Detainee Release

One of my many extra duties is to supervise detainee release. For whatever reason, we release individuals from Coalition custody after they’re deemed “no longer a threat to the Coalition or Iraqi people.”

So, I get the call that around 50 detainees will land in my little slice of Iraqi heaven, and I need to be out there at fricking midnight to meet the helicopters. Why midnight? Because it’s inconvenient, nothing is ever easy in Iraq…and I hate helicopters.

My Iraqi Army partner, and a dozen of his soldiers, sat out by the helicopter landing zone and waited for the detainees. A little after midnight (of course they’re late) we hear the whoop-whoop-whoop of the helicopters, and we jump back into our vehicles. Helicopters kick up an absurd amount of dirt when they land, often accompanied by giggles from the pilots as they brown-out yet another unsuspecting group of spectators. We’d renovated the landing zone with giant steel mats to keep the dust down. The first helicopter landed and kicked up a fair amount of dirt, but nothing too bad.

I ran out to the helicopter, met the Soldier in charge of the detainees, waved the detainees towards the waiting and friendly Iraqi Army. As I counted detainee noses, it became blatantly obvious that I was standing behind one of the giant engines. Ladies and Gentlemen, the world’s largest hair dryer. The air was actually painful, and I wish I’d picked another spot, but then the detainees would run around all willy-nilly. A few more minutes and I would have turned into beef jerky.

The IA policed up the detainees, and they squatted in close quarters. Imagine a giant box off Peeps, but these Peeps are all in identical shirts, shoes, pants and smell terrible.

And then all common sense failed. The first helicopter could have taken off and made room for the second, instead the first stayed put, and the second landed in a dirt soccer field. I waited a minute for the dust to settle, but it didn’t. The second helicopter was surrounded by a THIS IS CETI ALPHA FIVE intensity sand storm.

I stumbled towards the helicopter, but could keep my eyes open for a moment or two. Yes, stumbling blindly towards the giant spinning blades of helicopter death. Once I got close enough that I could see the helicopter ramp, there went a long line of detainees off into the sand storm. They were definitely going the wrong way. What the hell…

I took off after the line, and found a Soldier at the head. Before I could tell him he was an artard and that he’s going the wrong way, he waved at me and took off for the helicopter. There I was, standing in the midst of nuclear winter with twenty-ish detainees who looked scared to death. It was essential that we head back to the waiting Iraqi Army, or I’d have a bunch of detainees running around an Iraqi Army base, at midnight, surrounded by armed guard towers. CNN would love that.

Thankfully, my interpreter is smarter than the average bear, and he waved a lit flash light at us, which we could make out through the haze of flying sand and very small rocks. I utilized my rudimentary Arabic and screamed “Yala!” as I waved towards the light. ‘Yala’ means “run great speed and courageous emotion’ or something like that.

I got the detainees to the Iraqi Army, who had quite the laugh at my expense. Can’t blame them, just look at me:



I look like ancient!

Then we had to screen all the detainees, make sure their name matches their picture, the names on the list, etc. No AQI/JAM would ever try to sneak out of prison by flubbing up his paperwork, never ever!

My Iraqi partner and I quizzed each detainee about why they were arrested (every single one was innocent, they don’t know why they were picked up in the first place) and how long they’d been in jail. One guy said he’d been in jail for a few days short of two years, we asked him if he wanted to stay in the IA jail a bit longer, but he would have none of that.

I get to do detainee release once a month. I’m so excited.

...what?

Every so often I have these “…what?” moments with the Iraqi Army.

Case in point, I went to find an Iraqi officer who was supposed to meet me for dinner. I sat down in his office and used my rudimentary Arabic on one of his brother officers. Then an Iraqi lieutenant colonel walks in and they talk amongst themselves. The first officer proceeds to whip out a tazer, and turn it on for his boss. It sparked and made a series of unfriendly cracking noises. I’ve never had a normal conversation that ended with someone whipping out a tazer. So there’s my first “…what?” moment of the day.

