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Chasing War
(conclusion)
27 March 2003
When the last of the platoon had settled into the courtyard of the battalion staging area, we prepared our gear for the first mission later that evening. The sun had set and there was no electricity. Red ash sparkled from the jittery lips of men around me, and the stars had yawned awake from slumber. The moon was omnipresent but dull, and the evening temperature was still hot as balls. The gentle hum of Army generators pulsed into the night amid chirps and beeps of ASIP radios in the battalion TOC (Tactical Operations Center). Sergeant Colby was listening to music and had pulled out a small, crumpled plastic sandwich bag from the top of his Kevlar helmet. Inside were small photos of his wife and children. I took off my sweat-lined vest and snacked on an MRE. The dirt was unyielding but flat and I passed out against the cushion of my MOLLE rucksack. Three hours of sleep felt like thirty minutes when Sergeant Colby nudged my shoulder. It was time to move out.
We inched carefully through the farm fields and over the irrigated ditches beyond the battalion staging area. The midnight sky was cloudless and black, the stars refused to twinkle, and I was cold inside my sweat-lined DCU jacket and protective vest. Our weapons were held at the low ready, and the entire platoon, except for myself, had mounted their night vision goggles. We were the rear security element for a company-sized patrol in search of weapons caches in the fields. Second Platoon had led the advance with First Platoon at their far flank. My platoon was getting into position when a fury of yellow arced into the sky. It exploded and drooped slowly, teeter- tottering and zig-zagging across the illuminated sky like a giant light bulb hanging from a string.
“ILLUMINATION!” I yelled out.
No one else had seen it, nor understood the implications, except Sergeant Colby. Illumination is an artillery round that burns slowly in the sky to light up an area of interest. In most cases, it also precedes a barrage of high explosive rounds, and one round had a kill radius of forty-five meters. Sergeant Colby yanked off his goggles and looked into the sky as I dropped face first into the dirt. He grabbed the Lieutenant and yelled, “Get them the fuck down!” The biggest problem with NVG’s are that they focus too narrowly on what is in front of the viewer, trapping the wearer into tunnel vision. The three-dimensional world is rendered onto a two-dimensional plain in static and grainy shades of green and black. There is no depth perception. I wasn’t wearing my goggles because I am green- and- red colorblind and my eyes cannot distinguish between the subtle shades of green.
I jumped onto the radio to find out whether SSG Behrends knew if the illumination was friendly. It was his job to battle track and coordinate mortar and artillery assets for Bravo Company and it would be his job to contact the Battalion Fire Support Sergeant, SFC Sunderland, to find out whether another company within the battalion had called in a fire mission. My inquiry came back empty and we were told to treat the illumination as hostile. I imagined an Iraqi forward observer crouched in the wood line calling fire on the dozens of silhouetted grunts standing over me. I distinguished the sound of large artillery firing into the sky like a pack of coyotes howling for a kill. The thumps of several 155mm howitzers rattle the earth for miles when fired, and my suspicion was confirmed when HE exploded in the distance. Someone was getting fucked up. So far, it wasn’t us.
Another round of illumination burst into the sky when a panicked and agitated cry echoed despairingly into the air. We had already been dangerously silhouetted against the backdrop of a forest and the last thing we wanted after potentially being seen was to be heard. An infant black lab, separated from its mother, was yelping into the night. It was scared, newborn- blind, and had clumps of mud dried to its fur. The company commander, nearly one mile up the road, had jumped onto the radio demanding the noise be silenced and quickly extinguished. Sergeant Colby had reached it first, outstretching a gloved hand of comfort and trust. As another round of illumination burst into the sky, we laid low to check the map. SFC Sunderland had radioed the Brigade Fire Support Sergeant and discovered that First Battalion, in a nearby sector, was calling fire. The illumination was friendly, but the dog needed constant attention to keep it quiet.
