On the Things We Carry

Kevlar helmet with NVGs (night-vision goggles) mount and IR (infrared) strobe; ballistic-rated shades; IBA (Interceptor Body Armor) with 15 pounds of plates, front and back; M4 carbine with one 30-round magazine; ACOG (Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight) scope; gangster grip; assault pack with 10-pound SINCGARS (Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System) RT-1523E radio; water; MRE (meal, ready-to-eat) rations; candy to hand out to kids; flares; spray paint to cover terrorist graffiti; 100-mph tape (duct tape); tactical MOLLE (modular lightweight load carrying equipment) vest with NVGs; civilian GPS; lensatic compass; 15 30-round magazines of 5.56mm ammunition; map, map protractor; English-Iraqi phrasebook; cheat sheets for call for fire (artillery)/MEDEVAC (medical evacuation)/weapons ranges/close air support; chemical lights; extra AA batteries; 550 cord (parachute cord); first aid kit; KA-BAR knife; ASP tactical retractable baton; DCUs (desert camouflage uniform), t-shirt, pants, desert combat boots, no underwear (too hot!). In pants: pens, markers, highlighters, wallet, dog tags, New Testament, notepad, more candy for kids.

Total: 75 pounds + 100-degree heat = hot, sweaty, and tired.

On Killing Time

A deployment isn’t all shoot, move, and communicate. There is a boredom associated with being away from home for a year, compounded by the fear and disorientation that comes with being surrounded by the unfamiliar. How to pass the time?

Perhaps the number-one time-killer is movies; bootlegs mostly. You would think that, in a combat zone, the favored genre would be comedy, but everyone watched war movies—Black Hawk Down or Saving Private Ryan—probably for the same reason that mobsters watch The Godfather or The Sopranos; we relish the characters’ glory and wish it our own.

The second-most-watched movies are romantic comedies. If we can’t be around women, we can watch movies about them. I remember spending Christmas Eve, the night before I left Iraq, watching What Women Want with a bunch of the lieutenants and platoon sergeants. It was one of my more depressing moments.

Some people lift weights to kill time. Some people write home. I had a guitar. We also had a dog named Maxine. Staff Sergeant Lombardy found her on one of our patrols. Officially, we weren’t supposed to have animals, and usually soldiers will kill dogs, because they can be diseased. Iraqis consider dogs the equivalent of crows—disease-ridden pests that feed on garbage and carrion.

Maxine was different, though. She followed us on our patrols, and everyone on the street knew she was our dog. She was the most tactically sound dog ever. She knew how to take point, keep noise discipline, check on all the soldiers. I am ashamed to say that one of our guys shot her. Not everyone liked dogs. I know Maxine wasn’t a soldier, but I hated losing her. Still, I had to remember my priorities: an Iraqi over a dog, an American over an Iraqi.

On Bathrooms

From using baby wipes down to burning refuse, relieving oneself in the field is an art that takes perfecting. I always enjoyed reading the Port-o-Potties, though, because it was there that I really got to understand what other soldiers were thinking.

Our sergeant major forbid anyone from writing on the Port-o-Potties on our forward operating base (FOB), but, in Kuwait, there was a veritable encyclopedia written on the walls. If I’d had a camera, I could have made a coffee-table photo book with everything I saw written, from politics to religion to sex and everything in between.

Marines suck. U.S. ARMY: Uncle Sam Ain’t Release Me Yet. Jesus Saves. God is dead. Bush is a terrorist. National Guards is a bunch of nasty girls. If you don’t like the Army, no one forced you to sign up. Heil Hitler. You are a racist. Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer; too bad he never cries.

The language was generally more colorful, and, while sex was discussed, it was largely relegated to even more colorful drawings.

One of the more interesting things I read was in Kuwait, before I crossed the border. The commentary read: “Live it up females, because when you go back you will still be ugly.” In Al Taqaddum, on my way home, I saw another posting: “How does it feel to be ugly again?”

You have to understand: On our FOB, there were 1,000-plus men and approximately 70 females. With such a ratio, even the homeliest of women can seem desirable.

On Serious Things

There is a certain futility to being a soldier or a cop or a firefighter: Essentially, you are only needed when things go wrong. More often than not, you encounter the bad side of human nature.

On one patrol, we saw someone digging on the side of the road. Seeing someone digging was a bad sign; it usually meant that he was trying to implant an IED. We pulled over and drew our weapons. The man looked up with the scariest look I have ever seen a human face produce. We instructed him to show his hands. He just stared and started approaching us slowly. He was surrounded on all sides, so we weren’t worried he’d run. We were worried that he would blow himself up and us along with him.

Finally Sergeant Threatt tackled the man and cuffed his hands behind his back. We then went house-to-house to find out who he was. One lady identified him as her son. She said that he got arrested all the time because he was always digging, but that was all he was doing—digging. She explained that he was mentally handicapped and more trouble than she could handle. We told the lady to keep a closer eye on her son, for his sake. She replied that, for her sake, she wished we had shot him.

There are almost no services to treat the mentally challenged in Iraq. The problem for us is that these people can also be combatants. There was, in Haswah, a “village idiot” whom we saw in the area, first after a raid and then after an IED incident. Both times he was released. We thought that he was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

During a subsequent cordon and search operation, my team was set atop a school to monitor a nearby mosque. About a half hour in, we saw someone trying to compromise our cordon. My team took a shot and hit the man; soldiers on the ground came by to sweep him up and give medical aid. Lo and behold, it was our village idiot. Then it dawned on me: The terrorists were using him as a lookout. He wouldn’t know better than to help them and, if we found him, we wouldn’t pay him too much mind. In the end, it was a good shot.

Other shots weren’t so easily justified. One of the harder things that I had to do was explain to a family that their father had been killed, and oh, by the way, we were the ones who shot him. To be fair to my soldiers, the man did point a weapon at them. But try explaining that to the man’s family, and then ensuring that the town didn’t turn against us.

We learned to expect the unexpected. Once a woman came to our patrol base to ask for medical care for her three-year-old son. He had burns over 30 percent of his body from spilled hot cooking oil, yet she didn’t want to go to the FOB, where medical care was available, with our soldiers. Never mind that her child might die—she was too scared to be seen in a Humvee. Another time, a man reported that 20 people had been kidnapped and buried alive. We investigated and found nothing, then sent the Iraqi police, who found the bodies. On the drive back, they were ambushed by terrorists and fought an hour-and-a-half gun battle.

I can’t say that I was particularly surprised. People in any country have the same capacity for good and evil. It’s what makes us human. When the average Iraqi doesn’t provide information about the terrorists, it is frustrating. Then again, who reports a gang-related shooting in Los Angeles or Newark or Detroit?

Page | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >>