365 and a Wakeup

Foot Patrol

Bite off more then you can chew. Then chew it.

- Ella Williams

     Before this deployment our unit focused its training on Air Assault tactics, and we practiced those maneuvers with the type of devotion you would expect from a team trying to win the Superbowl. There is nothing magical about air assault missions, if you skip over the helicopter insertions they don’t really differ from any other dismounted infantry maneuvers. During our train up for the mission we started to become familiar with patrolling, fighting, and maneuvering in the heavily armed and armored HMMWVs that comprise the backbone of our ground maneuver forces. Our soldiers have long since becoming experts at motorized tactical patrols, but despite all the formidable power at their fingertips most of our soldiers still prefer the hyperreality of a foot patrol.

     To truly understand why we prefer walking the terrain you would have to integrate yourself into the tightly knit family we call a unit, but I’ll do my best to explain it regardless. If you boiled down the infantry into its raw essence, stripping away the proud swagger, the bravado, and the fierce camaraderie, you would be left with a diamond hard knot of sheer willpower. Infantry soldiers don’t try to avoid misery, they embrace it. And in doing so they learn lessons no book could ever teach, about themselves and their environment. The single most important lesson is the one that many in the outside world tend to forget… the easy way is not always the right way.

     Slogging through faulted earth and dense underbrush isn’t pleasurable, but it provides the kind of insight no technology on earth could hope to match. When you are dismounted there is no thrumming engine to deaden your ears, and your eyes wander freely instead of conforming to the constraints imposed by armor plate. What you lose in terms of protection you gain back in raw sensing ability.

     Driving in our armored vehicles you can sense the change in season; the blistering heat has given way to air laced with chill threads of winter. The cold, biting air is easily overpowered by the glowering heat that leaks past the firewall, and the net result isn’t too far removed from our summer patrols. But on the ground there is no mistaking the changing tides of sun and sky. In summer we patrolled though earth as faulted and ruptured as a volcanic plain. In some regions the dusty ground seemed an amalgam of the raw elements, the ground seemed to have a greater affinity for the roiling air then the staid earth we trampled underfoot. We drudged through the remnants of ancient floodplains, and marveled as our boots kicked up screens of atomized dust. In those fire bright days the plowed earth was a hardened sea of jagged peaks and valleys, as if we were walking through a flash frozen ocean.

     Autumn changed all that. With the distant sun in retreat the earth started to slowly recover, and the fields have been reborn.  Many of the desolate fields continue to vacillate between the elements, only now they ally with water instead of air. The result is a porridge thick medium that weighs down your every step, and latches to your uniform like so many misshapen leeches. The plowed fields have lost their concrete constitution, now the broken earth swims with scattered emeralds that herald the rebirth of life and vitality. You can see these changes as you barrel down the roads, but you can’t sense them in the same way as when you are moving through the area on foot.

     What holds true for the inanimate earth holds especially true for the complex cultural fabric of the populated regions. Although the days have grown shorter there is far more activity now that the air isn’t swollen with wretched heat. On foot you catch all the nuances that are so easily missed when you look out an armored window. You can see the smiling faces of children and see their sharp eyes gauge whether or not your pockets are full of candy. You can read the subtle shifts in posture and carriage, and use those to sense the truth behind the smiling mask some cowardly predators hide behind.

     There is no perfect tactic, and approaching every situation with the same methodology is a recipe for disaster. But its always good to add tools to the tool kit… especially when you have soldiers as capable as those in Killer Company.

Devil Island

     After a day that left me as worn and brittle as a dried palm frond, I settled into the broken plastic chair behind my desk and started to war-game our upcoming Air Assault mission. The plan had long since briefed to the maneuver units, but for the hundredth time I peered over the aerial imagery looking for details I might have missed. Planning and execution are dual sides of the same coin, and both have become as familiar as the scent of dust and death.  But the stretch of time between the two… that never gets any easier to bear.

