Authors: Wesley R. Gray
After some discussion, Major Pyle determined that SSgt. Daniel Valle, or “V” as he was called, would be the Marine escort. With V as the designated hitter for the escort mission, it was time to conscript a
jundi
to be the Iraqi escort. I was sent to ask the Iraqis who they wanted to send. I sprinted to the Iraqi swahut area and rounded up any
jundi
who had a relationship with the angel or knew his family. Luckily, I was able to find Hussein Ali, who was a distant relative. I waited for Hussein to get his gear together and we hurried to the MiTT camp. The helo was leaving in fifteen minutes and we still needed to drive to the helipad, which was located on top of the dam. If we were going to make it, we would need a miracle.
Hussein and I rushed back to the camp. I had both his duffle bags of clothes and Hussein had his body armor and Kevlar in one arm and his AK-47 swinging in the other. We reached the MiTT camp completely
exhausted. Lieutenant Adams gave us the latest news. “Gents, it looks like air is red [pilots cannot fly], so this dead body escort mission will be rolled to the next day.”
Once my heart rate had settled, I asked an obvious question. “Where is the angel's body?” Major Gaines replied, “Hrmm, Jamal, that's a good question.” He turned toward Adams and yelled, “Figure out where the hell that body is.” Throughout the evening Adams called the 2/3 Marines living in the dam and asked everyone he knew if they had seen an angel come in recently. Nobody knew anything about it. The situation appeared hopeless until a Humvee came flying into our camp.
A young Marine lance corporal jumped out of the driver's seat and said, “Lieutenant Adams, Sir, we were told to bring this to you.” We opened the back hatch of the Humvee. Body bags full of the angel's main corpse, smaller pieces of the angel's body, and blood-soaked combat gear were strewn about. Adams was pissed. “Devil Dog, who the hell told you to drop this body at the MiTT camp? We do not have a large refrigeration capability and we aren't escorting the body until tomorrow!” The stunned lance corporal replied, “Uh, Sir, I have no idea. I'm just doing what I'm told. My boss is the 2/3 S-4 logistics officer.” Adams sneered and said, “Roger, thanks. I'll talk to your boss this evening. Bring this back to the dam and tell them they need to refrigerate the body.”
As the lance corporal left our camp, the team burst into laughter. Nuts, in his trademark sarcastic tone, said, “So let me get this straight. When I get blown up by an IED, 2/3 is going to throw me in the back of a Humvee. I will then sit there for a day or two until they figure out what to do with me, and at some point they will send me to my family half rotten. Friggin' awesome.”
It was 1415. I called the air officer before we departed for the top of the dam. The helo would be inbound at about 1530, plenty of time to reach the helipad. The air officer told me, “Roger, Lieutenant Gray, bird is inbound at 1530.” With the air officer's confirmation we loaded up the Waz, a Russian made pile-of-crap jeep, and pulled out of the MiTT camp.
Captain McShane came sprinting to us. “I just got a call from the air officer,” he said, “and he tells me the bird will be here in ten minutes. You'd better hurry!” I gasped. “What the heck? Are you serious?” I turned to V. “V, it takes fifteen minutes to get to the dam. You think we can get there in ten?” V replied using one of the few Arabic phrases he knew: “Insha'allah.”
I put the Waz into high gear and slammed the gas. We somehow made it to the top of the dam in time. I asked the air-control Marine on duty, “Is the bird still inbound?” He responded, “Roger, Sir, should be inbound in five minutes.” I further asked, “Where is the angel's body?” He responded, “Uh, I'm not sure. The S-4 said you guys would have it with you.” My jaw hit the deck. I could not believe this was happening again.
I rushed into a nearby office on top of the dam to borrow a phone. I called the Marine S-4 shop and asked them to explain what was going on. The S-4 Marine on duty explained the situation. “Sir, we are tracking on the body and there was a miscommunication between us. However, that said, we don't have anyone able to bring the body to the top deck right now, you will have to get it out of the freezer on the seventh deck if you want it there in fifteen minutes.” I hung up and sprinted to the Waz.
