The Night Saddam's Boys Died

Saddam’s sons, Uday and Quesay, were real gems. They worked for dad. Uday was personally a sadist and enjoyed torturing people at his dad’s jails, having his bodyguards procure women off of Bagdad’s streets and raping them, and even jailed the Iraqi National Soccer team when they lost a match. Quesay wasn’t personally cruel, but ran much of dad’s internal intelligence apparatus (read “Gestapo” or “KGB”). The boys fled when the regime fell and were on our most wanted list.

One summer night, I was on the third floor patio with Colonel Edwards. He was in his bathrobe and I was in my PJ’s – a really comfortable set of prison garb worn by prisoners in Saddam’s Gulag. They were white, pin striped, cotton and had a shirt pocket. I wore these at home. They became my trademark. I brought them home with me. We were enjoying some drinks and watching the tracers from nightly fire fights shoot through the sky. I noticed across the river that a series of sustained tracer bursts were shooting up toward the sky. I brought it to COL Edwards attention. As we watched, more tracers filled the sky. They “connected” to the stream that I initially pointed out. Gradually, tracers started to FLOOD the sky and were being fired from all directions. When tracers could be seen for 180 degrees around our house, I ran back into the house and sounded the alarm. What the hell was happening? I ran to my room, threw my flak vest on over my PJ’s, grabbed my helmet, guns, and all the ammo that I could carry and headed back up to the patio. By this time, tracer fire was completely surrounding the entire Green Zone. Every direction you looked. I yelled down the stairwell, “tracer fire 360” and people manned their previously designated defensive positions. For all intents and purposes, it looked like the beginning of an all out assault on the Green Zone. I was expecting the rush of hundreds of Iraqis to come flooding through the neighborhood. COL Edwards brought up his short wave radio. The BBC was just confirming that the 101st Airborne Division had just killed Uday and Quesay in Kirkuk. The firing was celebratory fire by the Iraqis!! They were deliriously happy. So were we. After confirming this with headquarters, we mugged for a lot of pics since we were all dressed in full battle gear over top of our pajamas, gym shorts, swim trunks, bathrobes, etc. We stowed our gear and COL Edwards and I had another drink.

Road Trip - Balad

Shortly after our arrival in Baghdad, soldiers started falling out due to the vagaries of getting adjusted to the climate, weird new insects that our bodies hadn’t encountered before, and rats in trees. One of our first nights there we were out of the third floor balcony relaxing when we heard a lot of scurrying around in the tree branches beside us. It was nearly dusk so it was hard to see. I commented that I didn’t realize that there were squirrels in Iraq. Upon closer inspection, we noticed that very large rats were scurrying up and down the date palms, obviously gorging themselves on dates. Rats in trees. This truly is Hell.

But I digress……..that thought just popped into my head as I was typing up this anecdote.
Anyway, one of our female soldiers had to be medevaced to the Army field hospital in Balad, an old Iraqi Army Base and about an hour’s drive from Baghdad. We were in the process of turning it into a massive airbase, which it still is as I write this. Christine had taken ill and we had to take her to Balad. So we decided to kill two birds with one stone – take Christine up and bring the other soldier (who was healed) back. BTW – there was this strange sickness people got that we called “Saddam’s Revenge”. Everyone in my crew got it but me. Don’t know why. I think it’s because I only drank bottled water and wouldn’t eat any local food unless it was cooked – in front of me. It lasted for about three days. The victim would physically expel everything is his intestines by every orifice – vomiting and diarrhea – violently. They would become very cold and have uncontrollable tremors. Blankets and 100 degree heat would not comfort them. You just had to wait it out. No drugs helped. Anyway, Christine was over her attack but simply was not able to get back up to full speed. The medics figured she needed a few days with a glucose drip and run some tests just to make sure that she was alright.

