Embedded

  I was happy our duties were over, but I was also very sad that I was leaving the battalion. I had formed amazing friendships with the Iraqis and gone on some amazing adventures. Sure, they were selfish, lying, untrustworthy, backstabbing, begging bastards for the most part, but they were my friends. I had to survive alongside these men. They were rough around the edges, but I knew that if it came down to protecting me in a firefight, every jundi in the battalion would have taken a bullet for me (see photo 19).

  We were bound by a warrior ethos, and that is something I will never forget.

  Final Observations on Camp Ali

  I made some observations my final day at Camp Ali. Around camp we had half-built foundations for a group of buildings that were supposed to have been erected months ago, fifteen tractor and heavy equipment machines collecting dust and at the same time costing Iraqi and American taxpayers large amounts of money, a group of Iraqi contractors sitting in their hooch watching television and sleeping all day, and an ongoing fight within the MOD and the MOE/MOW over whether or not building can continue at Camp Ali. Hordes of wasted efforts and resources because the central government could not agree on issues.

  We also had a battalion that had gone from about 500 soldiers to a unit of roughly 185 with low morale, no initiative, no desire to protect the Iraqi foundations of democracy, and a strong desire to collect their paycheck.

  I witnessed six different occasions on that last day in which Iraqis, both jundi and the civilian contractors, came up to MiTT Marines to beg for coats, gloves, computers, iPods, memory sticks, and food. All of this begging despite the fact that many of the Iraqis already owned many of these items. The root of their begging stems from their perception that Americans have all the money in the world because the Jews stole it from the Arabs and stashed it in American banks.

  In addition, I asked one of the Sudanese engineers on camp how he was doing as he walked back from his morning shower. He replied, “Kosey” (“Good” in African Arabic dialect). I then looked around and noticed that out of the fifteen generators on camp that this guy was supposed to be maintaining, only two worked. This begs a few questions: who from the Iraqi government is overseeing these contractors? Why can’t somebody just tell these guys they aren’t cutting it and rehire someone who can get the job done? And why is the Iraqi government hiring Sudanese engineers when they have a population of unemployed Iraqi engineers?

  Another observation: this afternoon Howyi, a jundi squad leader, slapped an insurgent detainee in the mouth, which caused the detainee to bleed from the lip. The MiTT Marines were then under the gun from the 2/3 lawyer. He wanted them to explain what was going on and why they allowed the incident to happen. What kind of question is this? How long is it going to take American policy makers to understand that we are never going to change Iraqis and make them Americans? Iraqis are going to get rough with their detainees and there is nothing we can do to change this until they decide it is a bad idea.

  The lawyer’s next request from our MiTT Marines was to see the latest copy of the Iraqi SOP for interrogation. Is the U.S. military clueless enough to assume that the Iraqi army has a written SOP for all aspects of their operations? Are you kidding me? Iraq doesn’t even have a functioning legal system that outlines what the rules are in society (aside from the local tribal law that rules most areas). How can they create an official document on their interrogation techniques when there isn’t even a baseline body of law? I guess the “solution” we will use is the same one we always resort to: copy our documents, translate them, hand them over to the Iraqis, and tell them this is how they should do business. We can even tell them that detainees are to be given food and water, they need to be treated humanely, should never be intimidated or in fear, and should be handled with extreme care. The very idea that we can dictate any ideas—from democracy all the way down to how to do interrogation—is a grade-A example of dumbassery.

  My take on the observations above is that the main reasons Iraq continues to falter is not because the U.S. military isn’t trying its best but because of Iraqi culture, which sets them up for failure (or at least failure as defined by Americans: no democracy, not an ally in war on terror, not integrated into global economy, and so forth). Moreover, the American failure to understand Iraqi culture is encapsulated in my observation of the insurgent detainee. Even if Iraqis weren’t destined to fail due to their tribal-based customs, Americans, because of our desire to control and influence every situation, would never allow the Iraqis to do things the way they would like to do them, which would stymie their ability to operate effectively.

