War in Iraq, a Soldier's View

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15-Apr-03 9:12 PM

We’re at our new home but things aren’t setup so I’m going to try to type as long as my Laptop battery holds out.

We woke up at 6:30am to get things ready, everything went smoothly, I was able to shave and get my stuff loaded, then I checked the tire pressures on all my tires, the spare was flat and the rest were 15psi down. I wanted everything to be as close to perfect as could be since most of our trip was supposed to be on asphalt; the last things I wanted was the deuce to have a blowout, there were rumors of people getting shot at and we were going north into the heart of Iraq.

We got on line for the convoy at 8:20 and waited another three hours for everybody else to get there. I guess we’re the only ones who care about timetables. By time we left it was getting hot, and the flack vest was just holding the heat in. I tried to take as many pictures as I could but the terrain was much less interesting than the first convoy, plus the road was so bumpy and our speed so high that it was hard to get good pictures. There was a guy along side the road with only one leg and he was trying to make progress through the sand on his two crutches. It made me wonder how many people have suffered in this country in the last two wars with America.

First we went out along the highway we came to Adder on, technically it was all the same road all the way to Scandia (Highway 1), but the pavement ended a mile after Adder. Griffin was talking up a storm and I wasn’t in the mood to talk so I just let him go off on his own. Once we got off the pavement the convoy speed slowed way down, we were supposed to be maintaining 40 MPH but we were lucky to keep 25. There was a bunch of empty 120mm shell containers along side the road where Griffin guessed they had re-supplied a bunch of tanks. Then we started to see Iraqis.

They were the typical Iraqis we had seen out here in the desert, they were very poor and lived herding goats. But they knew that convoys passed by here and they know we had food and water so they were alongside the road begging. And it wasn’t just a few here and there it was a group of about 5 people every 200 feet; and it wasn’t just when we were next to the cities, there were people begging all along that road for at least 20 miles. At first I would wave to them to play the friendly soldier; I wanted to make them feel like they could trust us, if somebody invaded my home whether I wanted them too or not I would be really apprehensive about them driving through my neighborhood. Especially the way the most soldiers before us had been. There were empty MRE bags and water bottles everywhere, plus all sorts of other trash alongside the road obviously left by passing convoys. So as I passed the Iraqis I’d wave to them and smile and some of them waved back. None showed any ill will toward us but after the first few people passed I realized they weren’t waving. They were pointing with their thumbs into their mouths and rubbing their stomachs. Most were just kids from the ages of 3-8. The convoy would slow to go over bumps and the kids would run along side the vehicles shouting in Arabic (I’m sure they were asking for water) and pointing to their mouths. A lot of them were holding bills of Iraqi Dinar; sometimes handfuls of cash waving it asking for bottles of water. I remember one man who was waving a stack of at least 20 Dinar (presuming they were all 1s) and holding up two fingers, at his side was his 4 year old son wiping the dust from our convoy out of his eyes. It was obvious that he would give anything to get some water for him and his son. We had been told not to give MRE’s or water to the kids as we passed but as soon as I saw those thin dirty kids begging for water I didn’t care what the army said, I would have giving them almost all of our food and water. But I didn‘t have any MRE’s on me and the only bottle of water I had was the one I was drinking out of. If I had any extras I would have been slowing down and giving them to everybody I could; they obviously needed it more than us. We’re rationed only a certain amount but I could go thirsty for a day to give my share to one of these kids.

When we stopped at a checkpoint the Marines Guarding the road kept the Iraqis at bay without having to do anything other than walk around with weapons brandished. Then one of the Captains from the MP group that was guarding us started walking up and down the line demanding to know who had given away water and MRE’s (there had been a few kids with new MRE’s in hand waving wildly at the convoy with big smiles on their faces). He wanted to know who had broken the rules like it was a crime to help these people. After hearing that I was thinking that he needed to be put on trial for war crimes as much as any of Saddam's men. Sure we needed the rations for ourselves but we could definitely spare a few, everybody has thrown away parts of their MRE’s (usually to a big box where anybody who wanted the part they threw away could take it). And water was hard to come by but that didn’t stop people from using it to wash their hands and face. Hell, the Troop carrier started to overheat so Slocum dumped seven 1.5 liter bottles into the radiator even though there was 35 gallons of Non-potable water in the back of the generator trailer. His reasoning, the drinking water was in the back of the troop carrier and the non-potable water was 3 vehicles back and he didn’t want to go get it.

When we go back I’m sure that we’ll be going back over that same road, so I’m going to plan ahead and put a case of MRE’s and Water Bottles in the front with me and Griffin to give to people on the way, the unit has at least three days of excess rations which amounts to about 200 bottles and 500 MRE’s. Slocum wants to take the MRE’s home to take camping or whatever but I think they’d go to much better use out here. If Griffin doesn’t want to participate because he might get in trouble I’ll do it by myself and take the blame. What’s wrong with helping a bunch of starving people? A lot of people would use the excuse that they don’t need as the rations as much as the make it look like and that they’re really just mooching off of us. But that doesn’t really matter, I get 3 meals a day and all the water I need. If this makes it so they get more than 2 meals a day they still have it worse than me. They live in tents year-round making nothing, the only way they survive is by raising and selling small herds of goats.

