FOB SHIELD TRIP

During my trip to Qatar in May, I met a Marine Corps officer named Major Gary De Wet. He told me I should visit the base he lived on to see how the base protected itself from the hostility that surrounded it in East Baghdad. Maj De Wet was the "Mayor" of FOB (forward operating base) Shield. That meant that he was in charge of all base operations, including security. It also meant that he would be a great host. I had arranged to take a short trip there with a friend of mine, a Navy officer named Mark Radlinski.

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Wedesday, 21 June 2006

Forward Operating Base Shield, Baghdad, Iraq

The Martyr's Monument sits in a large expanse of cleared out fields and parks in east Baghdad. It is a huge structure, the color of dark and gleaming turquoise, looks like spade-shaped shell that has been parted down the middle and split apart. I could see it from the helicopter, and it seemed like we were about to fly right over it. But instead, we banked right, and began to slow down, approaching a cracked cement landing pad in a compound to our right. A field of tall reeds blew around in the rotor wash as we settled down onto the pad, passing just over a line of cement "t-wall" barriers, and just between two sandbagged guard towers. We dragged our things from the helicopter. Mark and I both had our field packs with us. I also had a bag for my laptop and books. We each carried two ammo cans full of 5.56mm ammuntion that we were delivering to Major De Wet for his guard force to use.

After the helicopters took off, an armored Suburban that had been waiting for us drove across the pad. The driver was a South African guy named Andre that worked for EODT, the civilian company that had been hired to run security on the base. He was lean, fit, and tanned; in his early 40's. He wore a Marine Corps boonie hat, and had a full goatee without a mustache. He drove us from the helicopter pad and into FOB Shield. The FOB is a heavily guarded compound that sits near several high-visibility government sites, including: a prison full of inmates (some on death row), the Ministry of the Interior, the Baghdad Police College, the Ministry of Oil, and the Ministry of Water.

FOB Shield is very small, and is packed with vehicles, trailers, small concrete buildings, sandbags, dirt-filled HESCO barriers, and T-walls. We pulled up to a small building that housed the Operations Center and the Mayor's cell, where Maj De Wet worked. When we walked in, he was busy talking to an irate Army Colonel. The colonel was apparently pissed off that he didn't have his own gate that would allow himself and his team to drive onto the FOB from the Ministry of the Interior area. The colonel felt (as many colonels in Iraq do) that his mission was a very high priority for the generals in Iraq, and so his time was very valuable. Maj De Wet ended up winning the argument, but it took a couple of other colonels getting involved. Providing good security to an installation is often a battle in Iraq, because a lot of military personnel want exceptions to be made when it comes to themselves. Force protection is inconvenient for them. But the people that provide the protection have a greater responsibility, and they must consider worst case scenarios. So they usually win arguments.

When the colonel finally left, Maj De Wet was able to meet with us. He showed us where we were at on the overhead photos on the wall, and explained to us how the base was laid out. Today was obviously going to be a busy day for him, and we almost felt as if we were imposing, dropping in as we were. But in the end, in a combat zone, helping hands are always needed, and so it was just a matter of finding a way for us to contribute. Mark and I were not clueless spring chickens; we were both competent men that were anxious for adventure. It would have been easy for Maj De Wet to pawn us off on someone, or tell us that it was a busy time, and that we should just go find things to do. (In fact, we could have done that and been perfectly happy.) But as I've mentioned many times in this journal already, Marines simply do not treat each other that way, especially in a far-off land, or a war zone like Iraq. We take very good care of each other. Even though the Major had much to do, he made sure we were taken care of. It was a simple coincidence that Maj De Wet was half South African, and about half of the EODT guys on FOB Shield were South African. But that's the way it was, and it sure as shit worked to our advantage. These guys were the coolest and most professional contractors you could ever expect to meet.

After we had shot the shit for a couple of hours, we decided to go eat lunch. I really don't know how USMC chow halls in the US will ever be the same. We go to Iraq, and the food is absolutely insane. FOB Shield had the reputation as having the best chow hall in Baghdad. I suppose the reason is that much of their food had to be prepared fresh. Indeed, the food was at least twice as good as anything I had eaten in Iraq up to that point. We sat at one of the long chow hall tables. I ate leg after leg of King Crab, tearing up my fingers, rubbing my skin raw and broken on the the thick crab shell as I tried to break it. I had a couple of cups of coffee, preparing to battle the 1 o'clock heat. We left the chow hall and began knocking on doors in a section of the camp that some National Police Training Team (NPTT) worked in. These are teams of Americans that are attached to the Iraqi National Police. Part of my job is to find ways to support them in the field. Eventually we found our way to the office of the NPTTs' headquarters. It was a small office of 5 or 6 desks. Maps lined the walls. At the end of the office was a huge picture map of Baghdad, which took up the entire wall. We spent two hours talking to the members of the NPTTs about support and training issues they were having in the field. About half way through our interviews, a couple of NPTT members came into the office to talk to their team leader. One of the team leaders, a Lt. Colonel, apologized to us for not having time to talk just that minute. Some intelligence had just come in. An interview had just been completed with an Iraqi that said he knew the whereabouts of two US soldiers that had been missing for the last several days. He said the soldiers were dead. These two soldiers had been kidnapped during an attack on their checkpoint in southwestern Baghdad. The soldiers' story was all over the US news at that point. And we were there in the room when the intelligence came in that would lead to the soldiers' location. Sure enough, that evening, the news reported that the missing soldiers' bodies had been found. Our trip was already shaping up into an interesting one.

