Support Our Troops! Woo!

There's been a fire storm of controversy over the latest reports of the goings on at Walter Reed Medical Center. The Washington Post blasted the care at Walter Reed, reporting on bureaucratic red tape around medical compensation claims and the poor conditions in the barracks of the facility. Newsweek joined in, debuting a cover story in a few days, but you can read the fantastic writeup here. It tells of those caught in the middle of an archaic system that is too strained to handle the stream of Iraq and Afghanistan vets coming in. Lack of foresight in planning the War on Terror extended to poor planning on the caring of the wounded.

Walter Reed is the destination of the vast majority of wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a care facility where both physically and mentally injured soldiers come for treatment. Amputees get fitted for prosthetic limbs and claims are filed to draw a disability check. Those suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome can find help in support groups or with medication. In a perfect world, there is an efficient system set up to handle all of this. Since September 11, soldiers have been revered as heroes in the eyes of the public. But those who have left their limbs and their mind on the battlefield, it's just another fight to get the care they deserve. I've read several reports on injured soldiers denied compensation because of their past medical history. For example, someone who was in an IED blast that damaged their knee would not get any money because that person had an old knee injury during their high school football days. They couldn't prove the disability was a result of the blast. This goes to show that anyone in control of money in the military will find any way to save pennies here and there. Unless, of course, they're dealing with contractors, where perpetual war means perpetual profits.

After the shit hit the proverbial fan regarding Walter Reed, the staff went into a frenzy about the ordeal, claiming the reports coming out were factual but unfair. Um, did I miss something? How can something be true but not fair? That's why it's called the truth, not 'what we want you to know.' It's not rose colored or tucked away neatly like the problems were before the Washington Post exposé. Immediately they began renovating the offending rooms, removing mold, repairing holes in ceilings and fixing leaky pipes. "It's not the Ritz-Carlton at Pentagon City, I'll grant you that," Lt. Gen. Kiley, the Army surgeon general said of the conditions. I wonder how humble his accommodations are. Citizens pay for both with their tax dollars, yet the ones actually coming from combat zones without their god damn arms and legs are living in sub par quarters. The money is there, obviously. It's just not being well spent. At this very moment, I'm up late at night in a heated bay in Taji, Iraq with an internet line hooked right up next to my bed. Tomorrow I have the option of either going to a well stocked chow hall or to one of several fast food joints, like Subway or Taco Bell. Down the street, KBR employees are getting paid very little to do our laundry as Dick Cheney, former CEO of KBR's parent company Halliburton, gets paid a six figure severance per year. Round and round the tax money goes, where it stops, nobody knows. Especially not Walter Reed.

That's not even the best part. Those undergoing care at Walter Reed have now been ordered to keep quiet about problems arising there since the coverage began (the delicious irony is that The Airforce Times, a military-ran publication, broke that story). As you can see in the article, sweeping under the carpet as taken action as a first sergeant and twenty platoon sergeants were reassigned, with 120 new permanent soldiers expected to arrive mid March. That, unfortunately, will not solve the problems. A budget analysis and retooling is needed, along with granting VA hospitals like Walter Reed a bigger budget. In the Senate there will be those wondering where all that money is going to come from. Try by closing down every Pizza Hut and Cinnabon in Iraq. Then fine KBR every time they overcharge the government, which apparently is all the fucking time. There, budget problems solved. Now that I fixed the crisis, I just ask for a humble lieutenant general's quarters. Just don't put me close to Walter Reed so I don't smell the mold and decay.

AH

Questions Answered

Nearly eight months into a year long deployment, I still get asked the most basic questions by those back home in America. To people I know, I’m the closest link to this conflict besides the distilled image shown on network news shows. One of the most common is “what goes on day to day?” and the more recent, “what do you think of the troop surge?” Both are excellent questions, if a bit nebulous. So a nebulous answer is what you'll get!

First, ‘day to day’ is a little difficult to define. In Mosul, we spent every day on presence patrols, meaning we drove around for a set time just to show we could. We’d get the occasional raid on a target or set up in someone’s house overnight, watching high traffic streets for enemy movement. Then, there was a clear picture on what happened from week to week. Our brigade was the only one operating there so we had a well defined mission. Suppress enemies moving in from the north and guiding the Iraqi Army to self reliance and competence. Life, for the most part, was good. Going out for two hours once or twice in an afternoon was our day to day. Then Baghdad flared up.

