Chapter 7
Arrival
The wind howled outside my hut, and everything I owned was covered in a fine layer of talcumlike dust. It was 3 March, and a sandstorm had blown in that afternoon while my team received a turnover brief from the outgoing transition team. When we walked outside the briefing room we had been met by blowing gusts and sand-filled skies. Eyes watered and mouths went dry. It had been a hell of a welcome to COP South and Al Qa’im.
We had boarded a CH-53 on the morning of 2 March after a night flight from Camp Fallujah to the Coalition air base at Al Asad. The team’s desire to get to COP South was motivated less by a craving to get on with our job than it was a longing to put a stop to the endless “sea bag drag” from base to base across Iraq. Each leg of our journey had played itself out like a recording looping over and over: repack our bags, lug them outside to a staging point, wait for transportation, load the bags onto a truck, unload and stage bags at the designated airfield, wait for the bird, have someone yell “Hurry up!” at us as soon as the bird lands, load the bags on the bird, fly to our destination, quickly unload bags, then pray that all of our equipment made it. Somehow it did every time . . . eventually.
The team landed at COP South around noon and piled off the helicopter. The rotor wash pelted us with waves of sand and gravel, and as we unloaded our bags under the hot exhaust blasting from the aircraft we began to sweat beneath our body armor. From a distance the current MiTT team leader and his operations chief both smiled at us as we lugged the last bit of our gear off the aircraft. The helicopter’s crew chief impatiently tapped his foot as we made one last scan of the cargo bay, searching for any forgotten bags or equipment. When the helicopter took off it would be as good as gone, along with anything we might have accidentally left on board. Satisfied that we had everything, I shouted my thanks to the crew chief over the din and stepped off the loading ramp.
Our helicopter and its escort lifted off the barren landing zone (LZ), once again showering us in a deluge of dust and sand. As the two aircraft drifted away toward the horizon it was suddenly quiet. The Marines began to take stock of their surroundings, and everyone immediately reached the same conclusion: we were in the middle of nowhere. The team leader and his chief both leaned casually against a tan Chevrolet pickup truck, chomping on cigars. The personal appearance of the two Marines greeting us startled me. Their hair was long, and they wore only T-shirts with no uniform tops. Their trousers were unbloused from their boots, and each man wore a sand-colored baseball cap emblazoned with their team logo across the front. The operations chief grinned broadly to the group and welcomed us aboard.
“Marhaaba!” he said in Arabic, chomping on his cigar. “Welcome to COP South.”
Captain Hanna set his bags down, surveyed our surroundings, and turned toward the team leader.
“Sir, can you give us a quick orientation of where the hell we are?”
“Sure,” the major replied, pointing off into the distance. “You’ve got Husaybah and Karabilah to the north, and to our immediate west is the Syrian border. That’s about it.”
In the desert shimmer the landmarks were visible only as tiny, wavy blips on the horizon. Everything else surrounding the outpost was uneven, hardscrabble desert.
“Jesus, not much out here, is there?” I commented.
“Yeah, we don’t get a lot of visitors out this way,” he replied.
We loaded our bags into the pickup bed, and the team walked across the camp to the MiTT compound. The outgoing team members had kindly vacated their living spaces to let us get settled as quickly as possible, and the Marines were indeed thankful. After more than two weeks of living like nomads, everyone was relieved to be able to finally settle down in one place for good.