     And so I sat there - my body creaking in places it shouldn’t, and my mind burning with restless flames - and once again imagined the tactical choreography that would soon unfold. Hour after hour slipped by as my mind played and replayed its own hyperkinetic chess match, conjuring up a hundred possible pitfalls and a thousand possible solutions. Eventually the fever died and the flames guttered, and I knew that there was little else I could do to prepare. I looked up at the clock face and suddenly felt the serpentine coils of fatigue encircling my chest, as if acknowledging the late hour somehow brought this bone cracking weariness to life. I left a wakeup call with the CP along with orders to wake me up by any means necessary and then collapsed into bed.

     And so, after meticulous planning and days of waiting, the Air Assault onto Devil Island started with little more then a soft knock on my barracks door. When SGT Lead rapped on my door my eyes creaked open like a rusted gate, lurching and swinging as if to cast off the scattered flakes of corrosion, and slowly the blurry darkness came into focus. I walked over to the wall, flipped on the lights and stumbled towards the CP. Halfway there I realized I didn’t put any shoes on before walking across the hall, but to my surprise I was still wearing my DCUs and boots. It took a few seconds for me to remember that I hadn’t so much gone to sleep as collapsed, and for the thousandth time this deployment I promised myself I would take a day to sleep in… someday. I got a quick update from the CP while I was pouring a cup of coffee and then returned to my room to suit up. My first order of business was changing out socks. You can wear a uniform until it is stiff with salt, but ignore your feet for a day and you are courting disaster. Once I’d finished lacing up a fresh set of boots I started gearing up. First on were my tough thermoplastic kneepads, my fingers tracing the deep grooves a hundred sudden impacts had carved into their knobby faces. Then I snapped on my duty belt, the weight of the Beretta pistol in its thigh rig immediately pulling it into a jaunty but comfortable angle. I latched the elastic loops of the thigh holster to one leg, then buckled the drop pouch to my other, and then started to check my armor. The IBA armor is relatively simple to don, but its sheer bulk makes fine movements difficult. Rather then fumble around through its myriad pockets I checked each in turn, adding or subtracting the tactical gear I would need on this specific mission. Once each pocket was bulging with ammunition and mission specific gear I hefted it onto my shoulders and mated its Velcro fasteners.  Then I snapped on my Kevlar helmet, hefted the assault bag that held the backup radios, extra batteries, and other command and control necessities, and grabbed my ballistic glasses. As I left my room I kissed my index finger, held it to my wife’s picture and said a silent prayer. The mission had begu

      By time I piled into the vehicle that was shuttling our troops to the airfield the bed of the truck was already full of the lively banter that seems to presage any big operation. SSG Spite and my interpreter were a half step behind me, and as I loaded and watched them climb into the LMTV I wanted to laugh at this incongruous pair. SSG Spite is the type of NCO forged in another age, the kind of man whose stern face and grizzled appearance instantly demand respect of his peers and subordinates alike. Our interpreter Mo is the exact opposite, a pot bellied 30-something Iraqi with a fondness for second wives and a perennial grin. Mo was carrying our long range antennas strapped across his back, and standing there in the predawn light they looked a little like a glowering golf pro and a loyal caddy preparing for a day on the links. Despite their differences both men were ruthlessly competent in their respective fields, and as I watched them climb up I once again wondered what I had done to deserve such an incredible headquarters element. 

     Through some miracle of dexterity SSG Spite managed to mount the vehicle with a full cup of steaming coffee, and as the LMTV rumbled to life we all placed bets on how quickly the coffee would slosh out of the open up. As luck would have it we were all wrong, SSG Spite managed to balance the boiling liquid with the grace of a Chinese acrobat. As we dismounted he reminded us all that drinking coffee in a hurtling vehicle was par for the course in his civilian career.

     As we lined up on the airfield we were joined by a reporter from the Dutch Press, and as he jogged up he apologized over and over for arriving late. I assured him he had arrived with plenty of time, then I gave him a short class on how to hot load a Blackhawk. A few minutes after the lesson ended the Blackhawks roared in from the scarlet light of a new day and settled into rapidly expanding plumes of dust. As we roared over Devil Island on our approach I had a sudden flash of surprise, the aerial imagery didn’t reveal the dense thickets of overgrown underbrush. As we settled into a pyre of windborne sand I mentally adjusted the timetable to account for the thick vegetation. By time the helicopters were clawing back into the sky 1LT Murphy had his troops in a security posture and the lead elements were clearing the thickets around the LZ. The Battalion Commander and the Air Force forward controllers linked up with my headquarters element and we started running the myriad communication checks with the BN TOC.

