American, Interrupted: 14 months in Iraq

Listening to Oasis While Flying Over Kuwait, Night Insertion Return to Najaf Desert With Apache Escort, Bad News: LT Kenny and Others Killed

2004-06-01T18:05:00.000-07:00

1 June, 2004 1805 FOB Duke, North Najaf

I’m back at FOB Duke waiting to go back to Najaf. We flew in with our UAVs last night on a CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopter with an AH-64 Apache gunship escort. We flew low across the countryside and desert for about 40 minutes out of Baghdad to here. The back door of the Chinook stayed open during the flight. I filmed and watched everything with night vision goggles. At one point during the flight, someone spotlighted us on the ground, and the Apache immediately banked to investigate. During the flight, the cabin stayed pretty hot even though it was midnight. It’s no wonder that Chinook got shot down last year by a heat-seeking missile. Pilots call the desert “the big marshmallow,” and you could see why when looking through the NVGs[1].
Our flight from Kuwait to BIAP actually went well. We did a combat landing that woke everyone up with wide eyes. I would guess we rapidly descended from around 12,000 feet, feeling weightless for a while. Suddenly we began to feel a tremendous amount of g-force on our bodies, exceeding anything I’ve ever felt on a rollercoaster. We experienced this for at least 20 seconds. After 20 seconds, I figured we should experience level flight, but the g-level remained high. Once things returned to normal, I was able to see trees and houses rushing past my C-130 window. We were very, very low. After a pair of tight turns, we made a fast landing, safe and sound.
Nothing notable happened at BIAP, it was just good to get some sleep and relaxation. Now we’re back at Duke and waiting to go to Najaf. I’m not helping Pinto coordinate anything anymore. He tried to get me to coordinate for our property cards from a major in Kuwait, but I told him my job is to lead soldiers and not to tell officers how to do their job. He laid off ever since.
When I got into FOB Duke last night, one of the first things I learned was the names of the two soldiers from 3-32 AR killed on Sunday. Pinto told me it was Emerson and LT Kenny. When I heard Kenny’s name, I froze up in shock, then felt like crying, then felt like yelling. He was a prior service soldier who worked hard to get his commission, but now had been killed. I still can’t believe it. His loader’s machinegun caught a branch, turned towards Kenny, and in a freak accident, fired right into him. Emerson was killed too, but under what duty position, I do not know. I do know that an RPG struck him in the head and took it off. I’ll learn more as time passes. I can’t believe we lost Kenny though. He worked hard, and I know it. He seemed sober lately though, like CSM Francis was before he died, and that’s disturbing to look back on. He’s in peace now, but I feel sorry for his wife. I feel so thankful to have my life and to have you. We lost another good guy. I’ve got to finish school, if only to honor the people I know that have died, and make the world a little better.
Back at Udairi, as I haven’t written much about it, I learned to fly the Raven UAV. We took a night C-130 flight arranged just for us to Ali-Al-Saleem airbase. I listened to Oasis as we flew in over Kuwait City. I could see Kuwait City all lit up at night from my C-130 window (I always try to sit next to one). My goal was to try and spot the observation spires along the north shore, as I’d never seen them before. After orienting my eyes along the shore, we flew past the towers at a close distance. I was excited to see them. I’m going to stop writing now because my pen is going out!

I laughed as I remembered something. One day on Baker, we were told to pick up all the trash in the courtyard, which also happened to be the impact area for some of the mortar rounds that targeted us. That was our garrison instinct showing. We were in combat operations, yet picking up cigarette butts that the Spanish army left there shortly before retreating to Kuwait was a priority. We picked up Spanish butts, picked up loose pieces of paper, and made the place look good. I was just hoping we didn’t get hit by a round. We laughed and cursed as we gathered broken pieces of ugly concrete and picked plastic sheeting from barbed wire.

[1] Night Vision Goggles

Dreaming of Almost Shooting a Child Gunman, Waiting to Return to Iraq - Unfortunately

2004-05-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

30 May, 2004 1400 Camp Wolverine, Kuwait

I’m sitting in a passenger terminal tent in Kuwait, at the Kuwait International Airport. We’re waiting for a flight back to Baghdad and then on to Najaf. We were in Kuwait for about 12 days doing our UAV training in the desert. LT Pinto is lying on the chairs sleeping next to me. We’re all exhausted and no one is looking forward to going back to Baghdad.
The days here have been pretty good, with the occasional bouts of depression from missing you. One of the first things I noticed when I got here, and as time passed, was the absence of mortar fire or gunfire. A few times I would be looking up at the stars and felt like yelling out loud. It wasn’t because I was angry, it was just an impulse to release pressure as I realized there was no threat of mortars landing or gunfire. It’s not that I was scared in Najaf, but here, peace in Kuwait was somewhat liberating. There were times when I would hear a loud noise and my skin would crawl or someone would roll over in their cot, and the creaking of the cot would sound like machinegun fire in the distance and I would wake up. I even found myself expecting mortar impacts at night, and suspicious of the silence. I even dreamt about Iraq several times. One dream had me in a convoy and gunfire erupted. We were going under an overpass and saw some old Iraqi men digging. We shot in their direction as they looked back at us with confused looks. As we continued under the overpass, I saw a kid with an AK-47 firing. He was only about 8 or 10 years old. I went to fire at him and pulled the trigger, only to hear a click. I was out of ammunition in my magazine. It was like a second chance, and I didn’t shoot again. For that I felt relieved. I then woke up. A lot of guys I spoke to were experiencing similar reactions. One of my friends here, Connor, woke up 2 nights ago in his cot holding his M-16 across his chest. He doesn’t know how it got there.

British Sharpshooter Demands Vegitarian Meal, Listening to the Voice of God in the Desert, Leaving Iraq for UAV Training in Kuwait

2004-05-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

19 May, 2004 1800 Baghdad Air Force Terminal

Here I am back in Baghdad. I thought I would never return here, but alas, here I sit. I am going to Kuwait to receive unmanned aerial vehicle training and bring back the new “Raven” aircraft back to Najaf and fly it for our battalion. I would much rather go home, but this is a vacation nonetheless.
Yesterday was our 3rd anniversary! I thought about the day I flew up to meet you in Boston, how incredibly happy I was (and still am). Time goes by so fast, but even though I am in Iraq, I would do it many more times if it meant I still had your love. I love you Nora, and this will be over soon.
Yesterday I departed our camp with Apache Blue Platoon as my escort. The Raven “team” consist of three soldiers, but unfortunately, a fourth person was added: 1LT Pinto. I suspect he was sent here by those not wanting him or those that share the same sudden impulses that I have come to experience of wanting to punch him. My other two companions are annoying, but I can make excuses for them. There is no excuse for Pinto. Dyke and Manson are going, those are the two I was speaking of. Dyke is truly exceptional, and infamous in my mind as being the only person I’ve ever heard Major Stanton raise his voice to. Hearing Major Stanton yell is like hearing a tree fall in the forest with no one around to hear it, or hearing the pope sing the Rolling Stones at mass – it never happens. But, Dyke is exceptional, and a clumsy, poor fellow who thinks everyone around him is a fool even though he epitomizes the word. Even as I write this, he is staring at his rifle that just fell over into the gravel. Even though it fell without any apparent reason, and I must say it fell quite on its own, just his being within three feet of the fallen object is reason enough that it fell. I will try to befriend him anyways, because it does no good to simply ignore him because he’s retarded. It is only difficult to do when the person is so energetically dumb and dismisses all our emphatic pleas that he humble himself a bit.
Manson is a saint.[1] He is not lacking intelligence, but he is a child. He is even more notorious for being clumsy and almost every act of locomotion is accompanied by some small destruction. He doesn’t mean it, but it always happens. It really is amazing, and leads you to wonder if his fate is to be forever afflicted with uncanny clumsiness. Should he brush his teeth, he would drop the toothbrush. Should he walk across the room, he would trip over a cord. Should he drive, he would drive off a bridge, and that is exactly what happened in a dream of mine months ago. That’s another story though. He’s big, chubby around the edges, the majority of the time unshaven, unclean or unmotivated. He’s a Wicca, a gadget guy, and Goth. Society has rejected him, or him it, and I can’t think of an explanation for either possibility. He has a messy appearance, like he’s just woken up from sleeping. He is a target of constant admonishment from NCOs and frustrated officers, frustrated that he seriously doesn’t realize his shortcomings are shortcomings (such as going on a cigarette break and coming back an hour and a half later). I’ve gotten on to him a few times long ago (before realizing it was futile and so futile any more words to him would only hurt him and make me the bad guy) to take a shower at least once every three days, change socks, do laundry, stop farting so loudly at night and stinking up our sleeping area in the field. Despite all of the verbal abuse and constant corrective training, he still asks, in a kindhearted way, how you are doing. He always offers anything he has to you, and he still laughs. He’s a big kid, it’s amazing, but it’s even more amazing he still has heart. Over time, I’ve learned to accept him as is and not try to change him, because it is futile. And, because I lack the patience required to do so.
I will detail Pinto, I refuse to call him lieutenant, as I write. All of us came up in a convoy early yesterday morning. The ride out of Najaf was quiet, and no one spoke the entire way. I felt safe though, I was with the legendary Blue Platoon and Sergeant Grey (our battalion British guy) was sitting opposite of me with a machinegun. Najaf is no joke, it’s a snake den, and you could tell by the expressions and movements of the soldiers, peering eyes scanning every alley, every rooftop, weapons level and trained on even the least suspicious places or people. They sky was grey, the air was cool, and it was the eeriest morning. Dogs ran out to attack our trucks as we rolled by, people looked on as we passed and didn’t wave, and far in the distance the orange sun began to rise above the square houses and palm groves, a new day. Some time after driving along HWY 9 out of Najaf, we turned left and into the open desert for FOB Duke. It was like a journey into space and to Mars. Everyone relaxed a little bit and lowered their weapons and you could tell those peering eyes looking over the vast desert weren’t looking for the enemy – out in those white sands they were seeing their wives, kids, girlfriends, and the day they would come home.
The desert is beautiful, especially when driving across it early in the morning on a paved road that seems to go forever. The Najaf desert evokes the same feelings in my heart as the sea does. It’s not completely flat, it actually has small patches of vegetation and very small dunes (like big anthills) along the way. It’s barren and peaceful, open and free, offers space and meditation. I wondered if that is why this region is known for religion. All the time people spent alone in the vast open spaces. Maybe it was easier to hear God’s voice back then – before industry, noise, TV, radio, and cars. Maybe. It was a Martian landscape though, and easy to fall in love with before the temperatures would later rise and become harsh and remind you the desert is to be respected as much as loved.
Our trucks rolled in a column across the open space as the sun hung low over the horizon behind us, sleeping but waking. To see our trucks on that sandy sea really amazed me. It reminded me of old photos you may see of the British crossing some similar looking place during the Victorian age. Here we are now.
We arrived at FOB Duke and swiftly passed through the gate. I cleared my weapon and the ranking sergeant removed the grenade round from his rifle’s grenade launcher. We pulled up to the regimental TOC area and started unloading our bags. I talked to SSG Cole and Barns, and SSG Monroe. Stuart showed up out of nowhere too. He was going home on leave. Our CNN cameraman, Mr. Kay, quietly put his gear up against the 5-ton truck parked next to us. He is always so quiet, but very nice. He looks like Michael Stipe from R.E.M. He was on his way to Baghdad and then the U.S.A.
Pinto approached me and immediately began to ask questions. “Thompson,” he asked in a feeble and cartoon-like frog voice, “what time does our flight leave? Where is the regimental HQs?” He had been at FOB Duke earlier for a week just like me and seemed to have noticed nothing around him.
‘Sir,’ I replied patiently, as he hadn’t got on my nerves yet or given me a reason to detest him, ‘We leave out of here at 0800. The regimental HQs is right over there though.’ His head bobbed and his lips stuck out more absurdly as he contemplated what little I said. ‘Don’t worry, Sir, I’ll make sure the manifest is good to go,’ I said. He mentioned earlier he would be the rankingest person on the trip, so I almost expected him to take the lead and go speak with all the captains and field grade officers we needed to speak with. I was specifically told by our HQs that I was to “baby-sit” Pinto. I thought that was a joke, because he is an officer and one would assume he was perfectly capable of behaving and handling himself. I slowly realized I had to watch him and constantly guide him along. I went to the RTOC and spoke with a LTC there who was extremely helpful and showed me the manifest. Only three people were scheduled from 3-32 AR to fly. I knew Mr. Kay would have to hitch a ride on a free seat, that was a given. But, our Raven team consisted of 3 people, PLUS Pinto. He wasn’t manifested for the flight, and it was then I got a hunch the battalion was getting rid of him for two weeks. I didn’t say anything though when I went back to our group.
‘OK, we’re good to go,’ I announced, ‘we just need to walk to the helipad in a few minutes. Our flight leaves at 0800.’
“Thompson,” SSG Cole yelled, “are you going to BIAP?”
‘Roger,’ I answered.
“Can you do me a favor?” he asked. Can you do me a favor missions are always difficult, because they usually require a moderate inconvenience to the volunteer, if they are possible to complete at all.
‘Sure, what do you need?’ I’d give it a shot.
“Can you pick up some jewelry I ordered for my wife and kid at BIAP?”
‘I can’t promise, but I’ll try my best,’ I answered. I really doubted that I would be able to do it, but I took his receipt and money. It turned out I was able to complete the mission and I got the jewelry. I’m happy for it. Apache Blue Platoon left and it was our group, the CNN guy, and Stuart waiting for a flight. Dyke and Pinto struggled with their overstuffed bags and carry-on bags.
‘We need to go to the helipad now,’ I said as I got all my things together. Everyone else followed suit and we made a small desert hike in the sands to the pad. Pinto and Dyke kept dropping their things. Pinto looks like a frog-faced infant and walks like a toddler. His torso swings side to side at his hips and he walks with his little wrists canted outwards. He has a large, misshapen head. The TOC refers to him as “Waterbaby.” His torso is disproportionate to his lower body, a body belonging more to a sickly 14 year old rather than an officer of the United States Armed Forces. He constantly squints his eyes, licks his lips, bites his bottom lip, involuntarily contorts his face impulsively, and widens his frog, bespectacled eyes constantly as if to refocus them. Just speaking to him requires a great deal of concentration because his face is constantly transforming before your eyes, and none of those faces hint one bit of intelligence or clarity. That would explain why he is an artillery officer. He does not have a military appearance, and he does not lead at all. The problem during this whole trip is that he is the ranking person, so people speak to him first or expect him to know everything, and I have briefed him on everything, but he always messes up. Always.
“I may have to make two trips,” he wined pitifully as he struggled to carry his things, his Kevlar tilted to one side and his feeble legs stumbling along in the sand.
‘Sir, if you can’t carry all your shit, you must have brought too much,’ I told him as he gasped for air. Mr. Kay and I spoke as we walked.
“Yeah, my replacement just arrived. I’m going back to Baghdad and then to America, hopefully.”
‘How long have you been here?’ I asked.
“This time, several weeks. I keep getting extended, like you do, just not for so long,” he said. He seemed like a good guy, and it was good to speak to some civilian people.
I was tired, and I probably looked awful. The previous night we were attacked and I couldn’t sleep. I just laid on my cot and rolled around in the night, and prayed for my safe passage to Baghdad. I was a little nervous.
Mr. Kay and I decided to sit in the shade of some barriers by the chopper refuel point. Stuart came over too. Stuart played Gameboy, I watched some Blackhawks fly in, and Mr. Kay fell asleep immediately. I went to go check the choppers out that landed to see if we could get a ride. I saw Pinto talking to one of the crewmen. The crewman was yelling over the sound of the chopper rotors. I ran up to see what was going on. The crew chief wasn’t impressed with Pinto’s helpless composure. “We need to go to BIAP!” Pinto yelled. The crewman looked him up and down in confusion, not exactly because of his words, but rather the retarded appearance that seemed to conflict with the 1LT rank he wore.
“You and everyone else, Sir!” the young man in the flight suit and oversized bug-like helmet yelled back. “My ship is full!”
“But we have to be there at 1000!” he explained several times like a child.
“Not my problem, Sir!” the young man yelled. I stepped up,
‘We’re part of the UAV team going to Kuwait!’ I yelled. His facial expression showed he knew exactly what I was talking about.
“UAV crew!” he yelled, “YOU ARE PRIORITY! Your bird is coming back from Baghdad to get you! We’ve got to get you up there!”
‘Thanks!’ I yelled back with a thumbs up. These choppers were waiting for a 10th Mountain Division brigade commander to come out to the choppers. Almost an hour later, he came out. His uniform looked like Spandex and we all remarked at how exceptionally large his ass was. We’d never seen a fat colonel before – ever. We were told our flight would be delayed another hour, so we all decided to go to breakfast.
Breakfast was in an Army-run chow tent, and it was good too! Mr. Kay ate quietly, laughing occasionally.
“I can’t wait to get home,” Stuart said, and we all agreed.
“Well, to tell you the truth,” Manson said with pieces of food stuck to his chin, “I’ve got nothing better to do with my time.” Mr. Kay lowered his fork and seemed to choke a bit on his food. He looked over at Manson and smiled,
“Surely you could think of something better to do with your time,” he laughed, as did we all. We talked about the war a bit. “You wonder sometimes if this is going to be a perpetual war,” Mr. Kay said.
‘Well, I think we need to reevaluate things and we need some change,’ I said. ‘Change would be good for America.’ Everyone nodded. ‘I’m not sure Bush is going to get reelected.’
“Hmmm,” Mr. Kay said cautiously, “You can’t really tell. It seems like they are neck and neck. Kerry really isn’t saying anything new. I mean, look at the last election.”
‘No kidding. It’s true though, the choices are disappointing. It’s sad, because it is an important time in history,’ I said.
“On behalf of Texas, I apologize for George Bush,” Manson said.
“Hmm,” Mr. Kay laughed, enjoying the conversation, “those same words got the Dixie Chicks in trouble!” Manson shrugged.
“Where are you from?” Mr. Kay asked.
“New York, the Bronx, the bad part!” Stuart said joking.
“Nah,” Mr. Kay said, “I live in Manhattan, but everyone is moving to the Bronx. It’s good now! Manhattan is too expensive.” Stuart agreed. Mr. Kay asked me then.
‘I’m from Charleston, South Carolina,’ I answered.
“Charleston, I think I’ve been there before, to cover a hurricane or something.”
‘That sounds right,’ I laughed. ‘I was in Hurricane Hugo long ago.’
“So you in the Army for the long haul?”
‘Nah, I’ve got to do something else. I’d like to work for the State Department.’
“Yeah, it seems like the ex-military people had the right idea about Iraq from the beginning. They were all for giving the State Department more power in Iraq from the beginning.”
‘That’s something I supported from the beginning too,’ I answered. We all walked back through the sand to the helipad. ‘We all had a feeling things weren’t good in Iraq just based on conversations with Iraqis. You could tell something was about to give. No one seemed to want to admit it until Sadr City exploded,’ I said. He nodded his head in agreement.
“Yeah, I know. CNN stateside wouldn’t air any of our reporting if it sounded negative at all, only CNN International. Then, when the U.N. was bombed, everyone in the States was shocked,” he said.
‘1st Cavalry is really messing up too,’ I said. ‘They fired all our trusted Muslim laborers that we had a close relationship with in Baghdad and replaced them with Christians. They set up traffic control points on main freeways with one car getting checked at a time and holding up traffic for miles, getting Army people stuck in traffic too.’
We kept walking and went up to our bags next to the helipad. We all sat in the sand. “Who’s bag is this?” Pinto asked. Stuart looked at me.
“They’re mine,” Stuart said.
“Do you mind if I sit on them?” Pinto asked. Stuart rolled his eyes,
“I don’t want you sitting on my bags, there’s stuff that can break in there. But, you can sit on my armor, Sir.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to sit in the sand,” Pinto said shamelessly as he situated Stuart’s vest so he could sit on it, even though he had his own bags and vest sitting next to him. I shook my head,
‘Sir, why don’t you just sit in the sand?’
“I enjoy the creature comforts,” he replied while rolling his lips and sticking his tounge out. Air Force guys began to congregate near us. Stuart began to doubt if he was going to get a seat to BIAP at all.
Two helicopters flew in. We all scrambled to get the crew’s attention. The Air Force guys came up too to get seats. Everyone was in a frenzy to get on a bird. “We’ve got a maintenance issue on our chopper, so we’re going to be down for a while,” the crewchief said. We went ahead and put our bags on the chopper. The chief noticed all of Pinto’s bags. “You know, we’re backlogged on seats because people keep bringing too much shit.”
After some time, the crew told us we were good to go. All the metal chips in the rear transmission had been removed. Stuart was upset because it seemed he wasn’t going to get a ride to BIAP. Just then, two more Blackhawks flew in. ‘Stuart, you’re going to make it out of here,’ I reassured him. ‘Make sure Mr. Kay gets on one of those birds out of here.’ We all walked over to our chopper. As I strapped into the seat, I looked over and saw Stuart and Mr. Kay get into one of the Blackhawks. Minutes passed, and we were still sitting on the pad with the engine running. Suddenly, the engine shut down.
“Everyone off!” the chief yelled. “We’re not going anywhere anytime soon.” We all got off the chopper and ran over to the remaining three choppers. We had to wait for Pinto to get his bags together and stuff a sleeping bag that had fallen out of his bag and was flopping around in the rotor wash of the nearby helicopters. I watched as people boarded other helicopters. Manson simply disappeared and left his bags. He got on another helicopter.
“We need to find Manson,” Pinto wined as he tripped over himself in the sand, and half of his sleeping bag dragged behind him in the sand as he walked. Helicopters surrounded us with their rotors rotating. I checked one chopper and then stopped because the chief said not to walk around the LZ. After all was said and done, a crewman found Manson stuffed in a Blackhawk. Manson, Dyke, Pinto, and I all stood in the sand with our bags while helicopters roared all around us. I was tired of intervening in Pinto’s conversations, he’s a lieutenant making a lot more money here, so he should be competent enough to figure this out. A young crewman came over to us.
“What’s up?!” he yelled over the noise of the choppers. Pinto got right on his neck and showed difficulty speaking, and spoke in a normal tone of voice. The crewman moved his head away from the intruding face. “I can’t hear you!” he yelled. “You have to speak up!” he repeated a few times. “BIAP?” he finally recognized Pinto say. “Well tough shit, Sir! Everyone wants to go to BIAP! I’ve got two seats free!”
‘We’re manifested!’ I yelled.
“CPT Fielder said we need to go to BIAP,” Pinto yelled.
“CPT Fielder isn’t here. He always overbooks!” the crewman yelled.
“We’re manifested!” Pinto replied.
“Your manifest is for three people, and we can make room for three, but not four!” he yelled. I looked over and saw one of the pilots look over at us and throw his hands up angrily, asking what the holdup was for.
“Who can I talk to?” Pinto asked.
“The pilots, but look,” he said and pointed to the broken Blackhawk, “that’s a broken helicopter! That’s your problem, not mine, Sir! Your bird broke, and we’ve got to go!” he yelled impatiently.
He left us and all the crew boarded their choppers and lifted off, leaving us four behind in a blinding, sandy windstorm. We just stood there as the dust settled. A female staff sergeant came out to us. “How long you been in country?” she asked me.
‘What?’ I could tell she had an attitude, most service pouges do. I heard her the first time, but thought it amusing to hear her repeat herself.
“How long have you been in country?” she repeated.
‘A year,’ I answered.
“Long enough to know to keep your muzzle pointed down!” she yelled at me.
‘What the hell? You support pouges schooling combat soldiers now? OOOOH, you need to come to Najaf!’ I said to myself. I had my rifle slinged over my shoulder muzzle up to keep the sand out of the muzzle when squatting. When riding in a chopper, I always keep it muzzle down. She walked back to her tent. ‘Wow, I felt honored that she walked all the way over to correct me. Must be PMS,’ I thought. ‘Freakin’ POUGES!!!’
Pinto mumbled to himself, shocked that the crewchief disrespected him and flew off. We walked over to the tent the female sergeant went to. It was the fuel office. “I can’t believe they just left us,” Pinto said.
‘Who you going to call, Sir?’ I asked, curious as to how he planned on fixing this problem. I couldn’t help but realize out of all the people standing around that morning, even people flying on space available seats, only us four remained. LT Pinto failed his mission to get us to BIAP. Lacks initiative, assertiveness, and leadership.
“I’m going to call CPT Flake (our Air Liaison Officer in Najaf),” he replied.
‘Why don’t you call regiment? They tasked us to go to Kuwait and then left us here, so it sounds like a regiment problem,’ I said. It only made sense.
“Yeah, I guess I should,” he answered. He tried to call on a phone in the tent. The female soldier came up to me again,
“Do you want any MREs or water for your soldiers?” she asked implying that it would be a good thing to do.
‘No thanks, they’ll be OK. They just ate,’ I answered. What I would like to say is, ‘No, they can suffer for all I care because they are spoiled rotten and need to develop some soldier-like qualities.’
Pinto came up to me. “We need to go to regimental HQs,” he said crestfallen. “I don’t know where it is,” he continued.
‘We were there earlier, Sir. You didn’t notice it? Weren’t you here a few weeks ago?’ I said, agitated.
“Yeah, but I never saw the regimental HQs,” he wined.
‘Do you know where the Hajji store is?’ I asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
‘Well, HQs is that big building a few feet from it with the antennas all over it and the big radar dishes,’ I said.
“We should go to the Hajji store and buy some sodas for the guys,” he explained.
‘No, Sir,’ I answered as we walked back towards the regimental HQs, ‘they need to drink water.’
We found the expando-van office we were looking for and went inside. Major Simpson, a black, dismissive and skeptical-looking man greeted us coldly. “How can I help you lieutenant?”
“Um, yes Sir, we got bumped from our flight to BIAP by some specialist, I didn’t get his name. We need to get to BIAP and we were priority,” he said like a crime victim explaining events in a police station.
‘It’s not a question of priority, its about communicating a sense of urgency and convincing others you need to get to BIAP in accordance with Frago 23 which specifically tasks and manifests us,’ I thought.
“Well, lieutenant,” the major said while looking at Pinto in disgust, “there’s no such thing as priority, as you’ve found out,” he said smirking. “So that’s it? You need to go to BIAP?”
‘Sir,’ I spoke up. Pinto didn’t explain the why or how, only complained and that didn’t stir any sympathy by the looks on the faces in that office. ‘We are manifested specifically to go to BIAP at 0800 to catch a connection to Kuwait. We’re part of the Raven team. I talked to a lieutenant colonel this morning and he was very helpful and reassured me we were to fly out. Our helicopter broke and we were left behind. Frago 23 details the tasking requirement we are here to meet.’
“He knows more about it than I do, he memorized the Frago,” Pinto interrupted. “I didn’t have a chance to read it.”
‘That’s bullshit,’ I thought, ‘he’s known about this for over a week, and the Frago sat on the Frago table for over a week in our battalion.’
“Well, we don’t have anymore flights out today,” the major said. “But don’t worry, we’ll get you out of here eventually. You’ll probably have to spend the night.”
Some helicopter pilots standing in the office overheard our dilemma. A lanky, Barney Fife-looking pilot spoke up. “Well, a lot of our birds are breaking down. We can try to get you to Al-Kut with us. We’ve got a maintenance issue, and we’re not supposed to take passengers, BUT, you know…”
‘I’m not sure I want to fly on a helicopter with a maintenance issue,’ I thought. The pilot got on the phone to see if we could fly with him.
“Yeah, I’m not sure he should fly, he’s not as experienced,” he said on the phone. “The bird’s got reduced torque and I’m not sure he should be flying low and slow across open desert.” After some more chatter, he hung up. “You can go on this bird to Al-Kut. It has only one engine though, and you’ll be flying slow, about 80 miles an hour. It will take an hour and a half to get to Al-Kut,” he explained.
‘Fly on a broke helicopter with an inexperienced crew, hmm, I don’t think so!’ I thought. I began to wait for some discouraging detail that would allow us to politely decline the offer to fly on the crippled bird. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long.
“But once you get to Al-Kut, we can’t get you to BIAP,” he continued. I pretended to be disappointed.
‘Well,’ I said in fake sadness, ‘thanks anyways.’
“Well go find a place to sleep at Knight rear command post,” the major said.
“Let’s go to Knight rear and check in,” Pinto said after I called CPT Flake in Najaf to let him know what was going on.
‘We should go get our bags and the guys first to get that part over with first,’ I advised him.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” he answered. I noticed some guys sitting outside regiment HQ that I had seen earlier get on an earlier flight and wondered why they were there. We walked up to the helipad and saw a few choppers, two with engines running. I could see Dyke waving his hands wildly. He ran up to us panting heavily,
“We’ve got seats! We’ve got…seats!” I looked on the helipad and gave Manson a thumbs up. He returned with a thumbs up. We were good to go. We ran and got our bags. Pinto struggled to carry his overstuffed bags and handbags. Manson and I only had one rucksack and a small handbag, just like all the other solders. I went to the chopper and immediately saw Stuart inside.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, happy to see him. He would make his flight home now for sure.
“We had to turn around and come back!” he yelled over the engine noise, “One chopper lost an engine on our way to Babylon, had to make a hard landing! Something’s wrong with the other one too, so they kicked everyone off!” Manson saw the other chopper with the engine out make a hard landing on its tail and said it came down hard.
I couldn’t figure out why no one filled Stuart’s chopper or why there was suddenly room for us, but there was. We all climbed in and I sat on the left side next to the slide door, which the crewchief shut for the flight. Pinto struggled to put his seatbelt on, insisting on bringing the harness up between his legs. “Sir! Have you ever flown before?!” a soldier yelled laughing. He bit his lips. “It’s not a racecar harness! Bring it across your lap!” We all looked at each other and chuckled. It was an honest mistake, but we all figured he’s flown before.
Soon, the engine roared and I felt my body become heavier. It was liftoff, and I loved it! Flying again, and helicopter flight in Iraq is an experience like no other. I was grinning ear to ear. All of us looked at each other and laughed. Some other sergeants cracked smiles through nervous-looking faces. I was glued to the window, and soon we were flying (no exaggeration) about 30 feet above the vast desert going over 150 miles per hour. It’s awesome. You feel like you’re in a car, you are so low. We all fly low and at maximum speed to avoid taking ground fire and missiles. The speed is just amazing.
We flew over desert farms, olive green patches of cultivated shrubs in places it seems nothing could possibly live. In some places, the desert people have dug holes that look like missile silos. They are actually water wells in the sand that go down several meters. Farmers pump water from these wells into their sand fields. It’s amazing. The houses out there are mud huts. We were flying so low you could see the expressions on people’s faces as we flew over. Women, kids, shepherds and farmers all stopped and watched us as we flew over – rather past – them. It’s an amazing contrast, our high technology flying over this desert landscape that probably hasn’t changed much in at least 100 years. The women worked the fields in their dresses of brilliant colors, old men looked up and simply observed us, children waved. I always waved back, and we were low enough for them to see us for sure. Reactions varied towards us in different parts of the south along our path.
Soon, we were flying at tree top level, or even lower at times, across fertile, lush, and radiant green farmland, fed by a complex web of irrigation channels from the Euphrates river. The area is one of the greenest and most fertile places I’ve ever seen in my life, and it was a pleasure to see it. There was dense vegetation and very dense palm forests that went for miles. It was amazing, really. We were flying only feet away from the canopy of the forest, but we did dip down to only a few meters above the fields. I distinctly remember flying lower than the palm tree canopies on the horizon and some telephone poles. Even though this was all captivating, you examine the groves and dense areas not only for their beauty, but for armed men or missile strikes. At some points along the trip, we would suddenly climb above power lines and then immediately drop like a rock back to ground level. “I HATE THAT!” Stuart would yell out laughing.
We started slowing down and went into a hover. I looked over and saw Babylon, the entire complex. It was amazing, I never thought I would see or go to Babylon, yet here I was hovering right over it, and with a great view. We slowly began to land right at the site. It was now a military base. I noticed Polish helicopters on the pad below us. I couldn’t get over seeing Babylon! It was smaller that I thought it would be, and plain-looking, but still quite large and sprawling. It’s not a huge tower as you may imagine it to be from the Bible.[2] It’s relatively low and made of dried earth bricks with pointed ramparts. It’s situated in a wonderfully green and lush area, and there’s no doubt that contributed to the area’s prosperity thousands of years ago. I thanked God for letting me see Babylon, that really was a blessing. 3 years ago I was flying up to Boston to meet you, the love of my life, and 3 years later, I was flying into Babylon. It’s amazing. Life is amazing, but you have to see the beauty in the details.
We departed Babylon after sitting there a few minutes. We continued to make our way low and fast towards Baghdad. Reactions to us were mixed at this point. We were incredibly low, so I could understand some people gesturing angrily at us. I even saw some children attempt to throw rocks at us as we flew past. Some mothers ran to gather their children in a hurry, some covered their ears, some held up their sandals at us, and some gave us the less exotic middle finger. Most of the people we passed waved excitedly or jumped up and down cheering and laughing. Men looked up and winced while waving as we flew feet above them as they gathered bright orange fruit in a field. Iraq was flying by my window. It’s so rich and fertile, you wonder how it can stay so poor at times. Flying over Iraq, especially near Baghdad, the landscape tells a sad story you can’t help but notice. Factory after factory is closed, run down, and rusting. Many had to have been operational before the war. Rusted industrial equipment litters industrial parks, rusted hulls sit in fields. Many of these sites are factories that must have employed many people. Where are those people now? What are they doing? It seemed almost every major industrial complex we over flew was abandoned and left in ruin. It looks hopeless. You wonder how it will all come to life again, if at all, and if this is merely an indication of a crippled economy that will recover over time or an indication of things to come.
We also over flew several military complexes that were reduced to rubble. Some vast expanses of land were nothing but sheets of drooping concrete slabs with steel rebar poking out like bones poking out of decomposing road kill. Useless concrete rubble and rusting army equipment and bomb craters. At one destroyed base, I could see two perfectly intact murals of Saddam Hussein. One in full military dress, looking somewhat British in style, and then a stately-looking portrait of Saddam in a business suit coat. Now, he’s sitting in a prison cell and Iraq is in ruins. I pondered this for a while, about Saddam and the condition of new Iraq. Sometimes you wonder if the only way to control the naturally rebellious segments of the population was to use his methods. We soldiers sometimes say that in jest, that Saddam actually did a good job controlling Iraq. Even our Iraqi friends say that Saddam did a better job of securing Iraq than we do, but of course, that is nonsense. He squandered Iraq’s wealth and sent Iraqi men to fight in pointless wars. Some of the brutality Saddam was famous for is now being used by the Army to control parts of Iraq.
At one point in the flight, I could see the lead chopper in our two chopper formation flying low and fast over the green Iraqi landscape. It was absolutely amazing to see how low we were flying – mere feet above roads and houses. Rooftops and watered fields and palm forests flew past me as I gazed out, now thinking about how the images I was seeing before me resembled those of Vietnam. It felt like we were transformed back in time to that era, and I wondered how the hell I got there.
We arrived at BIAP safe and sound and came to hover over the left runway before coming to rest slowly on it. I enjoyed the flight so completely, so naturally I was disappointed to have it end. We got off the bird and I noticed a sleeping bag snaking around wildly in the rotor wash. It wasn’t long before I saw LT Pinto frantically trying to collect his sleeping bag before it could blow away. His rifle was slinged across his elbow and dragging on the pavement as he struggled to clear the chopper. All of us gathered together as the choppers taxied away. “Now where do we go?” Manson asked.
‘You’d think they would have someone here to pick us up,’ I answered, looking around at the passing SUVs, ‘but we’ll wait a few minutes.’ Pinto stood by repacking his bags and the items that fell out on the helipad, his Kevlar crooked on his head. We waited for a few minutes before realizing no one would be coming for us. ‘Sir, I think we should go to the soldier support center and figure things out from there,’ I said to him. It was extremely hot outside, and figured that would be a good place to go since it was well known on BIAP, close to division HQ, and air-conditioned.
“I think we should find a phone,” Pinto wined.
‘There’s a phone at the soldier support center,’ I told him.
“We should call base and let them know we are OK.,” he continued.
‘O.K., there’s a phone over there, I’ll call,’ I answered. He said nothing, but as I turned around and headed towards the phone. He spoke up.
“Hey!” he said loudly, “don’t just leave me here,” he cried, panting in the heat.
‘I don’t know what it matters, I’m doing all the coordination anyways. You want to take initiative and then push me out in front of you when you feel overwhelmed at the smallest question or encounter,’ I thought. ‘Actually Sir,’ I told him sternly, but professionally, ‘this is what we are going to do, we’re going to the soldier support center.’
“But it’s hot, we’re going to have to put a guard with our bags and make two trips,” he wined like a child. “Can’t we just hang out at the commo company building?”
‘No, we’re not going to avoid the inevitable, let’s get to D-main and get this over with,’ I told him directly.
“How far is it?” he began to concede to the fact we needed to go there.
‘About 200 meters,’ I answered with a false distance. It was actually about 300 meters or so away. Before he could complain about the distance, I interrupted him. ‘We’re soldiers, we can walk it. Now, everyone get your shit.’
Stuart and I looked at each other and shook our heads. The guys started gathering all of their things clumsily as Stuart and I waited. Pinto’s winter sleeping bag was on the verge of falling out again. I wondered why he was bringing a winter sleeping bag and poncho liner quilt to Kuwait. One soldier asked him about the pink pillow he had brought. “I enjoy the creature comforts,” he replied.
We started our small ruck march towards the soldier center. The guys looked like they were about to die. “I wonder why they don’t have enough rooms on flights if there is a manifest,” Pinto asked.
‘Well, 3-32 AR was only manifested for 3 people. The regiment tasked our battalion to provide only three people of enlisted rank,’ I told him.
“Well, battalion decided to send the FSO because they needed someone capable enough to field the information, and I am quite capable of that,” he retorted defiantly. I didn’t feel like explaining to him that CPT Berlin wanted to kill him and no one else would take him, or that I was specifically told to babysit him, or that he was being sent to make him disappear for two weeks. He walked along dragging his stubby feet, carrying all his excess load for which he had only himself to blame.
We got to the soldier support center and dropped our bags in the air-conditioned area with couches. Manson and Dyke complained about the loads they had to carry so far, and in such heat. “There’s a phone over there,” Pinto said observantly. “You can call battalion now,” he said.
‘O.K., Sir, listen to me,’ I said agitated he wouldn’t take initiative for once. ‘We need to call battalion, yes. BUT, CPT Flake is not the point of contact, regiment is. CPT Flake is only air liaison, not plans. So…to find out what to do next, we need to call regimental plans after we talk to Flake because they wrote the Frago.’ I tried to use the phone and it didn’t work, so LT Pinto, sensing my irritation with him, used his rank to go call on an unseen phone behind a wall. After several minutes, he reappeared.
“I called battalion and let them know we made it,” he said proud of himself. “CPT Flake wasn’t there though,” he added quickly.
‘So did you call regiment and find out who the point of contact is?’ I asked, honestly thinking he couldn’t be so stupid to forget that.
“Um, no,” he answered confidently. “I don’t know the number,” he replied.
‘YOU INSOLENT BASTARD!’ I yelled in my mind. ‘How can he be an officer?! He wouldn’t even make a good private!’ I swallowed my tongue and calmly explained, ‘You should have asked the TOC when you called the TOC, did you not think to ask them for the number, you know, we need to find a POC[3], and regiment knows who that is.’
“Um, I, I,” he said like a child found guilty of something. Just then, SFC Pepper showed up.
“HEY, WHAT’S UP?!” he said, surprised to see us. “3-32 dogg! You are famous now T, most famous battalion in the Army. Ya’ll are killing some shit, I know. Nah, no joke, everyone is talking about you all!” he said excitedly as we all shook hands. He went to division last year and missed out on all the fighting going on lately. “I see tha tanks on TV all the time.” It was good to see him, because he could help us out. “Who are you, Sir?” he said abruptly after joking around with Stuart and me.
“LT Pinto, the FSO from Charlie Company,” he answered. He always mentions to people “Charlie Company” even though he’s only been there a week. It makes him sound more like a combat soldier and leader – instead of the wimpy, crying, and insolent office pouge he is.
“What do you need Thompson?” Pepper asked.
‘Regiment sent us up here for UAV[4] school in Kuwait and we need to find a POC,’ I answered.
“No problem, let’s go to Division Main,” he said, moving his eyes covertly to the direction of Pinto as if to ask “Who is this wierdo?” We walked over to Division and waited at the security desk to get entry badges. A plump white girl chewed openmouthed on some gum and spoke in some ghetto accent.
“I.D. playz,” she said as Pepper joked with her. Her face was caked in makeup and heavy eyeliner painted by design like an Egyptian queen. She wore an I.D. badge holder on her arm that displayed a photo of a half white, half black toddler with a fuzzy afro.
People passed by in PT uniforms, soldiers flirted and joked around. We waited for our badges. Pinto, Stuart, and I followed SFC Pepper into the 1AD HQs. “Shhh. This is the general’s house,” Pepper said with a sly grin as he opened the door to division TOC. We walked in carefully.
The division TOC was pretty big, and large plasma flat screen TVs were at the front of the room. Row upon row of officers worked on computers and chatted quietly. At the front of the room, majors, colonels, and Lieutenant Colonels carried on serious-looking discussions, flopping their one hand in the air and the other hand resting on the seats of their rear leaning captains chairs. The plasma screen TVs displayed infrared images of Hussein and Abbas mosques from a UAV and one whole TV was dedicated to FOX “news,” while CNN was one of 4 small images (to include the UAV image) on the other screen.
Chairs at the front of the TOC had rank insignia taped to them, and General Townsend’s chair could be seen as the chair with two stars crudely taped to the back of it. Our TOC in Baghdad looked better.
An artillery officer, captain, walked up to us. “May I help you?” he asked in a snotty manner which I have seen a thousand times in the Army in relation to young officers. I knew it was only a matter of time before he would have to speak to me, seeing LT Pinto knew nothing. “So how is Dan Nash doing?” he asked Pinto while closely examining his face for any reaction to the question. I had a feeling he was trying to get a negative response from my frog eyed companion, but failed to get a response of that kind.
CPT Nash is a good guy, I guess, or become more careful about watching his mouth when talking about sexual topics or watching porno on his government computer in conspicuous places – like our TOC. He doesn’t do that anymore. He wanders around the TOC singing soul music out loud and trying to make himself useful handling ICDC issues, which is respectable enough, but he doesn’t have an officer air about him, and he gets confused easily. Our TOC calls him our “special” captain, but he and I get along just fine as of late, especially since I don’t work directly for him anymore.
The artillery captain then went on, seemingly dulled after the somewhat embellished, positive performance report given by Pinto about Nash. “And why are you here then?” he asked.
“We’re here for UAV training,” Pinto answered.
“Hmmm,” he paused (the snotty one), “I think you missed it. It was upstairs today.” I was pretty sure he was mistaken, not only because the training was to be in Kuwait, but he seemed too pleased with delivering bad news, so I discredited it.
“Aw, we thought it was in Kuwait,” Pinto said confused.
‘It is in Kuwait,’ I answered. The snotty captain looked over at me immediately with a surprised smirk. ‘We are to fly to Kuwait and continue to Camp Virginia and remain there until 30 May. This according to 2ACR Frago 23.’[5]
He suddenly became suspicious of me. You get used to that as an enlisted person with some civility. At first, officers are snotty towards you. Then, they become suspicious once they realize you’re not a common moron, and finally they speak to you on equal terms. ‘I believe I should meet with the 2ACR LNO,’[6] I added.
“Yes, um, certainly so,” the captain responded. “He isn’t here though, he’s out to lunch.”
‘We’ll wait,’ I answered. The captain then totally shed his stuck up attitude and became extremely helpful.
“Well, we can see if the 1AD flight manager can schedule a flight for you,” he said. We walked over to a LTC and the captain explained our situation to him.
“UAV team?” he asked us. “You don’t need to schedule a flight, one has already been arranged for the UAV guys and they fly out tomorrow. You need to go see the civilian coordinator.” That was good news! So, we walked over to see the civilian rep, a bright-eyed, short, bearded fellow who greeted us enthusiastically. He spoke with us about the Raven and offered to let us stay in his tent until the flight the following day. This was nice, but we had two other guys with us. He told us we should wait for 2ACR LNO for housing arrangements.
As we left the civilian’s office, we found the 2ACR LNO, a gangly, tall, pale-skinned captain who seemed passive and apologetic. We told him we needed lodgings for the night.
“Ah yes,” he replied quickly, “but I wasn’t expecting you in yet, and I frankly haven’t scheduled billets for you yet. It’s been a busy day! Follow me, please.” We followed him to another office where the captain peered into the office door window. “The billeting sergeant isn’t here, but the major is. It looks like he’s talking to a Hajji right now,” he said nervously. “Just wait here for the sergeant. I’m not sure where he is, but I’m sure if you wait in the hall long enough, he’ll pass by.” I noticed the Iraqi leave the major’s office.
‘I think I’ll talk to the major instead of sitting around all day hoping someone will show up,’ I told Pinto. He shrugged as I knocked on the door. The major called me in and looked at me confused, as he’d never seen me before. I explained our situation to him. He exhaled briefly and got up, and helped us right away. We followed him to a back room.
“That 2ACR captain sent you here?” he asked.
“Roger,” we answered simultaneously.
“I hate that guy,” he grumbled as he got us a key to a tent. “Here you go, you’ve got cots in there and everything.” We both thanked him and left to get our things.
We moved into our tent. It was quite nice and situated next to the MWR[7] tent where we had internet access. I talked with some specialist who had a friend in 3-32 AR, and he wanted to know what was going on in Najaf. I told him a bit.
“Man, I wish I was down there with 3-32 AR, you guys are always talked about on the news and in Division Main,” he said. “Do you want to see that video of that Berg guy getting his head cut off? I’ve got it on my laptop in my tent,” he explained enthusiastically.
‘No, thanks,’ I said plainly.
“They don’t cut his head off, they saw it off with a knife,” he went on. “That guy screams for about 15 seconds before they get his head off.”
‘That’s horrible,’ I said plainly again. I excused myself and went to go get lunch at Burger King. When I came back later to the tent, Pinto was sitting up in his cot watching porn and sipping on Diet Coke. I came in and he quickly closed the porno on his screen and shuffled, indicating he was startled that I came in. ‘This guy is just an all around piece of work,’ I thought as I walked by. I could tell he sensed my irritation with him. I actually detested him at that point. He was not a gentleman, not a leader, and ultimately uninspiring. ‘That Army is going to shit,’ I thought.
“We’re leaving at 1530 tomorrow,” he said feebly, I guess perceiving that I detest him.
‘Thanks,’ I replied. I went and found a phone and called you. It almost felt like I was coming home to you. God, I miss you so much Nora! I love you, and I miss your company so dearly! I can’t believe how low society is in the Army, but it’s the nature of the organization.
I then laid down in my cot and went to sleep…and woke up the next morning. I was exhausted, and that was the first good sleep I had experienced since being at Camp Golf. When I awoke, Pinto began speaking to me.
“Our plan is to leave at 1330,” he said, proud that he had a plan of his own for once. He then left the tent.
“I thought he said 1530 yesterday?” Dyke said as he walked over to me.
‘He did say that, you’re right,’ I answered. ‘He must be confused or something.’ It turned out he meant 1530. This morning some guys came into the tent. They were the soldiers I saw the day before that got off the broke helicopters the second time. I guess we took their seats. I don’t know what happened.
At 1600 we all got in two trucks and headed towards the Air Force passenger terminal. We downloaded and checked in to flight operations. Behind the desk, a delicate-looking, tall, rosy cheeked airman in a brand-new-looking armor vest daintily ate strawberry ice cream with a tiny spoon, while absentmindedly staring at the floor. Also behind the service desk, a fat, young female airman wearing a t-shirt was getting hit on by some black lieutenant who gazed dreamily into her eyes and spoke softly to her. She was oblivious to this, as she tapped on the computer. “You know,” she said in a frank and unintelligent way, “I’m getting out. I helped the KBR vice president on the plane yesterday and he gave me a card. He told me to give him a call when I get out and he’ll hire me right away. He’s a retired two star.” She then helped us out, and the lieutenant excused himself. As she helped us, a tall, dashing, Brad Pitt-looking character came up alongside us and spoke to the round girl. “Can I get a vegetarian MRE, please?” he asked. She grabbed an MRE and handed it to him. “Um, excuse me. This is turkey, I asked for a vegetarian,” he said hinting agitation. She gave him another one and he left.
I bought a copy of Foreign Affairs and was excited to get the latest copy. I went to the waiting room and began to read. Pinto set up his computer and Manson and Dyke sat by his side. Manson dropped one of his speakers, “SON OF A BITCH!” he yelled. Everyone in the passenger terminal, mostly civilians, turned and looked at him in shock. He didn’t even notice, and I was embarrassed for him.
Some young woman dressed in a tight tank top and fashion pants then glided past and sat right in front of me. The guys found this extremely entertaining. I found her to be an irritating exhibitionist and paid her no mind. Just another lonely tramp from CPA. I don’t know why many CPA women dress so provocatively. I ignored her and continued to read. She eventually got up and didn’t return, much to my relief. I could now see the live Senate hearings on Abu Ghraib on the TV now.
I noticed the Brad Pitt guy walk by. He had his vegetarian MRE in one hand and an AK-47 in the other, and an Iraqi AK-47 magazine harness across his stomach. ‘These OGA[8] guys confuse the hell out of me,’ I thought as I contemplated the paradox before me. He caught the flight to Basra.
Some Brown and Root and KBR guys sat around looking like bikers and truck drivers – which they probably were. They have long beards, wear bandanas and shirts saying “Who’s your Baghdaddy!” and “Harley Davidson, Iraq” and some other patriotic style shirts referencing Operation Iraqi Freedom. One shows an attractive-looking topless blonde with her back to the viewer holding a sign saying, “Operation Iraqi Freedom! This time we went all the way!”
‘Yeah, we did alright,’ I said to myself. I watched the Senate hearing closely, with Mark Warner as chairman. I just wrote him a second letter a few weeks ago. Senator Lindsay Graham did a great job questioning General Poncheeze and General Abdulla and the others sitting before him.
I’ll continue with this story tomorrow. I love you Nora, and I can’t wait to get home to you! I am so in love with you, and can’t wait until we’re married!

