A swift departure from March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California, eluded us, and hours after our arrival we learned that our plane had broken down somewhere on the East Coast. Feelings of elation, of “Let’s get on with it,” were smashed as we were ferried to the Riverside Marriott, where we would remain overnight until our flight arrived. One night turned into three, and we waited as prisoners in a four-star hotel, forbidden to venture out into town in our camouflaged utility uniforms. Some Marines arranged for daily visits to the hotel by their families or girlfriends, each day spent having one last lunch together, only to be stuck there one more day. Others, like me, chose not to invite wives and children to the hotel. One good-bye was enough for me. I had already ripped off the Band-Aid and didn’t wish to go through it again. Ashley sensed my frustrations during my nightly calls home, and I believed she understood why I was not asking her to come meet me.
To drown their sorrows the Marines spent the evenings crowded around the hotel bar, drinking and celebrating each “last night home,” only to find themselves once again stranded and immobile the next day. By the third night we had grown tired of the revelry, and most of the men spent their last evening sobering up, praying that we would leave the next day. Our wish was finally granted, and on 16 February we boarded an airliner for the twenty-hour transit to Kuwait. The ball was finally rolling.
We landed at night, as all American service members do when arriving in Kuwait. For years Kuwait International Airport had been the principal point of entry for troops heading to Iraq, and the same charade played itself out every night. Exhausted, bleary-eyed men and women were hustled off crowded, stinking airliners and into blacked-out buses, then shuttled to a cantonment area an hour outside the airport to await transportation into Iraq. It was no different for us, and as a Marine corporal shooed us off our bus at Camp Virginia and into a barren classroom tent we were greeted by the video image of an Army general loudly proclaiming that we were now in a combat zone. Audible grunts of “Yeah, right” and “Whatever” reverberated throughout the tent. As we suffered through a stern video lecture by a sergeant major extolling the virtues of proper uniform wear and shunning such unforgivable sins as wearing sunglasses on the head or around the neck, I wondered aloud for the first time what the war had come to. I turned and looked at Lieutenant Bates, who rolled his eyes and commented aloofly, “Fighting the ‘War on Terror’ . . . from the safety of Kuwait.”
Our roller-coaster ride into Iraq came to a screeching halt at Camp Virginia, and the team settled into dusty tents crammed with military cots, boxes of bottled water, and little else. For three days we sat waiting for a flight into Iraq, growing more impatient by the hour. The Marines longed to get away from the rear-echelon characters that inhabited the camp, all the while marveling at the luxuries offered to the troops. MacDonald’s, Subway, and Kentucky Fried Chicken were available for troops unhappy with the full-service dining hall staffed by workers from Kellogg Brown & Root, and an overstocked post exchange operated night and day, prepared to sell soldiers and Marines anything they needed in or out of a combat zone.
I was deeply troubled at the bloated rear area that Kuwait and Camp Virginia had become, but I found solace in the belief that Marine bases in Iraq would not be the same. Lieutenant Grubb, who had overheard me grousing, laughed sarcastically.
“Shit, sir, wait until we get to Iraq. It’s just as bad now.”
“What?” I replied, incredulous. “Even Marine bases?”
Lieutenant Bates chimed in. “Just wait, sir.”
In the midst of my harping, Captain Hanna walked up and sat down on the cot across from me. Less than a week before departing the States we had lost Captain Flynn from the team, and I had fleeted up Bates into the spot as the team’s operations advisor. Hanna had likewise assumed the added responsibility as my deputy, and together he and Master Sergeant Deleonguerrero had been running around seeking information about our transportation into Iraq.
“We’re leaving tonight,” he said. “We’ll bus it to Ali Al Saleem, build pallets for our gear, then fly to TQ [Taqaddum] on a C-130.”