We assembled a “convoy” of two Hummers. COL Edwards drove one and I drove the other one. Each vehicle had four people in it. We were all armed with M-16 rifles and pistols. Then, we went over to a place in front of the CPA Palace alongside of the main road. This is where you would go if your convoy was a little light in numbers. You would find out where other guys were going and merge your mini-convoys into bigger convoys. Safety in numbers. We found two Hummers of guys going to Balad. Food and water. Lieutenant Colonel Lee was a liaison officer assigned to us from another Civil Affairs unit that was stationed in Balad. So he told us he knew the way from Baghdad. So off we went. We had reached the northern outskirts of town when Lee led us off the main road. Odd. So of course we followed him (after all, he knew how to get to Balad, right?) We wound up in a neighborhood of narrow streets. Streets so narrow that we had to pull in the rear view mirrors on the Hummers so as not to hit the houses on either side. Not good. No visibility, completely closed in, three story buildings an arm’s length from us. Everyone kept their rifles trained on rooftops and balconies as we tried to extract ourselves from this maze. As we found a street that opened up into a broader avenue, we came to an intersection and had to wait our turn to get into traffic. While waiting, Sergeant Boone in the seat next to me noticed a boy on a rooftop with a scoped rifle pointing it at us. He motioned to me and the two guys in the back of the Hummer. I pointed my pistol at him (You drove with one hand on the wheel and holding a cocked, loaded pistol in your firing hand. Additionally, you had your M-16 laying across your lap, barrel facing out). Everyone else pointed their M-16’s at him and SGT Boone wagged his finger him and yelled, “Don’t do it”. The boy – to our relief – decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He left the rifle on his perch and fled. The road we were on took us back to the main road and an Army checkpoint. Lee’s credibility was shot and we asked the guys at the checkpoint for directions to Balad. Suitably informed, we drove out of town. Colonel Edwards used to be a cop in civilian life and can (and likes to) drive FAST. Once we were out of town, we barreled north toward Balad at 90 mph. I had no idea that a Hummer could go that fast. I had trouble keeping up with him, so I know he was going faster. Actually, going that fast is a good idea. At 90 mph, it’s hard for someone to take an aimed shot at you. As this was still early on, we had no experience with IED’s (roadside bombs) yet. The main concern was ambushes by guys with AK-47 rifles and grenades. To counter grenades, we would leave the tailgates down and if a grenade was dropped from an overpass, it could be kicked out. We arrived at Balad in good order and were directed to the Army hospital. The hospital had a parking area. There was a barb wire fence on the side of the parking lot facing the hospital. On the back side, the parking lot’s boundary was the open desert, as far as the eye could see. Biggest parking lot in the world. At the entrance to the parking lot was a sign that read, “You must have a ground guide to enter this parking lot”. A Ground Guide is a guy from your vehicle that walks in front of you and guides you into a parking space. It’s necessary when you’re parking a tank, but a Hummer? In an empty parking lot the size of the Iraqi desert? And what if you’re alone? Guess you can’t park at the hospital. And they had a guard there to enforce the parking order! One of many reasons why I left the active Army and will only serve in a reserve status. The active Army can’t help itself. They are MANDATED to bring stupid regulatory crap with them wherever they go. That’s why it’s always good to get their first. The rules are fewer and less stringent. But not in this case. So after fruitlessly arguing the absurdity of the situation, we dismounted ground guides. Colonel Edwards and I surrendered our positions as drivers and served as ground guides. We both had the same idea: as we entered the parking area, we began to zigzag as we walked, our following Hummer’s copying our every move. We sprinted out toward the open desert, stopped, walked back, found a mogul and walked over it, Hummers following. After about ten minutes of doing figure 8’s and just goofing off, we led the vehicles back to the barb wire and neatly parked. The guard just shook his head.

We dropped off Christine and picked up Lieutenant Campbell. We then drove around the base. It was dusty, hot, no trees. No air conditioning. On the main road, a tumble weed rolled by. All the buildings were occupied by American troops. That day they had just gotten a PX to open up there. Me and Kenny looked at each other and said, “Shithole”. It was getting dark and we were offered to stay the night. The decision was made in a nanosecond: risk a dusk time drive through the Iraqi countryside and the streets of Baghdad to get back to our air conditioned villa with maid service and dinner waiting, or stay here? We’re poppin’ smoke. Later on, Balad became subject to almost nightly mortar attacks. It’s now a full fledged state-of-the-art US Air Force base. It has a nickname: “Mortaritaville”. We drove home without incident. Just another day in Iraq.