Earlier in the day, while we were sitting in Maj de Wet's office, he started introducing several of EODT's security staff to us. The site manager, Casper, worked in the mayor cell office, sitting opposite Maj de Wet and his Marine First Sergeant, 1stSgt Crespo. Casper was a huge man. A former professional rugby player, his ears still bore the scars of his playing days. They had been rubbed and flattened until they pressed up against his head, shiny with the repetitive scarring. He was gruff looking, though he was pleasant enough. The South Africans we would meet during the trip all had accents that were somewhat different from each other. Casper was the hardest of them to understand. I suppose it's because I'm not used to an Afrikaans accent, but I'd estimated I understood about 60% of the words that came out of his mouth. Another South African EODT worker, Stephen, came into the office that morning. He walked into the room, sweating from the hard work of his morning routine, checking on gates and guard posts, climbing stairs in the building summer heat of Baghdad. Since Maj de Wet was going to be busy for much of the day, Stephen offered to take us out to the range to shoot some weapons. "Definitely," we said. Just before we left for the range, we stopped in to talk to the USMC NPTT team leader, Maj Greeno. Maj Greeno was a very personable guy that was more than happy to talk to us about support and training issues with his team. But we told him we would stop by later, since we were about to go to the range. "No problem," he said, and he had his Ops Officer, Lt Carter, go grab a weapon for us to shoot. It was a Pakistani copy of the famous South African rifle, the G-3. We walked across a small courtyard and met up with Stephen and his Filipino sidekick, Roberto. We started stacking weapons in the back of Stephen's pickup. A PKM, a Dragonov sniper rifle, an RPK, one standard AK-47, a modified snub-nosed AK, and a SAW with a thermal scope. We climbed into the truck, slammed the doors, and headed out the gate toward the 100-meter range, practically dizzy with glee.

First we practiced with our 9mm pistols. We shot a magazine at a small target to warm up. Then we practiced quick fire drills at close range, keeping the weapons in tight to our bodies, the way I had learned a couple of years before at The Crucible in Virginia. The drills are somewhat uncomfortable at first, since most USMC pistol firing is done when you're qualifying, with the pistol far out in front of your body as you line up the sights. But after a few rounds of drills, shooting the pistol while it is close up against your body feels more natural, and certainly more rational. Then we backed up to the 100 meter line to begin firing the rifles. The first rifle we shot was the Dragonov. Roberto blew up two sets of three balloons, and tied them to a string. Then he took them downrange and tied the string to the back of the targets. As I looked downrange at my targets I could see my balloons blowing around in the wind. One balloon was blue, and the other two were yellow. "The idea," said Stephen, "is to hit the blue balloon, and not the yellow ones." This was no easy task, as the balloons were bouncing around in the wind, hiding themselves behind the target face, and then showing themselves , yet turning and twisting, so that the blue balloon was difficult to see and hit. Now and then the balloons would stop, motionless for a second, and long enough to take a shot. It was really like what a sniper would see in his scope as he waited to get a good shot on a moving target. I looked downrange through the scope and tried to set up my sight picture. Stephen showed me how to get into a proper sniper prone position, with my arms forming a sturdy triangle. The buttstock of the weapon was in my right shoulder, my right hand on the trigger. Then I used my left hand to cradle the buttstock as it pressed against my shoulder, letting the rifle rest in the crook of my hand, between my thumb and index finger. In this way, if I wanted to raise the end of the rifle, I could just spread my elbows. If I wanted to lower the weapon, I would close my elbows in tighter. I waited until the balloons stopped moving and took a shot. Miss. It turned out that I was putting the sights of the scope below the target, instead of on the target. Once I figured out the correct part of the scope picture onto the target, I took another shot. A ballon exploded. Unfortunately, my target twisted a bit while the round was in the air, and I took out a poor innocent yellow balloon. This time, I waited until the balloons stopped moving for a full second, and I pulled the trigger. The blue balloon was no more. The problem is, of course, that snipers are supposed to get "one shot, one kill." Well the accuracy of the weapon was impressive, though I would have had to work with the weapon for awhile until I could set the scope properly to fit my eyes. It was a scary thought that many of these weapons were out there in Iraq, and that in the hands of capable shooters, many soldiers and Marines were being killed.

We spent the next hour or so firing the rest of the weapons. The most impressive weapon was the PKM, a 7.62mm medium machine gun that was loud and packed a heavy punch. While the US 5.56mm weapons were meant to seriously wound someone with each shot, causing pain and screaming that would bring down enemy morale along with enemy deaths, the 7.62mm weapons the Soviets developed were meant to stop people dead in their tracks, literally. Firing the PKM, you could feel its raw power as the weapon pounded against your shoulder with each recoil. These weapons, too, were out there in Iraq in disturbing numbers. Another weapon was the Pakistani copy of the South African G-3. Also a 7.62mm weapon, it was unkind to both my ears and my shoulder. However, the sheer power of the weapon made me prefer it over the M-16 or M-4 in a close-in fight. Next, we shot the SAW with the thermal scope. We poured some water into an MRE heater, and Roberto took it downrange and stapled it to a target. The thermal scope was large and cumbersome on top of the SAW. But at night, in a static defense or in a guard tower, it would be worth its weight in gold. When you put your eye up to the reticle and applied pressure, the scope display turned on. The hotter elements of your picture could either be displayed in black or in white. I preferred black, as it stood out against the white tic-marks in the reticle. Once you had an object in your sights, you could zoom in. The stability of the bipod made it easy to fire 8-10 round bursts at the target. The whole picture in the scope looked like the infrared videos from the gun sights of jets or helicopters when they were blowing things up. Behind the target I could see the ricochets of the rounds and the heat in the dirt from the impacts. The final weapon of the day was the shortened AK-47. The barrel of this weapon was too short for efficient firing, as the powder in each round did not get completely burned up. This made fire shoot from the end of the barrel as the round exited. The sound when it fired was deep and gutteral, and the excess powder made the weapon keep jamming. Stephen was experimenting with it, trying to get it to work better. I wouldn't trust it to shoot more than a couple of rounds. Pretty much worthless as weapons go, though it looked pretty cool. At around 1730, we were finished firing, and we cleaned up the range. It was a great day, and we had taken some great pictures. No matter what happened for the rest of the trip, it was already a success in my book.

