Embedded (4 page)

Delta Force operators are supposed to be the baddest of the bad, the guys who kill you with their stare and have lighting bolts fly from their asses at their discretion. I cannot remember the names of the instructors, but I am going to guess they were Max and Stone Cold. The main speaker, Max, talked about how he had not killed many people face to face but
had killed hundreds of people with the radio (either with indirect fire, air support, or calling in a quick reaction force). He suggested we follow suit and ensure our communication procedures are tight. Max summarized his advice: “The radio helps you figure out who is coming to help out if you are stuck in an ambush, who is calling for fire, who is calling in the MEDEVAC [medical evacuation], who is calling EOD [Explosive Ordnance Disposal] teams, and so forth. Without proper radio procedures, you are fish bait for the insurgents.”

As a follow-on to the JIED TF classes we were given a brief on a brand-new piece of gear the Marines were fielding in Al Anbar called the Chameleon. By the time we hit the deck in the Triad we were supposed to have Chameleons on all of our Humvees. We had heard rumors of the device before the deployment, and the word on the street was that it came straight from the hands of God. It is an electronic countermeasure (ECM) device that sets the gold standard for stopping radio-controlled IED attacks. The specifics are classified, however. The U.S. Navy lieutenant junior grade teaching the class confided to everyone, “I can't get into the details, but I can tell you that the Chameleon will block any radio-controlled device the insurgents currently have and anything they will have in the foreseeable future.”

Hearing the lieutenant junior grade's news was outstanding. I was glad we would have large force fields around our Humvees, blocking all the IEDs in Al Anbar Province. There had to be a catch, right? Well, the catch was that the Chameleon blocks all radio-controlled IEDs—the IEDs triggered by cell phones, garage door openers, wireless telephones, and so forth. Sadly, the Wile E. Coyote method of connecting a group of explosives to a long copper wire with a trigger device attached to the end worked like a charm.

I came away with four pieces of advice from the IED classes. First, if you do not hear the IED, do not worry about it because you will be heading to heaven soon. Second, if you do hear the IED, praise God, because you are alive and still have a chance to kill the bastard who tried to blow you up. Third, if you see wires on the side of the road, odd shapes in the form of an artillery shell, people loitering around batteries, or other suspicious happenings, get as far away from the site as possible. Finally, before you go on a Sunday drive in Al Anbar Province, turn on your Chameleon. Pretty simple stuff, really.

After IED lectures I engaged in my second important endeavor of the
day, which was to sit through a brief by Gen. George Casey, the commander of all forces in Iraq. I was humbled as I sat through the presentation. Despite his diminutive stature (five feet six inches tall) and placid temperament, it was exhilarating to hear the powerful words come out of his mouth. General Casey was an impressive man. All the same, one thing disturbed me as I listened to him during the question and answer session. A soldier asked, “General, are the Iraqis in a civil war?” Casey replied, “No.” He paused, letting his words sink in, and continued. “We are moving away from an insurgency fight against coalition forces in Iraq to an internal sectarian fight in Iraq where the Sunnis are fighting for control over what they believe to be a Shia-led government.” The small crowd of fifty advisers laughed at the response. It was obvious the general did not want to be tagged as being the one who said Iraq was in a civil war.

Sensing the crowd's distaste with the general's response, Major General Everson, General Casey's deputy, commented, “Gents, seriously, if a civil war was upon us, would we ever be able to call a spade a spade without getting in trouble with our bosses?” The crowd chuckled as Casey gave Everson a disapproving look.

At the end of the question and answer session, I was vexed by what General Casey had said. He was so political in his response that he seemed disingenuous. We were not CNN or the
New York Times
; we were his troops and looking for honesty and straight answers, not some crap we would expect from a politician.

I am not sure why the “civil war” term is such an issue. According to the
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
, a civil war is “a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country.” What I saw in Iraq were Sunnis and Shias, citizens of the same country, who were violently fighting each other for political control of Iraq. To me it seemed cut and dried that a civil war was happening in Iraq. I wished someone would call it that and not beat around the bush.

