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

by Scott Fisher

  Once a week or so, these undercover ops people, and others that worked closely with them, would appear at the office to file a report or just take a break. They came in dusty, usually bearded (except the women), and dressed at least partly like the locals – though they had to be careful with that or risk getting targeted by the U.S. forces running gate security. Whenever they came in, we always tried to get them whatever they needed.

  On Christmas what they needed was something unique. As suppertime approached, one of their regulars suddenly came in, shaking the walls and rattling tiles with an utterly epic tirade. Normally completely mild-mannered, for the high-strung don’t fare well undercover in a warzone, this guy was redefining the term pissed off.

  It seemed he and a couple of co-workers had driven halfway across Baghdad, braving terrorists and car bombs the whole way, to get a hot Christmas meal. Of course, unaware of our new safety rules, they hadn’t brought their helmets and body armor. Thus they were barred from entry into the mess hall, easily the safest place they’d been all day. Though military himself, he launched into a very detailed, graphic, and utterly hilarious critique of the geniuses running base security and the war in general.

  At a pause in the rage, wiping tears from our eyes the guy had us laughing so hard, a couple of us offered our helmets and armor to the poor bastards and wished them a good meal. Lunch had been perfect and we could always go to dinner later, after they got back. Thanking us, and still fuming, they geared up to go have dinner. Their experience was like a giant highlight, underline, and bold for something I’d done earlier that day.

  Freedom

  I’d long ago decided that, come Christmas, I was going to give myself the gift of freedom and end my government service. I’d been wanting to resign since practically my first day of work in the Pentagon; when I’d found out that they’d assigned me to China instead of Korea (your tax dollars hard at work). Hell, the main reason I’d volunteered for Baghdad was to escape the frustration of that job.

  Adding to my irritation was almost getting Shanghai’d in Qatar, all because DC admin lacked the decency to tell me where I’d actually been assigned. Though still stuck at a desk in Iraq, at least here I felt like I was doing something rewarding. and of at least minor value to the country. But, with my transfer back down to Qatar reportedly only days away, Christmas became the day to reclaim my freedom.

  Hitting the send button on that resignation email brought one of the greatest feelings of relief ever. No more idiocy and mismanagement ruling my life – now I was back in charge (bringing its own form of idiocy and mismanagement). I also made sure not to screw anyone over – I made the resignation effective the end of January, longer if still needed in Baghdad, shorter if sent back to Qatar.

  The letter itself, which pulled no punches on the problems I’d seen while working at the Department of Defense, was proofread by a couple of co-workers and soon found its way around some of the palace offices. Like with the ticket incident, people would again drop by, many of them stressed and bitter themselves because of all the ongoing transitions, and laugh aloud while reading the letter. It was nice to be entertaining, but mainly I just felt relieved to finally be getting my life back.

  Winding Down

  As my time in country wound down, some of the more memorable aspects of working with the military became apparent. One was their sheer inability to express anything without a fistful of acronyms. Going from the notes in my Iraq journal to writing this account is like translating a language – “DFAC to farewell an O-6 before he PCS’ed” would become “have a farewell dinner for the colonel before he transferred out.”

  For a civilian, another oddity were the constant attacks, generally joking, on people in the Air Force: “He’s almost in the real military, he’s Air Force.” “We’re with the military, those guys work for the government, and the people over there are Air Force.” “Tell your friend if he’s not sure whether he wants to join the military he should try the Air Force first.” There was even a cartoon posted on one of the office walls with a picture of a soldier standing in the desert and hating life, exclaiming, “This sucks!” The next couple of pictures were of Marines and Special Forces, shown in progressively worse conditions, exclaiming the same thing. Finally the last picture is of an Airman sitting down to dinner in a nice mess hall exclaiming, “No steak! This sucks!”

  While the Air Force usually gave as good as it got, those people really do take a lot of flak. It seems an unwritten rule of military life that the Air Force exists partially for the other services to have someone to pick on.

  Aside from jokes about the Air Force, people generally got in some good shots at the upper ranks. Among the funniest was the aforementioned lieutenant not wanting a promotion above captain because of expected pain from the lobotomy. One of the best comments though, and showing the general level of respect afforded the Marines even inside the military, came in the office one morning while someone was reading out possible bumper stickers for various services and units. One for the Marines’ stuck out, “Marine Snipers – you can run, but you’ll die tired.”

  Come early January, with the resignation turned in, the end of the year having safely come and gone (with plenty of Iraqi celebratory gunfire at midnight), and nearly all of our responsibilities devolved into other organizations, the office got hit with one last task. A related group was coming up from the base in Qatar to tour the operation in Baghdad and, most importantly, to protect their turf in all of the reorganizing. The trip was to include an actual VIP, a one-star general equivalent civilian newly assigned to running the outfit that was my ‘real’ duty station in Qatar. It was understood that this was to be our last major job and my services were no longer required once they left.

