PTSD et Finis

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Whoever says that they’re not affected by having been in a war zone is lying, in denial, or a sociopath. It’s just a question of how. It took me two years from the time I returned home from Iraq to start feeling normal again. Upon first arriving home, I would rage inside at the smallest of things. My Army buddies that were with me all confirm this. After I got home, I would silently beg for someone to cut me off on the road so I could get out at a traffic light and beat them senseless. Kenny, Bill, and Keith all agree that if we got together in a bar shortly after returning home, we probably would have initiated a bar fight and beat up everyone in the room. Christine and Sally agree. Women are not immune. After about two years, I feel back to normal on that score. Another one is dogs. I had a dog growing up. I loved dogs. After seeing dogs feasting on human flesh, I can no longer stand to be around them. I’ll never own one again. I can tolerate being in the same room or house as a dog, but I don’t touch them or relate to them in any way. If a dog jumps up on me in excitement, I no longer politely push them aside or pet it.

Roadside debris, trash, or dead animals. I still give them a wide berth, or at least find myself staring at them to look for protruding wires or explosives. These were often used to hide IED’s. Right after I first got home, I used to wildly swerve out of the way of any of these objects on the road when I first sited them. I’m sure I’ve startled many a fellow driver doing this. Now, I just stare for the most part.

War is like bungee jumping, skydiving, surfing a tsunami wave, and having sex all in the same day. Every day. Invading and conquering a country is the ultimate Alpha Male (and female) experience – like “Capture the Flag” for adults. No drug or any other experience even comes close. Lots of soldiers bought motorcycles when they came home, found isolated stretches of road, and rode them as fast as they could go without a helmet or any other protective gear in order to try and feel the same adrenaline rush. I hear that out in the Midwest they were near setting land speed records, 160mph plus on the interstate.

Of course, the reverse is also true. Since I’ve come back from Iraq, not much scares or excites me. You put a lot of things into perspective. Outside of death, nothing really compares to war. Yawn. I’m not saying that I’m bored, far from it. It’s just that I don’t get spun up about things like I used to.

War affects different people in different ways. Many are permanently scarred by the experience. Also, no one really knows how they will react under those circumstances. I was doubly surprised – folks that I thought would acquit themselves well often acted disgracefully. Conversely, folks that I assumed would be basket cases turned out to have balls of steel. This includes most of the women that I served with. I was opposed to women in combat when I went over. In fact, I openly questioned women even serving in the military. I’ve returned a convert. So much for that stereotype – another one in the can.
As for stereotypes in general, they all go right out the window in downtown Baghdad. When you’re in a tight spot – or someone else is – and you see an American soldier with an American flag patch on his shoulder and you make eye contact, you give each other the “thumbs up”. Nobody’s checking for race, ethnicity, or gender. That bullshit is so out the door in a war zone that I can’t even conceive of it. Over there, we’re all AMERICANS. And for detractors who say we don’t have a culture or a history, I’ll meet you on Haifa Street in Baghdad and you can then try to convince me.
The expression “Army buddies” takes on a whole new meaning once you’ve served in a combat zone. These guys and gals are a second immediate family. Ever let your answering machine pick up while you’re eating dinner? We all do that – except if it’s a Baghdad brother or sister on the line, I pick up. I’ll do anything I can for any of my “Army buddies”, a lifetime guarantee. We all made sure that each of us would return home alive and lived and spent LITERALLY 24/7 together for a year. How can I express this in a way a civilian could understand? My biggest fear was being sent home early because I was either wounded, sick, or got orders for an early discharge. The thought of leaving my buddies in a combat zone while I went back to the states was unbearable to me. Many guys I know that got wounded fought return to the states. They insisted on remaining in Iraq until they got better, and then would return to their buddies in the unit. In fact, only amputees or other serious injury would see soldiers return to the states. They simply wouldn’t go otherwise.

But that’s about it. The memory bank is empty. I’m lucky. I really liked being in a war zone for a year. Conquering a country, helping to rid it of a totalitarian dictator. I would do it again, but never as a volunteer. I have a family and I want to be there for them. If I was single, I’d still be over there – rotating back and forth between Iraq and Afghanistan with maybe a little Horn of Africa thrown in. But if ordered, I would gladly go. I’m a patriotic adrenaline junkie, really no different from USAID folks or NGO’s who go to developing countries and build school houses and wells in war zones. Except I have a gun…..


This is my last blog entry. Thanks to all of my readers, and I hope that this was for the most part worth your time. If I go anywhere else before I retire from the military, I’ll keep you posted……

Pics

Quick! Stand in front of the window that's been shot out by snipers. Not one of my brighter moments. I clearly need to be sent out of the gene pool and not allowed to reproduce any more.

