From the rooftop of our SEA hut in the distance I could see a huge cloud of dust stirred up by an approaching convoy of LAVs ( light armored vehicles): low-slung, eight-wheeled, fast-moving troop carriers that sailed effortlessly across the desert. Josh and I were in the process of nailing down what was left of the sun- and weather-beaten tarps that served as added protection against the rain in preparation for more wet weather. We didn’t want our belongings soaked while we were away on the biggest mission yet since arriving at Al Qa’im, an operation being called “Raging Matador.”
Cat threw another sandbag onto the roof. I caught it and looked around for a loose spot in the tarp and covered the bubble with the sandbag.
“Looks like a lot of armor coming for this operation,” I called down to him. “There’s a whole convoy of LAVs coming in.”
“Yeah,” Cat affirmed. “I think there’s supposed to be a thousand Marines coming for this shit.”
For several days we’d been steadily preparing for Operation Matador, filling backpacks with PSYOP leaflets to be distributed by the different Marine platoons and prerecording loudspeaker broadcasts on the minidisk player. Josh was a perfectionist, but Sonny was obliging, and each take sounded better than the last.
“Pretend you’re the mayor,” Josh instructed. “Use your man voice.”
The chow hall swelled like an overpacked madhouse with all the extra guests, and the parking areas around it swarmed bumper-to-bumper with columns of LAVs and AAVs. In an effort to bolster base defenses, a paper and plywood sign posted in a pile of sand outside decreed that Every Marine and sailor MUST fill two sand bags before entering the Mess Hall.
Whoever typed the sign omitted soldier, but it didn’t seem proper to argue technicalities. Josh, Cat, and I did our part and threw our sandbags on the pallet with the rest of them, which were taken away by a forklift and distributed around camp to build walls around the most vulnerable structures. Increased retaliatory mortar fire was expected following the outset of operations. Hopefully if any did come it would be blunted by the extra protection around our hooches.
All unclassified lines of communication had been minimized until the end of Matador to help maintain the element of surprise and prevent anyone from inadvertently divulging battle plans, though it was unlikely the enemy’s spies had missed the huge buildup of forces at Al Qa’im over the past few days. Luckily our team still had the Iridium phone to call home, which we used surreptitiously to avoid making anyone jealous. Every other phone on the camp, internet, and email were strictly forbidden and effectively blocked.
In such an atmosphere of anticipation and restricted communication, it was inevitable that rumors soon replaced verifiable news. Cat heard another of the TPTs from our detachment had arrived at the camp, and wasn’t satisfied when I told him it was likely they hadn’t until we’d searched the whole base.
“Just go fucking find them!” he fumed.
An hour of searching later Josh and I came back again empty-handed, soaked in sweat, and Cat reluctantly admitted he’d verified the team wouldn’t arrive until the next day.
Rivas and Munoz did turn up in the morning with the next convoy, accompanied by a Marine gunner. Normally both of them worked in the detachment headquarters at Al Asad, but with three battalions involved in the operation we needed their help in providing the necessary manpower to ensure our teams wouldn’t have to be split up as we ping-ponged between different companies in the ebb and flow of the future battle.
I asked Munoz, a shiny-bald, perpetually cheerful Puerto Rican what he thought of the upcoming mission.
“Anything to get out of the office, man. We were just out with 982 last week; that was good times. Any chance we get, we like to come see you guys.”
I had to admit it was nice to see his familiar face. He shared stories and news about the weeks he’d spent with the other teams, some of them about friends I had not had the chance to see since arriving in Iraq.
But we couldn’t spare much time for idle chatter. In the evening, the unwelcome thud of impacting mortars announced the insurgents had no intention of letting us amass with impunity in their backyard. Munoz and I huddled under the concrete roof of the engineers’ work bay, listening to the echo of explosions that riddled our camp with shrapnel. It wasn’t complacency that allayed our fear as we waited patiently for the booms to stop, but rather an acceptance of how expendable our lives were in light of the thousands already killed on both sides, many with surviving children or more important roles than ours in their communities. Two single men with no great plans would not be a loss that would be remembered long except by our mothers … and fathers.
A combination of unforeseen delays and ill-timed equipment malfunctions turned what was originally intended to be a departure under cover of darkness into a daytime mission. When at last we left Al Qa’im, it was as part of a hulking armored column carrying a thousand Marines and a few soldiers. Our train of steel snaked through a serpentine arrangement of concrete Jersey barriers at the main gate proudly painted with names of those famous battles upon which 3rd Battalion’s “Betio Bastards” had cut their teeth. Guadalcanal. Tarawa. Najaf. The empty barriers at the end stood like blank tombstones and I hoped that before the day ended there wouldn’t be any reason to add “Ubaydi” to the list.
