When I left for Iraq in October 2008, I felt as though I had a very accurate mental image of what warfare would be like. Still, I often wondered how I would handle myself when bullets first started whizzing by. Would I be crippled by fear, or would I be able to rise to the occasion and lead my troops?
I felt my nerves kick in as our aircraft descended sharply toward the airfield in Baghdad. I did my best to hide my trepidation as I strapped on my armor and fastened the chin strap of my helmet. I slid one arm through the sling of my rifle, and loaded a fresh magazine. I rested the webbing of my right hand at the base of my pistol grip, mentally preparing for the impending doom I assumed would certainly greet us upon landing.
A gentle screech of the tires indicated that we were officially on the ground in Iraq. We taxied for a moment, and then all was still. Not saying a word, my teammates and I intently stared at the ramp at the back of the aircraft.
When the aircraft’s jaws opened, I saw a giant airstrip laid out before me, illuminated by giant white spotlights that lined each side of the strip. Single man forklifts and front end loaders buzzed all around, shuttling pallets of ammunition, food, and port-o-potties here and there. A thick cloud of dust seemed to hover just above the airfield, which slightly occluded the lights and gave everything between me and the distant horizon an amber glow. I had expected everything to be blacked out entirely, in order to prevent the enemy from being able to pinpoint our location for rocket fire. Instead, it seemed as though I had landed in the middle of a massive space station being built on some strange, tan moon in a distant galaxy.
We waited on the ramp until one of the small forklifts met our aircraft to offload our gear. Then, we were taken into a small room for an introductory lecture. There were three cardinal sins—we were quickly told—for US troops in Iraq:
1. Thou shalt not possess, distribute, or ingest any sort of alcohol.
2. Thou shalt not go anywhere without a loaded weapon.
3. Thou shalt not be caught dead without a standard issue reflective belt.
“Reflective belt?” I quietly wondered aloud.
As though she heard me, the US Army sergeant administering the introductory brief went on to explain that there had been an increased number of fatalities due to pedestrians being struck by armored vehicles on base. The reflective belts marked a concerted effort to curb that trend.
Shortly thereafter, we boarded a small bus, reminiscent of the “party bus” that one of your friends would charter to shuttle a wedding party from the ceremony to the reception. This time, of course, there was no alcohol on board, and instead of laughing during the ride, passengers were worried that the bus might hit a roadside bomb.
An odd mix of American music and brief interludes of Arabic commentary blared from two tiny speakers at the front of the vehicle. The bus then started bouncing up and down on dirt roads. As we hit pothole after pothole, I wondered if they might have been caused by prior explosions.
The shuttle seemed to be on the verge of suffering a mechanical breakdown when it shuddered to a halt in front of a tiny facility built entirely of plywood. We disembarked, and dragged our large black trunks containing our gear and a few changes of clothes to the stoop just outside the small shack.
I stepped inside and checked in with a tired-looking Army sergeant. I was then directed to a collection of large tents adjacent to the small shack. The sounds of our dragging gear disrupted the fitful slumber of the many service members and contractors who occupied the village as we aimlessly wandered around. The village served as a temporary staging area for Americans who were entering or departing Iraq.
We finally found our assigned tent, which was filled with nine cots and a noisy air conditioning unit that barely mitigated the awful desert heat. As I sweat through my first night in Iraq, it finally hit me that I was really going to spend the next six months of my life in this war-torn furnace.
The next morning, we checked in with the EOD command that would serve as our supervision for the deployment. We spent the day meeting staffers and being briefed on the latest operational trends. At the end of our first full day, we were informed that seven of us would hitch a helicopter ride south, while the remaining two would link up with a ground convoy to transport our gear. I would be among those boarding the chopper the next day.
For the second straight night, I struggled to sleep on my hot, uncomfortable cot, mostly due to my excitement for my first helicopter ride in Iraq. My teammates and I would be heading to our assigned Forward Operating Base (FOB) to begin our new mission.
When the first ray of light poked through a small hole in the tent, I leapt off of my cot, put on my boots (appropriate ones for each foot, I’ll have you know) and jogged off toward the dining facility. I gorged on an omelet and some fresh fruit, which I relished as I was prepared to eat far worse, and watched my hometown Tampa Bay Rays lose to the Philadelphia Phillies in the fifth game of the 2008 World Series.
While disappointed by how Tampa Bay’s magical season had ended, I was too excited to let it get me down. I was finally on deployment.
I jogged back to my tent to find the rest of my guys rolling up their sleeping bags and loading up their gear. Again, we doggedly dragged our big black boxes across the gravel, sweating in our armor and helmets. We loaded up in a different, equally worn down shuttle, which bounced us back to the airfield.