I don’t speak that much Arabic, but I’m pretty sure the LTC said “Dude, that totally reeks of awesomeness, let me try.” The LTC grabs the tazer, turns it on and jokingly jabs the active tazer at his buddy. Ha ha! What fun.

Finally, the guy I’m waiting for shows up…and then he grabs the tazer and waves it around. There I am, a lone American officer in a room full of Iraqi officers who are PLAYING WITH A TAZER. The third officer took the tazer into the hallway…and chased some of the Iraqi Army soldiers up and down the hallway with the tazer “…what?”

I suppose I should have admonished the IA for playing with something that is definetly not a toy, but when a bunch of Iraqis are jabbing at each other with a tazer designed to incapacitate cattle, discretion is the better part of valor.

It would be easy to scoff at the Iraqi Army for this incident, but Coalition Forces aren’t any smarter.

A few weeks ago, some of the Soldiers assigned to my little slice of heaven decided to buy themselves a tazer. A big one, one that meant business. Thankfully, one of the senior non-commissioned officers heard the device crackling, investigated and confiscated the Mother of All Tazers. Why did they buy the tazer? One of the Soldiers wanted to zap his buddy with it, and his buddy was OK with the plan, so long as the zapping was filmed for YouTube…what?!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Coalition and Iraqi Army forces are winning the war. I leave you with that fact.

The Donut of Misery

Soldiers speculate on their redeployment date. The day we get back to our families, flushing toilettes and beer is a happy one, so we want to know when it is! But, the date fluctuates (shifts to the left or right), much to our consternation. When will the new unit arrive? How long must we wait for a flight to Kuwait, then to the States? Will there be an…extension?

Extensions are bad. Very bad. Back in 2004, we’d handed over our mission to the new unit, sent an advanced team to Kuwait, had the vehicles packed and lined up ready to go. Then the phone rang. The redeployment stopped, and we went south to fight Muqtada al Sadr and his merry band of jerk offs throughout central Iraq. After the 365th day came and went, we lost hope of ever going home. We just drove from city to city, stomping Jaysh Al Mahdi into paste and waiting for the next phone call. We stomped them a little too hard, as JAM turned to Iran for training and equipment, but that’s a different matter.

After the 15th month of a 12 month tour, the phone rang and told us to head to Kuwait. Sheeah, right. We’ll get to Kuwait and promptly turn around for Mosul. But, we went to Kuwait, turned over our equipment and remained skeptical about ever going home. Then we got on the aircraft, still no guarantee! Folks made it to the US of A before the extension, and were called back to Iraq. Landed in Germany, marveled at the green grass but still didn’t think we were home free. Once the plane took off and we were sure it was heading West, we relaxed a bit more.

We landed in Maine. If they told us to get back on the plane and head for Iraq, we could make a break for the door. Canada was close by. Then we got home, and after a week or two we were sure we wouldn’t be called back to Iraq, and we finally relaxed.

Where was I…tracking the day we head home, yes. Now Soldiers have their very own “Donut of Misery.” A simple excel spreadsheet that computes the number of days, hours, minutes past and left in the tour. A pie graph of sorts monitors progress through the deployment as a percentage, and resembles a steadily shrinking donut.



This gave way to Happy Percentage Day! Every 3.65 days (assuming a 12 month tour) another percentage point ticks by, one percentage point closer to going home. So I wish people Happy Percentage Day to my fellow office drones once or twice a week. Don’t tell Hallmark, I might patent the idea.

Math is never that exciting, so Soldiers embellish their Donuts of Misery with photos of scantily clad, yet tasteful, photos of their favorite model/actress/women-of-thankfully-low-morals. There is some debate over who has the best Donut flair, but it is a personal choice.

My Donut transitioned from ‘depressing’ to ‘uplifting’ around the 33% mark. Soon it will be zero.

Arab Music

During my daily dealings with the Iraqi Army, we spend quality time watching TV. TV, especially satellite TV, is something of a miracle for the Iraqis, as Saddam forbade all satellite dishes. Before 2003, Iraqis could only watch government TV channels.