We had recently gotten the fifty cal back from the arms room, but compared to the weapons borne by the surrounding vehicles our gun seemed inadequate. Abrams main battle tanks led the way, lumbering under the weight of their massive 120mm main guns. LAVs threatened violence behind spindly 25mm chain guns, and the AAVs carried both .50 caliber machine guns and 40mm automatic grenade launchers. If we were observed, the mere sight of the convoy must have been some deterrent to attack; intimidating both in numbers and the diverse armament brought to bear.
Against whom, exactly, this heavy firepower would be used remained unclear. Iraq’s conventional army had been destroyed during the invasion several years earlier and, in the absence of a clearly defined enemy, the mindset of what seemed to be a majority of the military was that as long as they’d been deployed to what was called a war, the war had to be fought against somebody, even Iraq’s civilian population regardless of how low the actual percentage of the population was engaged in armed resistance. It was extremely frustrating that our enemy chose most often to attack with mortars and IEDs; we rarely caught them in the act of attacking us. So, even without clear targets, as long as the attacks continued the certainty that somebody must be punished for them continued as well. We would bring the fight to them in their towns and villages rather than leave the country or let the mortars rain down unchecked upon us in our bases. Our military had been trained as exterminators, not nation-builders, and wanted to fight, anyways. I could hardly have expected otherwise.
From my observation it seemed most Iraqis worried more about providing the next meal for their families in the midst of a destroyed economy than about fighting. Their misfortune arose from the fact that while U.S. forces usually triumphed in direct combat with insurgents, afterwards we withdrew to the safety of our bases. Inevitably, enemy fighters filled the vacuum of our absence the next day, unopposed. Undoubtedly, sometimes they were the same entity, but as a matter of survival the villagers chose complicity with the ever-present Al-Qaeda and militias over well-meaning Americans rather than risk their lives or disfigurement as punishment for their treachery to the insurgents. Most villagers would have preferred to be left alone. Regrettably, our operations seldom took into consideration provisions for evacuating civilians caught in the middle and we never treated their personal property with much respect, which only fostered resentment and bred more enemies. Most often their birthright and unfamiliar customs were their only crimes, living in limbo between two enemies the sentence they served.
While the entire population of Ubaydi would not foolhardily throw themselves against the wall of steel and fire that rolled against them, the entrenched radicals were ready for a fight. When they showed themselves, the Marines itched eagerly to destroy them all.
Show they did, and earlier than expected. As we approached the edge of the city our perimeter security elements took fire almost immediately from hidden snipers and RPG teams. I knew Rivas and Munoz were in the midst of it. The explosion of mortars, rifles, and grenades grew so intense it sounded from a distance like popping popcorn.
Our truck rolled to a stop as part of the security for the command element behind a low sand berm on high ground overlooking the outskirts of town, giving me a panoramic view of the entire city. But even at a distance, we were not ourselves beyond danger. Minutes after we’d pulled into position, a mortar round sailed into the circle we had formed, landing about fifty meters away. The concussion of its detonation rang off the armor of our vehicles. It didn’t seem possible we had been pinpointed so soon. I looked at the puff of dust rising from the impact as if an elephant would magically materialize on the spot. Another impact directly behind the commander’s AAV convinced us it was no magic. A well-trained, well-hidden mortar team had us bracketed with accurate fire in a deliberate attempt to kill commanders and neutralize the nerve center of the attack. Leaders screamed on the radio in rage and confusion. This wasn’t how the operation was supposed to unfold, but we had to react.
A Marine mortar team ran to the spot where the second round had hit and took measurements to trace the point of origin. They slammed their base plate into the ground and began to launch counterfire.
The team leader stood behind his tube, arm extended. His arm dropped.
“Fire!”
The Marine holding a mortar round above the tube released his grip and swiftly bent forward at the waist to save his ears from the concussion while his partner prepared to launch another.
Thoomp.
“Fire!”
Thoomp.
Their well-practiced mechanical movements epitomized military efficiency. Our enemy stopped firing. At the city’s eastern edge, the last of the AAVs arrived and joined a long line of armor that raced from one end of the city to the other, raising a huge curtain of dust in a massive display of force, for the insurgents a foretaste of the hell about to storm their streets.
It was a better PSYACT than any we could have made over the loudspeaker. Our headquarters had facilitated a leaflet drop from a C-130 the previous night warning civilians of the impending siege, but the typically condescending message probably only emboldened our opponents. Unlike the reluctant soldiers American forces had encountered during the first Iraq war, Ubaydi’s Islamist defenders were hardcore true believers who very seldom surrendered. If they could be influenced at all, it would be through actions, not words.
Then, before the dust had had a chance to settle, the line of tanks turned and thrust into Ubaydi.
As long as the Marines had planned their attack, the irhabeen had planned to receive them. Fighters struck from fortified positions and withdrew to others before their victims knew where to return fire. They couldn’t rely on numbers, but intimate knowledge of their neighborhoods and carefully positioned weapons caches lent a short-lived advantage against a vastly superior force. It was not long before billowing plumes of black smoke from burning buildings punctuated the skyline. An unbroken echo of machine-gun and cannon- fire filtered back across the berm. I watched as the Marines took the city block by block, and felt quietly useless as I observed from the relative safety of the command post. The radio confirmed the embattled Marines had already begun to suffer casualties.
