Keeping the Faith: A Letter to President Obama

Dear President Obama,

This letter comes to you from an unlikely supporter: a young Iraq War vet from the blood-red state of Texas. As an Army recruit in basic training, I cast my vote for George W. Bush in 2004 because I felt he was the best choice for a responsible prosecution of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Five years and a combat tour later, I have come to understand the consequences of that decision. Last November I pulled the lever for you after hearing about the refreshing notion of a new era of government accountability that never existed in my adult life. I was sold when you promised to end the practice of involuntary mobilization, a program that reactivates veterans out of the service and sends them back to war. Given the new era of responsibility ushered in by your administration, it is imperative that you keep a promise made to the tens of thousands of veterans across the country.

I am writing to you on behalf of Steve Lewey, one of Illinois' bravest sons. Steve grew up in a working class family not too far from your old stomping grounds of Chicago. He did well in high school and went on to college to study architectural design. After realizing he and his parents could not afford to continue his education, Steve enlisted in the United States Army at the age of nineteen. He did so not only for education benefits but to satisfy the intense need to serve his country in a time of war. As an infantryman, Steve completed a fifteen month tour in 2007, distinguishing himself in the Battle of Baqubah, the deadliest battle of the surge. In one instance, after an insurgent attack claimed the life of our comrade, Steve completely exposed himself to enemy fighters by climbing on top of a Stryker vehicle and firing at three insurgents, killing them instantly. On a dirty and blood-soaked street in Iraq, no one seemed to notice the kid from Chicago in an act of remarkable gallantry. Many of my fellow soldiers are walking examples of his bravery - without his incredibly selfless act, more American soldiers would have surely fallen in that battle.

With his GI Bill in hand, Steve left the service after an extended combat deployment and headed back home to Chicago in the winter of 2007. Filled with the fire of discipline and motivation he found in the Army, he settled into a job and waited patiently for the new GI Bill to become law. He wanted to finish the schooling he started so many years ago. That dream came to an abrupt end late last month when he came home to find a thick brown envelope on his doorstep. Inside were instructions on where to report for medical screening for a deployment back to Iraq.

The IRR has been used in the past as an emergency pool of trained soldiers to augment forces overseas, but recently history has shown it has been badly abused following 9/11. The link between Iraq and the Global War on Terror is tenuous at best, yet the Presidential Reserve Call Up Authority still exists to mobilize and deploy inactive soldiers even in cases of non-emergencies, Iraq being a clear example. Though repeated and lengthy deployments are causing a terrible strain on active duty soldiers, there was no concern on the part of your colleagues to expand the size of the military to meet the rigorous demand of two wars. Instead, the Department of Defense has overindulged on inactive soldiers meant to fix temporary problems, not become long term solutions. Though you seek to draw down forces in Iraq, Mr. President, the recalls continue in the twilight of a six year war.

For combat veterans, the task of integrating back into society has been a difficult journey as old as war itself. From Odysseus to eighteen year old soldiers coming from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, the path to normalcy is wrought with post traumatic stress and a disconnect between soldiers and their civilian counterparts. The added weight of a potential involuntary recall is more undue pressure on the fragile mind of combat veterans. Army career counselors exacerbate the duress with threatening phone calls and ominous visits to the homes of veterans, suggesting recall is a certainty if they don't join the Guard or Reserves. For Steve and over 20,000 inactive soldiers across the country, their worst fears have been realized in the form of mobilization orders. For them it's another crushing defeat in an already burdensome mission to find peace after war.

For years, you have spoken extensively about the need for a more robust civil service program in the country. I cannot think of a greater civil service than serving in the military, especially in a time of war. For eight years, soldiers have sacrificed their bodies, minds, and in the most tragic of cases, their lives, to complete the mission. We have stared into the black abyss of war to see an inner reflection of triumph and tragedy. There are pieces of us, physical and otherwise, that are left on the battlefield forever. That is what we gave up for this nation. Now that the war in Iraq is coming to a close, it's time to end the recalls immediately. Every soldier in the military stands ready to report, mobilize and deploy in any corner of the world in 96 hours or less. The abrupt cancellation of the Presidential Reserve Call Up Authority and subsequent orders would seem effortless in comparison to what soldiers stand ready for each and every day.

"Keeping faith with those who serve must always be a core American value and a cornerstone of American patriotism. Because America's commitment to its servicemen and women begins at enlistment, and it must never end."

