by Clay Martin
Our host nation force was 30 Kurds, which was a godsend. Kurds were by far my favorite partner forces to have, and it also meant we were unlikely to get killed in our sleep by our own guys. I also insured that they stayed happy by supplementing their paychecks with gasoline every month, thanks again to Scott’s creative ledgering procedures. It may sound strange that fuel would be such a precious commodity in an oil rich nation, but it always was. Iraq had almost zero refining capability, so it’s finished fuel products were mostly imported. Gasoline was scarce, and was often hocked on the black market at upwards of fifteen dollars per gallon. Not like I really cared what happened to KBR’s fuel anyway, especially not if it bought some added loyalty out in Indian country. Once a month a real bulk fuels specialist from the Army would drop by to check our stocks. We figured out early that a case of Jack Daniels, brought back from Kurdistan, covered any discrepancy we might have. Circle of life. Cue the “Lion King” music.
In keeping with Iraqi Army tradition, a third of our force was on leave at any one time. Of the remaining twenty, ten were on guard duty, and the other ten were on training or patrols. We didn’t patrol as aggressively as we would have if we were on offense, but it did pay to know what was going on outside your wire. In place of Humvees, we had a gaggle of armored F350s, the contractor standard by this stage of the war. I don’t want to know what they cost, but they got the job done. Two Americans on patrol and two at the COP stretched us pretty thin, but it was manageable for keeping watch on the area directly affecting us.
Our weapons and communications equipment left a lot to be desired, another reflection of our low importance. We were technically State Department (DOS) employees on a sub-contract, which meant we weren’t authorized to have big boy toys. The Diplo-wieners at Foggy Bottom were very specific about the armaments we rated, the biggest of which were 240G medium machine guns for the guard towers and trucks. 7.62x51 belt fed weapons might not sound small to civilians, but for old Iraq hands, they felt like pop guns compared to 50 cals and recoilless rifles. We had been on the job for months and I still felt naked. We had a few 5.56 SAW machine guns as well, along with M-4 rifles, pistols for decoration, and AK’s for our Jundies. I suppose that was an extra insulting term for our Kurds, since they hated Arabs, but habits die hard. Early on, I had my friends over at Barnes Precision Machine mail us new upper receivers for our M-4’s, a small comfort. Technically illegal, the BPM upper with its Nickel Boron bolt carrier offered enhanced reliability and much improved accuracy, otherwise it changed nothing with the weapon. We kept our DOS uppers handy in case our management team decided to drop by. Two pins had us back to inspection ready, and being way out in the boonies made sneaking up on us hard. Scott and I also opted to run personally bought Bushnell 1x6.5 scopes on our rifles, a game changer in the open country of Eastern Iraq. Willie and Frank stayed the course of being extra cheap, sticking with the issued red dot aim points. For pistols we had the new M-18 Springfield Armory XDM, standard DOD issue by that point. Worrying about your pistol in a firefight was akin to worrying about what color your socks were, but I did like them. And at least we had enough 9mm laying around to keep ourselves entertained on our range. We had a beer shoot every Friday, with Willie and I usually jostling back and forth for the title belt. In spite of my many protests, we didn’t have a suppressor or heavy weapon among us.
The communications equipment was worse by far. Being 50 miles from the nearest friendlies, I was positively aghast at the issued gear. We had VHF (Very High Frequency) radios for the trucks, and some old Harris personal size ones for us and each tower. VHF, as configured, had a range of about 8 miles, which meant our patrols where blind as soon as they drove past the curve of the Earth. After much complaining, we finally received one ancient SATCOM model for reaching our bosses in Baghdad, or anyone else in country on the nationwide “guard” frequency. Since we were not authorized military crypto for the SATCOM, that was all we could reach. Our real contingency was locally purchased cell phones, with a handful of SIMM chips to cover the 3 main networks. Like every backwards nation thrust headlong into the technology age by force, Iraqi’s loved them some cell phones. So at least we had the potential to die looking totally baller, desperately trying to text in some air support on a limited edition Nokia.