One warehouse in particular provided the Marines a fearsome challenge. Converging lines of tracer fire pointed to a dark concrete structure that had been converted into an Islamic Alamo where suicidal fighters made their last hopeless stand against the tanks. By now the Marines’ F18 Hornet warplanes and Cobra helicopters joined the fight and bombarded the building with five-hundred pound bombs, whooshing rockets, and long burping bursts of cannon fire. Listening to the running radio reports of the battle I’d counted three Marines killed in action and eight wounded.
The clash of battle still sounded as the first of the AAVs returned with its cargo of shattered flesh. A few Marines dashed from their vehicles toward the ramp of the track as it stopped at an ersatz helicopter landing zone marked with white cloth tape, previously designated as the main casualty collection point. Cat and I ran to see what help we might offer.
What we saw when we reached the track was a shocking reminder of the human cost of war, more so because these helpless, bloody men were young, supposedly invincible Americans. The first casualty lay stripped of all clothing except his underwear, his skin pale and cold. He leaned unconsciously in a sitting position against the shady side of the AAV, legs straight out, head rolled on his shoulder. I couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. The second was definitely dead, wrapped in a green wool military blanket dark with blood. The third lay propped up on his elbows, belly down on a stretcher. A navy corpsman had just finished cutting away the seat of his trousers and taped a bandage to his exposed buttocks.
“What can we do?” yelled Cat.
“Grab this litter! Medivac bird’s coming in!”
The corpsman pointed to the approaching Blackhawk helicopter. Cat and I shielded the wounded Marine with our bodies against the blowing sand as the chopper landed. The patient smiled, enjoying his pain medication.
“What happened to you?” Cat asked over the noise of the thumping rotors.
“Grenade fragment in the ass, man. I can’t even feel it!”
“Get them on the bird!” The corpsman and another Marine grabbed two handles of the litter while Cat and I took the other two. More Marines followed with more litters. More injured Marines.
“Lift!”
We pushed the stretchers into racks in the bay of the helicopter and shielded our eyes against the blowing sand.
“See you soon, Devil Dogs!” cried the Marine with the shrapnel injury. He waved unsteadily as the aircraft slowly lifted into the air and spirited him away to the rear for treatment.
I silently hoped his wish would not come true. If I saw him, I’d be in the hospital, too. All through the night, more helicopters arrived in a long procession to ferry away more unlucky, broken instruments of their superiors’ painfully irrational conviction that the tide of violence might eventually be stemmed by greater violence.
The cities of Ramana and Ubaydi dominated an area known to harbor weapons smugglers and foreign fighters who took advantage of the region’s proximity to the largely unguarded Syrian border, network of caves, and the natural obstacles provided by the Euphrates River. To further impede the Marines’ efforts to reach them the insurgents had destroyed all remaining bridges across the river not already blown up by one side or the other after years of fighting that were capable of supporting vehicular traffic. Operation Matador’s aim was to cross the river and search the villages on the opposite bank, which hadn’t seen an American presence in a very long time.
We needed a bridge. The solution was an army bridge company, engineers whose convoy of flatbed trailers laden with giant sections of floating roadway could be pieced together to allow LAVs and Humvees to drive across the river. They’d arrived the day before, but after many hours of pushing and repositioning the ungainly sections back and forth through the water, had still not fully bridged the gap. Our timeline stretched further to the right, and each hour we waited for the bridge to open meant another hour we gave the unseen enemy to prepare on the other side. Recognizing that swift action grew rapidly more imperative, someone ordered we should use one section of bridge as a raft and start to ferry vehicles across. A tiny force hiding in the tall river grass on the opposite bank to secure the bridgehead had already come under sporadic mortar fire and seemed in danger of being killed in plain sight of those of us waiting to cross.
Josh steered into the line of Humvees positioned behind one anchor section of bridge that led into the water like a boat launch. The vehicle in front of us drove over it and pulled slowly onto another section held steady by a small aluminum-hulled boat at the far end, which pushed our impromptu raft against the floating bridge section. Once the truck parked in position, the green camouflage-patterned boat eased away and joined another on the side of the raft, pushing the whole apparatus slowly to the opposite bank. As they approached land the boats slowed and maneuvered the raft into position so the Humvees could drive up the riverbank.
Before we reached land, I could see the grass grew literally greener on the other side. In fact, the side we crossed from didn’t even have grass, only dust, a few dry weeds, and piles of rubble and random, long-lost rubber sandals. I enjoyed the gentle motion of our raft over water, admired the sunlit glint of blunt and iridescent waves, and watched the foamy wake of the push-boats’ motors. I tried to take a picture but my camera had gotten so much sand blown into it that the zoom lens wouldn’t open without my pulling on it. We hit the opposite bank with a bump. Josh gunned the engine until the tires found purchase, and we scrambled up the muddy incline.
