Camp Gannon owed its name to Captain Richard Gannon, the late commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines. He’d been killed a year earlier attempting to rescue a wounded Marine during a firefight. For his sacrifice he earned a posthumous promotion and a Silver Star, as well as the distinction of becoming namesake of the tiny complex of abandoned buildings sandwiched between the Syrian border and the restive town of Husaybah. The camp he defended continued to suffer a near-daily onslaught of sniper and mortar fire from the apartment buildings and alleyways just a few yards outside its HESCO walls.
Only weeks before, the Marines of India Company, the camp’s current occupants, had defeated a coordinated attack by up to a hundred insurgents who attempted to breach the perimeter of the camp with multiple suicide car bombs and overrun its defenses. Three Marines had been wounded and nineteen insurgents killed. The attack failed, but it proved the enemy still had the ability to plan sophisticated operations and amass sizable forces right under the Marines’ noses. Armed with new information from an informant that they planned another attack, it was imperative we let the enemy know their hand had been tipped and they would not catch the Marines off guard if they tried again. The day after the Zarqawi raid, following the battle update brief, Major Knight informed me our TPT had been ordered to Camp Gannon.
We still had no word on when Cat might return; in fact I’d not heard from him since his departure for Al Asad. Judging from the office gossip I overheard on my end, the Marines were in no rush to bring him back.
One of the civil affairs Marines related to me a comment made by Staff Sergeant Hart that morning while we’d been out supporting a minor medical program in a nearby village, passing out activity booklets to children and talking to adults about the importance of proper sanitation while the medics bandaged the villagers’ cuts and bruises.
The IO chief confiscated the case of Gatorade that Cat had stored under his desk and brought it back to the hooch to distribute among the rest of the Marines, saying, “I get at least one. I’m the one who got that guy kicked out of here.”
At least in Husaybah I wouldn’t have to listen to his vindictive gloating anymore. I submitted our names to the convoy commander of a supply run to Camp Gannon and we left the next day.
If Al Qa’im felt small, Camp Gannon was its runt sibling. From a distance the camp looked like a prison, with concrete guard towers poking up at intervals along a low gray wall of earth-filled barriers. There is a saying, though, that good things come in small packages, and the tiny outpost occupied an important point along a historical smuggling route between Syria and Iraq. Husaybah had in fact been an active international border crossing and customs station before the Marines shut it down. As our convoy of tanker trucks and Humvees bumped along parallel to the broken, rusted coils of barbed wire that delineated where Syrian territory ended and Iraq’s began I witnessed that in reality shutting the crossing had had little impact. The vast border stretched largely unguarded and was extremely porous. Fresh vehicle tracks crossed over through several of the gaps and disappeared into the desert.
The city outside hugged the camp surprisingly closely. Both the southern and eastern walls butted against carefully arranged blocks of apartment buildings and grid-like streets. To the north and west, though less densely packed, lay the outskirts of the Syrian town of Abu Kamal.
Our convoy passed a smoking heap of burnt trash behind the outer wall and turned through the gate. I could understand why no one came to greet us. Surrounded on all sides by potential sniper-perches, we must have looked like tempting fish in the Camp Gannon barrel. Josh managed to find a parking spot next to a sandbag-reinforced mortar pit and I looked for a flapping American flag to guide me to the command post.
The commander’s office nestled inside one of the few cinder block buildings in the center of the camp, its entryway protected by a long corridor of HESCO barriers. I pulled open the metal door and squeezed inside.
A gunnery sergeant with a coffee cup in his hand stood just within the low-ceilinged entryway. Seeing my unfamiliar face, he asked, “Can I help you?”
“Yes, Gunny, I’m looking for the commander. I’m the team leader of the PSYOP team from Al Qa’im.”
“Oh, right. I’ll tell him you’re here.”
The Marine poked his head through the doorway of a small office in the corner. “Sir,” he announced, “the PSYOP guy is here to see you.”
A slightly built but tough-looking man with a bony face, Captain Delorian, commander of India Company, emerged into the hallway. “Sergeant,” he welcomed with an outstretched hand, “we’ve been waiting for you.”