Smitty's Alive!

Once the 352nd Civil Affairs Command arrived in Baghdad, we settled in to the various villas in the government quarter and dispersed throughout the city to perform our missions during the day and returning at night. There were 139 of us, but you only saw your “crew” on a daily basis. For me, that was usually about 14 soldiers. You never saw anyone else. During the course of our tour there, a rumor went around that Smitty had been killed in an ambush. Smitty was a guy in the unit and worked in another section. We didn’t hear any details. We didn’t know him that well, but nevertheless it was a real bummer. Finally, in January 2004 (we arrived in April 2003), the whole unit was told to report to Command HQ for a formation and dissemination of information relating to our coming departure. So it was the first time we were all together in nine months. As we assembled for formation, I saw Smitty! I blurted out, “Smitty’s alive!” The guys in my crew all rushed poor Smitty and asked him how he was, where did he get hit, etc. Smitty looked at us like we were all on drugs. Had no idea what we were talking about and that he had been working downtown the whole time.

The US Army rumor mill has no equal.

The Fourth Estate

This blog entry is about American press bias that I experienced in Baghdad from April 2003-March 2004.

I will start with the most egregious case as I was a direct eye witness. It involved a woman from National Public Radio and her sound man. Can’t remember her name so I don’t want to inadvertently trash someone by guessing. I was at the Baghdad Convention Center working as usual at the Iraqi Assistance Center. We had around 400 walk-ins a day. These were Iraqis that we would help adjudicate property damage claims, find health care for their children, help them with finding imprisoned relatives at Abu Ghurayb, etc. So every day, the Iraqis would come in and line up in our lobby and approach a counter much like a bank teller line and file their claims with our interpreters. The NPR crew came in one morning and plopped down in a couple of leather chairs in our lobby. I could see them from my office. They were there the whole day. Occasionally, they would pull someone out of line, bring them into my office, and ask me what I was going to do help this person! Always very indignant. They did this several times. Of course, the help they would receive was waiting for them at the counter with one of their fellow countryman that could accurately take down their case – not with me (at least at this stage of the process). So the effect of doing this was that the folks they pulled out of line actually lost their place in line and had to go to the back. So they were hurting the very people they were allegedly trying to help. We asked them to stop doing this, which they did. At the end of the day, she was doing some recording with her sound man in the hallway. As I was walking by, she was reporting that she had been traveling through several neighborhoods in downtown Baghdad that day and about the horrific conditions that we (the American Army) had left!! She and her sound man never left my lobby the whole day. Is that objective journalism?

Second example: The press office was also located in the Convention Center. As we were a Civil Affairs unit involved the reconstruction of the country, we frequently sought press coverage as we rehabilitated housing, utilities, schools, medical clinics, etc. So we would go to the press office and notify the press of when and where we would be doing these things for the following day. List of those who showed and reported: Agence France Press and Al Jazeera. No shows: ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN. Not a single American network. Ever. So unlike most Americans, I actually have a high opinion of Agence France Press, and I really like Al Jazeera.

Third example: I’m sure that you recall that reporters filing reports from Baghdad had a blue minaret in the background when they reported? This was usually CNN, but I think other networks did it as well. Anyway, that location was between the Palestine Hotel and the Sheraton Hotel. This is where the lion’s share of journalists stayed. Of course, they would do their dreadful reporting of how bad things were. Trouble is, like our friends at NPR, they rarely if ever travelled to the locations that they were reporting on. They would send or pay Iraqi stringers to go out and get stories. In Iraq, nothing is ever as it appears on the surface. These stringers were frequently in the pay of Al Qaeda, the Sadr Militias, or Baathists. Further, the American networks would often buy footage from Al Jazeera and without asking what it was about, would completely fabricate their own narratives.

I didn’t have a very high opinion of the American press before I went to Iraq. Now, without independent verification, I simply assume that they are lying.