Two slick-looking Black Hawk helicopters were waiting for us, their rotors already spinning. After unloading our gear from the shuttle and onto the two helicopters, we sat in small canvas seats that hung in the snug bay of the aircraft. Two gunners checked our belts and the arrangement of our gear, much like flight attendants making final preparations for a commercial flight. The only difference was that these guys had guns.
They settled in behind their M240 machine guns, donning huge black helmets that resembled those worn by the pilots of TIE fighters in Star Wars. Each gunner grabbed hold of the charging handle of their large weapons, jerked backwards, and let go, which slammed a round into the machine gun’s chamber. In that exact instant, the aircraft lurched off the ground as if an enormous weight had just been lifted. The helicopters rose in perfect unison, and—as if it were part of an elaborate choreographed dance—turned and accelerated towards the empty desert to the east of Baghdad.
Once clear of the large airfield below, the helicopters banked to the south in an elegant maneuver that sent my stomach (and part of my breakfast omelet) into the back of my throat. As the helicopter banked, I looked to my left, gazing out a window at the ground rushing by. Just as my consideration of the questionable physics governing the flight of a helicopter caused some doubt regarding this precarious position, the chopper jerked upright, and again accelerated. As we tore south, the two helicopters buzzed around each other, mimicking playful dragonflies.
At once, without warning, my aircraft shot skyward, rapidly gaining elevation. My eyes scanned all windows for a clue as to the impetus behind our rapid ascension, but the blue skies gave no such hints. Just as suddenly, we leveled out, and then banked right into a tight circle.
Out of our starboard window, I saw the other helicopter landing on a small soccer field. Dust and scraps were blown upward and outward, which oddly did not deter a crowd of children from running toward the black chopper. I watched from above as one of the gunmen tossed what looked like soccer balls out to the excited Iraqi kids. The happy children ran around with their new soccer balls as the other helicopter once again rose skyward.
Our chopper met its counterpart in a downward spiral, and we continued on to the south. I couldn’t help but think about what a stark contrast this was to brutal combat scenes from Full Metal Jacket or Platoon. While the distribution of soccer balls had not been a part of our military training, I was glad to witness a display of such humanity and charity in a dangerous war zone.
Baghdad’s city blocks and streets were soon replaced with green fields and ditches. Before long, the lush fields gave way to more sand than I ever saw while growing up on Florida’s beautiful beaches. The only thing interrupting the endless, dried out, and seemingly lifeless desert was an occasional mud hut or palm tree oasis. Soon, even those faded away, and with nothing to look at, I began to doze off.
Just as my head began to make an awkward bob while falling asleep in a strange position, my teammate tapped my arm and pointed into the distance. A small city was protruding from the desolation, and grew in size until we saw an airfield surrounded by large concrete walls. Our Black Hawk helicopters swooped in and planted on the ground just as suddenly as they had lifted off.
WEARING ONLY FLIP FLOPS, black shorts, and a tan T-shirt, I lobbed darts at a board mounted on the front of a small plywood hut that served as our office. The sun was retreating below the horizon, and already, the unbearable heat was giving way to a chilly night. We had been in Al Diwaniyah, Iraq, for about a week, and we were all but settled in.
I sipped coffee from a small Styrofoam cup, as was my post-dinner custom. After a few days at our makeshift base, I had established a routine, and with our gear squared away, we were ready for anything. I would stay up late that night, reading intelligence reports from different parts of Iraq to gain insight into the current tactics and procedures being utilized by insurgents.
Just as one of my darts sunk into the board, a loud blast rocked through the air. I turned to face the direction of its origin, and saw a large cloud of thick smoke about a mile away. Just to the left of the cloud, a second fireball shot into the air, which turned into a second black cloud. I darted inside our office to stand by the phone. One by one, my teammates found their way in as well, and as expected, the phone rang.
Three rockets had detonated close to a police station in the city adjacent to our base. Due to the proximity of the blasts to our walls, it was unclear as to whether the intended target was us or the Iraqi police. In any case, our headquarters requested that my team evaluate the damage, ensure there were no remaining explosives that could pose a threat to civilians, and try to find the attack’s point of origin.
Three of my teammates immediately departed while I settled in to man the phones. Basically, I would serve as a middleman between my team in the field and our headquarters. While I wanted to throw on my kit and head out the door, my job as an officer usually meant I would be the guy who manned the phones.
After a few hours, my team returned to report that the damage had been minimal. There had been no significant casualties, and my very capable teammates had been able to locate the point of origin. My men had also retrieved the insurgents’ rocket launcher, which was a crude mess of welded metal with a rusted hand crank.
After their surprisingly upbeat report, my team started conducting a forensic analysis of the rail, which would hopefully yield biometric data on who was responsible for the attack. We would then upload the information into a giant database, which was used to target, capture, and prosecute insurgents.
