If I had written a story like this, my commander would likely have berated me for smearing the Army by portraying our unit as incompetent, and condemned my scatological admissions as unbecoming and unprofessional, but in his report he’d likely have accused me of violating OPSEC because I’d disclosed tactical details on how we perform breaches.
A homecoming ceremony was held that week on the basketball court in the gym at Fort Drum, the same one where our deployment ceremony had been held. My parents and youngest sister came in from Salt Lake City for it. Matt’s brother had dropped Matt’s car off to him a few days earlier. Since Matt had a vehicle (against the express wishes of our first sergeant), we were able to get around post on our own now. Sean and I rode with Matt in his car to the ceremony. The families had started showing up, and everyone was making their way into the gym. As we were walking through the parking lot, Sean said, “That girl’s got a nice ass.” I looked at the people walking in front of us and at the ass in question, and I realized I knew who it belonged to. I said, “Dude! That’s my little sister! She’s, like, sixteen! Jesus!”
I crept up behind my mom and surprised her. She was ecstatic to see me. She hugged me, started crying, hugged me some more, cried some more, then hugged me longer than she ever had. It was great to see her. I was happy she didn’t have to worry about me anymore.
The ceremony was awesome. “Awesome” was a word we used a lot in Iraq.
How to Use “Awesome!”
If someone says, “Dude, it’s your turn again to do shitburning detail,” you say: “Awesome!”
“Holy shit, those idiots in Delta company shot at second platoon”: “Awesome!”
“An entire busload of Iraqi Police graduates got killed by insurgents today”: “Awesome!”
The bleachers in the gymnasium were packed with everyone’s families and friends. Every soldier from our battalion filed into the gym, forming one huge mass formation. As we marched in, some awesome music was playing over the loudspeakers: “Bad Company,” “The Boys Are Back in Town,” and “Welcome to the Jungle,” among a few other awesome songs.
I think it’s a tradition in the Army for public-address systems to never work properly. The prayer the chaplain gave was mostly inaudible because of the crappy PA system. As he prayed, people in the audience kept yelling, “We can’t hear you!” Someone finally fixed the speakers mid-prayer, making the second half of the invocation loud as hell. After the ceremony, Willy, Matt, and I went to dinner with my family.
My Article 15 was formally presented to me the morning of January 5, 2004, by the garrison support commander at Fort Drum. It read that I had violated a direct order and that I had violated operational security. The charges of having violated the Geneva Convention and of conduct unbecoming a noncommissioned officer were not included, but the accusation of having willfully disobeyed a direct order was new.
After the reading of the Article 15, I elected to meet with a JAG lawyer. Before meeting with the lawyer, I was put in a waiting room at the legal assistance center. It was full of soldiers who had also chosen to meet with a lawyer concerning the Article 15s they had been given. I noticed there were a lot of soldiers with black eyes in the room. When it was my turn, I sat down in a chair across the desk from one of the JAG lawyers in his office. He was a captain. He opened the folder to my Article 15, which contained a stack of papers easily four inches thick—it included the entire blog, photographs and all. He started reading the first page, then the second. I asked him if he was familiar with my case. He told me this was the first time he’d seen it in his life. I asked him if he’d like me to summarize it for him, and I did.
After I was done briefing him, he explained to me that I would almost certainly lose a court-martial. What I didn’t know until now was that being convicted in a court-martial is a federal conviction, not unlike a felony. He rambled on at length, and I could barely get a word in edgewise. He told me he believed in fighting a good fight more than anyone, but that my case couldn’t be won. His “advice” wasn’t of much help. He told me I should say that I was a good soldier and that writing the blog was something I had done in the heat of the moment, to cope with the stress of combat. This guy was obviously used to dealing with soldiers who got into trouble for stuff they did when they were drunk. To argue that fifteen months’ worth of writing was something I had done in the “heat of the moment” was ludicrous.