     Once the Northern portion of the island was clear the soldiers settled into overwatch positions and the rest of the element to arrive. Once again the Blackhawks fluttered down, and once again their rotors turned the area into a sandblasted wasteland. When they left the LZ was stripped of vegetation, the dry weeds replaced with the last of our combat troops, an EOD team, and a Navy Petty Officer and his bomb sniffing dog.

     Several hundred meters into the sweep we encircled the sole residents of Devil Island, a farming family living alone in a squat mud brick settlement. The headquarters element and a security detail remained in the settlement while 1LT Irish led his platoon on sweeps to the South. The family welcomed us warmly, and as SSG Spite and the Airmen set up their respective communication arrays the BN Commander and I started talking with the family. The head of the household ensured us we wouldn’t find any weapons or explosives on his island, with one exception. When we pressed him on the details he offered to show us first hand, so we gathered the EOD experts and started towards the scene. After a short walk he took us to a shallow groove in the earth carved by a heavy metal round. The EOD team fearlessly walked into the jagged crease and started to safe the round. After a few tense seconds they lifted the round over their head and said “it’s an illumination casing, its safe”. We all let out the breath we were silently holding, and we made our way back to the compound. Within a few seconds the new troops fell into their assigned positions and started sweeping the island, while my headquarters and the BN Commander followed in tight formation.

     I spent the next hour shuttling between the search elements, our temporary headquarters, and the family patiently waiting to get back to their daily schedule.  Every time I returned to the shaded headquarters alcove for an update SSG Spite and I poked fun at our Air Force detachments equipment. They took the jokes in stride, knowing full well that we were just jealous that the Army hadn’t equipped us as well as the Air Force had equipped their troops. Every other minute a radio message would crackle over one of the radios and as it did all laughter died in its tracks as every ear cued for the message. Once the radios went momentarily dormant the jokes would start up again, each of us trading good natured insults in the grandest military tradition.

     Despite the dense underbrush the troops managed to comb through the island on schedule, and by late morning the island had been cleared. The troops were fanned out in defensive positions on both sides of the island, and as we waited for the Blackhawks to move to the Pickup Zone (PZ) several of the elements spotted individuals across the river attempting to spot our positions with binoculars. The troops kept their weapons trained on the individuals, their fingers hovering a millimeter from the selector switches. The silent spotters were astute enough to avoid picking up weapons, but rather then allow them to continue gathering information I had SSG Spite vector in the Apache attack helicopters while the Air Force crew had F-16s fly overwatch with their all seeing optics. As the air came alive with the sound of American air power the spotters melted away, leaving our troops scanning desolate stretches of river bank. As we waited we heard a net call from our sister company on the other objective, warning us that they were going to conduct a controlled detonation of a cache they discovered. A few minutes later the radio crackled with the words “one minute to detonation”, and that in turn was followed by the deep, angry thump of explosive force. As the sheet of scattered force boomed by

     Finally we received word that the Blackhawks were inbound, and the defensive positions started returning to the PZ. Our headquarters and security detail were the first on the scene, and as we waited there in the tall reeds troops started to slowly gather in their respective chalks. A few minutes before the Blackhawks arrived each chalk radioed up their status, and I smiled when I heard that all personnel were up and all equipment was accounted for. As the Blackhawks made their final approach each chalk threw out a smoke grenade to mark their position, and the birds settled down in a biting torrent of earth and air. We hot loaded the birds, and by time I had clipped in the nose was pitching forward boring a tunnel into the sky.

     When we landed back at the FOB we barreled out of the Blackhawks and started the long walk back to the barracks. As we walked back SSG Spite summed up our mission succinctly by saying “we took a Dutch reporter, an Air Force team, and a Navy dog handler and EOD team on an Army Air Assault to a remote island in the Tigris River - how is that for joint operations?”. Once we were back in the barracks I walked back into my room and looked at the imagery on my desk. It didn’t turn out quite like I thought, but our objective had been cleared and we had no casualties. That was victory enough… at least for today.