The next day I showed up twenty minutes early to class. This was not my MO because twenty minutes wasting away in the classroom was twenty minutes I could be learning Arabic, doing PT, or sleeping; however, I was glad I showed up early since I had a unique opportunity to talk with a U.S. Army reservist lieutenant colonel who would be leading an adviser team north of Baghdad.

I quickly discovered that U.S. Army adviser teams did not have many of the advantages our MiTT team had prior to deployment. All the soldiers
on their teams were meeting one another for the first time at Camp Taji. Moreover, their predeployment training consisted of two weeks at the camp. That was it. This was a scary proposition. Before my conversation with the lieutenant colonel, I felt the Marine Corps was short changing me by only giving me five months to prepare for the same mission for which Special Forces spend two to three years training. Guess I was wrong.

In addition to having no substantial training and no time to create unit cohesion, the U.S. Army personnel sounded naïve about the embedded adviser mission. For example, when I was speaking with the reservist lieutenant colonel, he said, “I am excited about going to the 4th Motor Transport Army Brigade to help support the Iraqi army.” As he explained the concept of what he thought he was doing as a MiTT team leader, I concluded that the lieutenant colonel was lost in the sauce. He thought the Army had assigned him to a U.S. Army unit that would be supporting the Iraqi army versus assigning him to embed as an adviser with the Iraqi army.

I addressed the lieutenant colonel with confidence and tact. “Sir, you know your mission is to be embedded with the Iraqi army as an adviser, right? The 4th Motor Transport Army Brigade is an Iraqi unit. You will be living with the unit and training with the unit. You won't be working within a U.S. Army unit that is supporting an Iraqi unit from afar.” The silver-haired lieutenant colonel addressed me as a grandfather would a grandson, “Young lieutenant, I think you are sadly mistaken. I am sure I know what unit the Army assigned me. I doubt the U.S. Army would be stupid enough to put me in an Iraqi unit. However, thanks for your concern.” At the conclusion of his lecture I suggested, “Sir, seriously, I would ask one of the instructors to double check for you.” He obliged and found out the truth. His silver hair turned white.

Staff Sergeant Buff taught a class on maintaining personal health in Iraq. Buff was Chris Rock in camouflage: skinny, short, and hilarious. He had served in the U.S. Army for seventeen years and over the years he had developed a unique teaching style. He enjoyed bringing up shocking examples of what not to do in a particular situation and then assumed we had enough common sense to know what to do in a particular situation.

Buff started his class with an example of what not to do in Iraq. “Gentlemen, I know some of you may think it is a good idea, but having scorpion fights or sand spider competitions is probably not the brightest idea in the world. Marines are especially keen on doing this . . . don't do it!” He
smirked at the Marine-filled corner of the small classroom and continued. “If you don't believe me, talk to my Marine buddy who got bit by both of the competitors the last time he tried to host a scorpion fight competition—pure genius, that friend of mine.”

Buff then tackled the problem of Iraqi “close-talkers.” Close-talkers are people who speak at a distance so close that the person listening can feel the warmth of their breath. Unfortunately, Iraq is filled with close-talkers. In Buff's words, “Embedded advisers and close-talker Iraqis do not mix. Iraqis have mouths filled with airborne diseases that none of y'all have been exposed to. This can lead to serious health issues while you are in Iraq. Now listen up.”

Buff had a solution. He joked, “Gents, instead of smelling Iraqi bad breath and eating their saliva as they speak with you, I suggest that you perform my ‘perpendicular, circular walk technique.' Basically, as an Iraqi is talking to you, walk in a circle around him with your head perpendicular to theirs. This will keep you from exposing yourself to their diseases. Now, of course, this is going to seem odd to your Iraqi counterparts. Don't worry—I have a solution. Tell the Iraqis you have a lazy eye or that you cannot hear out of your left ear and that you need to point your ear toward them in order to maximize what you can hear. It works every time!” The class burst in laughter, partly because what he said was funny, but mainly because we knew this was a technique Buff used in practice. His anti-close-talker technique may work for a U.S. Army medic, I thought, but it is not going to work for an adviser who needs to earn the trust and confidence of his Iraqi counterparts.