We did have one other avenue to communicate, one that would pay many dividends in the coming days. Not long after we were in country, we had our first visit from the local spooks. They were hard wired the same way we were when it came to spreading an intelligence gathering net far and wide. The CIA loves having sources, from bought cabinet ministers down to the lowliest gas station attendants, which included us at the moment. Who should step out of that tinted window armored Suburban, but my old friend Paul Tiberius. At least this way he didn’t have to give me a bullshit fake name. I went to the Special Forces course with Paul, which can make introductions awkward given our new employers. I waited on him to say his name first, then it was all bro hugs and “what in the hell are you doing here?“ Paul is what we call in the business vaguely ethnic, some flavor of Asian. But with his newly shoulder length black hair, he could pass for almost anything. His guys had named him Comanche, which was fitting from what I knew of Paul. We spent time in the same group, but never on the same team. Still, his reputation preceded him. He was a little guy like Frank, but vicious as the day is long. All sinew and CrossFit, he was the kind of guy that made you self-conscious about your cardio just by showing up.
Paul gave us the run down, which was basically a formality given the collective history of my guys. I was a fully badged 18F, or Special Forces Intelligence Sergeant, Frank had spent most of his career on “long hair” intel teams, and Scott and Willie were far from wet behind the ears. Would we kindly report anything out of the ordinary, use fake plate and vehicle descriptions should we need to refuel Paul’s trucks, and let him meet his sources outside our back gate if the need arises? No problem buddy. Would you kindly give us some government sanctioned air power if we start getting over run, and let us know if we are standing in the path of a turf war? Can do easy. Our radios were incompatible, and it was well outside Paul’s mandate to supply us with crypto. Instead, he gave us a new agency toy that was a wonder. Named Venona Tempest, or VT for short, the toy was an app for either phones or computers. VT could use either cell networks or HF radio to transmit secure messages using public and private key encryption. The public key was like an address, so messages were routed to the correct receiver. The private key did the decryption, ensuring only the intended user could unlock the message. The messages were limited to roughly twitter sized 160 character messages, but that was good enough. Pictures smaller than two megapixel could also be sent, though it took a while in HF mode. The real benefit here was the HF radio part. Unlike our regular spectrum radios, an HF radio could reach anywhere on Earth with the right antenna. HF was used by Ham Radio nerds to do just that on a daily basis. HF was ancient technology, but it did tend to work when all the fancy stuff failed. I was fortunately old school enough to have cut my teeth on HF as a radioman. One off the shelf Ham Radio later, courtesy of my new Agency pals, I was practicing my antenna theory again in my down time. It beat knitting.
To the West of us, our closest other Americans, was a small firebase manned by an ODA (Operational Detachment Alpha) from 5th Group. They had been tasked with rebuilding a battalion of Iraqi troops, the same clowns that had melted in the face of the ISIS onslaught not that many years before. To say they were jaded was an understatement, but they were doing the best job they could. Scott and I did the secret SF handshake after crossing paths on a patrol one day, after which they became regular visitors at the 7/11. They were beyond the range of our normal patrols, so it was generally them coming to us. We had enough bunks to be able to tie on a powerful drunk and not force our guests to sleep in their trucks, and the respite from normal duties was good for both of us. They were a mix of old and new hands, with the old guys trying like hell to make
twenty. A few of them had been with the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Forces in the glory days, actually doing hand offs with Scott and later me, though none of them were recognizable. The change overs had been fast and furious back then. We talked for hours about the old times, running and gunning across all of Iraq with the Iraqi Counter Terrorist Forces (ICTF). The Battle of Baghdad in 07, how the ICTF had stopped ISIS cold at Ramadi, though abandoned by all the regular forces. And how difficult the ODA’s present task was, turning a battalion of bricks into something resembling a military fighting force. Somehow Scott even managed to trade for a 300 Winchester Magnum Mk13, which we had to return before the ODA left country. Like many of us had in the past, they were casually ignoring the mandate to create a battalion sniper platoon. It just didn’t seem prudent, given the present political climate.