Backscatter

     After night has finished gnawing away the last, feeble scraps of daylight our area is reborn in darkness. Twilight provides a stark reminder of the architectural gulf between central Baghdad and  its southern provinces. Central Baghdad hovers in the cold glow of an artificial dawn, the true night held at bay by countless legions of fluorescent lights. In this light Baghdad seems proud and aloof - an island of light in an ocean of shadow.

     Our realm lies submerged in that great oceanic darkness, an inkstain flecked with prickles of lonely light. In this jet landscape the only color is the burnt orange of sodium lights, flickering like the campfires of a ancient army. 

     Driving in central Baghdad is relatively simple - the collective backscatter of a hundred thousand naked bulbs pulls away the curtains of night. Since the area is already thick with light most HMMWVs think nothing of flipping on their service lights and adding to the photonic din. But in the unsteady darkness of southern Baghdad headlights are a dangerous liability. Their powerful light stabs through the night like a blade, their sheer force drawing every waking eye. To avoid this photonic betrayal our HMMWVs move through the night sheathed in darkness – roaring nocturnal predators hurtling through the gloom.

     If we relied on our own naked eyes our mission wouldn’t last long - we would end up blindly hurtling off into one of the deep agricultural canals. Fortunately our success isn’t contingent on our own eyes, built as they are for the light and warmth of day. Instead we rely on our trusty night vision goggles (NVGs). The minutes leading up to our night patrols are marked by the spring loaded click of NVGs mating to Kevlar helmets. In their stand by configuration they seem to erupt out of the front of our helmets like a great misshapen horn. When we leave the wire these ungainly protuberances drop down and lock into place, eyecups nestled against your eye soft plastic leeches. In this configuration the upright horn seems to jut out from your face like a long thermoplastic eye stalk. These cyclopean sights incessantly tug at your trapezius muscles, but in exchange for their nagging weight they peel away the cloak of night, and reveal the darkness in her naked splendor. The emerald images the NVGs splash across our retinas allow us to move like wraiths across the silent moonscape, dodging and weaving through the murk.

     Despite the visual enhancement driving in blackout remains a pulse quickening ordeal. To get a flavor of just how difficult the process really is grab a toilet paper tube, and lash it to your eye. Then tape your other lid shut and get behind the wheel. You will quickly get a sense of just how challenging night driving can really be. And that isn’t even taking into account craters large enough to swallow a HMMWV, the specter of newly emplaced IEDs, and the throat clogging clouds of dust. Our vehicle crews have long since mastered this silent art, but it never seems to get any easier. But then again nothing here seems to be all that easy. 

Dude, You Blew Up My Car

     As our patrol came to a close we turned onto a narrow road that has grown infamous in our small sector of Baghdad. The road itself is rather unremarkable, a narrow two lane spit of asphalt that bisects leathery fields as dry as straps of beef jerky. What distinguishes this particular route isn’t so much the road itself, nor is it the adjoining fields - its the tortured strips of dirt that parallel the road itself. In another time and place you might refer to these areas as shoulders, or maybe even emergency lanes. But not here. Here they straddle the road like pregnant vipers, their sandy wombs swollen with explosives. These barren strips of dirt are virtual moonscapes, they carry dozens of cratered wounds, each marking the searing birth throes of their explosive offspring.

As we sped down the road every eye was focused on these bitter strips, as though the intensity of our gazes could somehow paralyze their initiation. A sudden deceleration brought my attention back to the road itself, and when I looked up I noticed the lead vehicle coming to a dead stop. Before I could call up the lead vehicle SSG Rock crackled over the net “We got something up here”.

     Up ahead there was a small crowd of Iraqis so engaged in a verbal exchange they were utterly oblivious to our arrival. I clicked on the vehicles PA system, passed it to my interpreter and had him call out to the crowd. As soon as the amplified words washed over the crowd they seemed to snap out of their conversation and started slowly walking toward our vehicles. That was a good thing, if they were insurgents they would have immediately fled like scalded rats. As they made their way over we had them slowly pirouette to prove they weren’t wearing explosive vests and having checked them through binoculars we let them approach. As they came up to the HMMWVs they descended back into the same heated exchange they had been engaged in when we arrived, and it took almost a minute to get the story out of them.
 
