It is what it is -- Part III (My eighth memorial in Iraq)
After we returned to the patrol base by the river, we told the company commander that the briefing went well and we felt that his soldiers were part of a tightknit group. Maj. Johns and I spent most of the afternoon hanging out with medics at the aid station and with Chaplain Thomas. We were told that we would be riding back to the other patrol base in the morning in Abrams tanks, in the loaders seats. The idea was exciting, and it was comforting to know we would be traveling in the most heavily armored vehicles in this entire country. There were few safer ways to travel than this. But I worried about whether or not my stomach would handle the rough one-hour ride in a tank without being able to see where I was going. As I went to bed that night, I put it out of my mind.
In the morning, Maj. Johns and I had one more MRE breakfast and MRE instant coffee. We gathered up our gear from our cots and walked outside with our IBAs and Kevlars on; we continued to where the vehicles were staging up. At the last minute we were bumped from our seats in the tanks and put into regular gun trucks. The guns for the trucks had not been mounted the night before and there was a general sense of disorganization. Maj. Johns began to display his doubt and frustration through looking at me and shaking his head.
When the two sergeants who had been standing with us by the vehicles ran off to find someone, Maj. Johns turned to me and said, "This is all pretty fucked up don't you think, Leonard?"
"Eh," I replied, indifferently and avoided eye contact.
Maj. Johns looked at the soldiers running around us and the ones on the truck, trying to mount the 240-Bravo. Turning back to me, he said, "I'm finding it hard to keep much confidence in these guys right now."
"Don't worry sir, these guys are killers," I replied, turning to look at him now.
"Killers? What the hell does that mean?"
"It means these guys would love to kill the enemy to save you, themselves, or the guys next to them. That, and they know how to do it. These are the people you want to be traveling with out here," I said, and looked him sternly in the eye.
He just looked back at me for a moment and then looked away.
When we were all finally ready to go, the sergeant I had been talking with asked me to TC the vehicle so I sat in the front passenger seat and put the headset of the radio on. I asked the sergeant what our call sign was for the trip but found out we had no comms when I tried to radio check. Unfortunately, Maj. Johns was partially right about these guys. They should have gotten their equipment squared away the night before.
The sergeant, who was now sitting in the driver's seat, leaned back and yelled up to the gunner up in his hatch, "Private Smith."
"Yes, sergeant," he replied.
"Take all of your commands from Capt. Leonard from here out."
"Roger, sergeant."
We backed up and then pulled forward and fell into the column of about five vehicles.
As we pulled out of the gate I yelled over to the driver, "Hey, Sgt. Chandler, where are we in the convoy? Fourth of five, right?"
"Yes sir," he answered.
"Abrams behind us?"
"Yes, sir."
"What's our call sign?"
"Bandolier 25."
"You know we have no comms though. Well, I can hear them, but they can't hear us."
"Yes, sir."
As we drove away from the patrol base it began to rain just slightly, but enough so that Sgt. Chandler turned on the windshield wipers. By the time we were beginning to get back into the village the ground was damp all around but the rain had mostly stopped.
"You know this rain sucks, Sgt. Chandler," I yelled over to him.
"Yah, it does," he answered back.
I pointed to some piles of dirt we were passing on the side of the road. "You have no idea if that ground is disturbed or not."
"Exactly," he replied.
We began to pass the people as they walked along the road. We passed a group of about seven children that were all between the ages of 3 and 6. They were walking together holding hands, along the side of the very same road we were scanning for IEDs. It seemed ironic and sad, all at once -- us all in our armored vests, Kevlar helmets, and armored trucks, they walking along the road side without any armor, never having known an Iraq without convoys passing them by on the roads, as they walked or played.
We passed a small white pickup with a lone man sitting in the driver's seat. He was backed off the road in a parking lot and I got an eerie feeling as we passed him. He seemed to be edging forward.
"Sgt. Chandler, you got that white truck in your mirror?!" I yelled over to Sgt. Chandler.
He leaned to his left a little to get a better view. "Yes, sir, I got him."
"What's he doing? Is he pulling out yet?"
"No, not yet...Damn, now I can't see him."
"Gunner! You see that white truck back there?" I yelled up to the gunner.