As contractors often elect their own leaders, I became de facto boss of COP Cramer. It certainly wasn’t my innate leadership ability, and Scott or Willie could rightly claim more experience. Mostly it was temperament. I do a lot of things wrong, but I do have a tendency to remain cool at all times. It takes a lot to get me really angry, well beyond the usual guy that does violence for a living. Between that and my propensity for fairness, it just kind of happened. Along with my new call sign, which per the custom of SF, was also an insult. “Mother Hen”, shortened to “Mother”, had the helm at the 7/11, and everything was going to be alright. Or so we thought.
CHAPTER THREE
The days turned into weeks, which turned into months, which turned into a cliché. We pumped gas twice a week, we patrolled often enough to keep a howitzer battery from setting up on us, and tried to maintain our sanity. Using our locally purchased internet connection, we maintained something like contact with the outside world. As soldiers, we often talked about guns and equipment. Now we watched our stocks and talked about money. Politics went from bad to worse, so much so that I didn’t even bother to check the news anymore. I just needed the dollar to stay strong enough for the next six months to buy my mountain top, then I didn’t give a damn what happened.
The armored trucks gave me a bad case of claustrophobia, it felt entirely too much like cramming myself into a sardine can. My last combat tour had been at the trail edge of the armored Humvee development, and even then, most of us still rode in the open back. In theory the armor would protect you from small arms, but in reality it also had a bad habit of mangling in roadside bombs. This had the negative side effect of leaving you to burn alive in a hopelessly twisted ball of steel, futilely kicking the door until your boots melted to your skin or smoke inhalation finally overcame you. Such thoughts were never far from my mind when I was looking through my two inches of bulletproof glass, waiting on the trash heap or false section of curb that would be my end. They did have the added bonus of air conditioning, so I could imagine my fiery death in relative comfort.
Fortunately, IED’s had largely gone out of vogue, at least in our sector. Or maybe they were saving them for better targets. Mostly what we dealt with was the occasional mortar round, and those were usually badly lobbed. I developed a theory that the local militia’s let the new guys practice on us, warming them up for the fight against the Sunnis over in the West. We would respond with what we knew to be ineffective machine gun fire, and an aggressive immediate rolling response to a plausible firing point. It was a high stakes game of cat and mouse. They might have sucked with the indirect fire, but they only had to get lucky once on a fuel depot. We had almost no chance of ever picking the correct firing point, but if we did, we would easily be able to massacre the gun crew. A stalemate ensued, with no one really wanting to up the ante.
The day humankind almost ceased to exist was like any other. Willie and I had just come off a six hour patrol, covering enough ground to really be looking forward to a shower. No armor seals tight enough to keep out the moon dust of Eastern Iraq, and we were absolutely covered head to toe from being in the middle of a three truck convoy. We liked our Kurds, but if anyone was going to eat a buried anti-tank mine, well, we didn’t get paid enough for that. In sha Allah, the guys that live their whole lives believing in fate can go first. Back inside the safety of the wire, I was stripping my armor off, my helmet already sitting on the hood. My phone chirped, a text from Paul.
Voice comms up?
Double checking that I had my Iraqna chip in the phone, best for voice in this area, I dialed him.
“Your medic at the base today?” he said without an introduction. That wasn’t a fun way to start a call, it usually meant someone was shot up.
“He’s here, but we don’t have a lot in the way of med supplies. What’s the crisis? How many hit?” I was already moving toward Frank’s hooch. The more he could glean from my side of the call, the faster he could start prepping for triage.
“No one’s hit, no trauma. But my Ranger is sick, running a bad fever, and I don’t think I can get him all the way to Nasiriya before the weather closes in.” Baghdad was actually closer in direct distance, but traversing the traffic of a major city would indeed make it take longer. This also told me Paul wasn’t concerned enough to call in a medevac chopper, something he could still do with his official government status.
