic when he ran out
to wave at an American convoy. Did
we not have children we left behind?
I use to think that being a father and
husband were a common man’s pleasures that rated distant second to fabulous
wealth and distinguished notoriety.
Only in America do children fill their heads with such extravagant
thoughts. Being neither rich nor
famous, I took mean comfort in that most of the men on this convoy were fathers
and husbands, some of them much younger than me.
The driver, a lean, blonde, mountain man of
Montana, Joe Samuels walked with cocky slouch born from a hard day’s work and
wore a hard bitten look in his eyes.
Samuels ran the Motor Pool as the NCOIC and earned the commander’s
praise and favor in that position.
He would act as the convoy mechanic in the event of a breakdown or in
the aftermath of an attack. In all
official communications, he came off as hokey and his responses canned, “I’m
just looking after my guys.”
Offline, he liked off color jokes and smoked cigarettes. He is thirty seven years old and
husband and father of three.
Merlin was the TC for the lead
vehicle. Lieutenant Sondervan was
the TC for the middle gun truck – the command vehicle. And Sergeant Lopez was the TC for the
trail vehicle.
Lopez walked with a lanky gait and a pretty
face. In the early days of his
marriage, he had a wild side. But
after the last year, things came to a head and Lopez grew up. Since that time, he got promoted after
spending ten years below the rank of E-4.[13]
Lopez was the NCOIC for the S & T[14]
section filling an E-7 slot. He is
in his late twenties though he looks much younger. He is husband and father of four, two from his first
marriage who live with him and two from his current wife. My ex-wife held his newborn baby in her
arms just before we deployed for the liberation.
In the gun turret stood an athletic,
gregarious, “Leave It Beaver” twenty two year old native of Columbine Colorado,
“Fitz” Fitzgerald, a sunny Specialist from the Chemical Detachment. Since there is no Chemical mission
here, “Fitz”, serves as one of the veteran hajji watchers on Van Dame’s
Facilities Management mission. He has a young wife at home.
The two tail gunners, avid body builders,
Mike Portz and Van Dame sat in the back bench of the gun truck exchanging jokes
and being silly. I didn’t
know Mike very well; he just got to the unit. He keeps to himself mostly.
Van Dame and I go back since September 11th. A Van Dam dubbed thus because he looked
like the tanned stenciled abs film star. Van Dame, ever the ladies man, moonlights as the owner and
operator of a rather lucrative adult entertainment business. He is currently juggling two women of
exquisite looks neither of which are faithful to him. Despite all this, Van Dame is a faithful friend who is
generous to a fault, easily endears himself to the command and is professional
and thorough. Van Dame pays child
support to four children.
3. MSR
Tampa
A convoy headed north crisscrossed us on
the opposite highway, to which Samuels said of their security posture, “Is
there anyone in the turrets at all?
And you wonder why these guys get hit.” Joe Samuels piped up over the internal convoy net. He said again through my headset, “Does
anyone know that hooga chakah song from the commercial with the dancing baby?”
“What about it?” I asked.
“It’s stuck in my head,” Samuels said.
“Which version,” I asked
“What do you mean?” He asked back.
“Well there are two versions of the
song. There’s the BJ Thomas
version of the song which is kind of folksy and there’s the Steppenwolf,
no.” I corrected myself, “It’s
Buffalo Springfield version of the song from Reservoir Dogs Soundtrack.”
“I don’t know,” Samuels said, “which ever
one the dancing baby is on.”
I wish there was something new and
different I can say about the Iraqi landscape as most of my readers have never been
to the Middle East. I have
compared it many times to the desert wastes of the Mojave and the Sonora
desert. Perhaps it is because it
looks so familiar that I bear no malice toward the land of this people. The mirages, the white salt and alkali
beds skirting the road, the tumbleweed, all of it forms a brown and green
patchwork that taps into childhood memory, a database of familiarity that
evokes pleasure and ease. Besides,
this convoy run has in the past and would probably be long and boring.
Though I am armed, I am behind lots of
armor and I could not fire out even if I could. The best I could do is man the gun in case “Fitz” went down
or render first aid to other shooters.
“Sergeant Samuels,” I speak into the mike.
“Yeah,”
“Do you know that highway that runs from
Seattle to LA, the I Five?”
“Yeah,” He hesitates.
“That overpass reminds me of an overpass
right outside of Sacramento?” I
reply.
“I don’t know why that overpass looks special.
It looks like every other overpass we’ve seen since we got here.” Samuels said so matter of fact to which
I had no reply. Nonetheless, it
reminded me of rural Sacramento.
“Going right,” Samuels shouted and “Fitz”
echoed the command back to Van Dame and Mike who didn’t have headsets. Samuels maneuvered the HUMVEE from the
left lane into the right lane under the overpass. The rear gunners, Mike and Van Dame, pointed their M4[15]’s
up on the overpass. Most of the
overpasses had huge chain linked fences on both sides of the lanes, so no one
could through something down onto the cars passing underneath.