After the useless meeting with the lawyer, I reviewed the contents of the Article 15 on my own. It was documented that the meeting I had with the investigating officer back in Iraq had ended at 1:00 a.m., on December 20. This meeting was to discuss the charges against me, and violating a direct order was not a conclusion of the investigation at that time. At the end of the meeting, I signed that document. At 11:00 p.m., on December 19 (while I was in the meeting with the investigating officer), a sworn statement was signed by one of my leaders stating that I had been given a direct order eleven months earlier at Fort Drum. There was another sworn statement, similar in effect and from another one of my leaders, signed and dated December 20, at 7:00 a.m. The investigation was then concluded and signed off on by the investigating officer an hour later, at 8:00 a.m.—and it now included that I had violated a direct order.
I had a day and a half before the final part of the Article 15 hearing to decide what I wanted to do. I felt I could beat the OPSEC charge, but I had no chance beating a charge of having violated a direct order. With my commander saying he had given me an order, I was fucked. And with multiple sworn statements to back this up, I had no chance. I could still demand a court-martial to prove a point, but I wasn’t going to risk becoming a felon on account of some stupid blog. Regardless, even if I was certain to win a court-martial, this still meant that everyone involved (company commander, first sergeant, platoon leader, former and current platoon sergeants, investigating officer, everyone who signed sworn statements, etc.) would also likely be kept on active duty throughout the proceedings. How was I supposed to make a decision that would have prevented that many of my fellow soldiers from returning to civilian life?
I decided I would fold and accept the Article 15. Now I had to decide how I was going to go out. At the hearing I would be given an opportunity to present matters of defense, mitigation, and/or extenuation—in other words, I could beg for mercy. Once I finished presenting a defense for myself, the commander in charge of the hearing would decide my punishment, which could include any of the following: forfeiture of pay for up to one month, loss of one grade in rank, up to forty-five days extra duty, and up to forty-five days restriction.
I had expected to lose pay, but I wasn’t in the Army for the money, so I wasn’t worried about that. I had also expected to be demoted. I had to ask myself if trying to keep my stripes was a priority. I could beg to not be demoted, but there was no way in hell I was going to give my commander that satisfaction. And when it came down to it, I knew I wasn’t in the Army for the rank, either. Being given extra duty and restriction would have prevented me from being released from active duty, and I couldn’t see the colonel being that vindictive. I wasn’t worried about that either. So all I had to decide was what to say at the hearing.
The Article 15 hearing was held on January 6, 2004, and started just before 10:00 p.m. I stood at attention in the office of Colonel David Gray, in front of the large oak desk where he sat. Present were my company commander, my platoon leader, my platoon sergeant, my former platoon sergeant, and my first sergeant. There was no reason for any of them except my commander to be present for the hearing but, whatever; my commander had dragged them along for some reason. After I saluted the colonel, he began to read the charges against me. As he read, I wondered if he knew about the singer named David Gray. I loved David Gray. It didn’t seem right to be getting an Article 15 from someone with that name. Then the oak grandfather clock behind him, which matched his oak desk, started to chime ominously. What the hell was a grandfather clock doing in his office? And how many times had this hap
pened before? I wondered if he usually tried to schedule Article 15 hearings at high noon. After the tenth chime, he continued reading.
“In that you, having received a lawful command to dismantle your website www.justanothersoldier.com…”—was what he was saying, but I think it would have been much funnier if he had sang it to the tune of “Babylon,” seeing as how he was David Gray—“…were derelict in those duties in that you willfully failed to practice operational security, as it was your duty to do. This is a violation of Article Ninety-two, UCMJ.”