After dinner, Mark and I stopped in at the Marine NPTT team's office. It was a small room across the courtyard from the Mayor Cell. There were a few desks with computers and a few large maps of the AO up on the wall. One wall had pictures of naked women up on it. To me it was a welcome sign that some things were right in the world. Men at war should not be censored. Attached to the main room there were two store rooms that held the teams' gear and weapons. We knocked on the door, and someone yelled at us to come in. Lt Carter sat at his desk in PT gear, chewing tobacco and working on his computer. When we asked Lt Carter if Maj Greeno was around, he said, "No, he's getting some rest, because we're going out tonight." "Oh," I said, "you're going out tonight?" Lt Carter took one look at Mark and I, and then said, "Yes, you can go out with us." That's the thing with Marines. I didn't even have to ask him. He knew that another Marine would want to go outside the wire. He just assumed that we would want to go and get a first hand look at what his team was doing in the field. Trying to contain our excitement, we asked him what we needed to bring and what time we should show up. He gave us each a chem light, and told us to tape it up and attach it to the front of our flak jackets. Then he said to show up at 2300.

Mark and I headed back to our rooms to prepare for the mission. Even though it was to be our first combat mission in Iraq, years of training told us exactly what needed to be done. Ideally, since I was already going on only four hours' sleep, I should get a good 45 minutes of rest. But there was no way I could have done that. I was too excited. Besides, shooting at the range that day had left my pistol dirty. And anymore than a day or two in this enviornment without cleaning your rifle and magazines leaves them useless... or at least, you are taking the chance that the weapon won't fire at a critical moment. Take care of your weapon, and it will take care of you. I went back into my room. First, I organized all of the gear that I would need for that night. It was just like my brother and I used to do before a baseball game when we were kids. We would lay out our uniform, cleats, batting gloves, and equipment. Looking back now, it's almost as though we were doing it because of its similarity to a military man going to battle. And now here I was many years later doing it for real, yet thinking back to how I used to lay my stuff out for baseball games. I had already prepared my flak jacket and helmet the way I liked them, and had field tested them while I was at the shooting range. But I emptied out the pockets so that I could make sure the ammunition was ready to go. Maj de Wet had given me an extra bag of gear, with some more 5.56 magazines, some smoke grenades, and a flashlight. I decided I didn't want to wear the bag, which fixed on my right thigh, because I wasn't used to it. I stuck the flashlight in one of my 9mm magazine pouches, replacing the Gerber multi-tool that I had in there. I didn't figure that I'd need to tighten any screws that evening. And if I needed to cut anything or stab someone, I had my trusty Ka-bar knife. Likewise, I decided to leave the smoke grenades, since we would be out in the darkness, and the Marines surely had everything they needed. Laying out everything on the bed, I had my flak and helmet, with first-aid pack. A pair of thick glasses, in case my contact lenses went tits-up on me. The flashlight. Eight magazines of 5.56, two magazines of 9mm, three 40mm HEDP rounds for my grenade launcher, a chem light, orange ballistic glasses, and my Ka-bar. The gear was laid out, and I had everything I needed. So I grabbed my weapon cleaning kit and headed to Mark's room. For the next hour, we meticulously cleaned our weapons, taking care to get rid of every speck of dirt and dust inside the weapon. I removed all of my 9mm rounds and wiped each one down. I took the magazines apart and cleaned their insides, even wiping the springs down. When I loaded them up again, they were as good as new. Placing a magazine into the pistol, I didn't hear the scrape of dust... just the clean metalic sound of death entering its launching chamber. Like the start of a 90's rap song. It was 2230, and we needed to be at the vehicles in a half an hour. I went to my room to suit up. At 2250 I met Mark out in the hall. Our gear was on tight, and we had everything we needed. When we reached the vehicles, the Marines already had them running, and were performing their weapons and equipment checks. A couple of the Marines didn't recognize us; thought that maybe we were in the wrong place. We asked for Lt Carter, and told them that we were riding along with them that evening. Lt Carter came over and told us we could just throw our gear on one of the truck's hoods, since we wouldn't be leaving for a half hour or so. Then he went over some of their team's SOPs. He said that if we had to exit the vehicles to fight, we should break our chem lights open and have a buddy stick it into the back of our flak jackets. The chem lights were taped up except for a small slit in the middle. This would be enough light to let our buddies knew where we were in the darkness. He told us that the mission for the evening was to stop by seven Iraqi police checkpoints to check on the Iraqi police units. There was a curfew at night, and it should be fairly quiet. I would be riding with Major Greeno, and Mark would ride with Lt Carter. Pretty straightforward, really. We were allowed to protect ourselves in accordance with the rules of engagement... as long as we could make a positive ID of the target we were shooting at. We had no questions, so we hung out by the vehicles as the Marines finished checking on their equipment.

