War Stories

by Oliver North

  Not only can Peralta’s family be proud of him, but his fellow Marines are alive because of him. As Peralta lay near death on the floor of a Fallujah terrorist hideout, he spotted that yellow grenade, which had rolled across the floor next to his near-lifeless body. He realized that when it detonated it would take out the rest of his squad.

  To save his fellow Marines, Peralta reached out, grabbed the grenade, and tucked it under his abdomen, where it exploded.

  “Most of the Marines in the house were in the immediate area of the grenade,” Lance Cpl. Kaemmerer said sadly. “We will never forget the second chance at life that Sgt. Peralta gave us.” Each of the Marines in that house knows that Sgt. Peralta is a real hero.

  Unfortunately, unlike Paredes, Peralta got little media coverage. He’s unlikely to have books written about him or movies made about his extraordinarily selfless sacrifice. He may receive the Medal of Honor. And if he does, that Medal of Honor is likely to be displayed next to the only items that hung on his bedroom wall—the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and his boot camp graduation certificate.

  Yes, there are still heroes in America, and Sgt. Rafael Peralta was one of them. It’s just too bad that the media continually fails to recognize them.

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #52

  Baghdad, Iraq

  Thursday, 3 February 2005

  1030 Hours Local

  It’s now happened twice in less than four months, though it is more rare than an eclipse of the sun, a shooting star, or a volcanic eruption. It ought to be celebrated as a magnificent, historic event, but it isn’t.

  I’m referring to the Sunday, 30 January 2005, Iraqi election. Like the October election in Afghanistan before it, it signifies the birth of a new democracy. Both elections mark the first vote of a long-oppressed people, yet the media presents them as dangerous events.

  For months, the so-called mainstream media has struggled to depict the Iraqi elections as a fools’ errand foisted on the people of Iraq by George W. Bush. When I was in London last week, the BBC and many European newspapers were predicting an “invalid outcome” because “the Sunni population is boycotting the vote.”

  Last Tuesday, Senate opponents of the president’s Iraq policy lined up behind Robert Byrd and Teddy Kennedy to declare Iraq to be “a quagmire . . . a total failure.”

  And despite a pre-election poll of 33,000 Iraqis by the Arabic paper Asharq Al-Awsat, in which 72.4 percent said they intended to vote—the U.S. media continue to denigrate the process. “Is a 50 or 60 percent turnout enough?” reporters skeptically asked the White House, State Department, and every U.S. and Iraqi official they could find in Baghdad. But when 60 percent of American voters went to the polls in November, it was considered a “historic” turnout. You just can’t please the press.

  But all of this misses the point. Iraqis came out in unprecedented numbers, despite nine suicide bombers and insurgents firing mortars in Election Day attacks. Iraqis voted for members of provincial parliaments and a 270-member National Assembly, which will write Iraq’s constitution. Sunday’s election was the first multi-party election in more than fifty years—and the first in the entire 5,000-year history of Mesopotamia where every man and woman, regardless of tribe, religion, or ethnic origin, was allowed to cast a ballot.

  Even Arab television outlets, like Al Jazeera, documented this “grand moment in Iraqi history,” as the president said in his news conference. Sunday’s election was an instant success and a remarkable accomplishment—first because the terrorists tried so hard to stop it and failed; second, because more than 17,000 candidates were willing to put their lives on the line, vying for 270 seats in the first freely elected National Assembly in the long history of Mesopotamia; and finally, because so many Iraqi women braved bombs, bullets, threats, and intimidation to go to the polls.

  Watching the Iraqis proudly hold up thumbs dipped in ink as evidence that they had voted brought tears even to the eyes of cynics in Europe and the doubters in America.

  It was the same last October, when whole Afghani families walked miles, skirting minefields and defying threats from Taliban thugs, just to vote. There, it was Moqadasa Sidiqi, a nineteen-year-old woman, who cast the first ballot in Afghanistan’s history. A woman cast the first ballot!

  Here in Iraq, the “feminine factor” is also going to be profoundly important to the country’s future—far more so than whether the voter is a Sunni or a Shi’ite. By law, one-third of the new National Assembly must be women. Women are about to transform Iraq, just as they are transforming Afghanistan.

  Last summer I interviewed the elected governor of Al Anbar province, Iraq’s largest, in the heart of the Sunni Triangle. Months before this momentous election, he told me: “Women voting will change everything. No woman who carries a child for nine months wants that child to grow up to be a suicide terrorist. They want the politicians to give their children something to live for, not die for—and we will have to do it.”

  Most secular and religious leaders in Iraq echo that judgment—it’s only the radical few who want to turn the country back to the Middle Ages. The National Assembly elected on Sunday will not only name a president, two deputy presidents, a prime minister, and a cabinet, but will also produce a new constitution by 15 August 2005. That constitution will then be submitted to a popular referendum—a second free election by mid-October. This new Iraqi constitution will become the law of the land if affirmed by a majority of the voters nationwide. Approval of the constitution will yield yet a third free election on 15 December 2005, to elect a new government.

