Marc Lindemann

Week I: Eve of the Elections

A dense, implausible fog has blanketed my corner of the Kuwaiti desert.  Visibility is, at most, 50 feet.  As the mists rolled in, my soldiers and I talked about our expectations for tomorrow’s elections in Iraq.  After interim government elections in January and the October Constitutional Referendum, this is the third time this year that the Iraqis have participated in national elections.  There are reports that insurgent leaders have told their foot soldiers not to disrupt the polling places with violence.  It seems that they are watching the results with as much anticipation as we are.

My battalion has been in Kuwait for a week, unloading equipment from massive storage containers and getting ready for the push northward.  Electricity, phone service, and running water are often interrupted in our camp, but several months of field training at Fort Hood have prepared us for these minor deprivations.  My only worry is that our soldiers are all billeted together in giant tents; three soldiers in my battalion have already come down with pneumonia.  Despite these few hardships, my soldiers are in high spirits and are even getting restless to cross the border.  In the next week, we will finish test firing all of our weapons and will complete some final training exercises.

The trip overseas was memorable.  After saying goodbye to our loved ones in the middle of the night, we boarded buses and sped to an Army airfield.  I got my smallpox shot before the flight (the worst side-effects should hit me in the next few days), and away we went.  We refueled in Bangor, Maine and Hahn, Germany.  In Maine, a dozen local veterans had assembled to greet us and thank us for our service.  Their respective organizations provided cookies and free cell phone calls for us.  This outpouring of support put us in a good frame of mind for the remainder of our journey.  When we got to Kuwait, we quickly found that we were no longer in a garrison environment.  Before our drive to the Camp, our escorts handed out live ammunition like candy – without the reams of paperwork that we had come to expect at Fort Hood.

We are preparing for a 52-week deployment.  Soldiers have bought decks of cards, throwing out one card per week.  One soldier told me that he was holding onto the Ace of Spades until the very end.

Week II: Entering Baghdad

The wake-up call came at 1:30 a.m.: throw your bags on the bus, you’re going to Baghdad.  Excited, we jumped into our body armor and loaded our remaining magazines with ammunition.  The time in Kuwait may have been necessary to stage our equipment for the trip north, but by this point we all were ready to get on with our primary mission.  After a two-hour bus ride, we strapped ourselves into a venerable C-130 aircraft, the Army’s favored means of air transport for the past 45 years and took off on a turbulent, ear-popping flight.

Once we arrived at BIAP (Baghdad International Airport), we hit a snag.  According to the original plan, helicopters would pick us up for the final leg of the journey, ferrying us from the airport to our FOB (Forward Operating Base).  But gunfire disrupted our airlifts, forcing some of us to find an alternative to the air.  The unit that we are replacing had a few humvees staged at the airport, so I hopped in what I later discovered would be the lead vehicle of a convoy down the notoriously dangerous Route Irish.  Fortunately, Iraqi Army and U.S. soldiers kept a careful vigil on the road, and we arrived at the FOB without incident.

We were heartened by the Iraqis’ high level of participation in the latest elections.  The Iraqis are taking charge of their new government.  We can see that the Iraqi Army and private contractors are taking over many of the tasks that used to be the responsibility of the U.S. Army.  Still, we cannot afford to let our guard down.  About two weeks ago, the unit we are replacing lost a lieutenant to an (IED) Improvised Explosive Device.  The gunfire at our helicopters this morning was another stark reminder that there is still a war going on, despite the recent electoral success.
Week III: The Changeover

The enemy left a belated Christmas present on our doorstep this morning.  International Zone forces had to secure the area and conduct a controlled detonation to get rid of the suspicious device.

Today I had my first U.S. State Department escort detail, our unit’s primary mission in Iraq.  It is our job to protect U.S. and international officials as they travel throughout Central Iraq to far-flung ministries, courts, power plants, and Embassy outposts.  We pick up the officials (our “packages”), escort them to their destinations, secure their destinations, and ensure that their meetings with their Iraqi counterparts proceed in safety.  This morning I rolled out of the FOB with the lieutenant I am relieving, an event known as a “right-seat ride.”  In the next few days, we will start our “left-seat rides,” during which our outgoing counterparts will come along just to make sure that we do not drive off any cliffs.  Over the past week, the departing platoons have been briefing us on the lessons they have learned here.  Now it was time to put those lessons to the test.  As we left the gate, my fellow lieutenant broadcast Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” to an appreciative crowd.

The International Zone – or “Green Zone” – is a maze of concrete barriers and checkpoints.  Although our missions will take us all over Central Iraq, our FOB is located in the IZ across the street from the new U.S. Embassy.  The IZ’s guards sometimes rearrange the barriers without warning, making the place an ever-shifting puzzle.  Our first challenge today came as soon as we exited the IZ.  A crowd of 150 or so demonstrators blocked the street. They were not waving signs and did not seem particularly angry about us Americans as we approached them. The demonstrators probably were probably protesting some of the likely winners of the recent election – democracy at work.

We saw no weapons in the crowd and “Charlie Miked” (i.e. Continued with the Mission), threading our way through this mass of people.  Suddenly a huge, inexplicable cloud of smoke obscured the six-lane highway ahead. We had to wait several minutes for it to clear.  Traffic was often backed up on our journey, and we were forced to use a siren to clear the road.  When that failed, the machine gunners atop our humvees made our intentions even clearer.

Eventually, we crossed to the East Side (the “Dark Side” to us) of the Tigris River and completed the mission without further incident.  The staccato of AK-47s punctuated the morning; probably the Iraqi Police directing traffic.  But it was not just the Iraqi Army and Police officers who had AKs; we saw dozens of civilians carrying these weapons as naturally as New Yorkers would carry briefcases or umbrellas.  Each Iraqi household is allowed an AK-47, and the Iraqis are enthusiastically acting on their right to bear arms.

When the mission was complete, we returned to the FOB.  The outgoing platoon was excited to be one day closer to their return home; my platoon’s Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) and I were happy that our first mission had gone so well.  After studying our counterparts’ tactics, we were glad to see that we had trained to that standard when we were at Fort Hood.

Week IV: A New Year

We “celebrated” New Year’s Eve with a midnight mission.  The fireworks were a little different this year: red AK-47 tracers streamed overhead and mortars thudded into nearby neighborhoods.  Fortunately, we completed our mission without incident.

Objectively, the violence on the streets is declining, but my platoon seems to encounter whatever is left.  Yesterday we counted 13 mortar explosions while we were on patrol.  Making matters more difficult, the narrow Baghdad streets are snarled with traffic.  In response to reports of potential car bombs, the Iraqi Police close down roads and intersections, forcing our platoons into alleys and through busy marketplaces.  The local population is helpful, however.  Iraqi citizens and soldiers are quick to point out suspicious vehicles and upcoming roadblocks.

Between daily missions, patrols, and guard duty, we are very busy.  As the running joke goes, “In Iraq, every day is a Monday” – there are no days off.  Our counterparts in the unit we are relieving have continued to help us with the transition.  They will be departing shortly, and we will be on our own.

Week V Update: Tragedy

Our unit suffered its first casualties this week.  While a platoon was on patrol, a roadside bomb exploded just a few feet away.  The medic rushed to the disabled humvee to treat the wounded, and a second bomb went off.  A gunner lost an arm; the medic and a second soldier were killed.  In addition, several of our battalion’s soldiers suffered shrapnel wounds.  We had to call in a helicopter to MedEvac the soldiers with the worst injuries.  Through constant training, we can minimize our risks but we can never eliminate them entirely. The day after the attack, all of our platoons were back out on the road, continuing with their missions.

The Iraqis celebrated Army Day and Police Day this week, giving the insurgents focal points for their attacks.  During a Police Academy graduation, two suicide bombers – carrying police I.D. cards and wearing police uniforms – slipped into the ceremony. Nearly 30 policemen were killed in the subsequent blasts.  The Iraqis may be bearing the brunt of the attacks, but, as we saw this week, that does not mean U.S. forces are immune to the violence.

When we are on our FOB, the chattering of AK-47s always lingers on the edge of our consciousness.  The sound has become so familiar that we have to concentrate very hard just to distinguish it.  Iraqi Policemen direct traffic with gunfire; insurgents take potshots at patrols.  When we are on a mission, shots whistling overhead provide a steady background noise.  We are starting to distinguish between the different types of explosion in our area of operations: a clean but muted burst is probably a controlled detonation of a suspected IED; a growling boom with lots of reverberations is likely a car bomb.

On one of our missions this week, my platoon escorted U.S. officials to inspect a juvenile prison in a particularly bad part of town.  At the prison, children as young as 11 were serving 10 years for murder.  The conditions were depressing.  Some inmates had to sleep on the floor because there were not enough beds.  Sanitation was sketchy and prisoner-on-prisoner violence ran rampant.  The U.S. officials are trying to work with the warden to improve the situation, but we hear the same refrain: not enough space, not enough money.  Because of the consolidation of prisoners detained by the Iraqi Army and those detained by the Iraqi Police, many inmates have not been charged with any crime and some are merely suspects or even witnesses.  Still, it will take weeks if not months before a judge makes a preliminary determination whether the children should stay in the system and be sent to trial.

Week VI: FOB Security

Every third week, each platoon leaves the road and pulls FOB Security.  This assignment is supposed to be something of a rest, but our around-the-clock guard shifts have left my platoon hungering to roll out of the gate again.  Fortunately, we return to the battalion’s Main Effort tomorrow.  We have to temper our excitement with some caution, however; today there was an upswing in small-arms attacks on our patrols.

There is a sharp division between the soldiers at our FOB.  Support personnel, such as armorers or headquarters staffers, are derisively called “fobbits” because they seldom leave the base.  Although they occasionally accompany our patrols, our senior officers are strong advocates of platoon-level leadership.  As a result, we can run our platoons as we see fit; whenever battalion-level officers accompany us, they are merely passengers in our humvees. Any quarrels they might have with our leadership styles wait until after we complete the mission.

Given that this was a relatively slow week, I will take this opportunity to describe a couple of the more colorful personalities in my platoon.  Normally we go out on patrols of 16 soldiers, but sometimes we have as many as 40 soldiers on a mission.  We are a young group; nearly half of my soldiers have been in the Army less than a year. Of our veterans, two stand out.  My right-hand man is Platoon Sergeant Leland Cannon, one of the most motivated – “high-speed” in Armyspeak – NCOs I have ever met.  Before each mission, he painstakingly ensures that all of our soldiers and equipment are ready for every contingency.  Time and time again, he has shown that my faith in him is completely justified.  My humvee’s gunner is a Cajun from the Louisiana bayou; his mother named him “Dax” after her favorite bar.  He somehow acquired a guitar, and he writes songs in his spare time.  The balance of our platoon is composed of soldiers from all walks of life; a Southie from Boston, a Tennessee backwoodsman, a California snowboarder.  While we rely heavily upon our veterans’ experience, this tour (Operation Iraqi Freedom 05-07) is very different in tone than the first ones in this wear.  “Hearts and minds” is our mantra.  Without the willingness of the Iraqi people to take over where we leave off, our mission here will fail.