Our first meeting with the major’s team was no less shocking to me than when he had picked us up at the LZ. We walked into the team room to find nearly all of his Marines looking as he had. Scraggy mustaches drooped from tanned faces, and great shocks of unkempt hair stuck out from beneath baseball caps. Few bloused their boots, and most wore only T-shirts. Of those, several wore civilian shirts rather than the standard-issue olive drab skivvy shirts. The group standing before us appeared less like a Marine unit than they did a Special Forces team. It was an unexpected sight. One constant in all of the briefings our team had endured in the previous months had been a demand for us to resist the temptation to “go native” once we were in-country. The isolated nature of advisor duty was such that teams often operated on their own with little supervision or guidance from higher headquarters. There had obviously been enough of a trend among transition teams of going native that it had attracted the attention of the higher-ups, and now an example of it was staring us in the face. Clearly the major and his team had not heeded the same advice. He wasn’t a bad guy, and his team members were not bad Marines. But I didn’t agree with their casual mind-set, nor thankfully did my SNCOs. Neither did Captain Hanna. Not long after our arrival I learned that he had made a point of telling the lieutenants not to get too comfortable with the way the current team was running things. Hanna was sharp, and he took his duties as deputy seriously. It was obvious that he had been studying me and my personality, and he had begun to figure out how I felt about issues just by observing my body language.
That evening the team leader and I began our turnover by grilling steaks, ribs, and chicken outside the team’s chow hall. The SWA hut that served as the team’s kitchen housed two refrigerators and a deep-freezer, and with the added storage capacity provided by a walk-in freezer on the opposite end of the compound there appeared to be no shortage of food. As he flipped ribs and steaks on a grill fashioned from a converted fifty-five-gallon drum, the major spoke casually about the various nuances of being an advisor. I hounded him with questions.
“What’s the battalion commander like?” I asked.
“He’s not a bad guy,” he began. “Definitely better than the last one. The last dude was into some crooked shit and got caught with his hands in the cookie jar. He’s currently on the lam somewhere here in Iraq; they’ve been after him since he left. I’ll take you over to meet Ayad tomorrow night. We’ll kick off the turnover briefings tomorrow also.”
Our conversation continued into the night. As I sat there eating my fill I thought, Not a bad way to begin. So far it seemed like one big beach party, and I thought, Hmm, grilling out every night. I could definitely get used to that.
The two groups began the relief in place (RIP) in earnest the next day with a series of briefs by the outgoing team. COP South was home to 3rd Battalion, 28th Brigade of the Iraqi army’s 7th Division, and through a series of slide shows we learned that only the battalion’s Headquarters and Service Company and 3rd and 4th companies were garrisoned in our camp. The remaining two line companies, 1st and 2nd, occupied compounds farther to the north along the Euphrates River’s Jibab and Almari peninsulas. Their distance from COP South presented logistical and command-and-control challenges for the battalion, something we would come to realize more fully later.
We concentrated on the personality briefs, and as each member of the outgoing team projected onto the screen the mug shot of his respective Iraqi counterpart each Marine on my team leaned forward to pay close attention. The faces and names soon became a jumble, and I wondered how I would ever remember them all. Each Iraqi had multiple family and tribal names, but rather than being referred to by their rank and last name (as American service members would be), the Iraqis were addressed by their rank and first name. The matter was further complicated by the number of officers who had the same first name within the battalion and brigade. Scores of Muhammads and Alis and Husseins filled the ranks, and it was not uncommon for two Americans to think they were talking about the same Iraqi officer when they were, in fact, talking about two different men.
When the team leader could tell we had had about enough, he paused the briefings to take us to lunch in the Iraqi chow hall. As he escorted me, Captain Hanna, and Master Sergeant
Deleonguerrero through the camp we passed by a burned-out structure surrounded by crumbling HESCO barriers. Blackened splinters of lumber and aluminum sheeting lay collapsed in piles of ash and charred wood, and in the middle of it all three Iraqi soldiers scavenged for usable material.
“That’s the old chow hall,” the team leader noted casually. “It burned down a couple of weeks ago.”
“Where do they eat now?” Hanna asked, looking around.
“Over there, in those tents.” The major pointed. “They used to have a food contract, but when the chow hall burned down the contract went away. The food’s better now that the IAs make it themselves.”
