Chapter 16

Al Gab’aa

Lieutenant Bates announces to the team that 3rd Battalion has planned an “intelligence-gathering” mission for 16 March, and as he explains their half-baked plan to conduct a cordon and search I am thankful that the IAs are finally conducting a deliberate operation. A plantation known as Al Gab’aa sits astride the main road in our AO approximately twenty-five kilometers southwest of our camp, and the battalion commander thinks the site is a possible cache point for transient insurgents, terrorists, or smugglers in our area. No credible reporting on Al Gab’aa exists, and the commander’s decision to send a patrol to investigate is based more on a hunch than anything else. I am surprised at the decision to execute the mission because the IAs are always hesitant to conduct an operation unless they have rock-solid intelligence. They don’t want to waste fuel if they aren’t going to find something.

The operation is led by Captain Hassan and 3rd Company, but it isn’t really a company-level operation. With 3rd Battalion’s diminished personnel and vehicle numbers it is more like a platoon-level mission, and we augment the force with two Humvee crews. My team and I go along as advisors and observers—not as trigger pullers—but we bring firepower and communications assets to the operation that the IAs don’t have. We are loaded for bear, each Humvee packed with belts of machine-gun ammunition and each Marine stacked with rifle and pistol magazines. Throughout the team we spread-load personal radios, satellite phones, cell phones, and the team’s SATCOM system. If the mission runs into trouble we can leverage Coalition firepower, and if the Iraqi soldiers take casualties we can call helicopters for casualty evacuation (CASEVAC).

We travel south in a column along the deserted highway, the team’s Humvees interspersed throughout the Iraqi patrol. It is the IA’s convoy, but the invisible bubble of our Chameleons protects the Iraqis from radio-controlled IEDs (RCIEDs), and so they keep their vehicles close to ours. We concentrate on the route in front of us and the garbage strewn along the roadsides, and even though no one ever talks about the IEDs we know they are out there somewhere. Instead, the Marines chat back and forth over the vehicle intercom system. It is better than sitting in silence, alone with your thoughts.

Eventually we approach the plantation; from a distance it is an oasis in the middle of the barren desert. From high above it looks like a grid, and it is apparent that somehow someone managed to break the code on desert irrigation. The cultivated area was a deliberate project at some point in history, its neatly lined rows of trees parallel and even. But it is overgrown now, untended and wild. The rows of shaggy, unpruned olive trees crowd the paths and block any view of the plantation’s center. The battalion commander and his staff are correct: Al Gab’aa is a perfect place for the enemy to hide—either himself or his weapons.

Several of the IA vehicles break off from the column and occupy blocking positions at the plantation’s corners. We follow suit and set our two Humvees in the shadow of a small bridge near the southeastern entrance to the tree line. SSgt. Clarence Wolf, the team’s communications chief, unpacks the SATCOM radio and assembles its antenna array. He is from Wisconsin, and he has completed a previous tour as a Marine recruiter. He has a smooth, shaved head, and his soft-spoken demeanor and youthful features are deceiving. He is capable of transitioning to a direct, hands-on leadership style, and the business and people skills he has learned during recruiting duty help to balance out the rigid drill field mentality possessed by Staff Sergeant Leek. He tends to begin his answer to every question I ask him with “Honestly, sir?” as if I might want him to bullshit me rather than telling me the hard truth. Soon Wolf is talking to the team’s COC back at COP South, and once that link is established my comfort level increases. The rest of the Outlanders now know where we are and what we are doing.

The junood move into the tree line, and Sgt. Theo Bowers, Lieutenant Bates, Mason, Big Mo (another interpreter), and I follow them, trailing behind far enough to let the Iraqi soldiers do their job but close enough to observe them and assist them if necessary. Once past the initial barrier of trees we find a series of small houses within the plantation. The homes are tiny and rundown with age, and none appears to have electricity or running water. Chickens and unkempt, scabby dogs wander back and forth through the courtyards. Small children peer out at us from behind tattered curtains. The difference between the Marines and the junood is striking. The junood carry little more than their uniforms and rifles, while the Marines stand in the shadows weighted down by their menacing, oversized body armor and helmets. The locals who venture outside their homes eye us with no small degree of suspicion and wonder. But eventually they accept our presence and seem to forget we are even there.

The locals are compliant with the Iraqi soldiers, patiently answering questions and even offering information. When the IAs find an unregistered AK-47 with one family they question an old woman who claims ownership of the rusted weapon. The soldiers determine that the rifle is used only for home defense, and since each family is authorized to have one AK-47 they record the serial number, take her name, and hand the weapon back to her. We are unconcerned; the rifle is so worn out and rusted that we doubt it will even fire.

We follow behind the junood as they patrol down the plantation’s long, tilled fields. The ground is soft, and it is indeed an ideal location for a cache site. What the soldiers really need for the job are metal detectors to sweep the rows of soft, plowed earth. But despite our prodding the battalion staff has failed to properly request the metal detectors in a timely manner. After more than an hour of searching through the vegetation the soldiers find nothing and call it a day. As they remount their Humvees we call for our vehicles to shut down the SATCOM relay and come retrieve us. We fall back in with the IA convoy for the return to COP South with nothing to show for our efforts.

In the end all we can do is designate Al Gab’aa as a named area of interest (NAI) and continue to monitor it. After the operation is complete we remind the battalion staff of the requirement to properly plan each operation. If we do it for them—if we request the metal detectors on our own—the battalion staff will never learn from their mistakes. They will keep relying on the Americans to pull them along. It is their country, their army. They must take ownership of both if they want to succeed.