I saw a massive white and red radio tower
that still stood even though the fourth leg of the tower had been missing
completely mangled perhaps during the invasion. We passed shepherds with their flock.
A military convoy passed by us to which, Lopez
said, “I like the HET[16]’s
better than I like the FMTV’s.”
“I don’t like all that electrical crap they
put in the FMTV.” Samuels declared
“You can go so much faster in HET or a
deuce and half.” Lopez added, “Do
you know Highway 85? The one from Atlanta to Savannah?”
“I’ve been on it once or twice.”
“Well,” Lopez paused underneath his thick
Puerto Rican accent, “we were going 85 miles per hour on that highway in a
HET. All of us got speeding
tickets – one HUMVEE and eight HET’s.
Forty five was the convoy speed and fifty five was the catch up
speed. But the lieutenant fell
asleep. The lead vehicle got up to
85 and I was just following suit.
I was just following suit.”
It was then I thought how often I excuse my
own bad behavior under the direction or sanction of some authority.
4. Through
the Desert on a Horse with No Name
We passed a field where Arab husbandmen placed
plastic green house tents over their crops. We passed irrigated plains and livestock - grazing mangy
sheep and underweight Holsteins. We
passed an Iraqi mansion with a pillared recessed corner and dish-network
satellite dish mounted on the roof.
A few swarthy local nationals in long sleeve western attire congregated
around an auto shop fixing their cars.
Behind the auto shop and mansion, a dilapidated mosque turret stood
piercing the blue skies above. We
passed by the burned out hulk of an Abrams[17].
“There’s a box[18]
in the middle of the road.” Merlin
reported back. The convoy swerved
as they passed the box individually.
I checked my GPS[19]
as I usually mark key terrain or points of interest in case I get into a
Blackhawk Down situation and have to E and E[20]
my way back to base. I was
not getting a signal. I needed
three satellites which would come up as three black bars but none were coming
up. Was it the electronics in the
HUMVEE that blocked the ultra high data waves from coming into my receiver or
was it the heavy armor itself? I
passed my GPS to Fitzgerald to see if I could get a signal from the turret.
“There’s dead animal on the road.” Merlin said over the net.
It’s probably a dog, I thought. Then I thought of an anecdote Raphael
Patai recounted in his book The Arab Mind. Christian and Muslim Arabs
relate to dogs differently. Christians
keep them as pets where as Muslims consider them an unclean animal. Yet both of them feed the dogs.
We passed by an Army Engineer unit operated
a steam roller flattening out the road.
We passed by a refurbished pedestrian bridge over an irrigation canal.
“I use to operate that piece of equipment
when I was in the reserves for twenty two months,” Joe Samuels said, “I
operated it once, then it broke and I waited for twenty two months for parts to
come in and that’s when I decided I would go active.”
“What are you going to do when you get
out?” I asked as I knew he was
coming up on twenty years.
“I have no idea. But I know what I am not
going to do. I am not going to fix
other people’s broken shit.”
David O. Russell directed the Desert Storm
flick “Three Kings.” He filmed
it in Casa Grande, Arizona. How
sage that directorial choice of location proved as I had been on the I-10[21]
over a hundred times and it looked identical with minor differences to MSR
Tampa from scrub brush, tumbleweed, the pools water left on the wadis to
evaporate and even the castle turrets of the mason homes of the desert dwellers
reflect back to southwestern architecture as the Spaniards of Andalusia one
desert to another. The more
plentiful palm trees, the freshly cut reed fields and oil refineries belching
black plumes on the horizon provided the only clues to the region’s idiosyncrasies.
“Overpass,” Samuels announced over the net,
“Going left.” Samuels guided the
HUMVEE from the right hand lane into the overpass and exiting into the left
hand lane.
Another overpass had a Bradley[22]
perched on top, where Samuels announced, “Since there’s friendlies on the
bridge I am just going straight through.”
Since I arrived in theatre, things appeared
better than when I had left a couple months after the April insurgency. Signs of the additional troops in country, from the new tents
pitched, to brand new vehicles marshaled on formerly empty ground, and longer
lines in the chow halls meant fewer soldiers killed on live TV, fewer and fewer
mortar attacks on the compound, and fast reaction times from the QRF[23].
Then I thought of pressure for more troops
and the stop loss.[24] I thought
about my own plans of getting out and going to law school. Would I be able to? Would I be stuck serving an
indeterminate commitment in position in the organization that didn’t favor my
talents or abilities?
Merlin made another announcement on the
convoy net, “Going to 55 mph.”