Week VII: Thumper

It’s official: my wife is pregnant!  We found out the week after I deployed, but we wanted to keep it under wraps until we (she) could hear the baby’s heartbeat for the first time.  The due date should be sometime in August.  We had been trying for a child two months before I shipped out.  When I was in Kuwait, Candace sent me a digital photo of her pregnancy test.  We had aced it.

Yesterday, we had a doubleheader mission.  In the morning we worked with a half-Swiss, half-Lebanese lawyer in charge of handling the tens of thousands of claims that Iraqis – from whom Saddam confiscated land and property – have against the government.  Saddam uprooted entire villages and relocated them, according to his own whims.  Now some Iraqis want to return to their ancestral lands.  Interestingly, this lawyer and his international organization are looking to Holocaust precedents as they reconcile these claims.

After we returned to our FOB, our battalion sent us out on a midnight mission to another FOB across town.  By this time, sheets of rain were beginning to crash on our humvees.  The platoon’s machine gunners – who sit exposed in the hatches atop our vehicles – were less than pleased.  For the rest of us, though, the rain was welcome: insurgent attacks are far less frequent during sandstorms or rainstorms, the insurgents being mostly fair-weather fighters.  In addition, the rain may render inoperative some of the delicate devices that the insurgents use to trigger their roadside bombs. Let it rain.

The trial of Saddam Hussein is set to resume on Sunday.  We are bracing ourselves for insurgent attacks from old-regime loyalists.  In addition, national election results came out this week.  Many Sunnis voted, meaning that the Shias do not have an ironclad majority in the legislature and will have to include the Sunnis in their coalition in order to govern.  The latest hot topic in platoon conversations concerns Iran.  Given Iran’s recent intransigence in nuclear weapons talks, various Western countries have voiced their displeasure.  Many of Iraq’s fundamentalist Shias, however, are ideological brothers of Iran’s regime and have threatened that any acts against Iran will be followed by acts of violence in Iraq.  The Sunnis, who are not as close to Iran, sent the Shias a message by sending a car bomb to the Iranian embassy a few days ago.

Tonight we are having a formation at which we will receive our combat patches, indicating more than a month served in a war zone.  This scrap of cloth does not mean too much here, since everyone here – Fobbit or no – will be wearing one.  Back in the States, however, it makes a difference.  When soldiers first meet, their eyes inevitably settle upon one another’s right shoulder to determine whether the new acquaintance is a veteran.

Week VIII: Rules of Engagement

Enlisted soldiers and officers alike are continuing to monitor the international community’s interest in Iran.  Whatever happens, from sanctions to military involvement, will substantially affect the 140,000 U.S. troops stationed next door.  Already, the Iran-supported Shias are incensed about the rest of the world’s treatment of that particular Islamic theocracy.  On the other side of the fence, Saddam’s boycott of his own trial is heating up the Sunnis.

This week we completed our toughest mission to date.  My platoon provided security for officials going to a meeting on the East Bank of the Tigris.  The résumés of these individuals – a defense-contractor-turned-economic-advisor and a former Peace Corps volunteer – were par for the course; today’s Iraq attracts a motley collection of adventurers and idealists.  En route to the meeting, a roadside bomb went off at an overpass through which we had passed minutes before.  We were lucky to have avoided the attack; earlier this week, another overpass bomb had mangled the hand of one of our sister battery’s machine gunners.

After today’s explosion, Iraqi Police and Army swarmed the area, closing the road off behind us.  When our “packages” finished their meetings, we had to return to the International Zone along little-used alternate routes.  There was a reason why these routes were little-used by Coalition Forces.

First, we encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic, which hindered our ability to keep potential VBIEDs (Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Devices) at bay.  A driver with a car bomb can patiently wait for you to pass his Kia and, when your lead vehicle reaches him, detonate his device.  Eventually, our humvees had to hop the median, sirens blaring and gunners shouting, and weave through oncoming traffic.  Occasionally, we would slow to a crawl as I “interrogated” suspicious piles of debris with binoculars.

One road poured us out into a sea of pedestrians.  We then had to navigate a maze of stalls and civilians in a busy marketplace before we could return to the main route.  I am proud of our gunners’ restraint.  Although the situation was tense and their fingers were on their triggers, the gunners did not fire a single shot.  By the time we finished our mission, several soldiers were sweating bullets.  Much better than firing them indiscriminately, though.

The Rules of Engagement (ROE) are strict here, as collateral damage is a significant concern.  If an insurgent attacks you and takes refuge in a crowd, your options are limited.  Any errant shot on your part has the potential to create dozens of additional hostiles.  A cartoon that I read before deployment suggested that, with Iraq assuming responsibility for its own security, our own soldiers’ tactical mission here could now be summed up as “not getting killed.”  Any U.S. soldier’s death emboldens the insurgents, and any innocent civilian’s death swells the insurgents’ ranks.  With the Iraqi Army already in control of a large chunk of Baghdad, we have to walk a fine line before our work is done in this country.

Week IX: By Your Leave

Today marked Ashura, a holy day during which devout Shias mourn the death of the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson.  Crowds filled the Baghdad streets, closing roads and snarling traffic for miles.  Normally, we try to avoid bringing our patrols through masses of people, be they demonstrators or pilgrims.  We did not have that luxury this week.  At the very least, however, we have tried to distance ourselves from the city’s major Islamic shrines, which is like trying to avoid Irish pubs in Boston.  A group of Shias makes a tempting target for angry Sunnis.  Additionally, Muslims across the world are rioting because of Danish cartoons satirizing Mohammed.  We can only hope that Iran’s nuclear brinksmanship does not further enflame the population.

Several days ago, my platoon’s soldiers jubilantly signed out for their two-week “mid-tour” leave.  Every soldier receives two weeks of mandatory leave between his third and ninth months in Iraq.  We just entered Month Three.  By Army standards, three months is not a long time.   Some field problems at Fort Hood lasted a month, and Officer Candidate School itself took us away from our families for three.  Nevertheless, my soldiers’ homecomings have been joyous.  By e-mail and phone, I am keeping in touch with my men as they re-connect with their families.

I, on the other hand, have stayed behind in Iraq.  The Army will be sending me home in mid-August to attend the birth of my first child.   Currently, I am experiencing “phantom limb” syndrome.  I wake up each morning with all sorts of plans for the day: “We’ll send Corporal Gary here, Staff Sergeant Cannon will take care of this, and, while he’s doing that, Sergeant Eads can take the soldiers and . . .”  Then I realize that none of my men are here.  Veterans say that they feel much the same way when they return home after deployment.  They wake up in the morning and reach for their weapons, experiencing a moment of panic when their rifles are not at their bedsides.  We are trained to treat our weapons as extensions of ourselves; I have come to feel that way about my platoon.

With my platoon on leave, I have temporarily acquired several soldiers (former members of my platoon who had stayed back at Fort Hood for their children’s births – the fertility of my platoon is legendary) to help me accomplish a grab-bag of missions.  Every day there is some new and exotic “crisis,” such as having to find misplaced communications equipment or getting anti-IED hardware installed on our vehicles.  These missions naturally fall into my lap; it is tough to believe that I am busier now than I was with my platoon here.  I can hardly wait for the return of my men and the resumption of our regular missions.

Week X: The Trial

My platoon will be returning from leave next week.  In the meantime, I have been keeping busy in Baghdad.  Yesterday my legal background earned me admission to the Saddam Hussein trial; my battalion sends a representative to keep an eye on the daily proceedings, which occur in a building adjacent to our FOB.

The trial itself relates to Saddam’s bloody reprisals after a 1982 attempt on his life.  Saddam is joined by seven co-defendants, former members of his regime.  The proceedings have been stormy, marred by walk-outs, shouting, and – most recently – a hunger strike.  The prosecution has had a tough time coordinating its evidence, demonstrating the difficulties of using a nation’s own courts to punish its toppled regime’s crimes.

Most of the defendants’ personal lawyers have boycotted the trial, forcing the court to appoint replacements in their absence.  Yesterday, three days into a hunger strike and wearing a Western-style black suit, Saddam clutched a Koran as he was escorted into the courtroom.  He shouted, “Long live the Iraqi people,” at the chief judge before taking a seat.  Six of his seven co-defendants wore traditional Iraqi clothing, although Saddam’s secret service chief, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, showed up in long underwear.

Up to this point, the prosecution had relied mainly upon witnesses’ written statements.  Now, however, live witness reluctantly testified in the courtroom, speaking from a curtained booth so that only the judges could see them.  Yesterday’s testimony conflicted with the witnesses’ earlier statements; large gaps in their memory had arisen.  For example, one witness had previously stated to the prosecutors that he knew a certain intelligence officer was involved in the crackdown after the assassination attempt.  In court, however, the witness only would volunteer that “investigations” of this sort “probably” were conducted from the intelligence department and that he had no personal knowledge that the officer in question had anything to do with the reprisals.

On a cross-examination that morphed into a defendant’s testimony, Barzan Ibrahim loudly protested that he had actually freed innocent people from prison and had even apologized to them for the inconvenience.  During this tirade, both the chief judge and Saddam had a good laugh.  The trial will likely last for several more weeks.

Today my brigade’s Public Affairs Office taped an interview with me.  Somehow the PAO got my name, and I had to talk about my platoon’s experience in Iraq.  The interview itself was straightforward – name, mission, and message for the American public – but three minutes of usable footage took three hours to film.

Week XI: Jodi

Yesterday, insurgents disguised as Iraqi policemen blew up the famous Shiite “Golden Mosque” about 175 km north of Baghdad.  Reprisals in our area have been severe.  Since the explosion, gunmen have attacked 60 Sunni mosques in Baghdad.   Of course, there was tension between Sunnis and Shiites long before the United States came on the scene.  Saddam was known for oppressing the country’s Shiite majority.  Since the fall of Saddam’s regime, Shiite “death squads” have stalked Sunnis, and Sunni car bombs have targeted the largely Shiite Iraqi Police and Iraqi Army.  This latest rash of mosque attacks, however, has generated talk of civil war.

