by Joshua Welle
Wes Pass and his team of Marines after a failed IED attack in Fallujah, Iraq. (Courtesy Wes Pass)
The enemy had set up the IED for a strike on the bridge. Knowing we would be operating with night vision, they used the truck with the headlights to fix our position on the bridge, so they could detonate the IED on a parked and vulnerable target. When our vehicle hit the opposite side of the canal wall, we cut the line to the detonator and deactivated the IED. Once this became apparent, I looked at my Marines and said, “If this isn’t God saying ‘Here’s one more day for you,’ I don’t know what is.” Coincidentally, Sergeant Austin, never a religious man, had chosen that night to say a prayer for the first time in his life.
We did not immediately pack up and leave the town after recovering the vehicle. Throughout the morning, I watched my mechanic, Sgt. Travis Hill-McBride, disassemble my vehicle’s leaky radiator, which had cracked upon impact with the canal. He found the source of the leak and collected some goo and water bugs from a puddle, mashed them up in his hands, and used it as a paste along with some other additive to fill the crack. Once the makeshift paste dried, he refilled the radiator with water, and we drove home that afternoon.
In combat, success is as much a product of luck as it is of skill. Simple things, such as putting a foot outside a vehicle without looking at the deck first, or flipping over an obstacle without checking for a trap, have claimed the lives of some exceptional war fighters. I am humbled by the things I have seen, and grateful for the sacrifices of my fellow Marines. The combat environment is often a crap-shoot, and all you can do is train hard, prepare your Marines well, and make every possible effort to keep complacency at bay. Semper.
We Serve Where We’re Needed
Johnathan Van Meter
“I’m trained for this.” I had been repeating these words for twenty-four hours like a mantra, trying to shut out the cold. While lying rigid and prone facing north, I stared down a long road stretching through a breathtaking, moonlit desert landscape. The rain that had begun falling the night before was now a frozen, muddy slush covering my four-man team. The intelligence guys had told us that the weather was going to be typical for Iraq, which meant hot and dry. They failed, unfortunately, to mention the freezing rainstorm that would be moving in on our position.
With each of us observing a cardinal direction, there was nothing protecting us from the elements but the clothes on our backs and the camouflage face paint we had applied more than two days ago. Our muscles were so sore that shivering actually hurt. Bleary eyed from the lack of sleep, I was having trouble focusing on the red crosshairs in the scope of my rifle. It hurt to keep my eyes open, but just as I was about to fall asleep, I felt a tap on my right boot. Just liked we had trained, my teammates and I were keeping each other alert by tapping our heels against each other. It’s a good way to communicate and stay awake on clandestine missions; plus, it just feels good knowing that you have a teammate nearby when you’re feeling so exposed.
We were lying in a concealed position, camouflaged to blend into the desert landscape five hundred yards west of the intersection of two main roads near insurgent strongholds south of Ramadi, Iraq. The lateral road is a dirt corridor frequented by dilapidated transport vehicles commonly referred to as “bongo trucks.” The dirt road leads east, out to a village of small huts and farms. No U.S. forces had dared operate there since the war began. We were literally lying in al-Qaeda’s backyard. The other road, running north-south, is asphalt. This road is why we were there. This piece of blacktop was a main supply route for coalition forces operating in and around Ramadi.
Dozens of convoys crossed this intersection every week, delivering supplies and transporting personnel. Sadly, in the preceding month, five U.S. soldiers had died in this intersection as a result of roadside bombs. The Army unit in charge of the area had been unsuccessful in capturing the insurgents responsible for burying the explosives. That is the simple reason my team was there—to conduct a clandestine insertion into the area, observe the intersection, and capture or kill the IED emplacers. The mission was originally planned to last one to two days. We were freezing and tired on the morning of day four.
My radio earpiece crackled to life. My team chief’s muffled voice whispered over the circuit, “Headlights approaching from the east.” I took a moment to stop my teeth from chattering and then calmly pressed Talk on my radio: “Here we go.” A bongo truck approached the intersection and began to slow down. I clicked the selector switch on my M-4 rifle to fire and pulled my night vision goggles over my eyes. I quickly glanced at my watch: it was 0323, Christmas morning.
I had entered the Naval Academy with the singular goal of becoming a Navy SEAL. I failed. I gave everything I had for four years to earn one of sixteen coveted slots and join the SEAL community. When selection time came, the Navy saw fit to send me another way. The night before graduation, while other midshipmen were celebrating with their families, I was alone in my room feeling like a complete failure. For me, graduating the Academy without entering the SEAL community was the equivalent of washing out. I felt like I had been run over by a train. At first, I was angry and felt sorry for myself. It would take a few years before those emotions completely went away.
I was sent instead to surface warfare officer school in Newport, Rhode Island, where I was trained in the arts of seamanship and navigation to serve in the world’s most advanced warships. My first assignment was as a division officer on board a guided missile frigate. I deployed to the Mediterranean and the Middle East, where my ship conducted boardings of foreign vessels to inspect for contraband cargo and the smuggling of possible terrorists.