Back in 2002, an Iraqi took his broken TV to a repair man. The repair man wanted 200 dollars to fix it. That’s way too much. Iraqi went to a second repairman. 150 dollars, no way! But the third repairman wanted five dollars. Five dollars? Why so little. The repairman said he’d put a picture of Saddam on the screen, it would be the same as fixing the TV…That story is much funnier in Arabic.

We always watch Arabic music channels. Arabic music is monotonous. Every single song sounds exactly the same, and they’re always disgustingly sweet poetic love songs, like diabetic Backstreet Boys. Here’s the first thing that pops out about the singers, they’re not that good looking. In America, only rock stars can be ugly. Troglodyte Pop singers on American Idle? Hell no! Some of these Arab music stars would make babies cry.

So, every song just warbles along while the singer stares at his love interest, but they never actually touch. Some songs feature dancing. Groups of men and women will dance in circles, but never together. Every so often the women whip out knives, maybe that’s why the men won’t dance with them. Arab morality is at play here. In traditional Arab society, men and women of different families never mingle before marriage. Isn’t that ironic? All these songs about love, but no one meets their spouse until the day they’re married. I’ve never been married, but by all accounts the romance stops after the honeymoon.

The root of all this irony is virginity. Arab women are supposed to be virgins when married. When I admit to my Iraqi partners that American brides are typically not virgins, they’re stunned into silence. So, in Arab society women and men are never supposed to mingle, which definitely stops them from having sex. Those giant black table clothes the women wear? Keeps men from seeing their curvy bits.

Historically, an Iraqi couple gets married and promptly retires to a private location for consummation purposes. The man will put a white sheet on the bed to, um…collect proof that his bride was a virgin when they got married. He will proudly display this sheet outside of his house to let everyone know that his wife was a virgin, and the wife’s parents take great pride in this proof. I’m not making this up! Positively barbaric, and I guarantee it still happens today in more rural areas.

Where was I…music! So, I’ve tried to show some of our interpreters proper Western music videos through the magic of YouTube. It went something like this:
Me: This is a very famous band called Disturbed, watch this video called “Inside the Fire.”

Ali (terp): That girl…she’s dead? What is this song about?

Me: Suicide and selling your soul to the devil to be with the one you loved.

Ali: They’re just screaming at each other.

Me: That’s the melody.

Ali: That girl is practically naked!

Me: You’re damned right.

Ali: What’re they saying?

Me: I’m not really sure…Where are you going?

The Heat

I don’t know how to explain how hot Iraq is. There is just no equivalent that I’ve ever experienced in the United States. I’ve lived in Arizona and El Paso, Texas, so the desert is nothing new for me.

The temperature skyrockets from 90 to 125 every morning around 9 A.M. We spend the rest of the day avoiding sunlight and un-conditioned air. Riding around in humvees, walking, breathing and thinking are all undesirable activities in the Iraqi heat. The temperature will dip at night into the high 80s if we’re lucky.

Leaving any place air conditioned is a hard decision. Do I really have to go to the bathroom? The port-a-potties are stinky saunas. Nothing like doing one’s business in a cloud of poop steam and melting plastic walls.

The Iraqis deal with the heat in a truly Iraqi fashion. They do nothing. As if they ever need an excuse to do nothing. The heat hits and they just sit around in the shade, talking amongst them selves. They never sweat, which weirds me out. You’d figure that after thousands of years living next door to hell people would emigrate to cooler lands. The only people working during the day are Americans. We just can’t sit around for hours on end while there’s perfectly good brain boiling daylight!

Sandstorms are the only natural relief from the heat. A blanket of sand blocks out much of the sunlight, and keeps temperatures low. It is unusual to walk outside and the world has a Tatooine-like tan tinge to it. The downside is that the dust will clog air conditioners and cover everything with a fine layer or dirt.

