Rage Company

by Daly, Thomas P.

  I tried not to laugh. Double-A was a master of exaggeration. For a second time, I politely refused to go on the mission with him. Unless I wanted to be the only American wandering in the dark with a mob of Iraqi citizens, I was staying at COP Melia.

  Captain Smith came into the room. Lieutenant Thomas followed him a few seconds later. Both men were in full battle -rattle, ready to go. Out in the foyer, Corporal Davila’s squad was staging for movement.

  “You ready, Double-A?” asked Captain Smith.

  The Iraqi nodded, and together the three men walked out of the room. A minute later, they left COP Melia with Davila’s squad. The group of three scouts and the squad of Marines patrolled to a house roughly 1,200 meters to the northwest. Once there, the Marines set up security and nervously waited. More than a hundred members of a tribal militia were heading to their position.

  Through their NVGs, the Marines spotted the locals roughly 500 meters away. The supposedly allied Iraqis were a ragtag bunch. Most were dressed in Adidas tracksuits and ski masks. To Lieutenant Thomas, it looked like an army of insurgents was coming to kill him and his men. The platoon commander agonizingly watched as the heavily armed locals walked inside the home’s exterior wall.

  Abu Ali and the other scouts waited for the militia outside. They exchanged hugs and greetings with the first group of tribal fighters that entered. Then Captain Smith and Lieutenant Thomas headed outside to meet the leader of the militia, Sheikh Jabbar. Jabbar was probably the youngest sheikh any of the Marines had ever met. His position was based on merit; the fighters accompanying him were some of the first to oppose al Qaeda.

  After exchanging introductions, Jabbar professed his commitment to destroying al Qaeda. Captain Smith welcomed his assistance and stressed that it was Jabbar’s role to help our scouts take control and not to exact revenge over old tribal rivalries. While it was impossible for us to distinguish between the two (al Qaeda’s support was drawn along tribal lines), we were wary that Jabbar may simply have been trying to expand his influence south of the Euphrates. The conversation ended with Jabbar declaring that his men would not beat any of the prisoners they took. He also agreed to return, along with his militia, within two days, to the northern side of the river.

  As Captain Smith and Jabbar spoke, Lieutenant Thomas watched the militiamen. After entering the compound, the clusters of Iraqis quickly formed three platoon-size formations. Clearly, the tracksuits and the lack of uniformity in their appearance hid the military training of the group.

  Each formation would be led by a two- or three-man team of our scouts. The planned execution of the mission was very similar to our first with the scouts: the western side of Julayba, from Sijariah to the tip of the shark tooth, was broken into thirds. All of the groups would look for militants in one of those thirds. Before Double-A left COP Melia, he explained to me how they planned to search for al Qaeda members. He and the militia would approach the suspected militants’ homes in small groups, knock on the doors, then ask the occupants whether they wanted to go fight the Americans. In their black ski masks and standard insurgent garb, Double-A and the militia were very believable as members of al Qaeda. Obviously, how the occupant replied would determine how Double-A and the militia proceeded.

  I was shocked by the simplicity of the scouts’ approach. It was uniquely deceptive but also required almost no planning. The teams of scouts knew which houses they were responsible for and simply needed Jabbar’s manpower to perform the mission. The greatest concern between the scouts and us was how the militia would respond if al Qaeda fought back. The two worst options were that the scouts would be killed and/or compromised or that the militia would destroy an entire tribal village.

  The only way to mitigate the risk was to provide each militiaman and each scout with an infrared device. Then we would be capable of tracking their progress via UAV or other aircraft. If a significant firefight did develop, we would have the ability to intervene.

  With the militia and the scouts in formation, the squad of Marines distributed infrared chem-lights to each man. Because none of the Iraqis could see the infrared light that was produced, they desperately wanted to ensure that these were working. After they each received one, most of the Iraqis double-checked with the Marine who had cracked and given them the chem-light to see that it was emitting IR light. Many of these men, ex-insurgents, had been on the receiving end of American airpower before. They did not want to be accidentally targeted.