  One Marine’s Perspective

  There is a now-defunct theory held by war cheerleaders that if peace and security come to Iraq, the people will somehow magically come together and want to sing “Kumbaya” in unison. This is far-fetched for a number of reasons. After studying the Iraqi people for years and working with them every day for seven months, I doubt any Iraqi in the near future will ever trust another Iraqi when money, power, or resources are at stake. I was exposed to a real-life experiment (Operation Al Majid) in the Triad that allowed us to test the war cheerleader hypothesis that bringing security to areas in Iraq would foster agreement and somehow sprout democratic institutions.

  Operation Al Majid was a great success by all military standards. After it, attacks went from forty to fifty per week to a couple attacks in an entire month—more than a 90 percent drop in violence. Along with that drop in violence there was a great increase in the number of people who seemed to view coalition forces positively. There also was a steady increase in normal activity throughout the Triad: shops were opening, people were finding ways to attend schools, and more and more people were out on the streets doing normal things. In effect, Al Majid created an environment of security and relative peace and quiet.

  The way the theory goes, that security and peace should foster agreement, the formation of local governments, more respect for the national government, and the sprouting of democratic institutions. But I did not see or hear of any of this happening. What I heard was that all the local sheiks continued to fight among themselves, that sheiks were trying to broker deals with the Marines to get more resources and benefits at the American taxpayer’s expense, and that people still had a complete distrust of the central government.

  Nothing really changed—except who the sheiks supported. Before the sheiks had favored the religious zealots, but after the American sugar daddy came to the table, they supported us instead.

  Regardless of who the sheiks support, the key factors are still the same: The Sunnis have no reason to believe in the central government, the sheiks want to maintain their little fiefdoms, local governments continue to bicker and fight amongst themselves, and nobody is willing to stand up for the nation of Iraq if it means abandoning their tribe or family.

  Based on what I saw from the Triad experiment, the hypothesis that once Iraq is secure and peaceful it will sprout cooperation among the people and democratic institutions is false. I think this is because Americans apply their logic and reasoning to the situation. They assume that the Iraqi people will trust one another and choose to work with one another once the violence has ceased. But there is no historical precedent for Iraqis getting along on a national scale. Moreover, I doubt the Iraqi cultural traits of distrust, corruption, selfishness, and survivalist mentality will leave this area of the world anytime soon. Also, for the hypothesis to be true, the local sheiks and warlords who have ruled Iraq since the dawn of time must be willing to let democratic institutions flourish, knowing that this will directly degrade their power and influence over their area. The realist in me thinks this is about as likely as the pope converting to Islam.

  The people in Iraq and the systems in Iraq, as they are currently established, will never become what America wants them to become. The United States came into the Iraq situation with a desire to fix the failures with American solutions. There is a problem in trying to fix Iraqi issues with American ideas:
It allows the Iraqi people to blame their problems on our attempted solutions to their failed systems. What the Iraqis really need to do is be intellectually honest as to why their country is a failure. Once they realize that the faults in their system are due to a lack of initiative, lack of desire, laziness, corruption, selfishness, welfare-recipient attitude, and religious radicalism, they may be able to change from within. I do not think we can change them from outside.

  Leaving Haditha

  Before we departed Haditha, the area left us with a final memory. Twenty minutes before our flight we were all sleeping against the cinder blocks lining the rim of the dam when an enormous jolt went through all of our bodies. The ground shook beneath our boots. Major Gaines popped his head up over the cinder block and yelled, “What the fuck was that?” Everyone jumped to see what had happened. There had obviously been an enormous explosion in our immediate vicinity. Le Gette turned to look at me and said, “Dude, how lucky are we? We’re going to die on the last day here from a fuckin’ rocket attack. Amazing!” I flashed my trademark hang loose sign and replied in a sarcastic fashion, “Oh, yeeaah. Get some!”

