Sunrise Over Fallujah (8 page)

“Yo, Captain Coles!” Jonesy spotted Coles coming
down the wide lane behind the main buildings.

Captain Coles turned in our direction and then headed toward us. He had a smile on his face and I knew that he understood how pissed we were. We were at some Iraqi military school not far from Rasheed Airport. The school was modern and only had a little damage from the invasion. But they had brought in Port-O-Potties and lined them up in the school's courtyard and our First Squad was painting them. The other CA Squads were off except for a little work they were doing in the sleeping area because they were going to be on patrol in the evening.

“Jonesy, you're doing a good job,” Coles said.

“Sir, I don't want to be doing no good job,” Jonesy said. “I'm supposed to be a warrior, not painting outhouses.”

“They're inspecting the sewer system for hidden weapons and
bombs,” Captain Coles said. “As soon as they make sure they're safe, and operative and secure, we can abandon the outdoor toilets.”

“This is big-time wrong, Captain,” Jonesy said. “Big-time wrong.”

The real deal was that the guys from the 3
^rd
ID and the 4
^th
Marines were bopping around Baghdad and getting on television. They were there when they tore down Saddam's statue and all the Iraqis were cheering. That was only right, I thought. They were the ones who did all the fighting.

Baghdad is a trip. It's a beautiful city with wide, clean streets and modern cars zipping down the highways. The sky is low and huge and so blue it's almost purple. The Tigris River has a mix of vessels, some large, some small with one or two people. There is a feeling of peace about the place most of the time, but then there is the distant chatter of an automatic weapon or the dark silhouette of one of our planes streaking across the sky and once again you're reminded that there is a war going on.

We painted the Port-O-Potties bright colors and Marla found a camel spider in the one she was splashing a bright red. When we finished painting we went to the Quarters Area and found the other squads, including Medical, cursing up a storm because somebody had made them line sandbags along the walls.

“If the war is over, how come we have to line the walls with sandbags?” Pendleton asked.

You did what you were told to do in the army, so the question wasn't even worth answering.

The first few days in Baghdad were super cool and typical army days in that we didn't do anything except sit around and watch television so that we could tell how wonderful we were. Most of the guys they interviewed were from the marines but we were all happy. There was talk about fighting here and there, and some of it was serious, but we were cool. The word came down to hire as many Iraqis to do little jobs around the camp as we could. They were all searched when they came to the gates in the morning and didn't have that much work to do during the day. They left just after chow time in the evening.

“If we don't win any hearts or minds at least we can win a lot of gums and bad teeth,” Jonesy said, pointing to the guy that had been assigned to us. “He just sit around and smile at us all day.”

Jamil Sidqi al-Tikrit was supposed to be Saddam's fourth or fifth cousin. He spoke a little English and was somewhere between one hundred and two hundred years old, or so it seemed. He went around all day straightening up the bunks and sweeping the floors. He smelled like garlic and cigarette smoke and his hands, spotted and brown, shook the way old people's hands do sometimes.

“It's good to have us a slave,” Pendleton from Third Squad said.

I didn't dig that too much and neither did Jonesy. We didn't say anything but Pendleton caught our attitude. He came over to me later and showed me a letter he had received from his wife.

“These are my girls,” he said, laying photos of two redheaded girls, about three or four, on my duffel bag.

I nodded and looked away. From the corner of my eye I saw Pendleton shrug and pick up his photos.

Jamil said he spoke English, but when we talked to him he mostly just nodded. When Ahmed showed up with a bag of chocolate bars we asked him to ask Jamil what he thought of us invading his country. Ahmed questioned him in Arabic and Jamil answered him.

“He wants to know what you want him to say,” Ahmed said.

“We want his honest opinion,” Marla said. “What does he think about us coming in and knocking off Saddam Hussein?”

Ahmed spoke to the old man again in Arabic.

“When you kill a camel it is better to cut off the body than the head,” the old man said. “If you cut off the head then the camel doesn't know what he is.”