I shouldn’t have been worried about eating with the Iraqis. I had eaten with the Jordanian and Kuwaiti armies before, and I was accustomed to Middle Eastern food. I had also lived in the jungle for six weeks with the Indian army, an experience that virtually guaranteed me the ability to eat anything that was put in front of me. But I was hesitant nonetheless, and I did my best to hide it. The food itself didn’t concern me; the rice, grilled fish, and hobas (flat bread) were tasty. But watching the young Iraqi jundi serve the meal reminded me of the old saying that the surest way to lose your appetite in a restaurant is to watch your food being prepared. As the jundi scooped the food from the mess tins with bare, grimy hands, a bevy of black flies crawled in and out of the dishes. I looked around. There were flies everywhere—on the plastic trays, on the utensils, on the rims of drinking glasses, and on the tables. Just do it, I told myself, dreading the eventual results. It’s only your intestines. I silently thanked Ashley for having hounded me continually until I had purchased several packages of probiotics before leaving the States. Encouraged by the U.S. Embassy, Ashley, Emery, and I had taken probiotics every day during our time in India, and we had left that country convinced that our gastrointestinal health had greatly benefited from consuming the pills. Sitting with the Iraqis and plowing food into my mouth, I hoped it would again stave off the shits as it had while I was in New Delhi.
The sandstorm that had begun during our afternoon round of briefings soon kicked up into a full-blown aajaaz, and everyone scattered to the safety of their living spaces. When I stepped out of my hut an hour later time seemed to have rolled back to 2003. I laughed crazily and took pictures, remembering the hell it had been to navigate my company in such conditions. With the passage of time and the forgetfulness that comes with it, the storm howling around me became a novelty. I didn’t realize that the storms would become a frequent, unwelcome part of our life at COP South.
Chapter 8
Humvees
You make peace with your god very quickly once you go outside the wire.
Never mind the fact that the IED threat has diminished in our area of operations (AO). Never mind the fact that I am riding around in a M1114 HMMWV (high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle, or Humvee) encased in heavy armor plating. And forget about the fact that I have been in this country before. That doesn’t matter—this is another time, another war. For five years Americans have been getting blown up by IEDs along the roads in Iraq, and each time we leave the wire I wonder if there is one out there with my name on it.
Looking at my Humvee I know that its bulky, armored silhouette will make it the one vehicle that people most identify with this war, just as they recognize the venerable UH-1 Huey helicopter as the vessel of choice during Vietnam. My Humvee is not the same as the one Americans first got to know during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, nor is it the same as the one that participated in the invasion of Iraq and the long march to Baghdad. That thinly skinned antique is consigned to the history books; the insurgents and foreign fighters have guaranteed that with their ever-expanding and evolving arsenal of deadly roadside bombs.
The vehicle’s strategically placed armored plates are not its first line of defense; they are the last. Nor is the Humvee’s primary weapon the M240 medium machine gun or the M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun, although the vehicle is still outfitted with one or the other. Instead, the Humvee’s primary method of self-defense is advanced warning from the gunner. The gunner—who once stood exposed behind his machine gun in an open turret but now stands enclosed in a tall parapet of armor and ballistic glass—is the true eyes of the vehicle. He can see more than any of the occupants wedged inside the Humvee, including the driver. And it is his observation skills that will keep us from driving over a pressure strip or past a suspicious piece of garbage with wires protruding from it.
Wrapped in a flame-retardant Nomex flight suit and balaclava, and further encased in a Kevlar helmet, body armor, and small-arms protective insert (SAPI) plating, the gunner resembles a biomechanical robot scanning the horizon for threats. He sweats and swelters in his personal protective equipment (PPE) and groans under the weight of his body armor. But above all else he understands one thing: his personal comfort comes second to the safety of his crew. When I return safely from a patrol or convoy my gunner will have sweated off several pounds, and his back, feet, and knees will ache from the crushing load of the Kevlar and SAPI plates. But I will be alive because the gunner was focusing on his environment and the welfare of his teammates inside the Humvee.
