Princes of War

by Claude Schmid

  The convoy passed under an unfinished bridge where construction had stopped before the war. Naked rebar stuck out vertically from the unfinished girders like the legs of giant spiders.

  Three hundred meters beyond the bridge, traffic slowed the platoon. Staff Sergeant Turnbeck, commanding the lead Humvee, D22, came up on the radio.

  “Accident ahead. More than one car,” he said.

  Wynn, from the second Humvee, tried to see the scene. He hoped the convoy would not stop; vulnerability to IEDs or rockets was greatest at stops.

  The convoy picked up speed again. “We clear?” Wynn asked D22.

  “Yes.”

  Wynn saw a crowd ahead. Like back home, onlookers gathered at accident sites. As the Wolfhounds passed, a legless beggar zipped around the crowd in a wheelchair, looking for donations.

  Sergeant Singleton, up in the gunner’s turret of Wynn’s truck, said, “That man got dealt a fucking bad hand.”

  Once on Route Blackberry, the Wolfhounds passed beyond the town into open country on a road the locals considered a highway. Wynn had heard it described as “a bad road cut over a dragon’s back.” Knots of defiant earth bulged up from underneath the barren land stretching for miles into the distance, scaring the dry landscape like old wounds.

  The battalion’s total area of responsibility included all of Bejanas—a city of about 275,000 people—and the ground west, halfway to the Tigris River. To the north, Route Cherry was the main east-west road.

  Their convoy turned north on Route Grape. Sergeant First Class Cooke, Wynn’s platoon sergeant, called Wynn on the radio to report that the last truck had made the turn. From here the drive back to FOB Apache would take about 20 minutes, when they were due to take over part of FOB security for 12 hours. A quarter of the Wolfhounds would rotate into the base security plan, assisting with perimeter guard duty. Men not on guard duty got time off.

  Wynn adjusted his eyes to the road ahead. Soon they arrrived at an Iraqi checkpoint. The Iraqi soldiers waved through the lined-up civilian cars. The road narrowed at the checkpoint, not enough room for two cars to pass. Hundreds of cars passed this way daily, and the Iraqis checked few closely. A vigilant Iraqi soldier could notice a suspicious accent. Arabic, like most languages, had many dialects. Americans couldn’t do this, Wynn knew. A capable Iraqi guard would also know whether the tribal part of a passerby's full name was common to the surrounding area. Americans didn’t. But all these native advantages depended on the Iraqi soldier being serious about his work, trained, and loyal.

  Kale, manning the turret gun in D23, remembered a recent nearby IED attack on a U.S. Army Hemmit Truck. A subsequent investigation determined that the IED had been buried in the road during a pothole repair, and covered by asphalt. The attackers had been patient, only detonating the bomb several weeks later, killing an American that had three kids.

  Kale and the others were mistrustful of the road repair crew. Could terrorists have placed an IED in the hole without their knowledge? Were the repairers questioned? Surely yes?

  Frustrated by all the things he didn’t know, Kale traversed the gun turret to the right, orienting towards two o’clock instead of one o’clock, hoping to move his thoughts onward. He couldn’t flounder on unanswerable questions; he must do his job right. He thought about what he and others were doing. Eyes focusing between away and near, looking for things of interest, checking anything or anyone approaching, hunting danger. In the rear vehicle the gunner usually looks backwards, guarding the rear. Most men were alert, making a quick registry of what they see, then either discarding or selecting it for closer scrutiny. They studied each oncoming car. If the car had more than one person in it the odds of it being a threat diminished. Suicide drivers drove alone. If just one person was in a car, the men tried to ascertain the person’s age. Young drivers were greater threats. Old people were less likely to blow themselves up. Stationary vehicles without an occupant were the most concerning. The eyes moved on. All the while the soldiers reported back and forth succinctly on the vehicle radios.

  They looked for indicators of hidden bombs on both sides of the road, as the drivers tried to keep their vehicles in the center to reduce the strength of any blast coming from either roadside. Broken road surfaces were studied. Anything on the road surface was suspect. Cans, jugs, boxes, discarded tires, even animal carcasses had been used to hide bombs. The eyes moved on. When possible, the Wolfhounds drove fast.