Roof top hot tub at our house. Note the antenna for satellite radio behind me. Rough life.

Baghdad traffic jam, er, normal traffic flow in Baghdad.

Meeting up with the locals soon after we got there. We were met with friendship and gratitude.

Taking a walking tour of our surroundings.

The Republican Palace, or "Big Head Shed". There were four heads - all Saddam - dressed as a Babylonian General. No humility problems whatsoever.

Furnishing our houses shortly after arrival.

Baghdad skyline - looking east over the Tigris River.

The Green Zone.

The Headquarters building of our unit, the 352nd Civil Affairs Command.

Just one of the many homes in the neighborhood where we lived. This one was eventually used by our Motor Sergeant.

Just arrived in town.

Walking into the Baghdad Convention Center. This would become our workplace and office for the next year.

Checking out Saddam's bedroom in the Baghdad Convention Center. Victory seldom tastes so sweet as laying on the bed of a dictator that you've just overthrown!

Picture of Saddam with a face cut out so that we could take post card pics. Kilroy was here.

War Stories

Since coming back, a major peeve of mine (and anyone else who’s been to Iraq or Afghanistan) is having to hear insufferable war stories from guys who served during the Cold War. Now, this is an “inside the house” thing that most civilians won’t get, but nevertheless I want to lay it out there. A Cold Warrior is a guy who generally came into the Army post-Vietnam and retired in the mid to late 1990’s. If he didn’t do Grenada in ’83, Panama in ’89, or Desert Storm in ’91, this guy saw no action. And even Desert Storm we Iraq vets call “The Three Day War”. But you get two or more of them together, and they just won’t shut up! You spend hours listening to harrowing tales of field exercises in Germany in winter when it was twenty below zero (been there, done that), or being in Korea on the DMZ (which I grant you is no small thing, but still doesn’t compare). Or visiting East Berlin and starring down the commies (which I also did, BTW, as a young lieutenant). One time shortly after I arrived home, I attended a function in downtown Washington. Across the table from me was a Vietnam War vet. The other six guys at the table were Cold Warriors. They wouldn’t shut up. The Vietnam Vet and I stared at each other, rolled our eyes. Finally, when one of these guys paused to take a breath, I looked over at the Vietnam vet and said, “tell me, in Nam did your fatigues ever dry out, or was it too humid?” His eyes lit up and he knew exactly where I was going. We started in talking about the weather differences between Iraq and Vietnam and took it from there. At least the Cold Warriors got to eat their dinners before they got cold.

Road Trip Doha, and home - Part 4

March 22, time to go. We went to the airfield. There, the most heartrending moment of our tour occurred. We passed once more through the “tax exempt” line and had our ID cards swiped through the magic machine. Our income was now taxable from this point on. At least we knew that there was no turning back, we were definitely going home. We waited at the tent city at the airfield for about three hours. I went to the local PX and bumped into Myiik! A great morale boost. He was on his way to some other destination, but I hadn’t seen him in months. Finally, our plane arrived and we went through customs. This was handled by the Air Force and as we were flying a commercial airliner, we had to be subjected to civilian search standards. We lined up in rows of thirty and emptied the contents of our raptor packs on to tables for inspection. An airman opened my shaving kit bag. Took out my nail clipper and broke off the one inch nail file, saying “you can’t have this”. I was standing there with my M-16 in my hand and ammunition in my pocket. How Mickey Mouse can you get? Rules. I looked at him and said, “you broke my nail file!” The guys to the right and left of me acknowledged what I had said (they were getting the same treatment) and I literally felt like pulling another “Custer Battles” episode. I could see that I would get a lot of support. But no, we’re getting on a plane to go home. Calm down. We stopped for a layover in Prague. As we were now out of the theater of operations, we could legally drink. The Commander led off and we lined up at the airport bar for a brew. Back on the plane, then landed at Pope Air Force Base next to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, where we initially mobilized to go over. We were there from March 22-31. First order of business: get a rental car. It was brutal a year ago being there with no wheels and having to walk everywhere. So that’s the first thing I did. I parked it right next to the crappy barracks that we stayed in. What did we do there? Turned in weapons, exit physicals, dental exams, records exams, leave forms, immunizations, financial forms, new ID cards. Over the weekend, I drove out to Ashville, North Carolina, and saw the Biltmore Estate, the largest private home in North America. Very relaxing.

