Axis of Evil World Tour - An American's Travels in Iran, Iraq and North Korea

by Scott Fisher

  Highway sign leaving the airport for Baghdad – notice

  how all of the lights have been looted.

  The ride back to the base was uneventful, as was getting our new stash past security. The closest thing we had to trouble was divvying up the bottles and lugging them undetected from the truck to our living quarters – getting caught with booze could have gotten them fired and me demoted or sent back home.

  Getting caught with booze raises an interesting point. Early in the war military people caught drinking were often sent home. This was actually viewed as a serious, career-ending punishment. But as the war dragged on and going home became more attractive, those busted were instead kept in Iraq and either demoted or reassigned – no more getting out for getting drunk.

  Near Misses

  Soon after the excursion to the airport, and feeling kind of like the guys in M*A*S*H with their still, we spent several evenings relaxing over drinks and movies from the base’s pirated DVD store. It was one of those evenings that I first heard from my British roommate that the British and Australian forces had been suddenly ordered out of our trailer park and into the hardened facilities located here and there around base.

  A couple of incidents that may have influenced their decision-making are worth repeating. A few weeks earlier, prior to my arrival in camp, one of the mortars actually scored a direct hit on a trailer and shattered it, turning the metal roof and sides into whizzing little pieces of razor-sharp shrapnel. Fortunately though, no one was inside or near enough to get hurt – fortune that mostly extended to the resident of the destroyed trailer. Just before the strike he had gone out, per the rules, to at least 50 yards from his hooch for a cigarette. As he’s smoking, WHAM! The thing comes down and, right before his eyes, blows the shit out of his trailer. Leaving at least one person on the planet who can honestly say smoking saves.

  Another story, from when I first arrived in camp, literally hit a bit closer to home. One of the guys in a nearby trailer had flown home for vacation before Thanksgiving. During that time, including my first night in camp, we experienced several attacks, all without any apparent damage. Come early December the guy returned to camp and, since it was night and he was tired from the long flight, crawled into bed and went to sleep.

  The next morning he woke to find light shining through a grapefruit-sized hole in his ceiling. He got out of bed and saw a similar-sized hole in the floor, but, not thinking much of it, just went and notified housing to get it fixed. They dispatched a couple of repairmen to take a closer look. Once inside they sized up the hole in the ceiling, then bent down to examine the hole in the floor. Lying in the dirt, not two inches below the hole, was an unexploded mortar!

  They got out of there and called the unexploded ordnance guys (bomb squad) to remove it. Judging from the huge BOOM that echoed across camp when they exploded it in an empty field, none of the nearby trailers, nor anybody in them, would have faired well had that thing gone off as intended.

  The mortar had lain there for several days, plus the whole night the guy was basically sleeping right on top of it, without exploding. Several other trailers, with four occupants each, were located less than 10 feet away. It made for the second close call in less than a month and probably helped force the decision that ordered the Aussies and Brits out of our trailers.

  A bit fatalistic perhaps, but for those of us living nearby it actually felt safer afterwards – like lightening, how probable was it that an incoming round would land in the same place twice?

  When my roommate told me he was moving out I asked him a favor before he left. Since he was heading back to England for Christmas leave, I asked if he’d delay submitting the paperwork for his move until after he got back. He agreed and we ‘worked a drug deal’ (Iraq slang meaning ‘do something higher-ups need not know about’) to where he’d nominally keep the place until he got back.

  By not filing the moving forms with KBR until after his return, the living space next to mine would remain empty, and presumably peaceful and quiet, over the holidays. Though technically not kosher, as a Brit KBR couldn’t get him in as much trouble as they could an American, and by playing with the dates I got some extra room, plus access to his heater over the holidays – easily the best Christmas gift I got that year. Allies indeed.

  Christmas

  As Christmas approached our workflow lessened, and one of the people in the office took off on leave. Now, with only two people in our big office, plus not as much work to do, people started dropping in to relax and ‘borrow’ some of our coffee. Space was a luxury for those assigned to the cubicles in the main room, so heading into our private little section was a nice break, once they got used to the window-rattling explosions.