As my team began collecting data, I stared at the rocket launcher my men had found. Just a few short hours ago, two or maybe three Iraqi youths had driven that launcher to a spot in the desert that was just outside the city. They had loaded three rockets and set up a remote timer. They aimed the launcher at the city—or our base—with the intent of indiscriminately killing everyone in its crosshairs. They had probably chattered in excitement as they drove to a spot where they almost certainly hid and watched their terrorist attack unfold.
Now, their instrument of death lay right in front of me. This was the first time that I came face to face with the idea of war. Chills ran down my spine as I considered the fact that those insurgents were still out there, potentially staring at our office with binoculars while they planned their next assault.
UPON OUR OCTOBER 2008 arrival in Iraq, generals, legislators, lawyers, and statesmen were meeting in Baghdad to iron out a new Status of Forces Agreement. Outlined was a plan for US and coalition forces to slowly relinquish command and control over military and municipal matters to a newly established Iraqi government. Unbeknownst to us, the area where we would be sent was also one of the first locations slated to relinquish jurisdiction.
At the time, this was a monumental moment in the war, as well as a sure sign of progress. But it also caused some degree of heartache for my team. We had trained so hard and prepared so well for our mission, but because of the pending agreement, we were effectively benched. Particularly after experiencing that first rocket attack, it was very difficult to stand back, advise, and assist, as we were told to do.
It was a hard pill to swallow, but swallow it we did, and we collectively embraced our new roles as instructors for Iraqi troops. We crafted basic training curriculums, arranged for time at a demolition range to practice safe procedures, and even converted one of our office huts into a classroom to host our Iraqi army counterparts. That part was easy enough, but then in the execution of our task, we faced a whole new set of challenges in the language and cultural barriers between us and the Iraqis.
We only had one interpreter. That worked well in one-on-one situations, but when it came to training exercises or working on the demolition range, we were forced to get very creative. We all did our best to learn little words and phrases, but mostly, we relied on charades. After a while, we got the hang of it, and began building relationships.
I earned a nickname of the Arabic term for “robot.” The Iraqis referred to me this way because I was either training Iraqis to dispose of bombs using robots, or trying to convince their leadership to allow me to give robot training.
In working with Iraqi leaders, I learned another Arabic word very quickly: inshallah, which essentially means “God-willing.” The word was not only spoken all the time by Iraqis, but truly embodied our cultural differences. To them, punctuality was not important, as they would arrive whenever God willed them to arrive. This was, on average, fifteen to thirty minutes after the agreed upon time. It was also difficult to convince the Iraqis to do any actual training, because God had seemingly provided them with a long list of excuses, whether it was having tea or sleeping in. To us, “inshallah” seemed to be a convenient way to put off a day’s work until tomorrow.
The worst of this stigma came about when we reviewed the Iraqi army’s EOD tactics. After running a few fictional drills on their leadership, we were shocked to find that their default solution to most potential explosive hazards was to equip one of their most junior soldiers with a small set of pliers before sending him downrange to manually dismantle the device. Should the device detonate during this process, well … that was God’s will. Inshallah.
At first, it was very difficult to convey to the Iraqis that by using robots, long lengths of rope or creative tactics, a soldier can protect himself, while still safely mitigating the potential hazard. After banging our collective heads on the wall for a while, the Iraqis finally began to see the benefit of the philosophical issues in our teachings.
SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN SLEEP and wake, I lay on my bed and listened. My eyes still closed, I could hear the drip, buzz, and gurgle of my programmed coffee pot on the desk next to my bed. I reached out further and could hear a small rodent or bird scratching up some breakfast beneath my small trailer. I could hear the mechanical whine of my AC unit, singing in unison with the units installed above the windows of my teammates’ trailers. I heard the slam of someone’s door as they exited their trailer. I heard my teammate shuffle to the toilet at the end of our row, his boots dragging across the loose gravel.
For a moment, all was still. I thought about how strange it was to be so comfortable this far from home. I had built this experience up in my mind, expecting constant battle, austere conditions, and intense stress. Instead, I had my own trailer, outfitted with a coffee pot, a laptop computer with Internet, and no real combat to speak of. I smiled and began stretching in preparation for getting out of bed.
The stillness was interrupted by another sound, similar to a door slamming, but slightly different. It was distant, but vaguely familiar. Creases formed on my forehead as I tried to remember where I had heard that sound before. The sound repeated: just louder, just closer. At the exact moment I recognized the sounds as explosions, a rocket ripped through the air a few feet above my trailer.
It screamed as it flew; its flight punctuated with a loud boom as it detonated less than one hundred meters away. I leapt from my bed, threw on a hoodie, darted out the door, and dove towards the sandbag bunker in front of my trailer. One of my teammates had the same idea, and we comically slammed into each other on the way.