Once he was finished reading, he asked me if I wanted to demand a court-martial. I said I didn’t. He asked if I wanted the hearing to be open or closed. I had the option of deciding if I wanted witnesses present, which I saw no need for, so I chose closed. He then told my commander that his entourage would have to leave. They all stood up in unison from the tan leather couch they were sitting on. Then the colonel asked me, “It’s up to you, really, if you want them to stay or not.” I told him, “I don’t mind if they stay, sir.” They all promptly sat back down in unison. The colonel then asked me if I wished to present matters in defense, mitigation, and/or extenuation. I told him I did not. He seemed a little disappointed that I chose not to say anything in my own defense, so he asked, “Do you have anything else you’d like to say at this time?”
I told him, “Sir, everything I wish to say I’ve already stated in the two sworn statements I signed.”
I knew there was nothing I could say that would do me any good. Anything I said would just make me look like an asshole. My response didn’t satisfy the colonel. He asked me, “So why did you disobey the order?” My commander was standing for the hearing, off to the side of the colonel’s desk, and as soon as the colonel asked this question, he started to fidget. He shuffled his feet a little, bent over and looked down at his boots, then stood upright again.
I answered, “What order? If I had been given an order, I would have obeyed it. What can I do to make this more clear to you, sir? I WAS NEVER GIVEN A FUCKING ORDER!”
I didn’t say this, but it would have been cool if I had. God knows it’s what I was thinking. So I compromised. I said, “I misinterpreted the order my commander gave me.”
Thankfully the colonel didn’t press the issue about the order any further. Then he dispassionately lectured me about operational security and how anything I wrote didn’t have to directly violate OPSEC to give the insurgents an advantage over us because all it would take was one piece of seemingly harmless information to complete a puzzle for the enemy. I had heard this reasoning before. It’s true. Just because I can’t imagine how a piece of information could be used against me doesn’t mean it’s not useful to the enemy. I guess this means the only way to be completely safe is to never communicate anything ever.
Once the colonel finished with the lesson, he announced my punishment: reduction to the grade of specialist and forfeiture of five hundred dollars pay per month for two months. I saluted the colonel, signed the Article 15, muttered “Awesome!” under my breath, then exited the office.
We were released from active duty the following afternoon.
January 21, 2005
THE ALAMO, THE GAP, AND HOOTERS
Half the guys from my original company in Manhattan weren’t deployed at the time I was but were deployed with another battalion less than a year later. This battalion was sent to Baghdad. Felix Vargas, a very close friend of mine and Willy’s, was part of this battalion. Felix hadn’t even been in Iraq for two months when his Humvee was hit with an IED. He survived the blast, but his leg was broken badly and he was recovering in a hospital at Fort Sam Houston, in Texas. His birthday was coming up, so Willy and I decided we’d surprise him with a visit.
I was on leave in Saba when a friend sent me an instant message telling me that Felix had been injured. I nearly had a heart attack when I got the news. For a while, he was in danger of losing his leg. Felix was a fitness nut, and losing one of those athletic legs of his would have been devastating. For guys like me who spend more than twelve hours a day in front of a computer, losing a leg wouldn’t nearly have affected our lives as much as it would have Felix’s.
I booked a flight and a hotel room, and Willy and I left on Felix’s birthday. Our flight arrived late in the evening, and I was worried that we’d be too late to make it before visiting hours at the hospital were over, but just when we got to the hospital, I learned that their visiting hours were incredibly liberal. I was almost disappointed. I had been looking forward to the scene I know Willy would have made if they had denied us entrance.
The hospital was immaculate. Hospitals are usually pretty clean places, but this one was impressive. We got our visitor IDs and took the elevator to the floor where Felix was staying. The staffperson on duty pointed out his room and advised us that he had a “no touch” status. I asked him what this meant. He said it meant we couldn’t touch him—to prevent any infections. I laughed. Are you fucking kidding me? I haven’t seen this guy in a year and a half, he’s one of my closest friends, he almost got killed, it’s his birthday, and you’re telling me I can’t hug him because he might get my cooties?