Bad climate is the real reason countries establish empires. Ever been to England? Cold wet and miserable. It’s the ‘Blighted Isle’ for a reason. So what to the English people do? They run around, settle North America, conquer every tropical island and costal vacation spot they can. Going native in India sure beats sitting in freezing fog and eating Sheppard’s Pie.

We drink a lot of water. One of the best treats a Soldier can have is a frozen water bottle. Take out a liter of bottled ice and carry it around. After awhile, it’ll turn to slush, which is just what the doctor ordered when the sun is three inches from your face. The hard part is keeping the Iraqi workers away from the cold drinks. Iraqis will never bring their own water to anything. So, the workers do an hour or so of work when they first show up, spend the next six hours guzzling Gatorade, then work for another hour in the early evening. Ever wonder why this war costs 12 billion USD a month? Gatorade for the Iraqis.

Constantly oozing sweat is takes a toll on clothing. We don’t have ready access to washers and dryers, so we try to get as much wear out of a uniform as we can before sending it off to the cleaners. If a uniform has salt deposits from evaporated sweat, then it is time for that uniform to get washed.

If you want to replicate the Soldier’s experience in an Iraqi summer, I suggest you:
Turn a hair dryer up to eleven and hold it about three inches from your face…24/7.
Strap 60 pounds of metal to your body and do jumping jacks in a sauna for ten minutes. Rest for 2 minutes. Repeat.
Throw a blanket in the oven until it’s nice and scalding, then wrap that around your body.

4th of July

Ah, the 4th of July. Back in the States everyone can celebrate with BBQ, fireworks and cold tasty beer.

We decorated our meager mess hall with a few patriotic plastic tablecloths and set up our own BBQ. If Bobby Flay could see it, his head would explode. Our lone cook started grilling chicken, steak…things and hot dogs early in the morning. The smell of carcinogens and evaporated beef fat teased me throughout the day.

In an effort to increase rapport with the Iraqi Army, we invited some of the senior officers over for dinner. It’s very rare that we ever get the Iraqis over to eat. They won’t eat food prepared by the Hindu Indian chefs at the larger mess halls (they’re an impure people according to the Koran) and out at the more austere patrol bases, the food is just terrible.

At my lovely patrol base, we rarely cook anything. Everything is pre-cooked in the States, vacuum sealed and shipped over to Iraq. Then we reheat and enjoy. TV dinners for dozens of people, Yum-o!

Iraqi fare is pretty fresh. Sometimes the goat is still alive when we show up for dinner. But, Iraqi food looks like road kill.

I’ve been eating Iraqi food for the entire deployment, so I’m pretty much immune to whatever evil spirits lurk in the kabobs and eggplant wraps. I took two of my soldiers to eat with our Iraqi counterparts, and they weren’t so lucky. They spent the next three days sweating to death, and puking all over the place. Me? Just fine. They’re a little gun shy about eating anything that has an expiration date before 2015.

So, what does inviting the Iraqis over for dinner mean for me? Sweet revenge! Now the Iraqis can ponder and smile politely as they eat our reheated-beef-substance. Ha ha! Keep me in Iraqi for 15 months will you? Enjoy some of that rubber chicken with BBQ sauce from the lowest bidder! The best part of any American meal is that we don’t need antibiotics as the dessert course.

The Iraqis were terrified by our 4th of July feast. They gently poked at the steak and picked at the chicken. They didn’t know what the corn on the cob was. Maybe if I said it was goat penis they would have tried it.

I tried to fool myself into having a good time with a near-beer. Beer with no alcohol, who came up with this idea? No one drinks beer for the taste! I told the Iraqis about the 4th of July in the States, why we celebrate, etc. The Iraqis had a period of English occupation that ended in the 1920s, so they could empathize a little bit.

No fireworks! Random explosions around people with guns is never a good idea. Iraq has forever ruined fireworks for me. The Iraqis celebrate by firing off the family AK-47 in the back yard, that may catch on in the States after recent Supreme Court rulings.