     Apparently each of these drivers had noticed a suspicious vehicle sitting in the road which they believed was a VBIED, and their argument concerned which one of them would have to check it out in order to continue past the obstacle. When I heard this I started to laugh - the fact that there was an alternate route less then a mile away seemed to escape all of them. We got them quieted down and then focused our binoculars on the alleged VBIED. The vehicle was a run down white sedan that looked utterly unremarkable… except there were wires hanging down from the undercarriage. That alone was enough to raise our suspicions, and we immediately started cordoning off the area. The drivers seemed annoyed that they would have to make a detour, but we ignored their protests and quickly bustled them off back down the road. As we were sending them off a young Iraqi came forward and calmly stated that he was the owner of the possible VBIED. For a minute I thought that would be the end of it, but the drama was just beginning.

     The man who had approached us was indeed the owner, he had the vehicle identification to prove it. The problem was that his vehicle had been stolen the night before, and though he didn’t get a good look he was certain they were part of the AIF. He seemed more embarrassed about the situation then anything else, but he made it imminently clear that he wasn’t going to get anywhere near the car until we checked it out.

      As this was all unfolding the rest of our patrol had split off to the cardinal directions and started stopping traffic from moving through the possible kill zone. Just about the time our last vehicle was in position we placed the call over the net for EOD assistance. We explained the situation in a few clipped transmissions and once the information had been passed up a voice came over the net and said “So this guy knows we are going to blow up his car… right?” There was a long pause as the translator passed the message to the owner, and an even longer pause as he considered his options. Then the owner shrugged his shoulders and agreed.

     As we were waiting for the EOD team to arrive the conversation quickly turned to how much explosives would fit in a VBIED that size. Some of my troops came up with an impromptu calculus, attempting to decipher the compression of the springs and use that as an indicator of just how large this rolling bomb might be. Others threw caution to the wind and just pulled a number out of thin air. Still others tried to visualize the size of the trunk and then mentally extrapolate how much explosives it would take to fill that volume. All the guesses differed, but there was general agreement on one thing – none of us wanted to find out firsthand. 

   After a bit the EOD team linked up with our perimeter security on the other side of the vehicle, and after a few minutes the call came over the net “the robot is going in”. Alone the bomb robots are little more then an armored mass of circuits and servos, but in the hands of the EOD techs they seem to take on a life of their own. From my vantage point  the small robot seemed to bob and weave around the frozen car like it was a metallic scavenger snapping at its next meal. After a few minutes of probing the robot made its way back and a voice came over the net “We can’t see any explosives, but there is unidentified wiring. We are going to blow it”. As the call went out I heard a excited voice shout in idle joy, I was only mildly surprised to realize the sound had come from my lips.

     After the explosives had been prepared the robot started its long trek back to the VBIED, pulling a large sled of explosives behind it. SPC Sparta was in the turret, and the additional height gave him the best view of the preparations. The next conversation went something like this:

T6: How big is the charge?

SPC Spartan: It’s huge sir.

SGT Bard: How huge?

SPC Spartan: That thing is going to put a hole in the world. 

     At this point the air was thick with anticipation, it was like a giant dynamo was spinning up and charging the atmosphere with force. The conversation returned to how big we thought the VBIED might be, each person venturing their guess and defending it with a fervor usually left for the outcome of the next football season. As the arguments and counter arguments came to an apex another call went out “Charges are set, five minutes until controlled detonation”. As the call went out everyon

 

e piled back into the HMMWV, five minutes in EOD Land never seems to equal five minutes of real time. As we hunkered down in the HMMWVs armored belly everyone readjusted their helmets and double checked their earplugs, but the scene was far from grim. In fact everyone seemed to be boiling over with excitement at the impending blast. And then the final call went out… “fire in the hole, fire in the hole, fire in the hole”. There was a short pause, and then the air seemed to roar with primal fury, accompanied by excited whoops and hollers as the blast wave shot over our vehicle without injury. The VBIED vaulted into the air like a drunken gymnast, performing a lazy somersault before slowly plummeting back to earth. Scattered remnants of the car rained down for a few more seconds, and then we all jumped out to watch the aftermath.

