Black Knights, Dark Days

by Fisk, J. Matthew;

  Eventually, it got so tight out on the street that our security detail was about to be overwhelmed. Amid all the babble, Aguero couldn’t hear the answers to his questions. Frustrated by a crowd he couldn’t control, the lieutenant finally asked for a tour of the school. He didn’t wait for permission or cooperation. While the interpreter was translating his request, Aguero rushed us toward the compound gate. We pressed through a smelly phalanx of unwashed flesh and entered the school grounds. By the time we reached the door to the school, our interpreter caught up with us.

  “Sir, please, he say that school is closed for now, and could you come back again when it is open so that you can see the children, too.”

  The lieutenant looked around at the smiling proprietor and then at the crowd still gaping at us from the street. He shrugged and then began to work out a date for a later visit. While they went over details, I sidled toward the entryway and took a look inside the building. In an open courtyard inside the structure, I could see what looked like some kind of karate class. There was a formation of kids dressed in black and wearing green bandanas around wrapped around their heads. The bandanas were marked with Arabic writing that I couldn’t read, but I recognized the guy out in front doing the instruction. He wore the uniform of the Sadr Bureau. On his command, the assembled kids began to perform punches and kicks that I thought might be Tae Kwon Do or a similar martial fighting style. The kids were disciplined and focused. As their sensei began a lecture, they paused in the ready position, one fist extended to block and the other tucked in tight to their bodies ready to strike. The instructor caught me looking, but didn’t pause in his harangue. I turned to catch the lieutenant’s attention.

  “Looks like they’ve got some kind of after-school program going on, Sir.”

  Aguero broke off from his scheduling conference and took a look. “Yeah, whoop-de-doo, kids. Don’t do drugs and remember to annihilate the infidel.” We were getting nowhere with this public relations stop. The vaunted Moqtar was nowhere to be found, and the school principal was not what you’d call a fount of information. Aguero thanked him for his time and led us all back out to the street where he signaled for everyone to load the vehicles.

  “What did you make of that little karate class back there, Sir?” I climbed into the Humvee and settled as Aguero began to study his map and the GPS fixed near his seat.

  “So what? They want to prance around in ninja suits and kick each other silly that’s their business.” He handed me the GPS as our drivers cranked up the engines. “Take this GPS and write down the coordinates whenever we come across any large shit puddles. We’ve got a mission coming up to suck sewage, so we need to know what locations need the most attention.”

  As we got rolling, I toyed with the GPS and tried to put what I’d seen at the school out of my mind, but it nagged at me. Clearly there was a lot more going on at that school than reading, writing, and arithmetic.

  

  At the corner of the north-south route Delta where it intersects route Copper, almost exactly in the center of Sadr City, we ran into something that looked like a carnival crowd milling around an Iraqi Police Station. We headed for the station gate where a skinny little sentry stood behind a wall of concertina wire. He quickly realized that the American convoy was bound to enter without his permission and pulled aside the wire to let us roll into the station. As we parked, the sentry scampered away to alert someone more senior that they had American visitors.

  The lieutenant dismounted and lit a cigarette while he waited for someone to confront. He took little irritated puffs as he stared across the intersection at the crowds outside the police station. It was a busy place. Busses and vans arrived at regular intervals, dropping off more and more men to join the throng which stretched south as far as the eye could see. There were those familiar red, black, and green flags everywhere poking up through a sea of people. And there were pictures of the dark-eyed Muqtada al-Sadr plastered on practically every vertical surface. Somewhere off to the south, we heard the thump of drums and a chorus of shouting. We couldn’t see it, but the crowds were there for some kind of rally or celebration.

  “The natives are restless.” I crawled out of the vehicle and checked the safety on my M16. From what I could see, we were in the middle of something between a militia gathering and a monster-truck rally. Aguero watched it all with a critical eye while our apprehension mounted.

  “What do you reckon they’re doing, Lieutenant?”