The new Iraqi government could be seated as early as the end of the week; the mosque attacks will make this transition all the more difficult.  Our job, as U.S. soldiers, is to ensure that the transition proceeds as peacefully as possible.

Soldiers from my platoon began to trickle back to our FOB early this morning.  I have been keeping in touch with them during their leave, and – for the most part – I have enjoyed hearing how they spent their two weeks of freedom.  Several soldiers, though, had rude awakenings when they came home.

Back in basic training, some of my fellow recruits received “Dear John” letters from high-school sweethearts who had found new boyfriends.  One private even lost his wife to a former friend.  During deployment, however, the stakes are often higher.  We are a long way from United States, making it more difficult to fix any problems that might arise on the home front.  For example, one of my soldiers learned, too late, that a once-trusted family member had taken all of his money.  Significant others, armed with powers of attorney, can empty bank accounts, run up huge debts, and saddle the service member with the tab.

Even more so than financial woes, relationship problems can devastate deployed soldiers.  “Jodi” has been an Army bogeyman for decades.  (The name comes from an old song about a ladies’ man named “Joe D. Grinder.”)  On long field problems and during deployment, soldiers morbidly – in great detail – speculate about what “Jodi” is doing with their lonely wives, girlfriends, and fiancées at any particular moment.

One of my best soldiers returned home to find his house a wreck, his wife shacking up with another man, and his three-year-old son neglected.  His wife told him that she did not want to take care of their child any more; she wanted to be “free” again.  My soldier spent his two weeks of leave trying to get a divorce and legal custody, all the while attempting to convince one of his divorced parents to take care of his son.  In the end, my platoon sergeant’s mother generously volunteered to take the boy in for the remainder of the deployment.

As you might imagine, these types of distractions can reduce a soldier’s ability to keep his mind on the mission.  Fortunately, my soldiers were able to resolve these situations before their return to Iraq.  Still, my platoon will probably be in Iraq for another nine months, and my soldiers will have to deal with any further homefront problems from overseas.

Week XII: Back in the Mix

Tomorrow my platoon will go on its first patrol in a month.  All of my soldiers – apart from the private who stayed in the States to resolve his divorce and custody issues – are back from mid-tour leave and ready to get outside the wire.  My platoon sergeant and I led 48 hours of reintegration training once everyone returned; our skills and tactical knowledge are surprisingly perishable.  For example, each patrol carries eight different weapons systems, ranging from grenades to machine guns, and each soldier on the patrol must be proficient with all eight.  The soldiers still have not tired of telling stories about their conquests on leave, but once again we must shift our thoughts to the task at hand.  We still have at least nine months of deployment remaining.

As we were waiting for our platoon to get back to full strength, we received an emergency guard duty assignment for several days.  All of us would spend six hours on duty, sleep for three to four hours, spend six hours on duty, etc.  As you might imagine, this relentless cycle got exhausting.  Fortunately, at the end of the assignment, we were able to take a day to reset our internal clocks and get our bodies back to normal.

Since the Golden Mosque explosion, the political situation in Baghdad has been tense.  After an initial burst of violence, however, Shiite and Sunni religious leaders came together to call for a peaceful response to the mosque’s destruction.  In addition, curfews have cut down on the number of vehicles and pedestrians on the streets, minimizing opportunities for attacks, both on us and on other Iraqis.  Finally, the Sunnis have rejoined talks regarding the seating of the new Iraqi government.  Things are looking up, but no one knows if or when the next tragedy will touch off another wave of violence.

If you needed further proof that Baghdad is a jungle, I can offer the following.  One of my battalion’s platoons was on patrol last week and stopped near the Crossed Sabers: two gigantic hands – modeled on Saddam’s – erupting from the ground and gripping scimitars that arc above a promenade.  As our soldiers surveyed the area, they heard a dull rumbling sound nearby.  On their guard, the soldiers strained to figure out what sort of device was at work.  No luck.  Finally, an Iraqi happily volunteered the source of the sound: “Lion!”  Apparently, the Baghdad Zoo was in the neighborhood, and the lions had decided to add their voices to the protests then raging in the streets.

Week XIII: Under Attack

A few nights ago, I went on a midnight patrol to reconnoiter a route that my platoon would likely be using in the coming weeks.  During the patrol, we noticed a burnt-out van that had not been in the area before.  We edged toward the vehicle cautiously.   Our “interrogation” efforts revealed a bright red cylindrical device on the ground by the van.  As we studied what turned out to be an expended thermite grenade, we started to see gunfire from the rooftops of a nearby neighborhood.  The bullets were tracer rounds, creating streams of red in the night.  Iraqis often shoot straight into the air to celebrate weddings and funerals, so we did not think much of the fireworks display at first.  After a few seconds, however, the bullets’ trajectories started to level out.  Within seconds, we were facing a barrage of fire aimed at our patrol.  Tracers poured between our humvees, striking one vehicle and coming within a few feet of a machine gunner’s head.  Fortunately, we managed to complete the recon without sustaining any casualties.

This week my platoon alternated between missions and stints as the “QRF” – Quick Reaction Force, not to be confused with the “Quick Reactionary Force” advertised on the QRF sleeping bay’s door.  The QRF is on call 24 hours a day to rush to hot spots and provide additional firepower, medical personnel, and recovery assets to platoons under fire.  The job mainly involves sleep-deprivation and patience, monitoring the battalion’s daily progress over the radio to get a heads-up on potential missions.  We did have to roll out twice; in the meantime, we were able to practice our first aid skills.  Today I “stuck” one of my soldiers and got an IV running; he gladly returned the favor.

Even in this war zone, we still find the time to conduct “PT” – Physical Training.  Our battalion commander just led a nine-mile run for all officers who were not on a morning mission.  Some of us had just come off of an all-night mission two hours before, but missing Officer PT is not an option.  Our FOB is tiny, which translated into dozens of laps back and forth on our 1,000-meter “Main Street.”  Our PT gives us a chance to work out some of the stress that inevitably builds up from our missions.

One of my friends sent me an interesting article from the Atlantic Monthly, “The Coming Normalcy” by Robert Kaplan.  In this piece, Kaplan comments on the trend toward consolidating U.S. forces on “super-FOBs” in Iraq.  We see this centralization firsthand when we are on our missions.   Former pockets of Coalition forces are no more; the Coalition has handed over a many guard posts and checkpoints to our Iraqi counterparts.  From our own experience, the Iraqi Army and Police have proven very professional, and many of our patrols involve the participation of Iraqi forces.  Still, a familiar U.S. uniform is a welcome sight when we are on patrol.

Week XIV: Salt of the Earth

Today the new Iraqi Parliament met for the first time . . . for half an hour.  No candidate for prime minister has enough votes lined up to ensure his election.  The Kurds and the Shias had a falling out, and the Kurds withdrew their support from caretaker Prime Minister Jafari (pronounced “Joffrey”).  Over the past several days, the U.S. Ambassador has been trying to broker a compromise government between the major players in Iraqi politics.  No luck so far.

Last night an explosion near our mess hall sent salt shakers tumbling.  Fortunately, no one in our battalion was injured.  We later learned that the explosion had been caused by a nearby VBIED.  The enemy has lately taken to planting bombs high up on palm trees – these “tree-beds” are an example of today’s three-dimensional battlefield.  We cannot just scan the ground for tripwires and mines; IEDs can be anywhere.  A few nights ago, after my mission had ended and I was starting to drift off to sleep in the barracks, I woke myself with a start – “Can’t fall asleep! Leading the patrol!”  My body still thought that I was on a mission.  When we are on the road, we cannot afford to let our guard down for a second.  This wariness bleeds into our downtime, as well.

During post-combat maintenance, one of my soldiers broke his arm as he got off of the roof of his humvee.  He will probably need surgery, taking him back to the States for at least six weeks, probably longer.  It’s a shame because he was one of my most motivated soldiers.  He had tears in his eyes when he gave me and my platoon sergeant the doctors’ diagnosis.  We will miss his presence in the platoon and will eagerly await his return.

I led a patrol down to Babylon this morning.  Waving giant black, red, and green flags, thousands of pilgrims choked the streets.  We could not see much of the ancient ruins, but we did observe a number of ponds ringed with a crust of salt.  This makes sense – a few weeks ago, I read Jared Diamond’s “Collapse,” in which the author notes, “[S]alinization provides a large part of the explanation for why applying the term ‘Fertile Crescent’ today to Iraq and Syria, formerly the leading center of world agriculture, would be a cruel joke.”  (Page 48.)
 

Week XV: The Regional Reserve Arrives

Bodies are piling up across Baghdad, the victims of execution-style killings.  Sometimes notes accompany the corpses, labeling them “traitors.”  In the face of these murders (nearly two hundred in the past week or so) and during an escalation of violence in the areas that my platoon most often frequents, the U.S. State Department is still advocating the formation of a “National Unity” government to pull Iraq together.  The major political factions – Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds – do not appear to have bought into the idea yet.

When my platoon was staging equipment in Kuwait three months ago, we encountered a brigade of soldiers whose sole mission during deployment was to serve as a regional reserve.  Some of the soldiers were upset that they were not in Iraq or Afghanistan; others felt that they had received a reprieve.  The situation has changed.   The Army just sent a number of these men and women into Baghdad, where they have received a bloody welcome.  A few days ago one of these new soldiers was shot in the throat, the victim of a complex small-arms attack.  I sincerely hope that this influx of U.S. forces will help us to complete our missions safely.

During the course of our missions, my platoon has had the opportunity to observe the activities of the country’s political factions firsthand.  For instance, my platoon has worked closely with the Kurds, at times escorting the Kurdistani president around Baghdad.  In certain areas of the city, Kurdistan has stationed its own soldiers – the Peshmerga – distinguished by their red berets.  The sight of a few red berets on a street corner makes us a little more confident on patrol.  We cannot afford to let our guard down, but our comfort level does increase when redcaps are around.

We got some good news this week.  The private with the broken arm is on his way back to us.  After spending a few weeks in Germany, he will rejoin our unit, where he will finish his recovery.  He will not be able to go out on patrol with us until his arm heals; in the meantime, he will work odd jobs (i.e. paperwork, barracks guard, radio watch, etc.) for the headquarters platoon.  A return to Fort Hood would not have been ideal; all of his friends are in Iraq and, if he has to be at a desk, he would rather be with his comrades than back in Killeen.