Leave

After much waiting and worrying, I went on leave. The Army sends all Soldiers away from Iraq for 15-18 days, depending on the length of their tour in Iraq. We can go just about anywhere, so long as we have a passport.

I left my lovely patrol base and waited at Baghdad International Air Port for a flight to Kuwait. There was a great deal of ‘manifesting,’ which means showing up for a roll call, and then learning that we have to show up for another roll call in three hours. I had numerous formations into the wee hours of the morning, ending with an early morning C-17 flight to Kuwait.

Kuwait is as I remember it. There’s nothing there but sand and prefabricated buildings. We’ve heard fairy tales about “Kuwaitis,” natives to the sandy country. I’ve seen plenty of Pakistanis and Americans, but never a “Kuwaiti.” The entire country is a giant sand dune with oil pipelines.

We landed in Kuwait and the Soldiers stationed there gave us many customs briefings, asked where we wanted to go for leave and cut us loose for a few hours. I decided to take a shower, and walked out into the brisk 120 degree Fahrenheit Kuwaiti morning. 120 degrees! That’s like turning a hair dryer up to eleven and blasting it an inch from your face. I took a shower, and needed a new shower after walking back to the holding tent.

The customs briefings were long and repetitive. It is NOT OK to bring hand grenades, smoke grenades, bullets, dead animals, Swedish porn, hashish, etc. back to the US of A. They wouldn’t tell us this unless Someone had tried to bring those sort of things onto the airplane. Yes really, they have pictures to prove it.

After the litany of things we couldn’t bring, our bags were searched and then we were sent to the terminal…or so we thought. On the way to the terminal, the walkway is fenced in on all sides, was another inspection station! This place was complete with x-ray machines and rubber gloves. Criminy.

Me and my fellow travelers sat in another holding area, scrambled to get our tickets, and slowly lost confidence as some Air Force person would pop into the tent, tease us with a flight time then come back minutes later and tell us the flight was cancelled. Tee hee!

Eventually we got on a civilian airliner and we were off. This wasn’t Delta or something fancy like ATA, this was World Airways. No, you’ve probably never flown on World Airways. Apparently, they’re chartered only by the United States Government to bring Soldiers to and from Iraq. In all honesty, it wasn’t that bad.

We first landed in Leipzig, Germany. Leipzig’s claim to fame is that it’s the home of the German metal band Rammstein. Don’t Google that, you won’t like what you find. The little Rammstein shrine won’t draw many tourist families, I’ll tell you that much. While in Kuwait, the Soldiers there told us over and over again that alcohol is strictly forbidden until we reach our final destination. But in Leipzig, there was alcohol for sale everywhere. We’re not talking about Spaten beer, we’re talking Absinthe. The green stuff that’ll drive you out of your mind! Can’t buy any for later consumption, they’ll send you right back to Iraq, no leave for you!

I sense the Germans are still a little bitter about the bombings in WWII, and this is some sort of subtle vengeance. Torturing Soldiers with good booze.

Apparently, people used to drink on the way back from Iraq. No doubt, some jack ass got drunk in Germany and woke up in Ukraine missing a kidney and that ruined the fun for everyone.

We stopped in Atlanta and then off to Dallas. We stopped in Dallas on Memorial Day, of all days. There was a long and thick line of civilians there to greet Soldiers as we got off the plane. People shook our hands, thanked us for our service, and Girl Scouts passed out their signature cookies. Score! I was very impressed by the people in Dallas, nice to know folks care about us and are aware that there’s still a war going on.

The USO in Dallas is top notch. There’s free internet, free snacks, comfy chairs, showers, phones, cable, etc. Anyone in the military would do well to run by that USO and take a load off.

The power that be in Dallas passed out a paper informing us that if we get arrested by the Dallas Airport PD because of drunken stupidity, the time spent in jail will count against your leave dates. They wouldn’t tell us this unless Someone had gotten drunk and hijacked one of those terminal bus thingies.

I got on a flight to LAX, and spent the next 18 days with family and friends.