  Kale figured they’d driven past hidden bombs that didn’t explode because the trigger man wasn’t there or the device was defective. The two most common forms of IED attack were command detonation and remote detonation. Command meant the device was hardwired. Remote meant the device relied on a wireless signal, like a cell phone. One attacker initiated many IEDs. Others had timers or pressure plates. Eyes moved on. They drove on. Just too damn much to take in.

  It felt like swimming with sharks. And recently, he felt more and more like his blood was in the water.

  There was some positive news. The Task Force regularly rolled up IED manufacturing operations. Often informants revealed their whereabouts. A typical raid might uncover caches of old artillery rounds, batteries, cell phones, wire, various ancillary components to making the bombs. The bad news was that such raids confirmed that extensive amounts of artillery and mortar ammunition had been buried by Saddam’s forces and were now available to the insurgents.

  After passing through the Iraqi checkpoint, Wynn came up on the radio.

  “Speedy and aggressive, that’s how we’re going to take it, man. Speedy and aggressive,”

  “Uh huh,” grunted Gung, Wynn’s Chinese-American driver.

  The traffic thinned and the platoon drove faster.

  D22 still led. D21 followed, then 23 and 24.

  “Love ya, baby,” said Moose. His crew knew he was referring to the big machine gun.

  Each man shifted in his seat, charged by the intensity and adrenalin this ride had unleashed.

  Turnbeck restarted the reporting chatter. “Friendly convoy ahead. Coming this way.”

  The convoy drove 45 miles per hour, the four trucks spaced at 50-meter intervals.

  “IA vehicle ahead.”

  An Iraqi Army truck was stopped on the roadside. The Wolfhounds slowed, curious. Two Iraqi soldiers were changing a tire.

  “Go, go, go!” blurted Turnbeck, prodding his driver to the right side of the road, away from the down Iraqi truck, not wanting to slow down too much.

  “Those guys actually look like they’re working,” commented Halliburton, Turnbeck’s driver, as he blew paper spittle from his mouth into a soda can.

  “Female ahead, two o’clock,” Turnbeck reported. A lone female walked on the left shoulder of the road. “Not displaying anything in her hand.”

  “She’s displaying something else,” Halliburton said.

  “Meaning?” asked Moog, a back-seater in D22.

  “Dumb fuck! I mean she’s got something I need.”

  “Keep your mind on the business, man.”

  “Thicker traffic ahead,” reported Turnbeck.

  “I got something thick for ya!” Halliburton said.

  “Right.” Moog scratched his crotch.

  Traffic increased. The convoy slowed, crawling through two back-to-back intersections. The road expanded to four lanes. Civilian vehicles now approached from side streets, too—side entries always alerted the men to possible Vehicle-Borne-Improvised-Explosive-Devices, what the Army called “VBIEDs.” Everybody’s eyes fired, looking for threats.

  Moose, D24’s gunner, traversed his 50-caliber onto an approaching car.

  “If only they knew the damage this baby could do,” he said over the intercom.

  “Some of them might, knucklehead,” commented Cooke, always eager to convey the right lesson.

  A few minutes passed, then Turnbeck continued, “Car coming in at one o’clock.”

  “Another coming in at two o’clock. Go
t three pax in the first one. No problem. Three more in the second one. No problem.”

  “Another vehicle trying to cross the road.”

  “They’re coming from all around,” said Turnbeck, unconcerned. “No worries.”

  “Awful smell coming from all around, too,” someone commented.

  “Because the place around stinks.”

  A dilapidated water treatment plant sat off the north side of the road. The Wolfhound battlespace contained three water treatment plants—two, surprisingly, still in operation.

  Moose, up in the open air of the hatch, pulled his do-rag from around his neck up higher over his mouth. The stench still got through.

  Past the plant and the next intersection the traffic lightened again. The convoy resumed higher speed.

  Several minutes later, D22 slowed suddenly. “Traffic,” Turnbeck said on the radio net. Everybody already knew.

  “Lots of cars in front.”

