The sights of Baghdad fascinated me. The views made me forget the danger. The Baghdad area is stunning when you put aside the daily car bombs and bristly people. Our path followed the Euphrates River, which slices straight through the heart of the city. I have never seen such lush green vegetation and palm trees in my life. This is saying something, considering I have lived in Hawaii.
From the air the disparity between rich and poor is illuminated. Certain homes in Baghdad are truly royal, complete with gargantuan private swimming pools, Euphrates riverfront views, mansion-sized dimensions, amazing architecture, lush gardens, and extravagant landscaping. Meanwhile only half a mile farther along the Euphrates, people live in extreme poverty. The slum areas of Baghdad make the nastiest parts of South Side Chicago or West Philadelphia look like a Beverly Hills gated community: trash is everywhere, sewage is flowing through the streets, people are muddling about, scrap metal collection piles are on the corners of the roads, and feral animals run rampant.
Despite the drastic differences in circumstances throughout Baghdad, there is one equalizing feature for all inhabitants in the area—the mighty Euphrates River. It is the region’s lifeblood. From above Baghdad it looks as though God decided to put an aorta in the center of the city. I had never realized how important water is to this region of the world: without water in this region, there is no civilization.
The helicopter crew chief yelled in our direction, breaking my gaze on the landscape. “Gents, the bird is landing in five minutes. Prepare your gear.” SSgt. Jonathan Chesnutt (“Nuts”) yelled, “Camp Taji, here… we… come. Yeehaw!”
Chapter 3
Preparing for Combat Adviser Duty
We settled into Camp Taji, where we would live and train for the next few days. The camp is a joint base, one section designated for Americans and one section designated for the Iraqi army. The American side of camp is gigantic, with all of the over-the-top amenities found at Camp Victory. The base is another shining example of the U.S. Army’s finer attempts at fortifying the hell out of a piece of earth.
Camp Taji
Unfortunately, there were no fancy amenities for us; we would be living on the IA side of Camp Taji. The IA side of the camp was more spartan, but despite its lack of comforts, it had a huge advantage: we were immersed in Iraqi culture and language. Alas, a coin has two sides. A negative of the IA camp was that the U.S. Army ran the show because of the IA’s incompetence. Usually, the U.S. Army is a decent outfit and the Marines get along nicely with them; however, this time things were different. The Army had decided to put a manly female first sergeant, nicknamed the “Behemoth,” in charge of the IA camp. We had to follow the Behemoth’s rules at all times.
The Behemoth introduced herself then ranted, “Let me put a few things up front to you gentlemen. This is my camp and you will follow my rules.” She paused and started on her laundry list of rules. “My first rule is that you must be in full PT [physical training] gear, to include tennis shoes, and have your weapon with you when traveling to the heads.” Our team’s Navy corpsman, James “Doc” McGinnis, protested. “Are you telling me I have to wear my tennis shoes to the shower and bring my weapon? That would imply that I have to walk over to the shower in my tennis shoes, take my tennis shoes off, put my shower shoes on, get out of the shower, put my soggy feet into my tennis shoes, and then travel back to the barracks—and the barracks are thirty feet away! And to compound things, you want me to somehow watch my weapon while I’m cleaning my balls and have soap in my eyes?” Everyone on the MiTT laughed. The Behemoth replied defiantly, “Yes, exactly. Have a nice day gentlemen.” She squeezed her large rear through the door to our barracks and exited the room. That woman was scary.
After our encounter with the Behemoth, I put on my full PT gear—with tennis shoes—and scurried to the restroom. As I entered the head I saw a janitor. He greeted me in flawless English. “Hello, how are you doing today?” Figuring I had an Iraqi who was fluent in both English and Arabic, I attempted to ask him some questions. I rattled off Arabic phrases for a good thirty seconds, caught my breath, and waited for a response. Confused, the man again said, “Hello, how are you doing today?”
Perplexed, I spent another minute trying to engage the janitor. He was as interactive as a pet rock. Finally he responded with something I could understand: “I Filipino.” I realized I was not dealing with an Iraqi at all. I was dealing with a Filipino laborer who did not understand Arabic or English. He only knew one line in English and he knew it well. Phew, I had been worried my Arabic was no good.
We killed time watching back-to-back episodes of the TV series 24 for a couple days until finally the U.S. Army’s Camp Taji Military Adviser Course started. Major Gill, a supermotivated U.S. Army officer, taught our first class on the ins and outs of the PRC-148 radio, a personal hand-held radio with which we would communicate. Our next class, on how to operate a personal locator beacon (PLB), a device that sends signals to friendly forces if activated, was terrible.
Everyone on the MiTT thought the PLB was a perfect example of the waste, fraud, and abuse in Iraq that stabs the pocketbook of the American taxpayer, and a sign that whoever was purchasing gear for the military hadn’t spent much time in the field carrying these items on their back. The PLB is a device about the size of a large baked potato that all embedded advisers are required to wear at all times. It is bad enough we were required to wear additional gear (I guess eighty-plus pounds was not enough); however, the PLB was especially rotten because it was a neon yellow color that blended in perfectly with a banana tree.
To make matters even worse, the concept behind the device is a joke. Apparently, when taken prisoner by the insurgents, we were somehow supposed to take this potato-sized, neon yellow device from its pouch, set it right side up (in any other position it does not receive a signal), extend the antennae skyward, and press two buttons simultaneously for five seconds. Great. I was sure the insurgents would give me a timeout to get my PLB up and running.
Following our PLB class a U.S. Army officer gave us an intelligence and operations update on the team we were replacing in Haditha. The news was not good. The day before the team had hit a pressure-plate IED, which totaled a Humvee, killed two Iraqis, and seriously wounded two others. Moreover, overall attacks in the Triad area had spiked from fifteen events the week before to almost forty. It was amazing how hanging out on the enormous, stalwart U.S. Army bases could give a person the perception that things were not that bad in Iraq. The reality was that we expected to run into a buzz saw when we arrived in Haditha.
I started training with the Joint IED Defeat Task Force (JIEDD TF). The JIEDD TF is the Department of Defense’s well-funded ($1.23 billion for the 2005–6 funding cycle) solution to solving how they can keep a bunch of fifth-grade-level-educated, twenty-something Arabs from making hamburger meat out of service members. Thus far, their success had been poor. There had been an enormous increase in IED attacks and IED lethality over the past couple of years. I hoped the JIEDD TF was like fine wine and would get better with time.