Despite the odd hours we work – today my platoon completed a nine-hour patrol, followed by a one-hour briefing and a six-hour guard shift – we still try to fit in Physical Training once a day.   This week, my platoon administered a PT test to gauge the fitness of our soldiers.  Most of us did well – I earned the maximum score in the three events (push-ups, sit-ups, and two-mile run) for the first time since I enlisted – but two of our soldiers failed.  As a result, my NCOs and I have been conducting a second PT session each day for the soldiers who need to improve.  It is hard to fit PT into our schedule, but we try hard to give the soldiers a way to work off the stress that inevitably builds during our missions.  We seem to be going through a never-ending cycle: when we are on guard duty, we are itching to return to the road; after a series of missions, we long for the routine of guard duty.

Week XVI: Centurions

My platoon got caught in a crossfire today.  Fortunately, all of the soldiers responded expertly, without missing a beat.  I could not have asked any more of them.  We successfully completed our mission and sustained no casualties.

The battalion has adopted the Roman centurion look – we must now wear armored shoulder cuffs when we make our daily forays outside the wire.  If Dr. Goodall could observe my platoon as we prepare to leave the FOB, she would think us a primate colony in full communal-hygiene mode.  Before a mission, we have to help one another into our suits, fastening snaps, tightening straps, and adjusting the various plates that the Army has issued us.  The full outfit involves a helmet, ballistic eye wear, hearing protection, knee pads, elbow pads, gloves, a groin protector, a vest, combat boots, and shoulder cuffs – all stacked upon the Army’s All-Combat Uniform (ACU).  We can only imagine how we will fare under this gear in the summer – the temperature is currently hovering in the mid-80s.

The piling-on of these ostensible safeguards has given me pause.  I cannot fault the Army for wanting to wrap us in layers of Kevlar.  In addition to being a tragic drain on U.S. manpower, casualties are bad for morale, both on the battlefield and on the home front.  No one wants to admit that KIA soldiers did not receive the fullest protection available.  Still, all of this armor comes at the cost of mobility and the danger of a siege mentality.  From the top-heavy knights at Agincourt to the steadfast Maginot Line, history has shown that putting too much stock in defense – personal or national – can have negative consequences.

Societies may build increasingly elaborate defenses for their soldiers and cities only to become trapped in a risk-averse rut.  Why bother leaving the fortress when its position is so strong?  Why even place a single infantryman in harm’s way?  Facing an agile and proactive enemy, a country may give up more and more of its resources in order to minimize the chance for the possible loss of these very resources.  Everyday in Iraq, I see that there are risks worth taking.  If the only acceptable risk for us were no risk, our presence here would be worse than meaningless.

Week XVII: Smoke on the Water

We escorted several U.S. officials to the Al Daura oil refinery yesterday.  The workers and their families live on a fortified compound next to the refinery, which has been the target of recent drive-by shootings and other attacks.  This week alone, the Daura neighborhood witnessed the killing of an ice cream man and a mortician.

The refinery’s grounds are picturesque, complete with well-manicured hedges and bright flowers.  Looming above the gardens, however, tall smokestacks belch black clouds over the greenery and adjacent Tigris River.  When my platoon is driving through Baghdad, we can often orient ourselves by the direction of the refinery’s smoke.  Sometimes, however, a detonated car bomb gives off a competing signature.

The occupants of the refinery compound were very friendly.  Wherever we go, Iraqis are quick to test the soldiers’ knowledge of Arabic.  Our conversations are simple, but our vocabularies are getting more complex.  If the United States really wants to maintain a long-term presence in this region, the country must seriously invest in the promotion of Middle Eastern language and culture studies in its schools.  Our “Good morning. How are you doing? . . . Thank you, I’m good. Very good!” can only take us so far.

Little kids swarmed around us at the refinery, plying us with flowers and crabapple-like “mishmish” fruit from one of the compound’s trees.   I did a simple magic trick with a piece of mishmish and received a rose for my troubles. 

Week XVIII: Faith

Though there may be no atheists in foxholes, a simple religious faith has been sustaining many of my fellow soldiers during our deployment.  I have not encountered any “us-against-the-infidels” Crusader bluster, just a quiet belief that there is someone upstairs watching over our progress here. 

At every meal in the mess hall, nearly half of my soldiers bow their heads in silent prayer to say grace.  After an attack on the platoon, soldiers keep their heads down a little longer, reflecting on the day’s events.  A few days ago, my platoon – with the battalion commander in tow – had to rush to the aid of another that had gotten hit.  Miraculously, considering the nature of the attack, there were no casualties.  When we were able to get back to the FOB for post-combat maintenance and chow, there was a noticeable delay before the battalion commander started his meal.

In the motor pool, I sometimes see entire platoons of soldiers linking hands before a mission.  There is a de facto spiritual leader in each platoon – it might be the lowest-ranking private, but all of his peers instinctively look to his guidance in these matters.  He composes a short prayer, asking God to grant a safe return to the FOB, and perhaps quotes a few lines from the Bible.  The soldiers then perform their final checks on their weapons and roll outside the wire.

We have a chaplain in my unit, a gangly giant who, whenever he runs into us, encourages us to attend weekly religious services and prayer breakfasts.  We can’t make it to many of these events, even if we wanted to, however.  While the brigade’s chaplains hold regular services at nearby FOBs in the IZ, the logistics of getting from our FOB to theirs can be an issue.  Furthermore, our missions take priority, so we are often on the road when the services are scheduled.  We make do.  Some soldiers study the Bible in their sleeping bays.  This week a Jewish lieutenant in the battalion held an improvised Passover seder.

In other – I hope not Biblical – news, a plague of hissing, flying ants has carpeted the FOB.  Screaming, feral cats have taken up residence in some of the demolished portions of our building, and various lizards seem to enjoy darting across our walls.  Who knew we’d get such an enthusiastic welcome from the local wildlife?

Week XIX: Festina Lente

“Hurry up and wait.”  You can’t spend a week in the Army without hearing an exasperated soldier spit out the phrase.  One unit at Fort Hood, tongue firmly planted in cheek, actually glories in this philosophy; the unit motto is “Festina Lente” – Latin for “make haste slowly.”  In Iraq, we have the “make haste” part down.  An order from battalion headquarters to prepare for a mission sets everyone into motion.  Privates run around assembling and testing the necessary equipment.  NCOs conduct pre-combat checks on the privates, making sure that they do not overlook anything.  Officers, in consultation with their NCOs and the latest intelligence reports, figure out how to accomplish the mission, brief the soldiers, and conduct a last-minute inspection of the troops before heading out the gate.

Hours of waiting can follow a platoon’s initial scramble.  Even after we have conducted our final radio check, we have to wait for our battalion’s authorization to “SP” (leave the “Start Point”).  And so we wait.  And wait.  Finally permission to SP comes down over the radio, and we eagerly roll out of the FOB.  The Army places nearly as much value on being prepared to accomplish a mission as it does on actually accomplishing that mission.

During our time at Fort Hood, the spirit of festina lente was alive and well.  Showing up 10 minutes early for a meeting is “standard data”; showing up on time is living on the edge; showing up even one minute late is absolutely unacceptable.  Commanders are responsible for their soldiers’ absence at briefings or meetings, so each level of command will hold an accountability formation well before an event begins.  For example, when President Bush visited the post to deliver a speech, we had a 4 a.m. platoon formation, 4:30 a.m. battery formation, 5:30 a.m. battalion formation, 6:30 a.m. brigade formation, and 8 a.m. division formation – all before marching to the stadium where the President would be speaking at 11 a.m.  I have no memory of what the President actually said.  I remember the formations, though.

Needless to say, we all have become very good at waiting.  My platoon just ended a week of FOB security, which involved six-hour guard shifts separated by six hours of rest.  The grind of uneventful shifts, combined with an irregular sleep schedule and temperatures above 100 degrees, forced us to call upon all of the coping mechanisms that we have developed for filling time and staying awake.  Conversation is the key – good talkers are prized in the platoon, and quiet soldiers can be banished, by general consensus, to less desirable guard posts.  Even pathological liars are in demand.  One soldier likes spin stories about his (entirely fictional) career managing fortunes on Wall Street and his years at the U.S. Naval Academy; no one believes him, but at least he is outrageous enough to keep his fellow soldiers awake.

Week XX: Interpretation

During each of the past few days, my platoon has been “on mission” from 4 a.m. to 5 p.m.  The heat and dust are taking their toll on our gear; after we have completed a mission, we often have to conduct hours of repairs on our equipment.  Yesterday, one of our vehicles was in the maintenance bay until 3 a.m.  Our cycle has become simple: mission, sleep, mission, sleep.  Sergeant Cannon and I try to carve out time for the men to get some rest, but random work details have a habit of springing up and taking soldiers from us, even during our supposed downtime.  As for us platoon leaders and platoon sergeants, every evening we must attend several briefings in which we address emerging threats, conduct analyses of recent attacks, and discuss new technology that our unit will be fielding.  The meetings can drag, but we take detailed notes.  This is the information that will save our soldiers’ lives.

We take a native Iraqi interpreter with us on every patrol.  The interpreters come in handy when we have to thread our way through particularly crowded neighborhoods; we put them on a loudspeaker and they tell the locals to move along.  Our soldiers can give basic Arabic commands like “Move slowly” and “Stop,” but if we have to focus our efforts on particular individuals – “You, in the white pick-up truck, stop!” – we turn to our interpreters.  The interpreters also are good at negotiating with members of the Iraqi Army or Iraqi Police.  With Iraqi units taking responsibility for sectors of Baghdad, we often have to work with our Iraqi counterparts as we cross between different neighborhoods.  Most adult Iraqis have a good command of English, one of the few positive results of Saddam Hussein’s late regime.  Still, we can tell that requests and commands in properly accented Arabic are more effective than our own attempts.

These interpreters risk their lives when accompanying us.  Insurgents routinely threaten reprisals against local nationals who volunteer to help Coalition Forces.  To protect their identities, our interpreters go by colorful pseudonyms of movie stars and famous painters.  One of our interpreters, who wears a black ski mask when on mission with us, knows full well how dangerous his job can be.  His fiancée, also an interpreter, was murdered in her home; the government has moved her family to the International Zone for its safety.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Rice came to our Iraq to talk with soldiers in our AO (Area of Operations) yesterday.  Unfortunately, my platoon was outside the wire on a mission, so we did not have a chance to meet these officials or hear what they had to say to us troops.