     The EOD robot returned to the site to analyze the remnants of the car, and once it confirmed the site was free of explosive residue the EOD techs moved onto the scene to view their handiwork. The car had come to rest on its roof, and it lay there in the road like a crumpled bug stripped of its legs. Once the EOD techs confirmed the site was safe the cordon pulled inward to find out who had come the closest to guessing the weight of explosives. As luck would have it we were all wrong, the car wasn’t a VBIED. As one of the HMMWVs pushed the wreckage off the road SSG Rock handed the car’s owner a claims card he could use to receive compensation for his loss. The owner wasn’t even phased by his sudden loss, instead he thanked us for our help and asked if he could salvage the remaining pieces. We told him he was welcome to whatever was left over, and as we pulled away he was singing to himself as he used a tire iron to remove the wheels that hadn’t been blown off. As we made our way back to the FOB we were all commenting on how calm the owner seemed, even after his car was annihilated. SGT Bard was quiet for a few minutes and then said “You know what I think? I think that was probably a hell of a lot easier for him then just selling the car.” We all laughed, but he was probably right. Not only did the owner get reimbursed for the price of his car, he got to join us for a great show.

Meltdown

  We are all in thrall to the fulgid patriarch that boils the summer sky. In Baghdad the sun claims dominion over all, there is no sector of the city that doesn’t bow before its scathing wrath. The sun is utterly pitiless; those foolish enough to shed tears in the blistering onslaught would find the drops evaporating before they hit the ground.
     The heat is manageable, even with body armor. Miserable, but manageable. The sheer force of the sun is another matter entirely. The rays burn down with such force that the palm groves here rain down boiling sap. And manmade structures fare much, much worse. Yesterday our patrol linked up with an armored task force and we fell in line behind some  M1 Abrams tanks. As soon as we settled in behind the tank we noticed it was leaving soot black impressions on the roads as it rolled by. It seemed like some massive stamp pad was leaving a breadcrumb trail of hundreds of jet impressions in perfectly symmetrical lines. It took us less then a minute to realize the superheated asphalt was literally melting the tanks rubber track pads. Boots suffer the same fate, if you stand in place too long you will often find the spongy roads have settled around your soles like so much boiling tar. I’m really starting to miss the rainy season... even if it does mean ankle deep mud. 

Range Day

     The M4 carbine is a lethal tool, but in the end it is just that… a tool.  The situation profoundly changes when that tool is placed in the hands of a trained infantryman.  It is as if the two exist in some martial symbiosis; each taking, each giving. When an infantryman picks up a rifle those carefully machined components stop being callous collections of metal and become the fluid extension of his will.  The catalyst for this hybridization isn’t some technological marvel – it’s the natural result of trigger time. 

     When I say trigger time I’m not referring to pressing a button on a video console.  Comparing first person shooting games to combat marksmanship is like comparing a ride on the plastic pony in front of a supermarket with saddling up a thoroughbred.   If you want to be deadly accurate there is no substitute for being on a range.

     This of course means that even here in Baghdad we have to set up firing ranges to hone our marksmanship skills. Today I was tasked with serving as the OIC (Officer In Charge) of the firing range while Killer Company’s platoons confirmed their optics.  Under most circumstances I would jump at the chance to spend a day on the range; but today wasn't just hot, it was infernal.  The sun flared like with star gone nova, the heat compunded by our thick layers of body armor. By time the range was ready to go I was well on my way to being parboiled.  As the trapped pools of sweat started soaking through my uniform all I wanted was to get away from the crushing heat.  Since that wasn’t a viable option I just focused on watching platoon after platoon fire their weapon.  Out of sheer curiosity I pulled out a small backpacking thermometer to index the misery.  The little thermometer made it to 122 degrees before the heat burned out the LCD.