Well-irrigated fields of wheat and vegetables flanked the dirt road and vanished into infinity. I’d heard Iraq described as part of the Middle East’s Fertile Crescent due to its rich soil and capacity for crop production, but had personally seldom seen much to substantiate the claim. Herds of sheep and cows grazed on fresh fields of greenery under the watchful eye of shepherd boys. Most of them smiled and waved at our passing convoy, but with no more excitement than if they were used to seeing us cross the river every day. As more vehicles arrived we pushed further into Ramana. So far, we were fortunate to encounter no resistance; only livestock and curious happy faces, but if our reception seemed anticlimactic, the lack of excitement was welcome. By the end of the day the bridge stretched the full width of the river and the rest of our forces drove safely across.
“What the fuck are we still doing here?”
Cat smacked his fist against the inside of his passenger window with a meaty thwack, furious. Our assignment to guard a road to nowhere seemed like a misallocation of resources on the part of our battalion’s planners. A PSYOP team should be out talking to people, not sitting at an untraveled checkpoint soaking up sun. I stared into the emptiness at the end of the road. We were in the perimeter security element for the command post again, passing time, accomplishing nothing. Cat had attempted to raise the operations officer on the radio several times already to request a reassignment with one of the maneuver platoons. Now, however, instead of refusing Cat’s request, the battalion ops section ignored him. I suspected their reluctance to employ us had something to do with Cat’s fractious relationship with the information operations cell. Staff Sergeant Hart and his boss were Marines, after all, whose suggestions to their parent unit carried much more weight than those of a trio of temporarily assigned army NCOs.
“That’s it. I’m going to talk to those fuckers.” Cat climbed out the door with his rifle and stormed off toward the command vehicle. The ramp of the AAV was down and I could see him gesturing emphatically to someone inside. A few minutes later he returned with a triumphant look on his face.
“Alright. There is supposed to be a group from 3/25 coming through here in about an hour. We are going to convoy with them to Ar Jaramil.”
Finally, we were to be reunited with the Marines from the dam, who at least we knew would be willing to let us do more than pull road guard. In our time with them, we’d come to understand that the men of 3/2 Marines held to an unofficial but deeply systemic insistence that every Iraqi be presumed an enemy; an attitude that provoked widespread animosity on the Iraqi side and contributed to the creation of endless new crops of the insurgents the Marines so enjoyed killing. Theirs was a force of teenaged adrenaline junkies trained for war, not keeping peace, and dealing with civilians came unnaturally. Our presence on their patrols meant they had to budget extra time to deal with the locals’ everyday problems, which, if unrelated to security, were often viewed as frivolous. Their officers may have publicly denounced such actions if they had known, but in practice no one frowned when Iraqi children were mockingly taught to curse their own country in English, or were tricked into drinking the urine-filled water bottles thrown to them from convoys; no one checked that personal property was not stolen from houses or that every dead man called an insurgent had ever fired a weapon at Americans.
High body counts briefed well as a measure of military effectiveness, but the accuracy of how we labeled the dead was seldom called into question, and the act of killing did little to create real peace. I couldn’t understand how some men could take such sadistic pleasure in the sport-shooting of sheep and donkeys that were the peoples’ livelihood. I didn’t know how they rationalized their treatment of the Iraqis as less than human, or how their leaders could proudly point to the slaughter of Iraqis as an answer to the problem of resistance to occupation, when the resistance was born out of outrage at the slaughter of Iraqis. I could understand, perhaps, that they acted in the name of avenging the loss of their dead friends, but only if I could also admit to myself I was part of an organization that counted men with an almost inexcusable bloodlust among its ranks. When the convoy from 3/25 left the command post, we didn’t hesitate to follow.
Ar Jaramil was an undoubtedly poor but proud village. The simple houses were plastered with mud, but well maintained. A happy reception greeted our Humvees as we wove through the narrow streets toward a hill overlooking the village. Even the old, stooped, hijab-clad women smiled. We stopped to talk to some of the local men who had come out of their houses to ascertain what sort of insurgent activity had occurred in the area and where the civil authorities were. One young boy bravely approached our truck and invited us to breakfast. Unfortunately we couldn’t risk staying any longer in a strange area for fear of ambush, but compromised by trading him some MREs for a stack of warm, fresh flatbread.
Swapping meals provided a welcome change for both of us. I was tired of eating the same bland packaged meals, and the bread was probably the only meal choice the boy and his family ever had for breakfast. The round and thin white bread tasted slightly sweet. Unlike the portions served to us previously in some of the other villages, it had been toasted to a delicious golden brown instead of being left to burn charcoal black. Iraqis are known for their famously obliging hospitality, but were not above burning the bread as a passive-aggressive finger in the eye of unwanted guests. Josh drove slowly while Cat took advantage of the pause to hang some procoalition posters along the wall that bordered the street before the convoy moved on toward the hill.