Buff's final point was on the threat of hepatitis in Iraq. In his eloquent and unique fashion, he explained, “Gentlemen, I have a beautiful poem for you: Flies that frolic in your feces today, will be joining you for dinner tomorrow.” He paused after receiving some confused looks then continued. “Gents, what I am talking about here is hepatitis. Hepatitis is a major threat to you in this country for two reasons: First, there is no sewage system. Second, Iraqis like to stand on Western style toilet bowls and engage in a game of target practice, trying to get their turd in the toilet. Unfortunately, they often miss and an American ends up sitting on it. I can't emphasize enough: wash your hands and keep your areas clean!” Buff did not need to explain the threat of hepatitis any further. We understood loud and clear.

Following Buff's class we attended a course on Arab culture. “Mr. Mohammed” (how the instructor referred to himself) presented a compelling
lecture on the importance of understanding Arab culture and language in his region of the world. Mohammed, an American citizen originally from Jordan, gave us the standard story on Arab culture but provided an illuminating example to the class that I doubt any of us will forget. He asked everyone in the class to touch their right earlobe. One of the U.S. Army soldiers popped out of his seat, took his right hand, and reached up to touch his right earlobe. Everyone in the classroom looked at each other and tried to figure out the purpose of the exercise.

Mohammed went on to explain to the class and the soldier, “So, I asked you to touch your earlobes and you all quickly took your right hand and reached up and grabbed your right earlobe using the quickest, most direct method possible. This is how I would expect an American to respond to this request.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “However, an Arab would do this slightly differently.”

The classroom was on edge to hear how touching one's right earlobe could possibly be different for Arabs. Mohammed slowly reached behind his head with his left hand, strained to reach the right side of his head, and touched his right earlobe. “This is how an Arab would touch his earlobe.” He further explained, “How I grabbed my earlobe summarizes the fundamental difference between Arab people and Western people. Western people will do what is the most efficient and the most direct when asked to do something; however, Arab people will put in the extra effort to please someone and make them feel important. The Arab will do this, even if they must go out of their way and the extra effort is wasteful or inefficient.”

Everyone was perplexed. Mohammed continued, “This is a cultural difference that Westerners find hard to understand. Nevertheless, if you give up your desire to be efficient and direct and focus more on being accommodating and supportive, you will have the Arab people on your side and they will respect you as a brother versus detesting you as an occupier.”

As Mohammed finished his class the crowd generously applauded his efforts. His lecture had illuminated the intricacies of Arab culture in a way that nobody had been able to do up until that point. I am still amazed there is another way one can touch his or her earlobe in this world.

After attending numerous seminars on everything from communications to Arab culture, I had much to think over. But I think the best advice came from Major Bullock, the final speaker of the course and a former MiTT member himself. He summarized the psychology of the MiTT experience: “When you guys first start advising you will have a very high
give-a-fuck factor. Just like me you will be super motivated and excited about transforming the Iraqi army into a twenty-first-century fighting force.” Everyone in the class nodded in acknowledgment, and the major continued. “However, once you are exposed to the Iraqis' complete lack of desire to get anything done, their intense corruption, and their cultural norms of laziness and lack of initiative, your give-a-fuck factor drops precipitously. Eventually, it drops so low, as mine has, that you resort to a give-a-fuck factor of zero, and reach the not-giving-a-fuck stage. In the not-giving-a-fuck stage you learn to accept Iraqi standards and let them do things their way as long as it has a chance of working.” He paused. “You let them do it their way, even if their method is nowhere near the most efficient or intelligent way to accomplish the mission. The reason you let them do it their way? Because you ain't changing Iraqi culture anytime soon.” By the end of the major's discussion, the entire class was chuckling. The thing that made the major compelling was the fact he was brutally honest and didn't sugarcoat his experience. I appreciated his honesty.