Someone made a homoerotic joke about Lopez’s
womanish beauty as we passed through two checkpoints with Bradleys on top of
the overpasses. We moved from the
Army check points guarded by the troopers of the First Cav[25]
to the Marine checkpoints who wore the tan digitized camouflage. The checkpoints manned by both US and
Iraqi Forces operate like a plumbing system. If you have an incident, you can isolate it and take care of
it.
The Iraqis wore U.S. style Kevlar helmets,
LBE[26]’s,
and the Desert Storm chocolate chip cookie uniforms. Last year the ING[27]
was called the ICDC[28]. The ING looked like real soldiers
in their Kevlar helmets rather than underpaid rabble that staffed the city gates. The Army has invested a lot of money
and time in these Iraqis since the April uprising where legions of untrained
militia disintegrated into the insurgency. As the uniform reflects the training of the soldier, it’s
hard to believe that wear and appearance of the uniform deters or conversely
can invite an attack, but it is that important.
“You know I wore that uniform during Desert
Storm.” Joe Samuels said, “The
Chocolate Chip Cookie.” He paused
and added, “Three of the last five birthdays I have spent over here.”
How would you feel, I thought, if we lost a
war to an enemy and ten years later we would lose another war and then have to
wear the uniform of the victorious occupying enemy?
“We are supposed to get the uniforms that the Marines are getting.” Lopez added.
Samuels asked, “Those digitized ones?”
“Yeah except they are going to be green and
light blue,” Lopez said.
“Like that one that General Shoomaker[29]
was wearing when he visited us?” Samuels said, “I think it looks gay.”
Some more time passed.
“So I guess they have taken Howard Stern
off the air completely - radio and TV?”
Joe Samuels said plainly.
Lopez replied, “Yeah.”
“You know who Mary Melons is?” Samuels asked
“Yeah,” Lopez replied.
“I caught my son with a DVD of hers in his
bedroom,” Samuels snickered lightly.
“How old is your son?” Lopez asked.
“17,” Samuels responded, “I guess it’s
better than catching him with gay porn.”
“Yeah,” Lopez nodded.
LT Sondervan interrupted to state that the
checkpoint guards reported mortar impacts dead ahead.
“Just keep rolling.” Merlin responded.
“I didn’t know it was mortar day.” Joe
Samuels said on the internal net, “Next time I’ll have to check my calendar.”
“I didn’t get the memo.” Lopez said.
“You see if you did, then you could have
faxed it to me.”
“I didn’t have a cover page.” Lopez said.
“I didn’t have a need to know,” Samuels
said.
After a long pause Merlin announced, “Going
to 55 mph.”
On the other side of the highway, we passed
by a fifty car gas line. For every
one new Japanese Nissan Maxima or Honda Civic there must have been nine beat up
Datsuns, old Chevy pickups from the seventies, and crappy hatchbacks converted into taxis all stood in line
one right after another first in first out. And still the little kids waved to us from their cars.
5. IP
Academy U.S.M.C.
Noon, a Myoplex protein bar wrapper fluttered
in front of me from gust of wind that came from the back of the truck as we
neared the gates of Camp Charlie – one of the Marine outposts – that served as
an IP Academy.
USMC and 1st MEF had been
stenciled on the concrete Alaska barriers and bunkers as we weaved through the
traffic inside the tent city. Hesco[30]
barriers walled off the shower and toilet trailers. The gasoline guzzling generators, attended by small Filipino
men in pick up trucks, from behind sound proof brick walled enclosures, rumbled
loudly. Sri Lankan coolies, in
blue jumpsuits with burned dark skin, filled up the water tanks throughout the
camp. Nepalese chow slingers emptied the trash. And Dravidian garbage men loaded it up in trucks.
Joe Samuels pointed to the one cute Marine
chic carrying an M-16 checking ID’s[31]
into the chow hall.[32]
Frankly, I had another priority on my
mind. I had a headache. I, also, had to urinate. As soon as we stopped and I finished,
we were on our way out the gate.
The convoy left a flatbed truck there which we would pick up later. With no possibility of eating at the
chow hall, Samuels passed out the MRE[33]’s
to those who wanted them and I took one label “Ham Jambalaya.”
I was noshing on mine the Ranger way eating
one item at a time starting with the desert item first – the oatmeal
cookie. I did this in case
something happened I did not want to be caught unable to react to a situation
if I had everything laid out before me like a picnic. After eating the cookie, eating the oily old cheese spread,
I poured everything all the condiments – salt, pepper, Tabasco sauce, the sugar
packet, the lemon lime beverage mix into x and anything I could to make the
jambalaya taste better. I left the
wheat bread uneaten. So I ended up
eating my MRE picnic style anyway.
‘Complacency kills,’ so they say.
I would add that ‘Complacency kills time.’
I did notice that the Police also looked
sharp more like real cops. The
cops wore Safari land holsters and tan jumpsuits looking more like our elite
soldiers. I saw the scorpion
emblazon on their gun trucks written in Arabic and I don’t read Arabic. But I got the idea that they were IP
SWAT.