In 2003, I was patrolling the northern Persian Gulf when the U.S. Navy launched a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles that started a war that would last for the next seven years. A dozen warships floated quietly in the dark waiting for the predetermined hour to launch. When the time came, the ocean lit up like it was daytime, as all the missiles screamed high into the air. Their rocket boosters slowly disappeared as they flew toward their targets and day became night again. CNN was on in the ship’s wardroom, and we watched as the cameras observed downtown Baghdad. We knew the missile flight times and waited to see the explosions rip through the Iraqi city hundreds of miles away.
It’s strange watching the beginning of a real war on television. It’s even stranger knowing you’re one of the people who started it. There’s an empowering feeling knowing that you’re watching history in the making. It was clear in my mind that what was happening was a lot bigger than I was and that I was witnessing what the rest of the world would be reading about in tomorrow’s newspaper. It’s the closest thing to seeing the future that I can imagine. This momentary exhilaration was tempered, however, by the humbling knowledge that those missiles would eventually explode into their targets and people would be killed. Because I would never see the faces of those killed that night, the consequences of our actions seemed vague and distant. It was like watching a movie, only we got to decide how it ended. It was real, but happening to someone else. In a few short months, my perspective would shit significantly.
After I finished my first tour on a ship, all I wanted was a second tour on the ground. I was tired of being so far removed from the action. I wanted to be closer to the sound of the guns. I heard about an opportunity to work with the Marine Corps as a naval gunfire liaison officer, planning surface-fire support missions for Marines conducting opposed amphibious landings. I volunteered for the job because it meant stepping off the ship and into a combat zone. While waiting to transfer, I received a call from the Bureau of Naval Personnel. The voice on the other end of the line informed me that the Marine Corps was standing up a new unit that needed qualified naval officers.
My record showed that I had at one time asked to be a SEAL and that I might be a good candidate for the new training. Although the detailer did not have many specifics, he told me that the new unit would be referred to as “ANGLICO” and that it would definitely see
frontline combat in Iraq. He gave me forty-eight hours to decide whether I wanted to modify my orders, but I gave my answer without hesitation. Six months later, I was on the ground in Iraq with a contingent of highly trained Marines that comprised the 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO) based out of Camp Pendleton, California.
Our mission was to work closely with the Iraqi military, U.S. Army, and Special Operations forces. We were trained to call in close air-support missions on insurgent positions during firefights. We were also trained as forward observers to scout out enemy positions and call for fire from naval guns and mortar and artillery batteries. During this deployment, I experienced my first firefight, my first time killing someone up close, and my first time seeing a friend get killed. I was so close to hundreds of explosions from IEDs that I still imagine feeling the shock waves pushing me off balance.
I also saw Iraq’s first free, democratic elections. Thousands of Iraqis risked their lives going to polling stations to vote while we stood on street corners and rooftops providing security. It was amazing to watch as people came out smiling and holding up their stained index finger to show everyone that they had voted. Even though it was scorching hot, the people still danced around the streets in celebration. There’s a special pride in getting to witness history in the making. People who read about it in the papers can tell you what it looked like, and maybe those who watched CNN or BBC can tell you what it sounded like, but I can tell you how it smelled and how the heat and excitement filled the air.
Johnathan Van Meter deployed to Iraq with his Marine ANGLICO unit. (Courtesy John Van Meter)
My next assignment took me from the scorching sands of Iraq to the beautiful, pristine beaches of Miami, Florida. As a staff officer in the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), I was in charge of coordinating maritime operations throughout the Caribbean and the Americas. During this tour, I traveled to more countries in two years than I thought possible in two lifetimes. I trained foreign military officers in Ecuador, worked with international disaster relief agencies in El Salvador, and toured the military prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I landed in Cuba in the early morning hours of February 19, 2008. As my team of SOUTHCOM officers and I disembarked a small propjet into a humid hangar, we were greeted by the commanding officer of Naval Base Guantanamo Bay. He informed us that Cuban president Fidel Castro had just resigned, after fifty years in power, and had ceded control over the government to his brother, Raul.
In the wake of Hurricanes Hanna and Ike, I was deployed to Haiti to coordinate humanitarian relief efforts from the U.S. embassy. The country had been devastated by torrential downpours, destructive winds, and mudslides. There were times when the job entailed sitting on the floor surrounded by ten phones coordinating supply flights from USS Kearsarge. Sometimes it involved going out into the villages with engineers to survey damaged roads and bridges. When travel was restricted and logistics were a challenge, it meant flying in helicopters to isolated regions to drop off food, water, and medical supplies. We identified American citizens requesting evacuation and facilitated their extraction. Sometimes this was as simple as driving a car to a prearranged rendezvous and picking them up. Other times, it meant landing a helicopter in a soccer stadium and crossing a washed out bridge on foot while avoiding local gangs to arrive at their front door.
