Jessica Goodell & John Hearn

by Shade It Black: Death

  14

  Four Marines in the News

  He [Professor Todd Gitlin] likened some war coverage—particularly that practiced by television—to a televised sporting event. Rather than journalism, it becomes entertainment. When the primary motive of media institutions becomes audience share, then these institutions ‘seek a rapture of attention’ in order to procure as many eyeballs as possible.

  From: “Postmortem: Iraq War Media Coverage Dazzled But It Also Obscured,” by Jeffery Kahn, UC Berkeley News, online, 18 March 2004

  This is what happened. Our platoon received a call that there were Marines down and we needed to retrieve the bodies. The Marines were on a rooftop surveying a village for potential threats. Four men were killed. Three had been shot execution style, two shot through the eyeballs and another through the skull. The fourth had been shot multiple times and had his throat slit. Their gear had been rifled through and their weapons were missing. One Marine was found with his gear and boots off and another was lying on his side, covered with mosquito netting. Our platoon went up onto the roof to get these men.

  By the time we got there, the bodies had been in the hot sun for a long time. The sun does horrible things to dead skin. It makes the skin slide off the body when the man is lifted. I wouldn’t have thought that. I would have thought that it would be red and burnt. The skin actually detaches itself from the layer beneath and slides around on itself.

  We took the four Marines back to camp and started processing them. It was difficult checking for tattoos and gunshot wounds because the skin kept sliding around. We couldn’t grab hold and grip securely enough to move the remains, and we couldn’t pick them up or lift them either, so we tried making slings. We put each body on a poncho. We grabbed and tugged and lifted each one in an effort to maneuver the bodies.

  After several hours of processing the remains, we interviewed others, and pieced together two different theories as to what happened. Some thought that the Marines had let down their guard and allowed Iraqis to approach and kill them. Others thought that at some point the team went to two Marines on post while the other two slept, and the two who were supposed to be awake and alert and watching, fell asleep. We will never know what really happened, but in either case, Marines aren’t supposed to get killed this way. It’s bad enough when two men who fall asleep die, but then their buddies die too. In a situation like this, those on guard have the responsibility to protect those who are sleeping. That’s how it works in the Marines. We are all dependent upon each other. We have got to be able to count on each other, otherwise, we all die.

  It’s not always known which Marines are on which rooftops because there is a certain degree of confidentiality involved in those assignments and patrols. Also, circumstance may require that a team move from one rooftop to another, and if the radios aren’t working properly, it isn’t always known exactly where every platoon member is. It’s not written down neatly somewhere, so it was taking some time to verify the identities of these men. Eventually, I had the names of three of the Marines, but not the fourth. At that exact moment, when I was trying to verify the identity of the fourth man, I passed by the television and glanced at a breaking news story about this very incident. Apparently, video footage of the murders had been on Arab television and was being picked up by the news outlets in the States. The story’s caption was “Four Marines found dead on rooftop,” and what followed was a list of the names of the four dead men. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! If there was one person on this whole planet that’s going to know these names first, it was going to be me! I’m going to know it first because when we broke up into teams to process these bodies, each team knows only the name of the remains of the individual they’re processing. And because it was my job to compile all of the paperwork, I’m the only one who’s going to know all four names, and yet here’s a news outlet releasing what they say are the names of all four Marines to the world—and to the families?

  What’s more, and worse, is that the three names I had were not the same names as were on the screen. I couldn’t breathe. People back home are going to believe that their sons are dead when they are not. Others will be relieved that their sons are still alive and safe when they are not. How can they be doing this? What’s all this non-sense about fair and objective reporting? Would the men and women responsible for this travesty have done it if their own child’s name was among the four that now were scrolling across the television screen?

  It’s as though the media needed a story and grabbed onto information that said there were four Marines down. Then they figured the story would be better with names, so they came up with names. I can’t imagine where from. I don’t even know if the names were those of actual Marines.

  How can anybody back home know what’s really going on here when what they hear often isn’t accurate? Maybe the information is corrupted by the need of the news agencies to get a new story or a sensational or gory one that they can then glamorize, or, to get the story first. Maybe it’s distorted by sloppiness or laziness or the confusion caused by the fog of war. Whatever the cause, the consequences are the same: a misinformed public, ill-advised political leaders, and families who are devastated.

  Parents tried to protect their children however they could. (Photo courtesy of David Leeson)

  15

  Mothers, Sisters, and Daughters

  NEW BERLIN, Wis.—With three daughters serving in Iraq, John and Lori Witmer had a family Web site with photos from Baghdad, notes to home and messages of encouragement.

  “Keep praying! They’re almost home!” a recent entry says. But the top notice, dated Sunday, carried grim news: “We regret to inform you that Michelle Witmer was killed in action April 9th …”

  The 20-year-old private died when her Humvee was ambushed in Baghdad, making her the first woman in the Wisconsin National Guard to die in combat.

  Her family is asking the military to stop her sisters from being sent back to Iraq after this week’s funeral.