At about 2320, Major Greeno called the Marines into a circle. There were 13 of them, including one Navy Corpsman. Mark and I made it 15 in all. Major Greeno let everyone know that we would be along tonight, and then he turned the floor over to Lt Carter. Lt Carter went over the route we would be taken. He listed the names of the streets we would use. One of the routes was, until recently, known as "EFP Alley," for the high number of EFP attacks that had occured along it. EFP's are a very deadly type of roadside bomb that sends a semi-molten copper rod through any type of armor we have. It enters vehicles and slaughters the occupants. Any smart soldier in Baghdad is afraid of them. You have to be to survive them. The Marines faces were lit up by the dim amber street lights around the FOB's parking lot. He didn't need to break out a map, since all of the Marines knew their AO by heart. When he finished his brief, the Marines started making final preparations. Mark ran into his sponsor brother from the Naval Academy, who was the comm officer for the team. Small war. As they took a minute or two to catch up, Major Greeno took down my social security number and blood type. He let me know that everyone's information was in their left shoulder pocket. So I stuck my ID in there too. He said the only thing that was standard for the team was the first aid pouch on team members left front side. This would allow someone to quickly access medical gear in the event of a casualty, when time is critical. The rest of the team members' gear was left to personal preference. Finally, he told me that each vehicle had a medical bag on the left side behind the back passenger seat, and showed me where the extra ammunition was in his vehicle. It was almost 2330. The Marines were putting on their flak jackets and helmets. I grabbed mine from our vehicle hood. When I had put everything on, the last step was to "lock and load." I chambered a round in my M-4, and then my M-9 pistol. I climbed into the truck and slammed the door. Major Greeno did a comm check with the other vehicles. It took about 10 seconds, and then our vehicles took off down the road toward the gate.


Next entry:

Our First Mission

DECEMBER UPDATE

Hello, everyone. Over the past few months I've been busier than I have been in a long time. I have a million pictures and stories, but really haven't had time to update this blog or even write emails. As time permits, though, I will begin updating my blog with pictures and entries. My MySpace page is www.myspace.com/kangrongli. You can go there to see more pictures. I hope everyone is doing well. I've been here 9 months and I've got three to go. I really enjoy reading your emails... I read them all, though I'm not always able to respond. Please keep them coming.

June Trip to Marine Country

A few months ago I took a trip into the area west of Baghdad. It’s an area that is controlled by the Marine Corps. My mission was to find some equipment that my unit in Taji needed, and ship it to back to us. I was pretty excited to be taking a trip out to where the Marines were. I packed my bags and headed for the helo pad. Most of the business was to be conducted at a Marine base called Camp Taqqadum. It is only about 30 km west of my base, but our helicopter had to make several stops in and around Baghdad first.
As we flew over the eastern and then southern outskirts of the city, I couldn’t help but marvel at what a lively and interesting place it was. Two and three-story concrete houses the color of earth. Walls and courtyards on the rooftops with chairs and tea tables and drying clothes. Running kids carrying soccer balls and pointing at us. Men looking at cars, learning to be home mechanics. Winding markets shaded by colored tarps. Stalls and corners stuffed with vases and rugs and housewares. A place full of vigor, commerce, and life… and a place full of lurking death. Around the corner from the market—a martyr; a car trunk full of primed explosives and the wait for the sweating push of a button. Plastic explosives… Semtex, packed with metal bolts and shards of glass, coiled back to unleash a torrent of guts and limbs and women’s cries. Preparing to sever dreams and pour blood into children’s memories.
Baghdad below me was a dirty place, but it was so different, and alive with exoticism and history. I wished that I could go down from the air and experience it as it was meant to be—free of flying metal. Free of killers on the corners; devoid of things that would forever separate me from my loved ones. Free of families making their last walk in a market. Free of the price of searching for freedom. I looked down at the passing buildings and streets and the blurry swishes of striped awnings. And I thought to myself that in my entire life, I might never be able to walk safe and free in Baghdad. Maybe nobody would, not even Iraqis. We banked right, and headed into the blistering sun and toward the western deserts, shaking and swerving in the hot wind. I was sitting in a target. It was black and winged and poisonous. Elements of the beautiful culture below were flinging a death wish at me through the air.

After spending a few days at Camp Taqqadum (“TQ”), near the banks of Lake Habbaniyah (about 40 km west of Baghdad), I had to fly over to Ramadi to take care of some more business. Ramadi is a city on the brink of disaster. Not much of the city is considered under our “control.” If anything, just one main road that runs straight through the middle. The rest of it is chaos. But before we went to Ramadi, I had a buddy of mine that works at the TQ air terminal list me and the guy I was traveling with as "high priority" passengers, and we flew from TQ to Camp Fallujah. The battle for Fallujah in 2004 will one day be remembered as one of the Marine Corps' famous battles. A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to get the chance to walk the ground of another sacred Marine battleground in Vietnam, in Khe Sahn. But I didn't know if future Marines would ever be able to safely walk in Fallujah. So I felt lucky to be going near the place where those Marines fought.