Mosques became the hiding place of choice for terrorists. They would camp out in mosques, turning them into extremist youth hostels. The problem for us was, entering or attacking mosques was almost out of the question for many reasons. We had to respect the religion of the people, or risk losing their support (and yes, we did have much support among Iraqis). So how do you respect their religion and fight the enemy at the same time? Other than going in with guns blazing, there were few options. Instead of constant standoffs with the fighters, I thought about the application of noxious gasses and sedative chemicals being introduced into the mosques. Some would call this chemical warfare and utterly inhumane, but I believe it’s more humane that shooting a thumb-size piece of steel into someone’s abdomen. I believe we need to develop “soft” weapons for applications such as mosque standoffs. Enemy controlled mosques posed an unnecessary threat to both Iraqis and Americans, and when they were eventually retaken by force, the anti-American media would capitalize on the brutality used.

[1] He later slept with his best friend’s wife when he returned from Iraq. I did not think he was that kind of person, but life is full of surprises.
[2] The site was rebuilt by Saddam Hussein and is a very simple complex.
[3] Point of contact
[4] Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
[5] Fragmentary Order issued by 2ACR tasking soldiers to go to UAV school.
[6] Liaison officer
[7] Morale Welfare and Recreation provides recreational activities for troops.
[8] Other Government Agency, term often used to describe special armed groups.

We Reject Al-Jazeera Interview; Seek Friendlier Press - The Sadr Lie: Militia Attacks Holy Sites to Incite Violence

2004-05-14T23:40:00.000-07:00

14 May, 2004 2340 Camp Golf

It’s a quiet night, but it won’t be for much longer. A palace once belonging to Saddam is being occupied by Mahdi Army fighters on the west side of the Euphrates. At around 0200 our task force will launch an artillery and missile strike on the palace, completely destroying it. Normally that would arouse a great deal of excitement, but moods have been subdued and tense as the standoff between us and Sadr seems to be going nowhere. Over the past few days, street fighting has occurred, sometimes street battles between our troops and Sadr’s gangs.
The situation is confusing, because one report says Sadr is considering a ceasefire, and the next he is endorsing the kidnapping of female soldiers to be had as slaves. Sistani is supposedly negotiating a demilitarization of Najaf, the senior Shia leaders are against Sadr, and deadlines are set. Then, Sadr’s militia goes and loots IP stations with impunity and preaches violence against Americans today. That may be why the Army has chosen to conduct operations as normal. “Normal” meaning movement to contact, and until recently, deliberately trying to instigate fights in order to kill fighters. This is the Pancho strategy, move out and find trouble, start shooting, use overwhelming force, and leave before the fight gets too big. I’m just a bit upset we do this in neighborhoods, kill maybe 3 guys, but destroy property and wound or kill more innocents that fighters. It’s almost a form of mass punishment, as in Fallujah. Something deep inside says it’s wrong.
Today’s battles took place near the Ali Shrine and parts of the expansive cemetery. Of course, all of these “sacred” places are refuges for Mahdi fighters, so when these sites are even slightly damaged, it is our fault. I remember watching on the 6th of May as mortar rounds exploded in the town of Kufa. I saw it with my own eyes. Mahdi Army, or some other force other than U.S. Army, was dropping mortars on their own people, fellow Muslims at least (since the distinction is so important to them), so they could blame the Americans. Arab media, politicians, and religious figures – although not all – have tried to exaggerate and sometimes absolutely lie about what is going on here. What’s their goal? What is the end state? Even if the U.S. left today, they would still have the same problems. It’s almost as if there’s an Arab conspiracy to sink Iraq into chaos, and how that would benefit the Middle East, I do not know.
I do wonder how this came to be. Arab media is clearly against us, but in all fairness, we are clearly against Arab media (the chief outlets anyhow, like Al-Arabia and Al-Jazeera). I know there’s a near hatred of Al-Jazeera by the U.S. government, but I remember in Operation Enduring Freedom, we bombed their buildings in Kabul. I also remember their office in Baghdad was curiously bombed as well, by the U.S. Surely it was one of those unfortunate accidents under Bush’s vigilante-style leadership. Then, Al-Jazeera came to our compound and asked to speak with LTC Jagger for an interview here in Najaf a few days ago. We told them no, and to go away. I began to wonder if Arab media has a problem with us, or if we have a problem with it. Al-Jazeera is a major news outlet, very popular, and a good medium to communicate to the Arab world. I, personally, would have spoken to Al-Jazeera had I been LTC Jagger. You can’t blame a news agency for being anti-American if you refuse to talk to them or if they broadcast images from the terrorists’ perspective. That’s just as newsworthy as CNN riding around with the U.S. Army. FOX News could easily be viewed as anti-Arab. LTC Jagger not talking to Al-Jazeera was disappointing, but not because Al-Jazeera is a great news channel, but it’s a way to communicate to the Arab world. Talking to CNN is fine, but the West already knows what the Army is doing here, the Arabs may not be so sure. By turning powerhouse news media away, we left them insulted and more likely to report against us. And maybe I’m drawing a false correlation here, but I can’t help it. And when I see the same men that turned Arab media away complain that the same Arab media isn’t reporting fairly, I shake my head in frustration. They can’t see the forest for the trees.
“Hey,” Knight 6 said, “We need to get with PAO (Public Affairs Office) and have them arrange some Arab press to come to Najaf so these people understand what we are doing.” He said this today after Jane Sharif of CNN told him people in An-Najaf don’t really know why the U.S. Army is rolling around the city and getting into fights. Now the battalion wants to talk to Arab media. It seems we have a general disregard for relationship building and an inability to realize the benefits thereof. Now, some small media outlet will visit us, and we will have checked the block on another worthless, token gesture. Yeah, you can argue Al-Jazeera shows our soldiers getting attacked and dead, but our media does the same thing and did it as we rolled into Baghdad – live on TV. Who can forget the Marines shooting Iraqi soldiers down and cheering, or charred bodies on the “Highway of Death” from Gulf War I? It’s just reality, so let’s deal with it.

Reflecting on a Year in Iraq: Hawkish "Christian" Leaders, Democratic Bolshevism, and How it Feels to be Genuinely Stuck in Iraq

2004-05-11T23:00:00.000-07:00

See original video never seen before or learn more about the book at www.American-Interrupted.com.

11 May, 2004 2300 Camp Golf

It’s been a year ago today that I left home and everything dear to me for the Middle East, having put aside my skepticism of the war in the genuine hope of doing something good for these people and building friendships. There was the mission of the U.S. Army, and then my personal mission, and these two missions were often in disagreement. The Army’s mission is yet to be accomplished, but my mission has been successful, and although most of this deployment has been exceedingly stressful, morally draining, and violent…the ties I made with this country have deepened my understanding of the world and confirmed many of my hypotheses.
This has been a year of loss and sorrow, of death and paranoia, of dark days you before thought only existed far away, to other people, or Hollywood plots. A year spent with disappointing men, with only a few exceptions, and serving under a disappointing president during a disappointing time in American history. It was a year the mask of excellence was lifted from Washington D.C., from Capitol Hill, from the White House to reveal our extraordinary leaders are anything but. It was a year that saw the CIA and the FBI and U.S. Army and U.S. Marines lose its prestige and reputation to armed gangs and cheap explosive devices and Islamic murderers hiding in hills. It was a year the world lost faith in our policies, not exactly at difference over why the U.S. was doing what it was doing – but how.
This was a year of realizing exactly how precious life is, of dodging bullets and corruption, and egos and flaws, of good people dying. It was a year that proved principles and doing the right thing does matter, because it’s the few that do the right thing and strive for human excellence that quietly carry the burden of hope in a world of chaos, ensuring our fragile world doesn’t slip into total chaos.
It was a year when I saw the worst come out in people on both sides of the conflict. I also saw a lot of good from the soldiers too. I saw soldiers scared, but confront that fear and go into Baghdad when it all fell apart in April, knowing they would face certain contact. They made it back home to base. It was a year of playing Russian roulette every time I left the base. It was a year of placing my life in the hands of others, and often times having no faith in those hands. It’s a year I learned that it’s time to trust my judgment and intuition, because it’s proved to be a trusted friend, proven, and reliable friend in Iraq.
It was a year that I realized officers really aren’t intelligent as I thought they were. I learned the military and the defense folks need to be constantly scrutinized and controlled, because the very characteristics of real military culture promote pride, self-congratulation, righteousness through strength, excess, and exaggeration. It empowers many people of the lowest quality and protects them. When afforded too much or absolute protection or shelter, people misbehave. The military must be controlled strictly and independently. Currently, it is afforded too much space for mischief.
It was a year of stepping into the blackest night, not knowing what to expect and not being able to see. It was a year of trusting God, of believing He’s protecting your life, of feeling guilty for not thanking God enough for my life, or feeling distant from Him because of the senseless violence all around. I’ve never lost faith though, and I never will. I just grew sad over this year, because I realized evil is as real as God, and sometimes evil can prey on good and sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. But, God is peace, and even though we may lose some good people in this world, we should be happy they are resting in peace.
It’s true, what life has taught me, you are either a human beast, or a human being. We’re capable of learning from our human past, and we should be moving forward. Every time we enter into warfare, greed, exploitation, and other evils, we stain our collective human soul, poison it, and become sick. Improving quality of life should be our main concern, building relationships and dialog. Inclusiveness. We live in a world of haves and have-nots and something must be done before they turn our world into a hell where populations suffer each other’s sins. In any case, war is not the answer, it’s only a quick fix and rejection of diplomacy. We should be ashamed of war, and shun those to engage in it. Perhaps the U.S. is experiencing that now.
I wonder sometimes if the industrial military complex, not just in the U.S., but around the world, is meeting legitimate defense requirements, or using its influence in government to create a demand. These hawkish forces can be found in any country. Dick Chaney, Berlusconi, Robert Mugabe, Saddam Hussein, Sharon, Bush, Chavez, Arafat, Kim Jung Ill, and others…they all share several characteristics, foremost being hawkishness and a lack of respect for subtle diplomacy and diplomatic strategy. If you think about it, the world isn’t at war, it’s individuals, it’s the hawks of the world at war with each other. They control armies because they are hawks, they are aggressive, they are calculating, they intimidate others, they accumulate wealth through exploitation and use that wealth to attain deeper influence. Good people don’t behave this way, in any part of the world. Sensible people with a rich understanding of a wide variety of people and classes aren’t aggressive or arrogant, intimidators, con-men, greedy, or dubious. Unfortunately, every society has hawks in it, and it is no mystery why, they arrogantly push and shove their way to positions of authority and good people yield to them rather than be like them. These same hawks have always been around. They made their fortunes using slave labor, exporting missile technology, oil, supplying war machines and services, stealing land. Good people don’t behave like that. A hawk sees opportunity everywhere a good person does not. The money earned through exploiting these immoral opportunities translates into power which secures hawks and future generations of hawks. The world still has many warlords, and some wear suits and ties.
Common people around the world and those interested in improving their quality of life are caught between the battles of the hawks or sent to fight in wars for them in exchange for money to improve their quality of life. Common people yield to hawks, generally. They work for low wages, or none at all.
Maybe hawks, these enemies of good and peace, these sadists and self-styled warriors, champions of master causes…maybe it’s all just a fact of life that they exist. It probably is just a fact of life. Good people exist too though, and they are many and possess power and influence in government as a reward given by the people for their service to improving the lives of people. Hawks attract support from people who imagine themselves as soldiers of the hawk’s army, of contributing force to a conflict, in being raised in social status through association with the hawks. Hawks promise grand rewards and conquests, and their support base follows along, never realizing the reward will only go to a few, and these few hawks at the top take the largest portions of the reward, leaving a small residual bit to the support base (middle America) in an act of mock generosity. Good people don’t behave like this.
Since this will probably always be the case, it is so important good uses its authority to exert control on the hawkish elements in government and society, and draw hawks into the open for scrutiny and debate, for in this respect, good people are better suited to handle hawks because good has little to hide, while hawks must craft deceptions. Good can exert moral authority.
Hawks and sincere elements must coexist. As an imperfect society, we can only hope to exercise moral authority in the face of hawks by showing an absolute reluctance to use force. Blanket support for war is not acceptable for wars such as Iraq. The hawks needed to make their case to the people in America, Congress should have scrutinized it and the plans for postwar Iraq. Congress failed America, and even Americans failed themselves.
This Friday, over 150,000 protesters will peacefully march from An-Najaf to Al-Kufa, right past our camp, to exercise their moral authority and right to demand Moktadr Al-Sadr and the Mahdi Militia leave Najaf and Kufa. Common people will stand up to the hawk and tell him to fight elsewhere. Should they succeed, it would be a great milestone in a “new” Iraqi history.[1] This is a time in world history when men of violence, hatred, religion, ideals, have intimidated everyone from rural Pennsylvania to An-Najaf to Bejing to Bali. Good, common, working people are not found only on one continent. They are found all around the world. They are an authority, and should face these men and let them know their violence and deception is not wanted. The world’s psychological balance is disrupted in these times, negative psychology prevails, and leading nations seem more adversarial in their approach to each other. We need to heal as a world, and key world leaders will need to be voted out of office to facilitate a shift in focus.
The war alone is a horrible thing for many, but despite all the violence and frustration, one of the greatest sorrows was being away from you. You step into such uncharted territory, such uncertainty, where no matter how much you wish to be in another place, in another time with you, you realize this isn’t “The Wizard of Oz” and you can’t simply click your heals and go home. Never before has faith been so vital to survival and death so close.
Sometimes this does feel like a bad dream, and it only makes it worse that it’s a nightmare orchestrated by Bush – although inadvertently – through sloppy planning and wishful thinking. I would never have imagined I would be in such a situation, where I would be part of an organization I fundamentally disagree with.
This year I’ve spent away from you, my best friend and soul mate, and being gone for a year was unimaginable before I came here. I never want to do it again. There’s nights when you just can’t suppress the feelings of loneliness, when you lay in your cot and tears suddenly fill your eyes and you’re reminded that you are nothing without love. I’ve laid in the night, sometimes in a pool of my own sweat, dying inside, feeling I would fade away or dry up like a flower without water, because I missed you so. As time went on, I realized at any given time, I was holding back a flood of emotion back, behind a gate wired shut, where the mere thought of being gone from you would break that thin wire, and I would break down wherever I happened to be. To be away from you and your wonderful love was to be cast into an abyss, and no amount of socializing among other soldiers could compensate for that. Usually, they only troubled my mind further with their shallow and vulgar minds. No one understands our love the way we do, and nothing could replace it.
Your heart is broken when you are away like this. It’s a physical pain you can feel in you chest, in your heart. I long so much to be relieved of that feeling and love you once again. I live for you completely.
Despite all of this heartache, we stay strong, and we keep each other strong. We’ve deepened our love, our faith, and our trust. Those three elements can pull love through any challenge, and any length of time. It’s amazing how we care for each other though – countless letters, countless hours on the phone, so many packages you’ve sent. You’re always there for me, I can always count on you.
I look up at the now familiar Arabian night sky and gaze at the stars, my close friends over this past year. Those same stars will ever hang in the sky and endure – like our love. Under those same points of light we’ll lay not too long from now, and those stars will smile just for us, because they know how long we’ve wished upon them to be together again. I love you, I’m so thankful for you, and I can’t wait to spend forever with you.

Sometimes I wondered if we were not unintentionally promoting anarchy because of this war on terror. I mean, we were encouraging and supporting rebellious elements of the population in their struggle against Saddam Hussein – thinking their struggle was one to free themselves of his rule. Sometimes I wondered if the struggle was to free themselves of all rules so they could establish a Shia theocracy. That would explain why Americans were in the crosshairs of Shia rebels. Many of them comprised the poorest and worst educated parts of Iraq, but it was these very people who we were making the masters of Iraq in the period of a year. This belief in empowering the weak and oppressed is noble, but it has to be done carefully. Sometimes it seemed the transfer of power bordered on a form of Bolshevism.

[1] The march was later canceled and never took place.

Colonel Strangelove: How Our Operations Center Came to Love the Bomb; Mazin Suddenly Shows Up At My Door

2004-05-07T23:50:00.000-07:00

7 May, 2004 2350 Camp Golf, Najaf

Our first major assault on Najaf was yesterday. I wasn’t able to write about it right away because of the operations tempo and mortar battle later that night.
The ADCM[1] had visited the TOC, so I figured something was going on. I then read the operations order for operation “Knight Face-off,” which verified an operation in Najaf was ready to kick off on order. I surrendered to the fact that we were going deeper into Najaf and focused on what would be needed on my part to help. That would mean running the radios and tracking the battle and passing info to the brass. LTC Jagger would be running the operation to take back the governor’s palace from his tank. CNN would go along in one of our up-armored Hummers. The operation would kick off at 1645 on 6 May.
Crusader tank company, or elements of it, along with Apache troop scouts rolled into Najaf, while Iron Troop (attached to us) approached Kufa from the east, across the Euphrates in a fake attack posture that successfully lured Al-Sadr into believing we were attacking from the east. Sadr’s militia came out of the woodwork near the Kufa Bridge, with RPGs and AK-47s. Iron reported 28 dead enemy, and continued to draw fire and return fire without being decisively engaged. Iron was under a lot of fire, and mortar impacts, but not long after calling in the 28 enemy KIA, they killed an additional 12 Mahdi Army dead.
About this same time, SSG Siegel asked for help on the radios because he was stressing out. I jumped on the radio in time to monitor the takeover of the governor’s palace and the ensuing firefights in the surrounding areas’ alleyways and side streets. CPT Berlin responded very well to all the attacks on his company. It’s hard to believe he is a seasoned combat tank commander now – probably seen more combat than 3rd Infantry ever did invading Iraq. “Knight X-Ray, Crusader 6,” he called. “We’re taking heavy RPG fire to the west! I’m going to attack to the west and neutralize the threat,” he announced while small arms could be heard firing in the background. I had one of my radios listening to his company frequency too, so I heard everything going on on the streets. He was given permission to attack, and he did under heavy fire. He identified a small side street where some fire was coming from. They went to the south side of the neighborhood street. A machine gunner was set up on the far end of the street on a curb and opened fire on CPT Berlin’s tank.
“The rounds were flying right past my head,” he later told me. He was up in his TC[2] hatch when the Iraqi gunner fired on his tank. “(Berlin’s tank gunner, name I can’t recall) opened up on him with coax and just tore him up.” CPT Berlin got off his tank to recover the Iraqi’s machinegun, AK-47 and ammunition. Digital photos were taken of the corpse to show the man behind the machinegun, in case there was any doubt.
At some point around the same time, a Mahdi Army militiaman came around the corner with an RPG, and then ran away. Crusaders regained contact with the fighter and shot him with coax, but he ran away wounded. I heard the crews on the radio (company frequency) trying to shoot the dropped RPG warheads to disable them. They succeeded.
CPT Berlin found the wounded man not long after the man was shot. He drove up in his tank and dismounted. “The guy was mortally wounded,” he explained later in our TOC as we reviewed the digital photos taken of the KIA, “By the time I ran up to him, his eyes kept rolling in the back of his head,” he said. “He understands democracy now.” CPT Berlin is a good guy, a good guy in a bad situation. His character is unquestionable.
We looked at the pictures and came to the one of the RPG fighter. “Yeah, this guy is riddled with holes,” CPT Berlin explained while pointing things out on the laptop computer screen. “Here you see some wires (you could see wire around the body), an RPG warhead was wired to the body, almost with a death switch-looking configuration. It looked like his buddies were trying to rig him up for detonation before we got him.” He pointed to the green headband laying in the human mess (trademark of Sadr Mahdi), “Here’s his, ‘I’m a Sadr asshole’ headband,” he said dryly, but in a tone of honesty and cold reality. He didn’t rejoice, he just told what happened without any showing of emotion or glamour. As he spoke, I noticed dried blood splattered on the inside of his right pant leg and several blood stains at other points on his uniform.
LTC Jagger and CPT Peters of Apache troop seized the governor’s palace with support from A Co. and C Co. The operation went well. At the Ministry of Culture and Agriculture, as well as the palace, the soldiers were greeted by Iraqi guards from the Iraqi Protection Service or Facility Protection Service. They were cooperative and worked with the Army to help secure the area. The operation was a success. The Kiowas spotted an RPG fighter in the Ali Shrine graveyard, but other than that, the city appeared calm.
“CRACKBOOM!!!” I felt a shock of compressed air slap my face. I noticed the windows in front of me in our command post fly open and dust was hanging in the air. People were running out of the TOC (Major Ramirez was one of the first to run away) as soon as the blast went off. Ferrello, my assistant, sprinted away instantly at the explosion’s extremely loud blast. I jumped up immediately too and got three feet away from the radios when I felt the tug of the microphone in my right hand. CPT Smalls was the only other soldier who stayed at his station.
‘What am I doing?’ I thought quickly, ‘I can’t just leave the radios!’ I scolded myself. When you are in a blast like that, your senses and thoughts are stunned for a few seconds – I know this all to well. I got under the table, ‘Knight Log, this is Knight X-Ray, initiate battle hand-off procedures on order, Knight X-Ray is under indirect fire at this time,’ I said with a clearness and calmness even I found surprising later. A mortar round landed outside of the building on the other side of the wall facing me. On the other side of that wall was also the signal truck. It’s like a small RV that is always manned. It carried equipment related to running our digital phone network, our military internet as well.
“Someone check the sim (signal) guy!” someone yelled as they slowly began to come back into the TOC. He was OK, the generator took some shrapnel, flattening the trailer tires and chipping holes in brick and plaster wall.
Everyone came back into the TOC and thought it was funny I was under the table. I thought it was funny they all ran away. We laughed and went on with what we were doing before the blast. Our artillery team picked up the enemy mortar launches on radar, and the decision was made to fire artillery on the area where repeated mortar attacks had been launched. Iron Troop was also taking some limited mortar fire from the same place. 3 rounds of devastating 155 millimeter artillery were fired.
“ROUNDS OUT!” SFC Capone announced. Moments later, “DOOM, DOOM, DOOM!” echoed all across the place. “ROUNDS COMPLETE!” SFC Capone announced to let everyone know the fire mission was complete.
“Knight X-Ray, Knight 6,” LTC Jagger called in a few seconds later. “Yeah…the IPs hauled ass when they heard the 155 go off.”
Down at the governor’s palace, most everything was under control and the objective was seized before sunset. It would be a major blow to Al-Sadr’s militia. There wasn’t much resistance to the attack. I talked to Haider, our translator, about the public reaction. “It’s really a surprise,” he said to me in great English as he exhaled cigarette smoke. “All the people say they’ve been waiting for a big U.S. attack and that they want Sadr gone. At one checkpoint we had set up, an old man started yelling at the soldiers. I thought he was angry at them, but what he was saying was, ‘Why do you just sit here? Sadr is in Kufa now! Go get him! We want him gone!’”
Later, Major Stanton asked if I thought our base would get mortared that night. ‘Yes, Sir,” I answered. ‘They have to hit us after a defeat like today, or else they’ll look too weak.’
“So you think they’ll lose face if they don’t?” he asked.
‘Roger, exactly,’ I answered. He nodded with his good-natured grin, hinting that he was thinking the same thing.
“THUD…..CRABOOM! CRABOOM!” started going off, several times while I was sitting in my room. Many times you can hear the mortar launch in the distance, even if you are sitting indoors. It sounds like a muffled “THUMP.” You stop what you are doing and count to three or so – then CRACKBOOM! Usually it lands in the distance, about 200 meters away, but the mortarmen adjust and each “CRACKBOOM” gets louder as it gets closer to our building – their main target, which also happens to be where I sleep. Usually, at least one round gets within 75 meters of our building or somewhere close to it. That’s when you say to yourself, “Goddamn it!” not because you are scared, but because you are angry.
About 14 rounds hit us, and they sounded louder that the usual 60mm rounds. They were probably 82mm. One round fell next to one of our armored personnel carriers (an M113) that was set up waiting to fire mortars at the enemy mortaring us. It actually landed between the track and the large, multistory building next to it. Just minutes before, soldiers had been standing there smoking cigarettes. CPT Nash was on the other side of the wall where the blast went off. He later recalled, like an AME preacher, how loud it was. Lord have mercy! SFC Rocker later told us what happened:
“I shit you not gentlemen,” he said in his strong, military-but-non-threatening voice, “that mortar almost scored a direct hit on us. There was nothing but smoke. I looked at the other side of that aluminum alloy armored vehicle and could see big thumb-sized chunks taken out of it from the shrapnel. That mortarman is getting extra frisky. Had those smoking soldiers stayed there a few minutes, they would have been Swiss cheese,” he confided.
Not long after those very impacts, we were able to determine where the rounds were coming from. “Acquisition!” one of the fire support (field artillery) guys yelled. The Q-36 radar interface screen displayed a grid showing where the enemy rounds were being fired from. In the TOC, grids were being yelled and our mortar team was ready to fire back. At about the same time, two Air Force F-16s were conducting combat air patrol when they noticed the flashes of light below in the night. Our regimental air liaison people began talking to them. We also had a Hunter UAV in the air that identified a mortar tube in a field that was still hot from being fired. It was abandoned because our mortars fired a few rounds at the point of origin grid location and apparently the enemy mortar team ran for cover.
“The F-16s have eyes on the mortar tube and our rounds impacting,” CPT Nash said as he spoke to an ALO person on the land line (telephone) to our regimental HQ’s at Camp Duke in the desert. “If you want, the F-16s say they can adjust our fires,” CPT Nash said.
“Adjust fires with F-16s?” LTC Jagger reflected amused, “That’s a first, they don’t teach that one in school. Do Air Force pilots even know how to adjust fires?” Major Stanton grinned widely. “Well, if they think they can do it, let’s do it,” LTC Jagger said. “This shit has got to end before someone gets killed.”
So our mortars fired several salvos of mortar rounds, and CPT Nash stood with the telephone up to his ear as he relayed adjustment data to our arty guys who relayed it to our mortar guys outside in the parking lot. The pilots talked to the ALO guy in the desert HQs who talked to CPT Nash on the phone.
“UP 80!” CPT N yelled. “LEFT 20!” and several subsequent adjustments, until we fired over 30 120mm rounds into an open field in Kufa. “F-16s reporting mortar tube still standing!” CPT N announced.
“Call Assassin and have them fire and try to take that tube out – they get one shot,” Knight 6 (LTC Jagger) said. Assassin is our artillery battery sitting outside An-Najaf, they fire 155mm.
“Regiment also reports F-16s are armed with 500 pound bombs,” said Captain Nash. Everyone looked at each other and laughed,
“500 pound bomb? For what?” Everyone agreed that the pilots we could hear flying overhead must have been itching to drop a bomb. You could also sense unseen forces pushing the Knights to request a bomb drop from regimental TOC.
“I think a 500 pound bomb is a little too much,” Knight 6 said as he sat by the phone. Everyone stood around him wide eyed with excitement, and silently chanting “DROP THE BOMB, DROP THE BOMB” Stiller, Pedro, and I looked at each other with the same expressions, we all agreed everyone around us had gone crazy.
“I can’t believe this,” Stiller said in a way indicating his disgust, “they can’t wait to drop a bomb on a freaking mortar tube.”
“They’re like little kids playing Army,” Pedro went on, “they have their plastic soldiers knocking over the bad soldiers, this is all it is,” he chuckled at the absurdity.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I guess little boys who play soldier sometimes grow up to be big boys who play soldier. Some people never outgrow the pulling-wings-off-insects stage or burning ants under a magnifying glass stage.’
“I mean,” Stiller went on, “why are they going to drop a freaking 500 pound bomb? Look, they can’t resist the temptation. Do you think they’ll drop it?” he asked.
‘Actually, I think they will. It’s too enticing, and I think Colonel Leroux is crazy. When we first got to Iraq; I believed our leaders were intelligent. Now, nothing surprises me – not even dropping a 500 pound bomb on a mortar tube,’ I responded.
“No shit,” Stiller went on, “after Sadr City, everything changed, everyone’s gone crazy, human beings don’t even exist anymore.” Pedro and I agreed.
Stiller killed an RPG gunner firing on his truck on April 4 when Sadr City exploded into urban warfare. He was with Foley and SSG Newsome. He took him down with an M240. That next night when he returned, I left him alone, gave him some space, let him be. I knew he had killed someone, and since he’s a good guy at heart, I figured he would take it hard, regardless if the guy he killed was trying to kill him. People kept walking up to him that night trying to shake his hand and congratulating him. He looked like he wanted to vomit, and he stared at the floor, disturbed look on his face. I wished everyone would give him some space. I never talked to him about this, but he began talking about it when we were talking about dropping the bomb. “You know what happened with me and Sadr City, right?” he asked. We nodded. “Well, everyone kept coming up to me and wanting to shake my hand and patting me on the back and shit. Telling me what a good job I did. I though, ‘What the hell is wrong with these people?’ Yeah, the guy was trying to kill me, but you don’t have to celebrate that shit.” My notions earlier about Stiller’s state of mind following Sadr City were confirmed.
“Well, what would a 500 pound bomb do?” Knight 6 asked nobody in particular.
“Sir,” Major Stanton answered, “it has a 100 meter kill radius. Other effects occur at different distances, such as hearing loss, etc.”
“Well,” Knight 6 said, “I’m not going to drop it unless the old man says so. A 500 pound bomb is overkill, like swatting flies with a sledgehammer.” Knight 6 left the room, “Come get me if anything else happens.”
We weren’t going to drop the bomb? The excitement in the TOC fizzled a bit. The artillery already fired, but the F-16s continued to circle and reported the tube was still in the field.
We got another phone call from regiment. CPT Nash answered. “So Rider 6 (Colonel Leroux) gives the go-ahead if Knight 6 wants to use the bomb?” he repeated. This later turned into the message, “Rider 6 is giving the go-ahead to drop the bomb.” Excitement began to grow again. Someone went to go get Knight 6 from his room. As he came into our HQ, he said, “OK, now what is going on?” I spoke up as he came in,
‘Sir, I think there is some confusion over the colonel’s words…,’ and then I stopped. I could feel eyes in the room telling me desperately to stop talking and stop interfering with the inevitable bomb drop. I just wanted him to know the truth. He walked past. CPT Nash handed him the phone. It was a little frustrating hearing all the confusion. Knight 6 then talked directly to the regimental commander (Rider RTOC).
“What’s going on?” Knight 6 asked the other person on the other end of the phone. “Well, you’re giving everyone here a woody,” Knight 6 said skeptically. “What does the old man say?” There was a pause. “Well, go wake him up and find out.” Knight 6 wasn’t too thrilled about the prospects of dropping a bomb.
“It sounds like Rider 6 wants Knight 6 to take responsibility for dropping the bomb.” Stiller said.
After some chatter, it was decided to drop the bomb, but it would be dropped at a safe distance from the nearby houses and still be able to destroy the seemingly indestructible mortar tube.
Everyone went on top of the roof to get a view of the bomb drop. I stood on the roof and listened to the F-16s circle Najaf. After a few minutes you could hear an F-16 coming in fast and low from the west heading east towards Kufa. This would undoubtedly be the attack bombing run. Off in the target area, we saw a dim ribbon of flame – nothing spectacular – rise from the horizon. Seconds later we heard the “BOOM” from the explosion. You could hear the jets continue circle. “That’s it?” Sergeant Gonzales asked. “That was weak!” Everyone agreed that the MK-82 500 pound bomb was no more exciting that a common mortar blast. The excitement fading, everyone left the rooftop soberly.
‘Well, now it will be safe to call Nora,’ I thought. I figured the Mahdi Army had enough for a night. I went to the phone and waited for quite a while for quite a while for Serano to get off the phone. He got off the phone after a mortar exploded behind the building, followed by a few more.
I didn’t mind the mortars, because no one was on the phone then! I got on the phone and called you. It was so good to hear your voice, but how to explain what was going on? We talked for only a few minutes before a loud explosion sounded and I had to get off the phone abruptly. I thought it was incoming, but it was actually outgoing. I determined it would be smarter to go indoors for the rest of the night. Sometimes you have to tell yourself you must go inside, no matter what.
I love you Nora, I can’t wait to live normally – peace is such a luxury. You are the greatest source of peace for me on this earth, and I am so grateful to you for all you’re doing! MUAH!

At this stage in the fight, unofficial estimates put the death toll at 1,400 fighters killed. The number of wounded was estimated at 4,000. Force protection on the base became an increasing concern, especially with the probable brownouts (sand storms). Some were worried that a crack team of Sadr special forces would penetrate the compound and blow up our TOC building. Whenever the weather or visibility deteriorated, guards were posted on the TOC entrances.
The mortar attacks had become so routine, that people began to sleep through them. I always jumped out of my cot and ran into the operations room to see what was going on. Foley would always roll on his side and curse me for getting up. I had to laugh as he kept his eyes shut and pulled his sleeping bag over his head even while rounds were landing next to our building. Many of the doors in the TOC building had to be padded to keep them from slamming shut. Many times, a door would slam and make a sound similar to that of a mortar exploding. The sound would send some from the command staff running from their rooms and into the TOC. Sometimes people in the TOC thought the noise was a mortar exploding. After a while, people would say “DOOR!” out loud to let all those around know that we weren’t under attack. It became funny after a while.

It was around this time that I had an Iraqi visitor show up at my door. I was shocked. It was Mazin, Assad’s brother from Baghdad. He came all the way from Baghdad to see me, despite the fighting in Najaf. I was worried about his safety. I thought the Mahdi militia would be watching the base to see who was coming and who was leaving. Mazin has a poor wife and several kids. He was living in some abandoned Iraqi Army buildings when we left Baghdad. The Army was his only source of income, and after we left Baghdad, his future looked bleak. The Army paid him very well. Some of the mechanics from our battalion donated a refrigerator, bags of clothes, and other items to his family. His wife was overjoyed. The unit that replaced us in Baghdad wasn’t interested in hiring him. So, he came to Najaf looking to work with his American friends again. It was extremely risky.
I opened my door, and there stood Mazin. I thought I would never see him again – but there he was in front of my door. I immediately jumped up and gave him a big hug. We walked down to my truck so I could smuggle him a case of my MREs. He was staying with Haider (Assad’s cousin), who was a translator for Apache Troop. The day that Mazin arrived, we were hit hard by mortar fire. Mazin was worried. He talked to me about the situation in Baghdad. I don’t know if it was true or not, but he told me that all of the laborers we had once employed were fired. He said they were replaced with Christian Iraqis, because they pose less of a security threat. He said the Army wasn’t hiring in Baghdad, and he needed a job – it didn’t matter what job.
I asked around and talked to a few in the leadership about his situation. The problem was, we were frequently under attack, and there were no tasks for general laborers. We had some laborers off and on, but no permanent ones. I wasn’t able to help Mazin at all. I would be in the TOC all day and then come outside to speak to him periodically. He waited for good news, but there was none. He would have to go back to Baghdad empty handed. I really felt like I let him down.

