He was scribbling furiously on a pad. "What happened?"
"Well, first, after I jumped, my static line tore, so my chute wouldn't deploy. We were only a few thousand feet up, and the static line pulls the chute from the pack, so I had to pull the chute out by hand! Only that didn't work; the chute got all tangled up and wouldn't open properly, so I had to cut it loose. By now, I was barely a thousand feet off the ground, so I had to pull my reserve chute, and that deployed, but as I looked up, I saw that it had torn apart, right down the middle! I was only about five hundred feet up now, and it was really looking bad."
I waited long enough until he asked, "So? What'd you do next!?"
I smiled and gave him a funny look. "That's easy, Fletcher. I died! What do you think happens when you jump out of a plane without a working parachute?"
Around the room the groans were loud and long, although most of the military people were grinning. They had all heard some variation of this at some time or the other, as had Marilyn.
"Nothing personal, Mister President, but it's not nice to tease somebody whose company buys ink by the barrel!", he told me.
I laughed, "I'll keep that in mind, Fletcher. I'll keep that in mind!"
At that point we got the signal to head out to the plane. I helped my wife up the ramp, and was directed forward to the front row of web seats. It was too loud to talk much on the plane, and I just leaned back and closed my eyes and relaxed. I woke up about an hour later, when Marilyn nudged me as we began descending. She leaned into me and yelled into my ear, "How can you sleep on this thing!?"
I smiled back at her, and yelled back, "Just like the old days! At least I don't have to wear 125 pounds of gear!"
"You are crazy!"
I just laughed and nodded and squeezed her hand.
C-130s are quite lively and maneuverable with the right pilot, and we moved around a fair bit as we lined up and dropped down to the runway. I think the pilot decided to show off a bit and do a combat landing, even though we weren't under fire, and the Iraqis had never gotten close to Erbil. Marilyn looked unhappy as we swooped in, and a few of the reporters looked a little green before we landed. As for me, it was almost like old home week.
After landing, the bird taxied for a bit. C-130s don't have windows for the passengers, but I knew that they were heading for a stretch near the terminal with cameras and a podium set up. One big difference over the normal procedure was that because of all the reporters on the plane, and the lack of the different seating compartments and exits, we all just trooped off the plane. Marilyn and I would go out first, and then after a few minutes everybody else could leave.
Marilyn and I went down the ramp, to find a bunch of dignitaries. I waved to everybody on the way, and headed over to the crowd. They had a podium set up and some video cameras. I was welcomed to Forward Operating Base Thunderbolt by the commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps, and to the Republic of Kurdistan by President Barzani. I thanked everybody and told them how I looked forward to meeting everyone and seeing everything and otherwise spend all my time doing wonderful things in Kurdistan. It was a pretty standard speech actually, totally devoid of anything that could be remotely considered 'content.' It didn't matter. All that mattered was seeing the American President on camera in Kurdistan, where American troops had won a war. Anything I said would be cut down to five seconds, or ten seconds, tops. Then the network anchors would tell the country what I was saying. Hell of a system!
That first day was a lot of showmanship. I posed for just about everybody, and we took pictures of me smiling and shaking hands with everybody in the entire country! After that I was able to meet with some of the troops from the 1st Armored and take some photos with them in front of their M-1s. I also met with some of the guys from the 101st but most of them were still on the line between the Republican Guard prisoners and Iraq. (They were being repatriated slowly.) Then we were escorted to a temporary building which had been thrown up as a headquarters building. At that point we were able to get down to business. For once, Marilyn was able to attend the sort of thing that had become old hat to me, and I had to whisper to her a few times what we were talking about. I heard from both the Americans and from several Kurds who commanded Peshmerga troops.
One interesting thing I learned was that several Army units had actively recruited and embedded Peshmerga units into their structure. This worked best with the infantry units, mostly the 82nd and the Rangers, since the Peshmerga were mostly a light infantry bunch with limited mobility, and this could work well in a defensive situation. Still, the 2nd Stryker Cavalry had also adopted some Peshmerga units, with dismounted troops riding on top of the Strykers as they moved around. The Kurdish leaders seemed to like the arrangement, and I gave approval of what obviously was working. I simply commented that I'd have to see that, even if for no other reason than to satisfy my own curiosity. I was promised that tomorrow I would be able to meet some troops and get out into the field.
The Barzani family hosted us that evening for a state dinner. Like a lot of places in the world, Kurdistan is run by a few well placed families. The Barzanis were the largest and richest in Kurdistan, but there were several others as well. They had several homes in the area and we stayed at one of them. We had brought some nice clothing with us for a state dinner.
The next day we were scheduled to see the troops and visit the battlefields. Professionally speaking, I was looking forward to this. Personally, I was dreading it. The day after that I would be visiting some of the field hospitals. All of the wounded men that I had put there, and all of the dead I had put into the body bags ... no matter what Marilyn might say, I knew it had been my fault. Maybe I was just not tough enough to be a general.
First stop was the Azwya Valley, where the 2nd Battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment had done their version of Custer's Last Stand in front of the 6th Nebuchadnezzar. Their colonel and the new company commanders were there to show us around. All of the original company commanders had either bought the farm or had been evacuated to a hospital. Also present were several Peshmerga leaders, all of whom kissed me on the cheek. I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying, but they all seemed pretty pleased with the 82nd Airborne!
I stood around and smiled and looked at what they were pointing towards, but after a bit, I moved away and sat down on a rock and just looked out at the battlefield. By now it was sort of empty and quiet. The dead had been buried, the wounded had been taken away for treatment, and the survivors had moved elsewhere. All that was left were the burned out remnants of Iraqi tanks and armored personnel carriers, and the debris of battle. Now it just seemed desolate and pointless, even as I knew, intellectually, it had been anything but.
After a few minutes, Marilyn came up from behind and laid a hand on my shoulder. "How are you doing?", she asked.
I reached up and touched her hand, and stood up. "I'll be fine. God, I never wanted this. I never wanted anything like this."
"Are you all right?"
"I'll be fine." I put my arm around her shoulder and we walked back to the others. "I guess I'm not much of a general."
"That's okay. We have plenty of them. We just needed a good President. I think we got that."
"It's a low bar to aim for.", I commented. Around us photographers were shooting pictures of us. I wondered which one would get a Pulitzer for snapping me being introspective on the battlefield.
We had flown to the Azwya Valley in a bunch of Black Hawks. Now we loaded up and headed west, to the start line of Kurdish Dragon. It was a short flight, and when we got there I knew it would be more of the same. From that point, the 1st Armored and the 2nd Stryker Cavalry had surged forward, trashing the 1st Hammurabi as they went. Along the way, both Marilyn and I had headphones on, and a colonel was giving us a running travelogue along the way. Below us we could see burned out areas with the remnants of tanks and APCs clustered. The American armored forces had gone through the Republican Guard like a combine goes through dry wheat; now all that was left was the chaff.