I heard that you would start hating being here after about a month. I figured that the tempo of operations, or the violence, or the smell that permeates so much of the city, or maybe even the constant interaction with a population that is sometimes downright hostile to your presence would be to blame for this. I had never imagined that the discontent would stem from within.
My company is driving me insane right now.
We have been on lockdown—grounded—for the past four days. We can’t leave the company area unless we’re on patrol. We can’t call home. We can’t pick up our laundry. We can’t buy supplies (the smokers were the first to lose composure). This kind of thing is necessary when someone is killed, as it allows us to notify the family of the deceased before the rumor mill reaches them. Fortunately, nobody died. We actually have yet to make contact. Violence keeps happening really close to us, but we’re always 200 meters or 10 minutes too late to be involved. Lucky? I guess. I’m starting to think that the insurgents have decided that it’s much easier to hit Iraqi forces than American forces and are hedging their bets. Not to question the bravery of our Iraqi allies—to the contrary, they’re probably too brave. Brazen. Occasionally foolhardy in their machismo.
No, we’re on lockdown because my leadership wants to prove a point of some kind about accountability of equipment. My platoon (yep, I’m afraid that I have a hand in this disaster) lost track of two handheld radios about three months ago. Fortunately these were outdated pieces of junk without cryptography, so they weren’t sensitive items—more like crappy walkie-talkies. But yes, we lost them. And we scoured the earth to find them. And then we scoured the other platoons to find them. In essence, no stone was left unturned for miles and miles around the company area in the vast effort to locate these radios. Lo and behold, however, we found one four days ago comfortably nestled between two boxes in the middle of our stuff. Are we incompetent? Maybe sometimes, but not in this case. Someone had apparently finally opened one of their personal bags, realized that they no longer needed that radio they had accidentally(?) taken, and had made an effort to blamelessly return it. The commander called thief. Probably right, all things considered. But the fallout was ridiculous. After all of the leadership stood at attention for a half hour being screamed at, we were told that we were to be cut off from the world. No contact. Daily details—lay out your property, inventory it, repack it, lay it out again, repeat procedure—until the thief came forward or the other radio was recovered. If the other radio is even here, the person who has it was obviously smart enough to dispose of it in a place where we’ll never find it. It would be suicide to present it now. And no one is going to identify himself as the thief.
So here we are. Our families probably think some of us got killed. Nope, we’re all sound of body. But we’re rapidly losing our minds. My squad leaders were the first to start rebelling, which is no surprise as SSG Crunchberry and SSG Chase can be pretty downright moody at times. Especially Crunchberry. They have been exceptionally surly and sullen as of late. Then PSG Lark started losing his cool this evening—not in an angry way, but in an advanced apathy that is much worse for me to deal with. Some of my team leaders, including SGT Mountain (who was signed for those two radios in the first place) decided to utilize the open door policy with the commander (despite my objections) in order to state their displeasure at this policy. I can understand. One just found out his wife is pregnant, another is going through a divorce, and another is a newlywed. They need to call home. But going to the CO via the open door policy, thereby bypassing and simultaneously dragging in their own chain of command, is a recipe for pain. There is no better way to get me in trouble, which in turn makes me a bit taciturn. So with torrents of abuse coming down from above and torrents of complaints surging up from above, I find my general good nature is beginning to rebel.
I’m QRF right now, which is the Quick Reaction Force. We stand by for a 24 hour period and provide immediate relief to any units under fire in our AO. We’re supposed to be battle-ready and rolling upon 15 minutes notice. This is doable unless you’re the guy planning the mission. I have to make a maneuver plan in route and try to brief it over the radio—very difficult—and just hope I’m fast on the draw. It’s an adventure every time. My shift ends at 0200, which is why I find myself with a rare moment of free time with which to write this entry. When I haven’t been patrolling I’ve been planning patrols, debriefing patrols, being briefed on new patrols, doing silly details as part of our mass punishment, and maintaining the paperwork on our platoon. Occasionally I sleep, but I’m starting to get a serious case of weltschmerz. I’m sure I’ll buck right up once I can talk to my wife again and eat a solid meal. Maybe we’ll even have a regular patrol schedule soon. And maybe they’ll stop sending me on fool’s errands across the city of Mosul.