  As the emails setting up the visit flew back and forth it became apparent that our office was tertiary to the main purpose for the trip – getting this new big shot face time with the generals in Baghdad controlling the reorganization. He was coming in for a quick look around and to stake out his territory and assets.

  Seeing a general-level pissing contest coming down the pike made me doubly glad for the Christmas resignation. My, “somebody needs to use our office? Sure, let’em in,” style of bureaucratic infighting was undoubtedly not what this VIP had in mind.

  I dug up an old PowerPoint outlining what our, soon to be history, office did, and passed it along to someone more anxious than I for face time with the higher-ups. Then I focused on finalizing the last of the work for our transition, plus starting the mountain of out-processing paperwork my resignation had engendered.

  Once the VIP and his entourage arrived, of course on a flight assigned to him (no waiting around or, heaven forbid, getting bumped from a flight for generals and their equivalents), I was able to meet up with some former co-workers from Qatar. Watching their reaction the first time a blast rattled the office windows brought home how much Baghdad had changed me. While they flinched and their eyes grew wide, much as mine had done weeks earlier, I hadn’t even paused in what I was saying, just like James during my training back in November.

  As their meetings progressed I was too busy running around out-processing to get caught up in the great asset struggle. Running around turning in equipment, processing paperwork, scheduling flights, and coordinating my arrival in DC, for another round of out-processing, was a full-time job all its own.

  Marine Colonel

  As the VIP visit wound down, my own departure date finally arrived. I was first headed for Qatar to do another round of out-processing there, before finally flying back to DC. It turned out that by the end of the resignation process, I had spent the better part of eight days – three in Baghdad, three in Qatar, and two in DC – filling out all of the paperwork required to simply leave government employment. All of this time, of course, counted as work. Think of that outstanding bit of efficiency the next time you pay your taxes.

  I knew when the VIP was leaving and had scheduled myself to depart the same night – many
flights departing Baghdad leave at night for safety reasons. As low-level scum I couldn’t be assigned to an actual flight – I just got paperwork permitting me to grab a seat on whatever military hop to Qatar had space available. By scheduling my flight on the same night as the VIP’s 3am flight I had it in reserve in case none of the others panned out.

  My last day was devoted to saying goodbye to everyone and turning in my weapon and body armor (and yes, this meant that on the days around Christmas anyone who’d turned in their equipment too early hadn’t been allowed to eat…). The day had turned sunny and much warmer than normal, leaving me covered in sweat as I hiked all over camp dealing with 30,000 final pages of paperwork. All of which, unbeknownst to me, had to be done in a certain order and in a certain way. So, instead of spending time with my friends, I was dealing with the kind of BS that had me wanting to leave government employment in the first place.

  After spending several hours my last day dealing with a bureaucratic process quite literally more frustrating than getting a North Korean visa, I had worked myself into a truly fine mood. The relief of turning in my resignation, and happiness to be getting my life back, had all disappeared in a haze of irritation and anger. I was thinking about all of this wasted time as I trudged from my hootch back to supply to finally turn in my body armor. Though hot, the easiest way to carry the heavy-ass armor is to wear it, so that’s what I was doing. Under the armor I had on the desert camouflage military uniform I’d been issued back in the States, though the armor covered the parts with my name and that identified me as a ‘DOD Civilian’. I’d taken off my helmet to try, in vain, to keep cool as I tromped along toward supply.

  Given my mounting anger and frustration, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

  “You don’t wear cover with that uniform?!?!”

  Someone up the hill 20 or 30 yards away was VERY pissed and screaming their lungs out. I kept walking.

  “You don’t wear fucking cover with that uniform?!?!”

  This time even louder and more pissed, with an F-bomb thrown in for good measure. As I started to wonder what the asshole was so pissed about, the word ‘cover’ filtered through the sweat and into my mind. ‘Cover’, I’d heard that term before, now what did it mean …

  The guy screamed again, still using the F-bomb. By now I was curious who he was talking to – there weren’t that many people around. I slowed and looked up from where I was walking.

  He, in a Marine uniform and appearing to be in his 40s, was looking directly down AT ME. He was about 10 yards away and up a very low hill, kind of like the side of a deep ditch. Next to him stood two other, younger, Marines.

  Just then my brain finished looking up definitions for the word ‘cover’ and fired off an emergency message, “‘Cover’ means ‘hat’ or ‘helmet’! And you aren’t wearing either one! And apparently you’re supposed to!” The light bulb flashing in my head must have been visible for miles.

  His tone of voice and throwing around of the F-bomb both pissed me off and turned me cold. In a completely relaxed manner I answered, “Nah, it’s a little hot out here today so I decided not to go with the cover. Thanks though,” and resumed my walk toward supply.

  He’d have been less pissed had I hit him.

  “Who in the fuck are you?!?! Where in the fuck do you work and what the fuck is your rank?!?!”

  I’d expected this and already had my hand on my armor. I ripped open the Velcro and pointed to the uncovered tags. “Scott Fisher, DoD CIVILIAN” With all of the emphasis on ‘civilian’.