His handshake was very firm.
“Yes, sir,” I replied. “I just wanted to let you know we were here and see if there was a time you wanted to sit down and discuss what kind of a message you are trying to send these people.”
“Excellent. And I’ve got some ideas, but, uh, well, I’ve really got to finish something else first. It would be great if you could come back here around 1700 and we can dialogue the message piece. That should give your guys some time to get settled in. Gunny here can show you where to stay if he hasn’t already. Sound good?”
“That works, sir.”
“Welcome aboard!” The captain turned back to his work but hesitated. “One more thing. We try to stay inside during daylight hours here. If you absolutely have to go outside, you wear your Kevlar and your vest. We do have snipers here.”
“Yes, sir.”
I’d expected as much. The rumor mill at Al Qa’im painted Camp Gannon as the most dangerous camp in all of AO Denver, and I could practically look through the nearby apartments’ windows over the top of the camp walls.
The gunnery sergeant led me outside to show me where we would sleep. He pointed to a rectangular structure made of HESCO barriers next to the speaker truck.
“Is that your truck there?”
I nodded.
“Okay, you go through those HESCOs and take the first door on your left. That’s our transient billets. There’s cots set up in there. Latrines are on the other side, nothing fancy, you’ll see ’em. Chow is served over there.” He pointed to a corrugated metal awning. “We are supposed to be getting a chow hall built pretty soon. We ain’t got no lunch chow, neither, just dinner. And like the commander said, if you ain’t doin’ nothin’, it’s best to just stay inside. You folks need anything, just ask me, I’ll be here.”
“Okay. Thanks, Gunny.”
I shook the man’s hand and walked back to the truck, eyeing the dark windows of the buildings on the other side of the wall. Josh and Z still waited inside, with bored looks on their faces. I pulled open the door of the truck and called inside.
“Hey, we’re staying in there, first door on the left. They don’t serve lunch here, so, I guess just grab a couple of those MREs when you are getting your bags.”
Our bedroom was a cave-like, windowless plywood box with a door at each end, buried beneath protective layers of sand-filled HESCOs. A line of fluorescent lights lit the space with a flickering glow that made one feel slightly nauseous. Along the walls several battered cots gathered dust. Long wooden benches and wooden pillars supporting the roof alternated along the centerline between the doors.
Z dropped his rucksack with a thud and dusted off one of the cots.
“So, what’s on the agenda?”
“Nothing until 1700. I’ve got some meeting with the commander. We’re just hanging out until then.”
“You guys want to play spades?”
Josh looked up from spreading his sleeping bag on his cot.
“That depends. Do you want to get beat?”
“Oh, big words from a little man!” Z exclaimed. “Bring it! Me and my man Sonny are going to kick your ass!”
Captain Delorian explained the situation faced by his men in frank detail. His neighbors in Husaybah were so hostile that what few patrols he allowed to enter the city faced certain ambush. Daily mortar and sniper fire forced his Marines to take cover during daylight hours. Attacks on resupply convoys meant they often went without water for showers or fresh food. With only one company of Marines at his disposal, he could ill-afford to launch reprisals or sustain casualties, and so they waited inside the protection of the base as a matter of survival.
Outside, the insurgents boldly trafficked an endless stream of weapons and fighters from Syria, Sudan, Chechnya, and Saudi Arabia. Zarqawi himself allegedly made speeches openly in the city.
Occasionally India Company directed airstrikes against the enemy’s safehouses, but for the most part their operations were reactionary. Camp Gannon was an island, isolated from support and surrounded by sharks. It was a credit to the captain’s men they had recently defeated an attempt to overrun the base involving multiple car bombs and several dozens of fighters. More significantly, however, the attack exposed the level of audacity the Marines faced in an enemy who was not simply trying to achieve martyrdom, but who sincerely believed they could win despite the Americans’ technological advantages.