  One of the visitors, a U.S. Navy guy, was the first to get permanently reassigned to our office. He was involved in systems and databases and knew everything about interfacing our legacy ISG information with the outfit that was taking over. He even helped answer questions and smooth transition matters – an actual logical, intelligent reassignment that helped improve my attitude toward those running the war.

  The improved opinion didn’t last long.

  Ticket

  This one was unexpected. A few days before Christmas I had to run over to another post on business, so jumped in the SUV and drove off. The potholes and rutted roads had taken some getting used to, but by now I actually enjoyed driving on base. Part of the attraction was the dirt road that made up the first part of the trip – great for blowing off steam with a little off-roading.

  The afternoon was warm and sunny so, windows rolled down and radio tuned to, “Freedom Radio, the most heavily armed station on the air (Armed Forces Radio Baghdad),” I drove off. As I pulled away from the palace I got caught behind some idiot in a Humvee who would have gone faster had he put it in reverse. He was so slow the junker car right in front of me actually pulled out and passed, with me following close behind. I got back to enjoying my off-roading, as the beat-up car in front was doing, while wondering why someone in a full-on Humvee was wasting so much time. After a bit I looked back and thought I saw a red light flashing on the Humvee. There was even the hint of a siren.

  “No way,” I figured, “a traffic cop on post in Baghdad? Not even the U.S. government could be that dumb.”

  So I kept driving, ignoring the guy. Vehicles with lights and sirens are hardly uncommon on a base in a warzone, plus he kept going so slow he fell further and further behind, seemingly lost in his own little world.

  After about five minutes though, I was in for a surprise. I came to a checkpoint, only to find all the guards freaked out, frantically waving at me to pull over and halt. Their weapons weren’t pointed at me, yet, but they had them very visible. I pulled off, and kept my hands in full view, as they cautiously approached from several directions, then told me to wait.

  Sure enough, the idiot behind me was a traffic cop. He’d radioed ahead to the soldiers manning the checkpoint to have me stopped. Once turtleboy caught up the reason for his slowness became apparent – he was more mountain than man. I’m not a small person, but this guy was pro-wrestler large. It must have been all the poor Humvee could do just to move, let alone keep up.

  All fired up from his hot pursuit, he proceeded to give me a ticket for speeding and passing in an ‘unsafe area’ (the nearest safe area being Europe). I couldn’t believe it.

  I was so surprised, and unfamiliar with the concept of tickets on a base in a foreign country, I stopped his harangue to ask if a ticket meant I had to pay more in insurance, or got points on my license. He paused, looked at me like I was an idiot, and said no, but I might hear something from my boss in a day or two. So, there I was, no more than 200 yards from Route Irish, the ‘Road of Death’ they couldn’t secure, and the geniuses running the war had decided to deploy Humvees and armed U.S. soldiers as traffic cops. Brilliant! Winning the war one traffic ticket at a time!

  The ticket actually turned out to be only a weird souvenir. My boss came up to
me a few days later and said he’d gotten a notice about my ticket and that I shouldn’t drive for a couple of weeks. Then he asked what happened. I explained, and he, veteran of many a war zone and third world country, said something about knowing a different breed was running the show when they started handing out traffic tickets.

  The oddest, and to me most pathetic, thing about the ticket was the timing. That same day, at nearly the same time I was getting my wrist slapped in Baghdad, a terrorist was able to sneak through the wire at a U.S. base up in Mosul and blow his dumb ass up in the middle of a lunchtime mess hall, killing and wounding dozens of U.S. and coalition personnel. What genius decided to pull troops off of war-duty in favor of turning them into ticket writers and meter maids?

  To me the ticket became an example of the kind of decision-making indicative of people who hope for the best, without planning for the worst. People who planned and fought a war demanding Iraq fit their preconceptions, rather than dealing with Iraq as it was on the ground. Their ass-backwards priorities still dumbfound me.