Week XXI: Old Blackwater

In addition to various insurgent groups and the Iraqi military, there is another presence on the battlefield that makes our mission here particularly complex: private military forces.  Euphemistically going by the title of “contractors,” many are former U.S. soldiers and marines.  After leaving the military, they find lucrative employment with companies – of varying degrees of respectability – that provide security for important individuals and businesses in Iraq.  U.S. soldiers must adhere to very strict standards and Rules of Engagement, but the contractors do not labor under such limitations.  Bristling with weaponry, these private soldiers aggressively speed through the streets of Baghdad on missions of their own.  If they anger the locals with their behavior, they do not have to stay and clean up the mess.  The Coalition Forces and their Iraqi counterparts are stuck picking up the pieces, listening to local residents’ complaints and assuaging any fears that might have arisen.  But many of these contractors are obviously American.  There is a real risk that the population will attribute the contractors’ less-disciplined behavior to the formal Coalition forces.

The U.S. Army has an uneasy relationship with these contractors.  Sometimes our missions coincide and we have to work together.  Sometimes we even have to provide security for these security forces, if they are responsible for protecting certain corporations’ assets.  A sizable portion of our supply lines lie in corporate hands – for example, we depend on a private company to supply chow to our mess hall – and the corporations, in turn, depend on a combination of military and private security teams for protection.  Some of my soldiers resent contractors like Blackwater for earning fat paychecks while doing essentially the same thing – personal security details (“PSD”) – that we do.  Missions that call upon us to protect the private security elements themselves can be even tougher to swallow.  I suppose that by resorting to a shadow army for some tasks, however, the Coalition can save on the number of formal troops required in Iraq.  And the Army can always point toward Blackwater to demonstrate that military service does indeed provide you with a marketable skill set . . .  as long as there is a war going on.

A few days ago, my platoon was supposed to escort several U.S. Department of Justice officials to a meeting with local judges.  The Assistant U.S. Attorneys asked me, jokingly, if I was “okay with escorting four lawyers.”  In response, I politely inquired if they were “okay with being escorted by one lawyer.”  The DOJ group was enthusiastic about helping to reform the Iraqi justice system.  Minutes before we began the mission, however, an explosion rocked our destination, postponing the attorneys’ meeting.  In the meantime, because my platoon was acquainted with the threats of that neighborhood, our battalion sent us out as the quick reaction force to the attack.  We linked up with a couple of maintenance vehicles and rolled out to the blast site.  When we got there, we found the site unsecured, despite assurances that the Iraqi Army had cordoned off the area.  We had to be particularly careful to watch for booby traps.  Insurgents have a habit of targeting the people who first respond to an attack.

The initial target of the attack had been a Blackwater vehicle.  The inside was a mess.  One of the occupants lost a hand and another took shrapnel to the face.  Helicopters came and carried the casualties to a hospital.  In the meantime, my platoon secured the site, hoisted the totaled vehicle onto the back of a flat bed, and returned to a maintenance bay in the IZ, where explosives experts could analyze the damage the vehicle had sustained.  The Blackwater personnel there, though somber at the thought of their two injured colleagues, were thankful for our help in recovering their disabled vehicle.  Still, it struck me as curious that the U.S. Army was recovering their vehicle at all.

Week XXIII: The Trap

“Sir, I think I see an artillery round!”  A year ago, my assistant machine gunner’s words would have been a statement of the obvious.  Last May we were still at Fort Hood, honing our field artillery skills and shooting hundreds of high-explosive shells with our Paladin howitzers.  Now, however, with our platoon conducting Personal Security Detail missions in Iraq, his words sounded ominous.  We were on the road, driving back to Baghdad from Babylon.  There was no good reason for an artillery round to be on this desolate stretch of highway.  Private Newman had spotted an IED.

It was a miracle that Newman saw it.  As our humvee was moving, we were all scanning our sectors for anything suspicious.  Newman somehow noticed an odd bump on the far side of the road, more than 150 meters away.  I checked it out with my binoculars.  No question about it – it was an artillery round.  It was a little smaller than the giant “bullets” that we fire with our Paladins, but it was much larger than a mortar round.  I could also make out some sort of detonating device duct-taped to the top of the round.  My platoon immediately blocked all civilian and military traffic and got in touch with the battalion that “owned” this particular piece of ground.  Our relief quickly arrived at the scene, and U.S. explosives experts destroyed the device.  We drove off, thankful that we had avoided the trap.

When we returned to the International Zone, I brought my soldiers into a huddle for an AAR (After-Action Review).  The Army recognizes heroism when its soldiers sustain injuries.  Newman did something more.  With his vigilance, he prevented the deaths of U.S. troops, Iraqi soldiers, unsuspecting civilians – anyone would have been passing the IED when its triggerman decided to detonate it.  At this stage of the war, that is the equivalent of taking out an enemy machine gun nest, at least to my mind.  Our enemy is often invisible, preventing us from engaging him directly.  That day, we saw neither the triggerman nor the people who had emplaced the IED.  Detecting and disarming their handiwork is often the best that we can do.

Soldiers like to joke about avoiding conspicuous acts of bravery; in fact, “hero” is a slang term thrown about sarcastically, a label for someone who blatantly takes an unnecessary risk, endangering either himself or his whole platoon.  I respect my soldiers’ quieter version of courage: rolling out of the FOB every day and pitting themselves against unseen enemies who know the terrain better than we do and who, incidentally, want to kill us.

Week XXIV: The Prisoners

This week we escorted a new team of Ministry of Justice liaisons as they inspected Baghdad’s prisons.  Our second stop was a women’s correctional facility compound that once housed the military prison where Saddam Hussein had confined one of our interpreters.  During a purge of the military after the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam had summarily replaced an Iraqi Air Force general with one of the dictator’s hometown cronies.  This ex-general badmouthed Saddam, was overheard by the secret police, and spent years in a series of prisons, his property confiscated.  Now the roles are reversed; the former general works as an interpreter for the Coalition and “that sonofabitch Saddam,” as the interpreter invariably calls him, is locked up.  

 
There are three major classes of inmates in the female prison: witnesses, prostitutes, and murderesses.  The saddest of these classes is that of the witnesses, people who had the bad luck merely to be standing around during the commission of a major crime.  Years later the criminals have served their time, but the witnesses are still incarcerated, forgotten.  U.S. and international officials are working hard to jump start the Iraqi judicial system and sort out the inmates’ records.  During our time here, we have seen dozens of young men and women released from prison; still, many innocents remain behind bars.  “Prostitution” appears to be a catch-all charge for public displays of over-friendliness toward men; the police tend to incarcerate and ask questions later, if ever.  Finally, the murderesses are generally in prison for killing their husbands.  Baghdad judges are allegedly more enlightened than other Iraqi judges; a murderess can shave years off her sentence by showing that the victim was having an affair.

The most surprising residents of the prison were its many children.  Inmates give birth and raise their children within the walls of the compound.  Everywhere there are blue-uniformed inmates tending playful boys and girls.  Upon entering the main building, you might mistake the place for an elementary school – the walls are plastered with children’s artwork.  Upon closer examination, however, you would wonder why so many of these drawings featured barred windows.

Week XXV: The Muhallas

My platoon just finished exploring an unfamiliar section of Baghdad.  Some of our most frequently traveled routes have been the targets of recent attacks, so we are always on the lookout for new ways of navigating the city’s narrow streets.  Before we even begin a recon mission, however, we have to research our destination’s demographics so we can anticipate possible threats.  The city’s muhallas (neighborhoods) are loosely organized along tribal lines; prior to entering a particular muhalla, we must determine, for example, whether the population is mainly Shiite or Sunni.  Today’s mission brought us into a stronghold of Saddam’s former military officers.  The Coalition Forces had handed control of this muhalla to the Iraqi Army months ago; the Iraqi soldiers seemed a little shocked to see us passing through their neighborhood.  Fortunately, our surprise patrol kept any insurgents in the area off-balance, and we suffered no attacks.

We are expecting a backlash from the allegations of a massacre in the town of Haditha.  Last November a group of U.S. Marines may have killed 24 civilians in response to an attack on their unit.  One of the toughest parts of this war is maintaining our strict Rules of Engagement against an enemy that does not have any such limitations.  It is difficult to identify, much less strike back at, an enemy who wears no uniform and who uses the civilian population as a shield, turning our own ROE against us.  Imagine that there is an insurgent with an AK-47 shooting at you – trying to end your life – from the middle of a crowd or from a balcony.  You are allowed to shoot back in self-defense, but in the back of your mind you know that any collateral damage you cause could well wind up on the nightly news: “U.S. Patrol Kills 12 in Baghdad Marketplace,” “Coalition Forces Destroy Local Mosque,” etc.  In addition to having bystanders’ blood on your conscience, you could face a lengthy investigation and – if military authorities judge your use of force to have been disproportionate to the threat – prosecution.  This constant second-guessing has the potential to frustrate.  Nevertheless, if the Haditha story is true, there can be no excuse for the Marines’ actions.

In the wake of these allegations, Prime Minister al-Maliki has publicly accused Coalition Forces of “daily” violence against Iraqi civilians.  I have not witnessed any activity that would give rise to this claim.  Unfortunately, the new Iraqi government cannot, at the moment, provide a viable security alternative to the Coalition’s military presence.  Since Prime Minister Jafari’s stormy departure, his replacement, al-Maliki, has been paralyzed by politics.  He has not even been able to name the ministers – Defense (in charge of the Iraqi Army) and Interior (in charge of the Iraqi Police) – who are supposed to be overseeing the country’s security.  In the meantime, the existing Army and Police units are alternatively targets of and collaborators with the militias that range throughout the city.

It was 113 degrees today.  The occasional breeze offered little relief.  I overheard several soldiers say that they felt as though they were inside a giant hairdryer set on “high heat.”
 

Week XXVI: Over the Hump

Today marks the end of the sixth month of my platoon’s 12-month deployment.  The Navy, Air Force, and Marine units in Iraq generally have six-month rotations; while these other branches of the armed services contribute a great deal to our efforts, the occupation of Iraq is essentially the Army’s mission.  During our time here, we have seen both the seating of a democratically-elected Council of Representatives and a rise in sectarian violence that threatens this new regime.  We have witnessed vast improvements in the way Iraqi officials run the state and in the services the government provides for its population.  These steps forward have come at a cost, however; three years after the declared end of “major combat operations,” our own losses are still mounting.

Over the course of the past six months, we have found that, despite all of the high-tech equipment with which the Army has supplied the platoon, our best tools are ourselves.  No matter how much air support we have, it takes “boots on the ground” to secure an area.  Soldiers’ eyes are the things that spot the roadside bombs; avoiding an attack entirely is better protection than ever-thickening layers of body armor.  The gut feeling that something is wrong often proves more valuable than the latest stack of warnings from battalion.

