Here things go from boring to real damn interesting in the blink of an eye. We got a frago last night, which is a mission order on short notice that we would be going up to Anbuhkia (not spelled correctly) to make contact with the local nationals to snoop around and see what the friendly situation was looking like. This village is one of the last Shia Muslim strongholds in the region and in return for our aid and protection they offer us valuable information on what kind of insurgent activity is going on. In keeping with my fine military training I promptly fell asleep as our convoy exited Warhorse just after 7 AM. I woke up maybe ten minutes later to the humvee swerving around a string of huge holes where deep buried IEDs had either recently been detonated or unluckily stumbled upon. It occurred to me briefly that this wasn’t a very safe place and I thought that it was kind of odd that only upon having seen the actual results of what an IED can do did I consciously make the connection that my job was not particularly normal or safe. I popped in a couple breakfast pistachios and made believe they were an order of French toast with a side of bacon.
As we rolled into the village we stopped and dismounted in front of a “school” where absolutely no education looked to be taking place. The chickens pecking the earth in the front courtyard looked happy enough so it wasn’t a total waste of space. The usual gaggle of underemployed onlookers clustered around the gate facing where our Captain and interpreter were talking to one of the town elders and one of them kept eying me with a confused crooked toothed grin. I’ve heard there is a good deal of inbreeding in this area because of the level of poverty and remoteness of the small villages and if that is true it certainly shows in the faces of some of the people we come in contact with. I haven’t figured out yet how a place can produce some of the most beautiful young women I’ve ever seen right along side with the most awkwardly homely vacant eyed males. I do know why they hide their daughters once they reach their early teens though.
After coming to the conclusion, with the aid of an almost empty stomach, that I’ve officially grown tired of Iraqi youth and the “hey mistah” game I took out some of my boredom and frustration on a group of boys that kept inching toward where I was standing. It’s nice that only having to slightly raise your voice and your rifle can get such an immediate and decisive response. Force speaks volumes in any language. Left alone again I drifted back into scanning mode and looked around at the different roof tops, walls and fields around me and considered how 30% casualty rates are an accepted reality of waging war in an urban environment. Then I thought about pistachios because they make me happy and I decided that life is like a pile pistachio shells on the top of my aid bag in a moving vehicle. Without my guiding hand there to constantly control my pile of life, it would slowly but inevitably scatter and fall into chaos. Luckily before I wandered too far down that little road we were called to hop back into the trucks and follow a man who had given us a lead to another part of town.
Another group of men trying to look important and about 45 minutes later we rolled out again further north to attempt to fix a dam that the locals told us was broken as a way to show we were thankful for the information and support. The Iraqi police said that a dishka (also not spelled correctly) had been sighted in that area as well so we’d be on the look out for that too. A dishka is a Russian .50 caliber anti-aircraft gun that the insurgents use as an anti-vehicle/personnel weapon. They usually mount them on the back of a light truck (bongo truck) so they are highly mobile and deadly in capable hands. Most of us thought this was going to be a wild goose chase as we drove and drove through fields of grass and tall weeds. I fell asleep again.
I woke up as we were turning left onto another dirt road. To our right was a small field and beyond that a cluster of buildings. Our platoon sergeant (who graduated from the same high school as me, oddly enough) said something over the com like “who’s taking contact?” and immediately the present and now had my full and undivided attention. The specialist in the .50 cal gun turret turned toward the buildings like putting on a pair of sunglasses as you step outside, I put my earplugs in. To our right I could hear Ak-47s popping off but I couldn’t see where it was coming from. I found out later that a group of Iraqi Police had accompanied us and had the unfortunate luck to have positioned themselves between our .50 cal’s and the incoming fire. Our whole convoy exploded with gunfire. Incoming rounds whizzed and popped over our truck as I readied new boxes of ammunition for the gun. Times like these seem to grant me the most singular clarity. I don’t feel fear or anxiety I just put my trust in the guys around me and focus on the task at hand which at the moment was getting the fuck out of the perfect L shaped ambush that we had rolled directly into.
Here’s what happened according all the different stories I’ve pieced together. As I was sitting in blissful unconsciousness we had driven through a small town. We figure people in the town alerted the insurgents that we were coming if it wasn’t already obvious enough by the huge plume of dust being kicked up by our convoy. They had set up in some previously dug out fighting positions and waited for us to come. The odd part about it is that once we were there we were taking contact from our right, left and front but the IP had walked diagonally through the field to our left without stirring up any trouble. The question remains unanswered but what is for certain is that the dishka in question did in fact appear directly in front of us and scared the shit out of the IP who made a hasty retreat on our left flank. I don’t really blame them. Their vehicles are unarmored and they usually don’t wear body armor. Our forward observer said that he saw one of them get cut almost in half by just one dishka round. I’d have run too. In fact that’s essentially just what we did.