The words above should look familiar. You said them on the presidential campaign trail as my unit conducted combat patrols in the fifteenth month of our tour in Iraq. It must be realized that above all else, the American soldier is the most valuable thing this country has to offer. The bodies, minds and lives of our fighting men and women cannot be taken for granted. There is too much at stake. Ending the involuntary recalls is a step in the right direction to repair the ties that bind the military to the citizens they stand to protect. You were Steve Lewey's senator in the great state of Illinois, and you are now his President. You must keep the faith with him and the many thousands of veterans that hold recall orders in their hand and uncertainty in their hearts. For more than two hundred years, soldiers have fought to protect this land. Now it is time to ask you, Mr. President, to fulfill your commitment to end recalls and put veterans back onto their long journey to peace and prosperity.

Very Respectfully,

Alex Horton

******

I have never expected any politician to keep their word, but this issue is too important to remain pessimistic about. Lives and futures literally hang in the balance as we wait for the president to pick up his red pen and cancel the Executive Order allowing the involuntary mobilizations to continue. Please take a moment to send a message to the White House comment page. There is a 500 character limit, so please include the link to this post ( http://armyofdude.blogspot.com/2009/02/keeping-faith-letter-to-president-obama.html ). You can also contact your House representative and let them know about the issue. Anyone that can get the gears turning - newspapers, magazines, local and state politicians - let them know. This is not something to remain quiet about. Spread the word, help some veterans. Now it is your turn to protect them this time.

Best of Friends

The two car convoy came to a stop at the departure section of the Seattle International Airport. With the engine running, I climbed out of the car and waited on the sidewalk as Steve grabbed his bags from the trunk of Chris' car. The loudspeakers reminded us to make it quick - "This area for loading or unloading only" played on a constant loop as security guards leered in our direction. After seeing Steve nearly every single day for three years, I was there to see him off on his one way trip back home to Chicago. The brisk December wind whisked around us as we cracked our final jokes together. Being tough infantry types, I thought a couple of handshakes and a "Later, dude" would be enough before we parted ways. Instead, Chris and Steve came together for an emotional embrace. Then it was my turn to hug my best friend for the first and only time. "Take it easy, man." My voice cracked as the words came out. He turned and walked through the automatic door, leaving Chris and me on the sidewalk.

With a heavy heart, I got back into my car and headed back to Fort Lewis. In less than five minutes my pocket began to buzz. I pulled out my cellphone and saw a new text from Steve.

"I miss you guys already."

**

Nearly everyone I knew in the Army had one inseparable friend that they were around constantly. Steve was that person for me. We grew up a thousand miles away from each other but our paths were nearly identical. We both came from working class families and grew up on Nintendo and action movies. We joined the Army for many of the same reasons, mostly money for college that we didn't dare ask our parents for. What made us connect at the beginning was our intense love for debate and reasoning. For hours we could argue about anything. On a train from Geneva to Rome during our two weeks of leave, we debated for more than an hour about the main ingredient of salad. Anyone from my platoon can attest to our spirited, three year long argument about which band was better, The Eagles or Led Zeppelin. Of course it's Zep, but we're currently in a stalemate.

At the many combat outposts that we inhabited in Iraq, Steve and I talked about what we'd do after the Army. We both decided that one tour was enough and that higher education would be the next chapter in our lives. He wanted to be an architect and I wanted to write. We yearned to create something after wallowing in death and destruction for more than a year. The plan was simple: take the GI Bill and run with it.

After coming home from Iraq we started the separation process together, running all over post to collect requisite signatures and dodge work at the barracks whenever possible. We sat through countless briefings that warned us about the perils of getting tossed into the IRR, a group of inactive soldiers that can be activated individually and mobilized for duty in Iraq. To get out of it, one simply needed to join the Guard or Reserve and get exemption from deployments. Steve and I both had a few promises broken by the Army, so we weren't going to be fooled once more. We decided to take our chances, load up the IRR revolver, and pull the trigger.

There is no warning that a former soldier is about to be recalled. There is no way of knowing that the game of Russian Roulette is over and your brains are splattered all over the wall. There is only an unassuming brown envelope left on the front porch to say what is already known: Uncle Sam doesn't run out of bullets.

**
Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in.

-Michael Corleone

I was at work when my pocket sent out a cheerful tone alerting me of a new text message. I pulled out my phone to see a new message from Steve. I figured it was some trivia question. I could tell he carried his debating persona back home from the messages he sent me. He asked about actors in movies and lesser known points of history that must have come up in discussions with his friends. I opened it to see that it had nothing to do with trivia.