  After all of the Iraqis were outfitted with IR, the Marines nervously headed back to the COP. Three months earlier, the same squad had been ambushed in southern Ramadi on their first standard patrol. Now they were patrolling away from 150 heavily armed, insurgent-looking Iraqis. James Thomas was very aware of the difference. The tactical methods were at the opposite ends of the spectrum of war. Rage Company was no longer a conventional military unit. Instead, it was facilitating the use of a purely guerrilla force against its guerrilla enemies.

  The Marines returned, covering the 1,200 meters without incident. I met Lieutenant Thomas in the COP’s foyer. He proceeded to describe the surreal feeling of standing among so many men whom weeks ago he had considered enemies. For the rest of the night, we sat in the COC listening to relays of live feeds from UAVs or what various Apache pilots were seeing. They all saw the same thing: dozens of IR lights wandering through the region’s villages.

  At 0300, the first team of scouts returned to COP Melia. Only a handful of militiamen accompanied them. They informed us that a blue pickup truck was going to ferry their prisoners to us and not to shoot at it. We confirmed the route it would take and informed our rooftop positions not to engage. We also had an Apache identify the truck long before it got close to the COP.

  Twenty minutes later, the truck was heading toward us. In compliance with the request we had given the scouts, the truck stopped 50 meters shy of the main gate on Nova. Then, over the PRR, one of the Marines on the roof relayed what he was seeing to his platoon commander, Lieutenant Thomas.

  “Hey, sir, they are beating the shit out of the guys in the back of that truck,” said the Marine.

  The words sparked something in James. He stood up in the COC, threw on his gear, and headed for the door. “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “They are beating the detainees” was his only response. Then he ran outside. I didn’t know what to do. Should I follow him? Should I order someone else to escort him? I realized I was wasting time thinking about it. I reached back into the COC and grabbed my gear, then put it on as I headed for the door.

  By the time I made it outside, James was already at the truck. He had run outside the COP by himself and ordered thirty armed militiamen to refrain from beating the detainees. From the steps of the front door, I could see James grabbing what appeared to be baseball bats out of the militiamen’s hands.

  Three Marines rushed out of the COP’s door, passing me. Shit, what kind of friend was I? How long had I been standing there? Five, ten seconds . . . that’s five or ten seconds longer than James was out there by himself. I followed the three Marines to the main gate. By the time we got there, James was walking in the middle of a crowd of bound Iraqis and militiamen. The latter were spewing insults at the bound men.

  Quickly, the team of Iraqi soldiers and the Marines we had identified to take custody of the detainees showed up at the gate as well.

  It took a few hours, but we slowly searched and transferred the detainees to the partially built house that was our holding facility. Half of them were visibly beaten. One had a ruptured eardrum. Another’s nose was bloodied. The majority flinched in pain every time we touched them. In the usual fashion, I took pictures of the men, but I also sent a corpsman over to screen the group for any urgent injuries. None were life-threatening.

  Midway through my taking the photos, Double-A came out to meet me in the holding area. He explained that some of the detainees had bragged in such detail of crimes against some of the militiamen’s families that the militia, at t
imes, became uncontrollable. Double-A’s words sparked an ominous thought in my mind—how many detainees had been summarily executed?

  I finished taking the pictures and headed to the COC with Double-A. We went through the men’s photos, and he provided me with details of why they’d been detained. From the Risala area, there were two brothers who answered the knock on the door by saying they were the best snipers in all of Julayba. Before they were beaten, they told the scouts that they had been fighting the Americans in the area for the last week. I purposely shared this information only with Captain Smith. I didn’t want to tempt our own men with the idea of exacting revenge.

  As we went through the photos, Double-A identified spies, propagandists, and more members of direct-action cells—all of them offering the militia assistance against the Americans. By the end of the night, there were fifteen detainees in all. While fifteen was a significant number, I didn’t feel it wasn’t nearly enough for the scope of the operation. I felt that the scouts or the militia might be holding other detainees, but Double-A was smart enough to not admit it.

