War Porn (9 page)

 

most iraqis see themselves as a persecuted people

and hold the coalition forces, as the occupying power,

responsible for resolving all personal and national problems

 

 

I sat in one of the ratty chairs scrounged to furnish Sergeant First Class Perry's “reading room” and opened my MRE: Charms, Cappuccino packet, Country Captain Chicken, Pasteurized Jalapeño Cheese Food Spread, Wheat Snack Cracker, and Noodles with Butter Sauce. The Noodles and Charms went in the trash. The entrée I deboxed and slid in the MRE heater bag, into which I poured some water. Then I fit the bag and entrée back into the box and placed it all, as per instructions, “against a rock or something.” I leaned back, listening to the heater's chemical hiss, my transistor radio's crackle, and the BBC announcer's accent, so
civilized
, doing cricket scores.

A boom sounded somewhere in the city and I jerked. Voices, talking, nothing—I wanted to be on mission or I wanted quiet. Sergeant First Class Perry was the same, which is why he'd commandeered this room, closed off as it was from the gymnasium that housed our new barracks.

The gym was a vast bedlam, divided into rough thirds by battery, about two hundred joes all told. The main areas were subdivided into loose platoon AOs, squads, and individual cubicles carved out with plywood and poncho liners.

A guy in Bravo Battery named Pizza had started walking around naked. When he got up one afternoon and pissed all over the floor, he was put on suicide watch. He screamed in the night, eerie piercing howls of terror. Villaguerrero punched some dude from Alpha, got his rank taken away, and was tasked to DIVARTY. Bullwinkle crashed a hemmet into the compound's main gate, tearing open a fuel tank and spilling gas everywhere. Lieutenant Krauss had started talking to himself.

The Iraqi Governing Council was appointed. General Abizaid said our enemy was waging “a classical guerrilla-type campaign.” Rumsfeld said we'd turned a corner. The Jordanian embassy got hit by a suicide bomber—foreign insurgents, they said, probably al-Qaeda.

We were told to be on the lookout for an orange and white sedan.

I took out the entrée bag and cut it lengthwise. The smell of cheap curry and preservatives made me gag. I set the entrée aside to cool and squeezed Pasteurized Jalapeño Cheese Food Spread on a Wheat Snack Cracker.

Anxious music cut the cricket scores: “Breaking news at the BBC. Just minutes ago the UN headquarters in Baghdad came under attack. We go now live to Baghdad
. . . 
Adrianna?”

“Hello, David. We're live from Baghdad. US forces have sealed off a sizable area around the UN headquarters here in response to what initial reports seem to be saying was a suicide car bomb attack just moments ago. There's no word yet on any casualties sustained inside the compound.

“The bomb was heard throughout the city, yet another in what has become a typical series of daily explosions. United Nations representatives and American military personnel have so far refused to confirm speculation as to the number of casualties or how the attack may have penetrated security, though it is worth mentioning that in recent days the UN had reduced its security profile and decreased the number of American soldiers stationed there.”

“Have any groups claimed responsibility for the attack, Adrianna?”

“No, David. Representatives have so far refused to speculate on which group if any might have carried out the attack, and there have not as yet been any statements made claiming responsibility. I can tell you that unidentified sources say the attack was committed with a truck bomb loaded with high explosives, and that the driver used an unguarded access road to enter the compound.”

I thought of the woman in heels trailing her complex scent. I ate my Wheat Snack Cracker.

“Adrianna, can you describe the situation there?”

“Well, David, it's difficult to get close to the scene. US forces have sealed off the compound and are blocking the main roads with battle tanks. Soldiers are patrolling the area and there's clearly an emergency plan in operation. It seems from here as if one corner of the UN building has collapsed entirely. Military personnel are currently searching the rubble for survivors.”

Sergeant First Class Perry came in the door and glanced at the radio. “What's up, Wilson?”

“UN got bombed, Sergeant.”

“That so?”

“Suicide truck bomb.”

He grunted and sat on his cot. I ate my Country Captain Chicken.

 

aline the front and rear sight with the target

and squeeze the trigger

 

 

Our days at CAHA Wardog began when the hadji semis arrived. We worked them in pairs. One soldier would sling the other's rifle and guard the driver. The other would climb into the cab and tear covers off seats, sweep through knickknacks on the dash, pull up floor mats, shout down, “What's this, huh? What's this for? What's in here? You fucking hiding shit, huh? You think you'll get over, do ya? Hey, look at this guy. He thinks he's a fucking exception.”

After the cab, we'd search the truck's exterior, checking the wiring, the engine, and the underside of the trailer bed. We'd check their fuel tanks. Finally we'd search the driver himself, patting him down along his man-dress, turning him around, making him take off his kaffiyeh.

“Do a complete search,” shouted Staff Sergeant Smith. “Check their junk. They could be fucking hiding bombs in their taint.”

The hadjis stank of old sweat. We made fun of them, scowling, shouting, laughing. We pointed at a fat one, mimed his belly, and asked, “Baby? You have baby?” His friends laughed and he blushed, frowning.

At the end of the day, we searched the hadji workers as they left. “What the fuck is this, you little fuckwad?”

I looked over. Burnett, towering over one of the hadjis, held an MRE bag in his fist, shaking it. He shoved the hadji, who stumbled back and put his hands up. “No Mista, no,” he bleated.

