Two
BULLETS AND BEDOUINS
MY JOURNEY INTO THE PERSONALITY of Abu Floos began in earnest with my arrival in Kuwait in March 2004, although the route had not been direct. Like the flight to Kuwait, I had stopped and started several times as I bounced along a turbulent path to the Middle East. It had taken me almost two years of fitful spurts to get this point. The plane ride, at least, had taken only twenty-four hours, but it felt like an eternity with each stop seemingly a needless waypoint further prolonging my arrival. After leaving Texas on a cold March morning, the airplane, filled to capacity with soldiers and equipment, had stopped in Maine and Germany to refuel before finally touching down in Kuwait.
I had been back at Fort Hood for only a week when we left. I had spent the previous six months in Honduras for reasons that seemed quite rational at the time. Actually, for two years I had been seeking a way to involve myself with the proclaimed war on terror. I had been close several times but always seemed to find myself watching the world’s events unfold on television. My initial hope of answering the nation’s call had died a torturously slow death during the course of several months of hand-wringing and false alarms. It started, as did almost everything associated with the war on terror, on September 11, 2001.
At that time I had been an executive officer, or second in command, of an M1A2 tank company training at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. In the middle of this desert, the army conducts intensive month-long training to hone its prowess in high-intensity combat. Although slight changes involving rogue actors and chemical attacks had been instituted prior to our rotation, it remained largely a vestige of the Cold War. For thirty days, we maneuvered against forces following Soviet doctrine and using Soviet equipment. Completion of this training sequence is the threshold requirement for an army armor unit to be “trained” and hence “deployable.” These were the sought-after descriptors that allowed a unit to be listed in the vanguard of American units available in contingencies. The goal of every soldier, from the highest-ranking general to the newest recruit, is to be the first weapon the nation reaches for when there is trouble. Soldiers train for months at a time, sometimes years, to prepare themselves for the contingency that they may be needed to defend our country.
By no means do I imply that anyone prays for war. In fact, it is the opposite. The U.S. Army is composed of professional soldiers with loving families, who are proud and want to serve their country, but they pray nightly that they never get the opportunity. It is a paradox that exists in few professions and one that the American public struggles to truly understand. It is the paradox of being an American soldier.
On September 11, 2001, we loaded our tanks onto the rail cars that would transfer them back to Fort Hood. Rumors swept up and down the rail line as we listened to updates and analyses about the attacks on the single radio that could receive a decent FM signal. We had little doubt that a consequence of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington would be military action requiring the deployment of my unit. Credible military sources indicated that our tanks would be going directly to the port of Beaumont, Texas—near my hometown—instead of Fort Hood, to be loaded onto ships and sent to deliver America’s military answer abroad. Only hours into the aftermath of 9/11, none of us knew of al Qaeda or Afghanistan, so we only talked of invading Iraq. There was no reason to direct our anger toward Iraq, other than the previous Iraq invasion and the unspoken sense that we would invade Iraq again someday. Why else would we spend a month in the California desert each year practicing for a large-scale invasion if not to eventually finish an old war?
Despite the heightened speculation about deploying immediately, the tanks and soldiers returned to Fort Hood and did not go directly to the port of Beaumont. Nonetheless, the First Cavalry Division has a long legacy as one of the army’s premiere war-fighting units, and seemed assured of a place in the eventual deployment force. Rumors and orders to “be prepared” swirled throughout the unit for weeks. We were an armored unit, so the deployment to mountainous Afghanistan never seemed to include us, but the talk of Iraq never subsided. We continued to prepare to deploy at a frenetic pace for the next sixteen months.
In February 2003, I grimaced alongside my colleagues as we watched Secretary of State Colin Powell make the American case at the United Nations. I shook my head as the proud warrior pitched the pitiful intelligence about Iraq with a speculative, cartoonish PowerPoint presentation. The lackluster presentation eroded my hope that there was a real, justifiable need for our services. For weeks afterwards, nightly alert phone calls kept me driving back and forth to the base, practicing to deploy, but my faith in the urgency faded. There would be an Iraq invasion, but my unit would not be part of the initial force. The Fourth Infantry Division was selected to deploy from Fort Hood, while the First Cavalry Division would remain behind.
There were a few weeks of hope that we would deploy through Turkey, but as more of our equipment shipped away as reserve components and spare parts, the reality set in. After over a year of waiting, we were getting left behind. In a brave effort to support morale and maintain relevance, the alert drills continued. The collective loss of enthusiasm and envy toward the soldiers chosen to deploy were open subjects around the headquarters, particularly during the early mornings we spent loading the other soldiers and their gear onto planes.
In order to compensate for the emotional letdown while still maniacally clinging to the hope that we would be chosen to deploy and save the day, the division leadership busied itself with ordering a series of tasks that only gave the appearance of maintaining its focus. There were endless trainings and qualifications, all events that made the units look more cohesive and lethal on paper. Meanwhile, the soldiers openly talked of their disappointment. Many of them, like a lot of their officers, firmly believed that their unit was the best unit in the army, and they could not understand how they had been left behind. It was a feeling that I understood well.
