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 fellow 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.