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 deck—the 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 bag—arms, feet, and others—into 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.
Chapter 12
The Iraqi Officer and Enlisted Relationship
Outlaws
On 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”—he raised his voice—“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.