My own sense of purpose drifted by the month, and I began looking for different ways to spend my remaining time in the army. By May 2004 I would have served my five-year obligation and would presumably leave the army. In order to pass the time, I volunteered to leave Fort Hood for Honduras for a six-month tour, which coincided with my last six months in the army. I knew there was nothing more that I could do from Fort Hood. At least in Honduras, there was still a “war on drugs.”
In Honduras, my daily routine as a staff officer carried me through the days and the weeks. I had almost forgotten there was a war in Iraq. Moreover, I did not care. It had become increasingly clear that weapons of mass destruction were not going to be found in Iraq. The reasons for going to war seemed to be evaporating by the day. Like many in America, I had followed our triumphant race to Baghdad, then had become bored with the day-today updates. There were no headline events for months or at least none big enough to make me take notice in Honduras. I had also applied to and was accepted by Georgetown Law and planned to enroll in the fall of 2004. I resolved myself to life outside the army, and I looked forward to the transition.
One day, as I was reviewing the housing options for incoming law students at Georgetown, I received a call from Fort Hood. It was not an official phone call but rather one from my former West Point roommate, letting me know “unofficially” that my unit had been alerted for an immediate deployment to Iraq. He had seen the list of people to be involuntarily extended by the army, and my name was on it. He said I should get a letter in the next day or so, and that was all he knew. I thanked him, hung up the receiver, and took a deep breath. I was at once excited and resentful. I would finally deploy to Iraq but would not be entering law school as planned. This was disruptive enough, but the frustrating aspect of the timing was that I was no longer of the same mind-set I had been six months ago.
I set out for a run to clear my head. Winding down a dirt trail, surrounded by the ficus groves and the wide-ranging hibiscus plants that clung to the weathered collections of
hooches, I headed toward the base’s perimeter fence. I contemplated the impact of the recent deployment order to Iraq against the current situation in Central America. During the last several months of 2003, I had become increasingly convinced that the situation in Iraq was going to develop away from our collective expectations. Central America was a touchstone for popular revolution, and the images, slogans, and ideology of leftist rebels are always painted on walls in old town squares. It seemed appropriate, as I turned onto the six-mile perimeter that defined the area formerly known as Palmerola Air Base, to consider what I was about to undertake by first taking in my surroundings.
On my left, now abandoned, was a cluster of buildings that once housed five thousand U.S. troops, part of the American effort against the contra guerrillas in El Salvador. The wind blowing through the barracks’ broken windows whistled warnings about the difficulties of fighting guerrilla wars. On my right, beyond an eight-foot fence duly patrolled by Honduran soldiers, I could see collections of houses clustered together. Jumbles of cinder blocks with palm roofs supported by roughly hewn logs, they sheltered both animals and humans. The older people, with their parched brown skin and cast-off American T-shirts, stared listlessly back at me, their eyes conveying a mixture of envy and sadness. The children were curious and playful. They frolicked alongside the fence, stride for stride with me, laughing and yelling. They were too young to realize they would have very few days to run and laugh but would instead spend the rest of their lives calculating ways to survive. Living in the shadows of the former American base made them relatively better off than their peers, but the tall fence demarcated more than a property boundary—it neatly sliced the world into “haves” and “have nots.” I would later see the same division and social stratification in Baghdad and learn that the strength and size of the wall do not matter. Societal attempts to starkly and artificially cordon and separate humans into a class structure based on an arbitrary variable are unsustainable. I picked up my pace and headed back to my hooch, still thinking about how I needed to prepare myself, mentally and physically. For all of those miles I’d spent running, I was no closer to understanding what was in front of me.
By ordering me to involuntarily stay in the army and join the effort in Iraq, the Department of the Army told me to set aside both the warning signs of history and the festering doubts I had begun to nurture about the outcome. True to design, I packed for my flight back to Fort Hood in the mechanical, robotic way that the army instills. Two large green duffle bags consumed my belongings in the precise reverse order that they had belched them out six months ago. My whole life or, more precisely, the army-issued portion of it, lay neatly contained in two canvas bags. The other portion, my feelings, still lay strewn about as thoughts spilled forth in streams of anxiety and worry. I knew I had a duty to which I was dedicated, but my doubts continued.
The finality of one career ending and a new career beginning had made sense to me. Now there was the question of delaying law school for an indeterminate period. Afterward, who knows what direction my life would take? In the end, I was happy to have a year in Iraq to sort out what my life meant and see whether it might go in a different direction. Along the way, maybe I could find myself as well.
My time to start figuring out my new life began on the flight to Kuwait. First, I needed to reacquaint myself with my fellow soldiers. I knew most of them from the previous four and a half years I had served in the battalion, although there had been some significant changes. Most important, the battalion had undergone a leadership change while I was gone. In place of an erudite, professorial commander with whom I had a professional rapport, I now had a new rough-hewn commander who had little time for theoretical discussions. Our first meeting occurred just prior to takeoff. I was seated behind him, which was part intentional and part providence. I had hoped for an opportunity to press him about what my role would be in the battalion, because I had just returned and did not have an assigned job. It was highly unusual for this to happen, because the army is often short of officers, but we seemed to have a surplus of one.