  “Don’t know,” he said. “Why don’t we go ask?” He called the usual crew to accompany him and charged out into the street. Staff Sergeant Davis, Staff Sergeant York, and Sergeant Fowler fell in with me, Rogers, and Denney as we strolled out of the police compound and crossed the busy street. We tried to maintain as much of a non-threatening posture as seven heavily armed soldiers can, and ran up on a contingent of people that outnumbered us about ten to one. Amid the crowd was a man speaking into a hand-held radio. This guy had some authority, or at least was in contact with someone who did. Aguero went right up to him and offered the standard greeting which was idly returned to include a limp handshake. We could tell he had zero enthusiasm for the encounter even as he patted his chest to let us know he was being sincere. We were quickly hemmed in by curious onlookers.

  Through our interpreter, Aguero asked the man if he was in charge. No, he replied, but he could use the radio to ask for someone who was. He turned his back and gabbled into his handset. Within minutes, a man wearing thick bifocals over a well-trimmed beard pushed toward us through the crowd. He returned Aguero’s greeting, but there was no offer to shake hands. While Aguero asked questions, the guy just stood there with his hands clasped behind his back trying to look wise and pensive. The crowd pushed and shoved closer, trying to monitor the conversation. I suspected an informational pamphlet was circulating Sadr City: "Fun Ways to Annoy American Soldiers."

  The man who said his name was Assad Abed al-Hussein indicated that the Mahdi Army was having a rally, and it had all been approved by local authorities. I could tell from the lieutenant’s body language that he found that particular bit of Intel dubious. Aguero told the man we had a mission and needed to pass through the crowd to make a meeting on the other side of the rally. There was no way that was going to happen right now, according to Assad Abed al-Hussein, but they rally was set to conclude shortly anyway. Aguero just nodded and asked him to keep the intersection clear. It was a matter of waiting a little while or creating a confrontation that might get ugly.

  We headed back across the street, but soon found our way blocked by several busses that arrived and parked in the middle of the intersection. The drivers were going nowhere and neither were we. Aguero glared at the drivers for a while, willing them to move—but no dice. There were no passengers getting on or off and the drivers just sat there with their hands folded. The lieutenant stormed back toward the man in charge, and we followed in his wake. As we approached, we were confronted with a line of men standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their arms linked. They didn’t want us to go any further.

  Aguero was trying to get someone to move the buses when the Iraqi Police arrived. Two blue and white IP trucks pulled into the intersection and a senior policeman dismounted to investigate. He was a lean man with an impressive mustache, wearing an immaculately pressed uniform and the rank insignia of an IP colonel. He was a big wheel, Col. Hussein Jadoa, the Sadr City Chief of Police, and he was concerned that our presence there in that intersection might serve to agitate the crowd. He told Lieutenant Aguero that it created the potential for danger.

  “What danger?” Aguero asked looking around at the crowd. The Chief of Police was about to explain when Sergeant Fowler interrupted.

  “Gun—in that van!” he shouted and pointed at a shabby Nissan van full of chanting Sadr Bureau youths wearing black shirts.

  We jostled for position, keeping an eye on the vehicle as the Police Chief tried to calm our fears. “Let me investigate this,” he sai
d, and sent one of his cops to take a look at the people in the van. The cop walked up and shouted something at the driver. There was some back and forth before he returned to make his report. The Chief listened for a while and then smiled. “My man said that he is an off-duty policeman. He was warned to keep his weapon concealed.”

  “Colonel, gatherings of this sort have to be approved through the proper channels. Do you know who sanctioned this?”

  “It is most certainly the District Area Council who approved it.”

  “The DAC? I’m trying to get there for a meeting with my boss. Could you escort us through?”

  “It would be impossible right now as it would make problems with the people. But please, wait for this event to pass and then please come to my office after so that I may show you better hospitality.”

  “Rollings!” Aguero snapped, “Get up in that IP tower with a pair of binos.”

  Specialist Rollings and his battle-buddy Briones snatched a pair of binoculars and trotted to the walled police compound where a sentry pulled aside the gate. The tower rose about 20 feet above the wall that surrounded the police station. The pair of soldiers scampered up a ladder and began scanning the crowd. The Lieutenant let the pair look for a while as we made our way back to the vehicles and then asked for a report.