"I just got official orders to go back dude."

My knees almost gave way after reading and rereading the message. I called him right away to offer any kind of help I could. As the phone rang, I looked down at my silver KIA bracelet and ran my fingers over the etched lettering - CPL BRIAN L. CHEVALIER 14 MARCH 2007 BAQUBAH, IRAQ.

A thousand miles away, Steve was wearing the same bracelet.

I relayed to Steve all the information I had gathered on the IRR. I spent countless hours hunched over my computer researching IRR callups, a challenge considering the intentionally scant information put out by the DoD and Army Human Resources Command. I told him to sign up for any classes, get a doctor's note for any condition, anything that could delay or exempt him from mobilization. There is no shame in it. Steve volunteered during a war, knowing that he would be sent into combat. Not only combat ensued, but the bloodiest fight in Iraq since Fallujah. Steve did his time, and more. His place is at home, not on the battlefield anymore.

By way of Lt. Nixon, Thomas Ricks notes a Pentagon study that reveals troop levels have remained relatively the same since 9/11. A more alarming statistic: 6% of active duty troops have served more than 25 months in a combat zone while 74% have less than twelve months in. The study concludes that the lower to mid enlisted and company grade officers are carrying the most burden. Senior officers and NCOs are hiding like cockroaches in the cracks of TRADOC posts and non-deployable slots while lower level soldiers march to the steady drumbeat of repeated deployments, failed marriages and ever-mounting cases of suicide. On top of that, the IRR continues to mobilize soldiers that have moved on, going to school or beginning careers and families. The only way to lessen the burden is to grow the size of the force. One idea: take the database of the newly minted Red State Strike Force members and dump them into mobilization slots. Those pathetic goons want to wear patches styled after special forces to fight on a battlefield of snark. They want to organize. I can think of no better way to organize than a shout of, "Dress right, dress!" The slack has to be picked up somewhere, lest our forces remain so broken that we must rely on involuntary callups to get bodies to the fight.

Steve's future hangs in the balance. School has been put on hold until a review board decides if he is fit to go back to Iraq. I have described the looming threat of recall as an ubiquitous afterthought, constantly degrading the sense of normalcy and safety as the days pile on. Now that recall has manifested itself as a clumsy destroyer of futures, the feeling has changed. Not only mental, the dread has become physical, hanging in my stomach like a sharply cornered anvil. My old infantry sore spots - back, knees and ankles - throb in a dull ache. The burden is back squarely on my shoulders, but I cannot imagine what Steve is feeling right now. I just know that as his best friend, a thousand miles away, I must carry some for him.

A few days after getting Steve's text, I got a call from our buddy Mark. We were the three biggest poker fiends in the platoon, always at the table no matter the time or the buy-in. He said to me, "You better sit down before I tell you this."

"Is it about Steve?", I asked.

"What about Steve?"

"He got recalled a couple of days ago. Got his orders in the mail."

"Fuck, I did too!", he shouted into the phone. "They got me. They got me."

**

As the weeks and months tick off the calendar, the game of Russian Roulette claims more soldiers foolish enough to play. It was nearly manageable to keep the thoughts of recall at bay before my friends started to get sucked in. Now, a family in in the suburbs of Chicago is contemplating what the future might bring for their son. The same is happening in the hills of Ohio and in cities and towns across the country. The burden that veterans carry may lessen, but it comes back with a terrible vengeance. All it takes is one envelope to throw a life off a path that was so delicately created in the humid and dust-choked outposts of Iraq.

The Weblog Awards Draw to a Close

Faithful readers,

Earlier today, the 2008 Weblog Awards closed, with Michael Yon once again the winner of the Best Military Blog category. Send your congratulations to him by visiting his fine blog.

A big thank you goes out to everyone that supported my efforts by voting the past week. I placed third because of people sending e-mails, posting threads on message boards and getting family and friends riled up. Hell, there was even a Facebook group started by Lauren's sister to help the cause. Thank you a thousand times over to everyone that read, commented and voted the past week. Though I placed third, I was glad to be in the running with a great group of guys. A special nod goes to Big Tobacco for his great showing as the new kid on the block.

The top three:

1. Michael Yon - 4,318
2. Blackfive - 3,320
3. Army of Dude - 1,650


Thank you all once again. Keep an eye on this space for new posts in the future.