  A few days later, at the base gym, I ran into the guy who gave me the ticket – ours was a relatively small community, and the man was a giant. I asked him about his schedule, plus how much time and how many people were devoted to traffic duty. He asked if I’d gotten into any trouble with my boss, and seemed surprised when I told him I wasn’t supposed to drive for a couple of weeks.

  Before I could stop myself, I told him I was surprised to see force protection giving tickets instead of working the perimeter to keep people out – a pointed reference to the recent mess hall bombing that brought a hurt look to his face and suddenly made me feel like an ass. When he’d first pulled me over, he’d been full of that self-righteous indignation traffic cops always get when giving tickets, but he later calmed down and turned out to be a decent guy. After all, it wasn’t his fault he’d been ordered to give tickets. Every time I ran into him after making my stupid comment I felt terrible. I feel guilty about the look on his face even now as I write this.

  Another side to that story was what happened back at the office. In a small community, with people leading relatively monotonous lives, this was decent gossip. Suddenly, I went from being the new guy who took over James’ spot, to the weirdo who got a speeding ticket. People I hadn’t seen since training were stopping by the office to ask if it was true and what had happened. Everybody seemed to get a good laugh out of it.

  Contractor Christmas Party

  The lead up to Christmas brought a nice gift from the contractors I worked with. I’d gotten to know some of them pretty well over the past month, plus had worked and partied with their co-workers while briefly assigned to Qatar, so they were kind enough to invite me to their company Christmas party.

  Though their people rotated in and out, the company itself had been around since the beginning of the war, seniority that allowed them to obtain one of the prized Hussein-era buildings along our lake. About half of the group lived there, in a quiet, peaceful setting along the water. Though a bit far from the palace, mess hall, and offices, it was still nice, and must have been fantastic before the war.

  Even though some of the people there only knew me by my email address, everyone was warm and friendly to the newcomer and outsider. Nearly all the guys working the contract were retired or ex-military, including one sergeant-major and at least one colonel. Among the old-timers were some who had been serving in U.S. wars since Vietnam – they well understood being new to a post and away from home for the holidays.

  The party started with a short company meeting that, after a bit of discussion, they decided not to kick me out of. The main issues were like any other meeting: discussions about an upcoming raise, an opening for a promotion, and wishes for a safe and happy holiday. After the meeting came the food, most of it recently smuggled out of the mess hall, or purchased at the PX.

  Like any office Christmas party, the talk focused mainly on the job and gossip about those who’d recently come and gone. Perhaps unique to our life in a warzone, and its almost complete lack of daily expenses, the talk also focused on what everyone was doing with the money they were saving. For most it was about paying off mortgages or socking away a bit more savings before finally heading home and into retirement. The biggest laugh of the day came when they exchanged a few gifts and someone asked how it could be Christmas without Wal-Mart.

  We heard a couple of days later that the office party for the guys down in Qatar had involved a trip to a fancy beach hotel, drinks, a buffet supper, and swimming in the Gulf – all of which certainly made my impending re-assignment back to Qatar sound inviting.

  Christmas Meal

  The mess hall, expecting a big crowd for Christmas, had just opened a new annex, plus they’d been prepping the place for days with decorations and promises of a honest-to-goodness Christmas dinner. My favorite part of the new decorations was the big ‘Merry Christmas’ banner over the annex entrance – it cheerily covered the sign warning the area was not hardened against mortars.

  I was actually looking forward to Christmas on base. I’ve spent enough holidays overseas that being away doesn’t really bother me, plus this one promised the first real Christmas dinner I’d had in years.

  The holiday for me actually started well before dawn. Housing decided to move someone new into my trailer about three o’clock that morning. Since the guy was fresh from the States, and obviously jet-lagged out of his mind, he apparently figured 4 a.m. would be the perfect time to rearrange his room and clean all 7000 of his weapons.