For every unit in Iraq, there is a designated AO, or area of operations that each brigade is assigned to. Being the sole brigade in Mosul, we divided the city equally into three parts, each sector going to each battalion. In Baghdad, there are several brigades who call Baghdad their AO. Everyone has a piece except us. We are the official errand boys for the flashpoint of insurgent activity in the war. Each unit has a specific goal and mission like we did in Mosul. Some have the task of raiding several targets at once. Others have big clearing missions, where troops go house to house searching for hidden caches and inciting enemy reactions. Each of these units rely on up-armored Humvees or tanks to accomplish this. We are the only Stryker brigade in Iraq. Following the invasion, the Strykers have shown their worthiness in this country for being the best equipped to handle urban combat. Their thick armor can take bomb blasts that would destroy a Humvee. They tote around either a .50 cal machine gun or an automatic grenade launcher while having four men standing up with relative protection scanning rooftops for gunmen or a fellow wielding an RPG. Their interior can hold a squad of infantry, which takes two or three Humvees to carry. And don’t underestimate the psychological factor of seeing a huge vehicle drop a ramp, pour out a squad with relatively little noise. To illustrate this point, we had a choke hold on Mosul. We owned that town. Attacks were few and far in between (I never shot my rifle in defense in the five months we were there, despite being outside the wire nearly every day of our tenure). Now, the Humvee unit that took over is losing control of the city. Clearly the Stryker is key when holding ground. Since we arrived in Baghdad, we have been attached to this unit and that unit, assisting in their specific missions. So potentially, one week will be dedicated to raiding potential insurgent houses, and the next week will be spent patrolling violent neighborhoods trying to locate the ever elusive cache sites. Flash forward to the announcement of the new Baghdad Security Plan, which in summary aims to reduce sectarian violence by permanently positioning coalition forces in the middle of neighborhoods, giving the Iraqis peace of mind knowing there is a 24 hour presence. At least in theory. When the 82^nd Airborne was the first unit to arrive as part of the surge, they were set up in a COP (Combat Overwatch Post) in northern Baghdad, a former shopping mall turned fortress. Our job was to ensure the wall was built while informing the local population about the new post going up. We conducted patrols out of there for four days, the last evening getting into a firefight with what was later deemed as a handful of gunmen. The entire building returned fire, setting several houses ablaze.

The 82^nd agreed that an area they were assigned to would take three months to completely search and clear, and decided it would take our unit five days. So they dumped the entire thing on our lap. And what do you know, we did it in about that time frame they established. Under a week. Now, they’re patrolling that area on their own. So for now, the surge is working as it’s supposed to. Until more units arrive in their Humvees to request our presence in their areas, and we’re pulled in every direction without any clear mission for us to follow. Which has been clear since December, as some of my esteemed colleagues pointed out in a controversial article then. How can you be confident in the mission when it’s someone else’s?

AH

Saved, But Not Saved

Early on a Tuesday morning last week, we began the day before the sun came up. The mission was simple: park vehicles on the on-ramp to a Baghdad highway and randomly block in traffic to conduct searches. We’d stop dozens of vehicles at a time and paw through the whole thing while others frisked the occupants for guns, detonators, fake IDs, anything rousing suspicion. We did this for a few hours until another platoon came to relieve us around lunchtime, and we would fall back to a base to rest for a few hours. We rushed to the chow hall, hoping to get back to the vehicles for some shut eye. Others walked to the free internet to kill some time. On my way back, our driver came running up to us saying “We have to go, we have to go now.” We cursed the thousands of possibilities why we had to return an hour early and walked in that direction. On our way back we ran into our sergeant major, who urged us to hurry up, saying a Blackwater helicopter crashed (Blackwater is a security firm for State Department officials in Iraq. They also train foreign military). At that point we rushed to the vehicles and headed in the direction of the crash site, having a very general idea where it was.