  Abruptly they were standing still again.

  Moose and the other gunners looked for targets. “Give me something. Give me something,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Going swimming,” announced Turnbeck. His vehicle jumped the 4-inch center median to the opposite side of the road and drove against traffic, the truck roaring like an angry lion. The other trucks followed. The oncoming traffic jerked to the side of the road, letting the American convoy pass.

  About a kilometer later, they crossed back over the median. The road cleared again. Several cars pulled over to let the Wolfhounds pass.

  “Ass on the right.”

  A donkey stood along the roadside. Several men chuckled as they passed it.

  “ʽAss’ has different definitions,” Gung said over D21’s intercom.

  Wynn smiled. Some things never change.

  As the VCs called out pertinent sightings, the Humvee gunners spun from right to left in their turrets. Each gunner was exposed out of the turret above chest level. Gunners took the most injuries, mostly to their upper bodies.

  “LN watering his grass.”

  An Iraqi man worked his garden. The military used the acronym “LN” to identify local nationals.

  “Overpass one-hundred-fifty meters front. LN walking across.”

  The convoy moved along like an accordion, slowing down and closing up, then speeding up and increasing their intervals, always imitating the lead Humvee. Slowing down, the Humvees whined softly, the horsepower held back like an unhappy dog on a stout leash. Drivers tried not to let the gaps between the trucks narrow too much or extend too far. Their Standard Operating Procedure—SOP for short—in dense traffic called for 20-meter intervals so the spacing between them would offer some protection if an IED exploded. If a civilian car got between the Humvees, soldiers would signal those drivers to move away. Most Iraqis already knew better.

  “Traffic clearer ahead,” Turnbeck announced. The convoy sped up to 40 miles per hour.

  “Check out stopped car. Coming up. Two cars,” Turnbeck radioed moments later.

  Soldiers who could see the cars stared at them. Those who couldn’t see thought about how they might look. Seconds later, the Wolfhounds passed two empty vehicles on the roadside, a black BMW and an unrecognized model.

  Moose spun his turret around to the rear and watched the two empty cars. Nothing suspicious. Concluding it wasn’t a threat, he traversed again to the four o’clock position. In a strange way, the convoying reminded him of riding a roller coaster at night. Everything constantly confused you, and you never knew what might happen next.

  Wynn’s thoughts drifted in and out of the convoy. No shortage of things to worry about. Iraq had been an education by firehose. His platoon, as they were all aware, had a damn difficult job protecting itself and hunting insurgents—and maybe an impossible one.

  By original design, the Wolfhounds were a Tank Platoon, but for the Iraq mission, they had left their four tanks back in America and reconfigured themselves, as had the rest of the battalion. Now they operated from Humvees as an armored mobile security unit, essentially a police-army hybrid thought more appropriate for counterinsurgency.

  His platoon’s area of responsibility covered nearly 200 square kilometers. “Your area to patrol, understand, and secure,” was the way his company commander, Captain Ben Baumann, summed it up. Each of the three platoons in Delta Company had an area comparable to that of the Wolfhounds. Estimates had the Iraqi population in the area at 35,000 to 45,000. That meant 19 Americans responsible for a medium-sized town. By Iraqi standards, much of the population was middle class. The area had electricity three to four hours a day on average. Most of the home construction was densely packed two- and three-story concrete block multi-family units. The far south of their area was lower class, the people scratching a living out of nothing. Their housing was primitive. Mostly dirt roads. No electricity or public water. No sewer. No government services.

  Wynn needed to know more about the area than any other American alive in order to conceivably do a first-rate job. It was a common joke in military that by the time you got proficient at your job, you rotated back to the States. Five more months to go.

  Rarely did other American forces enter his battlespace other than other military convoys passing through. Sometimes battalion aerial assets, both manned and unmanned, worked over it. When necessary, the platoon called in other special assets, like EOD teams. Since the Wolfhounds had occupied the battlespace, a special operations team had twice conducted unannounced raids. One such operation nabbed a financier identified by Baghdad intelligence assets. The other raid followed up on a residual WMD lead. That was a false alarm. A box dressed up like spent uranium had been nothing more than a box dressed up that way.