-Alex

Sensing Combat: Taste

(This is the fifth and final part of a series. Scroll down below for the previous entries.)

The high-pitched squeal of the Stryker engines stretched along the dusty back road on the edge of the Diyala River Valley. One by one, the ramps dropped to reveal squads of infantrymen under the strain of heavy equipment needed in counterinsurgency operations: shotguns, bolt cutters, pry bars and shoulder fired rockets. Food and water are transformed into luxuries as assault packs were stuffed with extra ammunition magazines and grenades instead of bottles of water and meal rations. The beleaguered soldiers filtered into the palm groves one by one, gaining a foothold before an all-out clearing mission began to destroy pockets of resistance. Assaults into enemy-held territory in the heart of Baqubah yielded numerous caches and dead insurgents, cut to ribbons by rifle and machine gun fire in the beginning days of the Battle of Baqubah. Intelligence suggested that more caches and insurgent bases were hidden in the dense and humid date palm groves that engulfed the banks of the Diyala River Valley. As I stepped off the road and into the jungle, the hum from the Stryker engines became more distant and muted as I made my way through the bush. Twenty yards in, the Strykers could not be heard at all. Our evacuation, our makeshift homes, our lifeblood - cut off by thick foliage. The wind pierced the canopies of the trees, rustling fiercely in the afternoon sun.





I only had room in my assault pack for two bottles of water. The third sat in my open cargo pocket, sploshing quietly with each lunge over the slippery irrigation ditches etched deep into the ground. The sun hung low in the cloudless March sky, pounding the earth with its merciless rays. The mission was to last from early morning to sunset, so I had to be careful and ration the three liters of water throughout the day. The water bottle in my cargo pocket was accessible but awfully warm. After every security halt I put the bottle to my lips, the torrid water bringing little relief to my quickly overheating body. Despite the revolting taste of near boiling water, I finished my last drop halfway through the day. My dry throat ached for relief as my body sweat out liquids that had no replacement. Dehydration was quickly becoming a threat.

Over the crest of a hill brought heavenly solace. Lush orange trees towered above the afternoon patrol. Low hanging oranges and grapefruits were ripe for the picking as we walked along the occasional dirt path. I filled my cargo pockets with oranges, peeling them as we continued our push into the valley. On a security halt, I gingerly bit into a slice, sending cool, bitter juice into my throat. They didn't taste much like the sweet and crisp Florida oranges found in a grocery store. They were sharp and tart, the juice reminiscent of a dry Chianti rather than Tropicana. The fruit was too sour to eat whole, so I sucked out the juice and flung the leftovers into the tall grass. As the orange trees became less frequent, I stocked up on the last few ripe specimens as we marched slowly to the river.





Some good ones fell into the muck


**

Combat is a difficult thing to get across in conversation far removed from the battlefield. The hardest part is relating what it feels like, smells like, sounds like to be in a war zone for fifteen months or longer. The gap of understanding between civilians and veterans is a hard one to overcome without an insight into what exactly those in the military are perceiving when they are off in a faraway land. I hope these small vignettes provided, at the very least, a glimpse into what young men and women are experiencing in Iraq and Afghanistan as you read these words. A combat deployment is, among other things, an assault on the senses that carry on long after a soldier returns home. As the years pass, it will be the sights, the sounds and the smells of war that remain most vividly in the memories of those who have taken that long journey to Hell and back again.

Next post on the weekend

Tomorrow morning I have to be at work ridiculously early, so I'm going to hold off on my final post in the sense series until the weekend. Thanks to everyone who has been following the series so closely and voting so diligently.

Speaking of voting, I'm proud to be in a category where everything has remained exceptionally civil. Other blogs are turning the voting into a circus. Though I'm getting curb-stomped into oblivion by Mike Yon and Blackfive, it's good to just be in the running.

Sensing Combat: Touch

(This is part four of a five part series. Scroll down for the previous entries.)

**

I'm a left hander living in a right hand world. I learned that the hard way in elementary school when, in the big box of scissors for the class, only one or two left handed scissors could be found. Most of the time they were loose and coated with rust, practically unusable anyway. When I scribbled out words in a pathetic attempt at handwriting, it would smear across the page and on the underside of my hand. In gym class when we played baseball, everyone got a baseball glove to fit their appropriate hand. I had to catch with my left hand, take off the glove and then throw the ball. Needless to say, I wasn't the first one picked on the team.