Our Strykers went blazing through neighborhoods hot on the trail. After a few minutes, ominous words came across the radio. “We just passed a bunch of bodies on the side of the road. They looked Caucasian.” We hit a U turn and doubled back to the bodies when several men started running away, some covered in blood. Since the rules of engagement are counterintuitive as I’ve pointed out in an earlier entry, we couldn’t shoot because they did not pose a threat to us. They made their way through alleys and side roads, escaping our grasp. Our vehicle, being in the lead for the effort, dropped ramp nearest the bodies. We set up near a corner, and I turned to see a white man, stripped of almost all his clothes laying face down, blood pooled all around him. No sign of the downed helicopter. We went further into the neighborhood to capture anyone making an exit. A few steps to the alley, we encounter three more American bodies in a group. I don’t have much time to notice their faces but I catch a glimpse of glassy eyes and tattooed arms. A trail of blood leads through the alley but abruptly ends. A shotgun blast erupts as my team leader shoots a lock off a door. We enter and clear the building, finding no signs of activity. I notice an expended AK47 round near some drops of blood outside the door. We continue through the alley, picking up no signs. We round a corner and see the ground totally swamped with blood. Divots, holes and ruts are all filled to the top. It all leads to one closed door halfway down the alley. A kick to the door opens to a surreal image: a helicopter, almost severed in half, crashed into a roof of a house. It sits on the second story ledge, so we begin clearing all the rooms in the building. I tear down sheets used as doors leading to dark, empty rooms probably occupied until a helicopter came roaring in. We used a broken wall to climb up to the crash, sending bricks falling down to the ground. Inside of the helicopter tells the whole story. Expended rounds from American and insurgent weapons. They tried to fight their way out after the crash. It was assumed they died in the crash according to early reports in the news, but there were obvious signs of struggle. In a few minutes, waves of Blackwater members stormed the area to get ahold of any sensitive documents and equipment. Our medic began to put the bodies in bags for their men to carry back. Security was set up for this, and after awhile, people in the neighborhood began coming out to investigate. We waved them back into their houses and apartments.

The call came to load up after roughly 45 minutes to an hour after we went to the ground. Smoke was thrown to conceal our movement to the trucks. We were moving back to the scene where the bodies were left, presumably to be loaded on a vehicle by insurgents to later show decapitated heads on internet clips. As always, progress was thwarted.

A constant hum of machine gun fire erupted from the tall building across the street from our position. Not ordinary machine guns, but DShK guns, suitable for shooting down airplanes and demolishing vehicles and buildings with their 12.7mm rounds. Two platoons, 60+ men, took the building we first looked in. Machine guns were taken to the roof. Couches and desks were placed as stands to shoot from the high windows. The order to fire was given.

On the decibel level, gunshots must be close to a jet engine when in the confines of a building. The sound of rifle and machine gun fire filled the entire neighborhood, but on the bottom floor, it was the loudest thing I have ever heard. People in your face shouting can barely be understood. Since I’m a lowly specialist in a building full of higher ranking men, there was no window for me to return any fire. They were reserved for the heavier SAWs and team leaders. My team leader began to have malfunctions with his rifle but would not jump down so I could replace him. I watched as others fired for twenty minutes straight, even taking a video of the offending building getting pummeled by rounds. I was finally directed to shoot a grenade from the launcher underneath my gun, something I haven’t done yet. I relished at the opportunity to send a grenade into a window occupied by a machine gunner. I stepped outside on the corner of the building, loaded a grenade and flipped my sight up. I am seconds away from shooting when a cease fire is called. Everyone foolish enough to be outside the building comes back in. We begin the long process of loading up, but this time we make it. All in all, I didn’t fire one round.


It’s obvious from what you have read in earlier accounts that I believe we make no progress in this war, that this has been a constant waste of time and effort. For seven months that has been true. But on January 23, we have tangible progress. We could have never saved the Blackwater guys from being killed, but we saved their remains from being taken and were able to secure them for their families. Various reports construe that around eighteen insurgents were killed in the fight, along with some civilians caught in the crossfire. Some of our guys suffered cuts from falling bricks but no one was seriously hurt. But those who were there will carry the image of those four Americans in the streets forever.

AH

Stupidest Shit...Ever!