At TQ we parked our humvee and trailer in a dirt lot near the airfield tower, locked it, and grabbed our gear. A sergeant checked off our names, and we were led off into the growing darkness. We stood on a row of glowing chem lights, at the edge of a vast sea of red, blue, and green runway lights. A few minutes later the two long CH-46 twin-rotor helicopters set down in front of us, and the Marines waved us onto the "frogs" with their chem lights. (The helicopters look like a sitting frog when you look at them head-on.) As we sat down and buckled our belts, a detainee (suspected insurgent) was led on to the helicopter by his escort. He was a big man, almost ape-like, with his large, rough, and dark hands flexicuffed in front of him. From his cuffed hands dangled a plastic bag full of what looked like white clothing. His eyes were covered with a red blindfold and he wore a heavy orange prison-style jumpsuit. As we took off, I could see his sillhouette in the porthole window directly across from me. Beyond his thick, almost frizzy hair, I could see the greenish lights of Habbaniyah begin to pass right to left in the window. For a moment, I thought he seemed restless, nearly like someone with Parkinson's. Then I realized he was praying. "How great is Allah now?" I couldn't help but think. I began to wonder if he had planted any IEDs that killed Marines. Irrationally, I wondered what would happen if I smashed him in the face with the bottom of my rifle. I wondered which of the Marines and soldiers around me would restrain me. Then I wondered what he must be thinking. Blindfolded as he was, did he even know he was being put on a helicopter? Was it his first ride? Had he ever shot his AK-47 at a passing helicopter? Not a minute later I heard a THUNCK! behind me. I looked behind men but didn't see anything. Some civilians that were sitting across from me later told me that they had seen some sparks outside the windows. They thought that someone had shot at us, but I told them it was just the helicopter shooting off some flares.

We landed at Fallujah after a short flight. We waited in the dark of the parking lot, talking to a couple of contractors that were involved in the installation of a new system to protect vehicles from Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). We had been told that a bus would come to take us to transient billeting--basically, a place to sleep for people that are just passing through. It wasn't until a Marine Captain happened to pass by and offer us a ride that we discovered there was no such thing as "transient billeting." The Captain, whose name was Eli, told us that he had been stranded at the airfield enough times to offer rides to people he saw standing out there. He drove us into the center of the base, taking the time to drive around a little bit and orient us to where everything was located. Finally, he took us to some tents that his unit controlled so that we had a place to stay. As long as I live, and no matter how good Marines become at conquering and killing, it will always be the little things Marines do for each other in far off places of the world that defines "semper fidelis" for me. Always faithful.

We spent a day in Fallujah, and I had the chance to hook up with a good buddy, Brian. He and I had spent the last few years together in Monterey in grad school and language school. Then we had traveled together quite a bit in Asia. We had often joked--(once, I remember, while drinking beer in Hong Kong)--that the next time we would see each other would be in Iraq. Since I was close to Fallujah and I was in charge of the travel schedule, we had stopped in Fallujah so that I could see some of my Marines from Okinawa, and hopefully get the chance to see Brian for a minute. As luck would have it, his company had the day off; they were preparing to move to another area of operations, and would be leaving soon. Brian had to go to a meeting, but we had the chance to shoot the shit for an hour or so. After that, we went over to where the Marines from my company were working. We sat around and talked for awhile and then took some pictures.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. I spent a few days at a base near Ramadi--one of the shitholes of Iraq. After my business there was taken care of, I waited late into the night to get a "space available" flight back to my base. The soldier that was with me on my trip had already flown back to Taji, and I was alone. First I had to fly back to TQ, and then I waited to board a flight that was going to Taji. I waited for the flight in the pilots' ready room. It was a room with maps and couches and televisions. The walls had the latest intelligence reports posted on them. I sat on a couch and had some beef stew from a vat that was delivered to the ready room from the chow hall. As I waited, a started talking to a Marine lieutenant. After a few minutes, we realized we knew eachother from the Naval Academy. He had been one of the freshmen from my company there when I was a senior. Small world, small war. When I finally borded the helicopter for the trip home, the Marine pilots helped me load my gear into the bird. Ten minutes later we headed out. Before going to Taji, though, we had to stop in Ramadi again. To get there we flew low over Lake Habbaniyah. About ten days earlier, two Marines had died in the lake when their helicopter crashed into it. I thought about those Marines as we flew over the exact spot they had disappeared. The moonlight was bluish and bright on the surface of the lake. In the black swirls of water below, I lost the sense of depth and distance. Are we close or far from the water? Either could be either, really. I suppose the pilots flew by their instruments, but in the darkness I was clueless about our altitude. The ring of lights of Ramadi around the lake were the only thing that anchored the lake to the earth and the sky to the lake. Ring of Ramadi. Ring of evil. Maybe the worst city in Iraq. City of green and amber and darkness and blue. Creeping cars. Unexplained explosions. Deceptive peace. Really... a city whose monsters overwhelm its children and simple people that just want to live in peace. We flew late into the night, at maybe three or four AM, enjoying the insurgents’ preponderance of laziness. I was exhausted, and I started dozing off. As I fell asleep, visions from the pilots' ready room were in my head. Maps of Ramadi and the surrounding area; grainy green photos above airfields the pilots used to recognize landing pads--POWERLINES, 15-FT! A map showing where helicopters had taken small arms fire or seen shots fired at the aircraft. The area of Ramadi and Fallujah was covered in red and yellow dots. But the chances of a bullet somehow finding its way through the night and into our shaking helicopter or into my shaking body seemed astronomically low... and so I fell asleep. An hour later I was back in Taji, just as the sun was getting ready to rise.

TRIP TO QATAR

Not long ago, I took a trip to Qatar to attend an anti-terrorism course. Qatar is also the place where the military sends troops on 4-day R&R (“rest and relaxation”) trips. For a couple of years now, the military in Iraq has been sending troops down there to take a break from the rigors of life in a combat zone. So when I was told I was being sent to Doha, Qatar, I didn’t complain.

I hopped on a helicopter to Baghdad to spend the night, and the next day I boarded a huge C-5 Galaxy troop transport plane and flew to Qatar. As I was quickly finding out, however, nothing in this part of the world happens the way it is supposed to. The 2-hour plane trip I envisioned when I pulled out a map turned into nearly a 12-hour ride, full of delays, mechanical breakdowns, and stiff-necked cat-naps in the hot plane.

