About a year ago, I sent some of my writing to a dear friend of mine. She asked me at that time to write about my experiences in Iraq. I suppose I didnt know this, but at that time, I just couldn't. To be honest there was a mental block that I had constructed. My experiences in Iraq consisted of longing for my wife and children and feeling like it was safer outside the wire, than in. My experiences have changed me. Mostly for the good, but somewhat for the bad. Let me explain.
When I left for Iraq, much like any fresh-faced young Officer, I was going to make a difference. I was going to work hard, take acceptable risks, and get home. I left in November of 2005. But really, if you back it up about three months to August, I went to Huntsville, Alabama to learn how to destroy unexploded ordnance on the battlefield. See, I'm an engineer. Engineer officers do three things. They breach obstacles, create them, or fix them. We can blow a lane in through a mine field, put out a mine field/tank ditch/crater a road, or we can build a road or construct a building. Part and parcel to that mission of breaching obstacles is the nasty little business of what to do with ordnance that is just left lying around. For example, let's say you're driving around...you know, windows down, arms out the door, soaking in the sun, and you drive up on a 155mm round just lying out there on the desert floor. Well, this class was designed (provided this is not an IED) for you to know how best to approach this round and set charges against it and remove it from consideration. It was an intense class. We lost three students out of twenty that went to test failures. So anyhow, this class is designed for you to be able to recognize a select set of ordnance and remove it without having to wait for E.O.D. to get there. So, I left my little family almost three months early to go to this class. That's the backdrop.
So, around November time period, I met up with the unit at Mobilization Station, which was Fort Leonardwood, Missouri. Coincidentally (or not) the home of the engineers. I take a lot of pride in being an engineer. They are the unspoken heros I think. For example, on the movie, "Saving Private Ryan" when they are on the beachhead. They are assaulting the pill boxes underfire. In one scene, they have to breach a series of concertina wire with a bangalore torpedo. Well that's what a combat engineer does. Those guys are engineers. Engineers preceed the infantry on the battlefield. They fix opposing forces on your flanks. They are the dirty, the unwashed. And I love it. To be an engineer, you have to realize that there is no obstacle you cant breach, that with the proper amount of explosives you can't remove. No obstacle that with a bridge, or a dozer you can't span. That's how an engineer thinks. It's just how much loss is acceptable to the commander.
So, anyhow, I meet up with the unit. Our mission is that of an inglorious staff function. See we were a battalion headquarters unit. Forty officers and enlisted that were to take over the Explosives Hazards Coordination Cell in Baghdad. We were going to work directly within the, "C7". That is the senior engineer in Iraq. It was a pretty sweet gig. But we were going to be, "Fobbits". See, fobbits, are people that never leave the wire, but get home and tell war stories as if they kicked in doors everyday and shot people in the face. In particular, when you are an engineer battalion staff, in our case a construction battalion, you wonder why your talents are wasted in a staff function. We wanted nothing more than to have a horizontal company, a verticle company, and a sapper company under us to affect the fight. But that's not the straw we drew. Within the C7 was the Reconstruction Cell, the Prime Power Cell, the Demining Cell and then us, the Explosive Hazards Coordination Cell. Our functions were pretty basic. Get new equipment and training into the hands of the war-fighter. We were fielding the, then new, Buffalo, Cougar, and ANPSS-14 mine sweepers among others. The Buffalo (which I still contend should have been, "Bison" when pluralized) are a family of MRAP vehicles designed to take indirect blasts and actually search out IED's on route clearance missions.
OK, well within all this was a command climate that was just not conducive to good order and discipline. I dont think it's germane to what I'm trying to get across so I will lightly gloss over it. Here's the bottom line. Two camps developed within the unit. Boat "A" and Boat "B". By the way, "B" boat was destined to sink and I was apparently, unbeknownst to me, on it.
Well, somewhere around halfway through the deployment I was picked or...more likely exhiled from the "Boathouse" (pardon the irony) to work on the watch floor within the Al Faw Palace. My job was to work with the Operations Officer, LTC Ford. A man whom I have a deep and profound respect for. In addition we had two rotations of Austrailian Majors that were my intermediary. My job was to scan the daily fragmentary orders and be the trusted agent for the C7. I was to look out and anticipate for each of our cells what was coming down the pike. In addition, to coordinate on behalf of the C7 to affect the battlefield. A couple examples at random include, coordinating (directing) Divisions to support with equipment and personnel across division boundaries. Iraq at the time was carved up into quadrants. With a division in each quadrant, and a marine division in the West. Additionally I became a travel agent for engineer divers who at times had the horrific honor of searching for the bodies of U.S. service members lost near bodies of water. Anyhow, it was an intense job.