March 31. Time to go home! We had a final brief, loaded our bags onto buses and boarded in a driving rain storm. Five and a half hours to our reserve center in Maryland. They were timing our arrival with the press and the arrival of dignitaries, so we had to stop several times. One final hassle. At long last, we pulled into the reserve center parking lot. I was one of the last guys off the bus. My wife and daughter ran up to me. It was so great to see them! Christine was there (she had returned the previous October) and took our picture. We drove home. Our house had been decorated by our friends and neighbors – balloons, signs, etc. Really nice. I was home, but didn’t feel like I was at home…………

IT AIN’T OVER YET, READERS! I STILL HAVE A FEW MORE STORIES, SO PLEASE DON’T GO AWAY.

Road Trip Doha - and home, Part 3

We spent the night and the next day, March 3, we entered Kuwait. The border guards were watching us pass by bored as hell. When we drove by, we waved and cheered. I think they figured out that we were going home and perked up, waving back and smiling. After the whole unit cleared the Kuwait border, we pulled off to the side of the road for a rest break. Out came the footballs and Frisbees. Lunch. Finally, we drove on to the Kuwait town of Doha, which contained a major US Army base. Doha is an easy drive of Kuwait City, to the north of the city. It had its own beaches and all the comforts of any American base in the States. The movie theater had first run movies that we saw before they hit the screens back home. There was a mall and a food court. But we had to stay in those blasted warehouses again. But this time individual cots, no bunk beds. This was our home from March 3 – 22. What did we do? Turned in our equipment. That meant that our Hummers had to be cleaned at this industrial wash rack. You put on your wet weather gear, grabbed a hose, and cleaned every square inch of your Hummer – for hours. Inspectors would look for Iraqi mud, dirt, and dust. None of that could come back to the US! We cleaned and turned all of our tentage. We lived in houses in Baghdad and lugged dozens of tents with us all the way up and all the way back. And so it went. Cleaned weapons but held onto them. We had plenty of down time. There was a beautiful Olympic size pool on post next to the beach. If you were a female soldier and liked male attention, at a ratio of 30-to-1, you wouldn’t be disappointed if you showed up at the pool with a bikini on. Talk about flies on honey!

The camp staff organized trips to Kuwait City for us. We went by the busload and had an escort of Military Police from the base who constantly gave us “threat briefings” and wanted to take us around the city in groups, herded by them. So this is the picture: about 100 soldiers who have spent a year in Baghdad, in civilian clothes, being herded by a handful of MP’s who had never been to Iraq and lecturing us about the “dangers” of Kuwait City. We bolted – en mass and right in the middle of yet another threat brief. The MP’s ordered us to stop and threatened dire consequences. We walked into town, with our colonels taking the lead in giving the MP’s the finger. Colonels, Lt. Colonels, Majors, NCO’s, privates, all of us. We split up into our groups of friends and had a great time in downtown Kuwait City. We all managed to meet back at the busses at the appointed time. Imagine that. All accounted for. And very grouchy MP’s telling us how much trouble we were in. Right. Never heard another word on the topic.

We spent one day driving our vehicles to the sea port. It was uneventful except for the fact that we didn’t see the logic of all that washing. We drove the Hummers down the dusty highways of Kuwait and the staging area for our vehicles was in a dirt surfaced holding area. With everything turned in and a week to go for our flight, we had a lot of time on our hands. We had a brigade volleyball tournament. We formed teams basically by rank. The officers had a team of majors and colonels that were self-selected by height. They were all at least 5 foot 10. I was on a team made up of NCO’s. We won the championship. It was sheer willpower – we weren’t going to get beaten by a bunch of tall officers!

Road Trip Doha - and home, Part 2

February 27, 2004, was the last day that the four of us were together, so I got them out of bed and had a couple of photos taken (see “The Bitter Enders” series). On the 28th, Bill had to go up to the airport and guard the unit’s equipment that was stored in connexes, Kenny went up on the 29th with the rest of the 352nd, and I left on March 1 with the 354th to begin the next phase of my odyssey. Keith had to move out of the HOC House and into his new quarters on the 29th. So I spent the last night in the HOC House with none of my friends and by myself in my room. It was creepy. Everyone in the house by that time were new, having been there from the last 2-3 months or sooner. Col Edwards, Christine, the Koreans, the Latvians, Top Carruthers, Kenny, Bill and Keith – all gone. By mid-Feb, the new guys started to come in and take over rooms. But Sidko and Bakumenko hadn’t left yet. The new guys would put little signs with their names on the rooms to show who would be staying where when the rooms became available. As these guys put a sign on Sidko’s room, he had just come back from a mission. He walked up in full view of the new guys, most of who outranked him, and pulled their sign off his door and put it in the trash! They meekly mumbled to themselves about jumping the gun and shuffled out of the house. You go, Sergei!

