JOHN KNITTEL

After graduating from the University of Akron in 2002, John Knittel worked a series of law enforcement and security jobs before deciding to join the Army, in 2005. He was a lieutenant and served as a platoon leader when he was deployed to Baghdad, Iraq. John left the service as a captain.

Here’s the issue,” the operations officer tells me. “Lieutenant Martinez is transferring soon to another unit, which means Alpha Company needs a new platoon leader. Problem is, we have two lieutenants, you and this other guy, and only one spot.”

It’s 2008, my first morning in Baghdad. I’m half awake, my nerves raw. Last night, as I flew into FOB Loyalty by helicopter from Kuwait, flares lit up the sky. I didn’t know if someone was shooting at us or attacking the base. It was completely overwhelming.

“So,” the operations officer says, “whoever does the better job painting the battalion commander’s office gets the platoon.”

Is he serious? It’s hard to say, given his deadpan expression. But if he wants me to enter a painting contest, okay, fine. I’ll go all HGTV, do an accent wall, whatever it takes to get Alpha Company. I’m going to be here a year, possibly longer, and I’m sure as hell not going to spend it in an admin office, working as a personnel guy, helping sort out pay problems.

I’m given a cheap roller and local paint that probably has a bunch of lead in it. The concrete here in Baghdad is made of shitty materials, so as I paint the cement walls, little rocks get stuck in the roller. Still, my painting project turns out really, really good for an Iraqi building.

I end up getting the platoon.

I meet Alpha Company later that day, at Combat Outpost 762, for their evening platoon. Lieutenant Martinez is with them. He introduces me and then says, “Lieutenant Knittel would like to say a few words.”

I wasn’t expecting to speak. I see these kids sizing me up, looking at me like I’m an old man—which to them I am, since I’m twenty-six. After I graduated from the University of Akron in 2002, with my degree in political science/criminal justice, I bounced all over Ohio, working law enforcement jobs—first for a private company that did undercover narcotics investigations, then as a private investigator, and, finally, as an investigator of insurance fraud. When my dad got cancer, I moved back home, and I started reevaluating what I wanted to do with my life. That was when I decided to join the Army. After basic training, I went the officer route, going to Officer Candidate School.

This is my first deployment, my first time in country. I look at this melting pot of kids, from all walks of life, waiting for me to say something profound.

When in doubt, stick to the truth.

“I deployed late because of an injury,” I say, “so I’ve probably missed out on a lot of essential training. I’m probably going to mess up a lot, so bear with me while I get up to speed.”

As we head out to do our patrol, Martinez points to a girl standing beyond the gates of the combat outpost, or COP. “That’s Najima,” he tells me. “She lives nearby, so you’ll see her around here a lot, selling food. Does a pretty good business, too, because who wants to eat MREs all the time?”

He’s right about that. I grab a falafel and then go off with Martinez, do what we call left seat/right seat—the transition period where you do ride-alongs with someone already experienced with the battlefield.

“What’s the deal with your rifle?” he asks.

“When I was at Fort Polk, all the M4s had already been deployed. I had to do my weapons qualification, and they gave me this off-brand M16 that was probably used back in Vietnam.” I don’t have to tell him what a pain in the ass the rifle is, how after every single shot you have to pull back the charging handle. It’s like firing a musket. “When I got to Kuwait and did my two weeks of training, they gave me my vest, all the equipment I needed—”

“Except an M4.”

I nod. “They were all accounted for. Same here.”

“That thing’s a piece of shit. We’ve got to get you a proper weapon.”

“Good luck finding one.”

“I’ll give you mine when I leave.”

We’re beating the streets, about to end the patrol, when we see ten, maybe twenty yards away one of our mine-resistant, ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles sitting at an intersection. All of a sudden I hear that psshhh sound an RPG makes.

We see it coming from a nearby building.

The RPG hits the MRAP’s roof. By some miracle of God, the RPG doesn’t explode, and as it skids down the street, it doesn’t go off. We take position and start shooting at the building where the RPG came from. I manage to get off three shots with my musket.

A couple of hours later, on the way back to COP 762, I start getting super sick. I’m throwing up in front of my new platoon—and shitting my pants.

“I’ve got to lie down,” I tell Martinez.

I get back to base and hit the rack. I’m still throwing up, and of course the shitters are two hundred yards away from me. Throughout the night, I’m running over there when I’m not puking.

The next morning, I’m still sick—and I have to do patrols. After each one, I return to the COP and get an IV because I’m so dehydrated.

This goes on for two days.

On day three, Alpha Company is ordered to go out and do an overwatch position. I’m still feeling terrible, unable to keep anything down, as I head out to a three-story house, a rarity in Baghdad.

The family who owns it is kept on the bottom floor. From the top floor, we watch for a patrol that’s getting ready to come up. Nature is calling again, the bathrooms are outside, and I can’t go out there because that will give away our position.

The bedroom, I notice, has an armoire big enough to step inside.

Screw it. I drop my drawers and do what I need to do. I’m dying, making all sorts of sounds. One of my soldiers enters the room.

“Sir, are you okay?”