  I walked down to his end of the trailer and asked who he’d pissed off to get to spend his Christmas Eve traveling to Iraq (you could tell from the clean bags he was brand-new). He replied he’d heard there was trouble in Iraq and was here to take care of it, ratcheting back his rifle for emphasis. I wished Rambo Jr. luck and went back to bed. I keep checking the news, but apparently he hasn’t quite finished taking care of things yet.

  When I left for work later that morning, thanks to the terrorist dumbass exploding himself in the Mosul mess hall, I went outside to a new set of rules governing what we wore. To enter the mess hall we now had to wear helmets and body armor (high-collared vests with ceramic plates to protect the vitals, and a flap that hung down in front to cover the other vitals). Plus, no more bags were allowed inside any dining facility. So, I started Christmas breakfast with a soldier thumping me on the chest to make sure I’d actually inserted the plates into my vest, then telling me I couldn’t go inside with my bag. Nor, obviously, could I leave it outside while I ran in and grabbed some food. So I ended up skipping Christmas breakfast for coffee back at the office.

  Back at work, I did have one other option for food, but one I hesitated to use. This was the candies and snacks sent by people back home to ‘U.S. soldiers’ (which technically only includes those in the Army) or ‘U.S. forces serving in Iraq’ (which includes everybody). I always thought this food was intended more for military people than government hacks such as myself, so I rarely ate any. Anytime I did I felt guilty, like I was an intruder taking food from someone ‘really’ serving in the war.

  Given that every day in camp was about the same, the new gear requirements and sudden difficulty entering the mess hall quickly became the talk of the palace. The person who made many, including myself, stop and think was the one who pointed out that the new checks before entering were creating a dangerous side effect – long lines of people standing outside the entrances. Ironically, the new rules had succeeded in transferring the threat from a nut in an exploding vest inside the mess hall, to someone with a much more powerful car bomb outside it. After word of that idea got around, a lot of people, including myself, started using the mess hall entrance furthest from the parking lot.

  It would be several days before the rules on body armor, though not on bags, were loosened – people dying on Christmas would be bad for the war PR. After the extra sandbagging, blacking out of windows, and removal of the Brits and Aussies from our traile
rs, this was another internal sign of how the war was headed in the wrong direction. I hadn’t even been in-country two months and security, even inside the base, was visibly deteriorating.

  By Christmas, nearly all of our office responsibilities had been taken over by other outfits, so our workload that morning was pretty light. My original ‘month’ reassignment to Baghdad had been up days ago, but there was still no official date for finally closing the office. We ended up spending most of the morning sorting through the latest rumors on how long until we got shut down and reassigned.

  By about 10:30, the shoptalk turned to Christmas dinner, so everyone got suited up in their body armor and helmets. Hopes for the meal were high, especially among those away from families and new to life overseas. After waiting in line, getting thumped to confirm our armor plates were inserted, and doing the clearing barrel routine, we finally walked inside to an oasis of tantalizing smells. Heaps of everything Christmas were steaming and gleaming as we shuffled down the chow line and loaded up. The food was fantastic, the only problem being how to let out the armor a bit so I could cram everything in.

  After lunch a few of the guys grabbed the truck and went over to one of our sister camps to see a show. The good people at the USO had brought in Robin Williams and John Elway to entertain the troops and boost morale. It worked – they came back with big smiles and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to recreate Williams’ jokes. The USO ought to get more praise for the job it does, they certainly raised morale that Christmas afternoon.

  As supper approached, the office got a visit from a couple of folks with one of the most dangerous jobs in the country – working undercover directly with the Iraqis. These people didn’t travel around like the military in fast-moving convoys with guns bristling and signs ordering everyone to get the hell out of their way. No, these men and women (yes, women do the job too, even in ultra-sexist Arabia) drove around in local ‘hajji cars’, weapons out of sight but at the ready across their laps, eyes constantly scanning for a threat that could come from anywhere at any time. Respect for the job they did ran deep in the office, they were the ones out there actually meeting the locals and collecting the information in many of our reports.