I said to the air-control Marine, “Hey, can you have the bird wait twenty minutes while we go get the body?” He replied, “Sir, I can give you fifteen, at most.” Irked, I said, “Shit, well, we'll take what we can get.” We remounted the Waz and raced to the seventh deck of the dam to retrieve the body. Unfortunately, to reach another level of the dam you have to drive nearly a mile along the dam where there is access to drive to the lower levels. The dam levels are similar to terraced agricultural fields, with minimal crossing points with which to move from one level to the other.
With the Waz in high gear we went flying through one of the Azerbaijani security checkpoints. Amazingly, they did not open fire on us and understood we were experiencing an emergency. We made it to the seventh level in record time, eight minutes and forty-five seconds.
Our next mission was to find the freezers. V, being the designated chow Marine for the MiTT, knew of only one set of freezers on the seventh deckâthe chow freezers. “Dude,” I asked him, “you think they would be sick enough to store the body with all the meat, milk, and other perishables?” I was hoping to get a negative response. “Sir,” V said, “to be honest, those freezers are the only freezers on this level, they must have done that.” I screeched on the brakes as we approached the row of four large shipping container sized walk-in freezers.
V searched the first two freezers and I searched the second two. We both came out empty-handed. I asked V, “Shoot man, where the hell could they have stored that body?” At that moment, a Marine corporal wandered over to us, wondering why a Marine first lieutenant and a staff sergeant were rummaging through 2/3's chow supply with sweat pouring down
their faces. V took the lead. “Devil Dog, we are looking for a dead body. Seen one?” I thought for sure the Marine interrogating us was going to tell us to visit a psychiatrist, but he responded, “Actually, I heard the S-4 moved a body down here last night. Let me check real quick in the meat locker.”
The Marine plowed to the rear of the meat locker, smashing boxes out of his way. Sure enough, in the corner of the meat locker sat a bloody body bag and some bloody combat gear buried next to a stack of hamburger patties. V and I immediately needed to figure out the best way to get the angel's body into the Waz. I established a plan. “V, you go to the Waz and figure out how we are gonna stuff this guy in the back. Corporal, you stay here with me and help me put all the pieces together so we can easily carry this body to the Waz.”
The corporal and I slowly moved the various parts within the body bagâarms, feet, and othersâinto the form of a human and propped it onto a stretcher. Once we loaded the body bag, we stacked the angel's bloody flak and Kevlar on top of the stretcher and gingerly evacuated him from the freezer and into the Waz. V had a clearing in the middle of the Waz and had dropped the tailgate. “Shit, Sir, he ain't gonna fit,” V proclaimed. I responded, “V, we don't have much choice, hang on to this guy with your life. I'll try and keep the ride smooth.”
The scene that followed was straight out of the movie
Weekend at Bernie's
, in which a couple of young executives have to manipulate their boss's corpse through precarious situations without being discovered. I put the pedal to the metal in the Waz, and V held the body with outstretched arms. We made it to the intersection in the dam where we could move to the top deck. It was going to be a steep drive uphill. To V's horror I floored the Waz. “Sir,” he shouted, “I think I'm going to drop him. My forearm is 'bout to burst!” I encouraged V, saying, “Just a few more seconds till we get to the tenth deck. Hold on buddy!”
“V, we made it,” I said. “Il hamdu Allah.” V and I were now on the tenth deck and needed to race to the helipad before the bird left. We screamed along the top of the dam and arrived a few minutes later to the helipad. Hussein came running to us, “Shaku maku? Aku mushkila?” (What's up? Are there any problems?) I replied, “La. Maku mushkila. Kullshi kullish zien wa sahel.” (No. No problems. Everything is very good and was easy.) Hussein looked at us with suspicion. V and I were dripping in sweat and obviously stressed. Even so, Hussein shrugged his shoulders, grabbed his gear, and sprinted to the bird, while V and I loaded the corpse.
I wished V and Hussein safe travels and bid them farewell. As I exited the rear of the helicopter, Hussein looked at his dead cousin. He was disgusted, shaking his head in sorrow. “Jamal,” he said, “last month my only brother was killed in a suicide car bomb attack in Al Qaim. I cannot deal with more death in my country.” I tried to console him. “Hussein, Allah wiyak wa ahelek. Rah ykoon maku mushkila bil mustekbel.” (Hussein, God is with you and your family. There will be no problems in the future.) I paused, shook his hand with a firm grip, and said, “Insha'allah.”
