Chapter 44
You can feel sorry for them, but at the same time you don't want these guys trying to run your war for you.
And giving them the tools they needed to progress is not what my job was all about. My job was killing, not teaching.
We went to great lengths to make them look good.
At one point during the campaign, a local official's son was kidnapped. We got intel that he was being held at a house next to a local college. We went in at night, cras.h.i.+ng through the gates and taking down a large building to use for the overwatch. While I watched from the roof of the building, some of my boys took down the house, freeing the hostage without any resistance.
Well, this was a big deal locally. So when it was photo op time, we called in our jundis. They got credit for the rescue, and we drifted into the background.
Silent professionals.
That sort of thing happened all across the theater. I'm sure there were plenty of stories back in the States about how much good the Iraqis were doing, and how we were training them. Those stories will probably fill the history books.
They're bulls.h.i.+t. The reality was quite a bit different.
I think the whole idea of putting an Iraqi face on the war was garbage. If you want to win a war, you go in and win it. Then you can train people. Doing it in the middle of a battle is stupid. It was a miracle it didn't f.u.c.k things up any worse than it did.
COP IRON
The thin dust from the dirt roads mixed with the stench of the river and city as we came up into the village. It was pitch-black, somewhere between night and morning. Our target was a two-story building in the center of a small village at the south side of Ramadi, separated from the main part of the city by a set of railroad tracks.
We moved into the house quickly. The people who lived there were shocked, obviously, and clearly wary. Yet they didn't seem overly antagonistic, despite the hour. While our terps and jundis dealt with them, I went up to the roof and set up.
It was June 17, the start of the action in Ramadi. We had just taken the core of what would become COP Iron, the first stepping stone of our move into Ramadi. (COP stands for Command Observation Post.)
I eyed the village carefully. We'd been briefed to expect a h.e.l.l of a fight, and everything we'd been through over the past few weeks in the east reinforced that. I knew Ramadi was going to be a h.e.l.l of a lot worse than the countryside. I was tense, but ready.
With the house and nearby area secured, we called the Army in. Hearing the tanks coming in the distance, I scanned even more carefully through the scope. The bad guys could hear it, too. They'd be here any second.
The Army
No insurgents came. Taking the house, taking the village-it was a nonevent.
Looking around, I realized the area we had taken was both literally and figuratively on the other side of the tracks from the main city. Our area was where the poorer people lived, quite a statement for Iraq, which wasn't exactly the Gold Coast. The owners and inhabitants of the hovels around us barely scratched out a living. They couldn't care less about the insurgency. They couldn't care even less about us.
Once the Army got settled, we b.u.mped out about two hundred yards to protect the crews as they worked. We were still expecting a h.e.l.l of a fight. But there wasn't much action at all. The only interesting moment came in the morning, when a mentally handicapped kid was caught wandering around writing in a notebook. He looked like a spy, but we quickly realized he wasn't right in the head and let him and his gibberish notes go.
We were all surprised by the calm. By noon, we were sitting there twiddling our thumbs. I won't say we were disappointed but... it felt like a letdown after what we had been told.
This was the most dangerous city in Iraq?
CHAPTER 10
The Devil of Ramadi
GOING IN
A few nights later, I climbed into a shallow Marine Corps riverboat known as a SURC ("small unit riverine craft"), ducking down onto the deck behind the armored gunwale. The Marines manning 60s near the bow kept watch as the boat and a second one with the rest of our group slipped upriver, heading quietly toward our insertion point.
Insurgent spies hid near the bridges and in various spots in the city. Had we been on land, they would have tracked our progress. But on the water, we weren't an immediate threat, and they didn't pay much attention.
We were traveling heavy. Our next stop was near the center of the city, deep in enemy territory.
Our boats eased into sh.o.r.e, running right up onto the bank of the ca.n.a.l. I rose and walked across the little bow doors, nearly losing my balance as I stepped off onto land. I trotted up the dry land, then stopped and waited for the rest of the platoon to rally around me. We'd taken eight Iraqis with us in the boats; counting our terps, we were just over two dozen strong.
The Marines slid back into the water and were gone.
Taking point, I started moving up the street toward our target. Small houses loomed ahead; there were alleys and wider roads, a maze of buildings, and the shadows of larger structures.
I hadn't gotten very far when the laser on my rifle c.r.a.pped out. The battery had died. I halted our advance.
"What the h.e.l.l's going on?" asked my lieutenant, coming up quickly.
"I need to change out my battery real quick," I explained. Without the laser, I would be aiming blind-little better than not aiming at all.
"No, get us out of here."
"All right."
So I started walking again, taking us up to a nearby intersection. A figure appeared in the darkness ahead, along the edge of a shallow drainage ca.n.a.l. I caught the shadow of his weapon, stared for a moment as I made out the details-AK-47, extra mag taped to one in the rifle.
Muj.
The enemy. His back was turned and he was watching the street rather than the water, but he was well-armed and ready for a fight.
Without the laser, I would have been shooting blind. I motioned to my lieutenant. He came up quick, right behind me, and-boom.
He took down the insurgent. He also d.a.m.n near put a hole in my eardrum, blasting a few inches from my head.
There was no time to b.i.t.c.h. I ran forward as the Iraqi fell, unsure whether he was dead or if there were others nearby. The entire platoon followed, spreading out and "busting" the corners.
The guy was dead. I grabbed his AK. We ran up the street to the house we were going to take, pa.s.sing some smaller houses on the way. We were a few hundred yards from the river, just off two main roads that would control that corner of the city.
Like many Iraqi houses, our target had a wall around it approximately six feet tall. The gate was locked, so I slung my M-4 on my shoulder, took out my pistol, and hauled up onto the wall, climbing up with one hand free.
When I got to the top, I saw there were people sleeping in the courtyard. I dropped down inside their compound, holding my gun on them, expecting one of my platoon mates to come over after me to open the gate.
I waited.
And waited. And waited.
"Come on," I hissed. "Get over here."
Nothing.