Since the inception of the Stupid Shit editions that find themselves scattered across this blog, I had planned on a Stupid Shit of The Year, listing all the candidates and having some sort of vote on what you, the most faithful of readers felt was the most inane and infuriating of all entries. Up to that point, they were all unexplainable rifts in common sense. All of it was maddening but we took it in stride as part of our job. It was so close to that moment, but before the end of the year, a single second stood tantamount to the stupidest shit I’ve ever witnessed.

On Christmas Day on the streets of Baghdad, we were greeted with student protests, hundreds marching throughout the city shouting anti American slogans as the mosque loudspeakers boomed with harsh rhetoric. Atop rooftops we could see them massing, and eventually we were called down to street level to deal with possible rioting. We met face to face with the protesters, both sides debating the consequences of dealing the first blow. I took a knee next to my compatriot and loaded a soft tipped grenade into my launcher to dissuade the more restless in the crowd; one tap to the chest and you’d be sent hurling into the mud. After a hasty Mexican standoff, we loaded up to head back to our base as the crowd cheered an apparent victory. Down the road, more were waiting for us with burning trash used as barricades to stop us in our tracks while rocks and chunks of concrete rained down on the hatches from rooftops. Grinches were definitely out in full force, but everyone made it back safe.

Wait, is this the line for PS3?

The stage was set for the next day, the day it came together for me. The day I finally understand how this conflict is being fought, in all the wrong ways most dangerous to those who are doing the fighting, protecting the very people at the top who are not. The day I was shot at for the first time in almost six months to the day I deployed, and the first time I ever shot back. Our mission was hazy and vague; sit outside the volatile section of Sadr City and wait for the enemy to come to us. We lazily scanned rooftops watching for machine gunners and snipers. I had just come from the stairwell where I was watching for anyone try to ambush us, but met only women and friendly kids. I was there but a few minutes when the horizon shook with a fierce sound of fire: clack-clack-clack-clack-clack. It was not the sound of our own. Five men including me pinpointed the fire coming from a rooftop in the Sadr City limits, and engaged. He soon disappeared, maybe dead, maybe not. We continued to lay down fire until I was told to stop. In between shots I attempted to mark the target with smoke grenades but both failed to perform. I intricately repeated through my head what happened for the next few minutes, coming up with all kinds of ‘what if’ scenarios. I’m sure it’s normal.

The rules of engagement were designed to protect the innocent and to prevent madmen from becoming murderers under the guise of defense. It states you must only fire at targets that are a direct threat to you. But, you can also shoot when you feel your life is threatened. In conventional war, this must have been simple to follow. You have two opposing sides, using conventional tactics with the wear of recognized uniforms. It wasn’t hard determining who was on your side and who wasn’t. There was honor and respect between foes. Flashes of history show us this. On Christmas Day in 1914, British and German troops ceased fighting for that day to trade cigarettes, coffee and stories. They played soccer in no man’s land, the ground where hundreds of thousands perished on both sides during futile advances. In Bastogne during WWII, again in the spirit of Christmas, German and American troops exchanged lines of Silent Night from their respective lines. They too continued one of the bloodiest battles of the war the next morning.

Welcome to twenty first century warfare.

American soldiers are breaking their backs to be the good guys in this war, to represent our leaders and the public we serve. We’re trying to remove the shame of Abu Ghraib and soldiers who raped and murdered Iraqi girls. When clearing blocks, we cut locks and if necessary, kick doors off hinges to search for weapon caches. If the people are home, we give them a number to call so they can collect money for their damaged property. In WWII, troops cleared houses by throwing in grenades without checking to see if a family is huddled in the corner. A terrible thing could happen, but it’s a war after all. We now have paintball guns and non-lethal shotgun rounds. Do you think the enemy carries the same? Who is this really helping?