Danish HA

“HA” is short for Humanitarian Assistance. In the Baghdad Convention Center there were many administrative offices. Most of the offices were separate and closed off by a door to the outside. Many were separated by cubicles in open spaces, lockable, but the partitions didn’t go to the ceiling. If I was working late at night and needed office support, I would simply climb over the partition and into the “copy room” to make copies, fax stuff, obtain office supplies, etc. But I digress……..
In one of the enclosed offices was the Danish Consulate. The Danes didn’t have an Embassy, so they had a small office in the Convention Center. It was the least we could do. They had an infantry battalion fighting alongside us in Iraq and were loyal allies. The Iraqi Assistance Center was busy establishing the NGO Assistance Office. This was to register foreign NGO’s operating in Iraq, as well as to register and help train Iraqi NGO’s. (“NGO” is Non-Governmental Organization, non-profit charities). Everything takes money and this was no exception. We asked the Danes for some possible HA funds to assist in the standup of the office. They very generously offered us $5,000 with no strings attached. When I was notified of this, I walked over to their Consulate (which was maybe 100 feet away) and knocked on the door. The Danish Consul answered and when I identified myself he motioned me over to his desk. Beside the desk was a small safe. He opened the safe, produced $5,000 US, and handed it to me. Nothing to sign, no briefing, didn’t ask for a receipt. Nothing. So, I pocketed the five grand (all in twenties) and proceeded to use the funds to purchase items needed to for running of the NGO Assistance Office. This money was on top of the twenty grand a quarter I got as the FOO funds NCO. At this point, I hid the bulk of the FOO funds in my room at the house and carried about five grand in cash from that fund and the five grand from the Danes in my trouser pocket. Good thing I was armed.

Fobbits

This term came into vogue after we left, but it nevertheless accurately describes what I’m about to tell you. Iraq and Afghanistan are populated with Forward Operating Bases, or FOB’s for short. A Fobbit is a person who spends their entire year in country in the FOB. They fly into Baghdad or drive up from Kuwait, enter the FOB and don’t set foot outside the base until the day they leave. The FOB itself has all the creature comforts of home. Fast food chains such as Subway and Burger King have outlets there. Merchants set up shop and sell their wares during daylight hours. There are usually movie theaters and Post Exchanges (the “PX”, or department store, like a K Mart). There are gyms, pools, anything that you would normally find on an Army base in the US. Now, we lived in the Green Zone and had all these amenities in spades, because we had access to all the beautiful Olympic size pools (and larger) in the Zone, as well as private pools in many of the villas that we lived in. The difference is that at least half of our time was spent outside the Green Zone conducting various missions.

One thing that has really fried me when I came home is the number of Iraq war vets who run for political office. I looked into several of these folk’s backgrounds and discovered that most of them were fobbits. My favorite one was a guy who I believe is now a congressman from Ohio. On his bio, it states that he was in the “Battle of Fallujah” in November 2004. This was a very tough battle in which Marines and Army Cavalry units fought house-to-house to clear Fallujah of insurgents. The congressman in question was an Army lawyer. His death-defying job: sitting at headquarters processing compensation claims for Iraqis whose houses had been damaged in the fighting. FOBBIT!!!!

I’ll close this post with an advisory warning: I’ve attached a very clever video by some soldiers in Afghanistan. But it applies to Iraq as well. The lyrics are R-rated. You’ve been warned. But it accurately conveys my sentiments with regard to fobbits.

Pass the Popcorn

There are no “days off” in a war zone. At least not in the sense that most people understand them. But you generally have down time every day. The work is usually 12-15 hours. Not much to do for entertainment. You can’t go the movies or TGI Friday’s and hang out at the bar and watch the game. While we did have a TV with a satellite dish in our house, the channel selection was very limited. The ONLY news we could get was Keith Olberman’s Countdown on MSNBC (a real hit with the masses of liberals that inhabit the Army). We got camel racing in Dubai, soap operas from Spain, soap operas from Egypt, a really great sports channel if you like cricket, soccer, Australian Rules football, rugby (which actually wasn’t bad), and jai alai. But, we did have the Fashion Channel. Topless fashions on Thursday nights at 6pm. Gee – how did I remember that after all these years? Living vicariously while waiting for R&R leave…..