5. Red
State Genies
The word Genie comes from the Arabic word
Jinn. The Jinni, plural form of
Jinn, roughly translates to supernatural beings, demons, devils, and
angels. Their existence pre-dates
Islam and makes up the vast body of legend, lore and superstition that Islam
has built its house upon. The
Jinni reside in the empty barren wastes certainly the land beyond this highway
would be the dwelling place of the Jinni.
Samuels gave thanks and reproved himself
for complaining about his living quarters after reflecting on the living conditions
of the Marines. I reminded
everyone that our current living conditions were wanting compared to last
deployment. “How can you say
that?” Samuels confronted me, “You
have your own room.” Apparently,
this was a sore point for the men in the convoy as everyone else who had
roommates.
“Samuels was picking up one of his
mechanics – Hope – perhaps he would be putting him in my room,” I pondered.
“Going left under the underpass,” Samuels
announced over the internal net.
I adjusted the Peltor headset to my helmet
for comfort. I thought about using
my pesh[34]
rag to provide some lining in the inside of my helmet but decided against
it. I had worn that pesh rag on
every convoy since the liberation and was very superstitious against losing it
in a gust of wind along old highway one.
“2 ½ clicks to Hillah,” Merlin announced
over the convoy net.
We passed by a pool of water surrounded by
a sod grass floor and groves of palm trees. It looked like a golf course had it been in the States.
“We were fighting on insurgency which is
something like fighting a ghost.”
I thought to myself as I contemplated as to what I would write in my
daily dispatch - a group email sent to family and friends.
But before my mind could return to an
exorcism, or models of success and case studies in failure in putting down
insurgencies, it wandered back to the Bible Study from the night before. One of the participants said,
“Discipline gives definition in your life as it determines what you allow in
versus what you put out.”
I contrasted his statement to the way I
lived my life just settling for what I can get without even trying because
trying risks failure. I avoided
failure to a degree but I admitted I was in a state of depressed loneliness.
Another undersized shepherd tended his
flock. Hunger had stunted his growth
and yet it enhanced mine. I
thought about how the different peoples of the world had strange dietary
customs. The Hindus don’t eat
cows. We don’t eat dogs. The Muslims don’t eat pigs. The Jews don’t eat shellfish. The Mormons don’t use tobacco or drink
caffeine. Christians offer one
another alcohol to get to know each other where the Muslims offer tea and in
other places, narcotics.
I thought about how Merlin will tolerate
the idiosyncrasies of any of his combat arms Pezos but is absolutely intolerant
of the nuances of the support personnel who make it possible for him and his
fellow brothers to prosecute their mission. He is even more deferential to support persons outside his
own unit, foreign nationals and civilian interpreters than he was to people in
his own company.
Joe Samuels was asking us who knew the
lyrics to the Papa Roach song “Getting Away With Murder” when we turned off MSR
Tampa. We headed west over a
country road that revealed a lusher landscape held together by smaller plots of
land. The children waved to
us. If the insurgency was divided
into an electoral college, this was definitely red state country. These kids, the smell of cow dung,
their mothers in their bright red dresses and their fathers undersized from a
poor diet and an onerous dictator, all waving from their doorsteps, lining up
the street side in a salutatory palisade. Everyone here loved Dubya more than we did.
Merlin, over the net, called out and we
passed by a donkey cart. As we and
the driver smiled, laughed and waved, we could not help but remember the
unclassified IED briefing where by Al Quesada is now reduced to donkey cart
suicide bombing. Talk about People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals!
The good news, quietly happening, is making
the Iraq story boring. The Iraq
story is slowly disappearing as the Kosovo and Bosnia story has disappeared
into babysitting with guns.
Joe Samuels gathered the unopened packets
of Mare’s and tossed the out the window at the kids. What he was doing violated the Convoy SOP[35]
and therefore in Merlin’s view jeopardized the security of the convoy and
future American convoys passing through.
But Merlin can pound sand.
As we neared an IP checkpoint, I thought of
the Koreans – how they, the thirty somethings of my generation, wanted the
Americans out of their country.
Perhaps they were tired of the sex trade going on in their country as
the Filipinos were when we closed our Bases there. Or perhaps they soaked up the Euro trash Anti-Americanism
trendy amongst the fat, dumb and happy born in conditions where other people
provide your own security.
A couple of years ago, a little girl got
run over by an American convoy sparking violent protests in spite of Kim Jong
Mentally Ill’s nuclear saber rattling.
The kids – the Iraqi red state kids - love us now. When they grow up, they will change
this country, I am sure. Perhaps
they will still love us until the day they die. But some day, they like the Koreans will get sick of us and
ask us to leave.