Friendly though they might have been, experience had taught us smiles often hid weapons and bad intentions. To find the truth the Marines would cordon and search the village, blocking all escape routes and going through house by house looking for contraband. After a quick conference with the Marine commander, we had our approval to begin broadcasting. I aimed the speaker over the rooftops and covered my ears. Cat pushed a button and Sonny’s voice thundered into the village.
“Entibah! Entibah! Attention! Attention!”
A scattering of birds flapped away from their treetop perches, startled by the noise. I could tell it was loud enough because even far away, heads turned toward the speaker. Old men stopped what they were doing and young children ran inside to tell their parents. The recording continued in stern, guttural Arabic:
People of Ar Jaramil, peace and blessings be upon you! The fight of the Coalition Forces is not against you, but against the terrorist beasts whose bloodthirsty crimes stain the soil of the great nation of Iraq. We are working with your government and Iraqi Security Forces to root out and punish those who use terrorist acts and murderous methods in a vain attempt to stop Iraq from becoming a free and peaceful nation. The terrorists and their foreign leader, Abu Musab Zarqawi, care only for their own selfish desires. They kill children and dishonor your holy places. Whoever helps the terrorists harms Iraq. Coalition Forces are conducting a search of this village for illegal weapons and terrorists. For your own safety, remain in your homes and stay off of rooftops. Follow the instructions of Coalition Forces and do not approach them unless instructed to do so. Brave people of Iraq, stand with your countrymen and neighbors to help us defeat the terrorist dogs! If you have information about terrorists or illegal weapons, tell Coalition Forces. Long live Iraq!
Foot patrols moved through the streets as the last echoes of our broadcast died into the distance. We repeated it twice more for good measure, then Josh put the truck in gear and we threaded our way back through the village to catch up with the rest of the platoon. They were stopped at the edge of an open field, eyeing a squarish building that stood by itself on the other side in the shade of tall date palms. The expressions on people’s faces in their windows on this side of town were markedly less friendly the closer we moved to the river, as if we had crossed a line that separated the half of the village that supported Coalition Forces and the half that hated us.
One of the Marines ahead spoke with an Iraqi man who kept pointing to the building. Our radio explained the man was an informant who warned the Marines that the building was a booby-trapped police station loaded with high explosives. If a trap waited here, the men who set it would not be far away. I kept a nervous lookout from my turret down shadowy side streets and over rooftops.
Approaching from behind us, a pair of tanks clanked past through the narrow street and stopped at the edge of the clearing. Moments later the first tank rocked back from the recoil of an orange tongue of fire bursting from its main gun and the round squarely impacted the suspect building.
The cinder block and concrete structure erupted in a series of explosions that threw chunks of debris high above the trees. Bits of brick rained down for several seconds. Dust and smoke drifted lazily back into the palms.
So, it had been rigged, as the informant said.
Our group moved cautiously forward, knowing the enemy waited for us. If they did not, more traps most certainly did.
The Marines’ commanders on the radio debated whether or not they should use the tanks to clear the rest of the village. It looked deserted.
But if I were an Iraqi and heard my police station blasted into nothingness, I would hide too.
Besides, we had just instructed them to stay in their houses. If we employed the tanks, civilians would surely die.
How could we consider repaying uninvolved civilians in such a manner after their warning about the police station?
“Do they really think those houses are empty?” I asked Cat. “Maybe we should do a surrender appeal.”
It didn’t take much convincing the Marines that we should be allowed to at least try to coax out the inhabitants, given the number of embedded news crews floating around between platoons, even if it was to demand they do the opposite of what we’d asked of them earlier. The existence of booby-traps had changed the situation, and the townspeople needed to be removed from the equation. I had seen a Fox News logo on a television camera earlier that morning. If they did a story about dead civilians, the implications could be disastrously embarrassing for our public image. It seemed the Marines were always more humane when reporters followed close behind.
“Okay, TPT, go ahead and see if you can get anyone to come out of there,” came the reply. I hastily jotted down a message for Sonny and he translated it onto the next page in my battered notebook.
Cat readied the microphone. “Are you ready man?” He turned over his shoulder to face Sonny. “We’re going to do it live.”
Sonny read his translation over to himself again and nodded. “I’m ready, man,” he confirmed in his slight accent. He cleared his throat and addressed the empty streets.
“Attention! Attention! Your neighborhood is about to be searched by Coalition Forces. If you can hear this message, leave your homes and come to the sound of the loudspeaker. You will not be harmed. Women, bring your children. Men, lift your shirts to show us you have no weapons. Come to the sound of the speaker. You will not be harmed. If you remain in your house, you will be considered hostile.”
We waited expectantly, but no one came. I gripped the trigger of my machine gun nervously. Surely they could hear us.