“Birdy, you figure out what that means and I'll give you a dollar,” Marla said.

She kept her dollar.

Morning. I was still tired when I heard Captain Coles call to us. He said something about a meeting in the mess tent.

“How come they didn't tell us last night there was a mess tent?” Jonesy asked.

We found it was the officers' mess and there was fresh coffee, eggs, sausage patties, and pastry. Captain Miller and Barbara from
the medics were already there. Marla and Jean Darcy were the last to arrive; Marla came over and sniffed me.

“Not bad,” she said, smiling. “I was looking for you last night. I thought we could shower together and wash each other's backs.”

The girl is messing with my mind big-time. I'm beginning to think that she doesn't believe I know much about women, which is true, but I don't like women knowing that.

Harris was going on about how he had served a tour in Qatar after the first Gulf War. Jonesy asked him how he had liked South America.

“Qatar ain't in no South America, fool!” Harris was incredulous at what he thought was Jonesy's stupidity. He went on drawing imaginary maps in the air with a stubby brown finger. But he didn't give us any more war stories, so Jonesy did his job.

Major Sessions came in with a colonel. Short wide dude with gray eyes and a big forehead. She gave an informal introduction to our crew. The colonel's name was Opdyke.

“As you know, sir, we're sort of out there taking notes and observing to see how our CA Special Ops might need tinkering,” Major Sessions said. She was looking fresh, well rested.

“Well, I have a great deal of hope for the Civil Affairs operations in this war,” said Colonel Opdyke. His voice was raspy and I wondered if he worked to make it sound that way. “I was one of the planners that suggested sending a CA unit up front early
in the campaign. Give us a head start on the last phase of the overall operation, building a democracy. We build the right democracy and we're going to stabilize the whole Middle East. That's going to end the terrorism, end the violence, maybe even be an end to war. I don't know, but I think we're going to try. This is the aim of the commander in chief, it's my aim, and it damn well better be yours.”

Captain Sessions started applauding, so we all did. The colonel went on: “We've got a little situation between An Nasiriyah and Tallil Air Base. Just south of there. They're Shiites, and that's good, but apparently the air force sent over some A-10s on a Close Air Support mission and they took out a school. Killed some civilians. A few children. This is a war and collateral damage happens. That's a fact of war and a reflection of what is known as the ‘fog of war.' Nothing happens perfectly. Bullets fly. Bombs fall. People stand up at the wrong time.”

Captain Miller started squirming in her seat about halfway through the talk. Her head rolled back when the colonel turned to Major Sessions and asked if we had any females to send to the village. When it was over and we were outside sitting on some piled-up fuel cans, Miller was close to tears.

“How do you kill somebody and then talk about how sorry you are?” she asked. “And what was that bit about asking for a receipt?”

“If they take the money we have to get a receipt for it,” I said.

“And you feel good about this?” Miller asked, pointing at me.

I felt myself shrugging, but I didn't know what to say to her. Finally I got out a “no,” but I don't think she was convinced.

“The thing is,” Miller went on, “is that we don't need to compromise. Maybe somewhere, somebody has to compromise, but we don't. If we're supposed to be putting a human face on this war, then we need to seriously figure out what that means. We can't make it right by giving these people a smiley face.”

“Birdy is compromising, ma'am,” Marla said. “We're doing the best we can with what we got.”

Yo! Marla got my back! All right!

Major Sessions had a brief discussion with Captain Coles, showing him the location of the school, and then left.

“Yo, Captain, that's a hand-drawn map,” Jonesy said. “You sure they know where this place is?”

“They bombed it, they should know,” Captain Coles said. “Okay, we'll take First Squad and Second Squad. I'll take the money. Get Ahmed ready, too. Look, Miller, they probably do need medical help, too.”

“Yeah, sure,” Captain Miller said. “And should we put on our veils?”