As the life of Theseus[36]
teaches the curse of democracy is her ingratitude. If fame is fickle, and glory fades, the gluttonous sloths
whom wealth has deformed and who have been dimmed by navel gazing ask, ‘What
have you done for me lately?’
I yawned and my eyes grew heavy. I didn’t want to go to sleep. Mostly because I didn’t want to give
Merlin the satisfaction even though there was nothing I could do in the event
of an attack.
Then I heard some yelling, “Stop!” Then I heard a pack, pack, pack. The popping sound I recognized and when
I turned around I saw Portz and Van Dame with their M4’s drawn and I yelled, “Shot!”
“Lopez, call it up! We just killed some people – maybe one
possible enemy KIA.[37]” I yelled.
The first couple shots had been warning shots[38]
as per our ROE. Fitzgerald called
down from the turret that a white van “got too close to our convoy.” The three of the four male passengers
exited the vehicle according to Van Dame and Portz holding themselves. The driver didn’t make it out.
The IP’s looked past us at the carnage left
behind. They had a disappointed,
curious and yet confused look in their eyes. If their sense of personal justice had been offended, they
kept it concealed. We rolled by them. I didn’t see anything.
The child missing his leg on crutches still
waved and gave us the thumbs up. A
lot of children clogged up the streets that day. Sondervan said we would pass right through the school zone and
Merlin said that today was market day.
The children gave us the thumbs up. The traffic got really heavy.
We pulled into the base. American soldiers closed the oversized
steel gates. Thank God we rolled
into the base when we did as the shootings made us all edgy.
Portz and Van Dame reacted to the questions
from the guys from within the convoy with the nonchalance of an athlete
responding to how it felt to hit a home run. They took the edge off by joking amongst themselves about
their experience characterizing it as ‘fun in vehicles’ and ‘space
invaders.’ I kept my distance but
my eye out for Van Dame for the psychological impact of killing is not
known. I was just concerned for my
friend.
Sondervan and Merlin began their
questioning with chips on their shoulder - so much for not questioning someone
for taking the shot if that person feels threatened.
I stayed away from Merlin. He’s the kind of guy that will smile in
your face but tell those in charge who jacked up you are when you’re not
around. I had some business with
the Commo[39]
NCOIC.
I greeted a friend of mine, Redd, who was
working the Intel[40] job
there. The rumor around the
barracks back in the rear was that Redd was queer as three dollar bill. Redd was not the most stable guy, but
he was a good guy, who did damn good work. We delivered his mail and I told him what happened and
pointed to where it happened on a map.
Redd seemed perplexed as the area had been relatively quiet for several
weeks now.
I found the Commo NCOIC and we talked
shop. I dropped off two radios and
he gave me six. We exchanged
handshakes and paperwork and we were off - but not without him passing along
some Russian NOD[41]s.
The NODS were a curious device and looked
ten to fifteen years behind our latest NVD[42]. I wondered where I would get parts for
this thing.
I looked for my gloves around my
comfortable seat. I had a penchant
for losing them but before I could get on with my search, the convoy was off
again for our last stop. I placed
my headset over my head and could hear the idling engine modulate the static
over the net.
6. Camry
Base
MAXIM[43]
magazine did a story on Al Qaim of Al Anbar province – the wild, wild west and
heartland of the Al Qaeda insurgency in Iraq. The soldiers stationed there at the time, the Third Armored
Cavalry from Fort Carson, Colorado, described Al Qaim as “Mos Eisley” the
desert outpost that featured in Star Wars of 1979 and the Star Wars of
1997. The sci-fi residents of Mos
Eisely slithered on the floor, hung from the rafters, hovered above table
tops. Some were robots rusted and
held together with bailing wire; others were reptilian like man-size
salamanders with snouts, tusks and breast implants. It was a place where disputes were settled with the loser
being shot in the street or where he stood in the bar, deals and double deals
where made over a toxic admixture and some galactic depravity was being
performed with the best jazz quartet this side of the cosmos performed their
version of satin doll.
Hillah’s streets, every town in Iraq for
that matter from Baghdad to Tikrit, from Mosul to Samara had that Mos Eisely
feel. There was an element in the
bazaars an Oriental romanticism reminiscent of Sir Lawrence (El Aa‘rense) of
Arabia. But guns were up even with
the kids waving.
Lucky for us Camry Base was close by. I did
a double take as most of the ING that guarded the gates with AK-47[44]’s. But instead the Base had been guarded
by desert camouflaged brown buddies carrying M-16’s. Then I saw the blue and white flags on their shoulders and
Mayan smiles on their faces. Camry
base was guarded by ING, but it was reinforced with El Salvadoran
Infantry. The flags of Poland and
Latvia also flew over their trailers and antennae masts. Their elite soldiers, with skin as pale
as the Nordic north, strutted by in their PT uniforms.