  We looked on the landscape of the Euphrates Valley for evidence of an incoming rocket attack. A thousand meters from the dam we spotted the culprit. An enormous billow of smoke was churning from the center of a road near the dam. The EOD team had conducted a controlled detonation of multiple IEDs they had found, which included five propane tanks filled with high explosives. Adams looked at everyone on the team. “Gents, let’s get the fuck out of this place,” he said. “Where the hell is the bird!”

  The bird arrived ten minutes later. I felt like William Wallace in the movie Braveheart, when he triumphantly yells out “Freeeedom” just before his execution. I boarded the CH-53 Super Stallion helicopter and screamed William Wallace’s final word, inaudible to anyone else because of the helicopter’s engine noise. I was finally free.

  We were finally in Kuwait and the nightmare was over. I will never forget the flight out of the Triad. I was able to see from the sky all the areas where we had been attacked with IEDs, all the areas we had been fired upon, all the FOBs we had visited, and all the homes of people we had visited. The place was so much smaller than I had believed it to be. The Triad had been my life. It had been the center of my world. It amazed me to think that in that little slice of the world I could experience so much and learn so many new things. In the Triad we were America’s main effort. I am just now beginning to realize that Camp Ali is just another place in Iraq with two hundred hard-charging Iraqi bums trying to make a difference in a Third World land.

  Being around the MiTT my last few days in Iraq made me realize something: No matter how dicked up everyone is on our team, or how idiotic or lazy people are, I still love all of them and think we had the best adviser crew Iraq has ever seen. We may not have been blessed with the most talent or that much brainpower, but we sure as hell knew how to have fun and make things happen with limited resources. For all the bitching, complaining, fighting, and hatred I had seen between the members of our team, I think circumstances brought us together as brothers in the end.

  On my last day in Kuwait I focused on the beauty of McDonald’s golden arches and the many women in camp. When you haven’t seen a McDonald’s or a woman in a long time, they do wonders for you.

  Later on in the day, on our adventures around the Kuwaiti camp, Adams, Doc, Le Gette, and I went on a four-mile walk to visit the local market. We wanted to load up on pirated DVDs for the ride home and purchase gifts for family and friends. Four miles away from the main camp we tried to hitch a ride with one of the many U.S. Army or U.S. Air Force personnel that drove by. We were passed by no less than ten unloaded fifteen-person passenger vans. Nobody wanted to help the Marines. In all honesty, though, we didn’t really care. We had survived hell and lived to tell the tale.

  We were the few. We were the proud. We were the Marines.

  APPENDIX

  GLOSSARY

  2/3. 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines.

  3/3. 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines.

  Ali Babba. Arabic term for “thief” or “robber.”

  berm. Large mound of dirt that acts as a protective barrier.

  BIOP. Baghdad International Airport.

  BOLO. Be on the lookout.

  chemlight. Chemically activated light source similar to a glow stick.

  CO. Commanding officer.

  COC. Combat Operations Center.

  comms. Short for communications.

  CP. Control point; command post.

  CWIED. Command-wire IED.

  DoD. Department of Defense.

  ECM. Electronic countermeasure.

  EOD. Explosive Ordnance Disposal

  FOB. Forward operating base.

  GPR. Gunpowder residue test.

  H&S Company. Headquarters and Service Company.

  HET. Human Exploitation Team.

  hooch. Living quarters; home.

  HUMINT. Human intelligence.

  IA. Iraqi army.

  ID. Identification.

  IED. Improvised explosive device.

  IP. Iraqi police.

  JDAM. Joint direct attack munition.

  JIEDD TF. Joint IED Defeat Task Force.

  jundi. Arabic for “soldier.”

  KBR. Kellogg, Brown and Root, a former Halliburton subsidiary.

  khubbis. Iraqi homemade bread.

  MEDEVAC. Medical evacuation.

  MiTT. Military transition team.

  mm. Millimeter.

  MOD. Iraqi Ministry of Defense.

  MRE. Meal, ready-to-eat.

  ODA. Operational Detachment Alpha (reference to U.S. Army Special Forces Team).

  OIF. Operation Iraqi Freedom.