As we took cover, we heard one more explosion before an eerie silence. One by one, my teammates shouted from their respective bunkers, and once I had accounted for my men, I took off towards the office to field the impending phone call. Again, my team was tasked with evaluating the damage, while also attempting to locate the point of origin. There were four reported detonations: three on our base, and one just outside the wall. I divvied up the tasks and dispatched my team into the combat zone.
One rocket had struck a small airfield on the north side of our base and caused no damage. Nearby, another rocket had nearly missed the base, also causing no damage. A third rocket had landed in the middle of a parking lot, and even though there were thirty to forty American soldiers sleeping within fifty meters, no one was hurt. Aside from a few flat tires, punctuated by blast fragments, damage was surprisingly minimal.
The last impact, though, was the rocket that had flown directly over our row of trailers. The rocket had barely cleared a large wall of portable HESCO barriers—made of heavy duty fabric fortified by metal wiring—before going behind our office and hitting a trailer on the other side. The trailer had served as an office for one of the many civilian contractors that worked on our base. The rocket had struck the bottom of the trailer, near the corner where its long axis met its short one.
As the rocket landed, a small fuse on its nose was crushed, initiating a small chain of rapid explosions that escalated within the warhead. This culminated in the detonation of the main charge, when approximately ten pounds of military grade explosives erupted into a large fireball that consumed everything within about three feet. As the fireball leapt up and out, it sent fragments of the warhead’s now shattered steel casing in all directions. The bits of steel absorbed massive amounts of heat and energy from the explosion, and glowed like red-hot embers as they flew through the air, ripping apart anything that got in the way.
As the embers slowed, they bounced off the harder objects in the room, causing slight variations in their path of destruction. In a fraction of a second, the fireball collapsed into a cloud of gray, acid-smelling smoke that lingered like the wraith of death evaluating his handiwork.
The searing steel fragments found their final resting spots, setting fire to stacks of paper, upholstery, and carpet fibers. They melted plastic and etched black scorch marks into anything made of wood. When the smoke cleared, the rocket had left behind a near perfect star of damage, which radiated outward from the point of impact. The core of the star was a near-spherical void cut by the initial blast, from which scorch marks and holes clearly outlined the paths of many blast fragments.
There was a desk at the far end of the room that had been shredded by lethal projectiles of glowing steel. Smoldering paper muttered to itself as it slowly burned. A chair rested slightly askew behind the tattered desk, riddled with smoking holes.
Every other morning for the previous six months, a contractor had woken up to the sound of his alarm clock at 0430. He would yawn as he pulled on his jeans, and then his boots. He would then pour himself a cup of coffee before stepping outside to make the short walk to his office. He would step inside and pull the door closed, then ease himself into his office chair. The contractor would then flip open his laptop computer and would usually begin composing an e-mail to his family back home. He would then begin to slog his way through his many work e-mails, sketching out the day’s to-do list.
At 0510 that particular morning, he just happened to glance down at an empty coffee cup. He decided to head to the cafeteria to grab a new cup before returning to resume his workday.
As he dumped a packet of sugar into his coffee, the rocket struck his trailer, destroying his office and sending blast fragments tearing through the spot where he had sat not even five minutes earlier.
No one was killed that day. No one was even hurt. I personally believe that the word “miracle” is overused, but as I stared wide-eyed at what was left of that trailer, I was convinced that the contractor’s survival was indeed some sort of miracle.
My team and I spent the day conducting analyses of the attack. We compiled reports, took pictures, and gathered fingerprints and blast fragments. I briefed the leadership of the base, and answered as many questions as I could.
As the sun dipped below the barren horizon, I returned to my room for the first time that day. I melted into my desk chair, exhausted from the day’s events. As I stared at some Christmas lights and sipped coffee, the sparing of the contractor occupied my thoughts. I couldn’t get past how close that man had been to death. I thought about how that same rocket had passed over each of my teammates’ trailers. Death had come looking for us, but had just missed. Was it a coincidence? Was it a warning? Again, I don’t normally subscribe to any sort of destiny or fate, as I believe that we largely make our own way through the world. I just couldn’t get past the immensity of this particular coincidence, though.
As I mulled it over, this inexplicable feeling of freedom washed over me. It was as if I had been liberated of some unknown burden, some expectation of something that I hadn’t realized was there. For a moment—just a moment—there was only me, the coffee, my chair, and the lights. There was no yesterday. There was no tomorrow. Just there; right then and there.
In that moment, I was at peace with myself, and at peace with the world. Somehow, contemplating the end of things, and coming face to face with grave danger had allowed me to understand that nothing else mattered. By considering and acknowledging death’s existence and my lack of control over it, I finally understood and accepted my mortality. It was a very strange feeling of helplessness and insignificance, yet also comforting and warm.
It was as though instead of fighting against the rules of the world, I had learned to live in harmony with them. As I set down my coffee and rocked myself to sleep in my chair, I was at peace with whatever would happen during the rest of my first combat deployment.
Inshallah.