We started rolling backwards towards the road we had turned off while still engaging to our front and right. There was a three story building with a hide emplaced on the roof where we thought some of the fire had been coming from so our gunner opened up on it. I never saw a single person from where I was sitting so all I could do was make sure a fresh box of ammo was ready when our gunner needed it and hope that he didn’t get it by one of the bullets that I could hear going by us. We eventually got our truck turned around and continued our retreat.
My driver turned around and said “OK, here’s the situation, Golf 1 has been hit in the arm so get ready, we’re going to go back to that small village and have you take a look at him.” I had no idea who Golf 1 was but it didn’t really matter at that point, it was one of my guys and I figured it was a gunners since they were the most exposed. I ran over a few scenarios of possible extremity injuries and how to treat them and hoped it was a relatively small 7.62mm round and not the .50 cal, which would have probably taken his whole arm off. The whole situation sucked and had one of our guys not gotten hit I would have loved to wait around and watch an Apache level the whole block but as it was I had other things to worry about. Looking back on it I think we did a lot of things wrong and though I’m glad more people didn’t get hurt it makes me mad that we just left and now that gun is still at large and that fighting position is still mostly intact.
Three IP ran in front of our truck and we slowed down so they could jump on our hood. One of them looked hurt but I couldn’t see and obvious wound from my seat and they looked to be holding on all right. They looked scared. I wondered what’s in it for them to do a job that makes them a combatant without an army. Once we got to the village I hoped out of the humvee and the casualty was brought to me. I’d put my gloves on en route so I went right to work accessing the situation. Adrenaline does amazing things to people. The soldier had put a tourniquet, a pressure dressing, and an ace wrap on himself and already completely stopped the arterial bleeding. He was alert and elated that he had had so many confirmed kills even after being hit. The wound already taken care of I made sure he didn’t have any head trauma and wasn’t going into shock and started an IV line with morphine to help with the pain I knew was going to come once he came down off his rush.
We put him in the truck with me and I had him tell me what happened partly to help keep his mind off the wound and partly because I really wanted to know. He told me that he had been engaging the bongo truck with the mounted dishka directly in front of his truck when the round went through his wrist and pulled his sleeve back. Our interpreter handed him the tourniquet and bandages he fixed himself, reloaded and went right back to firing on the dismounted enemies he had identified. These are the kinds of stories medals come from, from guys who are this country’s true warriors. I hope he gets recognized for doing a dangerous job so exceptionally well.
15 minutes into the ride back to Warhorse reality started to set in and he began to realize how badly his arm hurt. Tourniquets have an accumulative effect with pain, the longer they are on the more they hurt. All I could do was give him some more medication and hold his hand and talk to him about how nice it must be to be a war hero who gets to go home while the rest of us are stuck here. Aside from getting the Forrest Gump million dollar shot in the ass, the wrist is a pretty lucky wound. He could still feel his fingers and I saw him move them a little so he’ll more than likely make a full recovery. Right before we got to base it was starting to become difficult for him to do anything but grab my hand and repeat things like “wow, you have no idea how much this hurts.” I followed along with him to the aid station and into the OR where I gave all the important information pertaining to the wound and medication given to the doctor in charge. The chaplain was there to talk with him and help keep his spirits up but I doubt there was much anyone could say at that point to help as the doctors took his bandages off to put a hemostatic dressing on. His whole body shivered in agony and I held his legs has he tried his hardest not to scream through the oxygen mask over his mouth. Right then a 1st Sergeant told me my Platoon Sergeant was waiting for me so I said goodbye and that I’d keep the casualty’s stuff safe, grabbed my bag, and ran out the door to the humvee waiting for me. The mission always continues.
So I know now first hand that we have a lot of work to do here. Do I want to stay here? Hell no. Do I think pulling our troops out now would be a really bad idea? Definitely. There you have it, from the horse’s mouth. Not CNN or Fox News, no profit margins or motives involved. This place is messed up and we are the only thing keeping any sense of order. It’s all pretty sad really, knowing that I’m a part of the problem and the solution. We gave the militant Muslim movement it’s fuel and it’s martyrs, consolidated it’s forces, drew lines in the sand to instigate conflict, armed it and set it free on the world and now we sit here playing referee to an age old divide between Shia and Sunni, rich and poor, east and west and it blows. Sometimes I wish I could go back and put down all the books, turn off the TV and just believe that the world was a good place to wake up to where I could drink my cold sparkling apple juice and worry about things like making the teams even for the neighborhoods nightly game of cops and robbers. Before I had to play the cop for real and the pointed fingers turned into pointed rifles. You can’t ever go back, but pistachios can make a decent breakfast.