  “I can’t live another year like I’ve lived this one,” John Witmer told The Associated Press. “The sacrifice that this family’s made can never be understood by someone who hasn’t gone through it … It’s a burden I can’t bear. My family can’t bear it.”

  —James A Carlson, Associated Press, April 12, 2004

  At the same time that female Marines are sexual objects, they are mothers, sisters, and daughters. It’s not a secret. If a female is waiting in line to use a phone, chances are good she’ll be talking to her mom or dad. If she’s leaving the Internet café, she probably just emailed a parent or a sibling. The care packages she receives are from her family. If she is a mother, the primary topic of her conversations when off the job is her kids. Moreover, this is how they are first known by the male Marines, before these men enter the military, when they are still young boys. Back then, as kids, they learned, to some degree and among other things, to perceive females as extensions of the women in their own lives, and to care about and to care for them, and to protect them too. And most of the Marines still feel this way. Not all of them, and, among those who do, not all the time. But many of them do. When the men are in this protective mode, they see female Marines less as objects to be harassed and more as mothers, sisters, and daughters to be protected.

  A female Marine may fall out of a run early and not be verbally sanctioned like a male Marine would be. She’s given a break, like a little sister might be if she can’t keep up with her older brothers on a long walk. A male Marine may carry some of a female Marine’s gear through the latter half of a 12-mile hump, and nobody says anything about it.

  Even though The Sir wasn’t much more than fifteen years my senior and was still a young man, he had a tendency at times to treat me as though I were his daughter. In the middle of one long night when I had duty watch, The Sir appeared holding a cup of hot chocolate. “Here you go, Goodell,” he said and he disappeared back into his room.

  Eventually, The Sir told me he didn’t
want me going out on any more convoys. “But Sir, I want to go,” I said.

  “I want you here,” he replied.

  I tried to reason with him, to persuade him to change his mind by reminding him that I was qualified to go on the convoys and that I wanted to do so.

  “Goodell, we’re going, you’re staying!”

  Marines follow orders, so I didn’t go. I knew he was trying to protect me from several of the more dangerous and gruesome tasks that were assigned to us, and on one level I appreciated that and knew that my parents would too if they were to ever learn of his decision. On another level, though, it didn’t feel right or fair to the guys or to me.

  Pineda treated me this way from the beginning, and I was grateful that he did. I was more or less completely isolated and alone, though it was pretty much by choice as I just couldn’t fit comfortably into any the available categories. I didn’t want to give in to the sexual advances nor did I want to hang around with the women who did. In either case, I’d lose respect as a Marine and I’d have to put up with the daily hassles that accompanied either choice. Pineda recognized this and befriended me. He was not only my A driver, but he asked Sergeant Johnson if he could stand duty with me and process with me, explaining that it would be too difficult for me to do it with anybody else. When we did go out on convoys together, he tried to take on more of the gruesome work, leaving me with less. Once, when the base was being mortared, The Sir radioed Sergeant Johnson asking if we were all accounted for. When the Sergeant answered, “We’re all up,” Pineda asked, “What about Goodell?” He then spun around and ran across base—during an attack—to find out. Between mortar explosions I heard Pineda’s screaming voice at the door to my tent. He was shouting my name. After I shouted back that I was okay, he turned and ran back to the bunker. He never said he was trying to protect me like a brother would, but that’s what he did. Pineda had a sister and maybe that was why he was willing and able to offer me a much need friendship free of ulterior motive. Or maybe it was how his mother raised him.

  I’m not certain what it is that transfers a woman from the first set of categories in which she is defined in terms of family, into the second that defines her in terms of a sexual object, but I think it might have to do with how well the men get to know the woman, more than anything else, and, then, with how good a Marine the woman is. As a rule, the men in a platoon will become protective of a female platoon member, especially if she does her job and does it well.

  What complicates this already confusing system is that females may welcome the inferior role they are placed in by male Marines, especially if it is done as a way of helping out or protecting a weaker comrade. Just as men are taught to protect women in garrison, women are taught to accept that protection, and to find comfort in the knowledge that men are around to provide it, even if its under-lying message is that women are weaker than men and that female Marines are weaker than “real” Marines. After all, it would be a relief to have someone carry your gear through the second half of a long run or to refrain from berating you when you come up with another sprained ankle that keeps you from marching. Even a cup of hot chocolate from home brings a great deal of comfort on a cold desert night, especially when it comes with knowing that a man with authority thinks of you, to a small degree, like he might the daughter he wishes to protect. But at the same time, it complicates things. Fall too willingly into a protected role and you look too vulnerable to be a good Marine and too weak and feminine not to be harassed.

  The females who milk the system, who go over weight or sprain an ankle—again—don’t have to run, they don’t have to participate in humps, they don’t get deployed, they don’t go on training, they don’t do any thing, and the only thing that happens to them is that they are thought of as a “female Marine.” Nothing is said about them except that, “Oh yeah, she’s a female Marine. She’s a female Marine, so that’s what’s expected of her. She’s a Marine-ette.” She doesn’t meet your standards, she doesn’t run, she falls out, she’s overweight, she doesn’t participate, and that’s accepted, because she’s a female Marine. That’s what she is.