[1] Assistant Division Commander Maneuver
[2] Tank commander’s hatch (positioned on top of the turret)

My Friends Cheer After Killing Innocent Iraqis; General Attempts to Justify Abu Ghraib Behavior; Eerie Full Moon on Muhammed's Birthday

2004-05-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

5 May, 2004 An-Najaf CPA 1340

I just finished eating my lunch at Camp Baker. Yesterday I was there eating at a large tent dining facility when mortar fire started going off next to the tent. About 300 people were in the tent at the time of the initial blast. Everyone looked up from their plates after the first “BOOM!” A second, louder “BOOM” went off closer to the big white tent. Baker was under attack, I left my plate, grabbed my rifle, and exited the tent along with some Backwater security guys, some State Department guy, and our mortar section platoon sergeant (SFC Rocker). “Under here, under here!” the Backwater guys yelled. We ran under a concrete mortar shelter and waited for the attack to cease. Soldiers laughed and relaxed in the shade in the shelter. Some of us went back in the tent to recover our food and bring it back out to the shelters. The Pakistani, or whatever they are, workers that work for the chow hall huddled together under their own shelter across the way.
Inevitably, soldiers started telling war stories. I looked out of the shelter and saw LT Orr walking on the sidewalk casually, like he was on a Sunday morning stroll. He was wearing a grin and striding along in time. ‘Sir!’ I yelled in an advisory tone, ‘You may want to get in here!’
“Na,” he answered without a care, “the attack is over!” He came into the shelter anyways, not to protect himself, of that I was sure, but to sit in the shade with the soldiers. “I figure if I constantly put myself in the most dangerous situations, I increase my chances of going home,” LT Orr said. I thought he was joking, but I wasn’t completely sure because I’d just seen him strolling down the road during a mortar attack.
‘What do you mean, Sir?’
“Well, if I stay outdoors during every attack, maybe I’ll get wounded, not killed though, just sent home.”
‘Like in Catch 22?’ I asked laughing.
“Yeah, it’s like trying to finish your 50 missions so you can go home, only that when you reach 50, they tell you that you have to do more,” LT Orr said grinning. He’s a Catch 22 scholar. All our experiences are relative to Catch 22, proving that war has been stupid for a long time, at least the experiences from a soldier’s perspective.
Some soldiers from C Company began talking about the previous night. “I can’t believe anyone lived in that car,” one soldier said. “I emptied two magazines and some change into it as we passed.”
“Yeah, our tank fired at least 150 coax rounds and some .50 cal,” the boyish-looking LT said. “There wasn’t two square inches in the windshield without a bullet hole in it.” The car was full of armed men, and if a U.S. patrol sees you with an AK-47, they will kill you. “One of the guys was shot down, and we thought he was dead,” the LT said, “but then he started flopping around, so we brought him in for treatment. His buddy took off running, but we caught him.”
SFC Rocker started talking about the CNN crew (Ms. Sharif) that was at the checkpoint when an Iraqi at the checkpoint said, “You’re about to get attacked.” One second later, an RPG struck a pole about 3 feet from a soldier and smashed into the rear windshield of the Iraqi’s car – embedding itself in the dashboard.
“We had those CNN people on the ground, yelling at them to stay down, they had to bleep out more than a few choice words when they aired the tape. We were freaking them out. During the attack, some soldiers were smoking near a ditch, and just kept smoking calmly as if the attack wasn’t going on. My guys even laughed as the RPG impacted and they told the camera crew to get down,” he said in his trademark, perfect military manner. “The RPG round looked like a crumpled beer can with duct tape around it.” It never exploded.
“Yeah,” said the C Co. soldier, “I read they put tape around the warhead to reduce the magnetic signature. The Hajjis think our tanks have magnetic sensors that shoot out interceptor explosives and that’s why their RPGs aren’t working.” We all laughed. The Iraqis think our night-vision goggles are X-ray vision and our flack jackets are air-conditioned.
Now, I’ll tell about the previous few days, beginning on the night of May 2, 2004.
The night before the attack on our camp, I walked over to the aid station building where the telephone is sitting out back. To get to the aid station, you have to cross a courtyard that gets mortared every night. It’s the spot right out below my 2nd story window that gets his all the time. Knowing this, and knowing that the most active time for mortar attacks is at night, I walked rapidly towards the aid station patio steps. I didn’t have my helmet or vest on, for the first time since I arrived at Camp Golf, because I was lazy and didn’t feel like wearing it, since we hadn’t been hit while you and I talked on the phone.
I went to the phone on the backside of the aid station and found SFC Budding on the phone. He’s harmless, but sometimes tries to hustle like a thug. Ever since the battalion’s satellite phone for soldier morale got taken away (all phones in 1AD were taken away because some soldiers abused the system of 7 minutes a week, or whatever time was allotted), he’s been forced to use our military phone. If it wasn’t for the sat phone being gone, he’d still be using it as if it belonged to him. NCOs can be real corrupt.
I waited for Budding to get off the phone. I walked back to the front of the building and stood on the porch under the overhang. I was thinking of you and anxious to hear your voice. I love you Nora. You know, even as I write this, the little bird family is chirping away, and I can’t help looking at your picture and daydreaming of you. I love you Nora, I just want to come home to you.
I thought about what would happen if a mortar round hit the courtyard. I guessed I would be safe because of the large pillars in front of me supporting the overhead roof. I walked back to the backside of the building to the phone. SFC Budding was still there.
“CRABOOM!”
I jumped up. It was a mortar attack, and more explosions were sure to follow. The first round fell very close. SFC Budding said goodbye to his wife quickly and ran away from the phone. “EVERYONE IN THE BATHROOM!” a sergeant yelled. We all went and took cover. Several more rounds landed and exploded. Some guards hurried up a ladder to take up defensive positions on the roof. No one was really nervous—we’ve gotten used to the mortars. After about 10 minutes, no rounds fell. I felt stupid for not bringing my helmet and vest, and wasn’t about to go back outside before I was certain the attack was over.
I went on the front porch and waited. Machinegun fire was going off from the towers. I then broke out in a sprint across the courtyard, as much to protect myself from mortars as gunfire from the towers. Visibility was low due to a sandstorm, and it’s not a good to be out walking during a sandstorm. I grabbed my helmet and vest and went back to the phone. Of course, no one was there.
I dialed the number and got the operator, and your number didn’t work, so I kept redialing for the operator. You know, sometimes you’ve got to redial over 100 times to get an operator.
“CRABOOM!” then “CRABOOM!”
I jumped up and went into the bathroom. An Alabama reservist guy ran in there too. “There it goes again, every night,” he said.
“CRABOOM!” extremely loud.
‘Goddamnit!’ I said in agitation.
“That one was close,” said the reservist, “I’m sure that hit the building.” We stayed in the doorway of the bathroom until all was quiet. Villarreal came running up to me.
“I came to see if you were OK,” he said, trying to catch his breath.
‘Yeah, I’m good, thanks.’
“You should see the front of the building,” he said in disbelief. I didn’t realize the mortar went off only about 20 meters away at the most. I followed him to the patio where I had been earlier thinking I was safe because of the roof. I guess I was wrong.
‘Spatzi, I’m sorry, but I think it’s better that I go inside for the night,’ I said to you in my mind. I wanted to talk to you so dearly though! I hated coming so close to talking to you and having to go, especially after waiting so long. ‘I’ll go back with you,’ I told Villarreal.
“We have to look for the impact point in the morning,” he said before we ran across the courtyard. Right as we started to run, we noticed some rubble on the steps. We found the point of impact and jumped over it. The mortar landed right on the steps of the patio. I didn’t sleep that night.
Mortar attacks continued out of Kufa to our east, at exactly 15 minutes before the hour – every hour – until daybreak. There was nothing we could do about it, and they were almost making a mockery of us, because we can’t fire back into the combat exclusion zone.
It was May 3, our 1 year engagement anniversary. Of all days, they had to attack us on that day. I thought about you and home, and how sweet home sounds, how you are all I want. I absolutely had to talk to you. Your voice and love are the only things keeping me sane. I took my latest read, Agnes Grey, from Anne Bronte and went over to the phone again to call you that morning. There was a line, but I waited. Stuart showed me his truck parked out back where the phone was, windshield punched with shrapnel holes and flat tires. It was the night before that a mortar landed inside an up-armored Hummer after flying in through the gunner’s hatch on the roof. That was a one in a million shot.
I tried to call you, after a lot of redialing, but I got no answer. I wanted to talk to you so bad, I was getting sick to my stomach. Right after I called, gunfire erupted on the main city street behind our building. It started out as AK-47 fire and small arms fire. I looked across to the road and noticed a Hummer firing its M240 machinegun down a road at something I couldn’t see. Soldiers ran forward and ran along the walls to return fire by the Hummer. A tank rolled up and began firing .50 cal on the road towards Kufa. Several explosions were going off as the gunfire intensified. I watched in amazement. Usually shots will be fired after an attack, but not for the length of time I was counting.
“You should come see this shit!” one soldier yelled from the roof. I decided it was time to go to the TOC. Mortar rounds were falling now.
It’s a little difficult to explain what happened next, because much of it is a blur. I went into the TOC, and the radios were crackling loud. LTC Jagger and MAJ Stanton and MAJ Ramirez were in there. People were yelling, confusion filled the air. I stood there and couldn’t believe my eyes. Everyone had a worried look on their face as gunfire and mortars sounded closer. MAJ Ramirez walked around saying irrational things and spouting off orders that made no sense. They were only to look good for the commander. It was so transparent. LTC Jagger’s patience was wearing thin. He sat in a chair in the middle of the TOC with his arms crossed and legs crossed. His brow was knotted up and he bit his lip. He listened to the confusion, and I could tell he was on the verge of losing his temper. I’ve never seen him lose his temper, but it was as close as I’d ever seen him to contemplating intensely – you felt a quiet storm brewing.
“DABOOM! CRACKBOOM CRACKBOOM! KAK, KAK, KAK, KAK, KAK, KAK! BOOM!” sounded loudly and all around. A checkpoint outside our main gate initially came under attack, and now tanks were rumbling past our building to reinforce our scouts outside of the base.
I grabbed my video camera and went on the roof of our building to see what was going on. Some Mahdi Army were running across a field to our west. The El Salvadorians and some of our guys fired at them, hitting one. I looked down and noticed Ms. Sharif’s CNN crew pinned down against a wall, as tanks pulled into the hospital parking lot to protect our west flank. Mortars continued to fall. I fired suppression fire at lens glares on a construction site that may have been binoculars watching us, and probably talking to the mortar men and telling them to adjust. He took cover immediately. I didn’t hit him, nor was that my intent, he was too far away to hit – BUT he didn’t come back. I kept low, the volume of gunfire was incredible. All of our office pukes and staff, including command drivers were on the roof. I went up towards CSM Brown and we watched as mortar rounds from Kufa airbursted over Apache Troop’s building. “INCOMING!” he yelled. We took cover.
Two of our tanks were taking RPG fire from the rooftops of buildings at a market across the street from us. I watched as the tanks pulled up on line with each other and took another RPG. The tanks opened fire on everything where the attacks were coming from. This also helped the scouts in Hummers to pull back. The tanks caught something ablaze and continued to fire. Gunmen in a makeshift hospital opened fire, but our guys responded and caught it on fire using machineguns, hitting a transformer. Mortar and gunfire was coming from all around.
CSM Brown and I went back downstairs. I wanted to see what was going on. “Tell Rider I do not advise them coming here,” LTC Jagger said on the phone, “we are in heavy contact.” Colonel Leroux wanted to come to our camp! He came anyways, under heavy escort. Knight X-Ray was looking for our air liaison officer, CPT Flake, so we could coordinate to use AH-64 Apache helicopters. He was stuck at another camp (Camp Baker). Major Stanton arranged the AH-64s and soon they were in the air and en route to Najaf to help assault the south, where most of the fire was coming from.
LTC Jagger continued to sit, looking angry – I could only imagine why. My guess was that regiment put us in a bad position (The Alamo) with little backup and no way to defend ourselves (can’t shoot into combat exclusion zone). Every night we get mortared and we can’t return fire even though we know where it is coming from.
“Sir,” a soldier said to the LTC, “CNN would like to talk to you.”
“Well, I’m a little busy,” he said. He waited a few seconds and politely went to see what they wanted.
A large explosion went off and it didn’t even bother me. It was a mortar impact. CSM Brown came in the TOC wide-eyed. “I just lit my cigarette when I heard that thing comin’ in and explode right in our parking lot.” It landed between two trucks and flattened all their tires and punctured both fuel tanks.
“POP, POP, POP!” rang loudly in the TOC. It was gunners on the roof shooting west.
“Go find out what they are shooting at!” LTC Jagger said.
MAJ Stanton and I went on top of the roof. I saw about 10 soldiers firing to the west. I wasn’t able to identify a target. Major Stanton ordered cease-fire because the distance to the target area was about 1000 meters, outside of the maximum effective range. Things began to grow quiet.
CNN was on our roof and filming. Foley and I handed out water as they filmed us. Ms. Sharif was talking live on air over her satellite phone as sporadic gunfire and mortars rang out. The CNN producer and cameraman began to bring suitcase-size cases to the rooftop that contained 2 transmitter satellite panels and a little LCD screen showing CNN International’s broadcast. I looked and saw a commercial for Larry King Live and the weather. I couldn’t believe we were on live breaking news. The cameraman set up the camera for the live videophone broadcast. Ms. Sharif put on her Kevlar helmet and began to speak, then Colonel Leroux spoke. As Colonel Leroux spoke of “restoring order to An-Najaf,” gunfire sounded and several explosions went off. The soldiers thought this was funny, as did I. LTC Jagger also spoke. I wondered if anyone back home realized that unit on TV was our unit in Najaf and our commander.
“Apache helicopters in the south, on the horizon!” someone yelled. Sure enough, our attack helicopters came into the exclusion zone and flew towards us and banked towards Kufa. I didn’t see them shoot, but I did see them turning near Kufa mosque. Some soldiers yelled, saying they saw the helicopters fire a missile. Actually what happened was the pilots spotted some men with RPGs in a red car, and circled hard to engage the car. As they circled, one chopper was hit with an RPG, breaking part of the clear canopy off, destroying the chain gun, and blowing off one side of the landing gear. The other helo took some of the shrapnel and was disabled once he tried to pull the trigger to shoot the car. Both helos were badly disabled, most electronic and avionics systems were out, but they were able to fly back to Babylon and land safely. One AH-64 was declared a total loss, and division denied us further air coverage.[1] As soon as our air assets left, some attacks resumed, as expected.
I went back downstairs and found CPT Diamond milling around nervously on the second floor in his full battle gear. He had been on the roof earlier, but was taking a break. I thought about the nervous looks on the faces of the most right-wing, gung-ho Bush supportin’, anti-Iraqi people in our battalion. The natives were revolting, and the plantation masters were worried. I wasn’t worried though, at least in the middle of firefights, because it was just reality, and I expected this to happen. Everything happens for a reason, I understood the reasons, but I also knew that we had superior firepower.
I sat in the TOC for some time watching the people operate, people with little TOC experience who were too proud to admit it. The enlisted RTOs were under a lot of pressure, but they did their best – even though their best was of minimal help. That wasn’t their fault though, they had been put there with little training. SSG Siegel stood over the radio with a smirk while condescending to everyone around him. SSG Lawson and I stood back and watched the chaos and the abstract structure of information flow. “I decided today I am not going to reenlist,” he told me in a melancholy voice as he stared ahead. People were nervous.
I went back up to the roof and noticed the staff lined up against the south side of the roof.
Everyone was bragging about how many shots they fired into a car. “I know I put at least 14 shots in that car,” Foley said, barely able to control his joy. There were a string of other remarks made to the same effect. I didn’t realize at first, but the car was occupied. It sat in the market parking lot about 300 meters away where the tanks were firing earlier. I can’t recall all the remarks I heard, but I remember being absolutely revolted, and disappointed with Foley’s celebratory attitude. I went in the machine gunner’s nest and noticed the green Kevlar cover of the Alabama National Guardsman. On the back was drawn a 4-leaf clover with someone’s initials and “We will NEVER forget!” written over it. I looked on the young gunner’s wrist and noticed two black bracelets. They were memorial bracelets, with the names of two soldiers on them. I could perceive “AL” and “ANG” and “IRAQ.”
He turned around and smiled at me. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked casually. He respectfully turned to sit more towards me as his M240 trained forward out of the gap in the sandbag wall in front of him overlooking the road and disabled car.
“We had a suspicious car, that one there, come by and shoot at us. As soon as SGM Walker saw the muzzle flash, we opened fire. I lit that motherfucker up, corporal,” he said still in a rush. “All that’s from me,” he said like a child as he pointed to the spent brass on the ground. I felt sorry for him, because he was so young, but was going through so much, as was already evident from my observations about his Kevlar helmet, bracelets, and unnatural child-like manner. I don’t mean child-like in a derogatory way. He seemed to need reassurance he hadn’t done anything wrong. Maybe it’s a phenomenon linked to coping or not dealing with the reality that he killed. I didn’t show I was disturbed; I looked on with an expression of reserved interest. His sergeant was behaving like myself and I sensed he and I understood the situation wasn’t a videogame or something to be celebrated, as everyone was doing. Everyone was so excited. “Corporal,” the gunner asked, “could you hand me that round on the ground?”
‘Sure,’ I replied. I bent down and picked an intact round out from some spent ammunition. I handed it to him.
“This is my unlucky bullet,” he said as he stuck the round under a Velcro strap on his 9mm pistol leg holster. “Hey Sarge, I found the bullet that jammed the weapon,” he said looking for approval from the stone-faced, young sergeant. He nodded. The gunner seemed content to have proven the weapon did not jam on his account, due to lack of cleaning and such.
SGM Walker, Ween, Foley, Albert, and others stood laughing. “Those motherfuckers are dead…shouldn’t have shot at us!” I was skeptical, because I looked at all those people on the roof and recognized they were lazy, undisciplined staff soldiers that would use any opportunity to attain glory or even one-eighth the bragging rights their tanker friends had already certainly claimed. I looked at each face, each laughing, disgusting face and characterizations announced themselves in my head, in full, brutal honesty with each corresponding face. Trigger-happy, glory seeker, imbecile, fat tub of lard always overcompensating for his incompetence, sadist, loser. All those characteristics could be found on that roof in one person or another. I went to stand next to * MORTAR ATTACK GOING ON RIGHT NOW * SGM Walker to get a better view of the car in the distance.
“Look for movement,” he ordered. Just based on the type of people on the roof, I seriously doubted the car was enemy – I knew it would be innocents. I looked at the position of the sun to my back after seeing a passing Hummer’s side view mirror reflect a flash of sunlight.
‘Are you sure you saw a muzzle flash?’ I asked. ‘Look at the position of the sun.’
“No, I’m sure,” Foley answered, “We saw red flashing, it was no reflection.” Then I noticed CSM Wayne standing next to me looking out across at the car. SGM Walker began to excitedly describe how they engaged the car with all they had. CSM Wayne didn’t seem impressed at all. He looked out and squinted his eyes a bit to discern the damage to the car.
“Hmm,” CSM Wayne said, “I watched the whole thing.” Walker kept chuckling about it, but neither Wayne nor I thought it was funny.
‘I can’t believe these people can take life on a whim – what makes this acceptable? I can’t believe we are running this country,’ I thought. Soon, the tanks rolled up to the car to assess the damage. Some scouts went to the car and began to search it. We got a report from the scouts.
“2 dead, 2 wounded,” reported the scouts. Everyone cheered, again bragging about how many rounds they fired, and how they saw their round hit the driver for sure. I felt like I was in some Lord of the Flies nightmare. There’s nothing Christian about this, it’s evil. This is why I have to do something better with my life.
“Did they find a weapon?” Walker asked. I already knew the answer deep down. Many soldiers have “drop guns” hidden in their trucks. If they accidentally kill civilians and innocents, they sometimes plant an AK-47 or pistol in the car. So, some Iraqi parents think their kids spent the last moments on Earth with a gun in their hand firing at troops. Really, it was a halfwit with a gun in his hands shooting their son or daughter by mistake – only to bring shame and dishonor to their memory by planting a gun on the corpse. The scouts searching the white car must have been fresh out of drop guns.
“No weapon found,” the scouts reported.
“Guess they threw it,” SGM Walker said. My gut feeling was they were imagining things – BUT, you never know in Iraq. About 10 guys swear they saw automatic weapons fire from the car. In fairness to the soldiers, I did think it was extremely stupid to be out on the streets during the fight, and I blamed both sides of being victims of each other’s stupidity.
The scout trucks pulled the car into the compound, where it sat for two days with the dead bodies inside. Soldiers went out and fought off the flies to get a peek at the bodies. Soldiers pulled guard and drove through the gate nearby, hardly paying attention to the two dead guests baking in the car.
One man was detained from the car, and a wounded man was brought into our aid station with gunshot wounds, the biggest being in the head. Some soldiers went to the aid station to see the patient as they brought him in. LT Orr was there as the Iraqi died on the stretcher surrounded by U.S. Army medics and onlookers. “I watched someone die today, right before my eyes,” he said to me in a moment of frank reflection. “And it’s strange…I felt no sorrow at all.” He went on to describe the death. “They tried to insert a tube in his throat to help him breathe, but he kept fighting it. He kept trying to breathe, but a bullet entered the back of his head and traveled along his jaw, and stuck in his larynx. This made breathing difficult. I noticed him stop breathing, and the medics continued working on him, but his hands and arms slowly grew lifeless and limp. Then the medics stood back, ‘Time of death, 1615.’ His olive colored skin changed in tone – a grayish tone.”
“That was the most fun I’ve had since I got to Iraq,” I heard soldiers say, among other things. Later that night, the fat Sergeant Albert was bragging in the TOC,
“I put at least 18 rounds in that car,” he said in a repulsive way. “I’m satisfied with that,” he said proudly of himself. I couldn’t take hearing this.
‘What are you proud about?’ I asked him coldly. ‘You killed innocent civilians – one just a kid. What is so great about that?’ Everyone looked at each other nervously. He didn’t reply, but got a stupid fake grin on his fat, disgusting face. ‘I’m just glad I wasn’t there to see it.’
“What do you mean?” he asked. I walked away.
That night Foley and I were talking about it, and Ween came in. They were still hyped about their kills. ‘Guys, it’s really nothing to brag about,’ I said.
“Aw, you just didn’t get any action,” Foley said.
‘Well, I consider myself lucky in that respect,’ I responded. I didn’t want to say anything about him having to live with killing 3 innocent people.

* * *

“The moon is being blotted out of the sky,” one of the tanks reported on the radio tonight.
“What?” we asked on the radio.
“The moon, it’s disappearing!” the tank said again. It had already been a long, strange day, but the moon being blotted out? We went outside and looked to the sky. At exactly 12 a.m. (06 May) the full moon was in full eclipse, on Mohammed’s birthday. It was spooky.
“Did anyone know about this?” SGM Walker asked.
“No, we haven’t heard anything,” Sergeant Edward said. He’s our intel guy. All of a sudden, gunfire rang out across the city and the mosques aired messages. We heard a low “thud,” a mortar launch. It impacted our camp and we ran inside.
“Hey, I hope this isn’t a sign, like Jesus is coming or something – can’t he wait till we get to Germany! I want one last time to get drunk and stoned!” Stiller cried in frustration, but in jest. We laughed. Our days had been so surreal, Jesus coming would not shock us. We laughed.
When I went to sleep, or right before, I looked at the digital photos taken of the two bodies that were still sitting in the car at our gate. I wanted to know who our guys killed. The car was filled with blood on the inside. The older man who was driving the car looked like a passed out drunk, except his arms were torn to bloody shreds and disfigured. Dead, looking asleep – where did his life go? Then I saw a boy in the backseat. He could only, at the oldest, been 15. He sat in the backseat upright, even in death, and had his head turned very naturally to the right. He was riddled with bullet holes in his lower, skinny brown body. A picture taken from the other side showed a peaceful-looking expression, with blood smeared across his face. He looked like a sleeping child, as if you could tap him and wake him up. Now, he was dead, and no one really gave a shit. They celebrated it. “I got 2 kills!” someone would say.
‘Don’t you get it?! They were innocent!!’ I would think. Some mother is out there wondering why her son isn’t coming home tonight. He’s dead, rotting at our gate, in a freak show photo opportunity for G.I.s. It’s so unreal, and this thing called war is so evil. I prayed for those dead Iraqis, and for those soldiers who bragged of killing them.
Despite all of this, I am thinking of you all the time. It’s difficult to call at night because the mortars hit almost every night all around our camp. It is not safe at all to go out. It’s difficult to be upbeat and energetic on the phone when all this is going on, but I try. I love you with all of my heart Nora, I will always.

More information was developing about the incidents at Abu Ghraib prison. Considering the moral decay I had witnessed since December, I was not surprised to see this type of behavior. It angered me though. I thought those soldiers at Abu Ghraib were stupid to be taking pictures of what they were doing. They deserved immediate and heavy punishment. Those clowns, who I detest to this day, damaged morale, damaged the reputation of soldiers who were doing the right thing in Iraq, and mainly offered a major public relations bomb to opposition forces. Those idiots placed the lives of U.S. soldiers at risk – plain and simple. It was also an example of power corrupting those of weak character. In a later Senate hearing on the prisoner abuse scandal, General Abizaid would say the following:
“...and I would also like to add that some of these people that we are dealing with are some of the most despicable characters you could ever imagine. They spend every waking moment trying to figure out how to deliver a weapon of mass destruction into the middle of our country. And we should not kid ourselves about what they are capable of doing to us, and we have to deal with them.”[2] To me, it sounded like he was trying to justify the treatment of the prisoners. He tried to make this easier to swallow by using the worn-out “weapons of mass destruction” catchword. The truth was, while there were many bad people in the prison, there were many who were common criminals. It was also true, and still conceivable, that many prisoners there were awaiting trial and not found guilty of any crime. With corruption in the police departments rife, and miscommunication and confusion within the American POW system, you can almost guarantee that many of those in Abu Ghraib were innocent or relatively harmless. Does Abdulla think we are stupid? How can he justify that treatment? It was wrong, they took pictures of it, and they have to pay the price for their stupidity! Here was an example of the mixed signals the leadership was sending to their troops: It’s wrong, but it’s OK. Abu Ghraib was wrong, but it was also OK because they are people waiting to put weapons of mass destruction in Oklahoma. That is exactly why Abu Ghraib happened in the first place. The generals were touting dignity and respect for others on paper, but their verbal messages and signals betrayed the contrary. The attitude that radiated from Washington D.C. was that of “Do whatever it takes to crush terrorism.” We were no longer the Army of dignity, we were now the “Bring it on” Army.
Much of this aggression stemmed out of anger over the September 11th attacks. Bush said the following:
“The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 – and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men - the shock troops of a hateful ideology - gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the ‘beginning of the end of America.’ By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation’s resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed.”[3]
We made these people out to be terrorists – the Iraqis, the Arabs. Then, when soldiers treated them like dogs, American leadership (many of whom spouted off this WMD/terrorist rhetoric) said that the soldiers misbehaved. Or, as Abdulla puts it, “dealing” with prisoners. What were they saying actually? Where were the soldiers’ minds during all this truth bending?
Bush talks about his war on terror, and capturing Osama Bin Laden, but yet a smalltime gangster like Muqtadr Al-Sadr (a terrorist) ran free in Najaf. His fatwas encouraged Iraqi youth to take up arms against Americans, he encouraged the capture of female coalition soldiers, and his actions lead to the destruction of property and Iraqi life on a massive scale. He ran free, and he runs free to this very day. He is a terrorist with American blood on his hands, the blood of several 3-32 Armor soldiers to count a few.

The car we engaged with the four civilians inside was reported to higher as a vehicle carrying insurgents. The civilian deaths were considered enemy KIAs.

[1] I later saw an advertisement for the Apache helicopter in a military magazine at BIAP. It boasted that the Apache could survive a hail of gunfire and defeat anything the enemy threw at it. Of course, this was a typical military exaggeration. I shook my head and thought about the Apaches that were knocked out in Najaf before my eyes. I was just thankful the pilots got back alive.

[2] www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39851-2004May19.html
[3] http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/iraq/20030501-15.html

Bush Orders Failed Attack on Fallujah in Revenge for Murdered Contractors; Getting to Know the American Mercinaries

2004-05-04T16:45:00.000-07:00

Read more about the uncensored book and see the unique Website with over an hour of free video, museum, and original documents from Iraq. Order the underground book - only a box of copies remain available. See www.american-interrupted.com.

An-Najaf CPA 1645 4 May, 2004

Everything is calm now, a day after intense firefights broke out around our compound in An-Najaf. Yesterday was also the first anniversary of our engagement, and I determined to call you regardless of the danger involved – and even though it sounds exaggerated, it is always dangerous to call. Yesterday’s firefight turned into a small scale battle, one which I found myself in the middle of.
Let me explain the situation. Our task force of around 500 people was chosen to go between the cities of An-Najaf and Al-Kufa, seat of Muqtadr Sadr. We are sitting right in the middle of Iraq’s hottest and most potentially explosive *We’re under mortar attack right now!* city next to Fallujah. Our little 3-32 AR task force somehow found its way here. We were sent here to guard the CPA from attack, as the Spanish were ordered to withdraw by their new prime minister. The compound consists of several buildings *Under mortar attack again* that were a college, as well as some other buildings that were near completion or under construction. Our soldiers have occupied most of the buildings and taken good care of them. The CPA is symbolic of U.S. authority in Iraq, so higher-up says it must be protected. The actual CPA building is a small, 2 story building crawling with contracted security, armed to the teeth, from Backwater Security (the same firm that had 4 of its workers killed and mutilated in Fallujah – sparking the siege of Fallujah last month). It seems there are more security people here than workers, but that possibly hasn’t always been the case. Some other government agencies (CIA, FBI) are operating there too. Some of the hired guns look very young. Many are former Rangers, SEALs, or Special Forces. Some have long surfer hair and diesel-fueled tattoos or long, styled sideburns that flare out at the ends. Some of these guys look very young. You wonder how many people those young, bright, confident-looking guys have killed. They seem to enjoy what they do, but their appearance seems to be more like that of a college athlete and not personal and compound security. Deep down inside, what motivates these guys to come here, simply money, the adventure, or the target rich environment? Some other armed civilians are around our camp too. If looks were any indication of character, a few of these guys would seem dubious, from Backwater or CIA or CPA…whatever. One guy is balding, poor upper body build, black mustache and goatee, always wears a white undershirt and wears a sneering, evil-looking expression. “I don’t know what they are shooting at all the time,” the Spanish commander said to us while talking about the Backwater guys. During mortar attacks, Backwater would launch M203 grenade rounds and machinegun fire into the perimeter areas and surrounding urban areas. There’s no telling how many people have been killed by their indiscriminant fire, but it makes you wonder about every action having an equal and opposite reaction – like the 4 guys killed in Fallujah, maybe they had actually killed several innocent people before ever being killed themselves, and fate caught up with them and made them pay for their sins. In Iraq, there does seem to be a dark force dealing justice to both sides, making each side pay for its sins – only sometimes at the price of good people. “Thou shall not kill,” God says. But once you cross that line into war, you enter a contract of death, with evil. And evil is an adjective to describe dictators, it’s a part of war, the soul of war is evil, and there is no God in war. Once you violate His law, you enter the dark night where only the primitive dwell, only those who reject His law. You must reap what you sew, this saying is so true. I love you Nora, I’ll always do the right thing for you.

The siege of Fallujah, sparked on the orders of George W. Bush in response to the grizzly deaths of several contract security guards, failed. Over 70 Marines died in a knee-jerk attempt to avenge the deaths of civilian mercenaries. Of course, Fallujah had been a problem for a while, but Marines had been dying there for almost a year before these mercs had been killed. Now, a few mercs – first and foremost in Iraq for the action and money – are killed, and Marines are sent scrambling towards the Fallujah to bring the attackers to justice! And because the offense was hastily executed against a radical and capable enemy, the Marines, regretfully, withdrew. I was extremely angry when I heard about the Marine withdraw. Over 70 Marines lost, and we had nothing to show for it, not a goddamned thing. Due to Washington’s demands for immediate revenge, under prepared Marines paid the price. The defeat hurt my morale and the morale of others, for sure. The news of the withdraw came at a time when we needed a victory in Iraq. The Marines are to be feared and respected by the enemy, but when you misuse the Marines, and it results in their demise, it only weakens their full capability to win the mental victory before the fight even begins. Insurgents feared the Marines before Fallujah. Now, the insurgents were emboldened. Why did we start a fight we could not win, and lose power capital? Why was it allowed to happen in the first place? Over civilian contractors?! I wondered why we didn’t overwhelm Fallujah, and secure a strategic and morale boosting victory. We didn’t have enough combat power in the country – that was why. Months later, as Bush campaigned across America, Fallujah was taken successfully – after proper preparation.

Read more about the uncensored book and see the unique Website with over an hour of free video, museum, and original documents from Iraq. Order the underground book - only a box of copies remain available. See www.american-interrupted.com.

Exploring the Abandoned, Bloody An-Najaf Morgue and Listening to Washington's Take on Iraq

2004-04-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

30 April, 2004 2300 An-Najaf Camp Golf

Life is precious, it is. There is something frightening about the reality of war here – so many lives are affected, changed, destroyed, wrecked because of this war in Iraq. It’s good to want to liberate these people, no one can argue against the virtues of democracy when properly and justly exercised, but Bush made a terrible mistake believing Iraq would simply be content following liberation. It seems our government is a hazardous mix of naïve idealists, militants, liars, elitists, and shady industrialists. These people believed they could steer fate, move mountains of human emotions, and manipulate reality with their positive analysis of the situation in Iraq, a candy coated rotting corpse. Today, Marines pulled out of Fallujah, after losing over 80 young men, and perhaps women. Hundreds of Iraqis are reported killed, but death counts are always understated by at least 30%. Now America, the most powerful nation in the world, is running away from an enemy of terrorists, an enemy of sick, violent people infected with radical Islam. I ask, why did we begin a battle we couldn’t win? Why are 80+ Marines dead and countless civilians dead? It’s because our leadership is out of touch with reality – a problem reaching from Fallujah all the way to the Oval Office. What they want to world to be, and what the world is are two very different places, and unfortunately, the gap is widening.
Washington says we don’t need more troops, Washington says Iraqis want freedom, and Washington says the world is a safer place now since the fall of Saddam Hussein Al-Tikriti. I’ve been here for more than a year watching the U.S. create more problems due to low motivation, insensitivity, stupidity, lack of direction and frustration. We had a plan in place to attack Iraq a long time before the war started, the Iraqis had no time to plan for it. They awoke one morning to a wounded Iraq, a broken Iraq, a lawless Iraq. Americans saw this as an adventure, an opportunity to give the gift of Democracy, and maybe even make some people rich or richer. We oversimplified the situation in Iraq. Now, a year later, my headquarters is in the middle of An-Najaf and Kufa, and getting mortared quite frequently, like clockwork, and there is nothing we can do about it – we’re not allowed to shoot back into the source of the attack. It’s a combat exclusion zone. I don’t understand why our government places us at a constant disadvantage – where even the most positive outcomes offer little to hope for. You feel like Bush used us like a shovel and dug himself foolishly into a hole – only to leave the shovel in the hole while he struggles to get out. American leadership is in crisis, therefore, so are we.

When we were camped out on FOB Baker in Najaf, aka “The Alamo”, there was a hospital located on the fortified grounds. The hospital stood several stories and could be compared to a relatively modern hospital in the States. So, it was eerie to walk through the hospital and see abandoned beds and medications laying all around. You could see transposed on the images of broken glass and machines the ghosts of people and patients going about their business. They were just ghosts in my mind though. I did wonder, with this being a big hospital with many beds, where all the patients were. Where were people getting treatment now? Where were the doctors and the nurses? Simply vanished in the vacuum of war I suppose.
The exterior of the building was pock-marked from machine gun bullets. The rumor was the El Salvs and the Spanish took fire from the hospital and returned fire. Who really knows? Peering out of the upper stories of the hospital windows were El Salv soldiers peering out across the fields that surrounded our camps. There was often a sniper team set up on top of the building armed with a .50 caliber sniper rifle. They could put a bullet bigger than a grown man’s thumb in someone a mile or more away. As you approached the hospital from the outside, you noticed the grounds were kept like an American hospital. When you entered the doors of the hospital, you came to a reception desk manned by soldiers sometimes. There was an awful stench that filled the building though. The basement had for one reason or another flooded with sewage from the building. It wreaked terribly, and just the smell was enough to temp vomiting. Some wondered if the dark sludge at the bottom of the basement stairwell contained any bodies. No one doubted that it contained infectious filth. You could just feel the ghosts of the dead and infected creeping into your lungs and polluting spaces deep in your chest.
I have never been granted full access to a hospital, but the anarchy of Iraq made that possible, as in other all access situations I was in. I could tour floor after floor of the hospital as I wished. Some soldiers found wards for female patients, stealing signs from the obstetricians’ floor. I remember some of the artillery soldiers staying with us wandering back with a pair of lifelike latex tits. Must have been for some breast exam class or something. Other soldiers found similar female amusements. Foley and I went over the hospital once looking for an air conditioner. It turned out to be a treasure hunt that took a detour into the macabre and the strange.
We entered a small building with an incinerator and walk-in refrigerator standing outside of the building. We didn’t think much of it. Rumors had it that there was a morgue at the hospital with bodies remaining inside. We entered into a normal office space and saw nothing out of the ordinary at first. The floor of the office was littered with papers. We found an air conditioner in the window and began to rip out the insulation surrounding the window unit. There was no telling if the unit would work or not, and it looked to be a good 20 years old. As Foley and I looked around the room, we noticed two desks. We opened the draws of the desks and found pictures of the very building we were in. In front of the building were a few happy-looking Iraqis that we presumed were the staff of the small building. Where were these people now? It looked as if they left so suddenly, things still left on their desks in place. Foley and I then came across something strange. We found a few Petri dishes sealed with a single band of tape. We picked up the dishes and noticed the tape was labeled in Arabic and that the dishes contained small pieces of metal. A closer look revealed a bullet in each Petri dish. We thought it was strange, but it was only after we found several X-rays that we realized what we were holding. We found some X-Rays and held them up to the light. We could discern an image of a chest cavity and a bright white dot inside the lung area. That was an image of a bullet. We looked at other X-rays and found more images of bullets stuck in anonymous grey phantoms. Some bullets were rifle caliber while others were simple 9mm bullets. We assumed these bullets had killed people, and now we were holding them. What a history they had. Some of the bullets were deformed from impact. We rattled the bullets around inside the Petri dishes and found some more pictures.
We walked around to the backside of the building and found another doorway. Flies were buzzing all around and served as a warning for what lay ahead. What were we getting into? Should we go in at all? Of course, Foley and I went deeper into the building despite my best judgment. I covered my mouth with my salty, dusty sleeve and noticed blood smeared on the tile floor. The air was disgusting. We entered an office room and noticed Iraqi military ID books (maroon colored). We stepped across razor scalpels and more Petri dishes. There were even some syringes on the floor. It looked like a scene out of a horror movie, and the flies continued buzzing all around. We found some mortician’s tools, like a bone saw and other stainless steel oddities that I had never seen before. Foley thought it was amazing while I thought it was disgusting. I was concerned about the environment containing airborne pathogens. We followed some bloody footprints to another room. I will never forget that room. It was a pea green room, tiled from roof to floor. In the middle of the room was a sink in the form of a table. That too was covered in dried blood, lots of it. It looked like the sink was actually an examination table to place bodies on. There were other sinks and stainless steel shelves and gurneys sitting haphazardly around. You could feel death tapping you on the shoulder, and I really had to wonder if there weren’t dead bodies somewhere in that building. Plastic sheeting absolutely covered in dried and coagulated blood lay around the room. I couldn’t understand why blood would be everywhere like that. We found a stainless steel bucket and looked inside. It contained a lump of dark red tissue covered in flies and plastic. Surgical tools lay all around and jars of liquid. Foley discovered another room and called me over. I met him in the dark room and noticed small refrigerator doors. This was where the bodies were stored. The doors were shut, but Foley insisted that we see what was inside. He opened the first door. It was like some fucked up version of The Price is Right. I turned away. Foley opened the first door to find nothing there. We opened the next door and found nothing, just some metal trays they put bodies on. We opened all the doors and found nothing. That’s when we got the creeps and left the building. I felt like I needed to wash that place off of my skin. We carried our air conditioner back to the headquarters as the El Salvs looked on.

CNN Gets a So-called Adrenaline Rush Under Fire, Blow-up Dolls Say Goodbye to Shia Theological Capital, and Life Living in the CPA Mortar Magnet

2004-04-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

Read more about the uncensored book and see the unique Website with over an hour of free video, museum, and original documents from Iraq. Order the underground book - only a box of copies remain available. See www.american-interrupted.com.