My abnormality followed me all the way to Iraq. As a private I was handed an M4 and a 203 grenade launcher attached to it. It became my weapon for my entire enlistment. Sadly, the Army does not issue ambidextrous rifles. Shell casings fire out of the ejection port on the right side of the weapon, which is an unfortunate trait for someone that likes to put their face up close to the sight. During firefights, piping hot shell casings would eject into my cheekbone, leaving circular marks on the side of my face. The sting subsided after awhile, but the marks remained for hours.

**

"Get ready to dismount!"

The Stryker came to a stop in a muddy Baghdad intersection. I had been in the airguard hatch on the half-hour ride up. Half of my body was exposed to the cold, biting wind that rolled across the top of the vehicle. A light drizzle started the morning off, but as we approached our dismount point, the rain began to subside, leaving behind massive mudholes and puddles everywhere. I asked Payday to attach a crowbar to my back by slipping it into jerry rigged zip-tie rings on my armor. He slid the whole thing into the bottom ring, leaving the crowbar hanging down to my knee. There was no time to fix it; the ramp was already dropping.

As the first one out of the vehicle, it was my job to lead to the first house to gain a foothold in the area. That meant jumping over a rather sizable shit stream. It looked doable - I jumped over plenty bigger in my day. I backed up to get a running start, stepped forward and lept-

As I left the ground, the crowbar lifted up and slammed into the back of my leg, sending me off balance and into the shit river.

I miserably crawled out of the muck, everything below my shins covered in freezing sludge. I prayed that it wouldn't seep into my boots as I got up in shame after my epic fall. As I walked down the street, my worst fears were realized: my feet started to become soaked in the cold septic water. Each step carried a loud squish squish as my socks sopped up the excremental liquid. My feet began to freeze. It was only 45 seconds into the mission and I was already miserable.

As my squad walked along courtyard walls down the street, I trailed behind, dragging my left leg up against the wall in an effort to wipe away the sludge that stuck to my pants and boots. The rough, uneven concrete scraped my wet skin through my pants. It hardly did anything. The black muck remained on my leg as a pungent reminder of my fall.

We rounded the corner and made our way into a dress maker's factory, where I had a brilliant idea. A heap of cloth scraps were kept in the corner ready to be tossed out. While the factory was being searched, I held a scrap tight and ran it down my leg like a squeegee to get the biggest chunks off. But there wasn't enough time to take off my boots and wring out my socks. Even as the hours ticked away, the crisp winter air didn't allow my feet to dry. Throughout the day I carried my wet and wrinkled feet as a frigid reminder of one wrong misstep.

Some shit rivers were too big to jump

Sensing Combat: Smell

(This is part three of a five part series. Scroll down for the previous entries. And vote, damnit!)

***

Some doors are more stubborn than others. A particular door in Baghdad was the bane of my squad's existence. On a routine clearing mission where every single house had to be searched and searched thoroughly, a reinforced door stood to deny the mission's success. Nothing could bring it down - kicks, shotgun rounds, the old fashioned shoulder charge. The door's metal frame rejected all modes of entry. My squad leader Lee was determined to simply pry the frame out of the cinderblock wall after all other measures failed.

In the cramped courtyard, the whole squad stood around the doorway to watch the ongoing madness of the insurmountable door. Jeun, a super quiet Korean guy from the Bronx, stood behind Lee as he put all of his weight into the pry bar and pulled back. The frame gave way and sent Lee tumbling backward. Jeun, seeing 200 pounds of Alabama fury coming toward him, gingerly stepped out of the way. Lee rolled into the corner and stepped right into an open septic tank, drenching his leg up to his shin in jet black tar. My first reaction was to laugh, but with Lee's famously short temper, I stifled my giggles. Instead I gave him a bottle of water to wash his leg off. The smell that carried off of him made me gag almost instantly.

That same sweet, thick smell of shit swirls around just about every street in Iraq. The country has no plumbing infrastructure in place, so citizens have to be clever about waste disposal. From porcelain bowls in the floor, plastic tubes filter waste into the street where it pools with the waste from other houses on the street, creating puddles and streams of liquid excrement that bake and ferment under the desert sun. It takes a while to grow accustomed to a pungent smell that mingles with rotting garbage (surprise: no modern trash collection either).

The smell, overwhelming in the first couple of months, tends to wear away as the days drag on. Digging up bodies that had been rotting in the ground for 42 days brought a smell only marginally worse than the open sewers of the street. The odors were so strong that I have not been able to smell as well since. I feel like I have a permanent head cold when it comes to using my olfactories.