I told you all of that to tell you what else happened on the roof that day. Minutes after the firefight, all of us noticed a black sedan making the same rounds through alleys and side streets. Always stopping in the same spot, always backing up at the exact same distance. The driver along with a passenger in the front seat and back seat were concealing most of the frame behind a building, leaving only the right passenger door facing us. Insurgents have been known to use sniper rifles inside cars so they can make quick getaways in traffic. It’s something we all know and watch for. This car was using textbook actions in a moving sniper platform. Immediately my team leader called up to my squad leader, who too became suspicious. We all wanted to take a shot, at least in the trunk of the car to scare the driver off, who was more than 300 meters away. Instinct was prevailing. We kept our sights on the car, which disappeared only to come back to the same spot and repeat his routine. It’s been 20 minutes. The call to take the shot went higher up the chain, the story getting more distorted and twisted the more ways it was interpreted to a higher ranking officer, all who weren’t there with us. It came back down the chain: don’t take the shot. It became a political decision; what if we were wrong? That's a lot of paperwork. We all cursed whoever kicked it back. I thought out loud about shooting and defending my actions later. I was told not to again. We watched the car leave, only to round the corner one more time and stop. He backs up, once again exposing his rear right window in a perfect line of sight to our rooftop. Once again the request to open fire was denied.

The window comes down.

Children in the alleyway scatter in all directions.

A flash of light fills the open window.

PSSSSSHEW.

When bullets fly near you, they pop as they make sonic boomlets. Closer still, they make hissing noises like a rattlesnake slithering past you faster than the speed of sound. In a split second, you realize you’re not dead. Your second thought is, “where did it go?” I looked over to my team leader five feet to my right, shouting obscenities and holding his ear. I thought he had been shot. Quickly I realize the bullet came so close to his head that it damaged his hearing for a moment. My ears were ringing as well. As for the sniper, he got away. The time from the shot to when the car moved into the alley was less than a second. Kill or no kill, the sniper made it back to his family that night. He used against us our most honorable and foolhardy trait: our adherence to the rules. And we, the most powerful force the earth has known, have been effectively neutered.

So dreadful the thought of civilian casualties that rules of engagement get more constricting by the day. Americans and the rest of the world are unwavered at the sight of our boys coming home in body bags, but Iraqi deaths are too much to handle. They call for tougher rules, for more discipline. They want us to accomplish our mission but can’t stomach the fact it could result in civilian deaths. Now chew on this: what if we shot at that car, and it turned out to be nothing? What if it ricocheted and killed a little girl? Would we still be right? The answer is yes. It’s unsettling to think in such cold terms, but you, the American public that cover your SUVs in yellow ribbons with the most shameful definition of support that has ever been conceived, burden those in the military with all the responsibility and guilt of a war that couldn’t exist without the Senate you elected. You thank us for protecting your freedom, then with infinite ignorance, look the other way while the death toll mounts, largely because of limits imposed by the government, all the way down the chain of command to the individual on the rooftop. It’s perpetuated by the vocal citizens who demand we keep civilian casualties down at all costs, and that reverberates through the halls of Washington. It trickles down to the senior officers who have careers to protect, where accountability comes back on them. The ones who make the call not to shoot at the alleged sniper in a car somewhere on a cold street in Baghdad.

Before I left for the Army, my father told me an old adage I should have kept dear: “I’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.” It needs no explanation. Those who were on the rooftop agreed that the next time we get that gut feeling, we’re acting on it. Even if the world says it’s a crime. I’ll leave this with another quote, from famed journalist Dan Rather:

In a constitutional republic such as ours, you simply cannot sustain warfare without the people at large understanding why we fight, how we fight, and have a sense of accountability to the very top.

The next time, I’m shooting. I might be judged by twelve, but it beats the alternative.

AH

Glorious Shit of The Week

On the night of August 4, 2004 I hugged my family, said goodbye and left them behind at a hotel in Dallas. Sleep came surprisingly early that night, and I awoke at 4 AM to a breakfast of eggs and bacon that a homeless man would think twice about eating. I was surrounded by about a hundred other nervous people, all strangers to each other but with one thing in common: they were all joining the military that day. Recruits for the Army, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard, active and reserve, we all piled onto buses bound for MEPS, the last step in processing before you board a plane to the location of your initial training. Hours later I was on my way to Atlanta, where I boarded another bus headed to Ft. Benning.


When you sign a contract for the Army, you do it by year. I joined for three years, but you can go for four, five or six. But that time doesn’t start when you begin training. It begins when you’ve completed it. My training was 16 weeks long beginning on August 5, so day one of my contract started when I graduated on November 24, two years ago today.