     When it gets this hot you have to drink water in great heaving swallows even when you don’t feel thirsty.  If you are drinking too much, too fast you will know in less then a minute - the only thing more uncomfortable then wrapping yourself in an armored sauna is the bloated feeling that comes from having water slosh around your distended stomach. As the hours ticked by I emptied bottle after bottle and watched as a slow parade of troops confirmed their accuracy. Despite the sun’s bright tirade the day passed without incident and the range came to a successful conclusion.  It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t fun, but in the end every troop on came away knowing that their weapons were once again dutiful agents of their will.  And that knowledge is a very valuable thing indeed. 

Shifting Sand

The desert could not be claimed or owned—it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names before Canterbury existed, long before battles and treaties quilted Europe and the East. - The English Patient

     There are many, many types of sand here in Baghdad, and to warehouse them all under one generic word does little to explain the misery they inflict on men and equipment. In some areas the sand has congealed into vast beds of sandstone, the surface marred by deep cracks whose depths seem to swallow all light. In other areas the sand shares an uneasy coexistence with fertile soil, evidenced by stunted copses of ragged weeds. Then there is the course, tumbled, thick grained sand that would be immediately recognizable to anyone who has walked a coastline. This is the hateful grit that in a true sandstorm lashes the earth like a cracking, hissing whip. Anyone who has suffered through these storms remembers the brittle sting as the desert hungrily chews on exposed skin.

     Over and above all these other incarnations are the pulverized remnants of the desert crust, the ones that clot the air with particles too fine to be seen. These shattered grains are our constant companion, ghostly clouds of dirt that are only visible in aggregate. When they do pool up they are restless tenants, spilling into the air at the slightest tremor. Even a foot fall summons a dusty halo that hangs in the air for several seconds. The effect is magnified a thousand fold when our tanks slew through this liquid earth, as they rumble by they leave a long, billowing trains of the superfine silt.

     Today the wind swept through Baghdad. The steady pulse of air wasn’t strong enough to turn the air into a bone dry slurry, but it was enough to cloak the sky in a blanket of vanilla emptiness. It wasn’t a sandstorm in the proper sense, but the wan dust seemed to drown the entire FOB in earth tinged nothingness. If you could escape the kiln like heat for a few minutes the scene would resemble a foggy morning in Northern California. The same random scattering of light was at work, robbing color of its vibrancy and reducing visibility to a few dozen meters. Of course there was no escaping the heat; the masked sun still scorched the air from somewhere high above the silt choked FOB. Maybe tomorrow the air will clear…

Patience

One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life.

                    - Ancient Chinese Proverb

     One of the iron clad rules the cavalry soldiers passed along as they were leaving was to never let your guard down. It was valuable advice - not everyone who warmly shakes your hand is your friend. But just as  true is the inverse of that law - not everyone who appears threatening is your enemy. Several of our soldiers relearned that lesson today while setting up a TCP (traffic control point - aka checkpoint) on one of the crowded streets of Baghdad.

     On this overbright morning the patrol slowed to a crawl, using the inertia of the armored HMMWVs to coast into a geometrically precise roadblock. Before the rolling vehicles had even come to a rest soldiers neatly divided themselves into two groups, each performing their choreographed movements. The first group fanned out to provide a thick belt of security around the convoy while the remaining troops went about the business of setting up the oversize Arabic and English signs warning traffic of the checkpoint.

     In the blink of an eye the empty stretch of road became an invisible dam holding back a thrumming reservoir of idling cars. But before the blockade had even solidified a small sedan made a sweeping turn around the stalled traffic and into the sandy median. The beat up vehicle quickly picked up speed, shooting past the waiting vehicles and dragging a growing train of pulverized dirt. Our senior NCO was nearest to the threat, and he immediately put himself in the drivers line of sight and signaled it to stop. The car hurtled onward and CSM Plato again motioned for the vehicle to halt. The driver continued to speed toward the TCP, and by now the vehicle was almost to the empty space between the stopped vehicles and the heavily armed TCP.

     CSM Plato tried to signal the driver to stop one last time, but the driver broke into the clear and the CSM raised his M4 carbine to his shoulder. In that split second, half a hearbeat from ruin, the driver suddenly understood how precarious his situation really was. The small sedan screeched to a halt, the locked wheels gouging deep troughs in the sand.