Anyone up for a dip?





If only cameras could capture smell

***

Putting rounds into an insurgent's body always brought back memories of Fourth of July in my backyard. Lighting Black Cats and M80s and watching them pop in the air. Setting a pinwheel up on the fence and waiting for it to start its furious spin in an explosion of color and sound. The smell of gunpowder would hang in a cloud of lazy smoke long after the fireworks were expended. The same smell from childhood came rushing back during firefights as spent shell casings went flying through the air, ejected from the bolt in a spurt of gas and sent tumbling toward the ground.

When in the confines of a room, the sulfur smell attaches to everything: clothes, armor, gloves. It's not an attractive smell; inhaling too much of the gas coming out of the barrel will send your head spinning. But the smell is addicting. Once it permeates throughout the air, you can't wait for the next time it fills your nostrils and ignites the rest of your senses. The scent of war is remarkably the same as an American childhood in the summer, waiting for the next opportunity to set off explosions in brilliant displays of color and sound while the musk of gunpowder settles on the warm wind.

Sensing Combat: Sight

(This post is part two in a five part series. See the previous post: Hearing. And don't forget to vote!)

**

"Put your fucking NODS down, Horton."

For the hundredth time, my platoon sergeant whisper-yelled at me to put my night vision goggles back over my eye. I resented every second that I had to peer through the muddy neon green peephole so I could stumble my way through the dark. While boosting the ability to see further in the dead of night, night vision plays a dangerous game with depth perception. When focused on objects close up, things around you (like the ground) appear to be more distant than they actually are. When tweaked to see further, objects up close take on a fish-eye appearance; everything appears rounded and blurry. After being scolded yet again for my reluctance to use my equipment, I shoved the bright green monocular lens into my eye and followed after my team leader.

Walking through a field strewn with garbage and septic waste, it isn't clear what is solid ground and what is a cesspool of festering human feces when looking through night vision. I used my team leader as a pathway guinea pig: anywhere he stepped in shit, I would walk around with boots free of black sludge. Just feet in front of me, Matt walked cautiously along, probing with his foot for stable soil. He made it nearly halfway across the field before he appeared to shrink nearly a foot, letting a quiet "FUCK!" slip out before pulling half his leg out of excremental quicksand. I lifted up my goggles to see where he had fallen prey. A septic wasteland the size of a swimming pool, and he barely slipped into the edge of it. It glistened under the moonlight but looked like ground through night vision. He never saw it coming.





Payday made it through the field, but not unscathed (look at his right foot for the dreaded poop boot)



"Did you fucking see that?"

Sadr City was almost a mythical fortress of pure evil to us. Deadly battles with Shiite militias raged there after the invasion, and by the winter of 2006 it was completely off limits to any coalition force. It was simply too dangerous to walk into. Instead, the higher-ups insisted that we probe the physical boundary of Sadr City by setting up a position across the street from where the neighborhood began. To nestle up to the hornet's nest before throwing a big fucking rock at it.

Staring over the scattered brown houses in Sadr City became a paranoid frenzy. Little old ladies doing their laundry on a rooftop looked perfectly ordinary anywhere else in Baghdad. In Sadr City limits they could have been men setting up mortar tubes and machine gun positions. Kids playing soccer in the street seemed to be giving our position away to insurgents waiting in ambush. Nothing was as it appeared to be.

It took only twenty minutes for a brave yet dumb insurgent to climb to the roof of a house across the street and open fire on us. With a spray of AK-47 rounds he shot up the wall below our position, eliciting a measured response of rifle and machine gun fire that peppered the doorway he stood in. It wasn't clear if he had died in the initial wave of fire, so we kept shooting until either blood or body became apparent. I glanced down to street level to ensure the shootout wasn't a distraction for something bigger while we were distracted by a single guy with an AK . Out of nowhere, an elderly man came walking out of his house with a plastic chair in tow. As rounds crackled thirty feet above him, he positioned his chair at the midway point between Baghdad and Hell and took a seat as the firing continued unabated.

"Dude. Did you fucking see that?" I yelled to Bill over the din of semi-automatic fire.

"See what?" he shouted back.

"Some old dude...just watching this shit."

"Nah."

In flashes of combat, one sees very little of what is actually going on. The most anyone can perceive is tiny flickers of human motion caught in a whirlwind of sensory overload. But if you look in the right place at the right time, you might see something that no one ever noticed.