A couple of times, maybe three or four, I found out I was going to travel either for a meeting, or conference to find the best practices and procedures to affect the counter-IED fight. Once I went to Balad, no, maybe twice. To learn about the training for the Buffalo and other vehicles and to see first hand how they had survived/destroyed in the fight. Pretty sobering. Then another time I was directed to learn about a trash cleanup program. This was no ordinary program. They were cleaning trash overnight with bobcat skidloaders in order to deny the enemy opportunity to hide IED's in the trash along the roads. This mission still sticks with me.
I traveled along with a Navy Commander (O5) to visit this unit and embed with one of their companies on this mission. I was a lieutenant at the time and had no real function. So, not knowing what to do, and not wanting to appear like a, "fobbit" I elected to take the far outside right flank. We were moving in a "wedge" formation, which is basically how a flock of birds flies. It was in that setting, at two in the morning, coming to a halt that I learned to love a wall. See, the wall to my right, was safety. No one would shoot me from a flat wall. It had to come from my left or above. Soon we started between four story buildings. I had a combat flashlight fixed to the bottom of my M4 and painted the balconies full of onlookers just waiting for someone to pull an RPG or an AK47. Then I realized. I did the math right then and there. I either get shot in the leg of the face, or I come upon an IED, and become pink mist in the wind. It's a weird feeling to make peace with that. You turn yourself over to God. OK Lord. If it's my day, it's my day. You dont even scan back and make sure you're ready. You just...realize today may be the day. Well, we finished the mission and saddled up. Headed back for the FOB (Forward Operation Base). On our way back, almost five minutes from reentering the FOB, I heard three distinct pops. I assumed it had been backfires from a vehicle in our convoy. After returning to the FOB, someone told me that someone had taken some pot-shots at us. I remember thinking, "Well that's just stupid. Someone could really get hurt that way." I'm embarassed to admit that.
So, on another convoy, back from Balad (I had flown there in a C-12 or Blackhawk I dont remember) We had an IED at the front of our convoy. We had to wait what seemed like hours while EOD was responding. To my side of the convoy was a road running parallel to us. We had stopped all traffic running both directions on our route and traffic had started to bypass on this parallel route. I was sitting in the right rear seat of the guntruck. Directly above me was the .50 cal gunner in the turret. A great feeling btw. But on our left side were giant cattails that were in excess of five feet tall. I realized we were almost literally sitting ducks. Along this parallel road van after van of drivers stopped. The road was a little more than a hundred fifty yards from us, but I imagined each one of those vans had someone with an RPG ready to fire at us. I kept thinking how idiotic it was for a driver to get out of their vehicle, and wipe their windshield, or kick the tires or whatever the the hell they were doing, when the .50 cal was trained on them and ready to fire.
So, somehow we completed the year and of course I'm back. We returned just shy of Christmas of 2006. I didnt feel much different, but I'm afraid I am. These experiences, among countless others have changed me. I realized that there are such thing as Time Vampires. People who have none of your best interest at heart, and only want to suck time from you that you can never get back. Some are just plain oblivious to their actions, others are the leaches of society. I get short with them. In my mind. I try to be patient. But I want the 45 second answer. I'd rather not talk for 45 minutes and have you say nothing. Just spit it out already. (Hello Pot, this is Kettle. Come in over.) So, in addition, I no longer have a great desire to go to crowded places and put my family in jeopardy. In my mind I'm searching the crowd. I'm watching how people walk. Checking their eyes. How are they dressed? Are they out of place? Meanwhile my little family is totally oblivious to the anxiety growing inside as I mentally calculate the risks and countermeasures.
Oh, and there's another thing. The whole time I'm doing this, I'm telling myself that if they are poised and ready, they just plain chose the wrong person to victimize. I'm accutely aware of my ability and willingness to inflict violence at a moment's notice. See, used to be, I could count to ten. I could give someone the latitude of just being stupid. Now, I count, 1...2...10 and I'm done. It's actually very frightening. My dad wanted me to go with him to get our concealed carry permits almost immediately after we got home. I didnt trust myself. Now, this is no fun to tell other people, cause it makes you look crazy. It makes you look like you're on the edge. Dont get me wrong, I dont WANT to hurt just anyone, but I've felt that building rage of just ITCHING for someone to give me a reason. I've been driving and had someone tailgate. I've literally had to tell myself NOT to lock it up right smack there in the middle of the highway and get out and inflict some real personal pain on some fellah. Now, chances are, he's just in a hurry to get somewhere. He had no idea who he's tailgating. I've actually tried to make eye contact at the next light just hoping, praying that they would be idiotic enough to make some hand gesture. That part has started to slow down for me. I am able to talk myself out of those violent fits. I conciously tell myself that 99% of society is just blissfully unaware that their actions can be taken as threatening. They are just living their lives.