"Yes sir," he yelled back as he stood up tall out of the gunner's hatch.
"Still sitting there?"
"Yes, sir. Do you want me to keep eyes on him, sir?"
"No. Get back down in here," I answered. "The tank passed him right?"
"Yes, sir." The gunner, immediately sat back down on his sling, back below the level of the protective glass shields.
When we arrived at the patrol base we thanked our gun truck crews for the ride and grabbed our gear. When we found Lt. Rivers he told us that he had a ride for us to get back to Mahmudiyah but we declined it. We told him that we wanted to meet with the soldiers that helped him clean the body parts out of the vehicles and we thought it best that we stay at least through the next day so we could attend the memorial for the Bradley crew that was killed.
It was my eighth memorial in Iraq. Some were for one soldier, some for two or three. This one was for three. It was in the planetarium, and the bullet holes in the roof let in their streams of light. Down onto the upturned rifles with their bayonets fixed, with Kevlars on top and dog tags hung. As the company commander of the Bradley crew tried to render his eulogy of the men, he lost himself and could not go on. Chaplain Thomas, who was sitting behind him, stood and placed his hand on the captain's shoulder as he continued to try to speak.
"I'm sorry," he said, as he sobbed from behind the podium. "I'm sorry."
And we all waited, from the generals sitting in the front row to the privates standing in the back. But he could not come back. Instead, he just stood at the podium crying until Chaplain Thomas helped him back away. As he stepped back, away from the microphone, he cried out, "Words cannot express." Then he sat in his seat by the podium with his head buried in his hands, next to the other speakers, as the next one stood up.
Comments
Words cannot express.
Posted by: D Curtis | April 27, 2007 9:30 AM
With the greatest respect, Captain Leonard, if someone had fixed his steely eyes on me and assured me a gun truck convoy crew were itching to kill someone I'd have run screaming in terror.
Posted by: Lurch | April 28, 2007 2:25 PM
Lurch,
I think the Major knew what I meant, although he may have been a little scared.
Please don't misunderstand these guys. They are professionals, not maniacs with some desire to kill random people. Perhaps, it is like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, when he says, "You can't handle the truth." My sense from all of your comments over these months is 'you' (Lurch) can. But soldiers are trained to kill their enemies. Good soldiers, given the opportunity, will do their jobs, and do it well. I am proud of every one of them out here.
The whole issue really has to do with the status of the war at this point. The enemy kills us in "onesies" and "twosies" through roadside IEDs, sniper rounds, and rockets and mortars fired at us sometimes from miles away. Most of us (that includes the infantry guys too) never see the enemy, we only see them killing our buddies in ones and twos. It is only natural to want to see who it is exactly who is trying to kill you...so you can return the favor.
I recently wrote to a parent of a childhood friend of mine. He was in the Marines in Viet Nam and he writes to me from time to time. I was writng about how we had been under rocket attacks a lot lately. I told him that after night after night of this...laying on the floor, hoping it doesn't hit you, as you hear them coming in, you pray for two things. First, you pray for your own life, then, you pray for the deaths of your enemies. Perhaps that sentiment is hard to understand for many who cannot relate from the comfort of home.
Thank you for continuing to read and comment, Lurch. You are one of the most loyal, and I sensed no disrepect.
Jeff
Posted by: Jeff Leonard | May 1, 2007 2:17 PM
Jeff, we miss you dearly around the office!! But WE (yours coworkers and friends of the dog pound) are VERY proud of the work you are doing in Iraq.
Diane- APE #1
Posted by: dgilmart | May 2, 2007 8:04 AM
CPT Leonard, I won't say I am your greatest fan. That honor goes to your family. I mention you on my blog every time you publish a new article.
I am incapable of disrespecting a soldier in combat. I was there myself, although in the late unpleasantness in SE Asia.
Yes, we soldiers kill, but we do not wish to. I wish there had been specialists like you, 38 years ago.
It's a different mission now (although oddly very similar) and a different Army. The greatest similarities are the terror and the remorse. It is very easy to kill a man and very hard to justify it.
Just keep your body and spirit healthy, please.
Posted by: Lurch | May 8, 2007 11:36 AM