29 April, 2004 2200 An-Najaf CPA Camp Golf

It’s a stormy night tonight at the CPA compound we occupied a few days ago. We are actually situated between Kufa, the location of Sadr’s stronghold, and the old city of An-Najaf, site of the Imam Ali shrine – holiest site in Shia Iraq. We call our small camp “The Alamo” – not in total jest, but owing to the sober reality we are positioned to a disadvantage in the center of a potentially explosive situation.
The news of our being moved to this compound from the desert was met with melancholy resignation – because we all knew it made little sense to move into Najaf and risk an escalation in conflict that could potentially turn the Shia population against us, a population that is largely poor and numbering in the millions.
I contemplated my life and you, and thought about how terrible it would be for you if I were to get killed. I thought about the long-term operations, how our battalion will be broken up at various camps around the city, and how our supply lines – especially the guys driving support trucks, will be easy pickings for our local terrorists. I thought it was wiser to evacuate CPA, conduct combat operations, and then reoccupy the CPA once the situation is stabilized. I realized someone higher has other ideas when we rolled onto the highway and headed south from the desert to An-Najaf.
The road march went well. I expected enemy contact, but there was none. I kept a watchful eye for suspicious people, but saw nothing of interest. We eventually rolled up to the Honduran and El Salvadorian base conjoined with Camp Golf. South American soldiers were out and about, lifting weights, picking up trash on the immaculate base, and listening to music on loudspeakers. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” played as we passed though the perfect military village.
We arrived at the CPA compound and noticed all the Spanish army vehicles. We arrived just in time to see them off, as they were ordered to leave by the following day. They wasted no time, as the shaggy, bearded Spaniards busied themselves dismantling their command post and packing away furniture that was purchased with U.S. government money. They seemed cheerful to be leaving, but showed shy faces and downcast eyes whenever passing one of us. The particular unit we were replacing had only been in An-Najaf for a few weeks – we’ve been in Iraq for a year.
I examined our future home and found evidence of mortar attacks, which we were told occurred every night. Some of our Spanish-speaking soldiers translated for our command group and traded with Spanish soldiers. SGM Walker and I were standing near the Spanish enlisted quarters when a boisterous group of bearded soldiers dragged out an African-looking blowup doll and immediately began molesting it for our entertainment. SGM Walker jumped back in shock and hurried towards the exit. I followed him, not expecting to have seen such a display. The soldiers laughed as they brought the doll outside and put her lovingly in a lawn chair. All her faithful admirers gathered around for a group picture. We looked on, “Freakin’ Europeans!”
As the Spanish moved out, we moved what we could in. As night fell, we awaited the explosion of mortar rounds, but all that could be heard were loud booms in the distance. I was on the phone when the first explosions occurred, talking to you. Everyone thought it was a distant mortar attack. I went up on the roof and heard an AC-130 Gunship flying overhead. It was firing at targets in Kufa, Mahadi Army targets. This night, it was a comforting sound. They were getting hit, instead of us getting hit. For the first night in weeks, no mortars hit our compound. * Three explosions just went off – maybe rocket attack 2304 * The Spanish were getting hit every night and they knew the general points of origin, but did nothing. During the AC-130 attack, lasting over 3 hours, I went into the Spanish command post and talked to their terrified-looking captain. I explained to him that an AC-130 was attacking Mahadi army positions. He maintained his fearful expression. The Americans definitely looked like the new sheriff in town and takes out the bad guys. “The Spanish are pussies,” Ali Laundry said as he and I stood on the patio the next day and watched the Spaniards take one last group picture. “Look at them, they did nothing for Iraq, only let Sadr take control of An-Najaf.”
That day, we set up our operations center and moved into our new rooms. ‘Rags to riches, over and over again,’ I said as I laughed and moved my things into mine and Foley’s room. We discovered a nest being well cared for by a pair of finches. I love watching them and their 3 little ones. Right now they are all sleeping.
That night, it seemed no mortars were going to hit, but around 0400, loud explosions woke me from my sleep. I sat up in my cot and noticed our second story room was filled with dust – the shock of the explosions disturbing sandbags and pushing dust through the fabric of the bags stacked in our room along the window. I sneezed and laid back down, even as more explosions went off. The machinegun nest on the top of our roof just over our room began to shoot into the darkness, as did the El Salvadorians in the adjacent hospital. Rifle and machinegun fire went off, and I closed my eyes to go back to sleep. Now, the whole experience seems like a dream. I remember the thunderous explosions just outside, and thinking, ‘Well, nothing I can do about it.’
That day SGM Walker and I went to Camp Baker (about 1 mile away or less and connected to our camp by a small road) to drop off some laundry at Brown and Root. Loud explosions went off, and as we sat in the truck, we saw clouds rising from the ground by our camp. It was a mortar attack. Rounds continued to fall throughout the day.
Last night, no rounds fell, but today mortars landed in our camp several times. I was at the hospital looking for an air conditioner for SGM Walker when several loud explosions went off only 100 meters away from me. It was another mortar attack. The El Salvs opened up with sniper and machinegun fire from a hospital windows into the distance. I looked up to the upper windows and waved to a sniper to let him know I was below and friendly. He waved back and continued firing. I walked over to a group of Hondurans who patted me on the back and said something in Spanish I could not understand. Then they all smiled and showed me bits of shrapnel they found that had just fallen on the asphalt parking lot. ‘Muy Bien,’ I said with a grin. I need to go into more detail about these stories, but right now, I only have one more story to tell until tomorrow, when I’ll detail the past day’s events.
I picked up a CNN camera crew, consisting of a well-know female correspondent, one cameraman, and one producer. I took them over to Camp Baker after they went on patrol with our mortars, who were attacked and sustained one WIA. The female producer sat behind me. “That was such an adrenaline rush, oh my God,” she said. “I haven’t had a rush like that in a long time, I mean, that was amazing!”
‘You are freaking nuts,’ I thought to myself while driving. ‘You’re crazy, you’ve got to be blind to the danger your in!’
The correspondent lady, Jane Sharif of CNN, looked ahead nervously, sitting in the front passenger side. ‘I remember you from Thanksgiving in Baghdad!’ I said over the growling engine.
“Oh yeah!” she laughed, “Camp Muleskinner on Thanksgiving! You were there?!”
‘We’ve been all over!’ I yelled. CNN was at our Thanksgiving dinner and the same crew filmed us and made video clips of soldiers saying hello to loved ones.
I pulled up to let the crew out, and a group of Spanish army armored vehicles stood parked nearby. The soldiers hooted and whistled as the producer lady got out of the truck. ‘Man, they really have no shame,’ I thought. The cameraman got out and began filming the Spanish, by this time holding up flags and cheering.
A Honduran sergeant walked up…I’ll stop there. I need to go to sleep. Hopefully it will be a quiet night, despite the explosions a little while ago. I love you Nora, love you with all my heart. I just want to get home to you!!!

When we arrived at our camp, Sergeant Newsome ordered some articles be thrown out or burned. Some of those articles included bags of children’s clothing and cases of medicine donated by Poland. I told Newsome that we could place it elsewhere until it could be distributed, but he insisted that it be burned and thrown out. I felt like I betrayed the people who donated that material, and the only reason it was being destroyed was because a foolhardy man was placed in its charge. To many, these things did not matter, but for me, I felt distressed in situations like that.

Read more about the uncensored book and see the unique Website with over an hour of free video, museum, and original documents from Iraq. Order the underground book - only a box of copies remain available. See www.american-interrupted.com.

Dirty Desert Conversations, Dry Eyes at Yet Another Memorial Service, General Sancheeze Gets It Wrong (An Insider's Perspective)

2004-04-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

Learn more on the official American, Interrupted website.

22 April, 2004 An-Najaf Desert 1600

All is quiet here in the desert. Soldiers are laying around in the heat and doing very little, as there is little to do and the guys need the rest. It’s hot, and it’s getting hotter. Things start cooling off in the evening as breezes begin to roll across the sands. Over the past few nights, LT Orr, Foley, and I have been building a small fire to cook tea on. I bought an Iraqi teapot that has been working pretty well. I took a coffee can and made a cooking pot as well. Last night, I made some turkey Spam and pineapple and spiced apple cider mix and cooked it all together. It was pretty tasty, and Foley and LT Orr enjoyed it too. Sitting around the fire has been a meditation of sorts since we got here. The other drivers hooked up a TV and DVD player, but it’s a pretty unsatisfying form of entertainment when all they watch are movies for teenagers full of tits and ass. I can’t enjoy something so mindless. The conversation here is pretty mindless too. I feel sorry for people sometimes. Major Ramirez and the others were talking about infidelity in the Army and about sexuality in the crudest ways. “Villarreal,” Major Ramirez said to Villarreal, “no matter what you may think, your mom has sucked a dick.”
“NO SIR,” Villarreal said in shock, “I can’t imagine that!”
“So has your grandmother!” Ramirez went further.
“Not my grandmother!” Barton said. “My grandmother is Sicilian and Catholic, all she does is cook!” he exclaimed. These conversations are always depressing for me, as you see people resigned, or rather embracing, animal-like lifestyles and not finding any deeper meaning in life other than meaningless sex.
Ween told of losing his virginity at age 11, of his best friend cheating and sleeping with Ween’s wife, and of his marital strife and tales of infidelity. “Age 11? Shit, as soon as my daughter turns 14, she’s going on the pill,” one of the guys said. “She can suck dick as much as she wants, but that doesn’t show like pregnancy does.”
“Hell,” Major Ramirez said, “I would be proud to know my daughter is a good lay. You see some little boy hanging around the house waiting for her. As long as she didn’t get pregnant, I wouldn’t care. But after age 14, it would only be hugs with her and me, because you don’t know where that mouth has been!” Everyone laughed and agreed. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
‘What is wrong with these people?!!’ I said to myself. I really couldn’t believe it. It’s sick, and these people are sick, it’s evil. The whole organization is corrupt, unprofessional, immoral, and base. Not everyone, but almost everyone. I don’t get too upset about it, because it makes me more thankful for the life you and I have together, and it makes me want to accomplish more and work as a professional with thoughtful people. I know that may be idealistic, but something better than the Army would be wonderful. Give to the dogs what belongs to dogs, and I do not want to give the Army any more of my time or yours.
2000 – I just returned from the memorial service for SGT Patrick, SGT Glenn, and a soldier from Apache Troop. It was a sad experience, but this time I did not cry. My eyes stayed dry and sandy. Many couldn’t hold back, and I understand that.
CPT Berlin gave a memorial speech for Patrick highlighting Patrick’s courage, in that he volunteered to go into Sadr City as a tank loader when his duty was as a mechanic. He quoted a Roman proverb saying something to the effect that it is just and good and proper to die for one’s country. I remember Patrick as the guy I competed with for the best grade in American government class. Today when I saluted his remains (along the two others’), I touched his dog tags and said, ‘You were the best.’ I said this because in the past I was jealous he beat my grade. That seems stupid now.
Alpha Company took SGT Glenn’s death extremely hard. If the purpose of a memorial service is to help heal wounds, this wound is too large to heal anytime soon. CPT Powers lost his gunner and failed to hide emotion as he spoke of Glenn. Through the simple speech, its simplicity owing to disbelief still lingering and understandable difficulty finding words for such an unexpected death, CPT P made it clear Glenn was of strong character, gifted, and caring. In other words, a soldier of rare quality that should not have died. It was just a loss for everyone, not just A company, but for the future. A soldier speaking about SGT Glenn totally broke down at the podium, and it was painful to see him struggle to speak about his lost comrade. He didn’t speak about the war on terrorism, about our mission, or about patriotism. He spoke only of a senseless death of a good person. At one point in his speech, I worried his words would dwell on the “why” and become too politically incorrect for the distinguished guests, like COL Leroux. COL Leroux grimaced slightly as the soldier spoke. After some minutes, the soldier walked away from the podium and took a seat, then immediately sunk his face into his trembling hands.
The final soldier to be spoken of was PFC Chip Ferguson, of Apache Troop. He was killed in action alongside Glenn and a transportation lieutenant. The Apache commander said some words about Ferguson, and then a soldier went on to speak about him. His words were frank, simple, but healing – at one point saying a somber “Hooah,” to which the guys standing in the crowd from Apache responded “HOOAH.” That really showed the spirit of Apache – they lost a brother, but they weren’t going to let that get to them. They would honor him. The soldier speaking about Ferguson told the following story:
“Once we were on a tough road march, and after we finished, Ferguson came up. ‘Sarge, it took all I had to keep up with you,’ said Ferguson. What I didn’t tell him was that it took all I had to keep him behind me,” the soldier said. That was the best thing I’ve ever heard said at a memorial.
LTC Jagger, our commander, read an e-mail sent to him by the transportation commander involved in the ambush at Diwaniyah. “If it weren’t for the bravery of 3-32 AR, I am certain we would have died. I little doubt at least half of Diwaniyah was shooting at us,” LTC Jagger read, and continued talking about what happened, including how the tanks reacted by breaking tie-down chains and driving right off trailers to attack the town.
In other news, I was fortunate enough to stand only feet away from General “Poncheeze” during a brief given by BG Bishop of 1st Infantry Division, COL Leroux, and a 1ID brigade commander. I stood facing CJTF-7 Poncho, but covered my rank purposely to avoid being asked to leave. He glanced over at me a few times, but didn’t seem bothered that I was there.
All around, intense-looking officers stood around using their best posture. BG Bishop said little during the brief, but the Hispanic colonel spoke volumes. Poncheeze would lean back in his metal folding chair with the front legs off the ground and his hands casually hanging by his sides, occasionally coming up to stroke his chin in deep thought, or before delivering his wisdom to an eager group of idealistic and naïve young officers. Many of his sentences began with, “Now I may be wrong here,” and other inspiring intros like, “I really don’t know, but,” and similar phrases. He stroked his chin and leaned back while the black colonel spoke to him with exaggerated enthusiasm and facial expressions, carefully adjusting the pitch of his voice. It reminded me of a clown talking to a child. BG Bishop stared ahead and looked agitated with the colonel’s manner. Colonel Leroux looked ahead looking absorbed in his thoughts. Poncho listened seeming to have little interest in the colonel’s rambling. All the young officers looked as if they were pondering everything spoken, even though nothing new or remotely intelligent had been said.
The general looked up at the plasma screen TV on the wall that displayed a slideshow that some orderly undoubtedly spent hours working on with extra flashy stars and arrows. “Next! Next! Next! What kind of intel do we have on Sadr?” Poncho asked. A captain stepped forward.
“Sir, we’ve identified most buildings associated with Sadr,” he said before the general interrupted.
“What about TV and radio?” asked Poncho.
“They control a radio station and TV station,” replied the captain.
“Can you jam the signal?” asked Poncho.
“Yes,” the captain said before going into technical details about what system would be needed to do so, which wasn’t in the area.
“What about phone conversations?”
“Sir, most of it has been positive. A lot of it is about the move out of Baghdad, the extension, but overall, the soldiers are being positive,” the captain said confidently. I knotted my eyebrows in confusion.
‘What the hell is he talking about?’ I thought.
“No,” the general said shutting his eyes, “not our soldiers. Sadr. What is Sadr saying? Have you been able to monitor phone traffic?”
“No, Sir,” the captain responded. I couldn’t believe these people are in control of Iraq. The only extraordinary thing about them is the amount of power they wield, and nothing more.
“Now, I may be wrong here,” Poncho said with his hand on his chin, “but I don’t think this is an open rebellion. I don’t think we are having trouble with the Shia. We need to get out and identify and speak to leaders in Najaf. We’ve got to make them realize this is their problem and their future. Sadr is an enemy of the Iraqi people,” he said to everyone. “We’ve got to stay in contact with hostile forces and defeat them, but not become decisively engaged. We must be brutal. If they shoot from a mosque, then it becomes a military target…JDAM[1] it, I don’t care.” Everyone nodded. There was some civilian woman in a long dress with frizzy hair sitting behind Poncho taking notes and nodding in agreement with everything he said.
“I’m not sure, but Najaf is the holiest city to the Shia. What we don’t want here is to open up a two front war. Our main effort is Fallujah,” Poncho explained.
Najaf is in fact the most important site in Iraq for Shia. Only Mecca and Medina are more important. You wonder if the military cares about that or not. When they talk about Najaf, it’s only as a military objective. The reality is that it’s a holy place, and could create problems for us over time. All this over one guy and a group of his thugs. We’ve got to develop a different way to handle individual rouges. Full scale military operations get civilians killed and Arab media uses that against the U.S. You don’t send soldiers to win hearts and minds – that’s not their purpose. I love you Nora. I’m dreaming of you!

“We’re supposed to be going home, not dying,” a soldier told me as we talked about the ambush in Diwaniya. When I was listening to the stories about the ambush, I felt lucky that I was in the first convoy through the town. They must not have been expecting us. By the time the other convoys moved through, they had set up their ambush positions and roadblocks. Driving around the sandy parking lot we called FOB Duke, I noticed a HETT with the words, “HETTS DON’T DIE, THEY MULTIPLY!” written on its nose with chalk.

[1] Joint Defense Attack Weapon, modified iron bomb with smart guidance system.

Learn more on the official American, Interrupted website.

Arrival Outside of Najaf, Ambush in Diwaniyah, Iraqi Roadkill ?

2004-04-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

20 April, 2004 (I think) 20 km North of Najaf 2140

A sandstorm is blowing hard across the desert here, and another storm is forming. Assad used to call the war a “storm” when he spoke of the Marines coming through Babylon last year. The storm I say is forming is the imminent attack on An-Najaf that is now in the planning stages. It is becoming chillingly clear 3-32 is going to be part of the main effort into one of the holiest cities in Shia Islam. It’s surreal to me, to be caught up in such a situation, but it’s real, and I trust in God. I remember receiving a blessing still so important to me at the Vatican. “May God make you and instrument of peace,” I was told, and found comfort in that blessing. It’s so incredible to find myself in this position, in the middle of a guerilla war that has exploded right when I should be going home, and watching men plot an attack in which so much is at stake. I am deeply worried, but I have faith I will make it back home, and never forget these events.
Our march from Al-Kut to An-Najaf was long, taking us across barren desert, through Babylon, across the Euphrates, and to a former Republican Guard base in the middle of a sandy desert 20 km north of Najaf. I can see Najaf on the horizon, and the space between is a desperate peace I feel all too soon with shatter.
Our road march lasted 6 hours, and we had no enemy contact, except for the lead scout vehicle that took a sniper’s bullet through the passenger’s-side windshield – we had only traveled 10 kilometers into the trip or so. I scanned all the palm groves along the way and fully expected to take enemy fire. Many parts of the route took us through urban areas, crowded markets, and traffic jams. People looked at us with arms crossed and blank stares.
After we crossed the Euphrates, we headed south towards Najaf. The southbound road was closed due to marching pilgrims going to Ali shrine. They walked carrying flags, young and old, men and women. Southbound traffic had to go cross over the median and travel south on the northbound road using one of its two lanes. So, we traveled south and encountered no problems, no ambush, no IEDs.
All of a sudden, I noticed Foley’s truck swerve in front of me and I pulled off to the side of the road to avoid hitting the object in the center of the road that he swerved to avoid. ‘Oh God,’ I said.
“What?” SGM Walker asked. Before I could answer, we were both getting out of the truck because we saw what it was. I grabbed my medical kit.
“Medic!” someone screamed. A man lay lifeless in the middle of a pool of blood. I ran up to the figure and felt a swell of sorrow in my heart and my eyes strained hard to hold back tears.
‘He’s dead,’ I thought. A medic ran up immediately and I turned around to secure my truck. Ali Laundry was riding in my truck, so he went over to help treat the man. He began to slap the bloody head of the man. The body began to show signs of life. I stood back and watched the man’s chest struggle to breathe. Pilgrims began to stand around and watch the drama. Traffic was rerouted so a big scene would be avoided.
SSG Siegel walked up smiling, finding some sick humor in finding a badly injured Iraqi lying on the asphalt in his own blood with a gashed skull. “Is he dead?” he asked happily.
‘He’s not dead yet,’ I responded carefully.
“Guess he shouldn’t have been walking in the street,” he joked. I was about to tell Siegel to get away from me and go back to his truck. I didn’t have to, he went on to busy himself raising his shotgun waist level at oncoming traffic and seemed quite content intimidating the oncoming, nervous drivers and passing pilgrims. Lots of the soldiers found it funny. I respect human life, and I saw a bashed pilgrim grimacing with a head ripped open. The scouts brought a stretcher over and set the man on it. He immediately vomited blood. An Army ambulance pulled up and began to treat him. He was like a terribly wounded animal. Ali stopped a van passing by and asked the occupants to take the man to the hospital in Najaf. They agreed. Two boys stood by with teary eyes. The man was their uncle. Ali gave them $1.
It turned out, our lead scout truck struck the man with their side view mirror at 40 miles per hour. He had his back to our convoy and didn’t see us coming. Johnson was driving and said the man stepped out in front of him. I couldn’t believe we hit a pilgrim. Having made a pilgrimage to Rome a year ago, I felt a faint bit of solidarity with the people walking so far in sandals. ‘I’ve got to get out of the Army,’ I told Ali as I poured water on his bloody hands so he could wash them.
“Don’t worry Thompson,” he said, “I know you don’t like this. It’s fucked up, but you and me can’t change it.” We continued to our camp.
We got to our camp and found nothing but desert and three toilets for about 2,000 soldiers. We set up camp and soon it became clear we weren’t there to hang out – we were there to prepare an attack on An-Najaf.
The convoy that came in later that night brought our tanks on HETT trucks. It came under heavy ambush in Diwaniyah. I couldn’t believe it. Two of our guys got killed. Both were hit with gunfire in the town center and bled to death. One HETT truck was totally destroyed. Everyone returned heavy machinegun fire. Some of the tanks started their engines and broke free of their HETT trailers and drove onto the road, breaking the tie-down chains, and then engaged the town. “All I know is a lot of civilians died,” Villarreal said to me. “A few main gun rounds were fired and everything was shot up. When we left, the town was burning, and ambulances were everywhere.” That is one of many stories. The convoy was hit heavy, but they laid waste to the area. Somehow, we’ve allowed the Sadr Mahadi Army to turn our soldiers into barbarians. It’s a difficult situation, because the Mahadi Army is using civilians as shields. CPT Powers lost his gunner.
Today, I stood behind COL Leroux, Brigadier General Morelli and the 1ID commanding general as they got their brief on the An-Najaf operation in our burnt-out TOC building. Some British press from Reuters stood by. I realized we were going to attack An-Najaf. I couldn’t believe it. Many would die, all because of Sadr. I’ll get more into this later.
I went out to our command center and found out some Apache scouts got hit on an unauthorized patrol near Sadr’s Kufa mosque. They abandoned a Hummer at the site they were attacked after pulling two wounded soldiers from the blown up truck. I watched the medivac chopper fly in. The field ambulances pulled up and then sped back to the medical clinic next to our command post.
I watched as medics pulled out one stretcher with a limp, bloody soldier laying on it. He didn’t look too good. His lower body was covered in deep maroon blood. The second ambulance pulled up and the medics pulled out a bloody, black soldier with pressure bandages on his torn legs. He cried loudly in pain. I couldn’t believe my eyes – but I knew this was only the beginning.
Nora, I need you, and all I want is to come home safely and into your arms. I’ve been thinking so much about life, and our life. I love you, and I love our life together. I pray to come home to you soon. I need you. I’m sitting in my truck now, and a sandstorm is raging outside in the blackness on the other side of the windshield glass. I’m going to walk to the phone to call you now. I love you always!

Seeing the wounded soldiers was a poignant reminder of how dangerous that hornet’s nest was. The patrol was not authorized to approach the Kufa Bridge in the first place. Attempts were made to locate the truck and blow it up with an Apache helicopter or F-16 fighter jet. The truck was lost though, only to be seen on television later. Items were later recovered from the truck during a shootout with a house that had a crude bunker system inside.
When we arrived in the Najaf desert (FOB Duke), there were only a few hard buildings on the site of the former Republican Guard ammo depot. It was nothing but desert. More and more vehicles began arriving at the dusty FOB as the day progressed. There were only two plastic portapotties for the few hundred men on the site. As time passed, more toilets came, and more piss tubes were planted. We erected a sleep tent later, but I preferred to sleep in my truck. God we were dirty.
I was more stressed as time went on. It had much to do with hearing some soldiers boast about their kills. I thought it was insane. I wrote in my journal, ‘The Army makes use of and channels what would otherwise be criminal behavior using people who would otherwise be no more than criminals.’ Of course, the exception is never the rule.

The Wait to Move to Najaf, Letters from the Grave, and Ali Explains Why Iraqis Don't Like Jews (But It's Lost on Us)

2004-04-16T16:00:00.000-07:00

16 April, 2004 0400 Al-Kut

‘Tell him this is for him and his family,’ I told Ali Internet to tell the shopkeeper while I handed the man some money. Some of the squatters at the TV station opened a little store to sell things to the soldiers. Since we showed up, several of them have been working for us to make some money. We also employed a local plumber to install water pipes, real toilettes, and two showers. One thing is for sure, we leave most places better than we found them when we live in them.
I just got up to pull radio watch from 0400-0500 in the TOC. I’m in a radio studio full of big mosquitoes – hairy mosquitoes, and smart mosquitoes. I just got one. Usually they fly away too fast. Like I said, we are in the Al-Kut radio station part of the TV station complex. Showing a bit of humor (as always), our S-2 intelligence analysts have a sign in the Plexiglas studio window that separates the broadcast room from the office room that reads, “The Morning Show with Steven and Rick,” and “LKUT, Rockin’ Al-Kut!” It’s pretty funny.
I’m tired right now and all I want is to talk to you. I miss your voice. I love your voice Nora, I love you. I wonder how you are doing in France. Tonight I couldn’t sleep at all. I listened on the shortwave and heard that Al-Sadr is being reported as missing. I jumped out of bed and told the LTC and everyone else. “Well,” he said, “I guess we’re going to Najaf to find him.”
Tonight I jumped on the CIA’s website to access the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, or FBIS. It always has a lot of breaking news articles from around the world with lots of good information. I got the idea that I would print out a lot of articles and start leaving them around our TOC on laptop keyboards so maybe some of our great officers would read about what’s going on on the road to An-Najaf and in Iraq in general, instead of playing video games. My plan worked, and soon, everyone was sitting around reading the printed articles – even Knight 6. There’s a lot of bad stuff going on in Iraq.
Tonight I prayed and thought about death again. SSG Stockton lay in bed and wrote a letter, even though we’ve got no mail service. I wondered if he was writing one of those “If I die…” letters. ‘I’m not writing any letters from beyond the grave,’ I thought. ‘I’ve got to have more faith.’
We’re going to An-Najaf soon, and into the heart of the Shia theological capital. We won’t actually go into the city, but we’ll join up with other units surrounding the city already. That idiot Poncho (AKA “Poncheeze”) keeps saying, “Our mission is to capture or kill Al-Sadr.” That’s pretty damn smart right now when Iraq is teetering on mass chaos. A raid or assault on Al-Sadr in An-Najaf would spark a fire difficult to handle. I can’t believe Poncho is running Iraq with Bremer. As our 1AD commander, I remember him well in Germany for his uninspiring and disappointing speeches that I perceived as lacking real intellect. Year or two later, the man is running military operations here.

We were living in strange days at this point. We had no clue what our future held, how long we would be in Iraq, when this was all going to end. It really felt like we were starting all over again in Iraq as we occupied buildings and lived out of our trucks. I remember going on a night mounted patrol through Al-Kut with the staff. We drove around town, conducting a “presence patrol.” That means we drive around town, look at people, and drive away. For the people, that meant they stopped what they were doing for a few seconds until we passed. In Al-Kut, the faces weren’t smiling at us. As we went down one neighborhood street, our tall vehicle antennas were breaking the decorative light bulbs that were strung across the streets. I watched as line after line of lights fell to the ground or went black. Here we were, driving through the streets to gain respect, and we’re pulling their lights down. We weren’t doing it on purpose, we were just being clumsy – and it sure didn’t make us look any better. LTC Jagger noticed this after we drove down a few blocks, and we all pulled over to tie our antennas down lower. I’ll never forget the way those people looked at us.
Word came down that we were moving to Najaf. We needed some more transportation assets for the TOC, and ideally one extra civilian truck for Ali Laundy and Internet Ali so they could better do their deal making with the locals. There was a ministry compound just outside of Al-Kut, so several of the staff went to the compound to confiscate some trucks for us to use for our move to Najaf. I remember pulling into the compound and seeing a large fleet of brand-new midsize pickup trucks and several brand-new lorries. There had to be over 100 trucks, fresh from the factory. Several ministry officials spoke with the staff and shook their heads. Their body language simply communicated agitation with the Americans. The apparent boss kept shaking his head at the American requests. While we were waiting for staff to complete their mission, Ali Laundry and I poured over a large map of Iraq. He explained why the Iraqis hate the Jews. He told some story about a Jewish king in Iraq who had the head of an Iraqi warrior plated in gold. I can’t remember the stories anymore, and they were hard to follow at the time, but it was fascinating the history (either real or invented) that some Iraqis employed to explain their distrust of Jews. The hostility went back thousands of years. While Ali explained this, Foley, a Jew, listened intently.
Towards the end of Ali’s story about Jews in Iraq, Sergeant Major Walker walked back over to our truck. “Let’s go,” he said to us. We folded the sergeant major’s trophy map and jumped in our trucks. We wouldn’t get any extra vehicles. The compound supervisor refused to hand over the keys for the vehicles. I assumed that we would just take the trucks, but in the end, the Army respected the authority of the ministerial office. We went back to the TV station and packed our trucks for the road march to Najaf.

Turning Into A Soldier; Jesus is Coming (so rumor has it in the headquarters)

2004-04-15T18:00:00.001-07:00

15 April, 2004 1800 Al-Kut TV Station

We’ve gotten word that we’ll be moving again – this time to An-Najaf, one of the holiest cities in Islam. We’ve got another long road march ahead of us through hostile territory. An-Najaf is the suspected hideout of Mutadr Al-Sadr and second focus of U.S. forces next to Fallujah. I can only get spotty news reports from my shortwave from China and France, some BBC, and one bible radio station out of the U.S. with a preacher frantically preaching against immorality and the U.S. and the inevitable coming of Jesus. “God, I hope Jesus doesn’t come while we’re here,” Murphy said as we listened to the preacher. We were listening because the station just finished playing Bush’s State of the Union address.
‘Yeah, if Jesus comes back, I hope he waits until after we get back to Germany,’ I said.
“If we ever get home,” replied Murphy.
Today, nothing much happened. The best part was being able to call you! You were on the bus to France, or already in France, I think. I didn’t want to tell you that we were moving again, but I had to just in case you didn’t hear from me for a while. It was so good to hear your voice, even though it was only for 5 minutes. I hope you are OK and staying strong. All I want is to come home to you Nora, I’ve never wanted something so bad in my life, and I never thought the stakes could be so high just to get home. It feels like we’ve been playing Russian Roulette for the past year. You think you’re used to it, and then you got to collect yourself for another road march, and another length of time you do not know the length of.
Rumors circulating now say Bush wants 1AD out of Iraq and back home by June 30. I haven’t been able to confirm that. I’m not getting my hopes up at all though. Today I went with the LTC to Camp Delta. Sitting there in the sun, you look at our trucks and look at our faces and realize we’ve turned into soldiers. Not the spit shined, wet behind the ears, U.S. Army dog and pony show soldiers, but just soldiers – the kind we imagined our elders were long ago, but in more definable wars – Vietnam, WWII. ‘So this is what it’s like,’ I thought.

Moving Again, Digging Through Coalition Provisional Authority Junk, Kill 300 and Call the Wife

2004-04-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

14 April, 2004 1830 Al-Kut TV Station

After many tired days and a move to Al-Kut, 3-32 has gotten word we may have to move again to another location north on the Tigris. The situation in Iraq has become critical. Our supply trains have been slowed by bridges being blown and steady attacks on KBR convoys and coalition convoys in general. I miss you Nora, I hurt inside for waiting to hear your voice and talk to you and tell you I love you. I love you so deeply Nora, I only live for coming home to you. I miss you Nora, so much.
The Friday before Easter or so, rumors were spreading that orders were being drawn up to send us to Fallujah. Our camp was under random mortar fire for the past 5 days. One mortarman even drove up on the other side of the river behind our perimeter and started firing at will on our base. He fired two rounds that overshot us, and no one really paid attention to the blasts. The mortarman then adjusted his fire from the first two rounds and fired about 5 more rounds 8 minutes later that landed along our fence line. Some guys on the roof of the HHC barracks calling on their satellite phones watched the rounds impact and couldn’t return fire because the mortarman was firing from a residential area. They watched as the man packed up his mortar equipment in the back of his car and drove off.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY ARE FIRING AT WILL ON US!” Captain Nash yelled in the TOC, furious we couldn’t do anything to counterattack. I’ll go into details about the events of the week of the battle of Sadr City.
The LTC called us in for a meeting to tell us we weren’t going home. I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked. Right when we thought we were going home, we were told we weren’t going home and we were going to conduct combat operations. Sadr’s army had pretty much taken southern Iraq and full scale combat was raging in Al-Fallujah. We were told we had to go south to Al-Kut and take control of the city.
Foley and CPT Smalls left on Friday to go back to Germany as part of the advance party. Foley was bragging that he was leaving early even thought I told him that was less than an honorable thing to do given the situation.[1] He and CPT S left and I worried for their safety. After we got word that we were to be extended, we were told advance party would not fly to Germany and would return from BIAP the next day. We would leave for Al-Kut on Easter. I had been fasting for Lent and eating no meat. I considered getting one good meal in before Easter at the DFAC, but decided not to break my fast. If Jesus could face a painful fate and go through so much suffering, I could go without meat or candy or soda for another few days.
I was worried about going to Al-Kut. I was concerned about Iraq falling apart, and I felt ashamed to be a part of it. Remember, I do think we were doing a good thing here at first, but it became clear how we were doing it was flawed severely. And our decisions since Sadr City have been mind boggling. I must detail this later though. There is so much to detail, but things are busy right now, and I am limited on time.
Our road march to Al-Kut lasted 3 hours, but it seemed like 15 minutes to me. All I could think of was you. I miss you terribly. I was expecting an ambush or IED attack, thought Easter would be a particular day to die. I had faith I would live though.
1-7 IN had fought into Al-Kut and AC-130s pounded the CPA complex that was held by Sadr’s army. When we arrived in Al-Kut, things were relatively calm, some people waved, most just looked blankly at us. I didn’t wave too much, I was watching the alleyways and rooftops. Al-Kut looked beautiful though, with lush, green marshes and a placid-looking Tigris.
We were going to an airbase south of the city occupied by the Ukrainians. Those same Ukrainians were the ones that fled the CPA compound and left it open to Sadr’s militia to overrun. It was a symbolic victory for Sadr. “Through these arches pass Iraq’s finest,” read a sign at the ICDC building our battalion occupied. ‘Bullshit,’ I thought. Iraq’s finest were nowhere to be seen. I started unloading my truck and then prepared for our recon of the CPA complex across the Tigris.
I put Coldplay’s A Rush of Blood to the Head CD in and we drove into Al-Kut. It was eerie. I felt like I was in South Carolina because of the way the marshes and rivers looked, but there were indications violence had taken place a short time before our arrival.
We pulled into the CPA compound, a hotel, and noticed it was partially destroyed. It was pounded by an AC-130 gunship. Many CPA employees’ things were still lying around the grounds, suitcases, clothes, beer cans, among other things. Ali (laundry) scavenged around picking up the items. ‘Put that shit down, it isn’t yours,’ I told him. He was getting on my nerves. He’s a brownnosing, double-crossing Iraqi you can’t trust.
“But maybe you ask Sergeant Major and he’ll let me,” Ali said like a twitching coward, a snake.
‘Put it down, it doesn’t belong to you,’ I told him again. He sighed and put it down and pouted. I couldn’t believe it, it was a year after I deployed, and I felt like someone flipped the hourglass over on me. It seemed like the first day I got to Baghdad, walking through abandoned buildings again, walking through rubble, ash, burning plastic and wood. ‘I can’t believe this,’ I thought, ‘we’re starting all over again.’
We went to the Ukrainian barracks next to the CPA, and it was abandoned too. We went inside and found the place ransacked. Uniforms lay all around, food still sat on dinner tables, family photos and maps of Ukraine hung on walls next to bunk beds. It was a mess, and you could tell it was abandoned frantically. SGM Walker and I walked around a corner and found a sergeant major and a first sergeant stealing uniforms and other items from the barracks. They were obviously caught off guard and started fumbling with their words.
“What’s that?” SGM Walker asked.
“Um, we’re stealing shit,” the other sergeant major said pretty frankly, but nervously. They were embarrassed. We continued to look around the building, not taking anything. Ali stayed back with the truck after figuring out he wasn’t going to be allowed to loot anything.
I need to go to sleep now, but briefly, here is our present situation. We don’t know what is going on day to day. We are living in an occupied TV station. The situation outside is unclear and rumors are circulating that we are moving again. I can only pick up bits of news from Vatican Radio and Chinese Radio Service on my $10 shortwave radio. A general feeling of being forgotten is shared by a lot of soldiers, feelings of disbelief. We don’t know when we are going home, and we’ve done a year – almost. We trusted our service would be used in a way that wouldn’t require us to stay for undetermined amounts of time. It’s a big sacrifice for this country – Iraq. Hopefully we’ll find out when we will go home soon. I love you Nora, when I think of coming home to you, I can’t believe how much like heaven it seems. How we live, where we live, our love, our faith. I’ve really come to realize here, and more over the past few months, that you bring me closer to heaven than I could ever imagine, and I won’t forget that when I get home to show you how thankful I am for all you are sacrificing and doing for me. I love you with all my heart. I will not let you down – not after all of this. I love you Nora, always.

Specialist Dudley, a former S-3 soldier, ran to me after seeing me in the battalion building. He had been transferred to a tank company before we deployed to Iraq and I seldom saw him. I was thankful for that. He was dumb, spoke with a slurred country accent, and lied compulsively about almost everything. He once claimed to have a commercial pilot’s license. I was hard on him when he was in my shop, so he was eager to show me he was succeeding in his tank company. “Guess what Thompson!” he yelled, out of breath.
‘What is it?’ I answered, wondering what it could be.
“I got me one in Sadr City! I hit ‘em right between the eyes with my 240 (M240) and saw his head explode!” he proclaimed excitedly, waiting for a response.
‘I’m glad to see you finally found something you’re good at, Dudley,’ I told him. He looked at me with a confused look on his face. I walked off, and felt like everyone was going insane. It wasn’t the first confession I would hear. Sergeant Albert was another S-3 flunky who would go on to do great things. He explained to me, in a tone of confession, that he would “play” with the enemy gunmen with his tank. The tanks have thermal sights which allow the gunner to see warm objects (like Sadr thugs) in the night. Apparently, Sadr’s men didn’t respect this technical detail. They would creep around the dark streets with weapons, thinking the tanks couldn’t see them. Albert would sit patiently behind his gunner’s sight and wait for the opportune time to pick one off.
“They would sneak around with weapons and hide behind donkey carts in the road,” he explained. “The whole time, they thought we couldn’t see them! So, we let them take up their positions in the road. I would fire a burst of coax to the right, and then to the left of them. They would hide behind the carts and play dead. So, I would wait and wait. Sooner or later, one would move from behind the carts. That’s when I nailed them with coax. It was fucking crazy. Then some men would run from the alleys and drag the bodies away – one after another.”
‘You didn’t shoot the guys dragging the bodies away?’ I asked.
“Na, they weren’t a threat. We would only take guys out when they had big weapons,” he replied. There were all kinds of stories about the militia men running past the tanks, only feet away, to stay out of the tank’s firing range. One redneck Staff Sergeant openly bragged about killing over 300 people alone. In line at the morale phone, he bragged that he shot everyone he could see through his scope. He then went on to call his wife.

[1] This was an emotional time in the deployment. I felt like Foley was abandoning me when he should stay the course. I would miss him. When he and Smalls went to the airport, they had to return to base a short time later, coming under RPG fire while sitting in the back of a 5-ton truck riding along the infamous stretch of freeway that links the airport to Baghdad city. They had to run a gauntlet in one of the worst times we had seen in Baghdad. Flags symbolizing Shia pride flew from every housetop.

From Bad to Worse: 1st Armored Division Extended, Friends Fear for My Life and We Pack Up for Al-Kut and the Unknown

2004-04-08T02:00:00.001-07:00

Read more and see free video at http://www.american-interrupted.com.

* Early morning 08 April, 2004 0200

“Thompson, you must be very, very careful,” Haider told me very seriously tonight. “You are my brother, and I am worried about you.”
‘I know Haider, thank you,’ I answered, fully aware that Iraq is on the brink of total chaos. ‘Pray to Allah for me,’ I told him. He grabbed my hand and became gravely serious,
“I will Thompson, I will.”
Personally, I am morally opposed to the tactics we are using, because the victims of our attacks are going to be ordinary Iraqis – and every time the rebels coerce us into violence, we answer them in violence. It’s a cycle of violence that is only going to breed more destruction and upset the psychological balance here and spread desperation. We are doing exactly what Sadr wants – what Al-Qaeda wants – what Iran wants. It’s a big joke for everyone here.
Zone 23 is a pretty stable zone, but we sent tanks and scouts into the place to draw fire from gunmen. “If you have too much fun out there, I may have to pull you and go out there myself next time,” Knight 6 said. What he was saying was if any action unfolds, he wants to get a chance to get some confirmed kills. SSG Newsome and Foley asked to go out with our two headquarters tanks so they could get a chance to kill some gunmen and get bragging rights. Normally, these guys are office idiots, and not even good at that. It almost seemed we wanted to stir up trouble in a zone we haven’t had serious trouble with! Had gunfire erupted, innocent people could have been killed and property destroyed. For what? A few gunmen? It seemed we wanted to throw gas on a fire. I don’t understand this! Accelerate the chaos! Earlier, I asked why we don’t withdraw from Sadr City and cordon it off and seal it off and let them (Sadr Army) gather to no avail. It’ difficult to have a boxing match when only one player shows up. And if the Sadr Army wants to fight, they’ll have to do so along the edges of the city – and be engaged. Seal off, cool off, negotiate. Whoever wants to fight will be engaged after that. We need more air coverage. All of our air coverage and much of our radar coverage (used to alert us to incoming mortar rounds) and half of our tanks are in Kuwait. Sent there to make our redeployment easier to manage. Wishful thinking. In Fallujah, we are waging all out war. Even though American rules of engagement are generally held to, the media covers only the bombing of a mosque, and not the fact that gunmen mount attacks from the mosques. It’s a very serious situation. Many innocent lives are being wrecked, and not due to being hit by bullets, but because the perception is that chaos is upon us and Americans are to blame.
We, 3-32 AR, are now at war, and we may be moving to Al-Kut in southern Iraq next to Iran. The Ukrainian army retreated from the city, and we may have to retake it. Rumsfeld says we may have to stay longer. It’s a total nightmare – especially only days before getting to go home. I’ve got to sleep now, but Nora, I love you so strongly. I can’t wait to get home and live in peace. I want to get a nice place for us after this, and I’m going to work hard to do it. I love you, and I pray to God for peace and wisdom to come down on Bush – before this turns helpless.

I don’t know if they played a part or not, but Zone 23 became less hospitable after a series of unfortunate events. One event was the already mentioned shooting of an Iraqi youth. That didn’t help our image there at all. One day I was looking at our map board, and noticed that much of the hostile activity (cursing, rock-throwing, etc.) occurred on the north east corner of the sector. It just so happened that right across the highway from that area was our explosive ordinance disposal (EOD) disposal site. Everyday, several times a day, EOD would detonate captured explosives on the Al-Rasheed airfield. This would rock the immediate area and send people running into the TOC with the question, “Was that a controlled blast!?” We usually had forewarning about the blasts, but what about the Iraqis? Their neighborhoods were only half a mile away from the blast site. These were big explosions, and they certainly caused damage to the surrounding areas (the shock was routinely able to bust out windows and bring ceiling panels down). There had to be some negative effect on the local population. The population closest to the blast site was that of Zone 23.