One of the benefits of being in the
coalition of the willing was real world experience in counter-insurgency,
occupational and logistical operations that one could not get in a NATO
exercise. The example that comes
to mind of the success of loaning your armies out to get experience was how
Hitler and Mussolini sent their armies and air forces out to Franco’s aid
against the communists and anarchists backed by Stalin.
I too had to jump out and conduct some
business. I dropped off a radio
and got the signature on the chain of custody paperwork filled out. I solicited for business and one of my
customers told me that what he needed was some ammunition. When I brought this to Sondervan’s
attention, Sondervan responded, “So what are you doing ammo now?”
I stayed in the vehicle until everyone else
finished up. We refilled our
vehicles by the fuel point passing the small forest green golf cart sized troop
trucks the Polish brought with them.
A middle aged blonde woman ran past us in
her Army PT’s, to which Samuels pointed to me and joked, “There’s a woman for
you.”
Lopez added, “Do you know that all the
women on Camp Victory have been relocated into one central location where there
are gates, barbed wire, guards, curfew and lighting?”
I thought of the wanted poster that CID
posted in one of the Camp Victory chow halls. The wanted poster featured an artist rendering of a scowling
overweight but muscular bald black man wanted for indecent exposure and sexual
assault. Sexual assault appeared
to be a botched seduction rather than rape.
“At Hip Hop Night in Balad, one girl got
gang banged on the dance floor,” Lopez added.
“Do you think it was consensual or
coerced?” I asked.
“I think if it was coerced we would have
all heard about it by now,” Lopez added.
“That sex segregation camp just does not
sound right,” I said, “When we get back, let’s ask Montez as he goes over to
Victory all the time.”
“Guys who come up with crap like that, are
usually the guys that aren’t getting laid,” Van Dame said in disgust.
“Those guys who aren’t getting laid are
rather protective of their women,” I said nonetheless.
7. It’s Your Call
We were done. All we had to do was pick up a flatbed truck we left at Camp
Charlie and we could go home. It
was rather late in the day. With
the sun to our backs, we made our way back toward the Tampa road to
Baghdad. I ate some Pringles
potato chips to stay awake. Most
people dipped smokeless tobacco to stay awake, others when they could, smoked. I ate potato chips. Until I heard some yelling from the
back of the truck, I slid off my Peltor headset to see what was going on. “They’re trying to arrest us!” I heard from back there.
“Three vehicles trailing us! Coming in fast!” I said, “Call it up Lopez!”
I could see the blue and red sirens blared
from the tops of the white pick up trucks that Portz and Van Dame were yelling
at. We passed through a checkpoint
where Fitzgerald said, “I got those guards to stop those vehicles.”
I relented, but Van Dame and Portz were
yelling again and when I peaked. I
saw the vehicles coming though farther away but gaining ground fast.
“They’re still coming! Lopez did you call it up?” I asked.
“They got crew served weapons!” Portz yelled back. He busted out the AT-4[45],
armed it and slung it over his shoulder.
He looked Fitzgerald in the eye and pointed to him, “If I yell shot, you
duck down from the turret.”
“Uh huh,” Fitzgerald replied.
Samuels said, he thought people were
overreacting. I thought about this
for a split second, as the only guys allowed with crew served weapons were our
guys. Then I thought about the
many times, our guys were playing for the other side, “Did you call it up
yet?” I asked Lopez.
“He said, ‘It’s Your Call.’”
Portz poked his head inside the vehicle and
said, “I want you drive up to that vehicle,” he pointed to the command gun
truck, “Have him drop back and we’ll open up on them.”
“Report it up,” I said to Lopez.
We were all waiting for Merlin, Mr. Smooth
Operator to pipe up and give commands.
But he never did we neared the command vehicle. The man in the big rig flatbed did not
have a radio and was an Iraqi, he didn’t know what was going on. Portz waved at the gunner in the
command vehicle to stop. But the
gunner had a confused look on his face. Then the entire convoy pulled off the road.
The three white gun trucks drove passed
us. They were all men just as Van
Dame and Portz pointed out to us earlier.
Their sirens were blazing and they were waving at us. With the scorpion emblazoned on their
pick up trucks, the pulled in the Camp Charlie.
With much of the excitement dissipated, Mr.
Cool Himself, Merlin, called up over the convoy net ordered us to go Camp
Charlie and pick up our flatbed truck.
We sat waiting in line at the checkpoint
waiting to get into the gate right behind the people we were going to kill not
but fifteen minutes ago. The Iraqi
men were smiling and joking with the young black Marine who joked with them as
well. It was hard to tell if an
Iraqi man was just being friendly or if he was looking for another sexual
partner. There are only so many
jokes you can tell with the language barrier being what it was and something is
inevitably lost in the translation.