  OP. Observation point.

  overwatch. Position from which to observe enemy activity or protect friendly maneuver.

  PLB. Personal locater beacon.

  POG. People other than grunts, a derogatory term for nonactive combat participants.

  PPIED. Pressure-plate IED.

  PT. Physical training.

  PTT. Police Transition Team.

  QRF. Quick reaction force.

  RCIED. Radio-controlled IED.

  RIP. Relief in place.

  RPG. Rocket-propelled grenade.

  SAPI. Small-arms protective insert.

  seven-ton. Marine troop transport vehicle.

  SOP. Standard operating procedure.

  terps. Short for interpreter.

  VBIED. Vehicle-borne IED.

  wadi. Dried riverbed.

  wasta. Clout, or the ability to get things done in the eyes of Arabs.

  XO. Executive officer.

  INDEX

  Abass, Colonel: appearance of, 34–35;

  competence of, 35;

  construction at Camp Ali, 219;

  decision-making process, 32;

  dinner with, 89–92;

  explosives in Camp Ali, 215;

  freedom and democracy for Iraq, 223–25;

  influence of, 35;

  jundis’ trust of, 82;

  leave period, return from, 209;

  lecture on dealing with Arab men, 47–48;

  mission planning brief with, 35;

  old Iraqi army, motivation of, 188;

  pay rate, 64;

  payday, 82;

  police colonel, meeting with, 45–46;

  relationship with Special Forces, 47–48;

  reward system for jundi, 114–15;

  sheepherder, IED warning to, 151–52;

  weapons, confiscation of, 43–44

  Abass, Lieutenant, 154, 201

  Abdulhaddi, 174

  Abdulrachman, 59, 75–76, 195–96, 209

  Abdulredha, Lieutenant, 162–65, 167

  Abit, 92–93, 170

  Abu Hyatt, 28, 164

  Adams, Rob: Baghdadi compound, 166;

  Bani Dahir operations, 43–44;

  calculating risk of death, 58;

  explosion near C
amp Ali, 239;

  family of, 6, 8;

  food for Iraqis, 76, 79–80;

  gear, stashing extra, 6;

  IED training, thoughts on, 25;

  jogging with WG, 181;

  Nimer operation planning, 120;

  reassurance of family of, 6, 8;

  red air and dead body escort, 102;

  supply issues, 73, 74–75;

  Surefire light, lost, 211;

  walk to Kuwaiti market, 240

  Adams, Sam, 6, 8

  Adams, Virginia, 8

  Ahmed, 182–83, 197–98

  Ahmed (S-1 clerk), 94–95, 97

  Ahmed, Captain, 134

  Ahmed, Lieutenant, 161, 201, 218–19

  Ali (jundi): Arabic name for WG, 64;

  Barwana market security, 79;

  picture with Iraqi children, 146;

  religious beliefs of Marines, 193;

  supplies, hauling, 74;

  wounding of during combat patrol, 131–34

  Ali, Ahmed, 171

  Ali, Hussein, 101–2, 104–5

  Ali, Lieutenant Colonel, 32, 84, 109, 182

  ambush near market, intelligence about, 146–47

  Amir, 68, 76–77

  Anbar Province, Al: government

  spending in, 220;

  supply convoys, pirating of, 77–78;

  violence in, 227. See also Haditha

  Triad

  angel escort, 101–5, 191–92

  Arab culture. See Iraqi and Arab

  culture

  Arab media, 214–15

  Arabic language skills, 16, 31, 41, 73, 83, 145–47

  Arabic name, 64–65

  Arabs, trust between, 190

  Arafat, Yasser, 12

  Asad Airbase, Al: accommodations at, 56–58;

  chow halls, 56, 57–58;

  food distribution from, 76–77;

  leave run process, 51–54, 58–59, 61;

  road leading to, 56

  Ayad: combat patrol, 145–47;

  IED on bridge, 165–66;

  jailing of male relatives, 196–98;

  man love, 93–94;

  militias, participation in, 189;