A few days before Easter, Lieutenant Colonel Jagger called us all together in the auditorium of the barracks to tell us that we weren’t going home as planned. I think at that point, many of us stopped thinking about going home all together. We would get there when we got there. I felt like I was cursed. I was supposed to go home in February so I could transfer out of the Army. That was canceled due to the “stop loss” and then cancelled again because of the uprising. Later I would find myself still in the Army well past my end-of-contract date. No one really complained though. It was understood that we had a serious problem on our hands, and no one was going home until that problem was reduced. In the meantime, Sadr’s misfits were running about sabotaging bridges and seizing key community facilities. In the south, our “coalition of the willing” seemed a bit unwilling to defend their assigned territories. The Spanish withdrew from many of the urban areas they were tasked with protecting, seeking shelter in their own compounds. In Najaf, the Spanish were slow to assist several El Salvadorian soldiers who were pinned down in a warehouse facility. One El Salv corporal hid in the shadows as Sadr’s thugs overran the facility and hovered over the dead body of one of the corporal’s comrades. The corporal then pulled his knife out and engaged the terrorists in hand to hand combat. He successfully neutralized the threat just as reinforcements arrived. We developed a real respect for the El Salvs.
Not much could be said about the Ukrainians. They were in charge of the eastern city of Al-Kut, which they abandoned when fighting there became dangerous. It seemed our coalition partners weren’t willing to walk the walk. The Americans were forgiving though, reminding us that the Ukrainians were only their as peacekeepers and not peacemakers. After conferring with Kiev, the Ukrainian army pulled out of Al-Kut – claiming direct combat was not authorized. Iraq needed to be brought under control, especially southern Iraq. With coalition partners opting out of combat, it would be the Americans and the British (primarily) who would have to pacify the situation. Tanks were being brought back to Iraq from Kuwait. Helicopters were being unwrapped from their shipping covers in Kuwait. Their pilots were on the way back to Iraq after arriving home in the States for only a short while. Meanwhile, 3-32 Armor was packing up and getting ready to go to Al-Kut. Word was out that we needed Iraqi translators, anyone, to go with us to Al-Kut. Many Iraqis refused, saying it was too dangerous. The battalion offered to increase pay by several fold for any Iraqi who went with us. Only three volunteered, Ali Laundry, Ali Internet, and Sergeant Haider (Assad’s cousin).
We left on Easter Sunday. I remember thinking that would be a terrible day to die. With the situation in Iraq coming to a boil, the likelihood of encountering death seemed to have skyrocketed. The land seemed deadly. We lined up our trucks to convoy out. I ran quickly to say my last goodbyes to my Iraqi friends. They were all very scared for me, especially Haider and Assad. Assad had made me two steel plates to strap to my body. One plate covered my calf muscle, and the other one covered my thigh. He gave the plates to me and said, “I never though I would be worried this much about you, but I am very afraid they are going to try to kill you Thompson. Take this, I made it. I used this in Iran-Iraq war.” My eyes filled with tears as I left him and his brother Mazin. I felt horrible for leaving them there, and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t save them, I couldn’t protect them. I ran upstairs to the internet cafe and saw Haider there. He warned me about the real danger on the way to Al-Kut. He told me, “If they kill Sadr, Iraq will explode.” We said our goodbyes all too quickly, and then I sprinted out to the trucks before we had to convoy out.
I was angry at Sadr. He started this fight. I would be damned if I was going to let one of his hoodlums kill me. Ali Laundry would be riding in my truck to Al-Kut. We were looking at a three hour road march ahead of us. As we started pulling out towards the Rustimiya gate, I drove and pieced my M-16 rifle back together at the same time. I wanted to get some last minute cleaning in to prevent it from jamming. As we left the gate and headed west, I said a quick prayer.
The drive to Al-Kut went by quickly. We expected contact, but encountered none. I did notice a white Chevy Caprice conducting surveillance on our convoy. I first noticed it in Baghdad as we left the gate. Then, the same vehicle would pass us, find a spot, and park. I told Walker about it, but there was really nothing we could do about it. We were in a convoy, and the convoy can’t stop. I remember pulling into the outskirts of Al-Kut. You could tell who was friend and who was foe. The foes would cast hateful smirks at you. I distinctly remember several children running out to our trucks yelling “Fuck you!” and making a throat-cutting gesture with their little fingers. That couldn’t be good. Others waved and cheered, more than I expected them to. It was confusing at times. All you heard about was the Sadr terrorists taking over Al-Kut and the ensuing popular uprising there. Then, you get there and all the people are cheering.
We pulled into an airbase on the outskirts of Al-Kut. Ukrainian guards in shades greeted us. We didn’t wave back. The road march seemed to last only a few minutes somehow. The city was calm as we arrived. The CPA facility in Al-Kut had been occupied by Sadr’s militia in the days before our arrival. They considered this a victory. It was short-lived though, as a U.S. AC-130 gunship hammered the leased hotel complex. 1-7 Infantry had taken the city back in the days before our arrival, and that explained the relative calm there. We were now tasked with stabilizing the area and awaiting further orders.
Easter night, I was able to break my Lenten fast at the KBR chow hall. The pickings were slim though, and items were being rationed out. Usually the contracted chow halls were chucked full of all-you-can-eat items, but now that our supply routes we impassable, items were not available. KBR truckers refused to drive due to the real dangers developing on the Iraqi highways. Reports were coming in from Rustimiya that the Diyala Bridge (a short distance from our old camp in Baghdad) had been blown. F-16 fighter jets were in the area striking insurgent positions. Some of our units remained at Rustimiya awaiting transportation to Al-Kut on large tractor trailers, called HETTs. Due to bridges being blown all over Iraq, HETTs were forced to drive longer, more dangerous detour routes. It seemed the country was falling apart.
Our battalion was originally stationed on Camp Delta, an only Iraq airbase to the west of the city. About a day after settling in at Camp Delta, it was decided that the TOC would have to move into the city. A TV station would be our new home. It was a relatively small compound. There was just enough room to place a tank at the gate of the TV station, and soldiers set up machine gun nests on the roof. It was a tight fit. It seemed crazy to put the TOC in such a vulnerable spot. We made it like home though, and soon Iraqis were earning American dollars by installing plumbing and selling Pepsi.

Iraqi Translator Friends Shot, Haider Remains Faithful

2004-04-07T00:40:00.000-07:00

7 April, 2004 1240

Hostilities continue around Iraq. I spent a lot of the morning reading reports from activity across Baghdad and Fallujah. Marines are getting hit hard, and it seems the rebels were well trained and prepared for the U.S. offensive. Unrest has been serious, with the medial unaware of most of the activity. U.S. forces and allies have been very fair in giving rebels opportunities to leave and go home, but rebels insist on fighting, so coalition forces have responded very violently – with main gun rounds and heavy machinegun fire. Some streets turned into meat grinders. Based on large numbers of deaths and open combat, it seems the rebels want to be martyred. It’s sick.
Going back to Palm Sunday night, after I left the radios when heavy combat lessened. I went over to see Ali and Haider, but found Abbas and Ali (the Ali with the Catholic girlfriend).[1] I also saw Tariq. I thought he had quit his job as a translator in order to concentrate on studying. Personally, I believe he’s frightened to be killed for working with us. There’s a reason to be frightened, 18 translators were killed that were employed by Titan (a contractor that monitors, recruits, and pays translators). Someone inside of the organization must be leaking names and information to terrorists. One of those killed was an A Co. translator. Since the beginning of the year, assassinations and assassination attempts have increased on our own translator teams.

One night, I went up to talk to Haider in the internet cafe. I noticed two of my Iraqi friends sitting there, looking ill. I asked what was wrong with them, and they said they had been shot. I couldn’t believe it! Not these guys! Sure enough, Ali showed me several rose-colored, fleshy wounds that were bullet wounds. He was shot while riding with an American patrol. I remember earlier in the deployment, there was a young man who translated for the Americans. He used to walk around with a bandanna on his head with an American flag patch on it. He loved Americans, and he believed he was making a difference. One night, some men came to his house and asked for him. When he came to the door, the men killed him on the spot. These were the men that were giving their lives for us, for a few bucks a day. They weren’t clad in armor, they didn’t sleep within the walls of a secure facility at night. They were truly courageous, and they believed in what they were doing, otherwise they would not risk their lives. I felt these men needed to be protected, they needed to be sheltered from these butchers who wander in the Baghdad nights like satanic angels of death. There was nothing we could do for them. When Sadr City imploded, we were told to purge the base of all Iraqis – regiment was afraid they would turn on us.
Haider showed me a flyer from the Iraqi Mujahideen threatening to kill anyone working for the Americans. Sadr thugs also distributed the same flyers to the squatters (our primary labor source) that lived along our perimeter. Most of them ignored the threat, and showed back up to work when they were allowed to return again. Haider took the threat in stride. He said that his future is already written, and he trusts Allah. Not only that, but he added that he is Kurdish, and that the Kurdish people look out after one and other.

[1] It was not unheard of for Iraqis of different faiths to date or marry eachother.

Full Combat Begins, Blood Flows, and New Replacement Unit is Severely Damaged, CPA Life in Focus

2004-04-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

6 April, 2004 1020

“Hey, we killed like 5 people!” Foley said as he came into our room laughing and waking me up from an afternoon nap following a long night of combat in Sadr City. Foley was up at the District Advisory Council building. Several tanks were put there to protect the building in Sadr City from Sadr Army insurgents. On Sunday night, Sadr City erupted into open urban war against American forces. One section from 1 CAV was pinned down in an ambush in the city without warning. They suffered heavy casualties, at least 7 dead. Our C Company went in to assist the section and came under extreme RPG fire and gunfire. One scout told me,
“Crusader tanks look like Swiss cheese.” Sergeant Patrick, a soldier I knew and competed with for the best grade in our American Government class, and a young, newly engaged soldier who just reenlisted, took a bullet through one of his eyes and into his skull, killing him instantly. He is actually a mechanic, but volunteered to roll out with the tanks into Sadr City as a loader. He was our only KIA in the Sadr City battle, and our first 3-32 AR KIA other than Santos who was attached to us from 2nd ACR from Fort Polk, Louisiana. We sustained other WIA, but nothing life threatening. We almost made it home without losing anyone. I don’t think anyone saw this coming, but I knew something bad was going to happen. Sadr has been quiet though until now. Bremer says an arrest warrant is out for his arrest now. Actually, this isn’t the first time Sadr has engaged U.S. troops. 1LT Solomon lost a soldier to an ambush back in September or so. CPA wouldn’t do anything about it. Now they are saying (months later) he’s (Sadr) going to be served. Hmmm.
“Lot’s of people are going to reenlist now,” Foley said. He’s grown more foolish since we got to Iraq and developed a sour arrogance because he drives for Major Ramirez. He doesn’t understand that Major Ramirez can’t do much for him or protect him from NCOs – because the major isn’t widely respected because of his reputation for unprofessional behavior, poor judgment, and laziness. Anyways, I heard what Foley said mindlessly and responded.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, knowing he already had an answer.
“People join the Army to kill shit, this is why people join the Army!” he said all hyped up. I thought about what he said, and thought,
‘Didn’t he join the Army because he screwed up his life with drugs and crime? He didn’t join the Army to kill, he joined to escape reality,’ I thought. I didn’t want to tell him that though. I had scolded him a few days before for sleeping instead of working on his truck during the day, and openly using the major as a defense against NCOs. Some see me as his handler, or say he takes after me, or I influenced him to be more assertive, but my work ethic didn’t rub off on him, only the ambitious part. ‘You’ve turned into a real piece of work Foley. You’ve managed to get worse since we got here,’ he looked at me thinking I was joking. ‘Not only have you managed to piss-off most of the NCOs you depend on to get promoted, you’ve developed a reputation as an unreliable, complaining little prick. You’ve developed a great deal of character, congrats,’ I said coldly, but it had to be said. He stopped smiling, realizing I was serious.
“Whatever,” he said and continued watching a DVD on a portable DVD player.
When he came in bragging about the shootings yesterday, I almost got up and punched him. ‘What happened?’ I asked.
“Stiller got a few. An RPG almost hit our truck. He saw where it came from and tried to fire with his M-16, but it kept jamming. I told him to use the M240, but you could tell he was hesitating to use it. More fire came, and he opened up on the M240 and fired over 150 rounds. Sergeant Gonzales was in front of the up-armored Hummer in one of the command tanks. He traversed the tank turret towards the man shooting the RPGs, but before he could shoot him, he saw the man take 5 bullets and collapse after Stiller shot him. Sergeant Hugo also killed some Sadr guys,” he said all excited.
‘This isn’t a fucking joke,’ I told him. ‘Do you know or even comprehend what is going on? Sadr succeeded in starting a small scale civil war. Basrah and several other Shia cities are in disorder. They stormed a Spanish barracks,’ I explained to him.
“Well, I guess the Spanish should have supported us then, see if they pull their troops out now,” he spouted off. “I say kill them all, we can take them all on,” he kept saying.
‘You’re an idiot,’ I told him. ‘Am I surrounded by idiots? Does no one realize what this means for the future of Iraq, for the Army, for the Middle East?! These people are so blind.’
“It doesn’t matter to me, I’ll be out of here soon.”
‘Well, for someone who wants to go Special Forces and kill people, you sure want out of here fast,’ I observed.
“Well, I’m tired,” he whimpered.
‘Everyone is fucking tired, about everyone works a lot harder than you do, tankers, scouts, mortars,’ I replied. I was disappointed with him lately.
So much has happened since Palm Sunday. Many of the concerns that I’ve had over the past year are starting to become real problems. Blind optimism has distorted the picture of what’s going on on the ground to the point of disregard for reality.
Sunday, we took the new sergeant major from 1st CAV on a patrol before going to Al-Rasheed Hotel. Driving through the neighborhoods, many children ran alongside our trucks and waved or begged for candy. Most everyone waved and smiled. We passed one of the Catholic churches and the people smiled and waved with palms in their hands. As we turned a corner near the 6 lane freeway, a man started gesturing to our vehicles. The first two vehicles drove by, but SGM Walker and I stopped to see what he wanted. “BOMB, BOMB,” he said and used his arm to depict an artillery round. He seemed eager to show us the bomb, and worried. We immediately set up security positions around the suspected bomb site.
Sure enough, it was a bomb, but we were unsure if it was left over from the war. It was sitting in the trash next to an exit and had 4 wires leading away from it and into the trash. It was an artillery shell, fused and intact. ‘See, Iraqis will let you know sometimes if bombs are around,’ I told the 1st CAV driver. ‘You need to pay attention to what they are trying to tell you, you saw how 2 vehicles just went by without stopping.’ A lot of soldiers complain about Iraqis placing bombs, but they don’t realize Iraqis can’t just contact U.S. forces right away and connectivity to the IPs is poor. Many times they feel threatened by the terrorists who set the bombs. Of course, there are cases when terrorists have warned everyone in an area to avoid a spot on the road, or even offered money to place bombs on their property around roads. We’ve even arrested farmers who have been reported by other Iraqis to be accepting money from Wahabee terrorists.
On this Sunday, the friendly Iraqi man helped up find a bomb. We called a security team out and they would secure the place until EOD arrived to remove the bomb safely. We got on the highway and decided to move on to the Al-Rasheed.
At the Al-Rasheed, we ate lunch alongside British and American civilian contractors. “What are all these civilians doing here?” the 1 CAV guy asked (SPC Bennett).
‘I don’t think they’re doing much other than making a lot of money,’ I replied. Some skinny British contractor looked over at me.
“Yeah, it doesn’t sound like they accomplished much,” he responded.
‘We should ask one what they’ve done for Iraq today,’ I said. The British guy darted glances nervously at us. I had talked to a Scottish ex-soldier now working as a humanitarian aid worker for USAID. Through a thick Scottish accent he said that progress in Iraq had been minimal, and warned us about the growing dangers in the urban areas.
We walked around the luxury hotel and I noticed some round-looking, fat American women with bleach blond hair in curls, bad makeup and denim shirts and blue jeans and tennis shoes. They wore USAID t-shirts underneath and talked to each other in thick southern accents. ‘I genuinely doubt they possess anything other than Texas-style logic,’ I thought to myself. Maybe I’m prejudiced, but I don’t believe many of these people possess the intellectual capacity to understand the complexities of Iraq. Not only that, but many of these rednecks deal with these Iraqis as if they are inferior or animals. I think this attitude has alienated many Iraqis and caused resentment in private. Perhaps some of this resentment is manifesting itself in the form of inaction on the part of the Iraqi authority figures to stop violent demonstrations.
Bennett and I were standing outside the Al-Rasheed hotel by our Hummer when a large explosion went off. Usually downtown you’ll hear random explosions during the midday. ‘Grab your vest,’ I said immediately. He started to put it on. ‘No, you don’t have to put it on, just keep it close,’ I explained. All you had to do is look at the side of the hotel to see the danger in the area is real. A dozen holes are punched into the concrete and glass sides of the building. When it was time to leave, Walker said we were going to go through downtown and through the tunnel I was attacked at in October. ‘Are you sure you want to go that way? There may be some demonstrations,’ I said to SGM Walker. I actually said this after speaking with our scout escort, SSG Sill.
“Why are we going through downtown when the highway is right here?” he asked me in a concerned manner.
“Don’t be scared,” SGM Walker responded with irritation, “We’re going through the city.”
‘That’s easy to say, you’ve never been in an attack,’ I thought. Everyone wants to play with fire until they actually get killed or burned. The scouts and I looked at each other and shook our heads. I looked over at Bennett as he got in the truck and told him, ‘We’re about to go into the city, and it’s like an anthill. If anyone threatens you, shoot them. Only if you feel your life is threatened. I had one guy yelling at me about Osama bin Laden at the same place. I just ignored him. If I confronted him, it would have caused a scene, so you have to pick your battles carefully,’ I said to him. ‘Most people are good here, but some are simply deranged.’
“Roger, corporal,” he responded. When we exited CPA, I noticed a poster of Al-Sadr right outside of the gate, and then at other locations along the road. His posters always depict an angry-looking Sadr, with an orange, stormy background. We crossed the Tigris River and moved into the traffic circle and tunnel entrance. Luckily traffic was low, but I held my M-16 rifle out of my window and leveled it across the street. I was driving with my left hand, and holding my M-16 in my right, the rifle sitting across my chest. I had to be careful not to let the M-16 magazine catch one of the three spokes on the steering wheel. I kept honking my horn and blocking traffic until the tunnel traffic cleared. Once traffic cleared, we gunned our engines and flew into the tunnel to avoid any attack. I think about when we were attacked there, and the several points along the overpass where bricks and debris flew from. Of course, one person threw a grenade, but several others were throwing rocks and bricks. You never forget the blast from the attack though – you just put it away. There’s a feeling you get during an attack, and it’s not entirely fear, but a feeling, a feeling that the devil is dancing about you. Every time I go near that tunnel, I am filled with hatred for that tunnel and the fact that we insist on going through that tunnel. It’s extremely agitating.
We passed through the tunnel, and continued blocking the main road all the way to the Ministry of Oil. You could tell traffic was backing up for miles behind us. I regret having to cause all that disorder. I noticed a fruit stand on the side of the road with another poster of Sadr. ‘I’ve noticed more posters of Sadr lately,’ I told SGM Walker. He nodded.
We returned to camp, and I went to call you and my dad. SSG Little then came and told me he’s got to take the phone. I thought he was just taking the phone for a business call – but he disconnected it. I went into the TOC and noticed it was full of our key leaders. SGM Walker was sitting in his chair with CSM Brown standing by his side, and their facial expressions alerted me that something was wrong. I quietly asked SGM Walker what was wrong. He shook his head. ‘Hostile situation?’ I whispered. He nodded, “Yes.”
I listened to the radio traffic and heard “2 KIA, 3 wounded,” and more casualty reports. ‘KIA, what the hell is going on?’ I wondered, totally shocked. LT Orr told me Crusader Company (C Co.) had 1 KIA: Sergeant Patrick. I immediately became quiet, and remembered Patrick as my opponent in class in Friedberg. I quickly went over his profile in my head. Young, short, quiet, competent, competitive in class, smart, just reenlisted, just engaged. Now…just dead. You can’t help but think, ‘Live by the sword, die by the sword.’ You can tell you’ve been in Baghdad a long time when you hear a conversation like this:
“You know small Patrick?” Major Stanton asked me.
‘Roger, Sir. How did he die?” I asked.
“He got shot in the eye and died instantly,” he told me.
‘Well, that’s good,’ I said. He nodded and agreed,
“At least he didn’t suffer.”
At about 1900, I had to get on the radios and conduct the information management to assist Major Stanton. You know things are serious when we have to get on the radios. As reports started coming into me, I immediately realized urban combat had broken out. I also knew the situation was serious because of the expression on Major Stanton’s face. I have never seen him as worried as he appeared to me to be. There was a reason to be worried, a large portion of Baghdad was slipping into chaos.
On our net, you heard excited yelling and machine gun fire. The situation was that a unit from 1 CAV came under ambush and took heavy casualties. Our C Co. went in to rescue the pinned down unit (people blocked them in using makeshift roadblocks from scrap metal and furniture). I couldn’t believe it. I believed civil unrest was going to be a new threat in Iraq based on our treatment of Iraqis and our handling of Iraq – but I figured it would be months from now. I used to joke about the movie “Zulu,” Where the Africans take on a British garrison and nearly overwhelm the camp – purely because there are so many of the Africans. Many months ago, I thought about the worse case in Iraq, and I always said public unrest and rebellion, or Camp Santos (our camp now called Camp Santos, not Muleskinner) would have angry Iraqis at our gates. That foresight almost became reality. In fact, I’ve learned over the past year or more to trust my foresight, because I notice time and time again many things unfold just as I said they would – even when everyone said it was unlikely.
During Sunday night, our tanks fired main gun rounds and were machine gunning gunmen in the streets. The fighters engaged the tanks and other U.S. vehicles with machinegun fire and a heavy volume of RPG fire. C Co. tanks repeatedly were hit with RPG and gunfire. People came out into the streets to throw bricks at tanks. That battle saw the death of Patrick and the wounding of others. Luckily, the tanks took repeated RPG strikes without a problem. Knight 6 and Major Ramirez went to the District Advisory Council building, which was seized back by force from the Sadr insurgents. That was when Stiller engaged the RPG man. Iraqi police stations also fell to insurgents, but our own forces attacked and reestablished control over the police stations.
I spoke mainly to our units securing Canal Road. That would be Apache Troop, mortars, and scouts. I never imagined that I would be RTO during combat operations (sustained offensive, defensive operations). I further never imagined that our scouts would be pinned down and “black” (20% or less) on ammunition. “Knight X-Ray, this is Shadow 6, we are black on ammo!” LT Sheppard yelled as machinegun fire went off in the background. “KNIGHT X-RAY, CONTACT!” he yelled frantically. I took a deep breath. “KNIGHT X-RAY…RPG!” he said extremely excited in almost hysteria.
‘Damn!’ I thought. I kept talking to him and talking to Apache’s commanding officer about getting ammunition to the scouts. They had gunfire coming from both sides of the road, including an RPG that just flew overhead. Rounds were flying around and overhead, bouncing off the nearby pedestrian bridge. My greatest concern was getting ammo to the scouts and collecting casualties. The hysteria and massive, massive amount of gunfire heard in the background led me to hold my breath every time I asked for a situation report. Thank God, despite the very real danger and excitement, no one was hurt. Sniper fire was also reported.
Eventually, Apache Co. deployed his entire troop along our portion of Canal Road. (** Just now at 2300, two mortars exploded as I write this – I think it’s at the camp entrance **) He was able to resupply the scouts with ammo and assist in returning fire. They were taking fire from the mosque across the road. Eventually, we were able to get AH-64 attack helicopters and Kiowa helos over the area. Choppers had to come in from Taji because 2 ACR sent all their helicopters back to Kuwait to go home. Our eyes in the sky were plucked out.[1] Why? Complacency. Just two days ago, SSG Newsome was telling everyone they had to turn in all ammunition except 2 magazines (60 rounds). ‘Well, I’m not going to turn my rounds in, and if they ask, I’ll tell them I shot some rounds at the range,’ I told him.
“Well, you’ve got to turn the rounds in to HHC,” he replied.
‘I haven’t forgotten I’m in Iraq, and it’s dangerous to think 60 rounds are enough to protect me reroute to Kuwait. If they have a problem with it, they can talk to SGM Walker,’ I explained. Sure enough, SSG Newsome found himself under fire in Sadr City a few days later.
Apache and the scouts were engaged with the rebels in a firefight. We then pulled 2 tanks from Sadr City to assist the scouts and Apache. The situation sounded serious on the radio, gunfire erupting and men yelling. I was almost certain we were going to take casualties – but THANK GOD we didn’t.
* Foley just came in. He just talked to his dad on the phone and found out his dog died. I think he’s going to cry. “She’s like family to us, I’ve had her forever,” he said slouching in his chair looking depressed. It’s a bit strange that he’s so broken about an animal dying, and almost jubilant about the rebels that were killed and are still being killed – and the countless civilian casualties and collateral damage.
Strange. I don’t rejoice in any of these deaths, even if they are enemy. The only real time I’m satisfied at the news of a death is when bombers or attackers accidentally kill themselves, as happens every now and then. Right now, even as I write this, people are being gunned down only a few miles away. Mortar rounds just fell on our camp, and over 200 people are dead just in Baghdad. 8 or more U.S. soldiers are dead, and they came to secure Iraq, they were from 1 CAV, and only been here a few weeks – if that.
I don’t even think people in the States understand Iraq is a war zone right now, and it was an outright battlefield only 24 hours ago. Right now Marines are marching into Fallujah, violence has broken out in the south as Spanish, British, and Italian troops all engage and kill rebels, not to mention the Poles, Ukrainians, etc.
I just talked to Bowman about what happened while he was in Sadr City during the battle. “We moved in and came under RPG fire and small arms. We got hit, but it didn’t do anything to the tank. One of our guys shot a man with an RPG out of a balcony. SSG Mack was tank commander, and he was scared as soon as he heard shots fired. He had us close all the hatches and sit stationary for about 30 minutes taking fire.
As darkness fell, gunmen would sneak around corners or crouch down and run across the streets thinking we couldn’t see them, but they’re stupid. We could see them plain as day through our sights (thermals). We would shoot them, and some would come out and drag the body away. We couldn’t shoot all of them, there’s not enough ammo. Some people thought they were smart and could walk trying to hide an AK-47 or RPG by holding it upright. SSG Mack (a Jamaican) wouldn’t let us shoot any rebels unless they shot at us, so even if they were pointing at us, we had to wait until they fired. Some didn’t fire. One guy walked right in front of our tank with an RPK (machinegun) and just kept walking by. By the time we could do anything, he was already behind a wall.
We were at the casualty collection point at one point. It was bad. Hummers ripped to bits, tires blown flat, charred. Some Hummers were pulling up with bleeding bodies piled up in the back. The 2-5 (1 CAV) guys were in soft skin vehicles, totally vulnerable. Each time they went out to bring back their casualties, they would get wounded. At the casualty collection point, the dead were brought into a tent. All of their body armor and gear was set outside of the tent and covered in blood. We asked the medics to cover the stuff so soldiers couldn’t see it. Iraqis were even driving up to Camp War Eagle with wounded, stranded, and dead soldiers in their personal cars to get the soldiers help,” Bowman told me.
I couldn’t believe these reports, everyone in or near the city at the time had contact. Based on the information that I had, which is a great deal, casualties must have been over 200, at least. Reports over Baghdad reported KIA in various places. Some rebels tried to approach police stations again in the night, and Camp War Eagle, and they were engaged and killed. I sat and listened to one unit report at intervals of several minutes for over an hour, “2 enemy destroyed,” and a few minutes later, “5 enemy destroyed,” and so on. It was unreal, and a constant trickle of death. There are many reports, and I can’t write about them all, but our air assets engaged rebels on foot and using vehicles. One AH-64 observed an 18-wheeler carrying rebels armed with RPGs. It fired a Hellfire missile into the group of 45 men, killing 27. Kiowa helicopters swooped overhead shooting rockets and firing .50 cal at RPG teams and hostile vehicles. It was unreal. SSG Daily of the scouts took HEAT ammo up to War Eagle so the tanks would have main gun ammo.[2] A lot of our ammo was turned in. He escorted a cargo truck up to War Eagle to supply B Co. tanks. He heard that the scouts and Apache needed ammo, so he picked some up at War Eagle, and then dropped it off to them on his race back to our camp. Scouts and Apache were then full-up on all ammo. I was impressed with SSG Daily, and I called him several times to make sure he was OK on the road to War Eagle (about 10 miles away). He was OK, but they continued to get shot at.
I am going to stop there until tomorrow. I love you Nora and I’m going to call you now. I wonder if you’ve seen this on the news. I think they are keeping the news people away so we don’t look too bad. I just love you and miss you! I just want to come home to you!

The previous week, I distinctly remember joking along with another soldier near one of the new 1st CAV intelligence officers. The officer was looking nervous, he had lost his glow, and now darted his eyes across the room and listened intently at anything being said. I had a major concern that something was about to go wrong in Baghdad. You could feel it. I got countless warnings from my Iraqi friends telling me to be extra careful, that something was about to give. The city radiated this tension, but hardly anyone noticed. My greatest concern, and something that I had dreamed, was massive civil unrest – angry Iraqis pouring over the compound walls. That was the worst case scenario for myself. I was somewhat happy to be leaving Baghdad, because I really thought we were going to make it out of there before something big exploded. It was inevitable, I thought. So, I joked to the other soldier – so the major could hear – about my concerns. I was trying to voice my fear, but in a humorous way, and in a way that would tease the already manic major. ‘I don’t know man, but it is only a matter of time before the Hajjis rebel. We are talking mass chaos, Hajjis coming over the walls, storming the compound. You know, like that movie “Zulu” when the Brits have to fight off waves of Zulu natives.’ We laughed, and the major looked at us with wide eyes. I was out of luck though: The rebellion started before we could get home.
As mentioned earlier, many of our assets had been sent early to the port in Kuwait. We did this to reduce redeployment stress on our units. The scout helicopters on our base, our eyes in the sky, were sent to Kuwait and wrapped up for shipment. Some of the pilots were already back in the States. A large amount of ammunition was also returned to ammunition supply points in preparation for our impending road march to Kuwait. Weeks before our planned departure, we began to stand down and ship combat power out of Baghdad. There would be no transitional overlap of air assets (helicopters) while we rotated out of Baghdad. At this stage in the conflict, I had become a pragmatist, and respectful of the real dangers Iraq posed. I thought it was wishful thinking to believe the terrorists and insurgents operated on OUR schedule – that they would quit fighting long enough for us to leave, and then start fighting again once 1st CAV was in place. I was angry that the helicopters were gone, I thought it was idiotic to transfer our ammunition weeks before our planned departure, and I watched as the attitude shifted to “we’re going home!”
Shortly after the Kiowa scout helicopters vacated Rustimiya, our base became the target of more frequent (albeit inaccurate) mortar attacks. When Sadr’s thugs decided to sink Baghdad into chaos, our ground units had little capability to see the enemy around the corner without having our choppers. We were able to use air assets based out of northern Baghdad (around Balad) from the 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division – but only a few aircraft were available. Their effective fighting time was reduced since they had to fly quite a distance to the fight (burning fuel reserves). This placed an added stress on the ground units who were lacking the often otherwise available air intelligence provided by the Kiowas. The few Apache attack helicopters that were on station were effective nonetheless, firing on enemy formations and even destroying a tractor-trailer full of armed men who thought they were safely concealed.
Many tanks were now shooting main gun rounds, and the ammunition was running low. Some main tank rounds had to be transported under fire to our subordinate tank units on the outskirts of Sadr City – their ammo having been already turned in in anticipation of redeploying. They would need the ammo, as tanks were now authorized to fire main gun rounds at those using RPG weapons.
One day, Foley was scheduled to return home as part of the advance party. That meant he would be going home earlier than the other soldiers. His job would be to prepare the garrison for our return. He would be allowed on the advance party list in recognition of his volunteering to come to Kuwait earlier than the others in 2003. He and I were not getting along well, mostly because I didn’t like the attitude he had developed. He was still like a brother though. He and I had laughed all night long at times, gone to dinner together, shit together. We were like brothers. I was a little jealous that he would be leaving soon, my dear roommate. So when he announced that he would be leaving for BIAP, I was upset. I thought we needed him with us more than ever, because next to me, he was the best RTO we had in the battalion. When it came time for him to go, he left while giving me the middle finger. He did it affectionately, but there was probably some spite intended. I can understand that. We were always around each other, more than most married people are – so we were bound to clash sometimes. I was worried about him going to BIAP, and worried about Captain Smalls too.
Foley and Smalls made it to BIAP, but it wasn’t long before the Division cancelled their flights home and put them on a truck back to Rustimiya. This was the absolute worst time to travel in Baghdad. The shit was hitting the fan, and Foley and Smalls would have to dash from the airport (along the infamous and deadly Route Irish) to Rustimiya. It wasn’t long before RPG gunners opened fire on their 5-ton truck. Green banners were flying from almost every house as the locals displayed their Shia pride. Foley made it back to our base safe, and somehow, I knew I would see him again. I would never wish anything bad on anyone, but I was glad Foley and Smalls had to come back. We needed them there in the fight, and I needed my good friend, and Small’s common sense. Especially in these times.
I took some items I wanted to mail back to Germany to the Army post office on Rustimiya. Many soldiers stood in long lines to have their boxes inspected. The inspectors missed the few captured I.D. cards and passports I stuffed in the pockets of some pants I was sending back. I wondered if the mail would even be shipped out with the natives going wild on the other side of the compound walls. I’ll never forget, as I stood in line, looking up at the sky to see two B-52 bombers circling Baghdad. They stayed there for quite a while, drawing (probably intentionally) huge, conspicuous circles in the sky with their contrails. This was serious.