Layton said it best, moving from home to here our standards of living got 100 times worse, but our standard of living here is still 100 times better than these people live with their whole lives. At the end of my deployment I’ll go back home to my car, my steady job, my vacations, and drinking water coming out of the tap. These people will be in the same place they are now. Their lives will probably be a bit worse because they won’t have US soldiers here to get handouts from anymore. Anybody who thinks these people don’t really need help need to see the little girl I saw today. She must have been 7 years old with a decorated red gown on and pretty green eyes. But as I passed her she wasn’t laughing and smiling like kids her age should, she had the weary eyes of an adult as she stood there hands clasped begging for a bottle of clean water.

We kept going past all these people begging for food and water and the road kept going from a 4 lane highway to a 4 lane wide dirt road. At one point we passed a nice bridge over the Euphrates River that was heavily guarded by Marines. Some of the Marines had put cardboard signs up with things written on them like, “I DESPARATELY NEED DIP” or “ONE WEEKEND A MONTH MY ASS!”

Shortly after the Euphrates we crossed another smaller river/canal with a quick form military bridge across. Weis’s best friend we met in Arifjan was an engineer in a bridge group and we figured it was probably his unit that erected the bridge. We were thinking that that bridge looked like it had been there more than a week so he may have been right behind the front when he put that bridge up.

Whenever we passed an area where the road got rough there would be more Iraqis begging for water, I guess they knew that at those places it was easier to beg because we had to slow down. I tried to smile and be friendly to the people we passed but if you looked them in the eye they would assume that you were interested in giving them something and they’d come closer to the vehicle but I never had anything to give. They were trading Dinar and some had cigarettes that they were trying to trade for water. Usually as I passed I would nod my head no and hold up empty hands and they would know that I didn’t have anything to give. They would wave and smile back so I knew that they had the best intentions of us and they didn’t mind our presence enough to do us any harm.

I some of the more remote places there weren’t any Iraqis, there was one place that was just endless dust as far as the eye could see, whenever the wind would kick up it would become a white out. In the distance we saw a fire, that turned to be a tanker truck going up in flames, I’m surprised that it didn’t explode it just kept gushing fuel up into the air and then it would instantly ignite and shoot higher like a giant flame thrower.

There were other broken vehicles all along the road, usually gutted and broken; both from the US taking what they could and from the Iraqis smashing what was left. Plus we passed two tankers that looked like they had been left due to breaking down but one looked like it just leaked, the other looked like it had leaked then set on fire.

After about 40 miles of alternating dirt and pavement we finally got back onto solid pavement for awhile. And then came to an intersection that had about 15 cars waiting for the convoy to pass so they could cross. The terrain was getting greener and had some trees and the intersection reminded me of Utah. It could have been outside just about any small town in southern or western Utah. I waved to thank the other vehicles for letting us pass and I forgot for a moment that I was in a different country; I expected to see some farmer in his truck waving back.

We pulled over to get gas at a small Marine post off the side of the road; I didn’t need much I was only down about 1/3rd a tank so I guess the road PSI in the tires helped. There were a lot of people waiting to get gas but I guess we had priority so we went to the front, they were rushing people through as quick as they could, there were at least 8 different pumps going all a once and as soon as you were done you’d pull out of the way and there was somebody guiding the next vehicle in. We pushed on and then the paved road turned back to a 6 lane highway with the road sign “Baghdad” above so I knew we were getting close.

One over pass that we went under had “THE WAR IS OVER” trampled into the dirt on the side so we could see it coming towards Baghdad. I thought it was pretty cool, either the war was over and we hadn't gotten word yet or the soldiers had just thought that we were kicking butt so much they would put this in the sand as if to brag. When we got to camp Patterson was up in arms about the sign, either he was pissed that we hadn’t found out the war was over or he was pissed that somebody would spread disinformation like that. I’m sure that when the people writing it, some active duty combat group like the infantry or the marines had hesitated when they stopped to think, “Will this offend somebody in a non-combat group that will follow me?” Give me a break, if it raises the morale of a bunch of soldiers who are actually risking their lives I say go ahead and write what you want.

At almost every overpass there was a small group of military vehicles to the side with camp set up, one was a marine artillery battery and that worried me a little, artillery had a long range but not that long. If we were going past them, it was probable that whoever invaded us would be who the artillery was pointed at. We were about 1 mile closer to Baghdad than the artillery when we finally got to TTP Scandia (we figure that TTP stands for Ted’s Tire Place). It’s a nice place nestled among the palm trees and fields off the side of the road. This place is definitely more interesting than Cedar was but the humidity is keeping the heat up and the bugs keep biting everybody, bad. There are Iraqi’s all around us, there were some sitting on a hill watching us move in, they were about 200 meters away, they obviously live in the area. These Iraqis are obviously much better off that the ones in the desert; even though I saw a yellow “humanitarian MRE” sticking the concertina wire next to us when we came in.

The Iraqis just seem curious about what were doing, which is good because the Iraqis up here aren’t the Sunni that don’t like Saddam, these are the Shiite’s that are generally on his side. One thing I think that we all need to remember is that were setting an example to these people while we’re here so we need to make sure we don’t litter or use the bathroom (leave little piles) in the area. Tonight we’re bunking down next our vehicles tomorrow we’ll probably set up camp; and considering the Army will have a hand in this you know there will be a lot of bad decisions made.