  That perception of what constitutes a female Marine spills over onto all women in the Marines and it maintains a stereotype that then limits all women, even the good female Marines. These male Marines don’t expect the female Marines to do anything, and they don’t like it when they do. There are all these male Marines who dress up and play war all day and who lose sight of reality, of what’s really going on around them. They don’t expect the girls to pull their weight. So, when the “girls” can’t participate for whatever made-up reason they come up with, well, the males don’t want the girls to play anyway. They don’t want the girls in their fighting holes, they don’t want the girls on the humps with them, they don’t want the girls in the seven tons with them, they don’t want the girls shooting with them online. Because that’s what they’ve been taught.

  Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) quickly became the favorite weapon of the insurgents. They were easy to make, transport, conceal, and detonate. And they were effective. (Photo courtesy of Bill Thompson)

  16

  Boom

  It is a grim reminder of the cost of war. But for Marines based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, getting a meat tag—a tattooed copy of their vital information inked into their skin—means paying a visit to Jesse Mays before they head off to war.

  “They’re used to identify a corpse. They’re not for the living.

  “Meat tags are so they can make it home,” Jesse says. “No matter what. So someone can grieve over them.”

  Taken from information that soldiers wear on metal tags around their necks, meat tags go one step further. Jesse tattoos that same information on their bodies, usually on their ribcage just under their armpit.

  “Flak jackets are amazing things,” explains Lance Corporal Andrew Sichling, who isn’t opting to get the tattoo tonight, but may do later.

  “I understand why guys get ‘em. If you get blown up, this,” his hands frame his torso, “might be the only part of you that comes home.”

  From: “The Man Who Makes Sure Dead Marines Get Home,” by Kristin Wilson Keppler, BBC World News America, Jacksonville, North Carolina

  Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) quickly became the favorite weap on of the insurgents. They were easy to make, transport, conceal, and detonate. And they were effective. Artillery shells from the hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives abandoned by Saddam Hussein’s military were hidden beneath sandy roadways or in animal carcasses or trash or discarded appliances or cars. Triggered remotely by cell phones, car remotes, garage door openers and dishwasher timers, they offered the element of distance and safety and, therefore, the prospect of detonating others in the future.

  The explosions can be powerful enough to instantaneously erase a Humvee and its occupants. It can make a tank and its crew disappear, leaving only its tracks. The blast’s shock waves send thousands of pieces of shrapnel spewing outward at astounding speed, and the gases created by the explosion can set a nearby vehicle or vehicles on fire.

  The blast snaps bones and tears away arms, legs, and heads, shooting them up and away from the blast site, only to thud down into the sand tens of yards away, with the heads bouncing and rolling like so many soccer balls. They come to a stop wearing varying facial expressions beneath identical Marine Corps haircuts. The pressure from the explosion tears open air-filled ears and lungs and digestive tracts. Resulting fires burn and may incinerate the flesh.

  While estimates varied—and they also changed as the IED technology changed—the consensus was that sixty percent of our injuries and up to eighty percent of our deaths were caused by IEDs. Most of the Marines we processed died from explosions. We would take classes on IEDs that were taught by infantry soldiers or grunts who lived among them and treated them with the respect they demanded. Many of us knew first-hand a Marine who was going home without his leg or legs or life because of an IED.

 
An artillery shell with a cell phone duct taped to it is an artillery shell with a cell phone duct taped to it. Whether you are an American or an Iraqi, a Marine or an insurgent, a four-star general or a grunt, that’s what it is. Steel or maybe aluminum, casing and propellant, plastic and fiberglass.

  It’s the meaning of the IED that varies. To an insurgent, it may represent the power and perseverance of a sovereign people. To other Iraqis, it may mean that too, or it may mean a life of continuing uncertainty and danger. To the combat Marine in a Humvee or seven ton or tank, the IED is the ubiquitous unseen exit ramp to the unknown. To many of us in Mortuary Affairs, it represented an exit already taken, to a realm beyond life as we once knew it. That an IED’s plastic is made from oil and its fiberglass from sand adds another layer of meaning to the device.

  Ernest Hemingway wrote that “… in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying.” Written words, like an IED, can be interpreted in different ways by different people. After having seen and held the aftermath of modern weaponry’s wrath, these words carry a particular meaning for me.

  At one point we were driving through a village that was completely razed. Houses were half-standing. Doors were broken off hinges. A ghost town.(Photo courtesy of Bill Thompson)

  17

  Heads

  BAGHDAD, Iraq—Police found nine severed heads in fruit boxes near a volatile city northeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, authorities said, the second such discovery in less than a week.

  A roadside bomb also exploded near an American military convoy in central Baghdad, killing a woman and wounding three pedestrians, Lt. Thair Mahmoud said. The three-vehicle convoy was traveling near one of Baghdad’s bus stations when the bomb detonated. The convoy kept moving….