Rockets and mortars have been raining down on Baghdad this week, but buttoning up in a highly fortified compound simply does not pay off.  My platoon does its best intelligence gathering when we are outside the wire.  During one mission this week, while we were securing a meeting site in a dangerous neighborhood, a local worker approached us with information about bomb-making activity in an otherwise deserted field on the outskirts of the city.  Several days later, at another location, an Iraqi civilian approached us to warn us about a sniper in a nearby building.  Interacting with the population is the best way of getting the information we need to succeed in our missions, as well as to ensure our own survival.  Our interpreters are as important as our radios, as communications systems go.

We received a report today that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, has been killed.  Our interpreters were particularly jubilant.  An avowed enemy’s elimination is always welcome, but here in Baghdad we are increasingly concerned with the activity of Shiite militia groups.  Although al-Zarqawi may have helped to drive a wedge between the Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, the bad blood between these two groups would have been the cause of violence with or without him.  We know that al-Zarqawi’s death is not the magic bullet that will end the war.

Week XXVIII: Goal!

After seven days of night missions, my platoon is slowly getting readjusted to daytime patrols.  We welcomed the opportunity to avoid the brunt of the 117-degree heat, if only for a week.  The only downside to the night missions was that we still had mandatory training events during the day, and these sessions frequently made solid stretches of sleep impossible.  For example, we took another first aid class in which we had to start two successful IVs in 10 minutes.  All of our arms now sport black-and-blue Rorschach blotches.  I have to admit that we are getting pretty good at sticking one another with needles.  Everyone passed the test; no one passed out.

Speaking of drawing blood, the mosquitoes are back in force; I had 60 confirmed kills yesterday.  What is worse is that the bugs seem to have brought with them a plague of rats.  When we go to the latrine, we can find the rodents cavorting under the showers.  The Iraqi specimens may be tiny compared to the New York City variety, but they still manage to raise a ruckus as they run through our ceilings at night.  At least the neighborhood lizard hordes are quiet.

One of the most delicate parts of my job involves the handling of the people whom we protect on our Personal Security Detail missions.  Many of the individuals whom we escort are high-ranking officials who are used to getting their way in matters large and small.  Some have had extensive prior military service.  When we are providing for their security, however, they fall under my command.  As I brief each of our charges, “I am the commander of this mission and will direct all aspects of its movement.”  Normally, these people are grateful for our protection, but once in a great while we run into an official who insists upon challenging the tactics and techniques that we have developed to keep him safe.

This week I had to devote a significant portion of my time to managing one of the few uncooperative people whom we have run across.  The official in question evidently wanted to start, in his words, “a pissing match”; fortunately, my battalion leadership rallied behind me, and this individual was soon on a plane back to the States.  A few days later, a State Department official presented my platoon with an achievement award for our recent work.  In addition, my soldiers just received certificates of appreciation from U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad for a particularly harrowing mission.

On a lighter note, my platoon received an unusual tasking several days ago: watch a soccer match on television.  To understand this situation, one must know a little about the venerable Army tradition of “Mandatory Fun.”  To ensure a good turnout at Army-sponsored social events, commanders will order their soldiers to attend.  In this instance, a camera crew was coming to our FOB to film soldiers watching a World Cup game in our Morale, Welfare & Recreation room.  The battalion duly encouraged soldiers to be present in the MWR room for the duration of the camera crew’s visit.  Despite the “or else” lurking behind this encouragement, we enjoyed the break in routine.  In any case, it was nice to showcase the FOB’s top-notch MWR personnel and facilities.
 

Week XXIX: Re-upping

This week all enlisted soldiers in the battalion had to attend an evening reenlistment briefing.  I tagged along, reasoning that what happens when we return to Fort Hood is a major concern for my soldiers.  The reenlistment representatives shared anecdotes of soldiers who fulfilled their active-duty commitment and then were called back to serve 24-month tours in Iraq.  The briefing’s message was clear: soldiers should “re-up” (i.e. reenlist) to protect themselves against the possibility of unforeseen recalls.

When each of us joined the Army, we signed on for an active-duty commitment of a certain number of years.  This term varies from soldier to soldier; recruits get larger signing bonuses for agreeing to four- or five-year active-duty enlistments.  While a prospective officer candidate, I agreed to three years of active duty following my commissioning, which took place on April 8, 2004.  As part of enlisting, however, every soldier accrues an initial eight-year service obligation.  After completing his term of active duty, a soldier becomes a member of the Individual Ready Reserve for the balance of his eight years.  Unlike the regular Army Reserves of one-weekend-a-month-two-weeks-a-year fame, the IRR does not train at all.  Veterans in the IRR rejoin the private sector, embarking upon careers and raising families.  As such, the IRR is usually the last resort in terms of the Army’s sources for manpower.  Increasingly, though, the Army has been turning to the IRR to plug manpower gaps in the current war.

At the time of our unit’s activation, Big Army (the Department of the Army) informed us that our brigade had a three-year lifecycle, ending in December 2007.  The lifecycle concept provides a sense of stability for soldiers and their families.  Since my own active-duty obligation ended prior to the lifecycle’s completion, I agreed to extend my active-duty commitment until the lifecycle ends.  During the reenlistment briefing, we learned that the lifecycle will likely end six months early, freeing soldiers for assignments to units that are redeploying to Iraq.  In sum, the brief raised more questions than it answered.

With two of the battery’s five platoons on mid-tour leave, our remaining platoons have been busier than normal.  In the wake of al-Zarqawi’s death, attacks in Baghdad dropped sharply but are starting to increase again.  Between our missions this week, my platoon managed to mount a daring amphibious assault.  We got a tip about an International Zone pool that U.S. Embassy personnel frequent.  Our arrival was straight out of “Caddyshack.”  For two hours, we played a rowdy game of water basketball.  In the midst of mounting dangers in Baghdad, this surreal break was welcome; it was the most relaxed I have felt since I deployed.  Shortly thereafter we were back on patrol, passing raging fires and wrecked vehicles.
 

Week 30: Moving On Up

My platoon has left the Battalion’s FOB, perhaps for good.  After more than 100 combat missions in Central Iraq, my soldiers have earned a well-deserved change of pace.  The Battalion has assigned my platoon to the U.S. State Department’s Office of Regional Affairs.  Over the past few days, we have been packing and moving all of our gear to our new home.  Our predecessors on this mission have been very helpful teaching us the ins and outs of the job.  The upside is that my men will be safer at our new base than on the road, giving me some satisfaction: it is my responsibility to bring everyone home in one piece.  In addition, the accommodations here are significantly better than the FOB’s; modern plumbing, good food, and more square feet per soldier in terms of living arrangements.  The downside is that I will have to redefine my place in the platoon’s operations.  My capable NCOs will be able to handle most of the day-to-day concerns associated with our new role.  When we were running daily missions in and around Baghdad, I spent hours planning each patrol, and I led each mission from the front.  Now I must – grudgingly though necessarily – cede most of the platoon’s control to my sergeants while I focus on the bigger picture.  It will be a tough transition for me.

July Fourth came and went with speeches and a showing of “Independence Day” in the FOB’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation Center.  Fortunately, my platoon did not witness any fireworks of the Iraqi variety that night.
 

Week XXXI: Restless

The platoon has entered the second week of its new assignment.  We are getting used to our roles, training in our spare time to master our new responsibilities.  Our living conditions and our chow are significantly better; Sergeant Cannon and I share a room, making it easier for us to pool our ideas about better ways to complete our mission and take care of the men.  Although I am happy that my soldiers have gotten a relative break, I feel guilty that the other platoons in the battalion are still on patrol each day.  My commander has ordered me to stay the course and enjoy my accommodations, but I am champing at the bit to return to our platoon’s primary mission.  Next month I will go on mid-tour leave, hopefully in time for Lilah’s birth.  (Over the course of several months of phone calls, Candace and I have decided to call our daughter Lilah Margaret.)  Sergeant Cannon will assume control of the platoon in my absence.  If the platoon is still on the same mission when I return, I may have to entrust the soldiers to Sergeant Cannon’s capable hands and look for a way of getting myself back in the fight, possibly as a battle captain for the battalion.  A departure from the platoon would come with its own share of guilt, but if my men will not need me any more, August will be as good a time as any to move on.

Week XXXII: A Whistle While You Work

The temperature has been 120 degrees in the shade lately.  The heat has brought with it an increase in attacks against Coalition Forces.  My platoon has seen firsthand the greater frequency of indirect fire.  Enemy mortars and rockets have been sailing over our heads just about every afternoon this week.  In between the enemy’s mid-day and evening prayers, he likes to lob a few Hail Mary’s our way.  We are close enough to these attacks’ points of origin to hear the muted explosion when the weapons fire.  The projectiles whistle ominously above us; their thunderous impacts shake the ground of our compound.  We are getting good at estimating the distance and direction of the impact.  Soldiers at another FOB have begun calling their base “Mortaritaville.”  The enemy only fires a few rounds before relocating.  He knows that patrols will quickly converge on the attack’s point of origin, and he does not want to wait around to meet them.

Our soldiers are closely following what is happening between Israel and Lebanon.  The set up is familiar: one country harbors a terrorist organization that is committed to the destruction of another country.  In Lebanon, unlike Afghanistan, the government does not merely tolerate the terrorists; the Hezbollah actually holds seats in the Lebanese parliament.  The massing of Israeli ground forces along the border has gotten our attention.  Everything is connected in the Middle East; when the United States takes steps to help the Israelis, anti-American forces in Iraq threaten to make U.S. soldiers suffer.
 

Week XXXIII: Rockets’ Red Glare

Our sleep schedules are scrambled from responding to rocket and mortar attacks at all hours of the day.  When a rocket comes in, I work with an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team to assess the damage and retrace the projectile’s flight path.  By conducting crater analysis, we can sometimes get a bead on the origin of an attack.  Hardly a day goes by without a chorus of explosions.

My platoon sergeant, Sergeant Cannon, learned today that his platoon leader from his last Iraq tour had just been killed by an IED.  My soldiers took the news hard.  A few of them had served with him; by all accounts, he was a squared-away guy.

Tonight I attended a mass briefing in preparation for mid-tour leave.  The presenters mainly preached common sense: protect yourself against STDs; your alcohol tolerance has dropped; do not get into fights; buckle up.  So far, two 4th Infantry Division soldiers have died in vehicle accidents while on leave.  What a waste – to have survived so much over here and then to lose one’s life while enjoying R&R.
 

