Much better than TNR's "Scott Thomas." Far more authentic, no fabulism - and doesn't sugar coat anything, while still showing the basic humanity of the American soldier. H/t, Jim C.
UPDATE # 20 July 20, 2007
“Six, this is five, ya see the smoke?”“Roger, looks like it’s in our sector”
“Check it out?”
“Please”
We turned right, back into the heat instead of left and back home. An afternoon meeting and lunch with a panel of retired four star generals making their rounds at the beck and call of some congressional or presidential commission had gone exceptionally well. Nothing else was on the schedule and the previous few days had been hectic, so we were going to pack it in early. But a tall pillar of black smoke was a pretty clear indication that the plan was changing.
We had not heard the explosion earlier. Acoustics in the city continue to baffle me, some of the largest booms go completely unmissed, yet a distant boom will roll me out of bed over the sound of both air conditioning and headphones. Without having heard it, the visual signs brought the event together pretty quickly. A car bomb had detonated just off the side of a main road, and had ignited four of five cars adjacent to it. The cluster still burned intensely, while a crowd of Iraqi Police looked on. National Police Shurta, from one of our subordinate battalions, scurried around trying to restore some order. Several hundred meters down the road it looked like one of their truck had been shredded. We pulled up as close as seemed prudent and dismounted.
Sam and I wadded into a crowd of locals and IPs asking questions. As the story started taking shape, an American platoon arrived to help secure the area, followed shortly by Iraqi fire trucks. The well practiced crew doused the raging fuel fires in white foam, leaving the charred automotive remains in a drenched cluster. The car bomb had detonated as a national police convoy had passed by, on its way to deliver dinner to one of the checkpoints. The fire had been raging for somewhere between twenty to ninety minutes depending on who you asked. Iraqis are hopeless at telling time, so I suspect it was closer to twenty as my team was the first on the scene, and the road is heavily trafficked by military convoys.
Determining the casualty count was equally frustrating. The wounded had all already been thrown into the back of national police trucks along with the dead. The whole lot taken hastily to a nearby hospital. As the numbers sorted out, it looked like one national policeman killed with nine others wounded. The residents suffered as well, with another Iraqi national killed and four of them wounded. As the cars became safe to approach, we were relieved to find that no one had burned to death inside. A small mercy. While my dismount team asked questions, the vehicle crews passed the appropriate reports, and got in touch with Bahaa, he would be out shortly.
General B was not going to be happy. The side road was blocked to through traffic by a chain and bollard fence. That allows the neighbor hood to limit entry to a few checkpoints, and by and large provides an increased sense of security to the residents. But it has the unfortunate side effect of creating a small parking area. This area, along with a variety of others in the neighborhoods busy market districts have long been a concern as they provide a tempting target for car bombs. The General has been working diligently with the neighborhood councils, and police to prevent residents from parking in these most dangerous areas, but has met with less than satisfactory results. The paradox of improved security is an increasing unwillingness on the part of the population to follow the precautions that allowed things to get better. Today it was clear that the local police forces inability to force the no parking rules had had terrible consequences.
While I mused on General B’s likely response, the National Policeman on the scene continued to try and keep curious onlookers away. They were pretty hyped up, having just evacuated so many casualties, but the major in charge was doing a creditable job of keeping order. And then things went to shit.
Across the divided highway from where I watched, and on the other side of the now smoldering cars was a small row of businesses, all with their security fences lowered, thier windows shattered from both concussion and shrapnel. A pair of shurta kept onlookers at bay. One, I would learn later took his rifle and knocked out a piece of broken glass from one of the store fronts. Hard to say why he did it…frustration, anger, ill intent? Regardless, the populace always assumes the worst about the police, and was immediately stirred into motion. Watching from and adjacent courtyard, a Sudanese man emerged, making a bee line to the store. Confronted by the police, he began a shouting match. I have no idea what was said, but the previously efficient major began beating him. Within seconds, others emerged from the courtyard, and the shurta closed into a tight knot. Rifle butts and batons emerged.
“Doc, Koast, on me!” They had been looking the other way, but quickly understood. They and Sam joined me in the sprint across the burning wreckage and into the crowd. In those seconds an old black berka clad women and several more men had joined the fray, with the major now steadily smacking the crowd down. We each grabbed a Shurta and flung them from the group, our sudden appearance surprising enough to get all parties to separate and desist. The major didn’t need a terp to understand my command for him to get back to his truck. All was quiet for the few seconds it took for everyone to catch their breath. And then the verbal assault on Sam started, as an ever increasing crowd tried to talk at once. I try to never to show anger when talking to the locals, but they were trying my patience. Eventually I pried the victims of the fight from all the extraneous witnesses and started hanging facts on the skeleton story I had observed.
The Sudanese family lived adjacent to a string of money exchanges. The first man from the courtyard was paid by the owner to be the security guard. When he saw the young shurta break the glass, he assumed it was an attempt to use the explosion as an opportunity to loot the money exchange. I have no idea what he said to the major, but given his agitated state, I am certain it was confrontational. Iraqis are outrageously vocal in their disrespect of all civil servants. On the other side, I have little doubt that the Shia Major was more than anxious to beat down a foreign and almost certainly Sunni outsider, who was so blatantly challenging his authority, at the scene of an explosion. The Sudanese man could very well have been the trigger man, given the location of both his house and shop.