It was after three when we moved again. The platoon’s objective was nothing more than a supporting role and the lack of action was wearing us down. We moved and stopped repeatedly like an accordion, and after setting up another security position, Sergeant Colby and I had leaned silently against a berm next to a small building resembling an outhouse. Sergeant Colby woke me up an hour later; the rest of the platoon had also fallen asleep. The mission was over and nothing had been found. There were no arms caches and the field was empty.
Fifty meters separated each platoon and we dragged along slowly, exhausted and silent. As the dark black sky turned a pale blue-gray, and then a watery orange, the silence gave way to the sounds of chirping birds and diesel engines. With light, we were amazed at the sight of overturned trucks along the side of the road. We hadn’t noticed them in the dark. Shattered glass and brass shell casings littered the gravel shoulders. Pools of red, green, and black fluids were scattered across fortified trenches. There had been a battle here, and I was thankful we missed it.
Black robed figures holding plastic bags haunted the edges of the fields we had just departed. These were dressed like the same beings we saw earlier from the Air Assault. They walked to their mosques, stumbling fearlessly through our formation with pale, emotionless faces and dark averted eyes covered thick with eye makeup. Microphones blasted from the tops of neighboring minarets. The voices were cracked and worn from age, and the women draped in black were assembling in front of the mosques.
Our death march continued across an overpass damaged by mortars. Lightless light poles leaned on the railings of the bridge. Chunks of asphalt had been displaced so that the ground was pockmarked like cheesecloth. The all- night mission had drained our attention and we lost ourselves to the rhythm of baby steps. Thirty minutes had passed before a familiar soldier appeared from the field beside us. He had fallen asleep during the first illumination scare. When he woke up, he realized he was alone and decided to stay hidden until he saw us on the way back to the compound.
28 March 2003
I felt refreshed after sleep but it didn’t last long. On the next mission, we walked further into town, beyond the farm fields we had played in the previous night, to “make a presence.” It was a busywork patrol—commanders couldn’t stand to have soldiers lazing around when there’s a war to be fought! We were kept busy so that we wouldn’t have time to think about how tired we were.
The midday sun was hot as shit. The leather headband inside my Kevlar ballistic helmet had turned black from dirt and sweat. We still wore the expired chemical protective suits and the leggings had frayed from dragging on the ground. My pant legs beneath the suit absorbed layers of leg sweat and powdery charcoal from the chemical suit. It had been more than fourteen days since my last shower, and I was still wearing the same pair of socks. They were green cotton, but the sweat never dried, and some of the color had faded like it had been bleached. Worse was the collective smell of baby wipes and baby powder and sweaty nut sacks when the wind blew at night. During the day, sweat dripped down my leg and I walked and walked and walked beneath the yellow ball of fire that had cracked my lips and reddened my face.
We climbed through fields and strode across bridges and waded through shit streams colored like a drain clogged with espresso and antifreeze. It smelled like animal carcass, human waste, and motor oil; my boots and pant legs were caked with the sludge and it powdered like mud when it dried. The air was dry and my throat was cracked. I was hacking green lung from nose and mouth, and Princess bitched and whined to pass the time. Sergeant Colby giggled. The formation was silent and we continued to walk. The two-hour minimum time for a patrol was not yet close to ending, and our presence had yet to be “made.”
The war planners pegged 3rd Infantry Division to follow the Air Force all the way to Baghdad, but they met little resistance along the way. Most of the Iraqi Army had either disbanded or smartly chose not to fight the armored tanks. In the light infantry, we were supposed to follow in their wake and take care of the second wave of resistance. We expected an opposition, but there was no interest. There were no regime leftovers or reinforcements. There was no Al Qaeda and there was no war. Our only fight was over food, and there was only one Chicken with Noodles MRE (Meal, Ready to Eat) per box. Everyone wanted the Chicken with Noodles because it had the best snacks and beverage-based drink powder. The infantry treated MRE’s differently than what I had been used to. There was to be “no ratfucking of MRE’s,” said SSG Hamblin. “You don’t fuck your buddy like that,” said SGT Tofaneli. In the infantry, one reaches his hand into the box like drawing from a hat to play charades. “Fuckin’ oh well” if you were the one to draw Pasta with Vegetables. In the artillery, if you weren’t present for the box-opening ceremony and somehow were left with the last MRE that wasn’t even worth scavenging through—either Country Captain Chicken or Boneless Pork Chop—you wouldn’t let it happen again.