“We need to let these people know,” he said gravely, “that we are not going anywhere. The people of this town are getting sick of the foreign fighters and terrorists. I’ve heard it myself from the sheiks. These terrorists can’t be allowed to think they can attack us without repercussions. I want to send a message to the people that sooner or later they are going to have to work with us and that we haven’t forgotten about them. Believe me, we’ve got big plans for Husaybah.”
“I’ve written a script that might fit in with that theme, if you’d like to look at it, sir.”
I passed a page of handwritten notes across the desk.
“Hmm.” With a furrowed brow the captain studied my work. “This is a good start. I’d like to make a few changes, but I like where you are going with this. I can have it back to you tonight. Does that work for you? So, let’s shoot for doing this tomorrow morning. Does that give you enough time to translate and record this?”
“Yes, sir. It should only take about thirty minutes to have everything ready. I’d recommend broadcasting around 1000, sir. We shouldn’t try to compete with the morning prayer, and by that time everyone will be awake and probably going to the market to get lunch and such.”
“Okay, I agree. Excellent. Let me work on this and I’ll have someone find you when I’m done. Thank you, Sergeant.”
“Thank you, sir. We’ll be over in the transient billets.”
After the meeting I walked back to the barracks, still unnerved by how abandoned the camp seemed. The only visible movement was that of the American flag brushing against its pole and a plastic bag blown on the wind. I walked inside and removed my helmet. Z and Sonny still slept on their cots. Josh lay on his back reading the same book on Buddhist philosophy he’d been obsessing over for weeks. He turned his head and laid the paperback on his chest.
“So?”
“So, we are going to broadcast around ten tomorrow. The commander is making some changes to the script, but he said he would get it back to us tonight. Should be plenty of time to get everything set up. I’m not exactly sure where he wants us to go yet, but I guess we’ll work that out tomorrow morning.”
I started to rip the Velcro closure of my body armor open, but hesitated. My stomach growled.
Time to find those latrines.
The inconvenience of having to wear armor to go to the bathroom wasn’t anything I’d ever contemplated before. We only ever took the vests off when we felt safe. It was telling that the security situation at Camp Gannon was such we were discouraged from walking around inside the perimeter without them. Wearing armor was a tacit admission of fear, something I considered whenever we visited Iraqis in their homes. It elt hypocritical that we should attempt to convince them security was improving and they shouldn’t be worried while we Americans swaddled ourselves head to toe in armor and protective gear. Our hosts must have sometimes regarded our argument as condescending. Since we didn’t allow them to have armor or weapons, it seemed to imply their lives were not deserving of the same level of protection as our own.
The stalls were only about twenty meters away from the back door, shielded behind a sheet of plywood.
This should be lovely.
The smell of diesel fuel and sun-warmed human excrement grew stronger with every step closer.
Crack!
A rifle shot whizzed over my head from the direction of the block of apartments to the south.
Sniper! I ducked reflexively and ran back inside. The rhythmic drumming of a fifty cal returned fire from a guard tower. My heart beat rapidly and I sat down on the nearest cot with my head in my hands.
Maybe I didn’t have to go so badly after all, if it meant meeting such an ignoble end.
When the commotion died down I cautiously tried again. When I reached the stalls, a powerful stench and a cloud of buzzing flies greeted me. On one side were urinals: white plastic PVC pipes buried waist high in the ground at an angle, with a piece of aluminum screening wrapped over the end to keep cigarette butts out. To the left were the toilets. The arrangement consisted of a plywood bench with a series of holes cut in the seat, through which waste dropped into metal drums. When the drums filled, the Marines pulled the sloppy mess from under the benches and stirred them while adding burning diesel fuel until nothing remained but caked ash and the lingering scent of burnt feces. I reluctantly submitted my bare bottom to the hot wind, stinging sand, and crawling flies to relieve myself. In such a place, so-called dignity was a selfish luxury soon abandoned.
“You folks are going to have to hold off on that broadcast.”
The first sergeant sipped his coffee unhurriedly.
“CAG [civil affairs group] is out there fixing a water pipe, and we don’t want to attract any undue attention.”