Felix’s favorite thing to say is “What the hell?” It’s his trademark phrase. He likes it so much, in fact, it’s usually how he greets me and Willy. So when we burst into Felix’s room, Willy yelled, “What the hell?” Felix was lying in his bed talking on his cell phone. He looked shocked and confused. It was priceless. He sat up in his bed and told us how good it was to see us, then gave us both a huge hug and a kiss. (Felix isn’t gay, he’s just Latin.) He hadn’t hung up his phone yet, so he said into it, “Ma. Ma. I gotta go. Some jerks just showed up. I’ll talk to you later. Love you.” After he hung up, he said, “So what do you fags want?” Another thing that Felix always does whenever he sees me is he sings this little song that goes, “Hartley is an asshole, he takes it in the butt,” which he sang for me again. I know you probably think that soldiers only say cool macho things to each other, like in Top Gun, but in reality, saying ridiculously stupid shit like this to one another is more the norm.
Willy and I hung out in Felix’s room for hours. He showed us his leg. When he unwrapped the bandage, I almost threw up. It looked like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. Willy is excellent at downplaying things that are fucked up. He said, “That’s not that bad. It looks pretty good, actually.”
I told Felix, “Fuck that man. Your shit is fucked UP! Why the hell does it look like that?” There was this bulging diamond-shaped slab of flesh that looked like it had been sewn onto his shin. He explained that the wound had gotten infected and the surgeons had had to remove a large chunk of flesh from the back of his calf and graft it onto his shin to replace all the gangrenous flesh that had to be removed. All I could think was, Damn!
Felix told us that he was in the last Humvee in the convoy when they got hit. A 250-pound bomb had been buried in the road, and when it exploded the last thing he remembered seeing was a huge wave of dirt created by the shock wave. The blast was so powerful that the Humvee flew into the air and landed upside down. The bomb tore the Humvee apart, and Felix was ejected from the vehicle before it hit the ground. He caught his leg on the Humvee as he was thrown from it, nearly tearing his leg off at the shin. When he was found, his leg was only partially attached.
Everyone from our original company has always made fun of Felix for his chin. It’s superhero sized. When he regained consciousness, one of his platoon mates who was standing over him said, “You’re gonna be okay. Your chin saved you.”
Two of the soldiers in the Humvee were killed: Wilfredo Urbina and Christian Engeldrum. Urbina was twenty-nine years old and a volunteer firefighter from Baldwin, Long Island. Engeldrum, age thirty-nine, was a New York City firefighter from the Bronx, and the first city employee killed in Iraq. I had known both of them. They were great guys.
The next day, Willy and I decided we would do what every American is supposed to do at least once in his life: visit the Alamo. For some
reason I always figured the Alamo was a rundown building in the middle of the desert. But in reality, it was only a few blocks away from our hotel, right in the middle of San Antonio.
We wandered around the building, the grounds, and the souvenir shop for a bit, then sat down and listened to a historical presentation about the history of the Alamo. The Alamo does not have a basement.
Located adjacent to the Alamo was…a huge mall! Like good Americans, we knew if we didn’t go buy some shit, the terrorists would win. Nothing is more American than the Gap, so we purchased tastefully boring clothing at affordable prices. Then we had lunch at Hooters, where we ordered food from a predictable menu and drank light beer served from a plastic pitcher. We had horrible service from a semi-hot girl. This is what America is all about. This is what we fought for, right?
Glossary
.50-cal. Used to refer to the M2 Browning .50-caliber machine gun
155mm artillery rounds. Very common charge used to make improvised explosive devices
40mm grenade. Ammunition fired by the M203 grenade launcher, typically high explosive, illumination (flare suspended by a parachute), or smoke
550 cord. Nylon cord capable of holding up to 550 pounds, used in parachute rigging
AAFES. Army and Air Force Exchange Service; the company that runs all the PXs
Abrams. M1 main battle tank, armed with a 120mm main gun, M2 .50-caliber machine gun, and M240 machine gun
ACLU. American Civil Liberties Union
ACOG. Advanced Compact Optical Gunsight
Just Another Soldier Page 31