Maybe the residents had already fled, after all.
Then, movement. A gate opened and two tiny black-haired boys no older than six years old, waving pathetic white surrender rags, stepped into the street followed by a stocky woman dressed head to toe in a black hijab. The Marines motioned for her to come forward but she hesitated at the gate, waving for someone inside to follow her. A man in a long grey dishdasha stepped cautiously into the street.
“Stop! Awguf!” commanded the Marines. The man stopped with his open palms facing us, outstretched at his sides.
“Lift up your man dress!”
The man raised his hands in the air and turned in a circle.
“No! Lift up your man dress!”
The Marine mimed lifting a dishdasha. The Iraqi man complied, lifting the hem of his garment to expose his underwear and bare chest.
Better to face humiliation than a bullet, he realized.
The Marines escorted the family into a wire enclosure only just set up in the yard of a house behind us. Cat and Sonny stepped out to question the man.
“Ask him where his neighbors are,” Cat urged.
The man pointed back to his house.
“Why the hell aren’t they coming out? Sonny, man, you got to tell them again!”
I penned a harsher message and handed it down inside the cab. Sonny sighed and began in a darker tone.
“Good people! Coalition Forces are hunting terrorists in this village. This area is about to undergo bombardment. If you remain in your homes you will be killed. Come to the sound of the speaker, and you will not be harmed. For your own safety, evacuate your homes and come to the sound of the speaker. If you remain in your home you will be considered an enemy. Everyone who can hear this message must show themselves or risk death. We will not hurt you if you are innocent, but you must leave your homes. This is your final warning.”
Faces appeared in windows. That had done it. Gates unlocked, and men and women of all ages began to walk fearfully, haltingly, toward the holding area. Some of the children cried, holding their mothers’ hands and waving white flags of surrender above their tiny heads. Several men walked out with their shirts removed, indicating they had heard the first message. There were more than I had expected to see, about a hundred. The Marines segregated them into two groups; men in the yard behind concertina wire, and women and children in the shade of the house. Cat opened the trunk of our Humvee and took out a case of precious water for them to share amongst themselves. It wasn’t enough, but at least they could count themselves lucky to be alive to experience thirst. After the last old woman arrived, the Marines descended on the neighborhood and started kicking in doors and shot-gunning locks. If anyone remained, they would be shown no restraint.
Morning’s still-new light woke the exhausted Marines. We prepared to move on to the next village, Selifa. The previous day’s search had been largely unproductive, turning up no insurgents and only a few weapons, mainly just the rifles each household was allowed under Iraqi law for protection of their property. A few military-aged men we’d detained temporarily were allowed to return home after questioning to determine whether they had any knowledge of terrorist activities, none of which they admitted. I wondered how many of them really had taken up arms against us before, and simply chose to hide behind their women and children to wait out our siege of the village. If they were hiding something, the women protected them. No one ever seemed to know anything about anything.
Another platoon of Marines arrived from their patrol to join us in their Humvees and AAVs, clanking mechanically in file as the tanks led the way toward the river. Our column approached a T-intersection, turning left to follow the tanks past a row of large, expensive-looking houses.
“This looks like the rich neighborhood,” I said in admiration.
Suddenly an awesomely earsplitting explosion shook the earth. I ducked instinctively in the turret, then snapped back to see one of the twenty-six-ton AAVs that had been traveling behind us claw into the ground after being blown into the air by a massive bomb. It was engulfed in flames and a boiling black cloud of smoke issued furiously from the destroyed track. I heard a volley of shots but soon realized it was only the sound of ammunition exploding in the AAV, consumed within the oven it had become. My stomach turned somersaults into my throat. Dazed Marines fell out the back of the wreck. One of them was on fire. Burning ammunition popped erratically, accompanied by a metallic ping of shrapnel caroming inside the smoking hull. There were not enough Marines getting out. My face and hands buzzed sickeningly. Bile burned my throat as I helplessly watched Marines racing to drag the survivors away from the flames and flying bits of debris.
“What the fuck was that?” Cat yelled.
“Um … I think one of the tracks hit an IED,” I choked. “It’s pretty bad.”
The rest of the AAVs tore through the fields surrounding the village in a vain attempt to locate a triggerman, but if he’d ever been there, he was already gone.
The Marines had been robbed not only of their friends, but also of their opportunity for vengeance. We could do little else but wait for the medivacs to arrive in stunned silence. The huge, deathly black column of petroleum smoke still pouring from the track’s disgusting, warped shell ensured the helicopters would have no trouble finding us.
Frustration filled the faces of the Marines who guarded the entrance to the abandoned school that served as our rudimentary laager. Down the road the wreckage smoldered, no longer an inferno, but still too dangerous to permit retrieval of the remaining bodies trapped inside. An occasional pop-pop of exploding rounds proved just how intensely the residual heat glowed.
