War in Iraq, a Soldier's View

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06-May-03 4:02 PM

The last few days have been horrible, whatever could go wrong has.

The temperature has been rising for the last week and is topping out today at 98 degrees, the reason this is so significant is that the day before yesterday I had my first serious experience with severe dehydration. I hadn’t been feeling good all day, I suppose I may have eaten something bad or I had just been partly dehydrated the whole day. Anyway that afternoon I decided to join everybody in a little sunbathing. I knew I would burn quickly so I spent a lot less time out than everybody else, about 30 minutes per side.

I came back in when I was done and sat down for awhile, I had been drinking regularly but I was still feeling sick when I sat down. For the next hour I just sat trying to fight the rising nausea and sipping what water I could drink without feeling sicker. Finally I puked; it was horrible in the heat to be in that sort of situation. Back home if you got sick you were throwing up in a porcelain toilet and when you’re done you wash your face with clean water and go lie down where you can cool off and relax, maybe take some medication to make you feel better.

Out here it much different, I was doubled over the dirt berm in front of the tents on my knees. When I was done I hobbled over to the water jug and rinsed myself off, I couldn’t drink the water because it was non-potable. Then I went in the tent and tried to cool off in the 96º sweat box. I kept feeling ill so I decided to go out next to the tent where I could get a breeze to cool me off. I sat there watching my skin get more and more pale before I puked again. This time there was blood in my vomit so I decided it was time to go to the Aid Station. Walking was making me dizzy but I was able to stumble over there myself because it wasn’t too far; besides Slocum didn’t show any signs of helping me anyway when I told him I was sick he just pointed the way to the Aid Station.

When I got there they asked me some questions, I guess it was obvious what was wrong with me because as I was answering questions they were already getting Saline ready to put in me. I joked that I waited to come over because I didn’t want to get stuck with a needle. They said it was amazing that I hadn’t passed out yet (I guess I was a lot paler then I thought). They put the IV in my arm and gave me a shot that was supposed to help my upset stomach; it also did a good job of knocking me out. I kept waking every now and then overhearing what they were saying. They were pretty amazed how fast I was sucking the saline down. By time I woke up it was about 11pm and I had drained 3 and a half bags of saline solution. I lied and told them I was feeling a bit better than I was so that I wouldn’t have to stay the night on that uncomfortable stretcher. They gave me a Pepto-Bismol tablet to calm my stomach and I went back to the tent to sleep.

The next day was spent just trying to recover; I still had a headache but my stomach was finally keeping water in long enough to stay hydrated so I just sat in the tent drinking and listening to music.

Today started off bad, E-5 Anderson came in and told me that I had to go do police call down at the staging area. I was feeling a lot better so I didn’t put up much of a fight about doing it and got ready to go. MSG Martin took me down and I started picking up trash with the other two MPs that were assigned to clean, I guess there were supposed to be more but they didn’t show. Cleaning was disgusting as usual but near the end I started to feel the dehydration coming back and I realized that it had been a VERY bad idea for me to let E5 Anderson send me out here. We were about done though so I didn’t have to tell the MSG that I would have to be taken back to camp.

The locals were sitting along side the road waiting to trade with convoys coming through. A few boys from the ages 6-10 went past in a group and one of them tried to get some water from me but I told him I didn’t have any and waved him away. When I went back to the 5-ton we were loading with trash, one of the MP’s that was helping clean, SPC Taylor, saw the kids and started yelling at them that if they came any closer he’d shoot. They were still on the road about 30ft away but that wasn’t enough for him so he pulled out his 9mm started walking over to them a few of them came toward him thinking that he wanted to trade; I guess they hadn’t seen his weapon yet. He started yelling that he’d “fucking shoot you mother-fuckers!” and to prove his point he chambered a round in the 9mm and started aiming at the closest boy to him. For a minute I got the sickening feeling that I was about to see somebody die, an 8 year old boy for that matter. I could already see the headlines I would later read on the internet, “Iraqi boy killed at military check point”. Luckily the kids finally saw the weapon and turned and ran. When he came back he was smiling proudly at me like he had done something great and told me, “I fucking hate those little Hagis” (Hagi is the derogatory slang term for Arabs out here).

That wasn’t the end of the fun detail either. As we were getting ready to leave a larger group of teenage boys came up and were trying to ask MSG Martin something, he was trying to tell them that they couldn’t come across the road incase they got hit, SPC Taylor was with him but this time he was acting a little more civilized with a MSG next to him. All of the sudden a Humvee came rushing up and a SGT with a buzz cut jumped out and rushed the kids like a maniac yelling that he’d kill them if they didn’t get out of here. He started yelling at the two soldiers for talking to them till he noticed that one was his MSG so he joked that you have to scare them rather than be nice to them.

On the way back I noticed that three of the 8 year olds that had passed us earlier were handcuffed and sitting in the EPW holding area. They were giving them water but it was so hot out I don’t think it helped much. MSG Martin asked what they did and the SGT in charge told him that they were walking down the street and they could be killed by a passing convoy so they would sit in the pen for a few hours so they would learn. It was approaching the hottest part of a 98º day; even with water those children were in for torture under the sun, just to “teach them a lesson”.

To say the least it pissed me off. Soldiers or at least MPs, treat these people as less than animals. To them they’re just a nuisance that gets in our way and we’d be better off just killing them all off. I used to wonder why somebody would sacrifice the lives of thousands of innocents to crash an air plane into a building. Now I know; if I had been that 8 year old that got thrown in the pen and I had to learn what Americans were like from the examples we have here, I’d probably do the same. When SPC Taylor pulled a loaded weapon on an unarmed 8 year old kid and threatened to kill him, I realized that we’re no better than the fascist regime that we just got rid of.