[1] Our scout helicopters were6 April, 2004 1020

“Hey, we killed like 5 people!” Foley said as he came into our room laughing and waking me up from an afternoon nap following a long night of combat in Sadr City. Foley was up at the District Advisory Council building. Several tanks were put there to protect the building in Sadr City from Sadr Army insurgents. On Sunday night, Sadr City erupted into open urban war against American forces. One section from 1 CAV was pinned down in an ambush in the city without warning. They suffered heavy casualties, at least 7 dead. Our C Company went in to assist the section and came under extreme RPG fire and gunfire. One scout told me,
“Crusader tanks look like Swiss cheese.” Sergeant Patrick, a soldier I knew and competed with for the best grade in our American Government class, and a young, newly engaged soldier who just reenlisted, took a bullet through one of his eyes and into his skull, killing him instantly. He is actually a mechanic, but volunteered to roll out with the tanks into Sadr City as a loader. He was our only KIA in the Sadr City battle, and our first 3-32 AR KIA other than Santos who was attached to us from 2nd ACR from Fort Polk, Louisiana. We sustained other WIA, but nothing life threatening. We almost made it home without losing anyone. I don’t think anyone saw this coming, but I knew something bad was going to happen. Sadr has been quiet though until now. Bremer says an arrest warrant is out for his arrest now. Actually, this isn’t the first time Sadr has engaged U.S. troops. 1LT Solomon lost a soldier to an ambush back in September or so. CPA wouldn’t do anything about it. Now they are saying (months later) he’s (Sadr) going to be served. Hmmm.
“Lot’s of people are going to reenlist now,” Foley said. He’s grown more foolish since we got to Iraq and developed a sour arrogance because he drives for Major Ramirez. He doesn’t understand that Major Ramirez can’t do much for him or protect him from NCOs – because the major isn’t widely respected because of his reputation for unprofessional behavior, poor judgment, and laziness. Anyways, I heard what Foley said mindlessly and responded.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, knowing he already had an answer.
“People join the Army to kill shit, this is why people join the Army!” he said all hyped up. I thought about what he said, and thought,
‘Didn’t he join the Army because he screwed up his life with drugs and crime? He didn’t join the Army to kill, he joined to escape reality,’ I thought. I didn’t want to tell him that though. I had scolded him a few days before for sleeping instead of working on his truck during the day, and openly using the major as a defense against NCOs. Some see me as his handler, or say he takes after me, or I influenced him to be more assertive, but my work ethic didn’t rub off on him, only the ambitious part. ‘You’ve turned into a real piece of work Foley. You’ve managed to get worse since we got here,’ he looked at me thinking I was joking. ‘Not only have you managed to piss-off most of the NCOs you depend on to get promoted, you’ve developed a reputation as an unreliable, complaining little prick. You’ve developed a great deal of character, congrats,’ I said coldly, but it had to be said. He stopped smiling, realizing I was serious.
“Whatever,” he said and continued watching a DVD on a portable DVD player.
When he came in bragging about the shootings yesterday, I almost got up and punched him. ‘What happened?’ I asked.
“Stiller got a few. An RPG almost hit our truck. He saw where it came from and tried to fire with his M-16, but it kept jamming. I told him to use the M240, but you could tell he was hesitating to use it. More fire came, and he opened up on the M240 and fired over 150 rounds. Sergeant Gonzales was in front of the up-armored Hummer in one of the command tanks. He traversed the tank turret towards the man shooting the RPGs, but before he could shoot him, he saw the man take 5 bullets and collapse after Stiller shot him. Sergeant Hugo also killed some Sadr guys,” he said all excited.
‘This isn’t a fucking joke,’ I told him. ‘Do you know or even comprehend what is going on? Sadr succeeded in starting a small scale civil war. Basrah and several other Shia cities are in disorder. They stormed a Spanish barracks,’ I explained to him.
“Well, I guess the Spanish should have supported us then, see if they pull their troops out now,” he spouted off. “I say kill them all, we can take them all on,” he kept saying.
‘You’re an idiot,’ I told him. ‘Am I surrounded by idiots? Does no one realize what this means for the future of Iraq, for the Army, for the Middle East?! These people are so blind.’
“It doesn’t matter to me, I’ll be out of here soon.”
‘Well, for someone who wants to go Special Forces and kill people, you sure want out of here fast,’ I observed.
“Well, I’m tired,” he whimpered.
‘Everyone is fucking tired, about everyone works a lot harder than you do, tankers, scouts, mortars,’ I replied. I was disappointed with him lately.
So much has happened since Palm Sunday. Many of the concerns that I’ve had over the past year are starting to become real problems. Blind optimism has distorted the picture of what’s going on on the ground to the point of disregard for reality.
Sunday, we took the new sergeant major from 1st CAV on a patrol before going to Al-Rasheed Hotel. Driving through the neighborhoods, many children ran alongside our trucks and waved or begged for candy. Most everyone waved and smiled. We passed one of the Catholic churches and the people smiled and waved with palms in their hands. As we turned a corner near the 6 lane freeway, a man started gesturing to our vehicles. The first two vehicles drove by, but SGM Walker and I stopped to see what he wanted. “BOMB, BOMB,” he said and used his arm to depict an artillery round. He seemed eager to show us the bomb, and worried. We immediately set up security positions around the suspected bomb site.
Sure enough, it was a bomb, but we were unsure if it was left over from the war. It was sitting in the trash next to an exit and had 4 wires leading away from it and into the trash. It was an artillery shell, fused and intact. ‘See, Iraqis will let you know sometimes if bombs are around,’ I told the 1st CAV driver. ‘You need to pay attention to what they are trying to tell you, you saw how 2 vehicles just went by without stopping.’ A lot of soldiers complain about Iraqis placing bombs, but they don’t realize Iraqis can’t just contact U.S. forces right away and connectivity to the IPs is poor. Many times they feel threatened by the terrorists who set the bombs. Of course, there are cases when terrorists have warned everyone in an area to avoid a spot on the road, or even offered money to place bombs on their property around roads. We’ve even arrested farmers who have been reported by other Iraqis to be accepting money from Wahabee terrorists.
On this Sunday, the friendly Iraqi man helped up find a bomb. We called a security team out and they would secure the place until EOD arrived to remove the bomb safely. We got on the highway and decided to move on to the Al-Rasheed.
At the Al-Rasheed, we ate lunch alongside British and American civilian contractors. “What are all these civilians doing here?” the 1 CAV guy asked (SPC Bennett).
‘I don’t think they’re doing much other than making a lot of money,’ I replied. Some skinny British contractor looked over at me.
“Yeah, it doesn’t sound like they accomplished much,” he responded.
‘We should ask one what they’ve done for Iraq today,’ I said. The British guy darted glances nervously at us. I had talked to a Scottish ex-soldier now working as a humanitarian aid worker for USAID. Through a thick Scottish accent he said that progress in Iraq had been minimal, and warned us about the growing dangers in the urban areas.
We walked around the luxury hotel and I noticed some round-looking, fat American women with bleach blond hair in curls, bad makeup and denim shirts and blue jeans and tennis shoes. They wore USAID t-shirts underneath and talked to each other in thick southern accents. ‘I genuinely doubt they possess anything other than Texas-style logic,’ I thought to myself. Maybe I’m prejudiced, but I don’t believe many of these people possess the intellectual capacity to understand the complexities of Iraq. Not only that, but many of these rednecks deal with these Iraqis as if they are inferior or animals. I think this attitude has alienated many Iraqis and caused resentment in private. Perhaps some of this resentment is manifesting itself in the form of inaction on the part of the Iraqi authority figures to stop violent demonstrations.
Bennett and I were standing outside the Al-Rasheed hotel by our Hummer when a large explosion went off. Usually downtown you’ll hear random explosions during the midday. ‘Grab your vest,’ I said immediately. He started to put it on. ‘No, you don’t have to put it on, just keep it close,’ I explained. All you had to do is look at the side of the hotel to see the danger in the area is real. A dozen holes are punched into the concrete and glass sides of the building. When it was time to leave, Walker said we were going to go through downtown and through the tunnel I was attacked at in October. ‘Are you sure you want to go that way? There may be some demonstrations,’ I said to SGM Walker. I actually said this after speaking with our scout escort, SSG Sill.
“Why are we going through downtown when the highway is right here?” he asked me in a concerned manner.
“Don’t be scared,” SGM Walker responded with irritation, “We’re going through the city.”
‘That’s easy to say, you’ve never been in an attack,’ I thought. Everyone wants to play with fire until they actually get killed or burned. The scouts and I looked at each other and shook our heads. I looked over at Bennett as he got in the truck and told him, ‘We’re about to go into the city, and it’s like an anthill. If anyone threatens you, shoot them. Only if you feel your life is threatened. I had one guy yelling at me about Osama bin Laden at the same place. I just ignored him. If I confronted him, it would have caused a scene, so you have to pick your battles carefully,’ I said to him. ‘Most people are good here, but some are simply deranged.’
“Roger, corporal,” he responded. When we exited CPA, I noticed a poster of Al-Sadr right outside of the gate, and then at other locations along the road. His posters always depict an angry-looking Sadr, with an orange, stormy background. We crossed the Tigris River and moved into the traffic circle and tunnel entrance. Luckily traffic was low, but I held my M-16 rifle out of my window and leveled it across the street. I was driving with my left hand, and holding my M-16 in my right, the rifle sitting across my chest. I had to be careful not to let the M-16 magazine catch one of the three spokes on the steering wheel. I kept honking my horn and blocking traffic until the tunnel traffic cleared. Once traffic cleared, we gunned our engines and flew into the tunnel to avoid any attack. I think about when we were attacked there, and the several points along the overpass where bricks and debris flew from. Of course, one person threw a grenade, but several others were throwing rocks and bricks. You never forget the blast from the attack though – you just put it away. There’s a feeling you get during an attack, and it’s not entirely fear, but a feeling, a feeling that the devil is dancing about you. Every time I go near that tunnel, I am filled with hatred for that tunnel and the fact that we insist on going through that tunnel. It’s extremely agitating.
We passed through the tunnel, and continued blocking the main road all the way to the Ministry of Oil. You could tell traffic was backing up for miles behind us. I regret having to cause all that disorder. I noticed a fruit stand on the side of the road with another poster of Sadr. ‘I’ve noticed more posters of Sadr lately,’ I told SGM Walker. He nodded.
We returned to camp, and I went to call you and my dad. SSG Little then came and told me he’s got to take the phone. I thought he was just taking the phone for a business call – but he disconnected it. I went into the TOC and noticed it was full of our key leaders. SGM Walker was sitting in his chair with CSM Brown standing by his side, and their facial expressions alerted me that something was wrong. I quietly asked SGM Walker what was wrong. He shook his head. ‘Hostile situation?’ I whispered. He nodded, “Yes.”
I listened to the radio traffic and heard “2 KIA, 3 wounded,” and more casualty reports. ‘KIA, what the hell is going on?’ I wondered, totally shocked. LT Orr told me Crusader Company (C Co.) had 1 KIA: Sergeant Patrick. I immediately became quiet, and remembered Patrick as my opponent in class in Friedberg. I quickly went over his profile in my head. Young, short, quiet, competent, competitive in class, smart, just reenlisted, just engaged. Now…just dead. You can’t help but think, ‘Live by the sword, die by the sword.’ You can tell you’ve been in Baghdad a long time when you hear a conversation like this:
“You know small Patrick?” Major Stanton asked me.
‘Roger, Sir. How did he die?” I asked.
“He got shot in the eye and died instantly,” he told me.
‘Well, that’s good,’ I said. He nodded and agreed,
“At least he didn’t suffer.”
At about 1900, I had to get on the radios and conduct the information management to assist Major Stanton. You know things are serious when we have to get on the radios. As reports started coming into me, I immediately realized urban combat had broken out. I also knew the situation was serious because of the expression on Major Stanton’s face. I have never seen him as worried as he appeared to me to be. There was a reason to be worried, a large portion of Baghdad was slipping into chaos.
On our net, you heard excited yelling and machine gun fire. The situation was that a unit from 1 CAV came under ambush and took heavy casualties. Our C Co. went in to rescue the pinned down unit (people blocked them in using makeshift roadblocks from scrap metal and furniture). I couldn’t believe it. I believed civil unrest was going to be a new threat in Iraq based on our treatment of Iraqis and our handling of Iraq – but I figured it would be months from now. I used to joke about the movie “Zulu,” Where the Africans take on a British garrison and nearly overwhelm the camp – purely because there are so many of the Africans. Many months ago, I thought about the worse case in Iraq, and I always said public unrest and rebellion, or Camp Santos (our camp now called Camp Santos, not Muleskinner) would have angry Iraqis at our gates. That foresight almost became reality. In fact, I’ve learned over the past year or more to trust my foresight, because I notice time and time again many things unfold just as I said they would – even when everyone said it was unlikely.
During Sunday night, our tanks fired main gun rounds and were machine gunning gunmen in the streets. The fighters engaged the tanks and other U.S. vehicles with machinegun fire and a heavy volume of RPG fire. C Co. tanks repeatedly were hit with RPG and gunfire. People came out into the streets to throw bricks at tanks. That battle saw the death of Patrick and the wounding of others. Luckily, the tanks took repeated RPG strikes without a problem. Knight 6 and Major Ramirez went to the District Advisory Council building, which was seized back by force from the Sadr insurgents. That was when Stiller engaged the RPG man. Iraqi police stations also fell to insurgents, but our own forces attacked and reestablished control over the police stations.
I spoke mainly to our units securing Canal Road. That would be Apache Troop, mortars, and scouts. I never imagined that I would be RTO during combat operations (sustained offensive, defensive operations). I further never imagined that our scouts would be pinned down and “black” (20% or less) on ammunition. “Knight X-Ray, this is Shadow 6, we are black on ammo!” LT Sheppard yelled as machinegun fire went off in the background. “KNIGHT X-RAY, CONTACT!” he yelled frantically. I took a deep breath. “KNIGHT X-RAY…RPG!” he said extremely excited in almost hysteria.
‘Damn!’ I thought. I kept talking to him and talking to Apache’s commanding officer about getting ammunition to the scouts. They had gunfire coming from both sides of the road, including an RPG that just flew overhead. Rounds were flying around and overhead, bouncing off the nearby pedestrian bridge. My greatest concern was getting ammo to the scouts and collecting casualties. The hysteria and massive, massive amount of gunfire heard in the background led me to hold my breath every time I asked for a situation report. Thank God, despite the very real danger and excitement, no one was hurt. Sniper fire was also reported.
Eventually, Apache Co. deployed his entire troop along our portion of Canal Road. (** Just now at 2300, two mortars exploded as I write this – I think it’s at the camp entrance **) He was able to resupply the scouts with ammo and assist in returning fire. They were taking fire from the mosque across the road. Eventually, we were able to get AH-64 attack helicopters and Kiowa helos over the area. Choppers had to come in from Taji because 2 ACR sent all their helicopters back to Kuwait to go home. Our eyes in the sky were plucked out.[1] Why? Complacency. Just two days ago, SSG Newsome was telling everyone they had to turn in all ammunition except 2 magazines (60 rounds). ‘Well, I’m not going to turn my rounds in, and if they ask, I’ll tell them I shot some rounds at the range,’ I told him.
“Well, you’ve got to turn the rounds in to HHC,” he replied.
‘I haven’t forgotten I’m in Iraq, and it’s dangerous to think 60 rounds are enough to protect me reroute to Kuwait. If they have a problem with it, they can talk to SGM Walker,’ I explained. Sure enough, SSG Newsome found himself under fire in Sadr City a few days later.
Apache and the scouts were engaged with the rebels in a firefight. We then pulled 2 tanks from Sadr City to assist the scouts and Apache. The situation sounded serious on the radio, gunfire erupting and men yelling. I was almost certain we were going to take casualties – but THANK GOD we didn’t.
* Foley just came in. He just talked to his dad on the phone and found out his dog died. I think he’s going to cry. “She’s like family to us, I’ve had her forever,” he said slouching in his chair looking depressed. It’s a bit strange that he’s so broken about an animal dying, and almost jubilant about the rebels that were killed and are still being killed – and the countless civilian casualties and collateral damage.
Strange. I don’t rejoice in any of these deaths, even if they are enemy. The only real time I’m satisfied at the news of a death is when bombers or attackers accidentally kill themselves, as happens every now and then. Right now, even as I write this, people are being gunned down only a few miles away. Mortar rounds just fell on our camp, and over 200 people are dead just in Baghdad. 8 or more U.S. soldiers are dead, and they came to secure Iraq, they were from 1 CAV, and only been here a few weeks – if that.
I don’t even think people in the States understand Iraq is a war zone right now, and it was an outright battlefield only 24 hours ago. Right now Marines are marching into Fallujah, violence has broken out in the south as Spanish, British, and Italian troops all engage and kill rebels, not to mention the Poles, Ukrainians, etc.
I just talked to Bowman about what happened while he was in Sadr City during the battle. “We moved in and came under RPG fire and small arms. We got hit, but it didn’t do anything to the tank. One of our guys shot a man with an RPG out of a balcony. SSG Mack was tank commander, and he was scared as soon as he heard shots fired. He had us close all the hatches and sit stationary for about 30 minutes taking fire.
As darkness fell, gunmen would sneak around corners or crouch down and run across the streets thinking we couldn’t see them, but they’re stupid. We could see them plain as day through our sights (thermals). We would shoot them, and some would come out and drag the body away. We couldn’t shoot all of them, there’s not enough ammo. Some people thought they were smart and could walk trying to hide an AK-47 or RPG by holding it upright. SSG Mack (a Jamaican) wouldn’t let us shoot any rebels unless they shot at us, so even if they were pointing at us, we had to wait until they fired. Some didn’t fire. One guy walked right in front of our tank with an RPK (machinegun) and just kept walking by. By the time we could do anything, he was already behind a wall.
We were at the casualty collection point at one point. It was bad. Hummers ripped to bits, tires blown flat, charred. Some Hummers were pulling up with bleeding bodies piled up in the back. The 2-5 (1 CAV) guys were in soft skin vehicles, totally vulnerable. Each time they went out to bring back their casualties, they would get wounded. At the casualty collection point, the dead were brought into a tent. All of their body armor and gear was set outside of the tent and covered in blood. We asked the medics to cover the stuff so soldiers couldn’t see it. Iraqis were even driving up to Camp War Eagle with wounded, stranded, and dead soldiers in their personal cars to get the soldiers help,” Bowman told me.
I couldn’t believe these reports, everyone in or near the city at the time had contact. Based on the information that I had, which is a great deal, casualties must have been over 200, at least. Reports over Baghdad reported KIA in various places. Some rebels tried to approach police stations again in the night, and Camp War Eagle, and they were engaged and killed. I sat and listened to one unit report at intervals of several minutes for over an hour, “2 enemy destroyed,” and a few minutes later, “5 enemy destroyed,” and so on. It was unreal, and a constant trickle of death. There are many reports, and I can’t write about them all, but our air assets engaged rebels on foot and using vehicles. One AH-64 observed an 18-wheeler carrying rebels armed with RPGs. It fired a Hellfire missile into the group of 45 men, killing 27. Kiowa helicopters swooped overhead shooting rockets and firing .50 cal at RPG teams and hostile vehicles. It was unreal. SSG Daily of the scouts took HEAT ammo up to War Eagle so the tanks would have main gun ammo.[2] A lot of our ammo was turned in. He escorted a cargo truck up to War Eagle to supply B Co. tanks. He heard that the scouts and Apache needed ammo, so he picked some up at War Eagle, and then dropped it off to them on his race back to our camp. Scouts and Apache were then full-up on all ammo. I was impressed with SSG Daily, and I called him several times to make sure he was OK on the road to War Eagle (about 10 miles away). He was OK, but they continued to get shot at.
I am going to stop there until tomorrow. I love you Nora and I’m going to call you now. I wonder if you’ve seen this on the news. I think they are keeping the news people away so we don’t look too bad. I just love you and miss you! I just want to come home to you!

The previous week, I distinctly remember joking along with another soldier near one of the new 1st CAV intelligence officers. The officer was looking nervous, he had lost his glow, and now darted his eyes across the room and listened intently at anything being said. I had a major concern that something was about to go wrong in Baghdad. You could feel it. I got countless warnings from my Iraqi friends telling me to be extra careful, that something was about to give. The city radiated this tension, but hardly anyone noticed. My greatest concern, and something that I had dreamed, was massive civil unrest – angry Iraqis pouring over the compound walls. That was the worst case scenario for myself. I was somewhat happy to be leaving Baghdad, because I really thought we were going to make it out of there before something big exploded. It was inevitable, I thought. So, I joked to the other soldier – so the major could hear – about my concerns. I was trying to voice my fear, but in a humorous way, and in a way that would tease the already manic major. ‘I don’t know man, but it is only a matter of time before the Hajjis rebel. We are talking mass chaos, Hajjis coming over the walls, storming the compound. You know, like that movie “Zulu” when the Brits have to fight off waves of Zulu natives.’ We laughed, and the major looked at us with wide eyes. I was out of luck though: The rebellion started before we could get home.
As mentioned earlier, many of our assets had been sent early to the port in Kuwait. We did this to reduce redeployment stress on our units. The scout helicopters on our base, our eyes in the sky, were sent to Kuwait and wrapped up for shipment. Some of the pilots were already back in the States. A large amount of ammunition was also returned to ammunition supply points in preparation for our impending road march to Kuwait. Weeks before our planned departure, we began to stand down and ship combat power out of Baghdad. There would be no transitional overlap of air assets (helicopters) while we rotated out of Baghdad. At this stage in the conflict, I had become a pragmatist, and respectful of the real dangers Iraq posed. I thought it was wishful thinking to believe the terrorists and insurgents operated on OUR schedule – that they would quit fighting long enough for us to leave, and then start fighting again once 1st CAV was in place. I was angry that the helicopters were gone, I thought it was idiotic to transfer our ammunition weeks before our planned departure, and I watched as the attitude shifted to “we’re going home!”
Shortly after the Kiowa scout helicopters vacated Rustimiya, our base became the target of more frequent (albeit inaccurate) mortar attacks. When Sadr’s thugs decided to sink Baghdad into chaos, our ground units had little capability to see the enemy around the corner without having our choppers. We were able to use air assets based out of northern Baghdad (around Balad) from the 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division – but only a few aircraft were available. Their effective fighting time was reduced since they had to fly quite a distance to the fight (burning fuel reserves). This placed an added stress on the ground units who were lacking the often otherwise available air intelligence provided by the Kiowas. The few Apache attack helicopters that were on station were effective nonetheless, firing on enemy formations and even destroying a tractor-trailer full of armed men who thought they were safely concealed.
Many tanks were now shooting main gun rounds, and the ammunition was running low. Some main tank rounds had to be transported under fire to our subordinate tank units on the outskirts of Sadr City – their ammo having been already turned in in anticipation of redeploying. They would need the ammo, as tanks were now authorized to fire main gun rounds at those using RPG weapons.
One day, Foley was scheduled to return home as part of the advance party. That meant he would be going home earlier than the other soldiers. His job would be to prepare the garrison for our return. He would be allowed on the advance party list in recognition of his volunteering to come to Kuwait earlier than the others in 2003. He and I were not getting along well, mostly because I didn’t like the attitude he had developed. He was still like a brother though. He and I had laughed all night long at times, gone to dinner together, shit together. We were like brothers. I was a little jealous that he would be leaving soon, my dear roommate. So when he announced that he would be leaving for BIAP, I was upset. I thought we needed him with us more than ever, because next to me, he was the best RTO we had in the battalion. When it came time for him to go, he left while giving me the middle finger. He did it affectionately, but there was probably some spite intended. I can understand that. We were always around each other, more than most married people are – so we were bound to clash sometimes. I was worried about him going to BIAP, and worried about Captain Smalls too.
Foley and Smalls made it to BIAP, but it wasn’t long before the Division cancelled their flights home and put them on a truck back to Rustimiya. This was the absolute worst time to travel in Baghdad. The shit was hitting the fan, and Foley and Smalls would have to dash from the airport (along the infamous and deadly Route Irish) to Rustimiya. It wasn’t long before RPG gunners opened fire on their 5-ton truck. Green banners were flying from almost every house as the locals displayed their Shia pride. Foley made it back to our base safe, and somehow, I knew I would see him again. I would never wish anything bad on anyone, but I was glad Foley and Smalls had to come back. We needed them there in the fight, and I needed my good friend, and Small’s common sense. Especially in these times.
I took some items I wanted to mail back to Germany to the Army post office on Rustimiya. Many soldiers stood in long lines to have their boxes inspected. The inspectors missed the few captured I.D. cards and passports I stuffed in the pockets of some pants I was sending back. I wondered if the mail would even be shipped out with the natives going wild on the other side of the compound walls. I’ll never forget, as I stood in line, looking up at the sky to see two B-52 bombers circling Baghdad. They stayed there for quite a while, drawing (probably intentionally) huge, conspicuous circles in the sky with their contrails. This was serious.

[1] Our scout helicopters were vital to our operations, but in the wishful thinking leading up to our redeployment to Kuwait, the helos were sent back to Kuwait before any air replacement overlapped with them. We lost our eyes in the sky, and no one was there to replace them. Some claimed the helos on duty in Taji were to replace our helos, but that was unrealistic and choppers form Taji couldn’t stay in the area as long due to fuel limitations.
[2] Much of our unit’s ammunition was being packed up and placed in storage positions so we could account for it before we left for Kuwait. This was done to streamline the exit to Kuwait. In training circumstances, this would be expected. In a hostile environment, it proved a sad miscalculation. Incidents such as these illustrate the true lack of understanding leaders had of the real situation on the ground. vital to our operations, but in the wishful thinking leading up to our redeployment to Kuwait, the helos were sent back to Kuwait before any air replacement overlapped with them. We lost our eyes in the sky, and no one was there to replace them. Some claimed the helos on duty in Taji were to replace our helos, but that was unrealistic and choppers form Taji couldn’t stay in the area as long due to fuel limitations.
[2] Much of our unit’s ammunition was being packed up and placed in storage positions so we could account for it before we left for Kuwait. This was done to streamline the exit to Kuwait. In training circumstances, this would be expected. In a hostile environment, it proved a sad miscalculation. Incidents such as these illustrate the true lack of understanding leaders had of the real situation on the ground.

All Hell Breaks Loose: Fear Becomes Reality as Rebellion Explodes

2004-04-05T03:20:00.000-07:00

5 April, 2004 0320

Sadr’s Army openly attacked Americans yesterday (today, I’ve been on the radio since 1900 yesterday ‘till now). I didn’t drive tonight, instead I was called in to work with Major Stanton, CPT Smalls, and our emergency battle staff in combat operations. It’s still so surreal. Many people are going to be dead when the sun comes up today. Sadr is trying to start a civil war, and my #1 worst fear came true today – massive civil unrest. I am going to go to bed now and get some rest. One of our guys was killed from C Company, Sergeant Patrick. I can’t believe it. It hasn’t set in yet. Engaging the enemy hasn’t taken on a human context yet – it’s all KIA, WIA, 2 killed, 14 killed, engaging this and that. Seems bloodless, like squishing ants. Heavy firefighting went on tonight, collateral damage could be substantial. I love you Nora, and I’ll be home soon.

Something is Rotten in Baghdad, Tension in the Air as Sgt. Miller Predicts an Uprising, Another Car Bombing I Contemplate from a Rooftop

2004-04-03T22:00:00.000-08:00

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3 April, 2004 2200

I’ve got a bad feeling about the future of Iraq. “I don’t know about you, but I think Baghdad got worse since we got here,” Sergeant Miller said to me as I sat parked in front of the Bravo Company HQ at Camp War Eagle in Sadr City. A 1st CAV soldier (the sergeant major’s driver for the unit replacing us) sat in the back and listened to our conversation with a worried look on his face.
‘Don’t worry, it will go by quick,’ I told him…even though I knew this to be a little too optimistic a remark. But hey, this is Iraq, why not be positive about this bullshit, Washington is, almost to the point of blindness. I explained to the 1st CAV guy who was riding with me, ‘You stay alert and you won’t get killed. Half of what you do on the road is drive, but the other half is knowing who’s around you at all times, making sure they notice that you see them. Watch cars as they pass, if you see a car full of kids or women, you can be pretty sure they are low threat. If you see two men in a sports car trailing you, make sure they see that you are watching them in the side view mirror. If they have long beards, pay extra attention to them. A lot of the foreign fighters have Wahabee beards.’ He nodded and I could tell he took what I was saying seriously. ‘Trust your instincts,’ I continued going over a bunch of pointers I genuinely thought invaluable, ‘If you see something suspicious, don’t hesitate to speak up. Watch the roadside always for debris, wire, anything that could hide a bomb. You need to examine every foot of ground along the side of the road. Don’t daydream. If you let your guard down, you’ll get whacked. All these guys getting killed probably weren’t paying attention,’ I said, even though this wasn’t true. I just wanted to stress he could prevent an attack. Of course, the truth is, a lot of the guys never knew what hit them. How are you going to tell a new guy that though? It’s bad enough not knowing what to expect out of Iraq over the next year. I kept saying, ‘You’ll be OK’ to make him feel better. ‘Choose your battles carefully, you could actually make a problem worse by responding to insults or pestering. Think ahead. If someone gets in your face or tests your resolve, put the muzzle of your rifle in his face. Don’t be afraid. I am the last person who would want to point a gun at someone, but I’ve had to do it here. Sometimes it’s for their own good. Try to prevent situations too. Give them a chance to let you though…use your horn constantly to let them know you’re there. Don’t just hit them.’ I thought about all the times we just hit people or rammed cars or caused wrecks because, “We own the road!” SGM Walker likes to say. Most everyone is completely innocent, yet we ram them because they are stuck in traffic? It’s immoral. I remember Sergeant Cole ramming bumpers off of cars, damaging family vans, men getting out crying and saying with their hands, “I CAN’T MOVE, CAN’T YOU SEE?!” Many times I would come back to camp feeling ashamed to be in the Army. I remember a scout telling me about a mission he was on, and he told me,
“It was the only fucking time I ever felt a sense of accomplishment this whole deployment. I’ve been here a year, that’s pretty fucking sad.”
Sometimes I’ll stand with soldiers by my truck waiting for SGM Walker. A lot of times, soldiers will be standing there dragging on cigarettes and someone will snap and yell, “FUCK! What the fuck are we doing here!”
‘You’ll learn about human mortality. You’ll hate Arabs, and the next day love them. You’ll ask why you’re here, and the next day you’ll feel great because the kids are happy to see you. One day they’ll wave to you, the next day they’ll give you the finger and throw rocks. You’ve got to be a diplomat, and a soldier. It will stress you out. One day you’ll think there’s no hope for the Middle East, and the next day you’ll see a glimmer of hope. It’s a rollercoaster ride, and it’s a messed up situation, but just try to learn while you are here. Read, and call your wife everyday – and all will be OK,’ I said, and some more.
“Corporal, you said you can spot IEDs and prevent attacks, but what about the rocket attack?” he asked, referring to the attack last week on our camp. I thought about this question and though,
‘Well, I’m trying to be positive, but I guess you are smarter that I thought.’ It’s true, you can’t prevent that. ‘Well, if you get hit, you’ll be dead and won’t know what happened. If an attack starts, go to the ground floor and get in a corner and stay low. Find cover, stay low,’ I told him. I left it at that, even though rockets and mortars bother me and I don’t even like being out in the open during the evening. I can’t believe I’ve gotten used to mortar explosions. Mortar fire or explosions are funny sometimes, just because it’s so unreal. On some nights, you lay in bed, and you feel like it’s too quiet. You sometimes hear one explosion in the city and you lay and wait for another explosion. All you know is someone probably just died. Or, you go downstairs to the TOC and check the TV. Then you see FOX news reporting that a hotel got blown up. In the States, you see news like that in some far off land. Here, you see it on FOX or CNN and you can go on the roof and see the site of an attack glowing on the Baghdad night horizon. You lay in bed though, and you know more rockets and mortars are going to come. You imagine what it would be like to have a round crash through your wall in an instant. It happened to that captain.
One night I was exploring the endless amounts of amazing info at my fingertips one night before going out on the “Iron Promise” mission.
“BOOM!” an explosion rattled our windows. It was too late in the evening to be an EOD blast. Usually after an explosion, guard towers will call up on the 312 field phone with the signature “NACK, NACK, NACK, NACK, NACK!!!” sound of the ringer. Before the guards even had a chance to call our headquarters, our television showed a startled FOX News reporter on top of the Palestine Hotel with a glowing fire behind him. This sounds crazy, but it’s true.
“A huge explosion has just gone off right behind me!” the reporter dramatically explained. Then the first “CLACK, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK!!!” was heard in the TOC. It was the guards reporting the explosion. FOX was actually faster reporting the explosion on national TV than our guards were reporting the blast to us in the TOC.
‘Hmmm, that’s no good,’ I thought as I watched the TV images for a few seconds. I listened to our radios come to life as our units in the city reported an explosion. All the blast locations they reported were wrong, “BSA possibly attacked! Camp Muleskinner attacked! Came from CPA!” bla, bla, bla. I saw on the TV it was in the TF 3-9 zone by the Palestine Hotel. Our units were seeing the rising mushroom cloud over Baghdad and estimating best they could where the explosion was, but the cloud was drifting and the night sky caused some units to miscalculate the distance of the attack site. We told them we could confirm that it was a hotel in 3-9 zone. I went up on the roof and was surprised to see the dark mushroom cloud still very well defined and suspended like a blimp over Baghdad’s skyline. You feel like you are looking at one of those figures made from people trapped in the ash of Pompeii’s volcanic disaster – the disaster is preserved. The cloud hung around for a while, and with it, the dust of over a dozen vaporized people. 5 minutes before, there was no mushroom cloud, there was a hotel still standing, the people who are now dead were alive, and a car full of explosives was parked waiting to go off. Whoever died died instantly and never knew what happened. Their ticket got punched like lots of other people in this city. It’s sad, but you get used to it, and it’s not sad anymore – it’s just the way things are here. Life is your chance on stage, but sometimes your time is cut short. There has to be an afterlife. You do think though, as you look out across that city, ‘Where are the people who set that bomb off now? They’re somewhere out there, but where? And why do they think they have the right to just take lives? Who supports them? Is it Iran, is it Syria, is it more sinister than it appears?
It just so happened that John Kerry was about to go on live to address the nation about his campaign and ideas about national security when the explosion occurred. Kerry just got on stage and I was looking forward to hearing what he had to say about Iraq. Right when he began to speak, the explosion rattled our window. FOX broke coverage of Kerry’s speech, only about 3 seconds after I heard the explosion. A few minutes later, people in the TOC were joking that Bush had the bomb set off to distract from Kerry’s speech. No Americans or westerners were killed in that blast, only Arabs.
I remember when the Polish embassy got bombed. Some of us guys went to the sports field to play rugby. It was a cool, early morning and the sun was just rising. Exactly when SSG Newsome’s foot made contact with the ball to kick it downfield, there was a very loud “BOOM.” I thought it was EOD, because it looked so close as the dark grey mushroom cloud rapidly climbed into the air in front of my eyes. It turned out to be about 6 kilometers or less away. Later I found out it was the Polish embassy that got bombed. We all just thought the explosive rugby kick was funny. You think about it later, and it was such a peaceful morning, a cloudless horizon, and then a sharp boom and mushroom cloud that reminded me of the tornado scene in “The Wizard of Oz”. It moved like a living thing, so fast and rolling skyward. Of course, it was a bomb, maybe someone died, I don’t remember, but it was as routine as hearing a delivery truck briefly disturb the morning peace by blowing its horn. We kept playing rugby for the next hour, thinking nothing of the blast.
Going back to the hotel bombing, we already planned “Operation Iron Promise” before the bombing, so it would go on as planned. More on that later. I love you Nora! I got a letter from you today too. You’re the best!

Iron Promise turned out to be a disappointment, as expected. It was one of many large scale show of force operations that bordered on mass punishment at times. The script read the same every time: move in, block all the roads, do a house to house search of a chunk of Baghdad. This time, we moved in under cover of darkness, shutdown the roads, and sat in the median of highway 5 – in the open – while soldiers guarded General Townsend. What was supposed to be an operation to capture weapons and “send a message” turned into an opportunity for Townsend to walk the Baghdad streets one last time before going home to boring Germany. He went along with the soldiers, conducting the searches of houses, to greet the Iraqi natives himself. They were certainly graced by his presence. Sometimes we would conduct similar operations, like Operation Iron Hammer, that would entail shooting mortar and artillery rounds into empty fields. Then, you would see some 1st AD general telling the press that we are “hitting back” and so on. Relatives in the states would see all this press and think we were launching an all out offensive. It was a show of force though, although there were some small successes. The main problem remained Fallujah. Fallujah was the seat of terrorist power, Sunni controlled areas were sending their emissaries of death into Baghdad. These terrorists weren’t stupid, especially the former Al-Amn al-Khas (special security) agents. They weren’t going to get caught in a Baghdad apartment with their pants down.
At one point during the night, a young Iraqi man approached our trucks as we waited for the general to finish his tour. He winced a little bit as he showed us several bullet wounds in his skin. He had been shot several times a few hours earlier. You wouldn’t guess that by his behavior though. He was docile, casually asking for some medical assistance. He was treated.
I sat down in my room and listened to the BBC. They reported a horrible train bombing in Madrid. The government immediately blamed ETA for the attack, but I knew from the beginning it was Al-Qaeda. ETA had nothing to gain from executing such a implacable attack. It was a simply brutal and senseless, something we’ve come to expect from Islamic extremists. I was surprised to hear the Spanish government claim that is was probably ETA. I was even more surprised to learn that the Spanish people would let that terrorist attack influence their decisions on voting day. The terrorists won in Spain, and for that the Spanish should be ashamed.
It was around this time that we as a battalion were preparing to return to Kuwait. The redeployment wasn’t in full swing yet, but some of our tanks and other assets had been moved to Kuwait in advance to make our eventual move easier. That meant that some companies had a few less tanks on hand than they normally would. 1st Cavalry was trickling in and we were familiarizing their leadership with the routine we had established with the Iraqis on the base over the last year. Some of these Iraqis had become very close to the soldiers, especially the convenience store workers and internet cafe workers. The Everyday Market was one such convenience store that occupied a room in our barracks. There, two Iraqi brothers sold cheap cola and snacks, and anything you needed from the market in the city. They were always friendly and helpful, never out to pull a large profit. As we began recommending Iraqis to the new 1st CAV leadership, The Everyday Market was not high on the list of recommended vendors, even though they were the most sincere. The HHC first sergeant would later explain, “I don’t give a shit about them. They never did shit for me.” What he meant was kick backs and favors – free sodas or internet access. What they did do well was serve the soldiers with good prices. I watched helplessly as the two brothers, faithful partners with us soldiers for almost a year, were turned away and told to pack up because they didn’t offer enough “tribute.” They wouldn’t have the chance to serve 1st CAV soldiers, and would lose a major source of income – despite taking care of the 1AD soldiers through thick and thin.
There was competition on the base though. Ali Laundry was running a lucrative business washing and pressing American uniforms. Some of the more thuggish NCOs would have their uniforms pressed for free. Ali would offer gifts periodically to remain in favor them. Among the Iraqis, he slithered his way to the top of the respect ladder – and that allowed him to extort money from other vendors on the base. Ali had not always been on Rustimiya base, but rather at the Ministry of Oil. When elements from the Headquarters company vacated the MOO, they brought their pet merchant with them to our base. At the MOO, it was suspected that someone on the inside of the compound had measured certain distances between buildings, because of the earlier mentioned mortar attack that scored direct hits on some of the buildings on the MOO compound. Now that HHC (Headquarters Company) was at Rustimiya, we were getting hit with mortar fire as well. Coincidence? Probably, but I made the connection nonetheless. I was concerned that Ali was leaking information to insurgents, most probably for money. I believed he would do anything for money.
I was perhaps naive, but I was hoping that 1st CAV would continue to employ the Iraqis who had authentically helped us over the past year. It was a year that saw the rebuilding of large parts of Rustimiya and an increase in prosperity for many of the squatters. 1st CAV was focused reducing dependency on Iraqi labor. It was always possible to reduce Iraqi labor and use more soldiers for manual labor, but the point was to get cash flowing into the neighboring communities. Many of the Iraqis worried for their shops and jobs. I tried to assure them that their livelihoods would be safe, but that was not for me to say. Assad the welder was particularly worried. I felt responsible for him. I felt that his interests needed to be represented to the leadership, because he had provided a valuable service to us. Several propositions were made to the new CAV guys, but they said they already had a welder. He was a soldier. Assad’s pay stopped, but he continued working for free, believing this would increase his chances of being accepted by 1st CAV. It never happened. He, among others, had to pack up and leave the base. They weren’t wanted anymore. I was simply ashamed. There was no allegiance to these people, and little sympathy from the new unit. It seemed the trust was dismantled, and that seemed too sad an ending for such a unique friendship.
In late march, Taji airfield (the site of a large Iraqi airbase and former Republican Guard depot) was renamed Camp Francis, memorializing Sergeant Major Francis – killed on December 24th. Sergeant Major Walker and several other NCOs went to the airbase for the dedication lunch and ceremony. I was driving Walker to the convoy. On our way back to Baghdad, due to traffic, we exited the highway and drove through some of the most Sunni populated areas of northwest Baghdad – the bad part of town. We were trying to work our way back towards the city center. In the process, we became disoriented. The scouts in our convoy developed a route plan based on GPS info, and soon we were cruising into Baghdad, and into more bumper to bumper traffic. That was a hairy situation. There was no worse part of Baghdad to be stuck in. You are surrounded by hundreds of anonymous Iraqis who are glaring at you. We crept along through the traffic, this time not ramming and bumping our way through as was common. The scouts dismounted and walked alongside the trucks, Sergeant Major Walker dismounted and provided security for our right flank. We just had to face it, we would have to crawl through miles of traffic in the 4-6 Field Artillery sector – the badlands.
Luckily, nothing happened. I wouldn’t have been surprised if a grenade went off. I almost expected it. When we started to enter the more friendly part of town, I looked over to see a woman with a male companion. She smiled and waved to us. The man with whom she was with immediately began to brutally beat her. He continued to hit her several times in plain sight of all around, including the affluent Iraqi citizens that inhabited that area. Many of the Iraqis responded with shocked facial expressions and verbal admonishments. The man ignored all of this and threw a few more blows into the woman. She wept until he grabbed her face and, I assume, told her not to weep in public. She tightened her lips and dipped her head towards the ground. As this was happening, one of the scouts asked on the intercom if he could subdue the Iraqi man. I could tell the scout was itching to stop the assault, and he was right to want to stop it. As soon as the man threw the first blow into the woman, the scout was starting to exit his gunner’s turret to get the man. He was told to hold tight, that there was nothing they could do about it. We did not have the tactical advantage at the moment, and our greatest concern was to get out of that traffic where we could maneuver freely.

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Dinner Parties in Baghdad, Putting My Life on the Line for Bullshit

2004-03-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

American, Interrupted is the longest, most complete account that exists about Operation Iraq Freedom by a soldier. Learn more about it at www.American-Interrupted.com.

31 March, 2004 2400 (Actually 1 April)

Another day in this wounded country. Tonight we (SGM Walker and CSM Brown) drove to CPA to the “Freedom Rest” compound (former Republican Guard resort) for yet another sergeants major dinner. I encountered another reason to stay out of the Army – why the hell am I putting my life on the line just so a bunch of enlisted good ol’ boys can all hang out and smoke cigars?! What is wrong with these people? They do more “dinners” out here than they do in Germany – and we’re engaged in a Guerilla war here. It’s not right. There’s nothing to celebrate. I’m tired and going to sleep now. I’ll call later. I love you!

After many of the units in Baghdad settled in, there began a trend of hosting and attending a multitude of special events. That could be a goodbye party for some high ranking officer or NCO, an NCO gathering, a cavalry get together across town, a Christmas party, a spur party, a promotion dinner. It seemed there was a dinner every time a high ranking person farted. This is not the case in garrison. There are dinners in Germany, and NCO gatherings every now and then, but nothing like the volume we had in Iraq. What angered me about it was that the soldiers driving and guarding these high ranking people were putting their lives on the line so, for example, a bunch of West Point alumnus could get their picture taken under the crossed sabers on Founder’s Day or something. There was a greater, more important task at hand, one greater than us – one that self congratulating could never help. There was no reason to celebrate, no reason to party, because outside of the walls of our compounds, a rebellion was brewing. It would be a rebellion that no amount of fake beer and Hajji steaks could wipe from our wishful thinking.
The end of March also saw the death of Alistair Cooke, a BBC writer and broadcaster whom I respected greatly. I was able to hear his essays more often while living in Baghdad, where the BBC broadcast the World Service on FM.

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The Luckiest Soldier in Baghdad, Rocket Attack Laughs, and Cheating Death as Combat

2004-03-26T21:30:00.000-08:00

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26 March, 2004 2130 Butler Range

“BOOM!” an explosion rang out two nights ago as I listened to BBC in my room and prepared to write you. Immediately when I heard the nearby blast, I knew it was an attack. I went straight for my rifle and video camera, but by then, two more loud explosions went off next to my building. ‘That is close!’ I realized with a great deal of seriousness. I ran downstairs to the command center room. I needed to get off the second floor because a round could penetrate the roof – and the rounds were targeting our camp for sure. I don’t know why, but it was almost exciting – for nearly everyone – like a hurricane party or something. No more explosions occurred. I counted 3 explosions.
I went down to the entrance of our building and noticed terrified soldiers in PT uniform running for cover or running into our building. I stood with some other soldiers and everyone was joking around. I noticed Sergeant Marshal come in looking upset. His hand had some bright red blood on it, but not too much. ‘Are you OK?’ I asked immediately.
“Yeah,” he said with an air of disbelief. “I was on the roof, talking to my wife on the phone, and all of a sudden explosions start going off around me, sparks flying, everything! ‘What was that?’ my wife asked, hearing the first explosion on the phone. ‘Nothing,’ I said and hung up the phone.”
It was indeed an attack, but the missiles landed outside the perimeter fence and into the river. All except for one.
The “Knight Bordello” is a house on our part of the camp that we spent $10,000 renovating for entertaining guests, incoming replacement soldiers, and soldiers needing a break. I don’t think the “giving soldiers a break” plan lasted too long, and the house remained vacant the majority of our time here. Some called it the “Knight Whorehouse,” not because it harbored women – it didn’t, nor did it ever, but because it was so gaudy and seemed shady just by virtue of its existence – how do you justify $10,000 on such a project? A project seeming fit for the mafia (joking). It was actually a nice place – that is until a 127mm rocket flew through one of the bedroom windows, disturbing not a whore, but an Army captain from his relaxing reading on his bed. The missile entered his window at the foot of his bed, passed only a few feet away from him through the opposite wall, going into the reception area of the house and plowing into the floor. The tail section snapped off and flew like a saw blade through a wooden door leading to the living room, into the living room, through an easy chair, and exiting the opposite wall of the house leaving a messy exit wound. When I got into the house with my camera, the smell of gunpowder or rocket propellant was still strong, and a smoky haze filled the house and a ghostly mist surrounded the house, illuminated by the house floodlights, the wiring unaffected by the missile. I went inside and was amazed at the way the missile buried itself into the concrete floor – even after punching through a wall, with the other half ripping through everything in it path. I couldn’t believe that the 1st CAV captain was in the bedroom that the missile flew into! It was amazing!
The captain walked around wide-eyed and dazed. It was the same 1st CAV captain I was talking to the anti-climatic nighttime operation called “Operation Iron Promise” on the streets of east Baghdad (more on that later). I found him in a state of disbelief. He recognized me right away. ‘Hey Sir, now you can sew on your combat patch,’ I said. He laughed. He should have been dead though. Strange…in other “wars,” you usually were rewarded for valor and units engaged the enemy and overcame. You come to Iraq and you get respect for surviving attacks. Yeah, catching bad guys is good, but a rare event. So, it’s not “How many bad guys did you get?” but “How many times have you been shot at, or blown-up, or hit with a grenade?” and so on. You get a combat patch for cheating death, you get a Combat Infantry Badge for getting shot at, and (rightfully so) you get a Combat Medical Badge for pulling smashed bodies from the U.N. building or taking Sergio de Mello’s last words as he dies. I don’t know if that is combat, it’s just survival. Anyways, the captain was lucky to be alive, and God smiled on the Knights – again.
The Australian bomb team came to the house and began to investigate the scene and the crater in the floor of the house. “Um, everyone out!” the Aussie said suddenly and nervously. He, while digging into the concrete floor (exposed under the wall to wall carpeting) with a pickaxe, hit the warhead section of the missile. When the missile impacted, the explosive failed to detonate, and instead dug itself into the floor of the house. The missile was a dud. 5 missiles were fired – 4 exploded, 1 didn’t explode. Luckily, the captain’s missile didn’t. It’s more than luck though. 1st CAV still has 12 months to go. Welcome to Baghdad.
Tonight , out at the range, the night was beautiful, an Arabian night. You can see clearly the belt of the Hunter, and the Big Dipper. It’s an amazing night. I can’t wait to be under these same stars with you Nora. I love you so, and I am thinking about you always!

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Assad Professes His Love for Bush, I Review My Criticism, and IED Maker Confesses to Knight 2 that He Kills "...because God tells me to kill you."