What that knowledge doesnt take away, is that feeling, that now you're different. I'm no longer like everyone else. I dont have little white stick figures on the back of my minivan. I dont walk through parking lots with a big fat wallet and a glazed look on my face and a giant sign that says, "rob me". I dont care about sports. I dont care about the inconsequential. I care about real. I care about decisive and concrete things that affect me or my family. I tried to fit in at church. Church meetings are just painful to me. Everyone with good ideas, noone with follow-through. It's easy for me to like people, but easy for me to categorize you too. See, I was teaching a lesson one Sunday. Someone asked me a derailing question. Obviously to hear themselves speak. It's fun dont you think? Anyhow, the subject chosen was that of defending America. It through me into a rage. I was seven seconds away from climbing over three rows of folding chairs and choking him out. But I took some deep breaths and realized, he's just philosophizing. None of this is personal or an attack on what you've pledged your life for.
So, I guess where I'm going with all this, is yeah. I'm different. Every few weeks I wake up at 2 am. I check all the windows, all the doors. I have a pistol in a gunsafe next to the bed. I look out the windows behind the house and in front of the house. I am intimately aware of what things should look like. I've had alarm company spokesmen come to the house. I almost laugh at them. If they only knew I think. "Dude, I dont like the way you look and I feel like there's a 1% possibility that you're really a criminal casing my house. I dare you to break in. You'll end up with three 9 mil slugs in your chest and my kitchen steak knife in your hand before the cops get here." Yeah, scary stuff huh? You dont want to live inside my head. Ah, it's not that bad. I just tell myself most everyone is just trying to get by. They mean no harm. But I'm always ready for the 1% of the population that is up to no damn good.
I really wish I could go back. I wish I could unknow these things. I wish I didnt know that during 2006 75 bodies a week washed up on the shore of the Tigris river. Hands bound, killed execution style. I wish I didnt know that every week we lost a Soldier. The all American kid. Two kids, married his high school sweetheart. Joined the Army after September 11th. I wish I just didnt know that. I wish I could watch television and zone out. I wish I could care about some of the stuff that other people seem to. My life I feel is on a counter. Every second counts and I dont like to waste them. Yeah I'm different. I am in check now. I've seen a counselor. I've talked through some of this with others. I trust myself to carry concealed now. I see what right looks like. But I still dont like festive crowds. I still dont like time vampires. I still have low tolerance for intentional stupid. It's just how I am now.
Most people dont know that about me. Because outwardly I'm just happy go lucky. I have to do that. I have to keep reminding myself of the good. I have to really strive to focus on making people smile. I have realized that this knowledge, this capability, this darkness that I now possess, well it has it's place. But not here. I have that ability. I'm willing to take a life. I'm willing and perfectly capable of taking someone out of this life. But it's a huge repressive responsibility to carry that burden. It's something that requires milliseconds to process through. Is this the time? Is this the place? Does this guy really know what his actions signal?
I like to go to church. I love to make people smile. I love to see the good in all things that I can. I believe this darkness is pervasive, but not entirely so. I believe there is so much beauty in the world. Colors that are so vibrant that I wonder why people dont stop and notice, soak it all in. They are in such a hurry to get where they are going that they fail to see all that God has created. I know now that there is evil in this world. Tangible, real, and ugly evil. People who have malicious intent. But mostly here where I live they just dont know to look for them. I know they are there, like wolves moving among the sheep. I see them. This all sounds so forboding. It sounds like I'm on the edge. Like I'm nuts. Well, I hope I'm not. I'm just different now. I am betting that if you spoke long enough to another combat veteran, that you'd hear a similar story. We want to unknow the things we do. We just can't.
Well I guess I better close. I have to get stuff packed for our minivacation. I'm going to get out of the smog, the inversion. I'm taking my family to Capitol Reef. We're going to stay in a little cabin. A little rest and refit as it were. I hope you understand a little more about what Soldiers face. What they deal with day to day. Why you get a blank stare when you ask them a nebulous, "What's it like?" When really you're question is, "Did you kill anyone?" I hope you realize they know the things I've just put down. They may have an answer that is matter of fact. Remember, with a veteran, you get exactly what you ask for, so be careful in asking.
Alright, I've droned on and on. I hope this covers a little of what my friend asked for. I hope it's not going to put me on some watch-list. I hope now that I dont suddenly start getting concerned looks and plates of cookies from the ladies in the neighborhood. It just is what it is. BTW, there's nothing wrong with those little stick figures on the back of your car. I'm a little envious. Go ahead and put them on. Have joy in your family. Watch the game this weekend. Do all the things you love and enjoy. Be happy. Soak it in. Time is precious. I'll drop a line later, but for now, God Bless ya.
Oh, and...uh..dont tailgate me. You wouldnt like me when I'm angry.
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