Tag: TRANSITION TEAMS

Retelling from My journal: 4 April, 2009 A lot has happened since I last wrote. I promised I would never talk about operations but this is a story I need to tell. Its not the worst thing that has ever happened to me in Iraq, just another day really but it shows how everyday here is uniquely dangerous. We work on the border with Iran. The previous team had never visited all of the border forts and we needed to in order to know our battle space and affect the situation. On the map, one castle which I cannot name, had a route drawn to it, as if the previous team had actually been there. On my on-board computer called the Blue Force Tracker or BFT a straight line route was drawn right over mountains that obviously curved and winded. It would be a trip. We set off to the unseen fort, some of our Iraqi counterparts are there so it can’t be too bad I thought. It was in the mountains were Iraq, Kurdistan, and Iran collide. This had been the final lines of the Iran-Iraq war (1979-1989). All over the area are abandon mine fields, old trenches, bunkers, and rusted wrecks of vehicles and artillery. The ground in some places is a former impact zone of thousands of artillery rounds, pock marked with craters. As we proceed up the mountains, the environment changes. There are meadows, with water and wildflowers. It reminded me a lot of the climb up the mountains on the way to Ruidoso. The road begins to be smaller and smaller the further we go. Our massive trucks, called MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles) can barley fit into the two tire tracks that is now the road really just a turn-row. Any oncoming traffic had better get back up the mountain. There is no room to turn, there are 400 ft. drops on either side and we are bigger and have guns. But there is no one. We haven’t seen anyone for miles and that is never good in Iraq. The route on my BFT is imaginary. I plotted the position of the castle on my map then looked at satellite imagery to plot my own route. The old route is as the crow flies so it can’t help me. We come to a meadow, a flat area on the saddle of a mountain. The road divides in two. The split is not on my map nor is it on my satellite imagery. I order the two trucks behind me to stop while I recon the route. I zoom in on my BFT. There is a spot near me that shows a line going north, but it’s a contour line, a line that shows changes in elevation. My road seems to curve to the right. This is certainly not the time to remember Robert Frost’s Road less traveled garbage. A road less traveled means its dangerous; people don’t travel on roads with bombs. Now, I always feel better in the mountains. Its prettier than the desert flatlands of Iraq and Al Qaeda doesn’t really go up there. Here we are still in danger because of our mission. We are targeted by Iran and their supplicants JAM (Jaysh Al Mahdi), the Badr Corps, and Iraqi Hezbollah and we are meters, not miles from Iran. The wrong turn might land us in Iran, into a mind field, or into a trap that JAM has constructed. I see my road on the map going right, plus the road going left looks less traveled so I take the road on the right. As soon as we moved up the road my ICON on the BFT went off the road to the right. It was a wrong turn! I tell the rest of the truck, “It’s a wrong turn”. My gunner a Lieutenant from Illinois named Erich says “its ok I see a place where we can turn to the other road through the field”, I waited until I could see the turn-row. It seemed like it had been traveled on in the past few years so I said “alright do it but Steve (our driver a Captain from Florida) keep our tires in the tracks”. We turn into the field. We go about ¾ of the way through when Erich says “we’re in a mine field” then I see that the road is cratered in the last ten meters of the road. The wreckage of a truck still there and cratered so deep we cannot go around it. We pull to a stop. I radio to the other trucks and tell them “don’t come into this field”. I look out my window and see the small rusted metal fans of an exposed Anti-personnel mine. Oh God, I have heard about idiots who lead their troops into mine fields but now I’m that guy. I look further and I see small piles of rocks spray painted red, the UN symbol for a minefield. “We gotta back up” Steve says. Right “Erich you gotta watch our tracks” I said. “Alright, I’m watching” Erich replied. “Damn it!” I said. I radioed the rest of the team “We are going to back up…everyone button up and gunners stay down” (this is to keep them from getting wounded in case my vehicle gets hit). Our Master Sergeant, who I will not name, comes over the radio “I think ya’ll are in a minefield” he drawls. “Yea we are” I said as I simultaneously prayed and looked in my rear view and watched.