     The sedan wasn’t filled with a family. The driver wasn’t an insurgent. He was, simply put, the world’s dumbest taxi driver. As the dust settled around the car all you could see was the passenger whaling on the driver like a side of beef.  Before anyone had a chance to intercede  the TCP started folding in on itself, pulling together like a paper being creased into an origami figure. By time we were packed and ready to go the passenger was still raging. I have a feeling that taxi driver didn’t get a very big tip.

Back in the Saddle

     This morning I left on my first mission since arriving back in Iraq. All the usual pre-mission stowaways were there. The tumbling unease. The feverish flood of endorphins. The dark memories of bent and twisted men and steel. But all these rumblings seemed almost inconsequential because there was a new companion in their shared misery – the heat. Heat is an empty word – it doesn’t even begin to describe the temperature here. Out here the sun isn’t the eye of morning, or the day’s constant companion. Out here the sun is hateful – a palpable entity that wreathes you in a flickering blanket of supercharged air. When I left for the US the sun was brutal – but now it is murderous.

     As soon as I took my place in the HMMWV next to the wheezing, overworked air conditioner I felt the first beads of sweat start slithering down my neck. By time we were out the gate those drops had plenty of company. As soon as we hit the roads I forgot the silent misery of the heat, my attention fixed on the urban clutter whizzing past my armored window. The HMMWV I was riding in had a new driver, as we made our way through traffic I could here the TC (the vehicle commander in the passenger seat) calling out a string of commands to the overwhelmed driver. The drivers inexperience was obvious, the HMMWV moved along with a slipshod hesitancy that was altogether disquieting. The entire trip was punctuated with a string of obscenities as the driver struggled to learn the intricacies of combat driving in Baghdad’s busy thoroughfares. The learning curve can be pretty steep when mistakes can have disastrous consequences.

     We arrived at the IZ safely, and I spent the next hour taking care of the various coordinations that keep the logistical lanes running smoothly. Then we remounted our vehicles and made our way to the sprawling FOB that housed our higher headquarters. Apparently the driver had internalized the hard lessons of our first trip, because the HMMWV moved with a little more grace on this leg of the trip. Our gunship still chattered through several scabbed areas of asphalt, but we managed to dodge the bigger scars on the road. The entrance to our destination was a serpentine route bristeling with layer upon layer of hard faced sentries.  I didn't envy those soldiers, standing guard in these temperatures can be brutal. 

     After we completed our mission we picked up some soldiers who needed to return back to our FOB and started for home. There wasn’t much worth writing about on the return trip, today Baghdad’s “worst road” failed to live up to its fearsome reputation. When we returned I walked back into the TOC and with a shudder of relief I stripped off my soaked IBA (Interceptor Body Armor). My uniform wasn’t just sweaty – it was saturated. I looked for all the world like I had just waded into a salty tidepool.

     Rather then wear the clammy top I took it outside and wrung the sweat onto the blazing concrete. It was amusing to see the drops hit the concrete and evaporate like water in a hot skillet. When I finished squeezing out most of the sweat I carefully arranged my top on a piece of equipment and went in to take care of some paperwork. By time I finished the first memorandum my DCU top was bone dry.  As I pulled it on it was as if I had just pulled it out of a dryer - a few more degrees and that top would have grafted to my skin. My only memento of the day was the whorls of crystallized salt that veined my uniform, a mute testament to the iron rule of the desert sun.

Chance

" Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not wish to sign his work"

                             - Anatole France

     Last night three rockets burned into the FOB, their hissing arcs cutting a sonic path through the night sky like angry serpents. Each carried a belly full of dagger sharp needles designed with one grim purpose - to rend flesh and bone. The insurgents weren’t aiming for any one target – they were content to just sow seeds of wanton destruction and hope death followed with swift wings. In that they failed. Each rocket cratered into the earth with a spine tingling thump and nothing more – every rocket was a dud. The EOD (Explosive Ordnance Demolition) was on the scene in a flash, collecting their shattered remains and carrying them to a secure area for destruction. We will all die someday – but not today. Not today.