  We were walking a fine line. Not only was the paperwork nearly doubled (because the detainees had been beaten), but I also had to explain the situation to military intelligence (MI) at the ARDF a few days later. Although they accepted all of the detainees, the information we provided on their backgrounds was not taken seriously. MI felt that the scouts had tortured them to get the information. I couldn’t necessarily prove otherwise. Heading back to Julayba, I was worried. If the citizens saw us as being openly brutal, then we might lose their confidence in the same way that al Qaeda had.

  In the first ten days of March, however, attacks against the company dropped dramatically. Our patrols were generally uncontested. Calm spread over Julayba. The problem was that the citizens didn’t seem calm.

  The enemy was adapting. When we caught them off guard with the first scout-led mission in January, they responded by attacking us, the Americans. During the month of February, small-unit combat was a daily occurrence in Julayba. Two of our Marines were killed, and a handful of others were wounded. Now the militants understood the real threat. It wasn’t only a few locals helping the Americans; we were now capable of raising a large guerrilla force against them.

  The insurgents recognized the need for action. Instead of engaging Marines, they were going after the root of the problem. They wanted the identities of our scouts.

  14

  A DOG’S DYING BITE

  1130, March 11, 2007

  “Wake up! Wake up, Daly!” I opened my eyes to Jack’s concerned face. It had been only three hours since I got off watch, and I heard no shooting, no explosions. What could possibly make the tan complexion of my Arab interpreter as white as a ghost?

  My sympathy for his fear made me forget where I was. I shot straight up in my bed and smacked my forehead hard against the wooden bunk above. Jack ignored my succession of four-letter words and tried to tell me what was going on. The only thing I could make out from his rambling was that a woman was crying in front of the COP, and Trotter was busy on the radio. I looked beside me and saw Captain Smith out like a rock in his rack. Every day that went by seemed to turn Rage 6 into more of a zombie, so I wasn’t surprised that Trotter would ask Jack to wake me, rather than Captain Smith.

  The Arab interpreter hustled out the door of the dimly lit room. I couldn’t fathom why it was so urgent, but I still skipped putting on my socks and boots. Instead, I walked out of the room in sandals, wearing my body armor, helmet, and rifle. I even neglected my blouse, opting for the tan T-shirt that wasn’t standard Marine Corps issue. I didn’t exactly look like officer material.

  The Upsrising: On March 11, 2007, al Queda tried to murder Abu Ali at his home. What actually transpired was something remarkable.

  I found Jack waiting for me in the COC. Sure enough, Trotter was on the radio. Between transmissions, he explained to me that there was a woman out front crying about something, but he was stuck on the radio with battalion. I grabbed a couple of Marines and Iraqi army soldiers for security, then I went outside.

  As soon as I went around the interior concrete barricade, I spotted the sergeant of the guard (SOG). He and another Marine were watching a woman in the standard black garb and headdress. She was not wearing a veil. The middle-aged woman was flanked by three men, each holding a makeshift white flag. I headed toward the group.

  The woman and her three compatriots were standing along Route Nova on the northern edge of COP Melia. Thanks to the berm that raised Nova, it was the only spot where the concrete barriers dipped down low and the asphalt was actually higher than the barriers. It made the scenario slightly awkward: the woman and her friends were yelling down to us, while we looked up at them.

  I walked alongside the SOG and told him he could go back inside. No reason to create a crowd with extra bodies standing around. Then I told Jack to figure out what the grieving woman wanted. When the SOG was gone, the woman went hysterical. I figured she was repeating the act she had put on for the out-of-sight SOG. Jack was having a hard time understanding her, and one of the men began to speak on her behalf. Jack translated as he went: “Al Qaeda came to her house this morning. They dragged her husband into the front yard, saying he is one of the men helping the Americans. Then they beat him while she and their children watched. When they were done, they drove away with him in a black car.”

  The woman’s plight was not unusual. What was unusual was that she had come to us for help, in broad daylight.

  “What is her husband’s name?” I said to Jack. He relayed my question. The woman pulled out a picture and said, “Kasim,” a dozen times.