The man quickly walked back into his house after the firefight ended. There was nothing left to see that morning. Surrounded by spent shell casings and the smell of gunpowder swirling in the air, our eyes went back to Sadr City to watch for anything else the fortress might have in store for us.

The polls are open!

Voting has begun for Best Military Blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards. Please go here to vote! Remember, you can vote once per 24 hours, so come back every day this week to vote again. Don't forget to spread the word to your friends and family as well.

New posts will be added early in the morning every day this week, so stop by often to check out new material. Thanks, and happy voting.

Sensing Combat: Hearing

(Author's note: Voting for the Best Military Blog begins today. Go here to vote.)

"So, what's Iraq like?"

For the number of times that question has been asked since I've come home from Iraq, it remains one of the great unanswered questions of my life (Why are we here? and Why did they cancel Arrested Development? are up there as well). I have to closely consider my audience before I answer. Most people pose the question to confirm their suspicions or bias about the war and the military. If they lean right, they want to hear how many Iraqis thanked me for their new found freedom, or they want to find out if Iraq is safer than the inherently evil media portrays it. If they lean left, they want to hear about how much it sucked being a tool in George Bush's war for oil. In nearly all cases it leads to the same place: getting a leg-up on their friends in a discussion of the war by saying, "I know a guy in Iraq who said..."

Thankfully some are genuinely interested in what it was like being in Iraq at the height of the surge. Yet I still find it difficult to describe it beyond seven words: It's hot and it smells like shit. A million little things need to be described before one thing is explained, especially to a civilian that knows very little about combat and the military. It is this disconnect where a good description of what actually goes on in Iraq fails. I intend to remedy this. For the next week I'm going to describe in detail the feeling of being in Iraq using the five senses as a guide. As rockumentary director Marty DiBergi might have put it, I want to capture the sights, the sounds...the smells of deployed life.

***

Hearing

The most awful sound in Iraq is what we would hear five times a day like clockwork. From the mosques and high, cylindrical minarets all over the city, megaphones boomed with prayers. Often they reflected the mood within the city itself. If things were going well and firefights were at a minimum, the prayers would be said with a neutral voice. If a lot of violence was flaring up, the voice became angry and belligerent, almost like a call to action to fight against us. If anything the prayers were bewildering and a bit scary to young soldiers thrust into an entirely different culture. The droning voice blanketing the city could be anyone; an imam lobbying for peace or an insurgent sending out a war cry. We couldn't tell the difference.

The prayers at night were particularly unsettling. In Mosul we developed a strategy to insert small teams to watch areas where IEDs were typically planted. No more than ten men infiltrated a house in the middle of the night to set up a position. We effectively immersed ourselves in the city hoping to remain undiscovered. At night the prayers went on as scheduled, but I could never sleep through them. To me, the prayers sounded like the ramblings of the undead.

Hat-tip to Dozer for the video

***

"Is that a dude?"

"I think it's a dead dude."

On a patrol through Baqubah, someone spotted a couple of guys dressed in black running around on a rooftop. Black is the color of choice for insurgent attire, and it was apparent they were up to no good. Our platoon set up shop in an abandoned school about 300 meters away and quickly positioned machine guns in the open windows before the insurgents had a chance to set up weapons of their own.

Crack-crack-crack!

The machine guns erupted, sending a volley of rounds that crashed into the brick building and blew apart the previously sharp-dressed men. It was unknown if the house they were in contained any more nefarious characters, so a helicopter was called in to level the house with a Hellfire missile. Before they could fire, they had to be certain what house to destroy. The machine guns continued to rake the outside of the house to confirm the insurgent's location, setting it up for the missile:

The video shows a proportionate amount of action versus bullshitting that you're likely to hear during a deployment. Short bursts from a pair of machine guns and a Hellfire missile slamming into a house give way to a casual conversation about dead insurgents hanging out of a hole on the roof.

I have a feeling my hearing won't be so great in twenty years. Almost daily a sharp piercing tone will overtake my left ear (my firing side) for a minute or so. Earplugs are recommended but unacceptable for the common grunt to wear. Hearing is perhaps the most valuable sense to a soldier on patrol or in a firefight, giving the ability to pinpoint incoming enemy fire or an approaching enemy's footsteps. In less extreme cases, however, your ears can be used to enjoy Pink Floyd while watching the desert endlessly drift on.