“Yeah, my guy can probably handle it then. And what weather? You know something I should know Comanche?” I defaulted to call signs on the phone. Even if the Iraqi Government couldn’t fully intercept cell traffic, which was doubtful, Iran and the Russians certainly could. In fact, I had it on pretty good authority the Russians owned the internet hubs in Iraq too. I always made sure to keep my email traffic vague.
“Jesus, you didn’t hear? The whole eastern half of the country is under a haboob warning. Suppose to be a bad one. You should really try working for people that care about you more.”
“Yeah, I’ll get on that. Right after I hit the Powerball, and the Hawaiian Tropic girls drop by here on a USO stop.”
“That’s what I like best about you Mother. Always an optimist. I’m 45 out, see you shortly.”
“Thank you come again” I hit him with my best Simpson’s Apu voice, and hung up. Haboob, peachy.
To those that have not experienced a Middle Eastern dust storm, it is hard to describe just how much they suck. The winds are often only about 60 mph, but it feels much worse. Since the environment is mostly super fine “moon dust”, standing outside in one is like being in a sandblaster. Given enough time, they actually will rip your skin off. You have to turn off your air-conditioners and tape the vents, or else the units will self-destruct. Any crack or opening in a building will be found, and after a while it hurts to breathe, even indoors. Aircraft won’t fly in them, no matter the need. If you have any sense, you spend a haboob inside your hooch, with all the doors and windows duct taped shut. The only positive was that the chances of getting attacked in the middle of one was zero. Nobody on Earth could navigate in one, at anything beyond dead reckoning an azimuth. I had seen them so bad you literally couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.
Waiting for Paul to arrive, I called a rapid meeting of my Americans, and the Kurdish leadership. Willie hit Baghdad on the SATCOM, which did indeed confirm we could expect the storm to hit anytime in the next two hours. They were very sorry for neglecting to ensure we got that information, which is a nice way of saying they simply forgot us. That was at least something I was accustomed to after my military career.
Frank was already busy in the med shack, doing whatever it is medics do. I suspect inventorying Tetris shapes on his phone, given his experience with trauma and my description of our inbound patient. But you are allowed to act like a Diva when you are a Diva, so I didn’t bug him as we started sand storm prep work.
“It’s been a while since I saw a haboob, and the weather dorks say this has the potential to be an epic one. Obviously I am not concerned about an attack in the middle of one, but we won’t know exactly when it lifts. I recommend we put four men to a tower, with food and wate
r. Sleeping kit too, and tape for the seams. Power will necessarily be out, we can’t run the generators either. Can you organize that Bazan? I direct the last part at Bazan, the closest I had to a ranking Kurd. The contact specified manager, but Major felt closer to correct.
“No problem boss. I get the man in the tower, bing bang boom” He returned in passable English, clapping his hands on the last part and smiling widely. With sixteen of his twenty guys in towers, and two others likely on another detail, he knew he would be riding the storm out with me, and therefore my Jameson stash. Oh, the burden of command. The sacrifices really bring a tear to your eye sometimes.
“Awesome. Scott, can you shut down the generators, and do you need any help?” Scott was the closest thing I had to a mechanic, since one of his hobbies was modifying his jeep back in the real world. I think it spent more time on the rack than the trail, but he did know what he was doing.
“Can do easy. Spare set of hands would be nice, it will go a lot faster if I don’t have to depend on ole lefty here.” Scott was already grabbing duct tape and plastic bags out of the supply locker.
“Nemo, always jockeying to a supervisors position. Are you sure you were never a Warrant Officer?” I had to get a jab in when I could, Scott was quick with the wit most days. Always best to do so when he was distracted with a real task. Nemo was his call sign, after the Disney cartoon, an obvious barb about his mangled left hand. “Take Bazan’s left overs, but be quick about it. Bazan, best English guys for Scott.” Scott shot me the bird as he shoved his supplies in a backpack.