He pointed to an area just outside the camp on a large map tacked to the wall. I scraped my fingertips across my sweaty brow as he explained the delay. The Marines had been conducting what they called “cratering operations,” using explosives to blow holes in the roads approaching the camp to mitigate the threat from car bombs. One of the charges punctured a water main, and the civil affairs team had ventured into the city to asses the damage before the lack of water induced the townspeople to protest at the gate.
“We’re in no rush, First Sergeant. How long is it going to take?”
“Oh, I’d say they’ll be out until this afternoon, at least. The commander mentioned something about making some more changes to that speech, anyways. Might as well take yourself a nap and come back tomorrow morning. There’s nothing going on here.”
“I don’t think I could sleep anymore if I wanted to, First Sergeant. You mind if I stick around to use one of these computers? I need to try and get in touch with my unit real quick.”
The first sergeant glanced over at his empty desk and gestured to it, quickly raising his chin. “I’ve got one over there you can use.”
“Thanks.”
I hurriedly logged in and brought up my email. I wasn’t certain how long the first sergeant really wanted to stand in the doorway drinking his coffee. Only a few messages waited. Gerry had sent one about the last situation report, and Major Knight’s said we should be prepared to stay longer in Camp Gannon. It suited me fine. Conditions at the camp may have been rustic, but the operational tempo was slow. I felt slightly sinful for enjoying it; but, like Br’er Rabbit in his briar patch, I wouldn’t have told anyone that I was. I tapped out an inquiry to the supply sergeant at Al Qa’im asking when the next convoy was due and sent Gerry a short report that we hadn’t encountered any problems.
“Good to go, First Sergeant. Thanks.”
I logged out and picked up my rifle and helmet from the corner. “Any time, Sergeant. We’ll be seeing you.”
He opened the door for me and I walked back to my cot to wait. Josh and Z played dominoes on one of the benches, waiting for my return with their mission gear laid out on their cots.
“No mission today,” I announced, setting my rifle down on my cot and shedding my armor shell.
“Oh, darn,” Josh replied sarcastically, though happily.
“We should stay here. Camp Gannon is sweet. No missions, no one messes with us …”
“No, we are going out tomorrow, they just blew up a water pipe so they are trying to take care of that first.”
Z grinned mischievously. “I guess that leaves time for you to get your butt kicked in dominoes, too!”
“We’ll see,” I scoffed.
The next morning I walked back to the command post to find Captain Delorian standing near the wall-mounted map with a pair of Marines in tan coveralls. He traced a route north of the city with his finger.
“Oh … Sergeant … ” he greeted, “meet Sergeant Frank and Sergeant Martin. They’ll be providing security with their Abrams.”
I smiled and shook each man’s hand.
“Tanks, huh? Nice to meet you. Is this where we’re going?”
The map was an extraordinarily detailed aerial photograph of the camp and city, almost two meters square. A clear plastic overlay covered with grease pencil markings indicated protected zones around several mosques and schools.
Captain Delorian tapped an area northeast of the camp. “you can start out here, by the ING compound. That should give you good coverage of Market Street, and there are usually a lot of people walking around out there.”
The Iraqi National Guard compound was where that organization had once operated until being forced out by insurgents. The Marines maintained a foothold within its walls, just outside Camp Gannon, using it as an observation post and rifle range. I nodded and followed the long, broad street with my finger, imagining the sound of Sonny’s voice echoing off the walls.
“Yeah, this is a good spot, because these buildings will funnel the sound all the way down. Looks like they do get a lot of traffic here, too. And then we can come up here and hit some of these main intersections. But we aren’t going to be able to range this whole southern area.” I gestured vaguely along the bottom of the map.
The captain nodded. “Well, we can try and hit that tomorrow. I want you to get out to the 440, too. We’ve been having a lot of problems with this area.”
The 440 was an area to the south so named for the number of structures it contained, the same block of apartments from which the sniper shot at me on my way to the toilet. Hopefully, the presence of the tanks next to us would discourage him from trying again when we broadcast there, if he still lived. Sergeant Frank turned to me.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
“We’re ready now, if I can just get the frequency you’re using. Where do you want to meet up?”