I remembered my last harrowing flight on a C-130 and wondered if it would be the same this time around. I didn’t look forward to the steep dive and violent impact of a combat landing, but I kept my thoughts to myself as the team boarded the aircraft for the flight to the air base at Taqaddum. Staff Sergeant Leek planted his massive frame on the nylon mesh seat next to mine, and as the aircraft powered up its turboprops and taxied down the runway through the dark he nudged me with his elbow and offered his can of tobacco. We settled back for the long ride, each Marine loudly proclaiming his delight at leaving Camp Virginia behind.
In the last hour before sunrise our aircraft touched down at Taqaddum. The tail ramp dropped, and we were greeted by a bitter cold that sliced through our clothing. The flight-line crew barked orders at the team, and the Marines hustled off the tarmac and lugged their bags into a desolate structure designated for transients like us. One by one the Marines jumped into the bare racks, seeking sleep as the sun began to rise. In their fatigue they voiced similar complaints.
“Man, who were those dudes on the flight line?” asked one Marine, shaking his head.
“What a bunch of fucking assholes!” growled another.
“Oh yeah?” replied Grubb, pointing to a laminated sheet of paper fixed to the back of the hatch leading outside. “Check this shit out.” He began reading aloud with palpable disgust the myriad rules and regulations that governed life aboard Taqaddum.
“No beanie covers during the hours of daylight. No wearing the black fleece jacket as an outer garment. No sunglasses on your head. What the fuck?” he ranted, angrily. “What can we do around here?”
“Hey, listen,” I said. “You’re gonna find this everywhere we go. There are some people out there who are so fucking stupid that they only have one thing they can do. One thing they are entrusted with, and by God, they’re gonna enforce the hell out of it, no matter who has to suffer.”
The men grunted, shook their heads, and promptly fell asleep on the rows of bunks that lined the cabin, too exhausted to complain any more. How much more of this rear-echelon bullshit will we have to endure? I pondered as I drifted off to sleep. Can it get much worse than this? Of course it could—our trip had barely begun.
The CH-47 Chinook is a monster of a helicopter; its rotor wash is enough to knock you down if you aren’t paying attention. We found ourselves on the airfield at Camp Taji, the gale created by the rotors threatening to push us down into the gravel that bordered the flight line. It was the middle of the night, half of our gear was missing, and we had no idea where the hell we were. With that discouraging start we began to wonder what else was in store for us at the Phoenix Academy.
A last-ditch effort by Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) to train all advisors before meeting their counterpart Iraqi units in-country, the Phoenix Academy was poorly run and administered. Over the course of six days the school proved to be another in a series of disappointing, substandard training courses designed to prepare us for our mission. Largely taught by contracted personnel, the academy instructors seemed woefully uninformed on what our mission as advisors would actually entail, and more than ever we wished to get to our final destination and accomplish the task at hand. We also were introduced to the confusing hierarchy and chain of command that confounded the advisor effort in Iraq. To whom did we report? Was it ATG back in Camp Pendleton? Or was it the Iraq Assistance Group in Taji? There was also the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) integration cell located at Camp Fallujah, as well as the entire MEF chain of command: MNF-W on down through RCT-5, ending with the Marine infantry battalion task force with whom our Iraqi battalion would be partnered. Finally, there were the transition teams themselves, embedded at the Iraqi battalion level and working all the way up the chain to the Iraqi division level. I was more confused than ever as the course ended and we moved on from Taji to Camp Fallujah.
The muddled
situation at Camp Fallujah did little to clear the air for us, and I was happy once familiar faces from my earlier years in the Marine Corps began to appear throughout the camp. Disturbed by what I had witnessed aboard the camp, I posed the same question during the course of each mini reunion.
“Man, how do you live with yourselves out here?” I would ask. “I mean, come on, I saw a Marine walking out of the PX [post exchange] today with a Guitar Hero box under his arm!”
Their nonchalant replies of “Hey, it’s not a bad way to spend a deployment” only heightened my distaste for what was happening, and I sought the safety and refuge offered by the men on my team. Their feelings echoed my own, and like me they wanted to get the hell out of Camp Fallujah and on to the end of the line.