  The two Marines with Mr. Happy just rolled their eyes and walked away. We weren’t on some parade ground back in the U.S. and getting all worked up, especially at some idiot civilian, just wasn’t worth it. Nor was it professional.

  That didn’t stop the screamer though. “I don’t give a fuck who you are. You get your ass up here and put on that fucking helmet right fucking now!!”

  Months of frustration and irritation at dealing with the government and its inane little hassles came pouring out. I lost my own temper and started yelling back, throwing around my own F-bombs, while literally racing up the little hill to get in the man’s face. As we stood toe-to-toe, continuing our mutual tirades, the first thing I noticed was that the little fella wasn’t very good at shaving. Weird clumps of whiskers stuck out all over his face.

  The second thing I noticed was that I towered over the hopped-up little prick. I loomed into him and backed him up, each of us still continuing with the yelling, only now calling in support from finger pointing. It took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to pick up the little son of a bitch and do a dwarf toss down the hill. No one else was near – his buddies kept walking, ignoring the whole thing.

  After a minute or two some rationality began to filter back into my brain. The first thing I realized was that I should probably figure out what rank I was yelling at.

  I tore my eyes away from the whisker clumps to look at the man’s collar. Silver eagles! Hmm … I was more used to Army insignia than Marine insignia but I figured anything in the eagle category (which in the army identified a colonel) couldn’t be good.

  Then I realized I was leaving. Fuck him! What could he do?

  Well, two seconds later, it dawned on me that, though colonels had been everywhere at the Pentagon, many of them busy fetching coffee for generals; out here in Baghdad they might actually have some power. Power extending beyond an apparent passionate interest in fashion consulting.

  At nearly the same time I could see similar thoughts going on down in screamer’s head. Civilians obviously don’t wear rank insignia, but at my age, and with the attitude I was exhibiting, there was a chance I equaled or even out-ranked the guy. This time, when he told me to take off the uniform if I wasn’t going to wear it ‘right’, it came out more as a suggestion than an order.

  I ratcheted down my response also. Instead of the one I most wanted to make, “my uncle died in Vietnam wearing the Marine uniform you’re currently embarrassing, you anal little prick,” I instead told him I’d definitely be taking off the uniform real soon, though not right then.

  I added that I would however be going back to work, hat squarely in my pocket, and if he didn’t like that he should feel more than free to take the matter up with my boss in the little palace right over there. Given that his eyes looked directly into my chest I stuck out the tit with my name on it to make sure he got the name, then turned around and resumed my walk to supply.

  I could hear him standing there, huffing and puffing and staring at my back, before eventually turning and walking off in the opposite direction. He went the same way his ‘friends’ had gone when they abandoned him. My guess is that reunion was not a happy one.

  After hearing him turn, I picked up my pace. I wanted to get back to the office to find out what the hell a silver bird meant on a Marine uniform. I was guessing an O-6 (a colonel), but I wanted to be sure.

  After finally getting to supply and dropping off the armor, I headed for the palace, imagining how ironic it’d be to get attacked right now when I wasn’t wearing any protection. I rounded the corner to the palace entrance and came up to the guards. Ever since the explosion in the mess hall a couple of weeks earlier security had been tightening at all of the camps. The newest for us was sandbags and armed guards outside the palace entrance – no more of the ‘Wal-Mart greeters’ being the sole line of defense.

  The guards were drawn from lower-ranking military people who already worked in the palace, adding a couple of 4-hour guard shifts a week to the rest of their duties. Luckily, that afternoon one of the guards was a Navy guy I knew. I quickly asked him about the silver eagles on a Marine uniform, only to have him confirm it meant colonel. When he asked why the sudden interest in Marine insignia I briefly explained what had just happened. His eyes grew wide.

  “You told off a full colonel?!?! … You told off a colonel!?” His look had a mixture of pity and wonder. Then, after a pause, “What’d it feel like?”
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  That was my first exposure to the two reactions I generally get from military people when I tell this story. High-ranking people are nearly always disgusted at the lack of professionalism exhibited by a fellow officer. They’re actually the ones that taught me the term ‘parade-ground prick’. Lower ranking people nearly always ask what it felt like – apparently my rant had lived out a secret fantasy held by some.

  I was actually a bit embarrassed, but the story spread around the palace like wildfire. Compared to my traffic ticket and the well-circulated letter of resignation, the story of getting in the face of a full-bird colonel got A LOT of attention. I’d definitely carved out a niche for myself as the office oddball, or asshole, depending on the person.

  I spent the next few hours, my last in camp, relating the story to everyone I ran into, or who dropped in to say goodbye. A few promised to keep their ears open and email me if the colonel ever turned up, but, though I keep in contact with several people from my time in Baghdad, I never heard anything from him again.

  Flight Out

  By evening everything was finally mailed off, turned in, bagged up, and ready to go. The oddest part was handing over my Beretta. After nearly two months of walking around armed, it felt weird to suddenly be without a weapon – I figured the idiots would choose just that minute to attack and I’d be stuck throwing rocks.