Al Asad Airbase, Iraq
02/15/06
Charlie Company has left Hit and settled into temporary digs at Al Asad, an enormous US military installation dug out of and into the western Iraqi desert. It’s safer here than Camp Hit or Firm Base 1, farther away from population centers from which anti-US fighters usually strike and then disappear into. The Marines have shed their flak jackets and helmets. They are cleaning their gear, doing laundry, getting haircuts, showering in well-maintained trailers, shuttling over to the Burger King and Subway on the Mainside of the base, and just generally enjoying the relative security here to the extent that higher will let them.
Charlie’s officers and noncommissioned officers are running the junior Marines through their post-Iraq paces. They’re accounting for the Marines’ equipment, checking hair length (no longer than three inches up top, shorter on the sides), and convening briefing after briefing, like Warrior Transition, a talk delivered by a chaplain that aims to prepare troops for the trip home. The basic message: combat stress and its symptoms are not a sign of weakness or unmanliness. Talk to someone if you feel it coming on, don’t just lock down the emotions. Otherwise, they’ll blow up all over you and your loved ones. Today three prolific and hardworking photographers from the MEU’s Combat Camera section, Sergeants Sturkie and Stephens and Corporal Vega, are shooting group photos of the battalion, platoon by platoon. Charlie Co. will hold a small memorial service in a few days for the three Marines killed in the IED explosion more than a week ago, Corporal Orville Gerena, Lance Corporal David Parr, and Private First Class Jacob Spann.
The unit that replaced Charlie got rocked even before all of Charlie’s Marines pulled out. The antioccupation forces, which had launched few head-on attacks against BLT 1/2 during their two-plus months there, uncorked on the new unit. According to senior Marines, the “bad guys” knew change was afoot, and they took advantage of the transition. An IED blast that seriously injured one US serviceman kicked off an attack that lasted hours. According to Marines who were there, the frenzy of bullets and rockets was the most intense they’d witnessed in Hit.
There's always tension when I settle in among officers and staff NCOs. (I lived with Charlie Co.'s command staff at Firm Base 1 and I am living with them hera at al Asad.) They tend to be wary of the press, both for two main reasons: "operational security" (they fear I - and journos in general - may report sensitive details about upcoming operations) and political/career concerns. Marines do stupid things all the time - sleep on duty, get caught with stuff they shouldn't have (drugs, booze, other peoples' belongings), generally just fuck off. (aAnd some talk to reporters about all of the above.) Officers and senior NCOs call these guys the "10 percent," the inevitable hunk of "shitbirds" in the ranks that's immune to USMC discipline. Such grunts don't reflect well on the Corps, and they make officers and NCOs look bad, so higher-ups would rather their cock-ups stay private. There are also more serious incidents higher would rather we journos didn't hear about or witness, the operational mistakes that sometimes have tragic results. Lower-ranking Marines talk pretty casually about such things - "lighting up" a vehicle that wouldn't stop at a checkpoint, killing the unarmed occupants, for example, (which has happened). Higher-ranking folks seldom do.
I could fill several books with straight information and undigested stuff but I am still struggling to make sense of it all. I won't, I know, but I will try. I marvel - and sometimes cringe - at the Marines and their strenuous daily efforts to impose rigid American paradigms on this shattered and foreign city and country. A sniper shoots at Marines returning to the firm base from a four-hour patrol, as happened a few days ago. No one sees him, so the Marines round up all the MAMs - military-age males - in the vicinity of the shooting, cuff them, and then interrogate them through a non-Iraqi translator with a loose grasp of English, and whose heavily accented Arabic locals must strain to understand. The grunts treat the "PUCs" - persons under control - rudely and roughly, wrestling them to the ground and cursing them, but they don't hit the men. I feel as if I am watching a bunch of teenagers executing an arrest after watching a season of Cops or Starsky and Hutch reruns. It seems absurd and counterproductive, and such behavior appears to me to bruise Iraqi hearts and minds, not heal them.
The agitated Marines then test the PUCs for gunpowder residue by swabbing their hands and faces with a little patch of adhesive plastic. No residue. They release the men, search a few homes, scaring the shit out of kids and adults, and come up empty handed. The shooter - insurgent, terrorist, bored schmuck, whomever – has disappeared, trailing nothing but a handful of bullet casings. The patrol heads back into base and the next one goes out. Business as usual. The follow-on unit and the citizens of Hit inherit the fallout, as nasty or benign as it may be. But that’s just this civilian’s opinion.
Charlie Co.’s First Sergeant, Michael Wootten, gathers his 200-some odd Marines this morning outside their tents here at Al Asad. The fierce rain that started late last night peters off and the sun rises through abundant clouds.
“There’s one question that I want to address that was brought up already by first platoon, so you’ll have to bear with me,” he begins. Wootten’s commanding voice cuts through the drone of generators and the whipping wind.
“That was, there was no reason for us to be here. There was no reason for Charlie Company or BLT 1/2 to be in Iraq. Now, gimme a show of hands of who was drafted here.” No hands shoot up. “Not one of you was drafted, right? You volunteered to come into the Marine Corps, and I’ll tell you what that means to me and hopefully what it means to you. I joined the Marine Corps because it’s a warrior nation, because we are fighters. We don’t hold back when there’s a fight going on and say, Hey, you know what? I’d just rather turn squares out here in the ocean and hit port calls than go fight the fight. If you feel that way, then I invite you to get the fuck out when your EAS [Expiration of Active Service] is up and go join the Air Force. Oorah?”
“Er!” the men of Charlie reply in unison.
“I know it was hard for you to see the difference because you’re out humping that damn flak jacket three, four times a day, coming back in and collapsing in your rack in your own damn filth and sweat – and some of you who didn’t take a shower for the whole damn time we were out there.” A heartier “Er!” this time - and laughter.
“So it’s hard to see what difference you make,” Wootten continues. The Marine brought a measure of peace to Hit, he tells them, under the leaderhip of the Commanding Officer, Capt. Dave Handy. “Because I’m sure you heard, within 24 hours of you leaving, it went to shit.”
“You showed the people of Iraq the gift of freedom that we give them, because I believe we live in a nation that has everything. Some take the gift, some don’t take the gift. Some spit in our face when we give it to them, but still we offer it. But in no way, shape, or form do I want you to think that it was useless that we went in there because we lost three Marines there, and you’re disgracing them if you even think that. Oorah?” The response: “Er.”
The First Sergeant then segues into administrative matters – plans for the upcoming memorial and arrangements for liberty calls, upcoming training operations, and the eventual float home to North Carolina.
ENDS
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