Three days ago a helicopter team located a machine gun on a rooftop. They didn’t see any National Police or Iraqi Army manning it, so they called it up as a possible attack position. I was tasked to investigate. We found it on top of the roof, just as they said, and thoroughly confused the police officer manning it. He had just stepped down for a bit to use the latrine. This is common enough here; I had to physically wake up the guards at the last National Police outpost I visited. Still. This place was marked on the map as a checkpoint. I mean, good practice and all, but really? I had to cancel the mission I was on so that I could rapidly respond to this breaking intelligence.
And yesterday I had to stop my mission yet again and respond to a report of a possible IED on one of the main roads. They gave me a six-digit grid to the coordinates, which is a nice way of saying that it might be within a hundred meter radius of the point provided. This is a lot of ground to cover to find a bundle of buried explosives. Especially since you REALLY don’t want to walk up and find it right beneath your feet. There was no problem finding this one, though, because the Iraqi Police were everywhere around it. Or where it was, anyway. It had exploded three hours before I received my intel that there MAY be one there. You cannot pay for this kind of intel. It’s how we win wars. Of course, it took me about an hour to ascertain exactly where the IED was, when it had exploded, and what it had damaged because none of the police on the ground had the same story. So at least they’ve got it worse than we do.
On the upside, I got flipped off by an eight-year old child today. Little tyke. Adorable, really. Standing there by the road as I patrolled by with my men, innocent and curious. Straight up flipped me off. And not just my patrol, but me individually. Must have a solid sense for finding the officer. The neighborhood I patrolled today has not been visited by Coalition Forces in YEARS, I’m told. Somehow all my predecessors just kept passing it by. These guys were obviously not happy to see us in their streets, and the military-age males in the neighborhood were downright hostile. Nothing significant in the way of violence, fortunately, but they made it clear that we weren’t welcome. The kids stayed away and didn’t wave, the adults all just stared us down silently, and the dogs stopped frolicking and started baring teeth. Seriously. I think cats were hissing at us. Thank God we had air cover at the time. Some incredibly bored chopper pilots happened across our convoy, jumped to our frequency, and asked if we minded if they tagged along up above. I was more than happy to have the company. And they, with their itchy trigger fingers, were just thrilled to hear about the reception we were getting down there. I really do think they’ve started going insane with boredom. When guys started moving up on their rooftops, our chopper friends started buzzing them at low altitudes. They came back down in a hurry. Invaluable asset.
Then, strangely enough, things started changing. The patrol crossed some invisible line where people loved us. Adults held up small children to see our patrol and wave at us. I looked back at one point to find one of my soldiers completely surrounded by fascinated school children, all giggling and pointing at him. Strangest transition ever. I went from fully expecting to get shot to knee-deep in happy kids with practically no warning at all. I’m gonna have to check the demographics of my AO and figure out where and why things started looking rosy back there.
Well, it is 0140, so I imagine it’s time for me to start wrapping up this entry so I can brief my replacement and then catch a few hours of sleep. It’ll be my first in a while. We have another full day tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. Some of my men complain of boredom, and I get positively livid with envy. They’re spared the planning process and the infinite debrief. Some people on the FOB work eight hour days. I actually find myself wanting to inflict bodily harm upon them. If anyone was foolish enough to invent a drug that would render sleep unnecessary for human functioning, only one organization would be cruel enough to force it upon their people. The US Army. Sleep is a crutch, a handicap, a weakness that must be purged from the body. I have so much caffeine and nicotine in my system that my hands shake. I have been awake for DAYS. I actually can’t remember when I last slept for more than thirty minutes. Every now and then I glance down and find a lit cigarette in my hands, half-way finished before I even remember that I don’t smoke. How did it even get there? I don’t know anymore.
Things will improve. We’re gaining stability, getting a long term schedule soon, and starting to get a grasp on the things we need to accomplish. Our vision as a unit is clearing. The lockdown will eventually stop. I will one day be able to call my wife. People will stop calling me in the middle of my mission because they saw a light flicker four miles away. I will meet all of my Iraqi National Police counterparts, we will banter and befriend each other, we will conduct perfectly executed joint patrols, and they will barrage me with their finest chai in gratitude. It will get better. But right now? This whole damned war can go to hell.