I don’t know when I started to count the days I had left, but it began in the low 1000s. In the 500s I put a running count on my MSN Messenger title, and if you talked to me on there (Candice), then you celebrated each passing day. You can even find a number here and there on this fine rag. Today, that number has reached 365.


I was never big on the thanks part of Thanksgiving. Before August 5, 2004 it seemed turkey, happy families and warm houses were simply how life went. I didn’t know how to be thankful for the things I had. Now for the first time, I’m thankful for something: the future. In one year (or 8760 hours and counting!), I’ll be in control of my own life for the first time in my 21 year history. I won’t be government property. I won’t be in a country where people rub their hands together in anticipation of killing another American. I won’t be in a place where speaking your mind is taboo, where suggesting alternative ideas to superiors is met with vehement reprise. One year from today, I won’t be in Iraq, I won’t be at Ft. Lewis, I’ll be exactly where I want to be, and all the good and bad things that go with it. And that is what I’m thankful for.


AH

Baghdad Musings

Faithful readers, this week I come to you from Baghdad, the capital of Iraq and center of a very conspicuous insurgency movement that seems to know no end. The much talked about 172nd Stryker Brigade is operating here after we replaced them in July. I arrived here on Saturday afternoon to take a week long course on a piece of equipment that probably should remain unsaid in the interests of national security etc etc. Along with me are two fellow soldiers from my unit who were painstakingly selected from a special pool of talent (meaning a dartboard was somehow involved in the process). Much to our surprise, we were told by the dude in charge that class begins on Tuesday morning, giving us two and a half days to spend exploring. In Mosul, there's a very straightforward and basic setup for us. A few chow halls, a PX, some little shops and a place to play foosball and ping pong. The base in Baghdad, however, must be three times larger or more. They have paved sidewalks! And traffic circles! They take showers in clean, potable water! In Mosul there are signs posted in the bathroom advising you not to ingest any of the water that comes out of the faucets, which has a strange odor to it. We took a bus to the main section of the base, which contains the big PX (like a shopping center), a Burger King, Taco Bell, Popeye's and Cinabon. No, seriously.

I can't give any credence to the people who come home from this country and tell how awful and cruel it is. This is the easiest, most polite war that was ever fought. Once we were called in to secure a site where a dude attempted to detonate a car bomb next one of our vehicles. It killed only him and left a smoking pile of wreckage. I briefly caught a glimpse of his lower body; a pair of bloated, bloody legs severed right at the hip. His upper torso, not his better half I assure you, was an unrecognizable pile of entrails some yards away. After seeing a dead body for the first time in my life, I went to lunch. And then had some ice cream. Some people are shaken by viewing such grotesqueries and are driven into combat stress meetings. I'd like to know what they're doing in the Army if they are shocked, shocked I say!, by what they see in war. But even a good deal of people here dwell 24/7 within the safety of 'the wire,' the perimeter of walls and fences around the base, rarely venturing out in the dangerous city, if at all. I was waiting for a bus back to our tent yesterday after a souvenir binge, and I overheard a conversation a lady was having on her cellphone (which is outlawed where I'm from, but I digress). She was explaining to her friend back home how she felt about Iraq. Her words were "This place is hell on earth. We walk with the devil." I couldn't help but notice her M-16 was in flawless, pristine condition and her uniform, clean as the day it was made. I can only imagine her idea of hell was discovering the Baskin Robbins here serves only six ice cream flavors instead of the expected 31.

You encounter all sorts of characters in Baghdad, being the epicenter of the war. I've sat next to plenty of Aussies and Brits in the chow hall. But one thing that's different is seeing a lot more Navy folk. I was walking with a buddy to get a flight out of here when a Navy officer was walking with an Army enlisted dude. The procedure for an enlisted dude such as myself is to first salute her and then she returns it to me. But her rank was covered by her sling and I couldn't make it out, so I walked right on by. We must have gotten thirty feet past them when the Army dude called out "Uh oh, you missed your chance" with her replying "You don't have to salute, I'm not an officer or anything" with an incredibly sarcastic tone. I'm all for saluting...when I see the rank. But her attitude smacked of an antiquated notion of knee jerk respect that seems out of place over here. In the deadliest month since January '05, she is most concerned with old traditions. I'm sure at some point she told the story of the lowly enlisted Army scum to her officer buddies, scoffing at his lack of respect. After a few laughs, I imagine she went to bed that night, in relative peace, far from the mortars and explosions, cursing the cracks of gunfire keeping her awake.