What we did have were laptops, lots of laptops. Some people brought their personal laptops, most had Army issue laptops. And they played DVD’s. Personal entertainment for the masses. Additionally, at our office we also had a projector that we could project powerpoint briefings onto a screen for large audiences. So, we took the projector home each night, mounted a bed sheet on the living room wall, loaded a laptop with a DVD and watched movies. Almost every night. Initially, we watched TV series and HBO series, like “24” and “Band of Brothers”. However, we had to keep restarting each night from the last episode that everyone watched. So most of us would see the same episode at least three times. Our resident British Army Lieutenant Colonel said, “if I see another episode of Band of Brothers, I’ll go mad”. We gave him a Band of Brothers T-shirt as a going away gift.

With Amazon and personal care packages, our movie selections improved greatly over time. The most elaborate honor system of movie sharing emerged that I have ever seen. Movies were loaned out to perfect strangers and promptly returned after viewing. I must have loaned out at least 15 movies all over the Green Zone and returned with them all. At the time, I was 45 years old. I had many folks in my section who in their twenties. Most had never seen or even heard of movies like, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, “Casablanca”, and “Breaker Morant”. Well, I would show these movies to one or two of them and it would be standing room only for the next show once the word got out. Casablanca achieved the status of Gen-X cult following. I noticed several copies began to appear on shelves of Gen-X’ers in my unit. One of my cousins back home hooked me up with a box set of James Bond movies. I was the most popular guy in the Green Zone for at least two weeks after that. Our house became a 1920’s speakeasy for Bond movies. A knock would come on the door after dark. We would look through the peephole and ask who was there. “Is this the house with the Bond movies?” “Yes”. “Do you have Goldfinger?” And so it went.

Another friend sent me the entire 4th season of the Sopranos. We had the most fun with the Italian soldiers attached to us. They simply couldn’t believe that this is what the American Italian mafia was like. They would watch the credits at the end and tell us that while the names were in fact Italian, those names don’t exist in Italy anymore. It seems that back in those days the whole clan would emigrate lock, stock, and barrel.

I brought all my DVD’s home with me. They have a special place reserved for them in my DVD drawer.

General Order Number One

The nemesis of all soldiers, officers and enlisted men alike. General Order #1 is a lengthy order that basically outlines everything a soldier can and can’t do in a designated combat zone. Every combat zone has its own General Order #1. The major topics usually covered are consumption and possession of alcohol, items that are allowed to be shipped home as war trophies, fraternization with the local females, and speed limits. When we arrived in Iraq on April 20, 2003, and until July 17 there was no General Order #1. Our Commanding General, Lieutenant General McKiernan, said, “My boys just conquered Iraq and overthrew a fascist dictator. If they want to have a drink every now and then, I don’t care!”. We’d follow this man to hell and back.

Then, he left. The new commander Lt Gen Sanchez’ first order of business was General Order #1. No possession, consumption or sale of alcohol. War trophies to be allowed, but severely proscribed in accordance with a highly detailed list. Locals kept at a distance, etc. Now, before this, we usually had a party every Thursday night. Friday is the Sabbath day in the Muslim world, so that makes their Thursday the equivalent of our Friday. Thursday night was party night. They call it “Red Night”. So, when General Order #1 was posted (note that I can still remember the exact day), our only recourse was to throw a “General Order #1” party! It was the best party I attended while I was there. At our villa. Iraqi food catered in – lamb quarters over rice pilaf, grape leaves, olives, hummus, masgoof, flat bread, vegetables, and deserts. All topped off with every brand of beer we could get our hands on and every kind of hard liquor that could be found. We had a DJ brought in and easily had over 100 guests. The next morning, I woke up at dawn and scrambled around the house gathering up empty cans and bottles. Two 55 gallon trash bags worth. And took them down the street to throw into the dumpster. The new first sergeant was out and asked what I was doing. “Getting rid of the evidence”. He laughed. He was at the party.