“Ten minutes, out front.”
I imagined our truck as the meat in a tank sandwich. It was a solid, comforting sensation. We rolled out the gate wedged between the two massive Abrams tanks, confident our escort would protect us from anything. A huge crater still marked where the car bombs had detonated a few weeks prior, and we swung wide to avoid the pit. Rubble of damaged and destroyed buildings spread across a wide radius, an indication of how powerful the explosions had been. The buckled roof of one of the buildings leaned into the street. When we reached a line of concrete Jersey barricades marking the extent of Marine control of the city, the tanks stopped.
“Is this good?” The tank commander asked.
“How we looking up there, Z?”
“Looks good to me. There’s probably two or three hundred people out there,” our gunner called down through the turret.
I keyed the radio handset again.
“This is good. Be advised, broadcasting now.”
I pushed a button on the minidisk player and Sonny’s prerecorded message boomed through the speaker.
“Agh! That’s fucking loud!” Z complained.
“Oh yeah, watch your ears.”
The tinny recorded voice continued, reverberating off the windows of the shops which lined the streets. Some people paused and turned to listen, others purposely ignored the broadcast.
Good citizens of Husaybah, peace and blessings be upon you. The fight of the Coalition Forces is not against you, but against the terrorists. You have seen them in your streets and heard how they murder innocent people and children. Now they have murdered the governor of Al Anbar. On May 29, 2005, Multi-National Forces were being shot at from a building while conducting operations. Multi-National Forces entered the building and killed four foreign fighters and captured four more. Later, one of the captured foreign fighters informed Multi-National Forces that the provincial governor was inside the house. Multi-National Forces then went back in the house and found the provincial governor, Raja Nawaf Farhan Al Sharhi, had been killed by the terrorists. The governor was found blindfolded with massive wounds to the head. The captured foreign fighters admitted to doing this crime. Iraqi Security Forces and Multi-National Forces are continuing to investigate this brutal murder, for which the terrorists are responsible. The governor was a responsible leader attempting to prevent violence in Al Anbar and was helping to shape the future of Iraq. Foreign fighters and terrorists have nothing to offer you or your families and do not care about your future. They care nothing about you or the good city of Husaybah. They take over your homes and show disrespect. They do not care about you or your family. Even now, we have learned the terrorists are planning to attack the city of Husaybah and the Coalition camp without any concern for the danger they will put you in. Therefore, good people, for your own protection, keep all vehicles away from Coalition Forces and remain off rooftops of buildings. Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces will continue to fight those who threaten the city. Your government and Iraqi Security Forces are working hard for a better Iraq and a better future for you and your families. Become part of the solution for peace and prosperity. Help secure Husaybah and all of Al Anbar by reporting foreign fighters and terrorists to Iraqi Security Forces and Multi-National Forces or by calling anonymously to the tips line. Information is the power you have over the terrorists and criminals and will help ensure safety for you and your family.
The last dying syllable echoed back to the crowd, which stood as if entranced. More people had since come outside to join them, curiously trying to see where the sound came from. No one had addressed these people in such a manner since the last PSYOP team was killed the year before, not many miles away. They were either starved for information or actually interested, because the message seemed to have provoked widespread community discussion. They expressed a variety of emotions with their hands, ranging from confusion, anger, hopelessness, and frustration to agreement. After a second broadcast I keyed the handset again.
“Broadcast complete. We’re ready to move.”
We left the people to their debate and moved past the rubble back to the gate. Just down the road a large blue sign read, “Welcome to Syria” in Arabic and English. Next to it stood the picture of a dead man.
A wooden knock on the door woke us from our afternoon nap. The door creaked open before we’d had a chance to answer and a young Marine poked his head inside.
“Excuse me, do you guys have a minute? We’re trying to get as many hands as possible to help unload one of these refrigerators out here.”
I rubbed my eyes and sat up on the cot.
“Yeah, I guess so. What’s going on now?”