  All of this seems to have escaped the attention of the president’s critics in our media—as did the television ads produced by pro-democracy organizations to encourage Iraqi turnout. In one, an elderly man is confronted on the street by a group of masked, armed thugs. The man is soon joined by a handful of his neighbors, then more, until the mass of people greatly outnumber the terrorists, who set off running from the crowd of ordinary, unarmed, but courageous Iraqis.

  The voiceover says: “On January 30, we meet our destiny and our duty. We are not alone, and we are not afraid. Our strength is in our unity; together we will work, and together prevail.” No ad like this could have possibly run under Saddam’s rule.

  The terrorist in chief in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, in a statement showing just how desperate the insurgents were to prevent democracy from taking root, condemned the elections. “We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology.” He went on to brand anyone who took part as an “infidel.”

  President Bush, in his second inaugural address, said, “By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well—a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.”

  As if to validate both his remarks and the power of the Iraqi ballots, the television cameras panned to a touching, powerful scene in the balcony as the president delivered his State of the Union address on 2 February. Standing next to Laura Bush was Sofia Taleb al-Suhail, an Iraqi woman who had just voted, and behind her, Janet and Bill Norwood, the parents of Marine Corps Sgt. Byron Norwood of Pflugerville, Texas, who was killed during the assault on Fallujah. Mr. and Mrs. Norwood stood to enthusiastic and sustained applause. The applause became thunderous when Sofia reached over and hugged Janet. That woman-to-woman connection told much more eloquently than any pundit’s analysis just what the Iraqi story is all about.

  It was an ember from the fire that President Bush said is blazing in Iraq. And, God willing, may it soon spread to some of those other dark corners of the Middle East.

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #53

  Washington, DC

  Friday, 11 March 2005

  2245 Hours Local

  Ever since U.S. troops first went to Afghanistan in October 2001, our supposedly more experienced “betters” in Europe and the “prudent potentate
s of the press” have warned us that U.S. military action against an Islamic nation was dangerous. They said that attacking Muslims would cause the “Arab street” to rise up and crush us. This theme was widely replayed in the buildup to Operation Iraqi Freedom—and has been reiterated many times in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s capture.

  Since his second inaugural address, President Bush has repeatedly been castigated for his “naiveté” on one hand and for his “aggressive arrogance” on the other. Why? Because he boldly tells those who suffer tyranny that the United States “will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.”

  Yet, despite the carping critics—and the carnage caused by those who would rather die than see freedom flourish—any objective observer has to conclude that George W. Bush is right. “The call of freedom” does indeed come “to every mind and every soul.” Even in the Middle East freedom is indeed on the march—even down the “Arab street.”

  It was evident last October in Afghanistan, in the ballots cast by Palestinians in early January and in late January on the ink-stained fingers of Iraqi men and women, raised in proud defiance against murderous thugs who would return them to brutal bondage.

  Whether the America-haters and Bush-bashers want to acknowledge it or not, the “call of freedom” is genuine. And it’s now being heard in places where American “influence” has long been deemed by the “experts” to be minimal, at best. Here are examples:

  In December, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians peacefully protested to force a new election when a rigged vote installed Vladimir Putin’s handpicked presidential candidate. As a result, reformist Viktor Yushchenko governs today in Kiev. The Bush administration needed to do little more than lend its voice to the calls for a free and fair election.

  Last week, in long-suffering Syrian-occupied Lebanon, tens of thousands unarmed Christian and Muslim civilians protested the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, forcing the resignation of Syria’s puppet government in Beirut. In the aftermath, the new Iraqi government—and even the French—joined our call for the Syrians to withdraw their forces from Lebanon and deport the residue of Saddam’s regime hiding there.

  Though they have yet to fully comply, the Syrians have arrested and turned over the former dictator’s half-brother, Sabawi Ibrahim al Hassan. And to ensure that those in Damascus who support terror don’t get the idea that this is sufficient, President Bush has since told them to “get your troops and your secret services out of Lebanon, and give democracy a chance.”

  In Cairo, Hosni Mubarak, never known to be a friend of liberty or democratic institutions, has announced that opposition candidates will be allowed to run for office in the upcoming Egyptian elections. Mubarak has been the only presidential “candidate” since taking power in 1981. While questions remain about who will be “allowed” to run, a taste of liberty in a democratic election may ignite the “fire of freedom” among the people of the Nile.

  And now, even the royal family in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, seems to be getting the message, though the recent Saudi “municipal elections” were more show than substance—the elected councilors wield little power. The ruling House of Saud appoints as many councilors as were elected and only men can vote—yet the taste of democracy has intensified the call on the “Arab street” for real elections.

  Last week, the Saudi kingdom’s foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, speaking the heretofore unthinkable, said that in future elections women “may” have the right to vote. Unfortunately, he then added, “We know we want to reform, we know we want to modernize, but for God’s sake leave us alone.”

  And therein lies the first problem: The prince doesn’t get it. It’s not just President Bush’s promise, “When you stand for your liberty we will stand with you,” that is at work in Saudi Arabia. It’s really a quest for freedom that’s sweeping down the “Arab street,” right past minarets preaching repression and hatred for all things Western.