  The enormity of the situation struck me. I didn’t know who Kasim was, but if al Qaeda did in fact have one of the scouts, they would torture him until he revealed who the others were. That meant all of our scouts were in danger and had to be warned. I needed the woman’s picture to show Colonel Mohammed. Then, for the second time, I thought about how unusual it was for her to come to us for help. Maybe it was a trick; maybe one of the men was a suicide bomber.

  “Jack, have the men raise their shirts,” I said. Each one did as asked. No one had a bomb strapped to his chest. Jack directed the group to meet us down the road at the COP’s Nova entrance. I had the Iraqi soldiers search each man just to be sure nothing was hidden. Again, each of them was clean. I offered to let the local citizens come inside the gate, not out of hospitality but so that I didn’t have to stand exposed in the street to talk to them. They refused. Al Qaeda was probably watching, and they did not want to walk inside and immediately become “collaborators.”

  I took the picture of Kasim. Like most of the scouts, he was a middle-aged man. In the picture, he sat Indian-style in his front yard. Three bushes were behind him. I didn’t recognize his face, but I no longer doubted his wife’s story. She was now only an arm’s length away, sobbing in fear and anxiety. The idea of losing a lifetime of memories had consumed her. I glanced back down at the picture. This man was everything to her, literally. I thought about one of my Arabic culture classes in college, Woman in Arab Fiction and Film. Almost every book I had read in that class was about Arab widows and the negative ramifications associated with such a status. There was no life insurance for this woman to rely on, no functioning government. At her advanced age, the prospects for having a good life in a tribal society were minimal. She would most likely sell herself into marriage, as a second or third wife, for less money than I made in a month.

  I sent one of the Marines inside to wake Captain Smith. He would have some decisions to make. Then the woman told us she knew where the insurgents had taken her husband. She turned and pointed into the Albu Bali tribal area, which was across the street. She said Kasim was at the Kurtabah School, no more than 300 meters away. I told Jack to start grilling her on the details. He gave me a synopsis: “They came to her house an hour ago, five or six men with masks in two black cars. She didn’t recognize them. Kasim is innocent; he does not
help the Americans and does not fight.”

  Then why would she come to us for help? I interrupted Jack’s synopsis and asked where she lived. The woman pointed northwest, in the same direction as Abu Ali and the friendlier tribes of Julayba. The situation was starting to become clearer. Al Qaeda was picking up random locals in the neutral tribal areas to torture them for information on the scouts. That was how desperate al Qaeda had become to know who our scouts were.

  I headed back to the COC with Jack. The Iraqi soldiers stayed outside to talk with the woman and the men. Inside the COC was a groggy Captain Smith, accompanied by lieutenants Trotter and Shearburn. Out in the foyer, two of Shearburn’s squads were getting their gear together.

  I gave Captain Smith a summary of everything I had heard outside. It was slightly more detailed than the update he had received from the Marine who woke him. When I finished, it was obvious that Captain Smith and Shearburn felt uneasy about going to the Kurtabah School. There was no way we could tell whether the woman was being truthful, and she could be setting us up for an ambush. After all, the Albu Bali tribal area was openly hostile.

  As Rage 6 debated sending out Shearburn, Colonel Mohammed came into the COC. He had a worried expression on his face and a satellite phone in his hand. He began speaking to Jack faster than I thought was possible. At one point, I thought he was going to hit Jack with the phone.

  When the colonel had finished, Jack turned to me and the other confused Americans. “Kasim is Abu Ali’s relative.8 The colonel just got a call from Abu Ali on his phone. Kasim knows Abu Ali is a scout; we must find him if we can.”

  The new information told Captain Smith what needed to be done. Lieutenant Shearburn grabbed his Kevlar and moved into the foyer. He quickly briefed his squad leaders on the situation and left the COP at a slow trot. As he did, he passed the grieving woman and the three men, who still sat at the COP’s entrance. The two separate groups looked at each other, both knowing that Cullen Shearburn and his Marines were the only chance that anyone would see Kasim again.