I still felt badly over what I had done in
the ensuing chaos. I looked at the
clean cut, well groomed and well fed Iraqi policemen smiling at me and
waving. It was hard to stay clean
in the desert. I got the feeling
that they were risking their lives being here but that they were so proud and
hopeful for their country and so happy to have a stake in it and to be working
with the Americans – the first team.
Samuels stepped out of the truck and walked
out alone to tell the Marine what had happened in the hopes that it never
happen again. He explained things
hoping to spare the lives of our allies and friends.
Samuels was a mechanic were Portz was a
shooter. I thought of the
ramifications of a rift between the two and how it would not work to Samuels’s
advantage should one occur. I
wanted to go out there and support Samuels. He was alone and it was not good to be surrounded. It was always better to speak with
someone behind you rather than to speak alone. Instead, I spoke to Portz, “Those guys we were going to kill
were IP SWAT.”
“I don’t care if you and them are butt
buddies,” Portz replied. These
guys just like my guys guarding the gates are dirty. You don’t trust them.
They should turn this whole place into a parking lot.”
Samuels finished. We passed by the SWAT team who waved at us even with a bit
of suspicion couched in their smiles.
We picked up the truck and we went home.
Night came. Samuels sustained the convoy with chit chat, jokes and
anecdotes. Like the closing
credits of the Bob Newhart show, the cityscape along the highway near Baghdad
took on a middle aged, urban-industrial, depressing but sturdy and stable feel
to it. We pulled into the
base. We downloaded our gear. We met briefly for an AAR[46]
which no one had said anything and we went home.
[1] MSR stands for Main Supply Route. Tampa is the Army designation for Iraqi
highway one that skirts the Tigris river from Basra to Mosul.
[2] Vehicle Born
Improvised Explosive Device – Army-speak for Gaza Strip style car bomb.
[3] Iraqi Police
[4]
Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge or the sergeant whose overall responsible
[5] Staff Sergeant (SSG), one rank above a
Sergeant (SGT) or commonly referred to as a “buck sergeant” and one below a
Sergeant First Class (SFC). A SFC
is considered a senior NCO whereas SSG is still considered a junior NCO.
[6] About 600
feet
[7] Lieutenant
[8] Freqs is
short for frequencies. CT stands
for cipher text or an encrypted feed.
PT stands for Plain Text which there is no encryption and anyone can
hear it.
[9] MEDEVAC
stands for Medical Evacuation.
[10] Rules of
Engagement
[11] Pax is an
Army word for personnel or people.
[12] TC stands
for Tank Commander. A HUMVEE is
not a tank – not by a long shot.
But Jeeps and HUMVEES have been riding along with tanks since the War of
the Greatest Generation and the term that stands for the individual in responsible
still follows.
[13] An E-4 is a Specialist (SPC) or a
Corporal (CPL) rank. A SPC is one
rank above a Private First Class (PFC) and one below a SGT. SPC is a position of no responsibility
where a CPL has troops underneath him.
[14] S & T
stands for the Supply and Transportation section whose responsibilities include
moving units in and out of countries – the fork lifters and HAZMAT or Hazardous
Materials experts.
[15] M4 is the
carbine or short rifle version of the M16. The Marines still use the M16 because of the longer reach
necessary for patrolling in the jungle or rural environments, whereas the Army
uses the M4 for urban and CQB – Close Quarters Battles or room clearing.
[16] HET stands
for Heavy Equipment Trailer – the Army’s big rig and the FMTV is a German made
truck that replaced the deuce and half troop trucks from World War II that are
still in operation today. I don’t
know what FMTV stands for.
[17] M1- the
Main Battle Tank and pride of the heavy divisions of the United States Army,
like the elephants of ancient times, the M1 brinks shock and firepower to the
battlefield.
[18] According
to several unclassified briefings we received prior to deploying, the
insurgents put IED’s in boxes, dead animals and debris along the side of the
road.
[19] Global
Positioning System – a pocket sized electronic device that tells you where you
are in the world. I have the Etrex
Vista which allows you to load maps, act as a compass, and even estimate your
time of arrival.
[20] Escape and
Evade
[21] The
Interstate Highway from Tucson to Phoenix
[22] A Bradley
is an armored personnel carrier and light tank that replaced the Vietnam era
APC – a big metal box on two tracks with a 50 cal. The Bradley tops out at 60 mph, has a light gun and an
anti-tank missile.
[23] Quick
Reaction Force – the combat team that is called into action when things go bad,
Ewan MacGregor’s character, the database clerk in Blackhawk Down made up the
Ranger QRF in Somalia.
[24] Stop Loss –
the infamous back door draft where by the Armed Services say that you can’t get
out of the military even though you fulfilled your military commitment. The Stop Loss is often accompanied by
an IRR call up or In-active Ready Reserve. After you get out of the military, say after a four year
commitment, you have an additional federal commitment to serve another four
years in the IRR. If you have
served eight years enlisted active and then get out, you incur no IRR
commitment. William Holden was called
up to serve his IRR commitment in James Michener’s “The Bridges of To Ko Ri.”
