OIF 2003 part 2

      In the year of 2003… During my first 12 month deployment, everything was so very different than today’s typical military deployments. There was certainly no burger kings, PXs, or internet cafes around. I have detailed my experiences of the initial three months in my last post, but one thing I didn’t touch on was the basic lifestyle we as Soldiers had to endure during this time. For the first 3 – 4 months there were absolutely no showers or baths to speak of, so naturally our uniforms crusted up from the excessive sweat with huge salt stains spread out all across our clothes. After a while the mere smell of your own body odor would almost cause you to get ill. As June and July approached the temperatures would frequently rise to 120F and beyond. At one point our water supply ran extremely low and the logistical convoys just could not reach our location anymore. During that time we were forced to establish water rations.  It had reached the point where all Soldiers would receive just two 1.5L water bottles each day. We had to clearly write out our names on side of the bottles with black permanent marker to ensure nobody would drink from it. Nevertheless, one night I distinctly remember a physical confrontation between two Soldiers. One Soldier had crept into the other guy’s sleeping area and quietly took his water bottle from under his cot and then began to gulp down almost half of his bottle. Several seconds later the sleeping Soldier awoken and immediately started to yell and pushed the surprised intruder. To which the sneaking Soldier replied “Damn these rules!! I’m a bigger man and I need more water than you!”  Eventually other Soldiers came in and broke the dispute up.  You see, in the great country of America we take it for granted that when we ourselves are parched or our stomach growls we can simply drive to the local convenience or grocery store to fulfill that need. When we have the urge to use the bathroom, there is a porcelain throne for us to sit upon. Why if it’s a little warm just turn on the A/C. Happen to be missing a friend or relative? Then just pick up the phone and dial. This was most certainly not an option for an American Soldier in Iraq 2003. 

A common site in throughout the country.

    My unit was just now getting settled in our second base camp near a small town 40 – 60 miles north of Baghdad. At this point we had moved into pretty decent buildings and even had an interpreter working directly for my company. I happened to be on gate guard (as usual) with another young Soldier one hot afternoon and a lady in what appeared to be in her late 40s slowly approached our entrance. She was dressed in a long dusty black robe and as she walked closer we noticed a crimson color stained on both of her hands…….. It appeared to be somebody’s blood. It was pretty odd to see anyone come towards our gate, let alone a strange old woman. We called up the report immediately on our radios. Headquarters told us to send her away.  When she got about 50 meters from us she began speaking in Arabic, at first in a soft tone and then increasing louder until she was shouting at the top of her lungs.  Fortunately we had an interpreter at the gate and he then informed us what she had said….. “Please help! My neighbor has killed both my husband and two sons.. he has gone mad and is now trying to kill me and the rest of my family.. I need you to come back with me and stop him… for god’s sake!” Watching her closely, we notice her body start to tremble and her eyes became ever so wide filled with pure panic and terror. We updated our headquarters with the newly received information. Over the radio we received our final orders coldly “Send her away… that is not our mission here.” At that point we had to look at this woman in the eyes and tell her… “Sorry, but we can’t do anything for you ma’am.” The look of disbelief and tears that then followed has been etched into my memory forever. She must have come here thinking we were the good guys and that we had to help people in need. On this particular day she happened to be greatly mistaken. Now, I must explain to the readers at this point in time there was no Iraqi Police or military to enforce laws, it was pretty much like the Wild Wild West so to speak.  I didn’t feel good about myself lying down to sleep that night… how could I?

One of the border guards let me hold his AK-47.

     A new month… a new mission. That seemed to be the theme of the year, and now we were off heading towards the Iranian border. Apparently there have been issues of Iranians sneaking into Iraq in order to venture on a holy pilgrimage. Living so close to Iran’s border was a little daunting; the Iran Army would constantly have a show of force consisting of old tanks lined up on their border. Almost as if to say.. “Don’t you Americans dare think of entering our country” The days once again started blending into one another and I truthfully couldn’t tell the difference between a Monday from a Friday. I did however become aware of a new insect affectionately labeled the “sand fly”. A little pesky bug that was so small that it would fly right through our military mosquito netting. I believe they were about ¼ of the size of a regular mosquito. When a person was bitten there was a good chance they would end up developing Leishmaniasis (a skin disease). This is unfortunately what happened to my upper right arm. I would be given an option at this point whether I wanted to return back to United States for treatment or would I rather stay with my unit and finish my deployment. At the time I didn’t want to be seen as a coward or a man that tried to get out of his responsibility so I decided to stay even as lesions begun to form painful bumps on my skin. A decision I would reflect back to multiple times throughout the next six months.

An Iranian boy spots something tasty in the wire.

     Now, our typical day here on the border would involve scouring the vast lands searching for Iranians that did not have the proper documentation.. then loading them all up one by one onto large civilian trucks until full and driving them back to their own country. I could have sworn I seen the same people day after day and week after week. They were a determined religious bunch. Our sense of security was still at a very high level and I remember one afternoon one of the young men we detained had jumped off the truck and was sprinting straight towards a group of American Soldiers. Sensing something awry I chased him down and ended up tackling him straight to the ground. As it turned out he was simply dehydrated and was attempting to get some water from our jugs before heading back to Iran. This border protection mission would last at least another month.. and then it too ultimately changed.  