“One of the refrigerator containers they keep the food in went tits-up, so they are trying to cross-load the stuff that won’t go bad into the broken one and move all the perishable stuff into the one that’s still good. Just trying to get as many people working on it as possible to make it go faster.”
“Yeah, sure thing. We’ll be there.”
“Thanks, Sergeant.”
The Marine let go of the door and it slowly creaked shut. I kicked the end of Josh’s cot.
“Wake up, dude, let’s go help these Marines move their chicken wings.”
On the other side of the HESCOs, two large shipping containers with fans on the back sat next to each other, one humming, the other silent. A chain of Marines wearing body armor over their T-shirts mechanically passed boxes of food down to a large pile being sorted by more Marines into smaller stacks of perishable and nonperishable food items. Another line passed the perishable boxes back up. Josh and I each filled a gap in the chain and started passing boxes.
The cardboard boxes were white and cold, simply marked with their contents: Corn. Beef patties. Chicken nuggets.
“They’ve been holding out on us,” I remarked.
“Supposed to be barbeque chicken tonight,” the Marine next to me declared, with notable enthusiasm.
We made quick work of unloading the broken refrigerator, and the head of the line of Marines moved inside onto the freshly exposed floor of the container. The chain moved with a steady rhythm, ferrying the frozen meats over a centipede-like conveyor belt of sweaty forearms.
“I claim this!”
The Marine next to me diverted a case of Mountain Dew to the ground behind his feet and quickly turned back around to catch the next box.
I did the same with a case of Red Bull.
“I think I can find a home for these!”
Josh stood in line across from me. His eyes lit up at the sight of the coveted drinks behind my boots. He nodded emphatically, and with a broad grin on his face tapped his belly.
“You’re an addict,” I told him.
“You better believe,” he admitted.
Half an hour later the broken refrigerator had been emptied of everything but soft drinks and dried food. My forearms burned from the buildup of lactic acid, and I massaged them as Josh and I watched the Marines stack the last of the frozen boxes into the still-functioning freezer.
“That’s a good workout,” I declared.
Josh picked up the case of Red Bull and turned to trudge back to our cave. “Yeah, it’s time to crack open a cold one now!”
I chuckled and followed him inside to wait for dinner.
Everyone seemed happier than usual to stand in line for what must have been an uncommon treat in the isolated camp. Green plastic tubs of chicken sent up savory wisps of steam from folding tables, and when I filed through, the Marine on duty scooped out an enormous drumstick with his tongs and plopped it on my tray. I sat down on a curb and held the plate to my nose, inhaling deeply. My first bite proved it tasted just as flavorful and sweet as it smelled, and I dabbed at the barbeque sauce smeared on my lips, staring into the distance and chewing appreciatively.
Suddenly a Pow! and the Pom-Pom-Pom-Pom of a Mark 19 automatic grenade launcher shooting back at a sniper from the southern wall interrupted our dinner chatter.
“I think I’ll move over here,” I remarked half-jokingly to Josh, picking up my tray and moving to the other side of the concrete barriers closer to the serving line. He moved with me.
The rest of the Marines remained nonchalant, busily tearing at their chicken and sucking on sticky fingers. I found it ironic that at Camp Gannon, barbeque chicken, not gunfire, was the rarer commodity. But I thought I could understand why it seemed there wasn’t more reaction to the shooting. If any of us were to die for anything, if anything were worth dying for, it might as well have been for the guarantee of such a long-overdue proper meal.
Sonny and I sat quietly in the growing darkness on the sidewalk behind the command post, listening to the evening’s sermon echoing from the minaret of a mosque on the other side of the wall. Sonny looked deep in thought, almost sad.
“What is he saying?” I asked gently.
Sonny paused before answering, as if carefully considering the proper words.
“Nothing violent. He is talking about staying away from the bad people and protecting the city. It is a little bit vague.”
He stopped to listen as the speech continued.
“Now he is talking about the proper procedure for entering the house of a Muslim.”