AH

It All Changes Today

To those wondering when the next post would come about, sorry. I haven't updated this in a long while because I felt like I had nothing to tell. We've been a lucky bunch, and nothing interesting or exciting has gone on for weeks. That was put to rest this morning. We were the auxiliary force when we got word that a house simply exploded. At first, everyone had guessed it was an IED maker who detonated a bomb prematurely. We set out and in a few minutes pulled up to the house, the ramp facing away from the site, and we piled into the house next to it, a three story. In the corner of my eye I caught a bunch of rubble and wires all in the street but I didn't have time to look. As soon as I stepped past the threshold, I began stepping on broken glass, which was scattered about the whole house. We cleared every room to make sure it was safe, finding two little girls and their mother. They appeared to be unhurt but very scared. I walked deeper into the house to find the last room almost completely covered in shards of glass. The explosion was so great it broke every delicate thing in the house. I tried to explain to the little girls to watch out for shards sticking out of window sills. I was then called up to the roof to help with security, and to make sure no bad guys took positions on other rooftops. When I got to the edge of the roof and looked down at the carnage, I was taken aback at the scale of the explosion. On the street where I had been earlier, there was nothing but huge chunks of concrete, wires and metal strewn about. A chunk of a wall across the street was decimated. I still had not seen the house itself, or what was left of it. I trotted over to the other side of the roof to glimpse down. I really cannot describe what I had felt when I saw nothing but bricks and a flattened car where a house was supposed to be. I was simply apalled by the scale of destruction, the flames that licked the walls of a house across the way, the rooftops of nearby houses covered in dust and rocks, cars crushed by the biggest fragments. When I noticed a man in the middle of everything just standing there, I had to take a picture. I could have gotten in a lot of trouble by whoever saw me, and it wasn't the right thing to do at all, but this was monumental. We later learned that some insurgents found out that the house was owned by an Iraqi policeman, seemingly high up, and decided to toss a bomb over the gate to send a message. I saw a dead body for the first time last week. A guy tried to blow up a Stryker with a car bomb but only ended his own life. A pile of guts and a pair of legs were all that was left. After today, the destroyed house is the most striking image in my mind, one that will be difficult to get over. This is who we're dealing with, people.

AH

A Different Point of View

For those who were wondering if the Army of Dude was dead or dying, fear not! It has only been in hibernation since I've made my way to northern Iraq. I'm up in Mosul, the third largest city where the insurgency is in full swing. A lot of people are coming in from Syria to take us on.

We've been gradually setting in as our replacements leave for Baghdad. They were hours from leaving to go home when suddenly Uncle Sam's caring hand whisked them away to the most volatile city in Iraq at the moment, to quell the rising tide of violence. Ain't that a kick in the head? We've done the standard patrolling and car searching, nothing out of the ordinary. Yesterday was a bit different.

The city of Mosul is a little bit of everything; there are soccer fields, highways, ghettos and ritzy neighborhoods (for a third world country, anyway). The one thing the whole city shares is trash; there is trash everywhere, in every open field and in between every building. Most of us don't mind throwing bottles or cans on the side of the road; it'll happen to fall in another pile. Everywhere kids are yelling 'mister, mister!' as we drive by. Some wave, all stare. When we stop we give them food and water, which unleashes other kids from the dark buildings. In an insurgency, everything is suspect. Little kids playing with bright orange balls, a dude standing by the trunk of his car in the median. All could be signals or warnings. Paranoia becomes second nature.