One night, as I stood in line at the dining hall, a tap on my shoulder was followed by a familiar voice. I turned to see Chad Parment, now a captain, who as a lieutenant had been one of my platoon commanders during the invasion. His wife, Georgia—also a Marine—stood next to him, and I practically shouted my salutation at him.
“Hey! Holy shit, Chad, it’s good to see you.”
“Small world, isn’t it, sir?” he replied, grinning.
“And getting smaller,” I added.
The two of them joined me and several members of my team at our table, and for over an hour I caught up with Parment and his wife. My Marines eyed me suspiciously, occasionally stealing curious glances at Parment. They knew about my past, about the kind of company commander I had been, and they seemed to be waiting for a glimpse of my wretched former self to emerge as I traded stories with a living reminder of my previous life.
I eventually bade farewell to Parment and Georgia and made my way through the dimly lit streets back to the team’s holding tent. So much had happened, so much had changed in the five years since I had been a company commander, and I had barely recognized it until a character from my past had come face-to-face with the characters of my present. I contemplated too the changes that had taken place in Iraq, and I shook my head at how different things were now. The future was once again a darkened passageway, and I found myself unsure of what it held for me. But as I turned the last corner and ventured toward my tent I was certain about one thing. In the preceding four months I had become more comfortable with the fourteen men on my team—and with my own role as their leader—than I had been as Delta Company’s commander five years earlier while we prepared to wage war on that cheerless, godforsaken country.
I stopped before I reached the door to the tent, pausing to light a cigarette. My past was outside; it still clung to me like the bluish smoke trailing from my cigarette, fighting to break free and reveal itself. My future lay beyond the threshold, waiting to unfold once I took a step forward. If I took a step forward. Could I leave the past behind? Could I really change myself from the way I used to be?
I stubbed out my cigarette, opened the door, and stepped into the tent. Marines looked up from their racks and greeted me warmly. I lay down on my cot, stared at the ceiling, and suppressed a grin.
I was back with my people.
Chapter 6
COP South
Combat Outpost (COP) South is a lonely, desolate settlement positioned just fifteen kilometers from the Syrian border and the Euphrates River. Surrounded by ten-foot-high sand berms topped with spiraling concertina wire and populated with sand-filled HESCO barriers and rundown, prefabricated wooden huts built by Navy Seabees, the settlement resembles a forgotten desert concentration camp. Rickety wooden and aluminum guard towers dominate each corner of the camp, but what they are looking for or guarding against is unlikely to appear. So isolated and unassuming, the encampment seems more likely to blow away under the force of the periodic desert aajaaz than to come under enemy fire or attack. The team’s chosen call sign—the Outlanders—is an appropriate one.
The MiTT compound aboard COP South is a HESCO- and razor-wireenclosed camp-within-a-camp, an oasis that sustains my advisor team both operationally and logistically, while also tending to the Americans’ globally shameless insistence on “quality of life.” Filled with the same drab wooden Southwest Asia (SWA) huts that line the COP, the team’s compound includes a combat operations center and armory, a makeshift kitchen and dining area, an outdoor gym overflowing with rusting dumbbells and decomposing weight benches, and a Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) hut complete with satellite television, refrigerators for cold drinks, and contractorprovided Internet terminals and phones.
But not all about our MiTT compound is first-rate, or even acceptable by most Americans’ pampered, unrealistic standards. The living spaces are Spartan, with mostly bare plywood walls, crude furniture crafted from boxes and spare lumber, and aluminum bed racks whose weakened springs barely support tattered, soiled mattresses. Mice race through the living spaces with impunity. A thin film of fine dust blankets everything from personal equipment to computers and iPods, constantly threatening to disable anything that runs on electricity or has moving parts. Weapons appear filthy even after daily cleanings, and clothing fresh from the laundry service at Camp Al Qa’im becomes dirty the minute it is removed from the laundry bag. I begin to classify my personal belongings into various echelons of disposability as I realize that the life span of everything I own suddenly becomes finite once exposed to the harsh, arid environment of the western Iraqi desert.