2004-03-22T22:05:00.000-08:00

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22 March, 2004 2205

“Thompson, I thank God for you, I thank God for Mr. Bush, God protect Mr. Bush,” Mazin (Assad’s brother) told me so sincerely as the nearby mosque echoed evening prayers. “Thompson, really, God bless Mr. Bush,” he said. I suspected the prayers triggered his thinking, because he started speaking of being thankful as soon as the singing of the Koran began. I felt so conflicted, because I know Mazin like a brother and I know he’s got a huge heart. He’s poor as dirt too, but speaks such good English and is always positive. He’s got a wife and kids and he’s living in an abandoned Army building. My problems are so small compared to his struggles, struggles he shrugs off. Somehow he makes ends meet. I felt conflicted because I don’t agree with how Bush is executing the war on terrorism. I think it’s out of touch with the realities on the ground that no politician or military minded person can assess and understand. Wishful thinking is dangerous. I would rather deal with reality, and get real results. I believe it’s how you do something that can ensure long-term success. Something deep in my soul says we did something the wrong way. Even on the anniversary of the war, I see images of the war, and I am totally disgusted with that period of time. It’s then I remember 100% why I need to get out of the Army (aside from never wanting to leave you again because it physically hurts my heart). It’s murder – war is murder.
After leaving Mazin for the evening, I thought about what he said while I walked back to the headquarters. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? These people are liberated, no doubt about it, but it’s so dangerous – it’s not safe for Americans or Iraqis or anyone else except the extremists – because everyone is afraid of them. Some mindless Texan who happens to be president is surrounded by calculating, cold, power players who possess an air of infallibility and wealth – and he says he believes in fighting terrorism and creating a free Iraq. Maybe he does, ask Mazin, and he’d say Bush is certainly succeeding. Ask almost any Iraqi. Does this end justify the means – those means having made many people with Republican ties rich, resulted in innocent blood being spilled everyday, soldiers getting killed by $10 roadside bombs?
The question is, was Bush right to do this? I believe he is president, and he took us to war saying Iraq was an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. We found no WMD. That was why we went to war – regardless of mass graves and cruelty. I expect my president to hold the highest standards – we are America – not Haiti or China. The world looks to us for leadership, it’s true. We said Iraq had WMD, we put the reputation of the U.S. intelligence agencies (feared and respected worldwide because of Hollywood and all that the agencies “hadn’t” done – whether real operations or imagined). It was a weapon (intel agencies) – perception. Perception was a powerful weapon, because we all assumed it worked flawlessly, as it never really failed on the world stage.
As the war progressed, no WMD has been found, and many of the promises Bush made about capturing Osama Bin Laden, about arsenals of WMD are all proving fruitless. Not only that, but the invincibility of the U.S. forces seems less so with each highly publicized attack on sitting duck soldiers in soft skin vehicles. The CIA, the FBI…well, they don’t seem so scary anymore. How big is their budget? Surely the CIA had the technology to track WMD sites and movements. I’m not so sure now, neither are our European neighbors – and they didn’t believe the evidence shown to them by the U.S. We still haven’t found any WMD. Our reputation has been damaged as a nation, and even though it’s naïve to think the government will always be honest, I expect more from the leaders of the U.S. government than to squander our prestige in front of the whole world. Now, it would be different if they made a clear case based on concrete or readily available reasons, of which there are so many other than WMD. Our national security is wounded. Not because of September 11th, but because our security net seems to be guarded by paper tigers.
I sincerely believe this whole war on terror could have been executed differently, but a chain of poor decisions have been made. Bush may truly believe in what he’s doing, and Iraq may be free now, but it will be at the expense of U.S. homeland security. We must reckon with reality and move thoughtfully. Statesmanship is an art – not a football game, and we need men of extraordinary intellect and experience. Leaders should be extraordinary. All of these concerns I have about Bush I would have expected to feel about a Texas governor – not the most powerful man in the world. It’s time for change, I don’t know if Kerry is the best man…personally, I don’t trust him – BUT I’ll give him a chance – because I don’t doubt he loves America – because it’s a great nation after all.
I love you Nora, I can’t wait to come home to you.

Two Iraqis were found by a patrol placing a roadside bomb at night. We had never caught anyone in the act of placing a bomb. One of the two was zip stripped by the neck to the dashboard heater grill for the ride to our detention facility. They were lucky nothing more happened. IEDs were feared and hated, and here are two people placing these horrible things! Did they not deserve to be shot on the spot? Those were the feelings some of the soldiers there must have had. During the interrogation of one of the bombers, it was revealed that they were placing the bombs to earn money. There were service fees paid to interested volunteers, $20 for placing a bomb, $50 for a successful kill, etcetera. The other bomber had more personal reasons for placing the bomb. When asked why he did it, he responded, “Because God tells me to kill you.”

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Finally Catching the Bad Guys, Discussing Islam with Tariq, Listening to Tunes in the New Car Stereo Installed in the Hummer

2004-03-11T19:00:00.000-08:00

11 March, 2004 Butler Range 1900

Well, I am out in the eastern desert of Iraq, at a large shooting range called Butler Range (named after a killed soldier). SGM Walker and I’ll be here for a few days. We’re doing a gunnery here, like we do in Graf[1], before we go home. I think it’s a bit strange doing a gunnery so soon after fighting. Even this range gets attacked. My mission for today was to find a way to call you – and I found a way.
I hope you are doing good Nora. I am feeling sick to my stomach, diarrhea and all, but no more vomiting. I wonder how I got this? Maybe Iraqi food or water. Sometimes Assad offers water, but I generally refrain.
I miss you so much over the past few days, but it is so, so wonderful to hear your sweet voice. I love you, with all I am, I love you. I am excited about coming home to you, and it’s a total dream come true that only weeks now separate us.
I never wrote about an operation a few days ago called “Operation Rhineland II.” It was really the first operation I wasn’t helping coordinate, because this time I was on the ground taking part in the operation.
The plan was to do a house to house search of ever single square inch of sector 70. Sector 70 is mainly farmland to the east of Baghdad city. It’s a large sector and probably about 300 or 400 square miles (roughly calculated). The mission goal was to find the material that could be used to attack Americans, since mortar attacks were being carried out there against our camp. We also suspect IEDs were being made there in warehouses.
The operation would start at dawn. Our battalion, ICDC, Special Operations, and a group called “OGA” (other government agency – CIA, FBI, etc.). They had good intel on a target house. SGM Walker and I got up early that morning. I called you and told you I love you before I left. I was focused and looking forward to this operation, because it was aimed at preventing attacks and not simply reacting to attacks. The terrorists are not stupid, but it was a good plan to me to wake up everyone at 0600 to see what they had in their homes. I didn’t feel too bad about doing this, because the people were just standing by and watching people place IEDs or fire mortars at our camp. Also, the point of the raid was not harassment.
Early in the darkness, my truck moved out with a platoon of scouts from Apache. We left our camp from the back gate, so no one would observe our exit. We drove south along the Diyala River and then across a steel bridge. We were taking the long way to our assembly area, where we would sit and wait to move into action. There was an eerie feeling moving in the darkness in the convoy that morning. No fear though, none at all, because at that moment I was doing what I’d done a hundred times before in Germany on training exercises. So, you’re confident, and you know everyone is on the same sheet of music. It’s a feeling of confidence you don’t normally feel on the road or stuck in traffic in Baghdad. Because we aren’t trained for that, we learned it as we got here, and often because someone tried to kill us.
As we approached the bridge by our camp where Santos was killed, all headlights cut off, and we drove fast in the blackness, seeing only two very dim “blackout” lights from the truck in front of me. Again, I was trained to do this. Some light rain was falling and clouds were low, so this increased the eerie atmosphere and darkness.
I noticed the truck in front of me slide to the left and skid. “Fuck!” Sergeant Cole said on the radio. “That’s a ditch! Almost went in the river!”
“You OK?” Sergeant Major Walker asked.
“Roger, he didn’t see it,” Cole said apologetically.
“Is that Barns?” asked SGM Walker. Barns is the driver who usually escorts my truck. I know his driving style and instincts, and he knows mine. So we always drive great together in Baghdad.
“No, Reeder is doing services on his truck,” Sergeant Cole answered.
‘So services on a truck are more important that real-world missions where teamwork communication is critical,’ I thought.
The substitute driver almost drove right into the river. We continued to move along the main road until the convoy pulled off behind a strip of roadside garages (extremely messy) and into a small field. The location was selected says earlier. We all turned our engines off and turned our radio speakers down. We were sitting in a wait position. At 0600, the operation would go into action and we would move out from our hide position. I got out of my truck. SGM Walker went to go over the operation with the platoon sergeant.
I looked around. Some houselights were on and then turned off. ‘This must be a little like the advance on Baghdad during the war,’ I thought. It was quiet out, except for the dogs barking. SGT Marshal and SGT Hugo had their M1A1 tanks there too, so we would be safe.
‘I’ve got a man on the roof, doesn’t look threatening,’ I said over my headset radio.
“Roger, I see him now,” SGT Cole answered. It was a guard or something on the roof overlooking the scrap yard. No weapon seen. It’s not unusual for people to sleep on rooftops here, but it was raining. Dogs kept barking.
0600 came around. “Short count, in five – four – three, two – one,” and every vehicle started their vehicle at the same time. That’s so no one else can tell how many vehicles we have by counting the number of engines starting. Our headlights came on, and we rolled out towards the main road.
Once on the main road, the two tanks blocked traffic and began to set up a checkpoint. We moved in on our first target house along the side of the road. Our trucks pointed hoods towards the entrance of the gated compound. By now, the sun was rising a bit.
A team of soldiers moved quietly all around the compound to see what problems may arise, and what way would be best for entering. Everything was fine until a dog came out and defiantly stood before the large, steel gate doors and began barking mechanically.
Right as one of the soldiers picked up a large brick and hit the dog with it, an Iraqi man peered clueless from behind the gate. Immediately soldiers were on him and putting him on the ground. The raid had to go now. The Hummers tried to crash the gate in, but the gate wouldn’t move. It was already broken.
The raid team moved into the small compound. In the main yard, there was nothing but chickens, and trash. We moved to the mud houses towards the rear of the compound. “BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!” One of the soldiers kicked again and again on one door. It wouldn’t give. So, a pry bar had to be used. Eventually the door broke open, revealing a small living space. The soldiers started turning the place upside down, while SGM Walker broke in the door next to the one we just opened. That too soon flew open and Sergeant Cole jumped in and cleared the room by pointing his rifle in all directions. This was a living room. It was so simple, only basics and blankets and junk. There was a new 12 inch TV still in the box though. The box was opened and nothing was found. The living room was ransacked and nothing was found. There was a cabinet there that had two compartments that were locked. They had to be opened, so, the one nice piece of furniture there was cracked open with a pry bar. Nothing found. The place was a mess.
“I don’t think ‘The One’ (a movie disk on the ground) is contraband,” the platoon sergeant said when one of his soldiers searching threw it out and onto the ground.
“Just clearing, Sarge,” he said. He wasn’t going to keep the disk or anything.
“Be sure to check all the blankets,” Sergeant Cole instructed me, “they like to hide rifles there.”
‘Roger,’ I said. I left the living room and went to the courtyard where I saw a woman huddled with her 3 young children. She looked old and dumb. I felt sorry for the kids, and as always, there was some toddler in filth, eyes rolling around. A soldier stood watch over the woman and her kids. I went back into the living room and dropped my last two dollars on the floor. ‘It’s not much for compensation, but it’s all I got,’ I thought.
“Nothing,” said the platoon sergeant, “not a fucking thing, except for some wires.”
‘I found these papers,’ I said, handing some papers to the translator.
“What is it?” the sergeant asked.
“It says he is applied for a job with the ICDC,” the translator said.
“Aw fuck, that’s great,” the sergeant said. Everyone was looking at each other grinning. “Guy’s looking for a job with us, and we kick his door in, ain’t that some shit!” The sergeant shook his head in disbelief. “Get him up off the ground, let him go.” The soldiers took the chrome handcuffs off the man, who was on his knees, awkwardly leaning against the mud compound wall. He started speaking through the translator.
“I am just a guard. I am getting fired and must leave this week because I failed to get the gate fixed,” he said.
‘How can you live like this, you’ve got a family,’ I wondered. Many men here are lazy and keep making kids, but don’t work hard. The translator explained this compound was a place to be rented out to store vehicles and things. We released the man, and he waved goodbye surprisingly, but in an uncomfortable-looking daze.
We moved on to the next target, a small mechanic’s yard and concrete manufacturing yard. The guards were up and awake this time. They thought it was amusing to be detained by Americans, of course, their families were there too living with them. So the men and boys had to be separated from the women and girls. They all cooperated. “Do you have any weapons?” the platoon sergeant through the translator.
“No mista, no, no,” they replied. The scouts went into the raggy home and began to tear it to bits. A woman stood by waving her hands, asking, “Why?!” Her kids stood by her side. I tried to convey in my most sincere and compassionate facial expression that everything would be OK, that this was bad, but all would be OK.
“Found an AK!” A soldier found the rifle under some blankets. “No AK?” the platoon sergeant asked the group of Iraqi males. “You’re a bunch of fucking liars.” We kept the AK-47. If they only said they had the AK, they could have kept it.
“It’s suspicious that they have so many DVDs, but no DVD player,” Sergeant Cole said.
“Na, na, here it is,” another soldier said after finding a DVD player in a box.
The woman seemed frightened that we found the AK, but there was nothing to worry about if they had nothing. I went to my truck and got a little plush toy doll you sent me and some candy. I went back to the woman and her kids and gave them each one of them something. The kids smiled in their pajamas. The mom smiled too, “Shokran,” she said.[2] I nodded to her and left.
We continued to search, and I found some Austrian plastic forming machines – used to make plastic cups and plates. All this equipment was very raggy. “You think they make plates out of plastic explosives?” one soldier asked half-joking.
“That would be cool,” another answered. We continued to search and found nothing but a safe.
“If you don’t have a key for the safe, we’re going to blow it open, and that will destroy any money inside,” the platoon sergeant said through the interpreter.
“They say they don’t have the key, only the owner, who comes in at 0800,” said the interpreter.
“OK, I’m going to blow it,” the platoon sergeant answered. He never blew it.
“There goes the bolt cutters,” a soldier said as he tossed a broken set of heavy-duty bolt cutters to the ground. They had finally been used on their last raid.
“Remember to get with the S-4 when we get back to get some new ones,” the platoon sergeant said.
I looked around and noticed all the 50 gallon barrels around the mechanic’s area. ‘It would be so easy to hide something in there,’ I thought.
“Nothing here, let’s go.” We got in our trucks and went away from the scout platoon to find LTC Jagger. Scout helicopters flew in low circles overhead. All around were U.S. and ICDC soldiers. Everything was being searched. The people didn’t seem to mind at all. The kids seemed excited and the older people smiled while opening shack and car doors.
We pulled up on LTC’s location. I noticed two Chevy Suburbans in the narrow, green alleyway. It was the spooks. An Arab-looking man with the spooks stood by with an AK-47.
I walked up the driveway and met a CIA man on the way. ‘Did you find anything?’ I asked.
“Oh yeah,” he said very clearly and in a friendly, surprisingly civilian way. He was tall, wore a Boston Red Socks baseball cap, and had khaki clothes on and hiking shoes. He went on, “We got some explosives, remote detonators, some JEEEHAD stuff.”
‘That’s great, actually got some bad guys,’ I said. It was good too, usually our raids are disappointing.
“That’s what it’s all about, catching bad guys,” he said positively.
‘Hmm, now there’s a true professional,’ I thought. Guys like him go in and actually catch killers almost every time they go out. Army guys just get killed. It was cool to actually succeed in getting some terrorists.
I walked up to the house where the terrorists were captured. It was a quaint little place, looking not too different from a country home in the southern USA. The home was also a honey farm, with hives around the home. The business (honey) was run out of the home. I walked into the yard and mingled with the CIA guys and a few soldiers and a Navy explosives expert that I’ve worked with on several occasions clearing IED-looking debris on the sides of roads. The Navy guy was fidgeting with a device. Laid out and around were RPG rounds, blasting caps, explosives and various other items. ‘What is it?’ I asked the Navy guy.
“It’s a remote detonator made out of a car alarm,” he explained, while turning a bundle of plastic and wires in his gloved hands. “See this remote control?” he asked while holding the car alarm remote control keychain controller. “This wire here is meant to extend the transmission range of the remote,” he said, showing me a long, red wire from the remote. This was the exact type of setup used to bomb my patrol on HWY 5. The actual receiver contained the receiver housing and a few AA battery housings taped together. This was one of two devices. The other similar device was taken by the FBI representative.
Nearby, soldiers poked a sand pile in the yard and heard a “CLANK!” in the sand. The explosives experts cleared the sand away and found an artillery shell in the sand. One of the men simply picked up the round and moved it to a truck. Sergeant Siegel and I covered our faces with our hands jokingly to show our unease with the bomb being handled so freely just feet away from us.
I went into the house and found myself in the living room, and it was full of women crying and chatting nervously. I presume they were the daughters and wives of the five or so captured men. Some were holding infants. I didn’t even look at them, I just acted like they weren’t in the room. I passed into the main hallway and found a group of men bound and blindfolded on their knees, pointed in various directions, their heads slightly raised in disorientation, and looking helpless.
‘You are screwed,’ I thought. Why do people feel so compelled to risk their families and future to fight “Jihad” against Americans? Yes, it is probable America is looking to capitalize on this country using its oil – BUT, I do not believe America’s mission here is completely dubious. They’re actually not looking to harm Iraq or Islam – BUT these terrorists seem willing to give up their infant sons to attack what are, at worse, schizophrenic cowboys with big hearts and big tempers. BUT, nothing to warrant Jihad. They hate Americans – more specifically the American government. I went into one of the bedrooms as one of the CIA guys and the Army guys searched the ransacked room. More wires were found. I went into the kitchen, walking and then hopping like a kid playing hopscotch through the group of captured Palestinian men blocking the hallway, so I could get to the kitchen. The kitchen looked like my great grandmother’s kitchen in Talladega, Alabama. I was taken aback for a moment and enjoyed the feeling of being in Granny’s kitchen. I stood and forgot I was in Iraq. ‘Wild,’ I thought to myself and snapped out of my daydream.
I went into another bedroom with several beds in it. CD-ROMs were laying on the floor. I was wondering why the FBI didn’t take them. I looked through the open drawers in the room. I found lots of photos of the men now bound and blindfolded in the neighboring hallway. You always hear about terrorists coming from desperate conditions, and sometimes you get that impression from photo histories in homes. What it seems though, is that these people are actually successful at one stage in their lives, and then one key event happens in their life, and for whatever reason, they start constructing bombs. These men were Palestinians that have been living in Iraq. Pictures showed these men smiling and looking very neat in western style business suits. Some have pictures of them posing holding diplomas in English language. Young scholars perhaps. I found a diploma from the Iraqi Education Ministry, and it was totally in the English language. It stated that the holder scored “excellent” in Microsoft Office Tools and MS-DOS. It was dated 2002. I saw no signs of Islamic extremism.
One of the women looked into around the corner at me as I looked through the photos. She broke out in tears and disappeared. I shook my head. ‘Why did these guys decide to kill Americans and continue to build bombs?’ I asked myself. I thought back months ago to the general’s things we captured. I looked at his pictures too. Again, photos told the story of a civilized life and good humor. But as in this latest case, something happened.
I honestly think that something could be Islamic extremism – perhaps a radical cleric plants some anti-American or Israel rhetoric in their heads. Maybe, and I honestly think this is more likely based on my personal experiences, you’ve got more young men who have studied, worked hard in university, and are on the road of success…THEN, a war begins, and the house of cards falls down. People who were not abused by Saddam and actually coexisted or functioned well in the system – even if they weren’t vocal supporters of Saddam – now hate America. Their balance, their outlook, their psychological rhythm disrupted. To have so much going your way, only to be reduced to nothing because of a war you didn’t ask for or think was needed. Maybe 12 years of sanctions and all the consequences they blamed on the Americans, whether justified or not. You never know what makes the person snap. Maybe a relative was killed in the war, maybe their car was damaged by reckless soldiers, or relative accidentally shot, or home ransacked. You never know. It seems at some point, a situation arises that strips one of their pride or sense of importance or usefulness. People react to this differently. We’ve got electrical engineers working for us picking up the trash. Why didn’t they start building bombs? Maybe they are just more patient. The trash picking electrical engineers are Shia, so they hate Saddam. But, Iran (Shia) is supporting terrorism in Iraq against the Americans. A lot of Shia are very docile and not very assertive – maybe not the rebellious types. I don’t know. The Shia are slowly getting bolder though now that Saddam is gone.
Anyways, winning hearts and minds does matter. Both sides in this clash of civilizations are afraid of each other’s extremes – even though neither side subscribe mainly to an extreme. It’s the “common man” idea I have that a lot of people disagree with me about. The working class people in the world are more similar than one may realize. I believe that. I believe it even more after seeing new cultures. There is one thing that irritates me though. When talking to an Iraqi, I often find that they have very civilized and descent morals – similar to those of westerners (in most cases identical), BUT – the moment you mention women in a relationship or in society, the uniform reaction is always backwards thinking – no matter how educated the person I am talking with, no matter how earnest and sincere – they always say women need to stay put away and hidden and quiet and not working. They consider any powerful woman or moderate Muslim woman a “bitch” (the Iraqi way of saying whore or slut). It’s so strange to encounter this attitude with otherwise thoughtful and educated men. It’s not only the religion that facilitates this attitude, it’s deeper than that. I once thought it was simply a religious issue. But, when talking to Tariq or Haider, they talk about keeping the women covered and keeping teenage girls always in the house (rarely do you see teenage girls here). They talk about the process where a wife is the servant and if she fails in that role, she is handed over to her father to be dealt with. Tariq once told me after saying it’s good the woman be completely (saying she’s a bitch if she doesn’t) covered, “It’s good for the man,” with a laugh and a wink. Same with Haider, “It’s a good thing for woman to stay covered up and stay home, it’s good for the man.” So, men here are very powerful, and they know it and feel protective of that position. To many, the woman is simply an object. There are some good Iraqi couples though, and you see them holding hands. In the city center, you see more modern Muslim men and women dressed in western attire, albeit conservative and professional-looking. It seems mainstream Muslims are a bit paranoid about women being individuals or being a bit independent. It’s almost as if the men feel insecure about their women, and react to this by or thru Islamic law and constant conditioning of the young. Some people who haven’t had these telling conversations I’ve had with Muslims, naively think, “Well, you’ve got to respect the culture.” It has nothing to do with culture. It has everything to do with male human nature and ego. That’s not healthy in a society. Maybe this results in the suppression of feelings of compassion, apathy, affection, tenderness in society. The men here overflow with brotherly love, they embrace, hold hands, and walk closely with each other – all behaviors we as westerners associate with closeness between a male and female. You wonder if they deny this closeness to their wives, except to sleep with their wives to derive sexual pleasure selfishly or to produce children. Many times, especially with the lower classes, you see the women or girls carrying large bushels on their heads as the man stands by and smokes a cigarette. Sometimes it’s revolting to see an old woman struggling to carry a rusty propane bottle down the street, while her husband walks alongside her. I’ve been told by Assad that the women are raised to work like this as servants in order to demonstrate their love for their husband. There is also the practice of marrying cousins. There is not as much freedom of choice for young men or women. I also found peculiar the practice of polygamy. How can you marry more than one woman? Again, liberal minded people from the west say, “This is the culture!” The woman can’t take more than one husband. Again though, I would hear the comment, “It’s very good for the man!” I’m sure many men would enjoy having many women sexually and guilt free (Hey! God says it’s OK to have at least 4!). Again, this sounds like lust and human nature talking, not God. There seems to be a great deal of tribal ethics accommodated by Islam and still practiced in the Middle East. You read Che Achumbe’s Things Fall Apart about African tribal life, and you see some of that behavior here in the Middle East.
A society where men and women are equally valued members of the society can do a great deal to promote peace. I don’t know if that change is going to occur anytime soon though. Ironically, Iraq isn’t as radical as some of its neighbors, because of Saddam’s insistence on building a secular state. He did become a more devout Muslim after the first Gulf War, even adding “God is Great” to the national flag.
My last observation (and then I’ll continue about the Palestinians) is that each family I’ve seen has many, many children. You see women pregnant and they are dirt poor. The man of the family is proud though – each child is a sign of honor – increases the father’s legitimacy.
‘How can they have a child every year and be so poor?’ I’d ask.
“Allah says not to worry about it, Allah will care for them, as he does the birds,” my Iraqi friends tell me. Of course, I feel conflicted, because being a Catholic Christian, we believe the same thing. The “Don’t worry, God cares for His living things,” is in our Bible. It’s part of the human condition to have children, and in the absence of birth control, westerners would have more children. It’s only natural to produce children, birth control is actually unnatural. Of course, that doesn’t sound too optimistic in a society that has almost forgotten private parts aren’t just for entertainment, but for creating life too. Many Iraqis think we westerners are actually the crazy ones, avoiding having children or big families. Big families are a source of pride, happiness, and help here. I don’t know, maybe that’s something we as westerners are missing out on. So, I’m conflicted with feelings of disapproval for poor, large Iraqi households and guilt from being such a snob – I talked to Hussein about it, my Sunni advisor, on confusing Muslim and Arab ways.
“Yes Thompson,” he says amused and sympathetically, “Allah says he will feed your young as he does everything in nature. BUT, God also gave me a brain and a mind to realize I should try not to have more children than I can provide for and send to college and pay attention to. We Sunni don’t have as many children, we are generally more educated,” he said in a very agreeable way. He always emphasizes the virtues of being Sunni.
You see so many children and all and you wonder if they get enough attention! I don’t know if I should feel silly for thinking maybe young Arabs don’t get enough love or affection and come to be emotionally dysfunctional. Maybe that’s a bit too much.
Haider is Kurdish, he speaks positively about his mom and doesn’t seem too deranged. What about the millions of other Iraqis and Arabs?
Back to being in the house looking at the pictures. I dropped the pictures and thought about taking some CD-ROMs to investigate their contents, but it felt wrong to take something from a stranger’s house. I decided I had seen enough, so I left, walking past the living room full of sobbing and worried women and girls and infants. I didn’t look at them at all. The prisoners came out right behind me. The women cried louder seeing their men being led out.
“I need my shoes,” one of them said as a soldier led the blindfolded and zip stripped man to a truck.
“I don’t give a fuck about your shoes,” the soldier replied as he led him past several RPG rounds that lay on the ground. After all the prisoners were put on the back of the truck, I walked over because I noticed one of them whispering to the others very secretively. I tapped him and said, ‘Shhhhhh.’ They could be putting a story together for later or discussing plans should one of them be released.
‘You need to make sure they aren’t talking to each other,’ I told one of the soldiers guarding them.
“It don’t matter corporal, they’re fucked anyways,” he answered.
‘Don’t be so naïve,’ I scolded him. The CIA and our guys finished looking around the grounds, so we all simply left. As we walked down the driveway towards the main road, one of the women sneered at us and clumsily closed the metal gate to the driveway. She loudly latched it shut in a display of anger. Her neighbors peered at us over privacy fences and looked curiously at the prisoners and the woman.
“Mista, we love you! Good mista!” the children and smiling parents said.
‘Good public reaction,’ I thought. I went back to my truck and got some plush doll you sent me for the kids and waved an on looking man over to the truck. He was holding a baby. The man cautiously walked up and the baby smiled and fumbled the doll about. The father smiled and thanked me. One of the CIA guys walked over to me.
“Hold on, we’ve got a lot of candy and stuff too we need to get rid of,” the man said from under his Boston Red Socks cap. He handed some candy over to the father. He was smiling ear to ear as if he won a lottery.
As we drove off, I wondered why we didn’t completely search the house and collect all the CD-ROMs. Moreover, I wondered what would happen to the women and children. Especially the infant. Of course, his father was killing people, while going to his nice, peaceful home after committing these acts. I can’t believe these men felt so threatened by the U.S. Now, I might have some sympathy if we were systematically destroying Iraq – BUT, it’s these people who are making matters worse. Had these men reentered civil society, they would have been OK. Now, they will spend at least 30 years in prison. Leaving families and wives and infants behind. It’s horrible.
Soldiers were everywhere, Kiowa helicopters flew over, and we drove to the local mosque. The ICDC went in and searched the small mud building with scaffolding as a minaret. The imam was friendly. I gave some kids some chewing gum. The imam’s wife hatefully motioned us to go away and covered her primitive looking face while clucking at her kids. These kids looked over at me and smiled, obviously amused to see the woman so upset at what was virtually nothing. She would look at them and tell them to give the candy back. As soon as she looked back at us, the kids chuckled behind her back and smiled at me. One teenage son did as he was told though, as I already anticipated, and collected up all the candy and gave it back to me. What made it worse was when I was tossing the candy to them, the wind caught one pack of Trident gum and hit the woman (not hard) on the back of the head. It was an accident,
but the kids laughed quietly amongst themselves. They knew it was an accident.
“Maybe it’s against their religion to chew bubblegum,” one of the soldiers said, confused that the woman refused the candy.
‘Who knows,’ I answered and gave the neighbor kids the reclaimed goods. They ate it right away. The mosque came up clean, so we went to watch soldiers clear some more buildings. Driving all over the land, I passed out more candy and toys. The kids love it. We stopped so SGM Walker could go in a house with some Apache scouts. A kid appeared on a roof and I waved to him. He waved back. The last time they had seen soldiers was during the open combat of the war. I tossed a Dum Dum sucker to the boy, and the strong wind caught it and rapidly carried it to him. He ran away frightened. A few seconds later, his head popped up again with a big smile with another boy. “Good mista! Good!” they yelled smiling.
A fat woman waddled out near to me to see what was going on. She smiled and said hello. I handed her a box of Band-Aids and soap. She accepted it gladly and smiled. Her older son came out and smiled too and said thank you. He was wearing a Notre Dame sports sweatshirt. It thought that was funny.
All of the sector was searched. No one was really irritated about it. Most everyone thought it was excited to have Americans in their homes. As the operation drew to a close, we all assembled in a field. A nearby home overflowing with children in a yard surrounded by chain link fence was only feet away from me. I got out and gave all the kids some candy. A small group assembled around me. They were cute. They laugh at every little thing you do. I went back to my truck and got some toys for the little girls and teenagers, like combs and all and a snow dome you sent me from Germany. Everyone got something, and they were very grateful for it. I gave the combs and hair ties to the man, respecting culture, he then in turn gave it nervously to the girls. At first he looked irritated because all the women and kids were lining along the fence and not cleaning the yard. He eventually relaxed and smiled. They kept trying to pass me a baby over the fence to hold. It’s an honor to hold another’s baby and a sign of trust. I politely refused because I always keep one hand on my rifle, always. So the boys brought the baby to me. That was cool. He was so tiny, and had a big head, white and warm – only slightly fuzzy with new hair.
“Oh God Thompson, you’re a fuckin’ Iraqi lover,” SGM Walker said. The Apache 1SG (first sergeant) said something I would expect from a redneck about Iraqis and I just ignored him. The baby was so precious though, and his head would bob back and his eyes would meet mine.
‘Hey little man,’ I said patting his little head. He was so precious and fragile, but beautiful. I haven’t seen anything that precious since looking into your eyes for the last time before I left. I love you Spatzi! SGM Walker looked nervously at the baby – big macho man confronted with such tenderness! It was funny! ‘You want a picture holding the baby, Sergeant Major?’ I asked already knowing an artificially coldhearted answer would follow.
“No, I’m no Iraqi lover!” he replied. I laughed and motioned to the boys to go over to Walker with the baby. SGM Walker got all nervous around the baby and tried to maintain his macho posture, but kept stepping away from the baby.
‘Ah, he’s a softy for sure!’ I laughed to myself. One of the sergeants said it would be a good picture with the kids, so I gave him my camera to get a picture taken. I really enjoyed being out there with those people. Especially the kids. I like being the “good American,” but more importantly a good brother to fellow human beings, and a practicing Christian. It does matter, even though I am told a thousand times a day that it doesn’t matter. It matters to me.
As we went home that afternoon, we listened to U2 on the car stereo I installed in the Hummer. It was the first real time since I go to Iraq that I felt a sense of accomplishment. We removed killers, and found undeniable evidence that they were preparing to kill. Innocent people would or could have died, and they have no right, no legitimate reason to execute people on their own whim. They were living nicely, well educated, and obviously living peacefully – there are thousands of people living here in filth that have experienced great loss. They have faith though, they are surviving. Saddam was far more corrupt and abusive than U.S. forces, and no one really challenged him so vigorously. If they did, they would have been tortured and killed. All these prisoners had to endure was walking to the truck on gravel, barefoot.

My Hummer became my hobby, my diversion while I was in Iraq. I jokingly suggested that I should build a car stereo into the Hummer so we wouldn’t have to deal with the sometimes maddening silence of night patrols. Sergeant major agreed and I installed a car stereo with two speakers into the Hummer. It was great. When possible, we would drive around Baghdad listening to rock music during our patrol. It did a lot to calm my nerves and a lot to break that silence – a silence you wait to break into an explosion. The music soothed that fear. I then installed a spot light on the truck, with a toggle switch the sergeant major could control. He also had a writing board and map board build into the dashboard, along with a cup holder made of steel. I learned a lot about wiring, and I learned a lot about mechanics in general just wasting time on that truck.

[1] Graf is the short name of the Grafenwohr Training Area in Germany.
[2] Thank you in Arabic

Description of Middle Class Iraqi Home, Mistaken Case of Rape, Punching a Woman in the Face, and the Fallujah Resistance Mystery

2004-03-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

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10 March, 2004 2230

“There’s some nice houses in Iraq,” SSG Sommers said. “I remember one raid when we went into the house and we felt bad about going in, it was so nice you felt like taking your shoes off! It looked like a house in the States. The kids’ room had posters of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, Pokemon, it’s crazy, I’m telling you. And the whole family speaks fluent English. The wife said, ‘Oh, please don’t destroy our house, we’ll show you everything,’ very nicely. And they did, the showed us everything. She kept showing us things, saying, ‘This is from my trip to America and my university days in the States,’ she said. It’s crazy man,” SSG Sommers explained, still in disbelief.
One story I heard not too long ago was pretty interesting. “So we’re up in our tank observing our sector, it’s broad daylight,” Sergeant Marshal says. “Well, we notice a car out in the distance and see a man get out with a woman. It looks like the man puts the woman in the back seat and then gets in too. So I’m thinking, ‘Holy shit, this fucker is about to rape this chick!’ So, we fire up our tanks and haul ass down the hill and to the car, and you can see this guy all over the woman. So we pull up and jump off our tank. We run up to the car, reach in, and pull the man out. ‘So you like to rape women, huh?’ we kept saying while we beat the shit out of him, and the woman starts screaming. Then she starts screaming in English, ‘NO, STOP, STOP! He’s my boyfriend!’ ‘Oh fuck,’ I thought, and we froze up and immediately let the guy go. Well, it turns out, she was a school teacher and still living at home, so they had no place to make out, so they were doing it in the car in broad daylight. The just picked a bad spot that day.”
Then there was the story about the tank car chase, again with Sergeant Marshal. “So we set up this roadblock, and this Iraqi guy goes right by. So we chase him in our tank and actually catch him by pinning him in. So, we get him out of the car and start beating the shit out of him. All of a sudden, this guy’s wife shows up all crying and she won’t go away, she keeps grabbing onto sergeant (I forget his name). All of a sudden, he turns around and punches this woman square in the face, and her whole face exploded. He ended up breaking her nose, and blood was fucking everywhere.”
Here you hear all kinds of stories. Most of them are believable. You hear a lot of bragging in chow lines or lines in general. You notice the young, redneck military police guys (and their tomboy female gunners) bragging about harassing or beating Iraqis. As individuals, they don’t give the impression of being very good people. They are troublemakers now, high on their egos, and they were probably troublemakers back in their redneck town. A lot of these young men are just juvenile delinquents. They act like hyperactive devils. They just do what they want. I remember one time seeing them go into an Iraqi store acting like children, dropping goods, or tossing them around, then stealing glasses and gloves. It’s just a shame. “Do you fuckin’ understand a fuckin’ word I’m sayin’ boy?” a redneck MP said to an Iraqi store owner (who I know, and he actually speaks fluent English) while holding up a DVD video. “DO – YOU – FUCKIN’ – HEAR – ME,” he said in a deep southern accent.
‘I can hardly understand your English,’ I thought to myself.
One group of MPs that I heard talking were saying, “So we had this guy, and we are beating the shit out of him,” a young MP bragged as I listened pretending to be impressed. “So, after we’re done beating him, we put a sandbag on his head and zipped his hands behind his back. THEN, we tossed him in a ditch and drove off. I don’t even wanna know what happened to the fucker!” And laughter erupted in the group.
Fallujah is a hot spot in Iraq. There are heavy attacks there very often, and foreign fighters have moved in and gained support there. It wasn’t always like that though. Many bathroom stall walls at BIAP read a long list of “R.I.P. PVT John Doe.” One day I noticed a second scribbling referring to 82nd Airborne in a hostile way: “Fallujah wasn’t bad until 82nd came and fucked it up by shooting up an anti-Saddam rally! Fuck 82nd Airborne! R.I.P. Fallen Soldiers!”
I thought this was interesting. I noticed even more graffiti attacking 82nd Airborne in Fallujah. I asked Sergeant Cole about it. ‘What happened in Fallujah?’ I asked, wanting to figure this out.
“Well,” he said, “82nd got into Fallujah and got all nervous. There was a rally, and 82nd felt threatened and fired on the crowd. I think about 14 people were shot dead. After that, all the people turned on us. When I was there for Operation Longstreet, people were nice, inviting us into their homes and constantly offering us food.”[1]
There were firefights though. Sergeant Cole shot some guys. They killed one guy, “and wrapped him up in a military tarp. We got him wrapped up and a ‘UHHHHHH’ sound came from under the tarp, and one of the soldiers immediately fired a bullet into the tarp – he was jumpy and got spooked. That finished the guy off,” he told. “There was one guy we stopped on a Jawa motorcycle and we found homemade grenades on him,” he said. “He said they were for fishing. He was missing a hand and some fingers on the remaining hand. He had the motorcycle rigged up so he could drive with one hand. He couldn’t have the Jawa though (they were outlawed because they were purchased by the Saddam right before the war for the Fedayeen), so we kicked it to the side of the road and fired a few rounds into the fuel tank until the bike exploded. Well, the commander finds out about this and orders us to give the guy another motorcycle from a bunch we already confiscated. Later we search his brother’s house in a separate operation and find all kinds of explosives and RPG rounds.”

[1] Fallujah was not completely hostile towards Americans in the beginning. Problems began to develop when the Iraqis demand that a military post be moved from a school. Although it was hardly reported, several Iraqis were killed when soldiers shot them. The BBC reported the incident, but other news organizations did not. Most assumed incorrectly that hostilities in Fallujah simply grew spontaneously.