As we approached the city skyline, we saw the effects of another battle. The asphalt looked like it had been hit by a meteor shower. The Iraqi Army had welded weapons platforms into the beds of several late-model Chevy trucks. They were lying on their sides and were charred from the losing end of a futile encounter. Other vehicles were unrecognizably reduced to smoldering frame and tire. Blackened lakes of blood puddled beneath an anti-aircraft machine gun that rose solemnly into the sky. Several unclaimed corpses were scattered across fighting positions dug into the side of the road. Their faces had withered and cracked from burning. Their mouths were parched open and hollowed; they died gasping in toothless shock and there were no eyes, just holes blacker than burnt skin and clumps of hairless skull. No one else had said a word. The formation was silent and there was no joking or shit talk on the radio. I saw this in passing. Perhaps Hollywood was in town and we were behind the scenes for Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers or Black Hawk Down. It was easy to accept when observed and not fought. It was easy to pass and forget without the need to fire our own weapons: there was no sanctity for the value of human life. This was not self-preservation and it wasn’t a scene of “kill or be killed.” This was theheartless example of America’s unremitting military supremacy, and it sickened me. We marched forward to the sluggish and rhythmic sound of boots slapping the ground.
Beyond the battle scene, the fragrance of a kitchen fire roused the hunger in my stomach. It was bread—cooked over an open fire in a hooded chute like a chimney on the side of the road. A man in a dirty white dress was tending to the dough, like pizza, with a long, metallic spatula. He placed a flattened roll on the device and flicked it onto the inner brick walls of his stove. It stuck there, cooking above the fire, until he flipped it like a pancake to cook the other side. This was the first man we had encountered since the war began and we approached him cautiously and with our weapons at “low ready.” We were fearful and unaccustomed to the traditions of daily life in Iraq, but the man was alone and unarmed. He reached into the fire, pulled out a thick tortilla-like piece of bread, and offered it to me. There was a formation of soldiers on either side of the road, with the Lieutenant and his RTO, and Sergeant Colby and myself in between at the front of the formation. I looked around and was unsure whether I should accept the hospitable offering from the enemy. It could have been poison; it could have been dirt—it could have been a million paranoid plots to kill the Americans, and we were all assholes for hiding behind the muzzles of our weapons and thinking such thoughts.
“Go ahead, Davis. Take some,” jeered Sergeant Colby. He was whispering cautiously, but I was unaffected. No one had moved and the platoon had stopped. This was the Lieutenant’s platoon, but he was uncharacteristically silent and stiff. The eyes behind his black rubber-rimmed goggles had widened. I reached forward and took the bread. I ripped it into quarters and ravenously devoured it. I passed the other pieces to Sergeant Colby and the LT. The man was smiling and held his right hand to his chest in humility and thanks. I looked at him and smiled and thanked him. The bread was crispy and thick and it was the most delicious piece of bread that I had ever tasted. It might as well have been manna falling from God’s blue sky because the pain in my stomach had vanished.
We circled the block without incident. We watched the people watch us, and they continued with their work as we passed. It was strange that a baker could work just up the road from the tragic remains of war. I tried to keep the images from my mind. I tried to focus on the bread and the man and the kids following us through their neighborhood’s shantytown streets. These people were not affected by what had happened as if the events and the noise and the deaths were common. If there was an enemy in Najaf, they were still hiding. We made our way home for a night of guard duty and spades and bullshitting around an empty fire pit, sipping powdered cocoa, and wondering what the next day’s mission would bring.
 August 2003, Mosul, Iraq photo credit: jason davis
© Copyright 2010 Jason Davis
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