One more thing protects the Humvee, and it is the vehicle’s next-tolast line of defense. The job of the Chameleon electronic warfare system is simple: it jams radio frequencies used by potential bombers. We turn it on before leaving the wire, and when the distinctive buzzing from its emissions fills the earpieces of our headsets we wonder aloud if the electromagnetic radiation pulsing through our heads and our bodies will give us brain tumors or merely sterilize us. We complain about the exhaustive training we are forced to undergo to operate the system, but deep down we know that the Chameleon can see what we cannot—enemy radio waves—and by jamming them it might ensure we return to camp standing up, not in a bag.
Inside the Humvee no one is comfortable. Like the gunner, I am sandwiched between layers of Nomex, Kevlar, and ballistic acrylic, and the combination of shock-absorbing padding lining the vehicle’s interior, the bank of communications equipment between the driver and vehicle commander (VC), and overflowing cans of ammunition constricts personal movement to a matter of inches. The driver crams himself behind the steering wheel, awkwardly hunched over the steering column, his bulky body armor pushing him farther forward in the seat and forcing his knees up into his chest. If you are tall, you avoid driving whenever possible.
The VC is similarly lodged in his seat to the driver’s right. Height is a liability for the VC as well, and he wears pads to alleviate the constant bumping and abuse his knees take against the dashboard or the door. He alternates between reading the computerized display of the Blue Force Tracker (BFT) console to his left, monitoring radio traffic within the patrol, and peering out his half of the ballistic windshield. The IED threat is to the vehicle’s front, so the VC leans as far forward as he can, his nose almost touching the windshield, straining to see the road ahead. His vision is blocked by blind spots: the massive, raised tow bar that climbs perilously from the grille, the swaying antennas that flank the hood’s front, the support column between windshield and door. Knowing his visual acuity is dulled—and that the driver is experiencing similar limitations to his field of view—the VC relies on the gunner to point out anything suspicious on or alongside the road.
The experience as a “utility man” riding in the back of the Humvee is no less frustrating. Strapped in place by a seat belt like the driver and the vehicle commander, his movement is similarly restricted. Because he often cannot reach them himself, the VC counts on the utility man to manipulate his radios, changing frequency nets as required, and adjusting settings when comm (short for “communications”) is bad. The utility man’s perspective is the most limited of anyone in the vehicle. Unable to really see what is outside, he resigns himself to sitting in solitude in the darkened interior, waiting silently for the moment the IED goes off next to him. Or under him.
Riding in my Humvee, I put my faith in my fe
llow Marines, and in the workmanship and attention to detail of the men and women who built my vehicle somewhere in the United States. I trust in the fact that we have the best equipment money can buy, the best in the world, better than any army has ever employed. I hope the intelligence reports we receive are accurate, the ones that say the IED threat in our AO is minimal. I think back to the brief from the last team’s intelligence officer, and the way he said, “You are in the safest place in Iraq.” I hope he was right, and after each patrol or convoy, when everyone is safe inside the wire and in one piece, I hope my luck holds out the next time we venture outside the wire. Then I remember what Chuck Palahniuk’s protagonist said in Fight Club:
“‘On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.’”
I look at the calendar. Seven months can’t go fast enough.
Chapter 9
Introductions
I had no idea where the expression “going outside the wire” had originated. It was a term reminiscent of Vietnam. Beyond that I could conjure no contemporary period of static, positional conflict as the war in Iraq had become. But the saying fit the situation in which we currently found ourselves. Each post I had passed through in Iraq on our way to COP South had looked the same from the air: miles upon miles of sand-filled HESCO barriers topped by spiraling bales of razor-sharp concertina wire. As time ticked by I often wondered how many miles of that wire had been strung up throughout Iraq, how many cubic feet of HESCO barriers had been stacked like building blocks. But this detritus of war wasn’t limited to the endless Coalition outposts and battle positions dotting the countryside and the urban centers. Coils of concertina wire, tangled into massive, unsalvageable knots of rusting razors, lined the roads and polluted the landscape, and I wondered who would clean it all up once the Americans left the country.
In the Gray Area Page 5