Welcome Mat

“Put that away,” ordered the C-130 crewman as I exited the plane at a Baghdad runway.

“Oh it’s not even turned on,” I lied about the camera being used to document my war adventures.

“OK, cool.”

Dumbass.

We walked off the long runway and set our gear down at a smaller tarmac to await the “shithooks,” or Chinooks to take us to FOB Falcon off route Irish, or Jackson.  It was 115 degrees in the sun, which was nice compared to the 125 in Kuwait.  Still sweaty with some stank though.  As we sat on top of our gear baking in the sun, a VBIED (Vehicle Born IED), or car bomb, blew up at one of the entrances to the airport.

“Congratulations, ya’ll just earned a combat action badge,” Bendel muttered.

            We all laughed, knowing the award had lost its bravado and some POG’s literally would have tried to claim one on the that explosion about a mile away.  Sirens went off as ambulances raced to the scene.

“Oh look, there goes the secondary bombs,” joked another NCO.

            We laughed again, only this time after a short chuckle I realized I wasn’t yet numb to the danger around me like the veterans were.  I still wondered how to tactically avoid a fucking car bomb, much less a secondary or even a tertiary.  A silence blanketed us once again as this realization sunk in for everyone.

            The shithooks came in as night fell and we all ran up the ramp piling on top of each other.  I was the last man on and sat next to the ramp with the gunner who was sporting a 240B machine gun.  All the lights on the bird were out as the pilots used NODS to see and up we went over Baghdad.  I was in awe and enjoying the view.  Then shit got real.

            The ramp never went all the way up so the gunner could shoot to protect the bird.  Imagine a 15ft x 10ft open space with wind swirling all around and that’s what was only a few feet away from me as I noticed the gunner holding his headset and screaming into his mic to communicate with the pilots about something.  All of a sudden I saw tracer rounds coming from the city only a few hundred feet below and the shithook released flares, which were quite a surprise to the fresh faced guy sitting next to the gunner.  Not sure if they were counter measures or if the gunner needed to see below, but they made me jump real high in the seat.

            The gunner took aim at something, but never fired as the bird went ass down and I was staring very vertically at the city.  I used a kung fu ninja grip on the cargo netting to keep from falling.  I guess it was a defensive maneuver.  I kept eyes on the gunner incase he fell out of the bird as I was going to take the gun next.  Thankfully he was attached to a safety cord at his waist to hold him in.  The shithook leveled out after gaining some altitude then took us for a nosedive just minutes later.

“Really wish I knew what the fuck was going on outside this deathtrap!” I yelled to the man next to me, who of course couldn’t hear a damn thing.

            The nosedive took us right into Falcon.  We were told to run off the birds and get to cover.  So what did we do?  We ran right past concrete bunkers and into tents.  Tents.  I say again, tents.  You know what those tents had for protection?  Cots.  We bunked up with some of our guys from White platoon that arrived a little earlier to get the Strykers ready for combat.

“Well, how was your day?” I asked Golden.

“We were working on the trucks and started taking small arms fire from I don’t know where,” he replied.

“Everyone OK?”
“Yeah, we just dove behind some tires ‘til it ended and went back to work.”

            I didn’t even have a map of the AO and we were already getting attacked in southern Baghdad.  I found a cot, shoved my gear underneath and shut my eyes.  About ten minutes later I heard a strange whistling noise.  I opened my eyes in the dark tent and frowned at the ceiling.  Then an explosion close by.  I sat up and looked around as more whistles came.  A mortar attack, or indirect fire, had commenced from the city across the street.  Boom, Boom, BOOM, BOOM as dirt and debris rained over the tent.  I looked around the tent as all eyes were open, but nobody was running.

“Should we be moving to a bunker?” I asked.

“Hahahaha!” went the veterans.

“What?”

“Welcome to Iraq,” our platoon sergeant, Pons, confidently replied.

            The next night we were scheduled to roll out into sector with the unit that had been there for the past year.  They had a different demeanor than we did and I only assumed it was because they had been in combat so long.  Soon I would find out it was quite the opposite.

“Vance, you’ll be on the ground with me once we get into the city,” Shmiddie said.

“Roger,” I returned with a smile.  Scouts love exploring on foot.

            We loaded up into the Strykers and followed the little hmmwv’s into Abu Disheer.  I was on the inside of the Stryker peeking thru one of the hatches above.  Dust clouds poured in as I caught glimpses of the tops of buildings and palm trees lit up by a few remaining streetlights.  I felt the vehicle stop.

“Driver, drop the ramp. Vance! You’re up! Possible IR laser in front of us to detonate an IED! Dismount and check it out!” Shmiddie yelled from above.

“Roger!” I yelled all fired up for action.

Wait… IR? As in infrared? The streetlights blurred out my NODs so all I could use was the naked eye and the naked eye can’t see infrared.  Can we talk about this?  Fuck it.  By the time I finished that thought process I was jumping off the ramp to “save the day.”  I was such an idiot.

“Vance, don’t go too far away from me,” Shmiddie whimpered.

“Sergeant, if you step on something that goes ‘boom’ I don’t want to be anywhere near you,” I recommended.

“That’s fucked up.”

“You want to be near me when I trip this IR shit?”

“Good point.”

            Now as we’re checking out the road ahead I notice my view from the inside of the Stryker with “palm trees” was skewed.  Trash.  That’s all I saw and smelled when I jumped off the truck.  Some piles were on fire and the smell was awful.  Animal carcasses were mixed in and it stained everything we wore.  It probably wasn’t too healthy to inhale either.  That being said, I couldn’t wait to light up a Newport.  There were no lights on in any of the buildings and guess what surrounded those buildings… trash. 

Veterans back at Fort Lewis told us that anything could be used as an IED, so don’t go around touching things that you don’t need to.  Well, what else do I see when we’re walking down the street?  A veteran, Woodrow, walk over and kick the living shit out of a styrofoam box the size of a 32 inch tube TV.  A space an IED could easily fit into and was actually used often.  It was no love tap either.  Woodrow’s foot, attached to his 6’5” frame, went above his head as he followed thru as perfectly as a field goal kicker.

            We cleared the street and loaded back up.  As we’re riding along I eaves drop on the conversation between Shmiddie and his counterpart from the other unit.  Shmiddie gets info on all the routes and then asks about contact.

“Our first week here we lost two chaplains and seven men so we made a deal with J.A.M. (Jaysh al-Mahdi Militia) to leave us alone as long as we left them alone,” the NCO said.

            Shmiddie just looked at him and replied, “Oh.”  An American unit made a deal with the very people that were killing us.  Cowards.  We would turn that part of Baghdad upside down for the next 9 months, but damn we were off to a rough start in the first 48 hours.  We were in a world that made no sense and that fact was the only thing that made sense.  I just thought back to the tent that was to be our “cover” for the first week and there was a comment that summed everything up, which would go on to keep me sane in a very sick and demented way.

“Welcome to Iraq.”

Where ever we showed up, people generally wanted to do this since they knew by our  indian head patch that there was going to be a fight... CRAZYHORSE!!!