But we would not, could not leave the dead behind to be scavenged by animals, or to be photographed and put on a terrorist website. As long as it took their baking tomb to cool, the Marines would wait for their fallen comrades. They stared blankly at the dark, twisted metal, or sat on the steps of the school, crying. At the simple memorial service that followed they hugged each other and wiped away tears, resolute in their determination to carry on in honor of the memory of their fallen. I felt like an outsider; hollow, not fully able to share their grief or the personal knowledge of what had made each man worthy of their words of praise and mourning, not fully able to understand why they, of all of us, had arisen in the morning as we all had, only to meet an unexpected and violent end before sunset.
That night we learned as well that Tony, our roommate from the dam, had been one of those killed in the fighting at Ubaydi. My heart ached that these Marines were asked to pay so high a price, while the reasons for their sacrifice often seemed so hard to find. Beneath their helmets and soot-stained faces, their red-rimmed eyes hinted that many of the mourners were still just boys, barely young men. Granted, these were hard-hearted, long-suffering boys, but nonetheless not far removed from childhood, and in their sorrow, reduced to snuffling with lowered heads.
Very few Iraqis dared leave the safety of their houses as evening fell. Those who did briefly step into their yards avoided entering the streets or making eye contact, and offered neither smiles nor waves. On one yard’s wall, a line of scrawled graffiti read, Down with USA in English. We didn’t have any paint left, but Cat covered it as best he could with posters highlighting reconstruction efforts before retiring to the silent sanctuary of the school.
The next afternoon, after some much-needed time for reflection, we continued with our mission, recomposed, leaving the empty, burnt-out shell of the destroyed AAV as a macabre monument to extinguished youth. Though young in body, we survivors grew decades older with each passing day.
An invisible ring of respectful silence surrounded the blast site, but once we moved farther away, the Marines gradually felt freer to talk again. We reached the river and walked resolutely through the streets of Ramana, showing the people our faces and the fact that we would not be deterred by even the most terrible of tragedies. After some time the Marines even began to smile again.
We were constantly hounded by children. The little ones couldn’t understand that they did anything more than collect candy, but keeping the children close provided an added element of security. Even the most cold-hearted insurgent would likely hesitate before blowing up a child. At least, we liked to hope so.
These children though, unlike in other areas, seemed merely to tolerate us, not love us. We were to them the bearers of free sweets, nothing more. Their parents were polite but not friendly. One man stood at his gate with hands on his son’s shoulders, restraining the boy from joining the rest of the children who crowded around us.
His eyes seemed to say, This is my home, stranger. I came here before you, and I will remain long after you have gone. For my family’s sake, I will not risk fighting you, but neither should you expect any help from me. In a contest of patient endurance, I will win.
Frustratingly, almost every person we questioned seemed oblivious to the insurgent presence we knew hid just beyond the edge of shadows.
“Everything is fine. No problems,” they smiled, tight lipped, and lied through their teeth.
After the patrol we spent the rest of the afternoon waiting by the river. Intelligence from higher headquarters suggested a group of fighters might attempt to escape the area by boat, so we established checkpoints to intercept them and recorded a surrender message to broadcast should they appear. The boats never came. We lounged lazily in a farmhouse next to the water, watching Lebanese music videos on the farmer’s satellite television and poking through his belongings.
Searching through the man’s collection of photographs and his bedroom’s dresser drawers elicited a voyeuristic, even rapacious sensation, and in the midst of my rifling I concurrently hoped no one ever did the same to my own home. The Polaroid scenes from his vacations and pictures of his family humanized the man who fled rather than endure the battle for his neighborhood. Perhaps he waited just out of sight and would return to put his scattered clothes back on their hangers, push the drawers in and straighten the mirror.
The place reminded me of my grandfather’s house after his death: vacant, outmoded, yet brimming with layered years of enduring memories. Like my grandfather, the man grew tomatoes and brightened his front yard with a crop of sunflowers. It was a sobering realization that somewhere, every Iraqi hid away similar detritus of their past, the private collections of knickknacks that made them people, all the small and personal nothings that made them more than just citizens of their unfortunate nation.
I wanted to know his name. The Marines called him “Hajji,” an Islamic term of respect for someone who has completed the pilgrimage to Mecca, which Americans had co-opted as a slur.
Charged with killing terrorists, an especially difficult task to precisely execute since the delineation between combatant and civilian was not always clear, the military mindset found it easier to hate and blame the faceless collective for all the ills done by a few fringe extremists. Admitting that collective to be composed of the cultural contributions and personal qualities of individuals made killing more difficult. Stopping to discriminate between the benign and deadly often seemed a luxury we could not afford. It was safer to shoot first, take comfort in the fact that preemptive killing stopped both friend and foe, and count all the dead as enemies.
I put the pictures back in the drawer and walked outside with downcast eyes, disenchanted with the futility of war.