Finally we touched down early on a Sunday morning at the airbase in Doha. I was so exhausted from the trip that everything seemed blurry. I checked in my pistol at the airport, and waited around with the other soldiers and Marines for our ride. It was about 4 in the morning. Some guys crashed on the benches like vagrants. For me, it was a standard coffee scenario. Gradually the world clarified itself, and I began to chat with some of the other guys. They were from all over Iraq, and most of them were in charge of base security and force protection, like I was. Eventually we were picked up by a couple soldiers driving Toyota Landcruisers. It was just barely getting light out by the time we careened onto the freeway that stretched between the airbase and the base that our classes would be held at. The soldiers drove down the road like maniacs into the rising sun. Partly because they could, and partly because that's how you drive on a freeway in Doha. It took about 20 minutes to get to the other base. The security at the base was extremely tight, so it took us a little while before we finally got into the base and checked into our barracks room.

We would be living in a large warehouse for the week. Inside the warehouse are row after row of buildings and trailers that are full of barracks rooms. The rooms are large, and lined with bunk beds on both sides. I pulled my two bags into the room. It was already full of snoring soldiers and Marines that had pulled in several hours before us. As any military guy knows, that means that all of the good beds are gone. So I found an empty top bunk, kicked off my boots, and slept deeply for 10 hours.

That afternoon, I took a shower and changed into shorts and a t-shirt. I took a long walk around the base. It was still hotter than hell outside; much hotter than in Iraq in May. In Qatar it was already 120. The base actually didn’t have much more than some of the big bases in Iraq. There was a Burger King, a large PX (a glorified convenience store), and bunch of recreation centers. Granted, the stuff in Qatar was nicer. The pool had a Chili’s restaurant next to it. The gym served smoothies. It was a nice place to hang out for a couple of days. But in reality, the only tangible thing that separated it from Iraq was that you could drink beer there. Three beers a day. Just enough beer to make you wish you could drink another one and be pissed off that you couldn’t.

That night I wrote in my journal:

On an intellectual level I understand the appeal of this place. But in reality the only appeal is 3 beers a day. A barren desert. Oil wells and mirrored buildings. Mercedes Benzes. Tacky sunglasses. Huge U.S. bases, double fences, coiled razor wire, ditches, trenches, thickly veined contractors’ arms, tacky sunglasses, and mirrors under your car. Soldiers and sailors. Four days of rest. Do-rags, earrings, halter tops, condoms in the PX but no place to go. Join the Navy and see the desert. Wear cool sunglasses. It’s not just a job, it’s like being a choir boy. (Oh, and you also might die a very violent death.) But sorry, no more than three beers, please. We wouldn’t want to offend the people that we’re paying gazillions of dollars to here, now would we? And we certainly wouldn’t want the soldiers to have too much fun.

During the Vietnam War, soldiers could take R&R in Bangkok, or even Saigon, for that matter. Well Doha is this war's Saigon. And let me tell you, Doha... I've been to Saigon. I've walked and drank beer in Saigon. Saigon was a friend of mine. You, Doha, are no Saigon.

If soldiers go to Qatar on R&R, they have the chance to take a fishing trip or a tour of the souks (markets). But since the group I was in was taking a class, we weren’t able to go into town at all. It was a really raw deal. I’ve been in countries that are far more dangerous than Qatar, yet I was told I needed an escort to go into town. I suppose, in the end, I could have found a way out there, but since I was in class most of the day, it really wasn’t worth the effort. If I go back there again while I’m in Iraq, I’ll certainly go out there. I just want to get a few souvenirs—maybe some local handicrafts. Buying souvenirs from the bazaar on base is like buying trinkets at an airport and acting like you’ve been to the city. Having an “I Heart NY” coffee cup you got at Kennedy Airport doesn’t make you a world traveler. Anyway, it seems that most of the crap on the bases in Iraq and in the Middle East is all made in Pakistan or Turkey. The same stuff I saw in Western China. Stuffed camels. Ugly dolls. Wooden Harley Davidson motorcycles. As I said, crap. I can’t believe people put some of these things in their houses. What do you do with a big plastic palm tree on a plate that says “Doha, Qatar” on it? With no sites to see, I mostly just lifted weights and then hung out with a few of the Marines that were taking the classes with me. We played pool, shot the shit, threw darts. Nursed our three beers. If you’ve managed to dehydrate yourself enough, three 16.5 oz beers is enough to make you fall asleep quickly at night while you’re reading in the dark.

* * *

We get used to our surroundings in Iraq. Sometimes things that seem interesting to folks back home don’t even get a second glance from us. But I am trying to stay alert; trying to record things in my head that I can remember later on. Remember to tell my Marines when I get home. Remember to tell my children. And I suppose I need to start writing these things down. These stories. I’ve always been a reader. I’ve always loved war stories. Even before coming into the Marine Corps, I read things like The Things They Carried or With the Old Breed. I know already what all men that have gone to war know—namely, that war, when boiled down to the hard truth on the ground, is nothing more than the slaughter of young men in the prime of their youth. Some of them, before they’ve even had a girlfriend. Before they’ve even done things in life that they will regret. Some of them, with a wife and young children. But now I’m here in the middle of it. Hearing young men tell you about the dangers they face every day, you’d think that it’s just a part of their job; something they have to put up with, like the long commute into San Francisco. But I guess it’s just the way we deal with it—mortician’s humor. Some of it is also the fact that by talking about it, we teach others. We keep ourselves aware. In the end, it’s a survival mechanism.