While I gathered up what appeared to be the local leaders and lectured them all on the need to work with the police and not deliberately provoke them, General B arrived and waded into the Iraqi security forces with every bit of the fury I had expected. Gathering up both the National Police Major, and the Iraqi Police captain responsible for the area, a load and public tongue lashing ensued on their failure to do their duty and prevent cars from parking in the area. The major, who at this point was not thinking anything through bowed up and argued back. B. skipped his notorious finger waving rebuke and escalated straight to an arrest order, sending the major in disgrace back to the trucks. The captain, with more sense, took his medicine. Having vented his initial frustration, I walked over to him and caught him up on what had happened. The situation was largely under control, all we really had to wait on was EOD to show up and reduce an orphan explosive which had been blown clear and lay in the median. A few cracked 60mm mortar rounds that had not gone off in the main blast.
Within minutes, Mr Jammal, the head of our district’s Ammanant (the cities public works organization) arrived. A small, penguin like man, who is always immaculately dressed, he is a constant feature amongst the people of our district. Much like B, he is always out and about, and is a bit of a media whore, often taking credit for projects initiated by coalition forces. But in spite of that, he is one of the few who legitimately seems to working for the good of the people, and is part of the solution. His team of workers immediately began sweeping the streets and removing the signs of violence. Getting the area quickly back to normal is an important part of the process. While the sweepers cleaned, the Sudaneese family brought out water jugs for B’s policeman. The difference in the manners between those my team works directly with, and others is often night and day. With any luck our actions mitigated the previous abuses to some degree.
The EOD team arrived after almost an hour. A young sergeant declaring that this was “his” incident scene and barking orders. That kind of statement is almost deliberately calculated to piss me off, and wasn’t well received by B either. Our work largely complete, and the threat of half a mortar round, being largely insignificant I decided it was time to go. “Saydee, lets go to the hospital and check on your shurta…they don’t need us here.” He jumped into my HMMWV. His trucks scrambled to mount up and followed us south.
We pushed our trucks into the crowded entry of the hospital. Sam, Doc and I trailed in B’s wake as we pushed into the emergency room surrounded by a swarm of B’s personal security detachment. It was complete bedlam, and the introduction of another fifteen did nothing to help. National policeman from the unit that was hit crowded the waiting area, while their wounded comrades were being worked on inside. There was no method to the madness, and as we worked our way in, a gurney was working its way out. B pushed passed to start asking questions, I backed out to keep from being part of the problem.
Inside the emergency room, a tall Iraqi Lieutenant Colonel saw me and frantically pushed through the crowd towards me. In perfect English, he introduced himself as the ministry of defense liaison to the hospital, and that the man that had just wheeled out on gurney was a shurta that had been injured in the car bomb. His femur was crushed, and he was past what the local facilities could do for him. The bleeding was too much. They were loading him up into the ambulance to take him to the best hospital in Baghdad, but that was at least a forty minute ride, and at this time of day probably twice that.
“Doc, Sam, go find out what you need from the doctor. LTC Fahil, we will take him to the CASH in the green zone. Is he in the ambulance now? Tell the drivers to follow the second HMMWV. B! Mount up, were taking this one!” I vaguely heard the LTC’s thanks, but the relief in his eyes was obvious. We burst back out into the afternoon heat. This was turning into a long day. MAJ B was on the ground outside the truck. “Were heading to the CASH! That ambulance is coming with. DOC has the report, get him on the medivac net. B, come with me, have your guys wait at the bridge.” The seven kilometer race began.
The trip didn’t take long, but seemed agonizingly slow. Every speed bump fraying the nerves. Entry control points, designed to save lives, now frustratingly delaying attempts to save one. We made contact with the CASH so they were expecting us. The team helped transfer the patient to a small ATV for movement into the emergency room, an American medic taking over from the Iraqi ambulance crew. B, Doc and I shed our gear, and were escorted inside while the team parked the vehicles nearby. Our walk was largely silent. A few quick questions as we went inside linked us up with the right set of staff. We found seats in the corner. I consumed a bottle of water in seconds. B declined and paced, as anxious as I have ever seen him. At the reception counter the staff chatted quietly and joked and talked happily about whatever kept them going from day to day, while the young shurta lay inside. I clenched my fist, knowing that they saw this every day, it was part of their world. I had no right to judge.
Minutes later, a tall doctor emerged; tossed blood stained gloves into a waste can and approached me. He determined I was who he was looking for. “The patient arrived with no pulse. We conducted a scan to determine if there was any brain activity to attempt resuscitation. He was dead before he got here.” He turned, and walked away. That was it. Nothing else. Just one more dead Iraqi. I should have punched that ****er.
Doc coordinated getting the shurtas remains back out to the ambulance so we could take him home. B and I walked slowly out to the trucks. Soldiers know when not to talk, and when questions with one word answers are the best defense against public tears.
“Saydee, do you know his name?”
“Not yet…”
The team waited in the shade of the large trees that make the green zone green. My crews mingled with the civilian ambulance drivers and the cousin of the young man that had until a few minutes before been struggling for life. Our premature return announced the unhappy outcome without need for the confirmation we eventually voiced. Failure is an emotion that mixes poorly with grief.
Later that night, at various times, and each in their own way, all three of the interpreters that were there that day found me. The conversations were all eerily familiar.
“Sir, I wanted to thank you for taking that Iraqi to the CASH.”
“Of course, why wouldn’t I have?
“Well, he is Iraqi, you didn’t have to do that.”
“He was human, of course we did.”
7 Comments