“I’m shitting inside someone’s closet,” I say. “How do you think I’m doing right now?”

  

The fighting is intense the first three months. It doesn’t let up even when I return to my new base, the joint security station (JSS) called Camp Marlboro, located on the premises of an abandoned cigarette factory in Sadr City. We’re constantly getting hit with mortars and IEDs.

We can shoot into Sadr City, but we can’t patrol it. The people there are constantly placing IEDs, especially on Route Predators, our main supply route and possibly the most dangerous place in Baghdad. Small bombs called explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) are hidden inside the roadside mountains of rubber tires, scrap metal, and rusted vehicles. Manufactured in Iran, an EFP bomb is the size of a coffee can and, when detonated, forms a projectile that can penetrate our armored vehicles. EFPs are showing up in alarming numbers, and they’re being smuggled in by city residents paid fifty dollars to place the weapons. They do it so they can feed their starving families.

We live inside the cigarette factory, which is on the city grid, so we have power maybe half the time. We walk around a lot with headlamps and flashlights. We sleep in the basement. There are no showers. To keep morale up, we have video games going in one of the big rooms. After patrol, I’ll sit down with the guys and play college football and talk smack about their teams sucking and vice versa. The practical jokes are constant. One of my guys duct-tapes my vest and helmet to the ceiling.

I keep in contact with the woman I met right before I deployed. I told her I would be gone for about a year and promised to stay in touch. I brought a deck of cards with me, and I write a message on a card and mail it to her once a week.

To resupply, we have to go down to FOB Loyalty, which means driving Route Predators. We always go in a convoy of thirty to forty vehicles. One day, at the start of our supply run, we’re hit by sixteen IEDs.

My ears are ringing, and I’m thanking God that there aren’t any casualties, when I get a radio call about another possible IED up ahead. They give me the grid coordinates. I radio them to our engineering unit. They drive ahead to investigate, and we wait along Route Predators.

We’re sitting ducks.

Finally, an engineer radios me. “We just don’t have…”

“What?”

“I don’t know what we’re going to do about this.”

He’s saying he can’t clear it. The problem is, we can’t take any other routes. We have nearly forty vehicles in our convoy—and most of them are too damaged at this point. We can’t take another IED. I radio that up to the battalion.

“Look, you guys have just got to get through it,” battalion says. “Figure a way out. Charlie Mike.”

Continue mission.

We reach the grid location. The convoy stops. We can’t go around the bomb, only through it.

I’ve given what I’m about to do next a lot of thought.

I order the MRAP to go first. It’s designed to withstand attacks from IEDs, but that doesn’t mean the people inside are safe. Soldiers still get injured and die. The IED up ahead could—

A thundering, earsplitting explosion shakes the ground—an EFP hits the MRAP and pierces its armor.

The vehicle catches fire. We’re attacked. Troops in contact.

We start doing everything we’re trained to do, everyone getting into a fighting position while we figure out how to corner off the vehicle, get the fire out, and assess any casualties. Only I can’t get any reports because my radio is down. I jump to a nearby vehicle, get the same result.

A kid from another platoon gets hit in the leg. We can’t get an IV in him because we can’t find a vein, and if we don’t get fluids in him he’ll die. I’ve got to call in a nine line for medevac. I jump from vehicle to vehicle as gunfire goes off, trying to find comms.

Not a single radio is working.

I need to get that wounded kid medical attention because he’s bad. I know there’s a medic unit at FOB Loyalty, so I order four vehicles to take the kid there for treatment or he’s not going to make it. The vehicles take off and the rest of us stay behind to try to defeat the enemy and put the fire out in the MRAP.

  

We tow the MRAP back to base. There’s a terrible feeling we all get looking at the blood and scorch marks, where the EFPs penetrated the armor. The feeling worsens when I receive news about the wounded kid: he died while on the way to FOB Loyalty. It’s the first time I’ve experienced a loss.

Morale reaches a low point when convoys stop delivering our food. They can’t. Route Predators has become so bad no one will drive it. We end up getting airdrops of food, water, and ammunition. A lot of the MREs go bad because it’s 130 degrees. When we go out on patrol, we search for food at homes and shops. We buy chickens.

Months later, a kid named Matt Taylor goes out on foot patrol. A van pulls alongside him, its side doors opening to men armed with M16s. A round hits Matt in his left arm, and the shrapnel goes up his shoulder and into his heart. I break the news to Alpha. This one hits us especially hard. Matt was a beloved individual. Everyone loved the guy. Great personality.

We lose another soldier shortly thereafter, in a firefight that lasts over twenty-four hours. Everyone’s emotional, exhausted and dragging ass, sick of the shitty living conditions. But we still have to drive on. We still have months to go on our deployment, and as their leader I’ve got to get my team through this while also knowing when to kick ass to get everyone performing at their optimum levels.

That means doing drills after long patrols. We can’t be complacent. Whatever the crucible experience, you’ve got to go out tonight, tomorrow, and the next day. Maybe you won’t come back or maybe it will be someone else. The unit is what matters. The unit needs to keep going and going because war doesn’t stop.