But telling the stories is important. Some day when I’m old and full of sleep, the war will be a distant memory. I don’t want what happened here to be forgotten. I don’t want it to be a footnote. So I’m going to start to write down the things that I hear. A lot of it is ugly. But it’s true.

One night I saw a couple of young military guys in the pool hall on the base walking toward me. At first I thought they were drunk, but they were actually just horsing around while they were walking. Just being kids. One of them saw me with my USMC shirt on, and they walked up to me and asked if I was a Marine. “Yes,” I said. I told them where I was stationed. One was an Air Force kid; one was a Marine from 3/5. He had been wounded by an IED strike (basically, a hidden bomb on the roadside) about two weeks before. He only had been hit in the arm, but he had been sent to Qatar to recuperate. He was so happy to see another Marine. Just a young kid, maybe 19, but he looked much younger to me. Skinny kid. A killer. He told me that before the IED hit, he had had a sick feeling in his stomach. “I’ve been on all kinds of convoys, Sir, but I never felt like that before. They had me in the back of the highback HMMWV. It was dark out, and I was tired, riding in the back.” He paused and shook his head, looking me straight in the eye. “I just pressed myself up against the back of the vehicle. I don’t know what it was, Sir… I just knew something was going to happen that night. When it blew up, I had fallen asleep. Right away I knew what happened. There was just smoke and dust everywhere. Luckily nobody got really hurt. But for a minute, I was just wondering if I was OK. It was a lot of confusion.” I looked down at the bandages on his skinny but strong and veiny arm. “Just an arm wound, Sir. But all I could think about right after the blast was my wife and 5-month old son.”
Many of you back home think that the people fighting this war are hardened men; strong and determined soldiers with lines on their faces. In the pictures, they are gritty and tired and dirty. Smoking cigarettes and turning wrenches. Get that GI Joe and Hollywood crap out of your head. As I watched that young Marine walk off to buy an ice cream and sign up for a fishing trip the next day, I saw what I already knew and what I can tell you now: kids fight our wars. That’s not a judgment on this or any other war. Just an interesting fact that's as true now as it has always been.


I met a lot of good guys in Qatar. Since we shared the common culture of the Marine Corps, after a few days, it seemed like some of us had known each other for years. Our paths ran alongside each other for a few days, and then we all moved on, back to our piece of this war. Sometimes I look at old war photographs from World War II, and I stare at the faces of the men. I’ve always thought that they looked like such great guys. They’re smiling; joking. Hard-nosed Italian kids from NY. Carefree Californians. South Boston Irish toughies. I wonder if my kids will look at my old pictures and think the same thing. If they ever ask me about the guys I met over here, I’ll tell them, yes, the men in the pictures were good dudes. Many of them never came back from that desert, and we can’t ever forget it. I’ll say that they were the best men our country had in those years.

Getting Settled

These blogs are combed by the insurgents and their spineless “terror techies” around the globe for information about soldiers and bases in Iraq that will help the insurgents attack us. If you’ve never heard of a terror techie (I’m sure they have other names), just think Jordanian or Saudi male, 17 – 30 years old. Skinny with glasses. Erectile dysfunction. Wealthy family. Sits on the computer all day, telling people how to make bombs. Many of them have “jihad names” that translate into something like: Jimmy’s Father, from San Francisco. I know it sounds strange. You have to be a terrorist to understand it. I guess to them it sounds something like “The Terminator.” But anyway, they collect pictures that soldiers post on the internet and then send them to their terrorist pals. Well you are not going to see or read any of that stuff on my blog. All of those pictures will be posted when this war is over. Yes, that means a long time from now. So to all the terror techies, sitting there in front of the computer drinking your Coke, you’ll have to look somewhere else. Hey, here’s an idea: log off the net and come to Iraq, and I’ll show you what a real Marine ass kicking feels like.

Since that’s out of the way, I will just say that my job involves training the new Iraqi Army and police forces. Actually, I have several different jobs. The most important one involves antiterrorism and force protection (i.e., the protection of soldiers, civilian workers, and Iraqis). This involves coming up with a plan to defend our base with cement bunkers, security patrols, and various weapons. Of all of the 5 jobs I have now, it is the most fun, and the most “Marine-like.” I work with people from all four American services—Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. I also work with a whole bunch of US civilian contractors and civilians from other countries like Pakistan, the Philippines, and Bangladesh, and of course, Iraq. They are all good people that work very hard. You most certainly will not see pictures of my Iraqi friends on this website. From time to time, Iraqis that leave our base end up being killed because the bad guys find out that they work here. It is extremely sad when this happens. These people take incredible risks by coming to work here. To stay as safe as possible, they hardly ever go home. You will not see their pictures, but I will definitely tell you about them.

It is a cliché now that you can’t really understand what’s going on here unless you have actually been here. But unfortunately for you, it is true. Journalists give you a certain glimpse, but most people know that journalists have to take an angle when they present the news. That could be good. That could also mean they dissect the truth and arrange it in packages that taken by themselves are flat-out lies. A lot of them have a political agenda, though they may be in self-denial about it. Others want to sell papers or get promoted. Shit, maybe I have an angle, too. I don't know. But my aim here is just to call it as I see it. So at least you will have that. I want you to feel what it is like here, at least for a Marine Captain in this little part of the war. I am certainly not in heavy combat. I’m not kicking in doors or fighting for my life every day. But I do deal with the Iraqis quite a bit. And I have been getting around the battlefield to see what’s going on. So I hope that I’ll get the chance to write about some things that aren’t in the papers.