  “How many people do you see, Rollings?”

  “A whole shit-load, Sir.”

  “Is that a metric or a standard shit-load?” The lieutenant smacked his helmet in frustration. “Give me a number, you jackass!”

  “I don’t know, Sir. Maybe eight or ten thousand.”

  “Keep monitoring. Let me know if you see any weapons.”

  We leaned against our Humvees and watched the crowd. More busses and vans arrived to discharge people, and the ranks at the intersection were steadily growing. They were all chanting by this time, and we could feel tension in the air. I looked over at Aaron Fowler who had more time in Iraq than the rest of us. He’d come over with the ADVON, the advance party, and was the answer man in our platoon when it came to weapons and tactics. He was also an amateur gunsmith and read the Ranger Handbook like it was gospel. Fowler was eyeing the crowd with one foot cocked up on a Humvee bumper and one hand caressing the safety switch of his rifle. If he was uneasy, it was a sign that the rest of us should be more alert.

  Fowler had spent some time riding along on patrols with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment to get the lay of the land in Sadr City and learning their effective tactics, techniques, and procedures. I plied him for information at every opportunity, and he generally gave me useful tips or background on our AO.

  We’d been watching developments in the streets for about half an hour when Rollings alerted us from his perch up in the police tower. “It looks like a brigade-size plus marching up the street toward our position. About eight-hundred meters out.” I did the math and understood he was telling us there were about 2,000 to 5,000 people approaching. That’s a good size mob and potentially very dangerous, depending on their mood and inclinations.

  “Do you see any weapons?” The lieutenant wanted details.

  “I can’t tell.” Rollings reported after a while. “There’s a whole bunch of dudes waving swords around.”

  It looked like there was a parade approaching up the street with people in blocks like human floats. We could hear drums and cymbals getting louder, but we couldn’t see the musicians. The ceremony was supposedly over, but that didn’t do anything to decrease the ardor of the people we saw filing by the compound.

  “Hey, look…” Bourquin pointed at the passing parade who glared at us as they passed. “I didn’t know we’d get to review the troops today. They’re even doing an eyes-right.”

  “More like the stink-eye,” said York. The militia was chanting a Sadr City golden-oldie that began with “Allah…Mohammed…” and ended with a rousing chorus of “MOOK-tada, MOOK-tada, MOOK-tada—something—something.” It was becoming a familiar refrain. As they passed our position, they waved flags and brandished old ceremonial scimitars. We didn’t understand the shouts, but there was no mistaking the evil glares. I caught the eye of an older man in the passing mob and he gave me a nice throat-slicing gesture.

  I just smiled and that apparently was not the reaction he wanted. He fell out of ranks and stormed toward me. As he approached, I made an obvious effort to switch my rifle from safe to semi-automatic. Either he saw the move or he felt close enough to make his point. He stopped within a few feet of my position and gave me the old “MOOK-tada” a couple of times followed by a maniacal “Down USA!”

  “Salaam a lechum,” I said amiably. He headed back to rejoin the crowd and I slid my weapon back onto safe. It was a relatively mundane confrontation, but I didn’t turn my back on the demonstration until the last of the crowd passed.

  We finally reached the District Area Council after the melee at the intersection cleared and met up with Captain Denomy. While he and Lieutenant Aguero conferred on the demonstration, I stood security, staring at a bombed-out structure next to the council building. It was just a shell, victim of skillfully applied high explosive in earlier fighting. The shadows and rubble provided plenty of good sniper hides, and I scanned it carefully from top to bottom. Almost all of the walls were missing in the top five or six floors, exposing rusting iron skeletons. Near the top someone had hung washing to dry. It was obvious that someone lived in that shattered structure. Likely several someones, given the amount of laundry flapping in the breeze like tattered, shell-shot flags over the battlements of a besieged castle.