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The Signing of the Iraqi Constitution, Discussing a Shia Theocracy in Iraq with Sunni Friend Hussein, Shooting a Civilian Car in a Misunderstanding

2004-03-09T21:00:00.000-08:00

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9 March, 2004 2100

I’m sitting at my desk with a hot pot of Ahmad Tea and an uneasy stomach. I’ve been sick for a week now. I’m not sure why, maybe some bad water or something. I’m getting better though. I need to catch up though on some remarkable things. Nothing big happened today.
Yesterday I was at the Al-Rashid hotel for lunch. It just happened that the new Iraqi constitution was being signed that same afternoon right across the street. I wanted to go in to see the signing, but we didn’t have access due to the agreement there would be a low military presence. SGM Walker thought the constitution had already been signed. The night before, the Al-Rashid and CPA were hit by rockets in an attack. I ate lunch in the well appointed dining facility, and noticed the usual CPA civilian types. One woman ran in and said she saw some people running and wearing flak jackets. I didn’t hear an explosion, so I figured it was just a precaution.
I walked out of the dining facility and past a little Iraqi store (also called Hajji stores) in the hallway. I saw some Americans and Iraqis gathered around a small TV. It was the signing of the new constitution. I realized this was a historic moment. ‘If this actually works, this could be the beginning of a new era in the Middle East…if it works,’ I thought.
The Iraqis watched intently at the screen. Some American soldier with a large build and disproportionately small pin-head was blocking our view. He looked mutated or retarded. “Ha! Goddamned long ass name and he signs only a scribble, ha! Mr. Haba la-la-la,” he kept making stupid comments while the signing was going on. I ignored him, and the Iraqis tried to.
I went outside and looked at the outside of the buildings where the constitution was being signed and noticed all the TV trucks and luxury cars.
I went back to my truck and talked to our Sunni translator, I call him Hussein. I can’t remember his name, but he is the best educated of all the translators. ‘What do you think about the new constitution?’ I asked.
“I think it’s fantastic. We’ve got so many rights under this new document. You know if it works, it could be better than the United States,” he smiled.
I heard some heavy caliber machine gun fire going off not too far away. My stomach was turning in knots. I just wanted to lie down and let my stomach rest. We still had to make it through downtown Baghdad back to camp. I wonder what it was like in World War II when a soldier was extremely sick?
Hussein the translator is a Sunni, and a very agreeable person, fluent in English and educated in politics. A few days ago we were eating at regiment and got into a little discussion about the Shia practice of whipping oneself with chains. We talked a lot about the Shia. ‘Why do so many Shia have so many children?’ I asked.
“Well, many of them are poor, or farmers. The Koran says if you have children, do not worry about who feeds them – God will figure it out. But, God also gave me a brain, so I know not to have more children than I can provide for – that means college and the like,” he answered candidly. “Sunni are reasonable. You don’t see Sunnis demanding things from Americans – only Shia. You can’t trust them at all. They are backstabbers, and now they are tricking America.”
‘I was wondering, if Iraq slips into civil war, will neighboring countries absorb each sect, for example Sunni supported by Syria and Shia by Iran? I know Iran has an interest in destabilizing Iraq in order to prevent the U.S. from going into Iran (which I believe is very likely to happen unless reforms take place),’ I asked. I believe more that Iran may be sheltering Al-Qaeda or have a marriage of convenience with them to cripple American activity. Change in Iran would be good for Iraqi unity and Shia moderation – looking within instead of to Iran for leadership. Also Iraqi Shia may be more radical about their religion now that they are free to practice it after years of oppression. This works to the Iranian’s advantage. Weakening Iran or encouraging a change in government there is almost necessary to avoid civil war in Iraq and to prevent Iraq from falling into the hands of a religious leader. ‘I’m afraid Iraq could turn into another Iran,’ I said.
“Exactly, you are exactly right,” Hussein said nodding. “The Shia want Iraq to be like Iran.”
What got us talking about this was the upcoming Hussein Mosque celebrations in Karbala. Many people are flying flags. We were out in the countryside and we drove past a group of children marching from village to village, dressed in black and hitting themselves on the backs with chains. Now, I was told this isn’t really painful because so many small chains are on a handle, so the pressure is distributed. I noticed the old man leading the children and signaling with his fist when to strike themselves. Of course, he didn’t have any chains to strike himself with. He probably didn’t practice this under Saddam’s rule. ‘You teach these kids to hit themselves, but you don’t do it yourself…what’s wrong with this – am I only intolerant of other cultures?’
Later that same day, we were driving out to Butler Range, and I noticed a black BMW behind us. There was a small boy in the front passenger seat. The father gave the boy a poster to show us. I saw this in my rearview. His BMW got right on my bumper and kept trying to pass, but couldn’t get past. Then, he suddenly tore out past me even though I tried to block him. He flew past and cut off our 3 vehicle convoy, and at the same time, the boy displayed some kind of poster to us. ‘SGM, the BMW’s stuck in traffic over there,’ I said.
“Let’s stop him…Sergeant Cole, stop that black BMW,” Walker said on the radio. The BMW tried to get away, and as soon as the road was clear, he dropped into low gear and hauled ass. We turned a corner (I was the rear vehicle) and noticed the BMW pull over on the side of the road.
‘That’s good, he’s cooperating and pulled over,’ I thought with relief. Then my heart sank. ‘Oh shit,’ I whispered. I noticed two bullet holes in the rear windshield. ‘The boy,’ I thought. I jumped out with my weapon pointed at the car and went to the passenger side to get the boy. The man got out and Walker and the scouts had their weapons trained on him. Hussein and the new sergeant major, CSM Brown, stood by. I noticed the man get out shocked, holding his neck with a bloody hand. His injury didn’t seem that serious, so I continued to move closer to the car. I saw the boy and slowly opened the door. He had both hands on his lap and he was frozen solid, except for some trembling. Two bullet holes were in the front windshield. The two that were fired from the lead scout’s M-16 entered the rear and passed between the man and the boy, and exited with two holes in the front.
I lowered my rifle and opened the door slowly and the boy looked up at me shaking. I gently grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out. I knew he must be terrified. ‘It’s OK, zien, zien,’ I said. I grabbed one of the posters in the car. It showed an angel holding the body of some fairytale-looking Arab man. It was Hussein of the Karbala shrine. The following day was the festival of his martyrdom.
“May God Protect You and Keep You Safe,” the poster said in English, below the Arabic.
‘Oh shit, this isn’t good,’ I thought. I walked over to Hussein to get the Arabic translated.
“Yes, this is a sign of greeting. When he showed the convoy the poster, it was like a way of saying ‘Merry Christmas,’” he said.
‘Oh man, you’ve got to be kidding me!’ I said to him. Our eyes understood each other, and we knew this whole situation was a misunderstanding. I got the boy and made sure he was still OK. He was still shaking, but looking better. Hussein and I took over the situation after I asked Walker if I could take over the diplomatic part of saying “OOPS.” They pulled security along the road. I, the “Iraqi Lover” and Hussein listened to the man start arguing about his car.
“This is an expensive car! I was running late to prepare to go Karbala tomorrow! I didn’t do anything!” He was furious.
‘Let me see your neck,’ I said. He showed me his neck. It looked like a piece of glass cut his neck, but very minor. ‘Ask if he’s OK,’ I told Hussein.
“He says he’s OK,” he replied.
‘And his son?’ I asked.
“Yes,” he nodded.
‘Tell them we are very sorry and that you can’t drive like that because it makes soldiers nervous…BUT, we’ll try to fix the problem,’ I said.
I went over to CSM Brown (and not SGM Walker) and asked if we could pay for the damage from our battalion funds, of which we have thousands of dollars. “Yes, give him our info, and get his, we should be able to work that out,” he said helpfully.
‘Good man,’ I thought. Not the usual “Fuck ‘em!” attitude.
Hussein told me the man was pissed. I could tell because he started to yell. ‘Tell him to shut his mouth and listen to me,’ I said. ‘Tell him we are going to pay him.’ The man kept yelling. ‘Look! Tell him he’s lucky to be alive and I’m trying to help him get paid for damages…so let me fix the problem instead of crying about it. Get a piece of paper, give me your name, and I’ll give you instructions,’ I said sternly. He got quiet and got a book out. The boy looked up at me and smiled. ‘Man, you’re really lucky to be alive, I know this is messed up, but help me out here,’ I thought. I wrote instructions to him about how to contact us at our base and collect money for the windshields. CSM Brown checked the note.
“Looks good,” he said.
‘We’re sorry, and we’ll fix this,’ I said. ‘He’s got something to be thankful for tomorrow, just to be alive,’ I told Hussein. He laughed.
“I told him he’s got to sacrifice a sheep or something now to thank God – and also always drive careful around Americans because they can’t tell who’s enemy and who’s friend,” he said with a laugh.
We got back in our trucks and left. Walker was happy with all the excitement. He always says, “Let’s go out and draw fire,” and I always say,
‘SGM, you don’t want to draw fire – everyone says that until they get hit.’
We went out to the range, and Hussein and I talked some more about Machiavelli and Victorian Age literature. “Do you know Wuthering Heights?”
‘Wow, yes, I certainly do – Emily Bronte, one of my favorite writers,’ I said completely surprised. ‘I can’t believe I’m talking about Bronte out in the Iraqi desert with an Iraqi,’ I thought to myself.
“Yes, I love her writing, it’s wonderful,” he explained.
‘I love her writing too, because the way she makes you feel emotions as if they belonged to you – the human emotions most complex come alive on those pages. I’ve actually been to her house in Haworth with Nora,’ I said.
“You’ve been so many places,” he said. You could tell he found it hard to believe I’d been to Bronte’s home. I remember Emily Bronte’s small room that overlooked a dark graveyard. I miss Yorkshire. “You know Thompson, I’ve been working with Americans for a year now, and I’ve never had conversations like the ones we’ve had. You are the smartest soldier I have ever met,” he said frankly. I was stunned a bit, but humbly appreciative of his remark. I was equally impressed with him – even though he was Iraqi, he knew more about western literature and political philosophy than anyone I could think of − officer or enlisted. He’s very intelligent, many Iraqis are – but they work for us, and (that’s the nature of the situation) they have so much untapped knowledge. The engineer who runs the internet café, the electrical engineering student who mops our floor, the ex-fighter jet pilot who used to pick up trash, but now translates (Emgin). War is a horrible thing. Dictators are too.
The following day, the Hussein mosque in Karbala was attacked with rockets. In Baghdad, suicide bombers attacked the main Shia shrine. In Pakistan, Shia were attacked too. In all, over 150 were killed – the most bloodshed in one day since the end of the heavy fighting of the war. The death toll has since climbed higher. I was expecting something to happen that day. I was working on my truck and it was about 1200 when I thought, ‘I haven’t heard any explosions yet, that’s good!’
Then, Assad came to me shaking his head, “Thompson, do you know Hussein mosque has been attacked, also Baghdad. It’s horrible. It’s Sunni, they want to make war.”
‘I’m sorry Assad, I was hoping nothing would happen,’ I said sadly.
“It’s not your fault. These people are crazy. The worship the devil! I know them well. I was in Yemen in 2001, September 11. I saw on the TV the attack on twin towers and I thought, ‘This isn’t real, it’s a movie.’ These ‘Wahabees’ were celebrating! They were happy to see this! I thought immediately that Saddam had some part in this. I know he has a mass destruction weapon. He would use it. I wrote George W. Bush a letter in 2001. I send it to Voice of America radio. I ask him, why his father did not support the Shia uprising in 1991, why he did not get Saddam? Then, I was in Basra, and the secret police were just taking men off the street, even men just going to buy bread at the market, and taking them to the city center. The police would ask, ‘Are you a rebel?’ The man would say, ‘No.’ Then the police would shoot him in the head for no reason. They killed thousands of men like this. I wrote this to George W. Bush.
When the Army came to Iraq, and I saw the Apache helicopters, I thought, ‘George W. Bush read my letter.’ Thompson, your Army is my Army, the Army of freedom. I pray for you always for God to save you. You must be careful, as you see today, there are evil people out there. I am worried for Iraq, but happy you are here. You’re my brother.”
‘You’re my brother too,’ I responded in deep thought and with a strong sense of solidarity with Assad.

Assad would become a very good friend over time. He spoke wonderful English, he had good, strong values with which I identified with, and he was a hopeful person. He is about 45 or 50 years old, with graying hair, and gray facial hairs growing out of his round, brown face. He’s a short, but heavy man with calloused, thick hands. He’s a Shia, from Babylon, and a man who had traveled as far as Malaysia. He was outspoken when it came to matters of liberty and democracy, once telling me, “The Iraqis are like a caged bird. Their master is gone, the door is open, but all they want to do is stay in the cage.” I don’t remember what we talked about all the time, but most of the time we would spend over an hour talking about life for real Iraqi people, about their hopes and fears. We would sit while drinking sweet tea, the loose leaves sitting at the bottom of a Styrofoam cup. He talked about the Swiss manager he had many years ago, the German foreman he worked for. He loved the Europeans, he believed in liberty, and he forgave the Americans for all their mistakes. He was a dear friend to me, and not a day goes by that I am not concerned for his safety.

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Suicide Bombings Begin, Sabotaged Army Fuel, and Assad Gets Paid...Finally

2004-03-02T23:15:00.000-08:00

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2 March, 2004 2315

“Thompson, today is a very bad day,” Assad the welder said to me as I greeted him to give him $1000 for his monthly salary. I knew today was a very important day for the Shiah people in Iraq, and there would be trouble. There would be great numbers of people going to Karbala, and I suspected there would be attacks both there and in Baghdad. During most of the day, I noticed nothing had happened in Iraq, and I was almost happy about it. Then I went into the command post (TOC) and saw some pretty white boy FOX news channel reporter on the TV reporting about the bombings in Karbala. Then moments later in Baghdad, suicide bombers killed more people. Today saw the greatest number of civilians killed since the end of the war. I wasn’t even shocked, I’ve become so used to all the loss of life. I don’t like that. I think you just get in a state of mind where you get so used to counting the dead, that individuals become numbers. Sometimes reality does hit though, and my eyes fill with painful tears, and I’m reminded that I’m still alive, and my soul still feels, that I still believe in Jesus, and that I am so lucky to have your love. I sat down with Assad Maizel for about an hour and a half today talking, and each time we speak, I always find something absolutely fascinating. I need to write a few pages just about him!
I worked on my truck all day today as well. The fuel sergeant filled my gas tank as well as other vehicles with sabotaged fuel. It had a white liquid in it like milk. So, I had to drain my fuel tank and change the fuel filter and purge the system. It was interesting work.
After that, I went to get $1000 for Assad’s pay. The mechanics are supposed to pick up his pay, but they always wait a few days, or weeks, to give him the money he needs. So, I asked Sergeant Major Walker for permission and authority to handle the welder’s pay situation myself. So far, I’ve been able to solve all of the welder’s problems, been able to provide his pay and expenses, and all quite simply. I feel good about helping and solving a problem. His family is depending on his pay, and he was growing more and more suspicious about working with the Army. I want him to trust Americans. He just wasn’t getting his pay because our guys were too lazy to watch over his situation, and the welder too afraid to ask for money. Now, it’s all fixed, and he’s happy. “I love you Thompson, like my brother,” he always says. I have a lot of respect for him, and a lot of Iraqis I meet. They really are good people.

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Apple Pie and Mortar Explosions, Assad Talks About his Time in the Iraq-Iraq War

2004-02-29T23:00:00.000-08:00

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29 February, 2004 2300

We got attacked tonight with about 10 mortars. I heard a muffled explosion while talking to LT Orr in our kitchen area (I was trying to convince people to eat one of the several apple, peach, and pineapple pies that Assad (the welder, AKA Mr. Maizel) brought for me from his home in Babylon. His wife made them, and some dolma (rice wrapped in grape leaves) for me too. Anyways, we heard one explosion.
“Was that a controlled blast?” everyone was coming into the TOC asking. Then another blast, closer. Then another, louder. Then BAM! BAM! BAM! I was surprised they kept firing for so long. SGM Walker ran in,
“Thompson, get the truck ready!” I ran and got my hat and video camera, got the truck ready, and soon we were suited up and flying around the camp looking for an open gate to get out of. We knew the general area the fire was coming from, and sped that way, across the river and to a suspected firing point. We were with the Quick Reaction Force. Soon, a Hummer was ramming against a cinderblock wall to knock part of it in. It succeeded, and a raid team went into the hole, but found nothing. Nothing found anywhere. The attackers got away, again. We got out of the gate fast though. Luckily no one was injured. I’m tired though, so I am going to turn BBC down low and get some sleep. I love you Spatzi, I’ll call you soon. Gute Nacht (good night), MUAH.

One day, Assad told me about a book that he had written during the Iran-Iraq War. It was a journal similar to mine. He never had copies of his handwritten notes made, and the original journal was ripped to shreds by his young children. He sat down one day, and told me about his role in the war. He was a mortar man, and to this day he still prays that he never killed anyone with his mortars. He told about the Iraqi army electrifying the marshes along the Iranian border in order to electrocute any Iranian intruders. He told about the long nights, when they could hear the battle cries of Iranian soldiers in the distance. He told me about the wild cries of “Akbar Allah!!!” some Iranian soldiers dressed in white would scream like mad as they charged the Iraqi positions. These were martyr soldiers, dressed in white – prepackaged for burial. He said the Iranians would scream terribly, striking fear into his heart. He and his fellow soldiers were demoralized, they didn’t know why they were fighting, and so many people were killed without a real reason. He lost his right foot in the war. It was blown off by an anti-personnel mine. I noticed that he walked with a limp, but never thought much about it. He would talk with teary eyes as we sat on an old car seat next to a trash dump while drinking tea.

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Date Sandwiches in Qatar and Brit Pop a al Arab Record Store

2004-02-28T11:00:00.000-08:00

28 February, 2004 1100

Spatzi, we talked last night for 2 hours or more, and it was great. I love you.
Well, to continue my story about Qatar, Nixon and I were at the supermarket. We went to the spice section, and there had to be about 100 or more bags of spices. It was awesome, and the smells were so rich. I had never seen so many spices! I guess we don’t use that much spice in the West. I would like to learn how to use them in rice and main dishes. I bought some bread and dates to make date sandwiches like the one I had on the farm in east Baghdad. When we went to check out, I noticed an Arab man placing his wife’s groceries in a bag. That was new, the man helping the woman! You don’t see that too often in Arab society. Nixon and I walked around a bit more and I bought you a box from Iran.
I found a music store, very simple and dark, full of British music. I noticed Muse playing overhead and Charlatans UK on the shelf! I couldn’t believe it, I loved it! Of course I find this perfect little record store in Qatar. I noticed some Arabs, four of them, standing around the register counter flipping through CD cases. ‘Do you have any more Muse?’ I asked.
“Nay, we are all sold out, mate,” the young Arab store manager said.
‘Wow, Muse sold out in Qatar, it barely sells anywhere else,’ I thought to myself. I thanked them and all four said goodbye in a friendly way. Nixon and I rode the bus back to the base. Dido’s “White Flag” was playing as I starred out the dark window as lights passed and I felt alone in the world – because I missed you so.

On the Lookout for IEDs, Discovering the Operation Iraqi Freedom Media Stage, Uncomfortable Encounter with Some Friendly Arab Girls

2004-02-27T22:22:00.000-08:00

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27 February, 2004 2200

I love you Nora. MUAH! You know sometimes life seems mundane, but all I have to do is think about our love and all that led to our love, and life is really something so sweet. Foley and I just finished watching the movie Love Actually. I really enjoyed it! It made me miss you so dearly, but also reminded me of how special our love is. I thought about our holiday in England in 2002, and the train ride from London to Wakefield. So awesome. I love you Spatzi! I can’t wait to get home to you. I love you.
Today I was at the airport with SGM Walker to pick up our new Command Sergeant Major, CSM Brown, a tall, skinny, focused-looking black man. I say “black” only to describe his appearance, the color being otherwise unimportant. He was in Afghanistan last year for two months or so. There were also two other sergeants. One, a big black guy – again, color unimportant – seemed a bit nervous. We’re so used to the ‘Rack that we forget new people are sometimes terrified to come here. As he sat behind me in the left passenger seat, I gave him some advice. ‘Master Sergeant,’ I said to get his attention.
“Y, Yes,” he replied nervously.
‘We like to know who’s around us at all times, that’s the most important thing,’ I explained. He looked at me and nodded with a sweaty forehead with an expression that said, “Shit.” I went on to make matters worse, ‘Know who’s coming up along side our truck, and make eye contact. Eye contact is very important.’
As we rolled down the highway, I would look back and see the master sergeant with a lost look in his eye looking straight ahead. My eyes are always all over the place as we drive, scrutinizing every tin can or tire scrap for wires or fuses. I actually drive sideways, sitting, that is. That’s better for seeing the median, side mirrors, and to catch shrapnel to my front. There is no protection on the sides of our vests, so metal shards can enter under the arms. You sit sideways at 45˚ to increase your survival chances. I also have a piece of scrap Kevlar armor I put along the inside of my door for protection. The threat is real.
At one point coming back today, I saw a van parked under the highway overpass on the opposite side of the highway. Two men were sitting in it watching our trucks pass – but I saw an antenna, like a remote control between them. ‘Slow down,’ I said on the radio to our escort.
“What’s wrong?” SGM Walker asked.
‘Possible observation, saw an antenna and two males in parked van, just a precaution.’
“Roger,” he said. We went along paying extra attention to the road. We made it safely to our camp.

Now to continue from where I left off on the 26th of February. When the SUV convoy arrived in the inner compound, Nixon and I noticed body guards, of a type we were familiar to seeing in Baghdad. A short man stepped out of the middle SUV in a grey PT jacket. That’s the new fashion trend amongst visiting dignitaries – the U.S. Army physical training jacket, a grey, ugly, and confused rag. Bush sports it, Rumsfeld sports it, Cheney sports it. I liked the ol’ leather jacket thing myself. We never figured out who it was, but it was late, about 0100, so he must have just arrived. A few days later, when we left Doha, Nixon and I noticed a 737 with the Air Force 1 paint job on the flight line. I wonder who it was I saw. Qatar was a well kept secret though, and would make a nice little pit-stop for a government official.
I walked into one of the many huge storage warehouses to call you. Inside each warehouse were office rooms built into the buildings. While walking behind one large storage area, in a large open part of the warehouse, I noticed wooden closets with German TV stickers on them, like ZDF or Das Erste and so on. Then I noticed where I was. This was the stage the world turned its eyes to during the war last year. That smart sounding general, I forget his name, from Central Command presenting the clean war to the world. All of that drama unfolded in the now boring warehouse I was now in. The stage was dusty, the million dollars spent to construct it leaving only wood and curtains and a fancy sign saying, “Camp Al-Salmonella” or something like that. I remember seeing that sign on CNN during the conferences, I remember watching the general speak and contemplating the loss of life, the terror, and the destruction going on not too far away. Almost exactly a year later, I was in that same press room. Sure, it was just a stage – but to me it was the setting to a tragic drama of real life.
I called you, and the connection was great. I was a bit more relaxed, so I could be more like myself, and we laughed so much. I missed you so much, even more in Qatar, because I felt even farther from you. I went to my bunk that night and slept in.
The next day I was supposed to go fishing in the Persian Gulf, but not enough people showed up to go. Almost everyone had a hangover. I was up and ready to go, even excited. I ran around trying to get last minute travelers added to the list, but everyone was drunk. I was disappointed, but accepted my fate, a fate attached to the whims of my fellow soldiers. It would be OK though. I could go back to the mall at 1200 on a tour bus with the other soldiers. So, Nixon and I did just that.
The mall was the same as before, only emptier. We went to the fast food area and got some Hardee’s to eat. I looked around and was amused to see Arab women, children, and sometimes men eating Mc Donald’s. I had to chuckle to myself. What really made me smile was a huge “ninja woman,” faceless, of course, with a westernized-looking child in tow, carrying a Dunkin Doughnuts bag. Now that is freedom! Oh yes, there is hope for the Middle East! All we have to do is make them just like us! That’s the key!
Nixon and I walked around aimlessly in the mall. We went to Carrefour “Hypermarket,” I guess that means super, super market. It was like K-Mart or Wal-Mart. I was amazed at how normal, even American it seemed. Nixon and I were looking at some date cookies when two girls about our age walked by. They didn’t have their faces completely covered. “Hello!” they said very friendly like.
I froze up! Don’t make eye contact! Don’t speak back to them! We were told, and have always been told not to talk to them or look them in the eyes. I didn’t have to be told, as I knew this was their culture from reading I had done, so I respected their culture. It was no big deal. BUT, Muslim girls are not supposed to talk to us, especially in Qatar. So I was astonished to hear them say anything to us. ‘Look straight ahead, do not speak, it is not allowed,’ I thought in a near panic.
“Hello,” they said again.
‘Again?! Don’t be rude, say hello back and be a good citizen of the world. I shouldn’t be so unfriendly,’ I thought to myself. ‘Hello,’ I said back in a nervous, uneven voice. It was more like a ‘Hello, now go away.’ They smiled seemingly delighted and amused, and walked away as quick as they came. I guess in their world, Nixon and I were cool because we were from the West or foreigners, or they wanted to use some English (although saying hello twice isn’t exactly college level English) they learned in school, or maybe they were being good, hospitable Qatar folk. I felt dumb for being so nervous about the encounter afterwards. I am supposed to be the one open to the world and new people, and two little Arab girls have me worried for a few seconds that I may start an international crisis. I think it’s funny now. Well, I’m going to bed now. I’ll continue tomorrow. I love you Nora, I belong to you.

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Reflecting on Qatar, Ukrainian Piano Girl Stuns All, Special Forces Gets Hit in Fratracide Incident, NCO Party Gone Wrong

2004-02-26T23:25:00.000-08:00

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26 February, 2004 Observations from Doha, continued.

After dinner at the Doha Golf Club and a cool summer-like night on the club patio, Chris, Nixon and I got into the brand-new SUV Chris was issued by the Army and headed towards the city center. We didn’t head towards the city, we flew into the city recklessly. I was pretty nervous because of the way Chris was driving, but we made it safely to Doha Mall.
The Doha Mall is amazing, and it’s even more amazing such a place exists in the Middle East. I remember clearly seeing a pair of clear cut Arabs in their long, flawless white robes and red turbans, glide across a home electronics showroom. There was a wonderful contrast between old Arab dress and an ultra modern electronics showroom back-lit by neon blue lights and silver flooring.
I thought about the Arab world as a capitol of astronomy, mathematics, and trade. That was in the golden age of the Middle East. What happened? Why is the Middle East such a dump now?
At the mall, you realized one thing – almost everyone there is wealthy. They are wealthy from oil money. All they have to do with their money is buy luxury cars and luxury goods. I wonder why these rich nations like Qatar aren’t involved in reconstructing Iraq? They seem to be enjoying wealth and peace.
Chris, Nixon, and I walked around the grand mall. The architecture was amazing, the glass dome over the ice skating ring, the stair cases, the 4 floors of western stores. The young Arabs would walk past us and nod, or casually glance past us. Now, I was a minority in a foreign land. Of course, in Iraq I am a minority too, but a minority in power, so you don’t even feel like a minority. In Doha, I had no power, I was simply a white person from the west. I felt comfortable though, and safe. I noticed some African families walking around together, shopping, apparently affluent. The fathers were dressed in white gowns and a white head-wrap. These were a Middle Eastern people, an African people, and in some cases, an Asian people all living in a civilized manner, within an eastern, Islamic context. This was in stark contrast to the image of the Middle East we see on TV. It was encouraging to see.
At one point while walking around the mall, we came across a raggy-looking American, about 27 years old or so, who knew Chris. He had curly hair, a face a bit wretched – like a Canterbury Tales character, shorts (which we were told were not allowed off base), and flip-flops without socks (also forbidden, or so we were told). He was pushing a baby carriage along with his short, Asian wife. He seemed very docile, yet positive. It turned out he’s an American working in Doha as a civilian contractor. He and his family settled down in Doha, an unlikely place. Doha seemed tolerant though.
At one point, I had to go to the restroom, so I walked towards the restroom signs near a hallway. I made a left into a corridor and found two double doors – one female, and one male. Nearby, some Asian janitors started to chuckle a bit. I noticed this and looked at them for a moment. They smiled and pointed towards the opposite end of the hallway, from which I came. They nodded as if to say, “Go there, go there!” Slowly, I turned around and went to where I began. There, an old Arab man smiled and laughed in a good natured way. I looked up at the sign over my head. It depicted a crescent moon and an arrow pointing to the place from where I just came. It turned out, I was about to go into the prayer room instead of the bathroom! The old Arab man must have read my face as I realized this. I looked down and saw him chuckling. I smiled back, thinking the blooper funny myself. The man pointed to the restroom doors, and I proceeded into the men’s room. ‘Nice people,’ I thought.
After a while, Chris, Nixon, and I got into the SUV and rolled out of the mall parking deck. Within moments, we were driving calmly down the waterside main street. The night was lit by Christmas lights – like displays of shells and palm trees. The Persian Gulf reflected the lights of the high rises and Christmas light displays. Families walked along the sea, markets remained open at night, and cars went by revealing babies looking very peaceful and comfortable. Not dirty and shoeless like those in Iraq. I missed you so much, I wanted you to be there with me. I leaned my head against the passenger window and took in the view. ‘I can’t believe I am here.’ Evanescence’s “My Immortal” was playing on the radio at one point, and I missed you so dearly. I gazed unfixed out of my window, in a bit of melancholy. I love you.
We passed the emir’s palace and noticed it was small compared to Saddam’s palaces. What a peaceful place Qatar seemed to be though. “What do you guys want to do tonight?” Chris asked. “I can probably arrange some Russian girls for you.” Nixon perked up and looked interested in the proposal.
‘Nixon, do you really want to do that?’ I asked concerned. He looked at me like I was stupid for asking.
“Uh, YEAH,” he answered.
‘I don’t know, whatever,’ I said. I didn’t want to hang out with any Russians though. Nixon and I were tired, and I knew Chris must have recognized this as boredom. We weren’t bored though.
“Well, let’s go get something to drink,” Chris said. We went to a café, and I immediately noticed some British people there and later some French. We took a seat at a table next to a woman playing a piano. Chris explained that this café sometimes had belly dancing, but it didn’t seem to be scheduled for this night. I wasn’t disappointed. Chris then went on to explain, “The piano player is on my target list,” he said with a smile. “I keep coming in here to see her. If you don’t mind, I’m going to try to talk to her,” he said. Nixon and I just looked at each other and smiled. We just wanted to drink. It seemed like Chris was saying, “I can see you aren’t party animals, so I am going to try to meet this girl before we have to go.” The woman played the piano well, but it was Wild West style saloon music that I found gaudy. Mustafa, our waiter, came up and asked what we would like to drink. Nixon was sitting next to the box-end of the piano, and that explained why he yelled,
“I want a JACK AND COKE AND A CAPTAIN MORGAN!!!” I looked over at Nixon wide eyed as if to say ‘HUSH!’ He was already drunk.
“Don’t you think you should order one thing at a time?” Chris asked. Nixon just smiled wide and was loving the fact that he could even order a Jack and Coke and Captain Morgan’s at the same time.
‘I’ll take a Foster’s, please,’ I ordered.
Chris continued to talk to the piano girl. She turned out to be from Hungary, 27, and just completed music school, 8 years of it. Chris was trying to talk to her while she played. I was almost embarrassed for him. I felt so lucky to have you and not looking for love in smoky bars. I love you.
“Do you sing?” Chris asked her.
“I don’t understand,” the Hungarian replied shyly.
“Sing, with voice, words,” Chris clarified in a “I can’t believe I am doing this” attitude.
“No, I do not do this,” she said, with a thick accent typical of Hollywood Russian.
“I want to hear your voice,” Chris persisted. The Brits looked at our table curiously. I could imagine what they were thinking.
‘I’ll take another Fosters, please’ I ordered. I needed it to entertain me, since the love story unfolding before me was ultimately depressing. It was the same old “Yankee trying to get a piece of ass” routine. I sipped my Fosters, just happy that I could drink a Foster’s, and a bit proud that I wasn’t drunk yet – even after 3 beers. There ya go Dan, you’re a real man. I looked over at Nixon and he smiled like a baby – happy and drunk. I looked over at Chris, and he was staring dreamy-eyed at the piano player. I looked at the piano player and she smiled. I smiled politely in return, but more out of sympathy. To be eastern (former Soviet-bloc) and a woman damns you to an image of an object or worse.
“Do you play classical?” Chris asked.
“Mmm, yes, some,” she replied. She went on to play “Für Elise,” and it was flawless. How sad, I thought. You encounter that in life sometimes, the atmosphere seems so fake or superficial – and then something beautiful rises up, like a hand reaching up to life from under a stormy sea, or Christ’s last breath on the cross. I was stunned.
‘If I could make any wish for the whole world come true – I would wish for everyone to be happy. Not just happy, but at peace with one’s soul, and living the way they want to,’ I thought. I wished Nixon was at home, I wished Chris had a girlfriend, I wished the piano girl was not the piano girl in Doha, and I wished I was at home with you. ‘I’m so happy to have Nora, to have the home we have.’
The piano player continued to play and we all clapped at the end of each song. It was a polite gesture, and appreciated. I focused my attention to the surrounding bar. On the walls were black and white photos from the 1920s or so. The waiter wore a maroon bellhop-looking suit, Mustafa was his name. Mustache and all, all he was missing was a fez. Palms were inside the bar too. The atmosphere was something out of “Casablanca” or “Indiana Jones.” I sat back in my chair. ‘How did I end up here?’ I smiled and thought about you.
Chris didn’t succeed in winning the piano player’s heart, I didn’t succeed in getting drunk, and Nixon just didn’t care. All three of us walked out to the SUV outside of the café. We had to be back to the base before 2400 hrs. That was OK with me, I was tired, and I wanted to call you so badly.
We sped back to the military base at an alarming speed. I was almost about to ask Chris to slow down. We pulled into the high security entrance of the camp gate just as a sandstorm began to kick up. The security arrangements at the camp are pretty impressive.
Chris checked us back in to the sign-in building and Nixon and I thanked him for the good time and exchanged e-mail addresses. I know we must have been a boring bunch – but that was OK. I talked enough about you to impress upon Chris that I am faithfully engaged to you and not up to any nonsense. Nixon and I were tired, we’d been in Baghdad for months without a break. We said goodbye to Chris.
Nixon and I walked back to our large hangar-like complex which housed youth hostel-like rooms inside. On the way, we noticed a convoy of dark SUVs speed into the gated area we were in, the inner complex.

It was around this time that I had a dream that I was part of a State Department delegation to North Korea. We were there to negotiate a breakthrough deal of some kind. When I woke, I thought about the possibilities of working for the State Department, and if that was my true calling.
Life in the TOC was bordering on the insane sometimes. I walked into the office only to see some of the S-3 soldiers vacuuming chairs in our break room. You would think we were in the Pentagon or something. Barton would later confide that vacuuming chairs in a war zone was the last straw, and he would leave the Army as soon as legally possible. Foley then made my day by reminding me that I had outlasted all the NCOs in the operations section. He was right, I was the only one remaining from our original group. All the others had been sent away, transferred, or politely excused.
The economic situation in Iraq became clearer for me during this time as well. I was standing at the back gate talking to some children (these were the days before the frequent suicide attacks) when a man approached me. He spoke very good English and was dressed quite well. I greeted him customarily and he then went on to ask about working for the Iraqi police. He handed me a resume and copies of his university degree. He was an engineer. I was humbled and thankful at the same time. I was humbled that an engineer would be so respectful to me, a dirty soldier. I respected him. I was also thankful, because I remembered how lucky I was to be American, and to have God’s blessings.
Another event took place that never got much press, if any. Colonel Leroux was en route to another battalion dinner at our base when his vehicle narrowly escaped an IED attack. This time, the attackers tried to employ white phosphorus explosives. The standard procedure for responding to an IED is to exit the kill zone and secure the area. He didn’t have time for that, so his security team radioed in the incident and continued on to our base. See, had he been killed, he would have been killed while en route to some catered dinner party. That’s not what would be reported though. It would have been reported that the colonel was killed while conducting combat operations in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He wasn’t killed, but something else did happen.
A security team went out to secure the bombing site and search for other explosive devices. They set up the standard road blocks on the four lane freeway. Soldiers stood around and waited for EOD to arrive. No one would be allowed to pass. All of a sudden, a black Toyota truck appeared and sped towards the soldiers manning the roadblock. After yelling some warnings, the spooked soldiers fired several rounds into the truck – the appropriate response. I don’t know the exact details about what took place following the shooting, but what I do know is that the black truck was part of a U.S. Army special operations unit. The truck obviously needed to get past the roadblock, but the soldiers didn’t know the unmarked civilian truck was manned by two American soldiers. The driver was critically wounded, with a bullet stuck in his throat, and the passenger, a medic with no special forces training, was also badly wounded. The truck was brought to the base. I went to look at the truck, and found it smeared with blood, American blood. It appeared that the passenger returned fire at the soldiers on the checkpoint through the windshield with an MP5 submachine gun. While all of this went on, the colonel ate a catered meal with our battalion’s NCOs and officers. I don’t know what the SF guy was thinking when he tried to run that checkpoint.
Special Forces operated pretty well in our sectors. Much of the recon and intelligence they collected was accurate and reliable, as opposed to that gathered by our own guys. There was an incident in zone 23 where our SF guys were sitting in a car conducting recon. Within moments, the car was surrounded by local Iraqi men who forced SF guys out of the car and onto the street. With weapons pointed at the SF personnel, the men demanded that they surrender their weapons and leave the area for good. The local men were concerned that the SF would attract trouble to their neighborhood. Trouble that could turn their streets into shooting alleys between terrorists and soldiers.
The SF guys complied and surrendered their weapons. Shortly thereafter, a sheik came to our base to return the M-4 rifle, complete with optical laser sights. He was returning the U.S. property the Iraqi men had confiscated.
This is not to say that Iraqis were keeping armed groups out of their neighborhoods. There were several instances where Iraqi farmers accepted money in exchange for bombers being able to place bombs along Canal Road on their plots. Sometimes leaflets and flyers were distributed to warn locals about an imminent attack, specifying a time range and general location. One of the most frustrating things for me to read, was a report that several Iraqi homes along a stretch of Canal Road had taped up their windows to prevent glass from shattering. A soldier noticed this after an IED had exploded in the area. The Iraqis living in the homes had obviously been warned about the bomb.

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Reflecting on the Good in the World, Donnie Rumsfeld Visits; We Leave in a Hurry

2004-02-19T11:30:00.000-08:00

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19 February, 2004 1130 Saddam’s Secret Police HQs

There’s no other place I would rather be than with you right now. We had a long talk last night about the future, about what course we should take. It’s a trying time, but we have to move forward regardless. I love you so truly, so completely, so endlessly, I will work hard for you Nora. We’re so lucky to have the love that we have, and I’ll work hard for it – you deserve that Nora, you deserve the best from me.
I want to do something for peace, for something positive and honest, contribute to my community. I don’t want to change the whole world, but I see a lot of things and problems that are universal in every country or culture I’ve been so lucky to encounter. For all the evil in the world, it is still true that love and goodness is all around. It doesn’t sell movies or captivate TV viewers of news, but love is all around. I would like to be a “soldier” of good will. We need strong and sincere and wise leadership more than ever, and I would be so happy to help bring the world together. There’s something I can do, I feel it inside of me, I feel a sense of clarity and desire to take on big challenges and create real solutions – because I believe solutions are very possible to many issues of our day.
Most importantly, I value our love beyond measure, and it’s the most wonderful accomplishment I’ll ever have, it’s the most wonderful gift of my life, and you Nora – you make me alive. That’s not some empty romantic speak. It’s very true, an absolute truth. When you come into a room, I see a beautiful woman, a beautiful person, the woman who I belong to, the woman created out of the dusts of time into the most magnificent miracle I have ever known. You’re my soul mate, my partner in everything, my true love. My destiny is intertwined with yours, and that’s a destiny I am so happy to be part of. Nora, I love you, and I’ll support you always! Ich liebe Dich, Dein Dan.

Donald Rumsfeld came to our base shortly after this journal entry was written. I remember seeing his helicopter swooping in over our compound. Word was out that a major VIP would be in the area, and thus many soldiers were tasked with tidying up for the visitor – just in case he came to see us. Not too much effort was exercised though. What was amusing though was the rush of some personnel to their vehicles to conduct “patrols” off the base. Since Rumsfeld would be on the base, the base gates would be shut to incoming and outgoing traffic. All traffic – soldiers included. Many patrols mounted up so they would not be stuck on the base during their scheduled patrol times. Others mounted up to avoid Rumsfeld all together. I had to laugh at this. It was nice that Rumseld thought to come to Baghdad, but it did create a headache for the guys just trying to do their jobs without having to worry about a celebrity interrupting the daily grind. Many units would call in asking, “Is he gone yet?”

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Spotting a Potential IED, Last Minute Bomb Exposal Expert Will and Seagull Shit

2004-02-17T16:05:00.000-08:00

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17 February 2004 1605 Martyrs’ Monument

It’s a cool day, and a busy day at that. We were supposed to come here to the monument for a meeting at 1500, but we were delayed. I spotted a cinderblock with wires around it and another block with a wire sticking out of it. We were close to the monument when I spotted it. The enemy is now putting bombs in concrete blocks to hide them, and making them remote controlled detonating. They are pretty common now. I spotted the blocks on my side of the truck in the median of the road. When you drive here, you sit sideways 45º in your seat. You look at the vehicle in front of you, the median, and your side view mirror. I closely scrutinize every bit of debris in the median. When we passed the blocks, I noticed the wires, so I told SGM Walker on our personal intercom radio headset. We turned around and went back to the spot where I found the blocks. We parked about 200 meters away and Sergeant Cole and SGM Walker went near the blocks and confirmed wires were coming from blocks.
We had to block traffic on both sides of the road (a freeway called Palestine Road). We called the bomb disposal team. This was the second time this month SGM Walker called the bomb squad for suspected IED. I’ll get to the other time later. You know you’re better safe than sorry. A lot of traffic had to be cutoff. Carwash boys stood along the side of the road trying to look in my truck. I gave a few some soap. None of the Iraqis in traffic or along the side of the road seemed too angry about the delay. We made hand gestures to them to indicate a bomb ahead.
The bomb guys showed up and got a robot car out and a remote control in a suitcase. They sent the robot down to the cinderblocks and investigated it with the remote camera. They decided it looked like a bomb, so they brought the robot back and hooked an explosive in a water bottle to the robot. The water in the bottle would explode out and break open the concrete block hopefully showing the contents. So the robot went back to the blocks with the waterbomb.
The waterbomb exploded, and the nearby Iraqis cheered. The robot went up to the blocks and investigated again. The block only cracked. So, the bomb team decided to destroy the blocks completely. The team brought the robot back to us and the bomb guys out 2 pounds of C-4 explosive in the robot’s claws (it has an arm with a claw). The robot drove back to the blocks and the team used the camera and remote control to put the explosive on the block. Then the robot backed away and we prepared to blow the blocks.
“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” the Sergeant yelled.
All of us took cover behind our vehicles.
“BOOM!” A huge explosion went off and all the Iraqis fell down or ran away frightened. The explosion was enormous, and you could hear it rumble and echo all through Baghdad. It’s amazing so little C-4 can explode like that. It was the same kind of explosion that went off by my truck back in December in the IED attack. After the smoke cleared, there was nothing left at the spot. It all disintegrated.
Now, one of the team members would have to investigate the remains of the suspected bomb. One sergeant got suited up in a heavy bomb suit. As he got into the suit, it looks like a space suit, he took his watch off.
“Who’s got dibs on my watch?” he asked. “In case I don’t make it, you can have it,” he said, handing it to another soldier.
“Any last words?” an assistant asked. The spaceman murmured something I couldn’t hear.
“If anything happens, you come down to get me,” he said to the assistant sergeant.
I guess in this month alone, bomb squads have lost three men. I was surprised to hear how fatalistic they were. They’ve been destroying roadside bombs for a while now and seen plenty of real ones – even complicated bombs with remote, timed, and secondary bomb capability all in one.
The remains were examined and it turned out it was either a fake bomb put there to agitate us, or concrete blocks with thin wire sticking out, and wires wrapped around them. Better safe than sorry. I love you Nora. No one knows why we are here, why we came, or where we’re going.

During the time we were stopped on Palestine Road, Major Ramirez and his crew were blocking the traffic on the opposite side of the road. This was to keep anyone from getting killed or interfering with the bomb disposal. We could see his vehicle about 200 meters or so away from our position. Oddly enough, when the first attempt to destroy the cinderblock failed, the explosion attracted quite a number of seagulls. I don’t know why. Maybe they know to follow the smoke plumes in Baghdad because they lead to meat in some cases, like a morbid treasure at the end of the rainbow analogy. They were there though, nonetheless. As they circled, you could hear their shit splattering on the hot pavement. One bird scored a direct hit on Siegel’s rifle, and the white crap dripped down his rifle. He didn’t know it until Foley pointed it out to him.
EOD had been losing a lot of people around this time. I would sit down and read the nightly reports from around Iraq almost everyday. One report said that an EOD soldier approached a roadside object in his suit. They had already attempted to destroy the object using explosives, but it remained. While in his suit, he walked up to the object and sensed a ticking sound. Trusting his instincts, he immediately turned around and tried to run (the suit is heavy and cumbersome though). He was able to escape only a few meters when the object exploded and threw him to the ground. He survived. Others didn’t though. Techniques became more complex, and the terrorist would place dummy bombs to lure EOD specialists within range of other bombs placed to harm the soldiers securing the dummy bomb’s perimeter. Another increasing trend was the use of “daisy chain” bombs, that is large artillery shells linked together for simultaneous detonation. Multiple artillery rounds could destroy a heavy tank.
Haider and I would sit at dinner, picking through the dish of chicken and rice that his mother made. He asked me once, “Why Americans always think of sex and money? Why they do this? I don’t like this man.” The only exposure he had to Americans were the soldiers that he saw everyday (many of whom were not model people) and the constant live satellite television feed of music videos from the states. Of course, he began to see the U.S. as a godless, decadent, hedonistic society. He saw the soldiers looking at porn, he saw the hip hop videos with all the half-naked (or naked) women dancing around while some bejeweled thug sipping on gin sings something with “bitch” here and “dick” that. Brittney Spears came out with a new video that revealed most of her body, and Beyonce was in a video walking around on all fours like a dog. This was extreme to most Iraqis. It made them suspicious. I sat up many nights explaining to Haider and others that the entertainment industry does not represent American values or culture. It is simply one part of it. Moreover, it is an industry like any other, and one operated to generate money – and sex sells. Girls walking on all fours generate dollars and beeeeatches dancing naked for some black idiot sipping gin and dancing in rented jewelry and a rented house – it sells. It made me wonder though, how should we market America to the world?
Haider told me one night, “If Iraq and U.S. go to war again, and we are enemy, I would kill American soldiers. But Thompson, if I saw you, I would not kill you, even if I would die.” Abbas once told me,
“When Americans came to Iraq, Iraqi people thought we learn something from them. But, we learned Americans should learn from us!”

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Another Memorial Ceremony, Baghdad Rotting, and a Dark Prophesy that does indeed come true

2004-02-16T14:30:00.000-08:00

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16 February 2004 1430 BIAP 1-4 ADA Palace on Marsh

About to leave palace grounds from memorial ceremony. Just saw General Amoretti. Here for 1-4 ADA soldier who got blown-up.
0100 (Now 17 February) – Just got off the phone with you. We’re both so tired and sound sad. I love you so much Nora – more than love.
I’m about to fall asleep. I’ll write about the palace tomorrow. Tonight I was driving down the back streets of East Baghdad with SGM Walker, as we do almost every night now. No gunshots to-night, like two nights ago – twice attracting gunfire. Same old shining lights at people (hardly any people out tonight). I’m still amazed how trashed the streets are, some even overflowing with raw sewage and human waste. Trash and rotting food is everywhere. Something needs to be done. This city needs help, or it is going to slip into death. I love you Nora. I can’t wait to hold you again.

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