Week XXXIV: Change of Command

We had a change-of-command ceremony this evening.  After 17 months in charge of Bravo Battery, Captain Raymond Jones is moving to another unit; Captain James Zoizack has taken his place.  Captain Jones was a good commander who, despite his gruff protests to the contrary, cared deeply for the battery’s soldiers.  CPT Zoizack, by comparison, takes a more cerebral approach to job.  Our new commander brings with him a great deal of technical expertise; for most of his career he has been a fire direction officer, calculating the adjustments necessary to compensate for the atmosphere’s effect on artillery rounds once they leave the howitzers.

Although we are in the middle of a war zone, the Army takes change-of-command ceremonies very seriously.  This week platoons returning to the FOB from missions have had to rehearse various drills for hours.  In unison, the soldiers must execute a variety of moves with their rifles.  The practice paid off; the ceremony looked good.  Even without 60 lbs. of gear, however, a soldier from another platoon crumpled in the heat while he stood at attention.  I have attended a number of change-of-command ceremonies, from the battery to the brigade level, and each time it seems that at least one soldier passes out from a combination of dehydration and locking his knees as he stands.  His fellow soldiers then smoothly close ranks over the prone soldier and surreptitiously pass him to the rear of the formation for medical assistance.  The effect is eerie.

Week XXXVIII: Back in Baghdad
 

After two wonderful weeks of seeing my wife every day and getting to know my new daughter, I have returned to my platoon in Iraq.  I had left my soldiers with their capable platoon sergeant, but I still was glad to see them all again.  Fortunately, apart from this past weekend, there have been relatively few attacks in our unit’s area of operations since I went home.  I would never have forgiven myself if any of my soldiers had gotten hurt while I was away.

Although I was still in Iraq when Lilah was born, my mid-tour leave brought me back to Texas several days after the birth.  For nearly a week, my house was packed; parents, in-laws and grandmothers descended on Fort Hood to meet the latest addition to our family.   As other new fathers had warned me, however, I rarely got more than three hours of uninterrupted sleep during these first few weeks after the birth.  In the two days that it took me to get back to Iraq, I slept at every opportunity.  Of course, merely holding Lilah and watching her big eyes try to take in the world was well worth the trip home.  And there was definitely some recuperative value in living somewhere where no one was shooting at me or trying to blow me up.

My platoon will be back on the road next week, conducting patrols.  Our current assignment – that of securing the State Department compound – was a relatively welcome change of pace when we got it.  Our accommodations have been almost absurdly good, but with them came an increased risk of rocket and mortar attacks, reminding me of the Lotus Eaters from “Watership Down.”  With this in mind, I return to the road with mixed feelings.

We have a much different attitude when we patrol.  There is a general sense in the Army that if indirect fire hits you – say, if a mortar hits your latrine – it is just bad luck.  While patrolling, however, you sometimes have a chance to face your attackers or, at the very least, see a roadside bomb and cordon it off before it detonates.  Consequently, we are much more involved in keeping ourselves alive while accomplishing a mission on the road.  As a platoon leader, I am the first one to advance into a potentially dangerous area.  Much of the responsibility for recognizing threats falls on me and the crew of my humvee.  The slower we go, the more of a chance we have of recognizing and avoiding IEDs, yet as slow-moving targets we are more exposed to enemy RPGs and small-arms fire.  With these dangers in mind, I must set the appropriate pace for the platoon.
 

Week XXXIX: Melonball

Our platoon is back on the streets.  I am impressed: my soldiers have not forgotten much despite their weeks away from the road.  Their reflexes are still sharp, they remember their battle drills, and they still have a good sense of when something in the scenery is not quite right. It is as if we never stopped patrolling.

After getting in from a mission at 3:30 a.m. one morning, I had to report to Officer Physical Training at 5:45 a.m.  Normally, these monthly PT sessions are grim, 9-mile-run affairs.  Not that day, however.  We piled aboard a bus that took us to a swimming pool in the International Zone. I should have known something was different when I saw our Battalion Commander slathering a watermelon with Vaseline.  We separated into two teams, shirts vs. skins, and jumped in the pool. For the next two hours, we played Melonball, the object of which was to move the watermelon from one side of the pool to the other.  It seemed simple enough; there were only two rules: no punching and no kicking.  Gouging, choke holds, and body slamming were all permitted.  And the no-punching, no-kicking rule was often forgotten in the heat of the scrum.  Blood flowed freely.  We ended the game bruised and sore but in high spirits.

In other news, while I was stationed at the State Department compound, I spent my downtime writing a paper about the military’s relationship with U.S. universities.  Before I went on leave, I submitted my work to the Army War College Quarterly.  I just learned that the journal wants to print my article in its winter issue. If all goes well, “Storming the Ivory Tower: The Military’s Return to American Campuses” should go to press in November.
 

Week XL: Double Shifts

With the onset of Operation Together Forward, our battalion has been busier than normal.  My platoon has often had several missions a day, forcing us to take three- and four-hour naps whenever we have had the opportunity.  Baghdad’s security is our primary concern; if the Iraqis do not feel safe enough to walk on their streets, they will not have faith in their democratically elected government.

Talk of “redeployment” – our return to the States – is leaving the realm of fantasy.  Despite the many conversations about homecoming activities, however, we know that we cannot relax until we complete our last patrol and are on the plane ride home.  Logistically, the Army takes several months to prepare its equipment and soldiers for movement back and forth between the United States and Iraq.  There are conexes (huge metal containers) to pack and to inspect, vehicles to inventory, and briefings to attend.  Non-mission-essential facilities shut down long before soldiers get on a plane.  Because our postal service will begin closing up shop shortly, we have been asked to tell our friends and family to stop sending packages 45 days before redeployment and stop sending letters 30 days before redeployment.  Of course, in true “Catch-22” fashion, we do not know our date for redeployment, and – even if we did – we could not tell our loved ones due to OpSec (Operational Security) concerns.

A few days ago, the Brigade’s Public Affairs Office sent several representatives to cover our platoon’s activities for the Armed Forces Network, the Pentagon Channel, and our Brigade Newsletter, “Cobra Strike.”  (The Fourth Brigade of the Fourth Infantry Division is known as the “Cobra” Brigade, a call sign which always draws smiles from those of us who remember the old “G.I. Joe” cartoons.  Regrettably, we do not have a Hooded Cobra Commander.)  We were amused by all of the attention, and several of my privates (a dwindling category, as most have earned promotion to the rank of specialist since we have been in Iraq) enjoyed mugging for the camera.

Week XLI: REFRAD

We just finished another week of all-night missions.  When we are on patrol, one of the most challenging aspects of being a platoon leader is coordinating our movement with other military elements.  My soldiers have now worked together as a team for 10 months, and they have unconsciously synchronized their movements.  They have internalized the daily battle drills we conduct, and I can count on them to do the right thing, reflexively and quickly, whether recovering a disabled vehicle or reacting to the enemy’s small arms fire.  Outside of our platoon, however, there are many other players in our battle space – some friendlies, some hostiles, and many neutrals who could become hostiles if handled improperly.

This past week while I was on the road, I had to spend a lot of effort coordinating my platoon’s movements with U.S. State Department personnel, an Army unit’s Quick Reaction Force, and “attack aviation” (helicopters with a lot of firepower).  This entailed juggling five different electronic communications devices, even as I led the platoon through the streets.  Fortunately, my assistant machine gunner has become an admirable RTO (Radio-Telephone Operator), handling routine radio traffic and referring any tactical issues to me.

These days, an Army officer has to give nine months’ notice if he intends to leave active duty once his active-duty service obligation (ADSO) is complete.  When I graduated from Officer Candidate School in April 2004, I accepted a three-year ADSO, meaning that I could theoretically leave active duty within a few months of my return from Iraq.  Our brigade is joining another division, however, and, given the demands of the transition, the Brigade Commander is holding all officers until June 2007.  After careful consideration, I have decided to submit my REFRAD (Release From Active Duty) packet and leave active duty in June 2007.  Candace and I plan to settle our growing family in New York, and I am currently applying to several prosecutors’ offices.

Although I have appreciated the privilege of leading a platoon in combat, it is time for me to move on and resume my legal career.  As much as I look forward to returning to the courtroom, I will leave the Army with mixed feelings.
Week XLII: Ramadan

Ramadan began this week.  Ever since we arrived in Iraq, soldiers who already had a combat tour under their belts have warned us about this month.  In particular, they cautioned us about the “Night of Power,” which this year falls on October 14 for Sunnis and October 19 for Shia.  We shall see if that holiday lives up to its reputation.

As part of Ramadan, the Iraqis fast during the day, foregoing even water.  Because some Iraqis work on our Forward Operating Base, soldiers in my battalion are not allowed to eat food outside during the day out of respect for the local religion.  The Army is very concerned about its image amongst the Iraqis.  For example, we had to change our battery’s name from “Bonecrushers” to “Bulldogs” because some senior officer deemed the former too violent.  On the bright side, the battery’s old “Bonecrushers” coffee mugs have become collector’s items.

We are now enjoying double-digit temperatures, albeit in the high 90s.  The weather has been getting cooler, but attacks have been increasing in frequency and degree.  Suicide attacks are the worst they have been in three years.  Seven car bombs went off in our area of operations yesterday, leading up to another vehicle curfew in Baghdad in addition to the normal Friday afternoon traffic ban.  These curfews are more guidelines than rules, however; our patrols still find the odd car or truck roaming the streets.  The relatively quiet roads are a mixed blessing.  Although we have fewer vehicular threats to worry about, those cars that are on the street have no business being there.  Furthermore, the insurgents know that most of the vehicles on the street are affiliated with the Coalition Forces and thus can be targeted without the fear of accidentally blowing up an Iraqi family.

In addition to my platoon’s regular patrols, I have been busy getting my Paladin howitzers ready for the unit that is relieving us.  On the battlefield, platoons move around a lot, picking up equipment from one unit and passing it off to another in a series of “battle handovers.”  As my platoon’s primary missions are Personal Security Details, we had to give the howitzers to other artillery platoons when we deployed.  Since then, four other platoons have operated my Paladins on a FOB that is miles away across the Red Zone.  The Paladins were once stuffed full of equipment, but now, after numerous battle handovers between these platoons, the gear is all jumbled together and several Paladins have developed maintenance issues.  With the deployment drawing to a close, I have to send my soldiers to scrounge for equipment as I get the Paladins’ inventories straight.

Not long ago, the media reported that a soldier was being charged for the damage that his body armor sustained when an insurgent shot him.  This incident stemmed from the fact that he was missing the proper memorandum to “DX” (turn in) his ruined equipment.  The Army eventually straightened out the matter, but the story was a testament to the military’s Byzantine property accountability system.  Every “shortage” that has appeared in the Paladins’ equipment inventories must have an explanation or else someone will have to pay for the missing item.  The paperwork alone is incentive enough to keep track of one’s military property.  My soldiers are working overtime to piece together the inventories from a variety of unlikely sources.

