I spent my first four days or so living at this waterfront mansion and walking across a manicured French-style garden to work in the palace next door. We appropriated one of the ballrooms NOT on the riverfront and began to set up an Operations Center. We brought in a huge conference table, chairs, etc., and huge maps of Baghdad and Iraq on the walls. Set up radio communications. Brought in file cabinets. Starting a Situation Report (sitrep) reporting process. Pilfered brand new free weights and weight lifting machines from the local Iraqi Army Officer’s Club gym and set them up out on the back veranda overlooking the river.
Each night, we went back to our riverfront house, donned our Hawaiian shirts, T-shirts, or whatever (had to be outrageous), went to the roof of our new estate overlooking the river, smoked cigars in chaise lounges, looked at the stars, and taunted the Iraqis across the river – the bitter enders. They obliged us nightly by firing their AK-47’s at us using tracer rounds. So the bullets came at us in a beautiful bright pink stream of light. Now, we were out of range for these bullets to impact us and break the skin, plus we were sitting behind a retaining wall on the roof that was about four feet high. So the Iraqis would fire, say, a 10 round burst a little high to try and hit us. As ten rounds came toward us in rapid succession, we would in our loudest voices yell “Oooooh…..ahhhhhh” as it watching a good Fourth of July fireworks display. You could hear the bullets bouncing off the chimney behind us and clattering to our feet. Great fun.
On the fifth day, I was given a verbal order to move to the Humanitarian Operations Center (HOC) house. This house was about 75 yards further in from the river and was to be my home for the next year. I was told that I would be the Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) or in Army lingo the HMFIC (you figure it out) for the HOC. The HOC house had six HUGE bedrooms, two and half baths (although only one toilet – the other two were “squatties”, holes in the floor that you squatted over Arab-style to do your business) on three floors. We had large outdoor balconies on both upper floors. On the top floor balcony we fashioned a hot tub by cutting the house’s fiberglass water tank in half and filling the bottom half with water. I was first in one of the ground floor bedrooms with three roommates, more on them later. I asked Captain Beyers if I could switch rooms. He gave me an emphatic “no”. So that was that (until he left Iraq in October).
Our house had to be furnished! We took out all the Iraqi beds and mattresses and threw then away. We kept the living and dining room furniture. We had a huge galley kitchen. We had to throw away the chest freezer because the electricity had been cut for who knows how long, and everything in there thawed and was rotting. As NCOIC, it was my job to supply the furniture. So I found out about a furniture warehouse that was for the exclusive use of Saddam’s Republican Guard. In fact, our house was the house of a Republican Guard Colonel. I commandeered a truck and we liberated the warehouse of six mahogany, inlaid dresser drawers with built-in liquor cabinets. I sent my other NCO’s out to find other household items. We had no working plumbing, so one of my sergeants found an Iraqi Army water trailer. We filled it with water and put in a submersible water pump. We ran a garden hose from the house from the trailer to the water main in the house. The whole area that we lived in ran electricity generated from a HUGE generator found near the palace. We had a fuel supply unit come and fill up the massive tank and she started up like a champ! The generator would keep two square blocks of mansions lit for two days before needing to be refilled. So, we fired up the submersible pump and fed water into the house from the Iraqi Army water trailer. The water heater was broken so we got one from an empty house a few blocks away (as well as their washer and dryer) and brought everything over and hooked everything up.
So, on Day Five we had hot running water, lights, a place to wash and dry our clothes (this was really needed!). Just running out of food. Our MRE”s were running low and we had to get a re-supply. We had outrun our supplies so we had to wait. Finally, a few days later a pallet of MRE’s was dropped in front of our house. These were the strangest MRE’s I had ever seen. Food that I’d never seen before in an MRE. We looked on the box where it clearly stated that they were Kosher MRE’s. They were delicious! I found out from a friend of mine after I came home that he had a Jewish friend up north in Mosul and wrote to him complaining that the Army had failed to come through and provide him and his fellow Jews with Kosher MRE’s. I know what happened to them!
We also pilfered a nice wide screen TV and each of us had additional weapons and grenades.
Finally, our Language NCO hired three Iraqi women to be our full time maids. They cost $5 per person per day. So $15 a day for 14 people. For our $1 per person per day cost for maid service, we got: Buffet dinners nightly, beds made, sheets washed, clothes washed, floors scrubbed, rugs vacuumed, anything we wanted from the markets downtown, bathrooms cleaned, etc. We were living large.
Iraq at the time was awash in weapons. They were everywhere littering the streets and battlefields and abandoned bunkers. In the last days of the advance, Saddam ordered all the well-heeled occupants of the houses that we now lived in to dig foxholes and bunkers in their yards. Each of these had bunk beds with linen still on them. Without fail, under each pillow was an AK-47. Also, we found cases and boxes and ammunition trucks filled with thousands of rounds of ammo, mortars, machine guns, sniper rifles, grenades, bayonets, uniforms, helmets, etc., a looter’s paradise! (More on this later).
Across the road from our house there was a beautiful artificial pond with a flock of swans and two really nice two-bedroom bungalows on the pond. In front of one of the bungalows was a boat dock with a paddleboat. We went over to one of the bungalows and noticed a sign that read, “Sergeant Major’s house, no trespassing!” Nice. So we went in anyway to check it out. As we were coming out, the Sergeant Major of a sister CA battalion confronted us. “Didn’t you read the sign?” “Yes, Sergeant Major.” “Well, what are you doing in my house? Do you just walk into people’s houses?” Whatever. We didn’t want to argue with a guy that outranked us and explain to him that is isn’t HIS house. So we went out to the dock and gave the paddleboat a spin. The Sergeant Major came outside and screamed bloody murder at us. That was HIS paddleboat! That did it. We got out of the paddleboat and plotted its destruction. That night, we went to the pond with a British Army Sten machine gun with a silencer. We sunk that paddleboat tied to the dock. I have a picture. Bastard – so much for YOUR paddleboat.