“We need us some blues in here,” Jonesy said, and started singing.

Well, the bombs are falling, yes the bombs are coming down

Baby, them bombs are falling, they really coming down

Sometimes they on target, and sometimes they runnin' wild

But I'm so glad they ain't falling on my mama's child

And that's the truth!

We started clapping for Jonesy. The guy could really sing. All of a sudden his dream about that blues joint made sense.

I thought about what Captain Miller had said as we convoyed past a construction crew setting up what looked like a fuel depot. I thought the colonel had been right. Nothing was as neat as it looked in the movies or on television. War was sloppier, faster, and more violent. The noises were louder than I had thought they would be. The sounds of shells hitting a target, the heat, and the vibrations from the impact seemed to go through me. After a while the vibrations were there even when nothing was going on. It was as if, little by little, I was bringing the crash of war inside me. As if, little by little, the war was becoming part of me. Maybe the smiley face wasn't for the Iraqis. Maybe it was for us.

It took only an hour and ten minutes to reach the area that the A-10 had hit. There was a small building that could have been a mosque, very plain looking, and about fifteen two-story buildings. Most of the buildings had been hit and two of them were nothing more than a pile of rubble. There were two Humvees patrolling the area, just tooling through the streets.

“Italians,” Coles announced. “I don't know how we convinced them to send actual ground troops, but they are part of the Coalition.” That got all our interest and I was hoping we could meet them. We
drove around until we found what could have been a school. Half of the top floor was blown away. A line of pockmarks ran across the front of the building at an angle; where the line met the door, there was a huge chip in the cement. The top of the front door was intact but the bottom was gone.

A group of women sat to one side in the shade of a tree. They were cutting up strips of cloth and rolling them into small bundles. Ahmed went over and spoke to them. One of the women turned and pointed to a low building about fifty yards away. There was writing on the walls and a circle that looked like some kind of logo.

“Birdy, go with him,” Captain Coles said as Ahmed started for the building.

“Birdy?” I was surprised. “That's my official name now?”

Captain Coles laughed and checked out my name tape. “
Perry
, go with him,” he said.

I caught up with Ahmed, who told me that the local chief owned the store we were headed toward.

“You understand everything they say?” I asked.

“Just about,” Ahmed said. “But the woman back there pretended she didn't understand anything I said.”

“They don't like us over here, I guess.”

“No, it just means that they don't trust us,” Ahmed said. “Whatever else we deal with, that's going to be part of the picture.”

We got to the store and found a really fat man sitting beside a pile of shoe boxes. There was clothing in the small store; most of
it was American-style clothing, some Iraqi stuff. I thought about buying some Iraqi clothing and taking it back home. Mama would like that.

Ahmed started talking to the man in Arabic. The guy didn't answer. There were coins on a table near him, and as Ahmed spoke, he pushed them around with one stubby finger. Finally, after a while, Ahmed stopped talking and the man looked up at him, then away. He didn't look at Ahmed when he spoke.

I wished I knew what the guy was saying. He was very calm as he spoke, very deliberate with his words. He didn't gesture with his hands but kept pushing the coins around the table. Ahmed spoke once in a while, and his voice was low, matching the Iraqi shopkeeper's.

“What's he saying?” I asked.

“He's saying the mothers of the dead children don't want our money, they want their children,” Ahmed said. “I don't know if he wants me to beg him or something. I don't know.”

“Ask him if he's refusing the money,” I said. “Tell him if he is, we'll just go.”

Ahmed spoke to the guy again and he answered.

“He wants to know if you're my commanding officer,” Ahmed said. “I told him no and now he wants me to go get Coles.”

“You should have told him I was your commanding officer and the most dangerous man in the army,” I said.

We went back to the Humvees. Marla, Jean, and the other
noncom woman were already with the children. Captain Miller was talking with the women.

“She speak Arabic?” I asked Captain Coles.

“A little,” he said. “What's the situation with their chief?”