After my tour at SOUTHCOM, I volunteered to be a financial reform officer for the government of Afghanistan in Kabul. I started to realize that the military, in addition to its ability to destroy, also had an ability to build. After some basic infantry training with the U.S. Army in South Carolina, I deployed to Afghanistan and went to work creating financial reform initiatives for the Afghan Ministry of the Interior, which was plagued by widespread internal corruption. The national police force, still in its infancy, was experiencing major problems with paying personnel. The organization was still using archaic processes to deliver payroll monies to the provinces and relying on questionable accountability forms, stuffed into the socks of couriers. As a result, many policemen went months without pay. Corruption was rampant, with large numbers of police officers deserting their posts or supporting the efforts of al-Qaeda.
Working with a team of financial experts, I and other members of the coalition went about installing a national banking system. It was our goal to create an electronic system, similar to that in the United States, that automatically deposits money into an electronic bank account. This was a hard sell to the government as change is a slow process in Afghanistan. We worked through many obstacles, including language barriers, tribal differences, and legal hurdles. Oftentimes the process required loading up an armored SUV and traveling around the country on IED-laden roads to pay police officers directly or to educate them on the new pay system. We developed pay-incentive programs that cost millions of dollars, made possible by coalition donations through the Law and Order Trust Fund of Afghanistan. We even established a new payment system through which police officers in remote regions could be paid through their cell phones by going into a participating merchant’s store à la Western Union. This last program was a revolutionary solution to the problem of paying police officers in the more remote regions of the country. I felt very fortunate to have a part in the implementation of these initiatives, which helped strengthen the security and legitimacy of the Afghan government.
Above the door leading into the Naval Academy’s chapel is inscribed the Latin phrase Non sibi sed patriae, which translates as “Not for self, but for country.” Graduating the Academy is the end of four years of preparation and the beginning of a lifetime of service to the nation. No one can tell you what that service will entail or where it will take you. For me, it has meant a journey through the streets of Iraq and Haiti, into the jungles of South America, the Arctic Circle, over the mountains of Afghanistan, and through the steamy waters of the Persian Gulf. One thing is certain, however: I could never have foreseen what was ahead as I walked across the stage on May 24, 2002, in my choker whites and graduated with my classmates.
That Christmas morning in Iraq was the last time that the insurgent in my crosshairs ever buried a bomb. As soon as he began lifting an artillery shell from the back of his truck, my team accomplished our mission. I radioed for an extraction as soon as the dust settled and waited for the vehicles to arrive. As the convoy approached our position, I walked toward the first vehicle, slowly waving my arms above my head so they wouldn’t mistake us for the enemy. A young Army sergeant hopped out of the passenger side door and ran up to me. He looked at my Marine Corps fatigues. My last name was written in black thread on one side with “U.S. Navy” on the other. It must have been quite a confusing sight: a sailor dressed like a Marine in the middle of the desert.
“There isn’t an ocean around for miles,” he joked. “You must’ve gotten lost.”
I just smiled and replied, “We serve where we’re needed.”
The Real Hurt Locker
Eric Jewell
Like an alarm, the phone rang in our detachment’s tactical operations center. Having operated in Iraq for two months with more than a hundred missions in the rearview mirror, one might think that we’d become desensitized to the rush of adrenaline. That would be wrong. I still felt it every time the phone rang.
On this particular day, it was an urgent 911 call, delivered in the standard nine-line format. According to line four, there had been a car bomb, or vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED). The suicide bomber had driven onto the grounds of an Iraqi police headquarters and recruiting station. My explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teammates, Richie and Adam, looked over at me with the loyal resolve born of countless hours of working together under incredible pressure. I knew I could trust them with my life.
We double-checked our gear and then checked it again. I donned my body armor, hefting the familiar weight onto my shoulders, glancing down at my chest to quickly survey the ceramic bullet-stopping material secured within the chest pouch of the vest. This part of
my routine was so familiar, it almost felt like a cadence as I opened and closed the Velcro strips around the super-hardened ceramic plates. Patting the vest twice with confidence, I looked up to see my teammates standing ready. We mounted up in the Humvee, yanking the heavy armored doors shut and immediately conducting standard communications checks. Part of me felt invincible; the other part shut off for a while, because whatever that part was, it wouldn’t be useful for the mission at hand. I focused my thoughts, playing through scenarios in my mind, running mental simulations in preparation for the moment of action that was quickly approaching.
We linked up with our security element and headed off the base, “outside the wire.” The whine of the Humvee’s engines was piercing as we accelerated, driving in a tight convoy. Local civilian drivers were familiar with the sight of our military formation flying down highways en route to various objectives. They pulled off to the side of the road just as we would if we heard an ambulance approaching back home.
The Iraqi police station was four kilometers away. As we navigated the streets we’d previously cleared of improvised explosive devices, I cautiously scanned the road for anything suspicious. We listened attentively for the periodic beep cuing us into the lead vehicle’s tactical updates. We were thinking about the threat ahead, but also imagining the very real possibility of an unseen IED along the way.