Personal hygiene too becomes an exercise in futility. The shower trailer, a rotting structure situated on the opposite end of the camp, is slaved to the Iraqi battalion’s electrical system, which in turn is powered by a generator that is shut off during the midafternoon hours and again late at night to conserve precious fuel. No set times for generator shutoff are posted or adhered to by the Iraqis, and so the closer to the afternoon or the later in the evening I push my shower, the greater chance I risk of losing water pressure and electricity. Years of water damage inside the trailer and the resultant mold, mildew, and decay beneath the peeling linoleum floor have branded it with a permanent stench of raw sewage, and no amount of cleaning or bleaching will ease the assault on my olfactory system. But a shower is a shower, and I count my blessings that most days I can wash the desert off me and start fresh. Or, at least, fresh until the long walk back to the MiTT compound. More often than not, by the time I reach my hut I am once again covered in Al Qa’im’s signature moon dust—a walking sugar cookie almost as dirty as I was before turning on the water.
If personal hygiene is an exercise in futility, then relieving oneself is an exercise in humility. Rather than the ubiquitous chemical toilets (“Porta-Jons”) or latrine trailers seen aboard FOBs throughout Iraq, our bathroom facilities are split between five “piss tubes” and a modified outhouse referred to as the “WAG shack.” The piss tubes are nothing more than large PVC pipes rammed into the ground at forty-five-degree angles. You walk up, unbutton, and urinate into the tube. Over time the ground beneath the tubes becomes saturated with urine, making it necessary to rotate usage among the tubes. Even in the open air of the desert there is the sensation of standing in an untended gas station bathroom, and the smell of stale piss rising up from the inundated sand makes me curse my teammates who can’t seem to aim straight.
The WAG shack is an empty wooden shed that contains a plastic toilet frame on legs. You line the frame with a WAG (Waste Alleviation and Gelling) bag—a thick plastic pouch lined with some chemical substance that seems half kitty litter and half lime—and then you sit down and do your business. Once finished, you tie the bag in a knot, place it in a plastic ziplock sack included with the kit, and throw it in a bin outside the shack for later incineration by the poor bastard who draws garbage-burning duty that day. While initially there is something nauseating and seemingly uncivilized about handling my own warm feces, any fear of getting severely wounded by enemy fire and shitting in a bag for the rest of my life is assuaged after one use of the WAG bag.
If nothing else, waste disposal aboard COP South makes me realize the importance of garbage men in
any society. Trash removal is performed twice a day, more often than not by LCpl. Travis Wardle, whose apparent love of fire has earned him the nickname “Trashcan Man,” after a pyromaniac in a Stephen King novel. Garbage (including the sealed WAG bags) is collected and hauled to the burn pit, which is used by both the Iraqis and the Americans. For the Iraqis, it is enough to dump their waste in the pit and leave it to slowly fester in the heat. The Americans, however, insist on torching the pile during each garbage run, and twice daily a greasy black plume of smoke billows up from the pit as Trashcan Man dumps diesel all over the pile and watches the cremation with perverse satisfaction. Trashcan Man is good at his job—almost too much so—and there is the persistent worry that he will immolate himself during his daily ritual of fire. At night the heavens light up with his handiwork, and the orange glow of the burning pit pulses like a beacon visible for miles. By day the pit is a depressing sight, a sad reminder of the obscene amounts of waste generated by each side and the accompanying continued poisoning of this tortured country’s environment.
COP South is my new home, yet I don’t recognize it as such until one day when we are at Camp Al Qa’im. Frustrated with the rear-echelon nonsense of the camp’s administrators, I turn to my team and say, “Let’s pack it up and head home.” By “home” I mean COP South, and then I realize that although my real home is ten time zones and thousands of miles away, home is also where you hang your hat, and that home is now COP South. The other one will have to wait.
In the Gray Area Page 4