The pilgrims are headed back to Iran.

As you can tell the pilgrims consisted mainly of older men and women.

2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom

       A day before my 21^st birthday on March 20, 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom had just kicked off. In less than two weeks I had found myself in a dusty tan tent somewhere in Kuwait several miles off the Iraqi border preparing to do my part to help in the “liberation” effort. 3^rd Infantry Division was already in route to Baghdad.  I was recently married (about 3 months now), and fear completely dominated my mind. I had never been involved in a war before, and I didn’t want to die. I really didn’t know what to expect at this point. I was newly appointed as a Team Leader in my squad and was trying to figure out how I was suppose to act. All the troops at my camp had not been receiving newspapers or any TV news. The inaccurate word of mouth was how we received all of our current events. As I remember there were two chemical attack scares.  Apparently the Iraqi Army had shot a couple of scud missiles into the air, but we were able to shoot them down quickly before any harm could be done. The time to cross the Iraqi border was now approaching ever so quickly.

This young fellow seemed pretty excited

      Crossing from the Kuwait border to the Iraq border wasn’t much of a difference initially aside from the pungent smell in the air. I was rolling with my squad in a M113 (Armored Personnel Carrier) and every 10 or 15 minutes I saw Iraqi kids and some adults waving a welcome in enthusiasm. I thought “wow, these people must actually want us here.” The thought was odd but comforting all at the same time.  Then after about 20 or 30 miles I noticed blown up Iraqi tanks and abandoned fighting positions. I would see a tank fighting positions and then tracks in the sand backing up a few meters, ultimately a destroyed tank. It was as if the Iraqi army was waiting in their fighting position and saw something that frightened them and decided to reverse and run.. but all in vain. Shortly later came the bodies… the disfigured, lifeless corpses that laid scattered about the road. After a couple of minutes I ducked back into the vehicle as it continued to roll forward towards the city of Baghdad. I didn’t want to witness any more death.. I wanted to erase it from my mind as if it were some fictional action movie…. But I couldn’t seem to fool my mind, this was no movie.

   Ten miles from Baghdad our convoy stopped and a radio transmission was heard “ 3^rd ID is still trying to take over the city, our convoy was to standby until this happened, then a Soldier quickly ran over to our vehicle and started passing out grenades while stating “there are snipers ahead, I was told to pass these out.” I reluctantly attached two grenades onto my vest. I kept thinking to myself “what in the world are grenades going to do if there are snipers in the area???” Before long the sun disappeared into the horizon and then the convoy once again continued to trudge towards the city. I guess the city was completely taken over because we were moving right through the heart of it and heard not a sound. For the largest city in Iraq with over 5 million people residing there you could have heard a pin drop. Nobody was on the streets or corners and all the power was shut off… pitch black darkness. It looked very sinister to witness the moon shinning down on those large buildings with not a soul in sight. At some point during the journey through Baghdad I must have passed out due to what I considered a lack of sleep. 

    I awoke the next morning to the thunder of a 25mm cannon exploding onto buildings. I realized that a platoon of Bradley Fighting Vehicles were directly in front of my company and they were engaging in what I figured could only be the “enemy”.  Iraqi Soldiers with weapons scattered around in attempts to defend the half destroyed buildings. I felt my blood go cold.. I felt chills of fear flowing through my body. I was trying to decide if I needed to join in the fight with my trusty small M16 or.... and at that exact moment my Squad leader yelled "Get your head down!" as he pulled me back into the vehicle. The conflict ended briefly within a few short minutes. I then found out we were in the city of Taji. I would be staying there for the next couple of weeks. The first day my squad didn’t have guard duty and I found myself a piece of long cardboard on the back of a truck…threw it down on a stone floor in a tiny side room after pushing broken glass out of the way with my boot. As I laid down I pulled my uniform top close up to me as if it was a small blanket and slept all through the night.

"Its "P" for Plenty boys"

    My unit’s future missions quickly became clear. You see...There was a ton of ordnance throughout the country of Iraq. By ordnance I mean “artillery shells, mines, C-4, mortars..ect”  I was in a combat engineer unit and we had plenty of C-4 at our disposal. Understandably everyone was concerned that almost anyone could just walk right up to an unguarded cache and take all the mines or explosives their hearts desired… hence the numerous IEDs that would later follow. It only made sense for big Army to declare that we were to go around the country and consolidate these ordnance caches to destroy them with our surplus of C-4. I would learn later in engineer NCO academies that there are certain formulas for demolitions. At the time there was no formula used.. just the old common rule “P” = plenty. Which means if in doubt just throw more C-4 on it… and then just get as far away as possible before detonating. It wasn’t the right answer, but it was most certainly effective. I would go through the process of lugging around foreign mine systems I never seen or heard of before, throwing chunks of plastic explosives on mortars and other shells just to blow it all up.  After the third week of going through the motions of gathering munitions and destroying them the whole process got pretty mundane. I even stopped taking pictures of the explosion clouds.. it was simply business as usual. Until… our mission had one day suddenly changed.   

Day after Day.. it was the same routine

Its Me....21 year old Team Leader  (June 2003)