If only before rushing to war we could set aside our pride and perceptions of superiority, and invest more effort in improving dialogue; or if dialogue should fail, in neutral arbitration, and possibly save thousands, maybe millions of lives. If only we valued partnership more than patriotism. If only we were more concerned with promoting righteous and neighborly aims, instead of selfserving ones, we might assuage the hatred and resentment with which our enemies view us, and cure the disease of conflict instead of only treating its symptoms. If only we could find it in our hearts to talk to each other, and really listen to what our planet’s fellow inhabitants have to say. If only we could find honest compassion for each other instead of forever squabbling like crabs in a bucket.
There was no air conditioning or fan in the house. Cat, Josh, and I agreed we would rather camp in the open next to our truck than sweat ourselves to sleep, so we each spread a sleeping bag in the dirt and shimmied around to nudge the pointier rocks from under our backs. Ordinarily the desert air and our exhaustion from the previous day would have been conducive enough to sound sleep, but the growling of a pack of hungry dogs circling just outside the security perimeter proved too disconcerting. I kept my pistol close, drifting in and out of consciousness, half expecting one of them to lunge from the darkness and sink his teeth into my throat. When morning broke I was tired but grateful to be moving on.
At last our convoy moved east, in the direction of the rising sun, back toward Al Qa’im. We continued along the river and crossed at the pontoon bridge to meet up with the rest of the battalion, leaving the engineers behind to dismantle it. Our armada churned across the open desert, pausing outside a just-waking Ubaydi. White smoke from the morning’s cooking fires signaled that at least a few hardy residents still lived to make their breakfast.
After rejoining 3/2, our team detached from the main element to follow a group of AAVs closer to the city.
No response.
We broadcast a message of thanks to the townspeople and proudly declared success in the operation, expecting to take fire, but the town remained still. The line of armor moved forward. From the command post we watched the Marines retake the city within minutes, encountering no resistance. The enemy had had enough, if any lived, and chose to remain quiet until another day. As the tracks returned from the city, Josh prepared to start the truck and follow them back to base.
Click. Click. Click.
“Oh, what the deuce!”
Josh sighed in frustration. Our new starter was dead, again. Cat apologetically radioed the convoy commander to wait for us to hitch our disabled vehicle to the back of a wrecker and he, Josh, Sonny, and I clambered into the back of a seven-ton cargo truck for the ride home. The sun beat down mercilessly. Sitting on the metal bed of the truck was almost unbearably blistering hot, but it was better than walking, and we had hot chow and real beds to look forward to.
I tried to shut out the heat, dust, and noise, closing my eyes and focusing on the forward movement of the truck.
This ride couldn’t possibly last forever.
I dipped my head forward, poured some of the sun-warmed water from my bottle down the back of my neck and relished the relief afforded by the coolness of its quick evaporation. I sat trancelike, drawing careful breaths to not take in too much dust, until the convoy slowed. We couldn’t see anything over the armor plating, but I recognized the view out the back as being close to the main gate of Al Qa’im. I stood up to watch the AAVs negotiate the concrete obstacles. Their treads flung up pebbles of asphalt as they bit into the road.
A pop of gunfire rang out, very close. I ducked my head back down. Pop! Pow!
The fire sounded too close to have come from an ambush. I looked over at Cat.
Is that some idiot shooting his M16?
I ventured another peek over the cab. The passengers of the flatbed in front of us were getting out of their truck and fleeing along the road. When they reached what they felt was a safe distance, they turned to watch their cargo. It was no ambush or battle-stressed Marine, only a metal shipping container strapped to the flatbed. The temperature inside the box had risen so high the ammunition stored inside began to explode. Rounds continued to burst sporadically until the camp’s civilian firefighters arrived with their pump truck to spray the container with water. The firemen stayed to monitor the sizzling container while the rest of us finally filed past it through the gate.
“We just can’t get a break, can we?” I quipped.
But we had been fortunate to make it safely back to base, a blessing not forgotten.
The next day the battalion held a memorial service behind the maintenance bay, on raised ground overlooking a desert bathed in the setting sun’s soft light. Each fallen Marine stood before us in spirit, represented by a line of empty boots and helmets perched atop downturned rifles stuck into sandbags. The dead men’s dog tags swung loosely from the pistol grips. Before them, the rest of the battalion stood quietly in formation, heads bowed.
“Let us not forget these brave young men,” began the chaplain, “who made the ultimate sacrifice to advance the cause of freedom.”
He asked some selected friends of the fallen to come forward and eulogize their buddies. They did their best to maintain their composure. Most of them shed tears, recalling happier times. But the dead had it easy, resting in eternal peace. It was the living who bore the suffering of loss.
A bugler again blew the mournful strains of “Taps,” each note branding itself forever in my mind. We filed past the empty boots, taking a moment to kneel before them each in reverent reflection, and reluctantly returned to our work. We couldn’t afford to dwell on those who left us. The survivors needed each other’s support more than ever, and we had yet to prove we would not soon join the dead ourselves.