Each night, we went back to our riverfront house, donned our Hawaiian shirts, T-shirts, or whatever (had to be outrageous), went to the roof of our new estate overlooking the river, smoked cigars in chaise lounges, looked at the stars, and taunted the Iraqis across the river – the bitter enders. They obliged us nightly by firing their AK-47’s at us using tracer rounds. So the bullets came at us in a beautiful bright pink stream of light. Now, we were out of range for these bullets to impact us and break the skin, plus we were sitting behind a retaining wall on the roof that was about four feet high. So the Iraqis would fire, say, a 10 round burst a little high to try and hit us. As ten rounds came toward us in rapid succession, we would in our loudest voices yell “Oooooh…..ahhhhhh” as it watching a good Fourth of July fireworks display. You could hear the bullets bouncing off the chimney behind us and clattering to our feet. Great fun.
On the fifth day, I was given a verbal order to move to the Humanitarian Operations Center (HOC) house. This house was about 75 yards further in from the river and was to be my home for the next year. I was told that I would be the Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) or in Army lingo the HMFIC (you figure it out) for the HOC. The HOC house had six HUGE bedrooms, two and half baths (although only one toilet – the other two were “squatties”, holes in the floor that you squatted over Arab-style to do your business) on three floors. We had large outdoor balconies on both upper floors. On the top floor balcony we fashioned a hot tub by cutting the house’s fiberglass water tank in half and filling the bottom half with water. I was first in one of the ground floor bedrooms with three roommates, more on them later. I asked Captain Beyers if I could switch rooms. He gave me an emphatic “no”. So that was that (until he left Iraq in October).
Our house had to be furnished! We took out all the Iraqi beds and mattresses and threw then away. We kept the living and dining room furniture. We had a huge galley kitchen. We had to throw away the chest freezer because the electricity had been cut for who knows how long, and everything in there thawed and was rotting. As NCOIC, it was my job to supply the furniture. So I found out about a furniture warehouse that was for the exclusive use of Saddam’s Republican Guard. In fact, our house was the house of a Republican Guard Colonel. I commandeered a truck and we liberated the warehouse of six mahogany, inlaid dresser drawers with built-in liquor cabinets. I sent my other NCO’s out to find other household items. We had no working plumbing, so one of my sergeants found an Iraqi Army water trailer. We filled it with water and put in a submersible water pump. We ran a garden hose from the house from the trailer to the water main in the house. The whole area that we lived in ran electricity generated from a HUGE generator found near the palace. We had a fuel supply unit come and fill up the massive tank and she started up like a champ! The generator would keep two square blocks of mansions lit for two days before needing to be refilled. So, we fired up the submersible pump and fed water into the house from the Iraqi Army water trailer. The water heater was broken so we got one from an empty house a few blocks away (as well as their washer and dryer) and brought everything over and hooked everything up.
So, on Day Five we had hot running water, lights, a place to wash and dry our clothes (this was really needed!). Just running out of food. Our MRE”s were running low and we had to get a re-supply. We had outrun our supplies so we had to wait. Finally, a few days later a pallet of MRE’s was dropped in front of our house. These were the strangest MRE’s I had ever seen. Food that I’d never seen before in an MRE. We looked on the box where it clearly stated that they were Kosher MRE’s. They were delicious! I found out from a friend of mine after I came home that he had a Jewish friend up north in Mosul and wrote to him complaining that the Army had failed to come through and provide him and his fellow Jews with Kosher MRE’s. I know what happened to them!
We also pilfered a nice wide screen TV and each of us had additional weapons and grenades.
Finally, our Language NCO hired three Iraqi women to be our full time maids. They cost $5 per person per day. So $15 a day for 14 people. For our $1 per person per day cost for maid service, we got: Buffet dinners nightly, beds made, sheets washed, clothes washed, floors scrubbed, rugs vacuumed, anything we wanted from the markets downtown, bathrooms cleaned, etc. We were living large.
Iraq at the time was awash in weapons. They were everywhere littering the streets and battlefields and abandoned bunkers. In the last days of the advance, Saddam ordered all the well-heeled occupants of the houses that we now lived in to dig foxholes and bunkers in their yards. Each of these had bunk beds with linen still on them. Without fail, under each pillow was an AK-47. Also, we found cases and boxes and ammunition trucks filled with thousands of rounds of ammo, mortars, machine guns, sniper rifles, grenades, bayonets, uniforms, helmets, etc., a looter’s paradise! (More on this later).
Across the road from our house there was a beautiful artificial pond with a flock of swans and two really nice two-bedroom bungalows on the pond. In front of one of the bungalows was a boat dock with a paddleboat. We went over to one of the bungalows and noticed a sign that read, “Sergeant Major’s house, no trespassing!” Nice. So we went in anyway to check it out. As we were coming out, the Sergeant Major of a sister CA battalion confronted us. “Didn’t you read the sign?” “Yes, Sergeant Major.” “Well, what are you doing in my house? Do you just walk into people’s houses?” Whatever. We didn’t want to argue with a guy that outranked us and explain to him that is isn’t HIS house. So we went out to the dock and gave the paddleboat a spin. The Sergeant Major came outside and screamed bloody murder at us. That was HIS paddleboat! That did it. We got out of the paddleboat and plotted its destruction. That night, we went to the pond with a British Army Sten machine gun with a silencer. We sunk that paddleboat tied to the dock. I have a picture. Bastard – so much for YOUR paddleboat.
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