  Movement on a ground floor caught my eye, and I saw the little kid with the injured foot that we’d treated yesterday. He advanced toward me smiling and limping. He was still shoeless. We greeted each other and he called me “Good Mistah.” I felt a sudden urge to scoop him up out of the mess and mail him home where he could have shoes and wouldn’t have to live in a bombed-out building or beg for food from strangers. Of course, I couldn’t do that, so I just smiled at him and wondered if he’d want to slit my throat when he got old enough to understand his situation in this war-torn country.

  After a while, we departed for a meeting with the Sadr City Chief of Police. Captain Denomy’s vehicle slipped seamlessly into our convoy, and we steered through the Sadr City streets until we reached the IP compound where Police Colonel Jodoa was apparently waiting to show his visitors the promised hospitality. At the station, a smiling sentry lifted a bar to let us enter and we drove in to park and sort ourselves out for the visit. While the Captain gathered us to outline his plans, Swope had the drivers maneuver around the parking lot until they had all the Humvees facing the gate. It was what we called combat parking and made for a quick exit if required.

  “This is the Chief of Police Headquarters,” Captain Denomey said. “I just need to introduce us, find out what their needs are, and see what he has to say about this morning’s demonstration.” He pointed a finger at Aguero. “We don’t need a lot of people. I’ll take my RTO and whoever you want to go.”

  “Sir, I’ll go with you on this one.” Swope stepped toward Aguero.

  “Good. Fisk, you’ll go, and also Staff Sergeant York.”

  A police guide led us to an office in one of the compound’s two buildings. We passed groups of Iraqi policemen in clean, well-pressed uniforms, clustered in small groups and whispering as we walked by, smiling and nodding. Colonel Jadoa Hussein stood to greet us as we entered his office. His quarters were spacious but unadorned, like most Iraqi public offices. His desk was clean and there was no evidence of the paperwork piles that surround most American bureaucrats. There was an old rotary dial phone on the desk, a few pens, and an overused notebook, but not much else. There was no computer, no bulletin board or maps bristling with marker pins, no copy machine—not even a coffee pot. We were invited to find space on a clutch of old chairs that looked like they were flea-market purchases.

  While the officers went through the greeting rituals with Co
lonel Jadoa, I found a seat and pulled off my helmet, letting a cool breeze blow over my bald head. It was nice to be off my feet, to give my body a break from the weight of my gear. The palaver with the Company Commander was mostly conducted using his interpreter, and I tried to catch what I could of it from a distance. The subject at hand was the demonstration. “Tell him,” the Captain said to his interpreter, “that he has to report requests for gatherings like that through the liaison at the DAC.” There was more, but I couldn’t hear much of it. I kept my eyes on Colonel Jadoa. While our officers were speaking, he leaned forward, squinting as if he was painfully trying to comprehend the English phrases. I’d become convinced that he knew more about what was being said than he let on during our visit. He was acting like an ally and a gracious host, but Colonel Jodoa, the Iraqi Police Chief of Sadr City, betrayed us the very next day.

  April 4th, 2004

  It seemed like just another day in the combat zone. I had breakfast, shaved, and was contemplating a game of spades when I saw the platoon sergeant speed-walking toward the platoon area leaving a small plume of dust in his wake. Since I happened to be the first swinging Richard that he encountered, I caught his initial blast.

  “Fisk, go get your goddamn P-L—and I mean right now!” Swope’s tone and the ugly look on his face promised some sort of upcoming shit storm, so I hustled away wondering where to find the L-T and what sort of orders we would get when I did. Riddell was nearby and hustled along with me indicating he knew where the lieutenant was at the time.

  Our platoon leader slept in the Advance Party area, which was a large maintenance bay that had a roof and cots. That’s where we found Aguero crashed and sleeping soundly. We stood there for a while, wondering how much physical contact was appropriate in waking an officer. The way Aguero was sleeping, a polite request to wake up wouldn’t do much good. His cot was wedged tightly among a host of others containing sleeping soldiers and men who were already up and banging around, but Aguero was oblivious. He escaped it all by stuffing plugs into his ears. Apparently, he didn’t think that might cause him to miss his morning alarm.