I did not have to wait long for an insight into the new commander’s persona. When the “fasten seat belt” video came on, it was presented in English, Spanish, and French. When the French sentences rolled across, the new commander looked back at me and accusingly asked whether I was smart. I responded affirmatively, albeit a bit sheepishly, and he told me to translate the French sentence. As I began, he cut me off and said it was good that I spoke a “bunch of languages,” because I was going to be the “governance officer.” He then turned back to the movie that was beginning and left me to wonder what a governance officer and a working French vocabulary had in common. Moreover, what did a governance officer do, and what specifically could a position like that do in an armor battalion, whose sole purpose was combat?
The plane began its transatlantic hopscotch, arcing through the eastern sky. I stared out into the perpetual pre-dawn twilight. The orange corona of the rising sun teased the clouds, threatening to rise and illuminate the sky. Each time, we would land on a darkened runway, wait a few hours, and take off again into a slowly warming horizon. I spent those hours thinking about the possibilities in Iraq and about the radical way in which my life had changed in a few short weeks. For the past six months, I had been in single-minded pursuit of leaving the army. Now, the clarity and surety that previously defined my plans had receded, leaving me floating through the deep sky above the Atlantic.
A sudden touchdown jarred me from a remarkably deep sleep. With the same irritation and purpose of a domestic civilian flight, soldiers rummaged through overhead compartments and under seats before shuffling toward the exit door. Stepping through it, I paused, stunned by the blinding brightness of the Kuwaiti sun. My knees buckled. After spending almost twenty-four hours in the cool, dark cabin of the airplane, I was not prepared for the assault on my senses by the Kuwaiti environment. The disorienting blindness rendered me momentarily helpless, like a newborn gasping and grasping his way into a strange new world.
My first tentative steps after the cramped hours of flight brought me wobbling into the desert heat, already well above 100 degrees. It bounced from the black-streaked tarmac, sizzled against the aluminum American Airlines logo on the plane’s fuselage, and buried itself into my new desert uniform. The sand-colored uniform, which was designed to reflect the heat, wilted within seconds. Dark, salty bands of moisture appeared almost instantly around my neck and under my arms as rivulets of sweat wicked their way through the starched fabric. My eyes struggled to find contrast from behind my sunglasses. Everywhere I looked, a brilliant monochromatic glare obscured my sight.
Grasping the handrail to steady myself, I slowly made my way down the stairway from the airplane. Only a few short steps into my descent, I was gasping for air. A heady mixture of jet fuel fumes and melting rubber wafted across the runway and quickly consumed the air-conditioned cabin air. The heat undulated over rainbow-spotted pools of engine oil forming below the engines and across patches of oozing asphalt before burning itself into my lungs. I choked down the suffocation, longing for a breath of cool air and cursing everything about the phrase “dry heat.”
Still clutching the handrail, I began to make out the expansive airfield. Passenger airplanes lined up like taxis at a downtown hotel waiting to shuttle soldiers to and from the United States. Jet engines roared intermittently, and tires squealed as planes landed and took off at quick intervals. Kuwait’s robust runway complex and modern, capacious port system, which provided a dedicated system to move U.S. forces into desert staging areas near the Iraq border, screamed, “Thank you for Desert Storm!”
Completely disoriented, I followed the winding trail of soldiers from the plane to an assembly area just beyond the airstrips. Every few feet, other soldiers, mostly reservists wearing reflective vests and gesturing deliberately, guided our ant trail safely into the assembly area. They were unarmed but took themselves quite seriously. Their dour dispositions and
the generally pedestrian feel of the whole affair made it seem more like a school field trip than entry into a combat zone.
Grand tour buses with heavily tinted windows and thick felt window shades pulled into the parking lot, one after the other. Each bus bore distinctive logos advertising its incorporation as a “tour service provider.” It was as if the buses had discharged hundreds of tourists in Kuwait City and returned to the airport to pick up a new load. After waiting in a holding area for hours, alternately napping and cursing at the long wait, I finally boarded an idling bus, settled into one of the plush seats by the window, and felt the low rumbling as the buses hummed along the concrete highway, whisking us in air-conditioned cocoons, complete with television screens, toward our staging area. Eventually, the glowing metropolis of Kuwait City faded quickly into the inky black desert night. Street lamps whizzed by, illuminating signs that pointed not to other highways but to a one-word destination: “desert.” Every few miles, the cloverleaf exit ramps ended abruptly in the Kuwaiti sand. I almost felt as if I was on the verge of modernity looking out my window at a prehistoric time when things were much simpler. The sudden disappearance of the highway beneath the sand almost beckoned me off the road and into a more tranquil place.
Father of Money Page 3