March 1 had arrived. I drove the lead vehicle for the entire convoy. Riding with me was Major Henry Norcom, 1st Lieutenant Idong Esiet, and Captain Kozar. I was on a first name basis with Henry as we were majors together. The lower ranking officers didn’t know what to make of that, but everyone was OK. We had a homemade armored Hummer which was much better than the ones they have now. It was high in the back and had firing ports. Anyway, the back was now stuffed with all of our gear. I showed up late with my Hummer and the new commander just shook his head and laughed. The departure time had been changed but no one told me. Not my bad. We formed up and headed out of the Green Zone for the last time. Heather Coyne and Bruce Fein both had extended their tours. On the way out, they were on the roadside and saluted us as we drove by. Nice. We made an uneventful trip to the airport. There, we were billeted in tent city for the day. We spent the day reviewing convoy procedures, the route of march, and “actions on contact” – what to do if we got ambushed or IED’d. I found Kenny and Bill at tent city. They were hanging out, waiting to fly home the next day. Lucky bastards.

March 2. We hit the main cloverleaf outside of Baghdad and headed back south by the same way that we came up. On the cloverleaf I noticed a mound of earth by one of the guardrails. I paid it no mind as were leaving the country. This was at 8 am. At 830, another convoy following us got hit with an IED at that spot. They were going home too. They lost a man. If the bomber hadn’t slept in or had an extra helping of eggs for breakfast, that IED would have been me. Halfway through the trip we deviated from the highway and went onto Route Tampa. This was a dirt track that went through the desert and avoided the main highway. It was now a major thoroughfare. We saw long columns of Marines passing us heading north to begin their tours. Hot. Dusty. Blinded by dust clouds from vehicles in front of us. But we made it without incident to Tallil Air Base, known as Cedars II. This place sure had changed from when we drove through the year before. It was now a major US Air Force base with several mess halls, and acres of beautiful, air conditioned tents. Stores, fast food. The works. Very nice. At the refueling point, we noticed a sign that read, “No Urinating at the Fuel Point”. The thought never crossed our minds – until we read the sign! What were they going to do to us? Send to Iraq? Watch your step, fuel point supply weenies.

Road Trip Doha - and home, Part 1

In the beginning of February 2004, we had one of those rare “all hands” meetings at the 352nd Command HQ. After chatting with folks that we hadn’t seen in months, we got down to business. Going home. The new Commander, now Brigadier General Blackledge (who was our 354th Brigade Commander) presided. First order of business: we were being replaced by the 350th Civil Affairs Command on February 20. At the time, all attached personnel would return to their parent units – no exceptions. Shit. I was attached. That meant that I had to go back to the 354th CA Brigade. Worse still, they had to drive all of their vehicles from Baghdad all the way back down the way we came to Kuwait and put them on ships to send home. The 352nd guys got to leave their vehicles with the 350th and fly straight home from Baghdad! Of the Bitter Enders, Keith had volunteered to extend his tour of duty in country for a year, and Kenny and Bill were in the 352nd, so they were flying home. I reported to the 354th on February 20 with a heavy heart. I knew that they were going to put me in the personnel section. I served there as an officer and did good work. So you know what that means: you’re the “personnel guy” in perpetuity. Fortunately, the NCO in charge was a delightful Jamaican named Master Sergeant Falby. She gave me the day off! She knew that I wasn’t in the best of moods. It pissed off her crew, but she knew what she was doing. I came back the next day with my attitude adjusted. From February 21 – 29, I did my personnel duty: processing awards, making sure soldiers files were straight, and monitoring evaluations. We had a giant awards ceremony for everyone at the same time. I followed the Commander (now Colonel Jacobs) through the formation with a giant silver platter of medals. As Colonel Jacobs worked his way through the formation, he would stop at each soldier. The Adjutant would read the award citation I got to look at everyone’s face as they received their awards. Those that got Bronze Stars were beaming – this is a very prestigious award that can only be obtained in a combat zone. Those that got Army Commendation medals were mad, or in the case of several female soldiers, started to cry. This medal is a goob award that anyone can get in peacetime or war. So the award you received was a direct function of the commander’s and your peer’s perception of how you handled yourself in a combat zone. I got a Bronze Star, a Joint Service Commendation Medal, and a Certificate of Service from Amb Paul Bremer (why do you think I went down this path of narrative?).

Several folks knew in advance what medal they were getting. Those receiving Army Commendation Medals didn't want to be "awarded" their medals - and suffer the humiliation - in front of the whole unit. Colonel Jacobs insisted that everyone, no exceptions, would receive their awards in public. Upon our return from Iraq, Colonel Jacobs' award came through. It was an Army Commendation Medal. He didn't receive it in front of the unit.