  But Saud al-Faisal isn’t alone in misunderstanding what freedom really means—and from whence it springs. Last week, when President Bush confronted Vladimir Putin about Russia’s freedom of the press, Putin shot back with: “We didn’t criticize you when you fired those reporters at CBS.” Apparently Putin or his advisers believe that a U.S. president has that power.

  Thus the second problem: Saud al-Faisal and Putin apparently believe that holding an election is enough. It’s not. As we have learned from the “election” of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, there’s much more to freedom than casting a ballot. Liberty also means a free press; freedom to worship—or not; the rule of law where justice is tempered with mercy; freedom from fear—of government, criminals, or outsiders, and the freedom to come and go, to speak politically, and to work and create wealth.

  All of this—and more—is what freedom is all about. Elections are not the end of the process, just the beginning. That’s what’s wrong with the argument being waged by some in Congress to start withdrawing American forces from Iraq now that there has been an election. Whether it’s the “Arab street,” or elsewhere, liberty doesn’t march to the beat of a cadence—it arrives to the sound of many drummers, and impatience is never the friend of freedom.

  GLOSSARY

  AAV: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

  Carries eighteen to twenty Marines from ship to shore; serves as ground troop transport. Armament: .50-caliber machine gun and 40mm automatic grenade launcher. See also LVT.

  ABM: Anti-Ballistic Missile

  AGM: Air-to-Ground Missile

  AK-47: Russian- or Chinese-made automatic rifle.

  Amn Al Khass: Iraq’s internal intelligence and security service; also known as SSS, Special Security Services.

  APC: Armored Personnel Carrier

  APU: Auxiliary Power Unit

  ASP: Ammunition Supply Point

  ATGM: Anti-Tank Guided Missile

  AWACS: Airborne Warning and Control System (U.S. Air Force)

  BMP: A Soviet-made, tracked, infantry fighting vehicle. Carries up to eight troops and is normally armed with a 73mm or a 30mm cannon and ATGMs.

  Bn: Battalion

  CAAT: Combined Anti-Armor Team

  Consists of several Humvees equipped with TOW and Javelin ATGMs, .50-caliber machine guns, and grenade launchers.

  CAS: Close Air Support

  cas-evac: casualty evacuation

  CENTCOM: Central Command (Also USCENTCOM)

  U.S. Central Command, one of nine U.S. unified military commands; headquartered at McDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, CENTCOM maintained a forward headquarters in Doha, Qatar.

  CG: Commanding General

  CO: Commanding Officer

  CP: Command Post

  DASC: Direct Air Support Center

  Provides a direct communications link between Marine air and ground units.

  EGBU-28: Enhanced Guided Bomb Unit

  More accurate version of the “bunker buster” that uses GPS for guidance. See also GBU.

  EOD: Explosive Ordnance Disposal

  EP-3: Lockheed EP-3E Aries II aircraft, designed specifically for Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) collection. The aircraft operates with a five-person flight crew and as many as twenty intelligence specialists.

  EPW: Enemy Prisoner of War

  FAC: Forward Air Controller

  Provides direction and control for aircraft firing or dropping ordnance in support of ground troops.

  FARP: Forward Arming and Refueling Point

  FO: Forward Observer

  Provides fire direction and control for artillery or mortars.

  Frag Order: Fragmentary order

  An abbreviated operations order that a commander uses to inform troops of information they need to carry out an assigned mission.

  G-3: Operations and training function for a military command of brigade or higher. See also S-3.

  GBU: Guided Bomb Unit

  E.g., GBU-1
5, an unpowered, glide weapon used to destroy high-value enemy targets; the GBU-37 “bunker buster” is a five-thousand-pound laser-guided conventional explosive with a 4,400-pound penetrating warhead. The operator illuminates a target with a laser designator and then the munition is guided to a spot of laser energy reflected from the target.

  GOSP: Gas-Oil Separation Plant

  GPS: Global Positioning System

  Gunny: Slang for Marine gunnery sergeant.

  HARM: High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile

  An air-to-ground missile, specifically the AGM-88 HARM.

  HEAT: High Explosive Anti-Tank

  Armor-piercing, anti-tank ammunition.

  HET: (U.S. Army) Heavy Equipment Transporter

  HET: (U.S. Marines) Human Exploitation Team

  Helps collect and interpret intelligence.

  HMLA: Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron

  Flies AH1J Cobras and armed UH1N “Hueys.”

  HMM: Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron

  Flies CH-46 “Sea Knight” helicopters.

  HUMINT: Human intelligence—as contrasted with electronic, satellite, or other intelligence gathering.

  HVT: High-Value Target

  ICM: Improved Conventional Munitions

  ID: In the context of a military unit, Infantry Division. Also an abbreviation for identification.

  IED: Improvised Explosive Device

  IFB: Interruptible Feedback Line

  Allows a television producer, director, talent, and others to communicate with each other during a program; usually through an earpiece.

  IFF: Identification Friend or Foe

  I-MEF: 1st Marine Expeditionary Force

  JDAM: Joint Direct Attack Munition

  An unpowered, GPS-guided, one-thousand or two-thousand pound, glide bomb.

  Jihaz Haneen: Clandestine Baath intelligence and security organization.

  JSTARS: Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System