Latter that night I had stir fry for supper!

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 Watching TV of late one sees a lot about the Iranian elections, Michael Jackson, and maybe the beginning of the end in Iraq. It really is the beginning of the end here. While on a recent logistical mission to the massive base at Balad Iraq my team was stuck in a sandstorm keeping us in the base until the security agreement deadline had passed. By the agreement, advisors like us are exempt from the many provisions. The main provision is that no coalition forces are permitted inside major cities except at the behest of the local authorities during an emergency. Many Iraqis took this to mean any and all cities with no real definition as to how big or small. So on July 1 when a US armor unit with M1A1 tanks rolled into a Diyala city of only 30,000 people they were stopped by a truck load of Iraqi Police armed with only Ak47s and told to turn around because they were not permitted in the city limits without the police chief’s permission. These Soldiers could have responded by pointing the main gun at the IPs or just rolling right by them but they did the right thing. They radioed higher and respected the sovereignty of the Iraqi government. In the end they turned around went back onto the FOB and probably had some ice cream or cake at the chow hall. Despite the potential for the situation to turn violent between allies the results have thus far been good minus some suicide bombings in Baghdad. The willingness of the IPs to tell the Americans to turn around is sign of ownership and responsibility. No IP, no legitimate IP, wants to be at home when Al Qaeda in Iraq comes to call. If the situation gets bad enough they will call the Americans and we will pounce on an enemy they might for once be in the open. We advisors are still allowed to go where we want but the command has put out an order “No unnecessary trips outside the wire until July 10”. This is not to prevent casualties or to minimize the overlap of Iraqis and Americans it is to present a perception of American withdrawal and slowly foster confidence in the Iraqi Security forces. I don’t mind doing a little office work for a while anyway.

                Lack of confidence is the problem. All of our local interpreters are afraid. They don’t trust the Iraqi Army or the Iraqi Police. Memories of Saddam are not that distant. There is no real faith in the government leaders with the exception of the Kurds who put their faith in the regional government of Kurdistan but are deathly afraid of the Iraqi Army. I saw pictures of young Iraqis in Baghdad celebrating but when we got back home to Kirkush it was business as usual. Our Iraqi friends were happy to see us back safe but they are all worried about what will happen once we are gone. Many of my Iraqi friends and even an Iranian have told me that the US messed up by putting Iraqis in charge of their country. Instead they all suggest that the Americans should have put their own people in charge to change the culture of corruption in Iraq. Some have even said that Iraq should be the 51^st state. We are not invaders, we never intended to be. We consider ourselves liberators and empowers of change.  I joked with one of my interpreters that he might be hanging on to the helicopter once we leave just like the Vietnamese did. He didn’t laugh; I guess it wasn’t that funny after all. 

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 One of the blessings of this my second tour in Iraq is the cultural interaction. As a Transition Team we live with the Iraqi Army.  We stay on the third floor of a 3-story building inside an Iraqi base, not an American forward operating base (FOB). The Iraqis live on the first floor. Most nights we have Chai together, the main Iraqi officer CPT Basil, who speaks a smattering of English, always calls me his brother, as he did with our predecessors. The fact is, we are his family. He has no wife or children. He was once Major Basil but with the help of our predecessors, he reported corruption in his chain of command and got a general and a colonel fired, but he was demoted in the process. Our predecessors called him “the most honest officer in the Iraqi army”.