Life here on my base isn’t too bad. Not as cushy as on the American side of the base, but in many ways things here are better. I have my own small trailer that I share with another soldier. (We are completely separated, albeit by a paper-thin wall.) I have a small television and refrigerator in my room, and free internet service. The food here is pretty good. There is a gym. I really can’t ask for much more. Back in WWII the only way to contact your loved ones was by writing a letter. These took weeks to get the front lines. In Vietnam, same thing. But here in Iraq, I can use the web cam to talk to my kids. Though I've been gone three months, my two-year old son actually sort of knows who I am. (I don’t think he understands what a “Daddy” really is, though. To him, it is probably just the guy on the computer screen that makes funny faces... I'm "The Daddy Show.")

Well, I'm pretty much in a routine now. The days are long and hot and dusty here. The job is tedious. So every once in awhile, I get with some of the civilian contractors and other Marines, and we grab some guns and some ammunition, and we go shoot. It’s very manly, and very fun, and it keeps me from punching people in the face. So I like it. Enjoy the pictures.

Some Corner of a Foreign Field

April, 2006

Camp Taji

Just outside of the northwestern reaches of Baghdad there is a city called Taji. It’s a city that I know next to nothing about. Here’s what I’ve heard: for hundreds of years, Taji has been the place that Iraqis go to hide from the government.

It’s only 28 kilometers from the center of Baghdad. Grove after grove of date palms. Farms and mud huts near the banks of the Tigris. Multiple places to lay low. Plenty of people to hide you. Some that would turn you in, for the right price… or for no price at all. I guess it’s been that way for hundreds of years, and that’s the way it is now. In Taji, Sunni meets Shii, and right now that’s a recipe for disaster. And did I mention West meets East?


I live in a walled American city; a base, not surprisingly, called Camp Taji. The soldiers that serve here will some day, over beers at some VFW hall, say “Yeah, back in Iraq I served in Taji.” But most of them won’t mean “the Iraqi city of Taji.” Because most of them won’t leave the base. They’ll do their six months and then go home. Out there, the Iraqis have their Taji. This base is our Taji. The base here is divided into two parts that are separated by a sturdy barbed wire fence. One side is an “Iraqi Side”, home to thousands of Iraqi troops and the Americans that train and advise them. The other side is called the “Coalition Side.” (That’s a fancy name for “American Side.”) I happen to live on the Iraqi side. Some day the whole base will become an Iraqi Army base, as it was before we got here. But for now, it’s like East and West Germany. The American side has improved dirt roads and clean sidewalks. A movie theater. A Pizza Hut. A recreation center with pool tables and sodas. Bingo Night. Hip Hop Night. Salsa Night. Soldiers on the dance floor in their PT gear, trying to be the young kids they really are. A swimming pool. Basketball courts. Military police handing out speeding tickets. Then, when you pass through one of the gates that separates the two sides of the base, you are back in the third world again. The Iraqi Army guards wave you through after checking your ID, which they most certainly cannot read. I usually try to say a few words in Arabic to them, which they like. Their heads are often wrapped in a t-shirt or scarf, and they wear sunglasses. Not really to guard against the sun, but to guard against being marked by an informant as being in the Iraqi Army. Sometimes when Iraqi soldiers leave our base to visit their families, they don’t come back. Usually it is because they’ve been killed. Sometimes soldiers are killed soon after they leave the gate. The insurgents follow them and wait for a good place to shoot them.

After passing through the guard house and onto the Iraqi side of the base, you begin to hit potholes. Dusty streets. No speed limits. Terrible drivers. Iraqi soldiers hitchhiking rides to their barracks in the sweltering sun. Sewage ponds in parking lots. I live in a small compound on the Iraqi base; an island of America in the midst of their broken Iraqi buildings. The U.S. bombs all but demolished this place. Taji was once the home of the Republican Guard units that were charged with the defense of Baghdad. It was the home of tank factories, Scud plants, and special weapons research facilities—(“Chemical Ali” had a weapons lab here). It’s a huge base, and you never know what you might find if you start to drive around. There’s a huge dump of scrap metal, wood, and concrete. Random engines from Russian Migs, with titanium still gleaming underneath their rusted hulks. One day I wandered into the remnants of a driving school. I can only imagine what stories this place holds. Most of them will never be old. Today the base I live on is a place of contrasts. It is a dumping ground for thousands of blown up or rusted out Iraqi tanks, trunks, and artillery pieces. Yet it is also the home to a huge depot full of armored trucks and weapons that are building the new Iraqi Army. It isn’t strange for me to see a new “chocolate-chip” colored Iraqi Humvee speed down a road past a blown up Russian-made truck from a now long-gone era. And in the same way that many current Iraqi Army officers are former Republican guards or members of Saddam’s army, soldiers now roam the fields of junked out tanks to find parts for their newly refurbished ones. Things have come full circle for the Iraqis, though I’m not sure what that really means at this point.

Taji is my new home. When I got here in April of 2006, the war was still raging. And as I settled in for my first few nights in this place, I was sure that I would spend much time away from the war, a bit of time on the outskirts of it, and maybe some time right in the middle.

UPDATE

Dear family and friends--

It's been a really busy month for me. I've travelled to Qatar, Baghdad, and Balad, been given a laundry list of new duties, shot AK-47s, and done some some things that I'll tell my grandkids. I've been working from 6 in the morning until midnight for about three weeks straight.

Luckily, I've been able to keep my journal up, but I haven't been close enough to my computer in my room to type it out. I've got one more trip to Ramadi to do in the next few days. As time permits, I'll start posting the pictures and journal entries from the last month.

Well I hope all is well back in the world. Miss everyone... drop me a line now and then.

Ryan