Week XLIII: The Deluge

Baghdad experienced five minutes of drizzle this week, our first rain in more than six months.

When we were at Fort Hood, we would spends weeks in the field completing Army “lanes” – training exercises – in which Observer-Controllers (OCs) would ensure that anything that could go wrong did go wrong.  We would be on patrol when “insurgents” would pop out of the scenery and open fire.  Then there would be an explosion (a small “flash-bang” device) outside our vehicle, and an OC would tell us that our humvee was incapacitated.  And, oh, by the way, our gunner has gone unconscious and I now have a broken leg.  And mortar rounds are beginning to fall fast and heavy around us.  And we cannot communicate with the other elements of the platoon; our radio is fried . . .

These parades of horribles were not unlike the elaborate scenarios that I used to face on law school examinations: A and B are burglarizing C’s house; finding C at home, B shoots at C but accidentally hits A; C clubs B with a cricket bat; C waits an hour before calling an ambulance, and B dies of his wounds; the ambulance arrives, but the ambulance driver is drunk; after loading A into his vehicle, the ambulance driver crashes into a tree, killing a paramedic; the gurney containing C shoots out of the back of the ambulance, knocking over a lit barbecue grill, which engulfs the neighborhood in flames; finally, the ambulance driver stumbles out of his vehicle and gets run over by a joyriding 10-year-old driving an Edsel.  I seem to recall a criminal law exam in which the extended consequences of a botched robbery sent an entire city’s population to the morgue . . .

We had one of those Murphy’s Law missions a few days ago; fortunately, none of my soldiers got hurt.  In our nine hours on the road, we had to overcome challenges ranging from an exploding roadside bomb, incoming mortar rounds, trigger-happy Iraqi policemen, and a burning Bradley Fighting Vehicle, full of live, high-explosive rounds.  To complicate matters, two of our humvees developed maintenance problems.  Sergeant Cannon’s training as a mechanic came in handy in keeping our patrol moving.  My soldiers never lost their cool, and we emerged from the day’s trials weary but unscathed.

When we first got to our FOB in December 2005, we moved into the former Ba’ath Party Headquarters, a building never intended for housing.  As such, we had to erect a maze of ponchos and wall lockers to give our soldiers some semi-private living space.  As we prepare for the arrival of our replacements, however, the Army has obtained build-it-yourself furniture from a civilian contractor.  When we return from the road, we now spend hours piecing together nightstands and beds.  We will certainly leave this FOB more inhabitable than we found it.  Our First Sergeant has compared our earlier living conditions to those of a “Korean whorehouse.”  I cannot speak to the analogy, but I do think that our replacements will be favorably impressed by the changes we made during our watch.

Week XLIV: A Fire in the Sky

I was drinking coffee a few nights ago when a sudden explosion nearly blew out the room’s windows.  Another five blasts rattled the building, so I threw on my body armor and helmet and rushed upstairs to see where the incoming rounds were landing.  When I got to the rooftop, I found an inferno on the horizon.  A mortar round had hit a nearby base’s ammunition depot.  For the next several hours, columns of flames, mushroom clouds, and colorful eruptions punctuated the darkness.  Miraculously, no soldiers were killed.

As we get closer to our return to the States, we must sit through a series of mandatory briefings designed to ease our transition out of the war zone.  This week the Chaplain gave us an hour-long presentation about preparing for reunions with our loved ones.  The gist of the briefing was that we should start thinking about how we will reintegrate ourselves into our families.  We must be aware that children may seem distant, spouses may have learned to enjoy a great deal of independence, and some wives or girlfriends may have been unfaithful.  Immediately following the Chaplain’s talk, however, our Commander told us to put the home front out of our minds.  If we lose our focus while on a mission, we could lose our lives, making our homecoming even more difficult for our loved ones.

Of course, the closer we get to redeployment, the more impossible it is not to “smell the barn.”  My soldiers use all sorts of systems to measure their days in Iraq: number of Mondays left (we perform extensive humvee maintenance every Monday), probable number of missions remaining, stints on base security, etc.  The word “short” is increasingly creeping into conversations; when a soldier will redeploy, he is considered to be “short” or a “short timer.”

In posters and handouts, the Army encourages its soldiers to perform their civic duty and vote in local and federal elections.  The absentee ballot system, however, often disenfranchises us.  For example, our mail service here may stop before absentee ballots are mailed.  The federal government has attempted to make absentee voting easier, but a soldier must still send several volleys of paper to a county clerk before he can cast his vote.  It seems that more states are moving to Internet-based voting; I know that this change would greatly help deployed servicemembers.

My unit has tasked me with drafting a handbook of the lessons that we have learned over the course of our deployment.  Right now I have more than 200 pages of material.  When our relief arrives, we will share our intelligence analyses, neighborhood photographs, and even the video footage we take on some of our more complicated missions.  Every arriving unit puts its own twist on TTPs (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures), but we will give our successors a solid foundation before we leave.
 

Week XLV: The Feds

October is shaping up to be one of the deadliest months since this war began.  As I write this, the explosions outside are getting louder and more frequent.  My platoon has been busy escorting officials to various government compounds, trying to get some business accomplished during Ramadan.  Fortunately, the conferences are shorter than normal; because of the Ramadan fasting, Iraqi officials do not indulge in the extensive chai drinking that otherwise precedes every decision of importance.

Two of the most powerful people in Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr (the religious leader to whom the Mahdi Militia answers) and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, have agreed to let the Iraqi people – presumably through the popularly elected Council of Representatives – decide the question of federalism.  The Iraqi federalist movement, as opposed to American Federalism of the late 18th Century, involves a breaking apart of the country.  (Granted, America and Iraq have approached federalism from the opposite ends of the political spectrum: America from a loose confederation of states and Iraq from a brutal dictatorship.)  Iraqi federalists advocate separating the country into three separate ethnic provinces: the Kurds to the north, the Sunnis in Central Iraq, and the Shia to the South.

The Iraqi federalists face significant opposition from some Shia and Sunnis.  Without the creation of separate provinces, the Shia, who make up the largest population group in Iraq, would have the political clout to rule the entire country.  The Sunnis are leery of federalism because the territory that they would get – in Central Iraq – is relatively oil-poor.  The Kurds, however, are nearly an autonomous state unto themselves and enjoy a special relationship with the United States.  Furthermore, Kurdistan has its own military, and the Kurds, under the present system, control the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

As our unit’s replacements get here, our base will temporarily have nearly double the number of people that it usually does.  Several months ago our Brigade Commander had remarked on our FOB’s “draconian” policies.  We now impose even stricter controls at our gates, turning away disappointed U.S. contractors in droves.

Week XLVI: Patches

They’re finally here – our replacements are trickling into Baghdad.  I feel a rush when I see the fresh faces, the clean uniforms, and especially the unfamiliar unit patches.  There is a reason that a soldier’s replacement is called his “relief.”  It is sobering, however, to think that many of these “new” soldiers are now on their third tour in Iraq.

The Iraqis celebrated the end of Ramadan by breaking their fasts and shooting hundreds of rounds into the sky above the International Zone.  Red tracer fire lit up Monday night; fortunately, the gunfire was not directed at anything in particular.  One U.S. contractor, however, told us that a round had fallen straight through the top of his car; out of curiosity, we checked his vehicle and found the bullet.

An Iraqi-born U.S. soldier was recently abducted while visiting his family in a Baghdad neighborhood.  All Coalition troops in Baghdad have been scrambling to help find the soldier.  The Army has been cordoning off large sections of the city and searching door-to-door for him, but we have had no luck so far.  I cannot imagine how he thought it was safe to pay such a social call in the middle of a war zone.  Regardless of the reasoning behind his visit, he is still a U.S. soldier and deserves every effort that we make to recover him.

As we pass the torch to the new unit, we must brief our counterparts on our platoon operations.  I just finished compiling a 120-page handbook for the Battalion; this guide encapsulates all of the lessons that we have learned on patrol these past 11 months.  My platoon is now back on the road, trying to learn a few more things to pass along to our successors.

Week XLVII-Week XLVIII: Homecoming

My unit has sent me back to the States with the first wave of Fourth Infantry Division soldiers, and I am writing this final update from Texas.  When I left Baghdad, the city was swarming with our First Cavalry Division replacements.  We were more than happy to pass the torch.
I flew from Baghdad into a Kuwaiti camp, where ominous brown clouds gathered on the horizon in all directions.  At some prearranged signal, the clouds raced to converge upon our location, swallowing the camp and bathing us in a greenish glow.  In a new twist, the sandstorm’s choking dust mixed with a torrential downpour.  A drum roll of thunder went on for hours; lightning bolts crackled along the camp’s perimeter.  Then, as quickly as it had started, the storm was over and we flew to Fort Hood by way of Frankfurt Hahn, Atlanta, and Dallas.

I had spent two years of my life preparing for this deployment.  In my first 12 months in the Army, I completed Basic Training, Officer Candidate School, and Officer Basic Course.  In my second year, I put together a platoon and trained it for our mission in Iraq.  This third year has marked the culmination of my efforts: the successful execution of more than 150 combat missions with no casualties, thanks to an effective platoon sergeant, solid NCOs, and a stellar group of dedicated and enthusiastic soldiers.

In our work with the U.S. State Department, we have seen the Iraqis’ national and neighborhood governments evolve.  Our experience has taught us that personal security is a necessary condition for the development of democracy.  People are less willing to believe in their electoral power when death squads are executing civilians in the street.  The Coalition Forces’ removal of Saddam Hussein set Iraq on the right path, but there are centuries’-old tensions amongst the Iraqi people that require resolution.  There is still a lot of work to be done.

My redeployment coincides with a family emergency.  A week ago, Candace learned that Lilah must undergo heart surgery sooner than we had expected; our daughter was born with a hole between two chambers of her heart.  So, on my thirtieth birthday, Candace and I will drive Lilah to San Antonio for the operation.  Lilah will have to stay in the hospital for a week after the surgery; Candace and I will be there with her, pulling watches.  As Lilah recovers, I will prepare to make the transition back to the courtroom. I will return to New York in December or January for job interviews with various prosecutors’ offices.

My active-duty military service will end in June, and Candace, Lilah, and I will be moving to New York for good.  I have never regretted my decision to enlist in the U.S. Army.  Although I will be exchanging my Army greens for a suit and tie, I will always treasure what my military service taught me about myself, my country, and my fellow Americans.