[25] The First
Cavalry Division, based out of Fort Hood, Texas – Garry Owen, has a patch that
covers your deltoid muscle and has the slash across the shield and a pony in
the top right corner both symbols of the Cavalry. The Cav uses both armored (tanks) and helicopters (choppers)
to maintain its mobility. Mel
Gibson made a movie based on eyewitness memoir about their heroism in Vietnam
called, “We were Soldiers”
[26] LBE stands
for Load Bearing Equipment. You
also hear the term LCE which stands for Load Carryi8ng Equipment. Another variant is the LBV and LCV –
Load Bearing/Carrying Vest. It
refers to the webbing that allows you to hold your ammunition and water, the
only things you really need in combat.
[27] Iraqi
National Guard
[28] Iraqi Civil
Defense Corps
[29] The General
Chief of Staff of the Army, General Shoomaker, a former Special Forces operator
visited our compound the day after Christmas to see how the troops are
doing. He does not have a command
the way that Sanchez, Metz and Tommy Franks had. He is in charge of Army wide fielding, policy and
training. His predecessor, Erik
Shinseki gave the Ranger Beret to all the soldiers – not very popular with
airborne community. I heard
Shinseki is running for office.
[30] A Hesco
barrier is earthen work that stops bullets and shrapnel by placing a half a ton
of earth inside a canvas and steel reinforced sock. They put these hescoes around tents and trailers and it acts
like a ready-made wall.
[31] Ever since
those soldiers and contractors got killed in that Chow Hall in Mosul a month
ago, soldiers have to check ID’s of all personnel coming into the chow
hall. It also means that if you
don’t have a DoD contractor ID card, it means you can’t come into our chow hall
effectively excluding Iraqis.
[32] Ever since
22 Americans had been killed in the chow hall on Camp Marez in Mosul in January
of 2005, the new policy was that U.S. Soldiers checked ID of those coming into
the chow hall. Only DoD
(Department of Defense) card holders could eat at the chow hall and DA
(Department of the Army) contractors had to eat somewhere else.
[33] Meals Ready
to Eat
[34] Pesh is
short for peshmerga – Kurdish word for militia. The peshmerga were our chief allies during both Gulf Wars
and of the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War. The aforementioned pesh rag is black and white – the colors
of the Kurdish nationalists whereas the red and white are the colors of the
Sunnis and Saddam loyalists. The
pesh rag may be worn with a band over the head as the Arab sheiks do, rolled up
around the head to make a watch-cap or it can be tied around the face making a
terrorist balaclava. (Covering the
face against dust and masking one’s identity is customary in this part of the
world.) The Arabs have a word for
the Yasser Arafat style headdress, but I don’t know the word.
[35] Standard
Operating Procedure.
[36] Theseus was
the founder of Athens who was later hated by the Athenians.
[37] Killed In
Action
[38] ROE – Rules
of Engagement
[39] Commo is
short for Communications – radios, computers, satellite, internet, chat, etc.
[40] Intell is short
for Intelligence
[41] Night
Operations Devices – this technology allows us to see and fight at night which
has been one of our key advantages over most of our enemies.
[42] Night
Vision Device – another acronym for a synonym.
[43] MAXIM
magazine is the male vanity equivalent of COSMOPOLITAN except with bikini clad
Amazons instead of anorexic stick figures in Parisian outwear. MAXIM is read devoutly by members of
all services and can be found in day rooms, toilet stalls and bedroom night
stands anywhere where male twenty somethings live.
[44] AK-47 –
called a Klashinikov worldwide after it’s inventor. The inventor wanted a machine gun that would overcome the
problems he experienced during WWII against the Nazis. 47 designates the year
it had been first been used by the Red Army. The Soviets would circulate this
weapon worldwide and it became the symbol of insurgency and an answer to those
oppressed by our Son-of-Bitches in pro-American dictatorships.
Saddam inherited the Klashinokov as Iraq had been
allied with Nasser’s Pan-Arab Ba’athist Socialism until Saddam switched sides
after the downfall of the Shah.
The Klashinikov is a stamped weapon meaning you take
the metal and use a stamp press to put the weapon together unlike our weaponery
which has to be precision milled.
This makes Klashinikov very cheap – about a hundred bucks a piece on the
black market – and very durable – it fire after being dunked under water, mud
or dragged by from a bumper. Conversely the Klashnikov is not a very
accurate weapon, but is still pretty good for close-in work.
[45] AT-4 stands
for Anti-Tank round. It is a
shoulder fired high tech answer to the RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade).
[46] After
Action Review – it is where we assess what went well and what went badly.