I felt extremely sorry for Hussein. The state of life in Iraq is treacherous. It is almost standard operating procedure that Iraqis bury a loved one every month in this country. Meanwhile, in America we are worried about unemployment rising from 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent. Who cares? Imagine if the tables were turned and we had to worry if we had four and a half days or five and a half days to live. The Iraqi people are faced with challenges that dwarf the typical American sob story.
The Iraqi Officer and Enlisted Relationship
OctoberâNovember 2006
Outlaws
O
n the return trip from Haqliniyah, Maj. Travis Gaines and I stopped a bit short of Camp Ali along South Dam Road. Gaines turned to me and said, “Jamal, do you know why the Iraqis decided to stop”âhe raised his voiceâ“in the middle of the road?” I replied, “Sir, I have no clue.”
Thirty seconds after we had stopped, Sermen, an Iraqi soldier, came jogging past our Humvee and approached the rear Iraqi Humvee. At the same time Ayad sprinted past the side of our Humvee and headed to the Iraqi Humvee in the front of the convoy. Gaines said over the radio, “Does anyone have a clue why the hell Sermen is coming to the rear of the convoy and Ayad is moving to the front of the convoy while we're still outside the wire?” The radio was silent. Nobody on the MiTT knew what was happening.
I found out what had transpired once we arrived at the camp. According to the Iraqis there was a huge fight between Sermen and Captain Natham, the Iraqi convoy commander. Captain Natham had requested that Sermen refrain from driving like a maniac and slow his Humvee. Sermen had refused the order, told Natham to go to hell, jumped out of the Humvee, and gone to the rear of the convoy because he could not stand Natham any longer.
After hearing the story I did not know whose side to take. On the one hand Captain Natham was the convoy commander and had the authority to tell his subordinates what they could and could not do. On the other hand Sermen realized that if he drove as Natham desired, the convoy
would become an easy target for insurgents. I decided I was with Sermen. Speed and unpredictability keep you alive in Iraq. Even so, because Sermen was in the military, he needed to respect his officer's commands.
This incident highlights the relationship between officers and enlisted men in the Iraqi army. In the U.S. Marines, if an enlisted Marine defies an officer or senior enlisted, he isn't allowed to carry on as if nothing happened. He is punished through the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Without respect for the chain of command, a military organization will have no ability to maintain order and discipline.
Sadly, the Iraqi army is set up so that soldiers have no service obligation and face no legal punishments. If a
jundi
decides the Iraqi army sucks and wants to quit, he can. Likewise, if he wants to tell a superior officer to rot in hell, he can. In the Iraqi army it is nearly impossible for officers to maintain military rule that is necessary to execute combat operations. A formal legal system simply does not exist. The only way for officers to punish the
jundi
is to take away pay or leave, but when they implement this punishment, the
jundi
just quit.
The Monarchy
There is another side to the Iraqi officer and enlisted relationship, of course. The Iraqi officers treat the soldiers like servants. It is very difficult for enlisted soldiers to take orders from their officers if they believe the officers do not care about them. Here is a perfect example. One day we were rolling through the Haditha market and spotted a vehicle that looked like one of the vehicles on our BOLO (be on the lookout) list. Our Humvee immediately flagged the vehicle to pull over, then we called up the rear Iraqi Humvee to go search the car.
After five minutes the Iraqi Humvee finally pulled up. We waited for another five minutes and began to wonder why nobody was searching the car. We asked our terp Mark to call them on the Iraqi radio net to find out what the situation was. Mark explained, “Gents, the Humvee alongside us is full of Iraqi officers and they are refusing to do “soldier” tasks. They see their role as commanders and thus do not have a role in actually conducting any of the work.” Major Gaines and I each looked at each other, dumbfounded. Gaines replied, “Mark, are you kidding me or are you serious?” Mark replied, “I'm not joking, Gaines. The Iraqi officers just called on some enlisted soldiers from one of the front Humvees to come back and search the vehicle.” Confused, I said, “Mark, the officers are
twenty feet from the car. The soldiers they called on are two football fields away. I don't get it.” Mark smirked and said, “I know. It's stupid. Welcome to Iraq.”