Earlier we’d listened to a different mosque’s message recorded on a video camera by the Marines at the Iraqi National Guard compound. In spite of what the Imam’s stern tone and guttural pronunciation seemed to imply to those of us who didn’t understand Arabic, Sonny stated that the theme of the sermon was patience.
We were outside the HET team’s office, having just finished a meeting with them to see if any calls had been made to the tips line since our latest broadcasts. Surprisingly, the HET team chief informed me they had received their first tip less than ten minutes after the broadcasts ceased. Additionally, he stated, the tone of some of the mosque messages in the past few weeks had grown increasingly critical of Al-Qaeda, and while not specifically supportive of Coalition Forces, they seemed less confrontational than usual. Both indicators were but a few of many in a widening rift between the townspeople and the insurgents. The people of Husaybah grew gradually more confident in their public condemnation of terrorist atrocities and less fearful of reprisals. One of the tips even purported to give the location of Zarqawi’s newest hiding place.
We made so many broadcasts into the city over the course of a few days that the auxiliary cable to the minidisk player burned out. I couldn’t help but think the people interpreted our renewed interest in their town as a sign of solidarity, or maybe part of preparations for an impending assault on Husaybah. Perhaps the brutalities inflicted on them by the terrorists simply made us the lesser of two evils.
Whatever their understanding, it seemed they were at last willing to work with the Americans. Tips were up, attacks were down, and reports said that the sounds of gunfire we heard at night came not from fire directed at the base, but from battles between local tribal fighters and foreign insurgents.
Maybe our messages really did have an effect. Or maybe they are tired of being told what to do by a bunch of foreign religious fanatics. They just needed the incentive of thinking we would back them up if they chose to fight.
But we wouldn’t stay to discover the true motivations behind Husaybah’s new complicity. When I checked my email, a message from Major Knight summoned us back to begin preparations for the next major operation, one they called “Spear.” A supply convoy was expected to arrive the next day, and we were to follow it to Al Qa’im.
The convoy arrived an hour late. I said my farewells to Captain Delorian and Camp Gannon and arranged to join the convoy after they dropped off their cargo of generator fuel and water.
Our staging and departure was thankfully uneventful, though nonetheless tensely expectant. The last convoy to leave had been mortared on the way out the gate.
All seemed routine on the road back until,
WHAM!
I felt like someone had tapped me on top of the head, and my ears rang with a high-pitched squeal. My heart beat frantically, afraid of what I might see in the back seat.
“Fuck! Is everyone okay? Did we just hit an IED?”
I spun in my seat to look over at the rest of the passengers to verify they weren’t injured. Sonny’s eyes were wide with surprise, and Z held his ears under his helmet with both hands. The convoy stopped.
“Are you okay?” I tapped Z on the knee to get his attention.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just rang my bell a little. It wasn’t us.” He rubbed his fingers in his ears and pointed over his shoulder. “The truck behind us hit a mine.”
The truck, one the Marines called a seven-ton, was a six-wheel-drive monster so named for its large cargo capacity. Only the one behind us had five wheels. It’s sixth had been blown off completely and lay in shreds on the side of the road. The driver looked shocked but uninjured. The radio confirmed no one had been hurt.
“All victors, security halt,” ordered the convoy commander. “No one gets out of the vehicles until EOD gets here. I don’t want anyone blowing their goddamned foot off.”
The explosive ordnance disposal team did finally arrive to clear what turned out to be a string of newly buried mines, but only after several dreadfully hot hours. They had plenty of work to do elsewhere, on other roads. When they’d given the “all clear,” the front half of the convoy continued on its way and the rear half stayed to guard the disabled truck until a wrecker arrived. It wasn’t until nearly midnight we rolled back through the main gate of Camp Al Qa’im and fell into bed.
While walking to the chow hall for lunch the next day, one of the EOD Marines who had helped to clear the mines ran to catch up to me.
“Hey, Sergeant!” he called. “You guys were fucking lucky yesterday!”
“Oh? How so?”
“You know that security halt? Your truck was parked on top of a mine.” I looked at him blankly, uncertain of what to say.
“Thanks … I’m not sure I wanted to know that.”