                Every night that I am not on mission and in our main home I play dominos with CPT Basil, SFC Faidel, our interpreters Kamil, a US citizen, and Loren (a local national), and other random Iraqi soldiers.  Every night chai is served by a Jundee named Haji Jazim Abu Ali. Every time I see Haji Jazim he insists that I come to CPT Basil’s room for chai, usually at Themaniya or “aiet” as he says. Haji Jazim is a portly man originally from Syria with a heart condition.  For him, hospitality is an obligation and he loves showing me this eastern respect. He practices his English with me and amuses himself by correcting my broken Arabic. When there is food he never fails to force it on me no matter what.  When we are building positions or just making our quarters more civilized he always shows up to help. Haji, meaning he has made the pilgrimage to Mecca but used by everyone more to indicate his age, has two wives, as is occasionally the Muslim custom, though it is less common in Iraq than in Saudi Arabia. He also cares for his sick mother, sons Ali, Ahmed, baby Muhammed, and a daughter, Fatima. Truly every conversation with him is a profound cultural exchange, a conduit of cultures. Haji Jazim’s insistence on these courtesies is older than Islam, an echo of Babylon, which is where his family lives today in Al Hillah.

                One of our interpreters, Code-named Loren, is originally from Balad Ruz, a few miles from my current location. Now he keeps his family, a wife and a baby girl, in Baghdad.  They moved after Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) left a note on his door threatening to kill his family by name and calling him an “enemy of God” because he was working with the Americans. He is young, 23, and he loves American culture but is equally proud of his Iraqi heritage, and never hesitates to teach me about the Iraqi people and the Arabic language. Loren wants to become a US citizen and even wants to join the Army. To me, Loren is the epitome of what Iraq has come to and he represents the choice Iraq has to face in the future.

Another jundee, Muhammed, tells me that he loves Americans, then shows his scars and tells me in Arabic that he is from Fallujah. Once he was hit by a mortar round inside an Iraqi base. Then on his way to the American aid station the truck he was in was hit by a roadside bomb. The Americans evacuated him and his comrades with helicopters and operated on him at Balad Air Base. The sincere gratitude he feels can be seen in his manners and eyes as he displays horrific scars across his chest and legs.

After a few weeks, the Arabs who know me began to call me Habibi, which literally means “my Love”. Loren explains that “in Iraq this not gay”. The expression still has a homosexual sound to my American ears, in fact my wife giggles when I tell her about it. But for the Arabs, men specifically and exclusively, it is a sincere and non-threatening expression of affection. They say Shloanak habibi  “ how are you my love” and afwan habibi “excuse me my love” when I’m in the door way or they need to break off the conversation.

Eating is always the most demonstrative and culturally significant event. I’m quite fond of Iraqi food, but not always so fond of Iraqi habits.  Once in Khanaqin, my team and I ate at an Iraqi restaurant. On my last tour this was forbidden and still is to the average US military personnel but we are a transition team and we don’t play by big Army rules. We took off our body armor, carried only our pistols, a few frag grenades, and some radios. I sat with my back to the corner to watch who came in, how they reacted to seeing us, what they were wearing, did they leave when they saw us? We were careful. We were served rice (timmon), flat bread (hops), Simoon (a puffy bread), chicken, lamb, beef, lamb kabob, and an assortment of spices and vegetables. It was delicious! But as I came to my last piece of lamb I noticed it looked a little different. I thought it was just a fatty piece, then I realized it was either a grilled ear or lip. I concluded that it was lamb lip and sat it back on my plate, covered it with some vegetable leftovers, smiled, and inhaled vast amounts of second hand smoke; Iraqi men are generally train smokers. Of course, eating with your hands is also customary but not always done. It is the early twentieth century in Iraq these days and silver ware is pretty well accepted. When you do eat with your hands it is extremely important to never use your left hand, this comes from a time before toilet paper in Iraq and if forgotten generates an immediate reaction of disgust from the Iraqis. With Saliva still on their hands Iraqis will offer you their portion of meat, a gracious sign of respect and welcome Camil tells me. When an Iraqi Lieutenant Colonel offers me a piece of his meat from his spit soaked hands I remember to turn my brain off, enjoy the company and food, and endear myself to these people who are suffering every day in this experience that I will never forget.    

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