  His platoon was expected to be as self-sufficient as possible. If other American forces came into the Wolfhounds’ area, it meant those assets weren’t available elsewhere. If he operated independently and kept the violence down, his superiors were happy. He frequently felt like a town mayor. That was fine; he didn’t complain. The independence and responsibility fired his pride. Nevertheless, the burden weighed heavily. A wag commentator had called the whole American-Iraqi enterprise “playing three-dimensional chess in the dark.”

  The convoy passed an Iraqi government building. An elderly man sat on the entrance steps reading a newspaper. Wynn wondered whether anyone was working inside. Army leaders spoke like the Iraqi government was operational, but that was overstated. What local government did exist was fractious. Traditional sources of authority, like the tribes, were more important than they had been under Saddam. New fiefdoms—like criminal networks of smuggling and extortion—were active. The remaining government offices were corrupt, inactive, or worse. In Bejanas, the Coalition had attempted to set up a governing council with representatives from various Iraqi ethnic groups, more or less a mirror of what was being tried at the national level. But the council operated fitfully, lacked resources, competence, and real authority.

  Wynn noticed a green crescent painted on a building, symbolizing a medical facility, similar to the Red Cross. Medical care in Iraq was very poor. Professionals throughout Iraq, including doctors, were leaving the country. Too many had been murdered, kidnapped, or threatened. One hospital on the eastern side of Bejanas was now closed due to damage and looting. Both remaining hospitals were several kilometers east of the Wolfhounds’ battlespace.

  The remaining Iraqi police, whom the Americans called the IP, were largely ineffective. Many were untrained, crooked, unreliable, or all of the above. Many areas had no police coverage. The Iraqi Army, or IA, was in the early stages of rebuilding.

  To his left, he noticed several green flags flying on rooftops, the flags increasingly displayed by Shia as a symbol of religious pride. Or maybe ascendency? Wynn knew his battlespace contained a cauldron of antagonistic neighborhoods: Sunni Arab, Shiite Arab, Kurds, and Christians. Some neighborhoods were clearly delineated, the locals aware of the important boundaries. In other
areas, the ethnic mix was unknown and evolving. Kurds and Shiite Arabs were on the rise. The Sunni declining, retrenching; many openly admitted missing Saddam. The Americans were conducting a door-to-door census, designed by the battalion with each company responsible for their areas. Wynn’s platoon had their piece of this census and would be back at it tomorrow, visiting Iraqi households to get basic personal information from the residents. American units were assigned extra interpreters, when they were available, to assist with this work. Another objective was increasing the informant network.

  The convoy drove past another small mosque. His platoon’s battlespace included three large mosques and dozens of smaller ones. Behind this mosque was an old soccer field. The stadium’s bleachers were stolen sometime after the invasion. Only the unkempt field remained.

  The Wolfhounds passed a parked fuel truck. The truck had probably driven into the city from one of the refineries. Along the northern edge of the Bajanas ran pipelines from the Iraqi Oil Company and most of the pipelines lay above ground, unprotected. Terrorist pipeline bombings were on the increase, causing huge problems.

  Ahead Wynn saw one of the few road signs with English translations next to a school. A group of children were lined up, probably waiting to be released to go home. Several kids carried American-style backpacks. The Iraqi public school system remained in operation in about half the Wolfhound area, but many of the schools were in poor condition. Most had no electricity. Teachers complained about not being paid. Open schools split age groups into morning and afternoon sessions, and the average school kid in the area got two hours of schooling each day.

  This was all his, Wynn congratulated himself in silence. He exhaled, extending the breath, letting it drift away like unwanted burdens. Five hundred years ago, given all this, he might have been a small-time emperor. Now he led a small part of the American Army. Nineteen men, counting himself, none who had ever been in the Middle East before. None could speak Arabic. None had more than cursory knowledge of the local customs and traditions. None had been policemen, firemen, government officials, utility operators, lawyers, engineers, doctors, or diplomats. None had prior experience in war. All were young men. Only his platoon sergeant, SFC Raymond Cooke, was older than 30.