We were parked yesterday in the middle of the street while squads maneuvered inside the nearby buildings. I was designated air guard, the guy in the back of the vehicle that makes sure no one sneaks up or takes a pot shot at our drivers. After awhile my mind wandered on this and that when a crack rang out, to my rear. I must have jumped ten feet into the air. My first reaction was 'it was just a warning shot' but the hissing noise was distinct. It went right over my head; this sniper was a poor shot. It was fired at the vehicle directly behind us. Several more shots rang out, this time from a cemetery. My squad came out of the building and we loaded up. We drove a few blocks and decided to take a tall building to get on the roof. We opened the door and began going through all the rooms, leapfrogging from one to the other, ushering the small boy, his mother and sister into a room. Everyone was set on the rooftop. Across the alley we yelled at some bricklayers if they knew where the fire was coming from; they shrugged and continued working, oblivious to our dilemma. After a while I'm sent to the bottom floor to watch the family, which is a nice break. I offered a broken hello in Arabic and give the kid my packet of Gatorade, explaining how you just put it in water. He wasn't too afraid of me then. I then hear several shots go off on the roof, this time from us. The family gives me a look but they can't see me through my sunglasses. After it ceased I was called up to the roof to replace a guy who's been up there a while; it's hot and no one had water. I set up, facing the cemetery and am told the guy is still there. After much anticipation we are called down to load up and leave. We sit on a road because more elements show up to help; we all think to ourselves, how many people does it take to eliminate one guy with an AK? We bitch about it taking forever and missing lunch; the guys we relieved said they never missed food for anything. As we're sitting there sweating and cursing, I wonder if the sniper had a video camera with him; I'm curious to know if there are outtakes where they completely miss again and again. All in all, a two hour patrol took five hours to complete and we wonder if dinner is a reality.

I'm not sure how long it'll take until someone gets shot in the face because we sit in the middle of the road in hour intervals. We're supposed to be quick and efficient, not unwieldy and slow. One thought is common; how the hell do we win wars doing this shit?


AH

We Take It Day By Day

Dear readers, it has been a little over a day since I landed in Kuwait City. The flight was long but not as bad as it was hyped to be. We had a stop in Bangor, Maine where we were greeted by handshaking, bonafide patriots that thanked us for what we were doing. I don't get their frame of mind, really. But whatever helps them sleep at night. Our next stop was outside Frankfurt, Germany for a short while. I exchanged our pitiful dollars for some Euros for a souvenier, which I hope I don't lose. Upon taking the steps down to Kuwaiti soil, I found the weather fairly shitty but not as bad as it was hyped. The way I can describe it is a car's AC on a hot day when it's still blowing hot air. The wind doesn't bring a cool draft, just more heat. It's hotter in Kuwait than Iraq, so getting used to it here is advantageous.
When we arrived we were force fed a lot of tripe about how dangerous blogs are to security, and how Osama is twiddling his fingers, laughing manically because he found out ultra sensitive information like how mad I get when we have to move a lot of boxes. They prattled on that information from blogs could be used against us or our family. They might find my blog and tell me to delete it and send it to hell before someone destroys the world with the knowledge I gave them. But in the meantime, I'll keep on truckin.


AH

The Man, The Myth, The Legend

I dreadfully trotted to a range early this morning, the quick and dirty kind that superiors hurry along, sharing the same discontent with us common underlings. We arrived fairly early and there was another group already standing by, waiting to use the same range. The paper pushers at brigade had decided to come down for trigger time. It was there I spotted Lt. Watada, Ft. Lewis superstar of the media. For all those that were questioning where he is and what he's up to, he's doing the daily grind of whatever a cushy brigade job entails. I take my camera everywhere if my earlier posts were any indication, and today was no different. I wanted to snag a few pictures of him but could find no tact way of going about it, so I did the only sensible thing: pretend to pose for unrelated photos.

Center: Figure of Our Times.

Right: Some spaz.

He must've noticed the commotion we were making and turned his back to a few shots. As we were standing however, I noticed he was reclusive and isolated from his group. I can't imagine the media-fed elephant in the room they have to deal with. I did manage to snag this winner, though:

Above: Moments before Lt. Watada is devoured by a twenty foot tall emo kid.

I was glad to end this phase of writing on a humorous note for a change. I hope to have a positive tone in the future for those who think my writing is too negative and cynical. Everyone else, I thank you for your support and kind words that you bless me with in my comments section. You can reach me at hortonhearsit at hotmail.com to get my address sometime in early July. I don't know when I'll be able to communicate or update this blog but it should be within the next few weeks.

Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day.

AH