“This fucker's got nine-mil rounds in his MRE bag. Trying to fucking steal from us.”

“Lock 'em down,” shouted Staff Sergeant Smith.

I threw my helmet on and grabbed my rifle.

“Mista,” one of them said. He put his hands out in supplication.

“Shut the fuck up, bitch! Uskut your ass!”

“Mista, Mista,” he said.

“Uskut, bitch!” I shouted, sticking my rifle in his face.

To my left, one of the hadjis got up and Burnett forced him back. There was a clack on my right as Stoat chambered a round, then a series of clacks as we all followed suit. The hadjis got panicky.

“No, Mista,” one said, climbing to his knees.

“Sit the fuck down, bitch!” I shouted, bringing my rifle to the ready. He sat back down.

One of the hadjis on my right whispered something to another and Stoat jumped at him: “No talking!”

Lieutenant Krauss called higher, waited for higher to call back. The shift foreman spoke some English, so they tried to use him to talk to the hadjis. We waited.

“Sit the fuck down!”

“Deep Steel Three November, this is CAHA Wardog.”

“Roger Deep Steel, CAHA Wardog standing by.”

“He say no Ali Baba,” the foreman said. “He say mistake, mistake.”

“Fucking mistake is right. Biggest mistake he ever made.”

“No Ali Baba, Mister.”

“Shut your fucking dirty mouth.”

“Roger Deep Steel, CAHA Wardog standing by.”

“He say for to melt. To make for, eh, car?”

“Bullshit.”

“No Ali Baba, Mister.”

“You fucking Ali Baba if I say you Ali Baba. Now shut your fucking face.”

“Roger Deep Steel, CAHA Wardog still standing by
. . . 
Roger Deep Steel, this is CAHA Wardog. We've got a
. . . 
Roger
. . . 
Roger. Roger. Roger. Standing by.”

“No Ali Baba, Mister.”

“This is the last fucking time I'm telling you to shut your goddamned mouth.”

One hadji jumped up and ran for it. Duernbacher tackled him. They twisted his arms behind his back and zip-stripped his thumbs together and left him face down in the sand. Duernbacher slapped him in the back of the head. “Silly fucking hadji. Trix are for kids.”

Eventually Battalion sent instructions, and we picked five hadjis to take with us back to BIAP: the one who'd tried to steal the rounds; his brother, slightly younger; the guy who'd made a run for it, a badass in a Def Leppard t-shirt; another, in a man-dress, who seemed to be trying to ignore us; and lastly the crew foreman. We lined them up, except the one we'd already tied, twisted their arms behind their backs, and zip-tied their thumbs together as tightly as possible. We blindfolded them with abdominal bandages and tape. We loaded the thief and his brother in the back of a humvee and the other three in the bed of a hemmet. We sent the other hadjis home and told them not to be late to work tomorrow.

At Battalion we stood in the parking lot half-watching the hadjis, joking and fucking around while they were taken in one by one to be interrogated by S-2. We untied their blindfolds and cut their zip-ties. There were dark circles around their thumbs and blood where the plastic had cut into their skin. Burnett and Stoat took an order for Burger King and got us all dinner. I sat on a Jersey barrier with my gun in my lap, chowing on my Whopper, watching the hadjis in our humvee.

The light faded and the sky darkened to purple. The temperature dropped and BIAP's streetlights buzzed on.

“Mista,” one of the hadjis said, “Mista.” He made a gesture like he had to pee. I waved him out, he climbed down, and I walked him to the porta-john.

“You try anything, I'll shoot you in your face,” I said.

He went in and came out a few minutes later. I walked him back to the truck.

It was dark now and hard to see in the back of the humvee, so I cracked a chemlight and tried to hand it to the hadji. He wouldn't take it. I shoved it at him. “Take it,” I said. He shook his head and waved his hands.

I tossed the chemlight in his lap and he shouted and jumped back, brushing it away with the back of his hand. We all laughed. He crouched back and brought his palms gingerly up to the chemlight, as if it gave off heat.

Lieutenant Krauss came out later. We blindfolded and zip-tied all the hadjis again and took off. We tried to take them to Camp Cropper, BIAP's prison complex, but the MP said we didn't have authorization.

“We have authorization from the mayor's cell,” said Lieutenant Krauss.

“That doesn't matter, sir,” the MP at the gate told him. “I need paperwork from Division.”

“Okay, stand by.” Krauss got on the radio to Battalion. After a few minutes he came back to the MP.

“Alright, I talked to our S-2 and he said we're supposed to bring these prisoners here to Camp Cropper.”

“Sorry, sir. I need authorization from Division.”

“But we're supposed to bring them here.”

“No can do, sir. I need paperwork.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do with them?”

“Play duck-duck-goose for all I care, sir. There's a POW processing station down the road. Why don't you take 'em down there.”

“We were told to bring them here.”

“Like I said, sir, I need authorization from Division. High-value prisoners only.”

“But these aren't POWs.”

“POWs, enemy combatants, civilians, doesn't matter. Just take 'em down the road to the MP station and they'll help you out.”

“Where's this station?”

“It's just down the road on the right. Before the airfield.”

We drove down the road and went past the airfield, then turned around came back the other way took the first left and wound up driving down this alley though a cluster of deserted buildings. Then we came back out to the main road and turned right and drove past the airfield and down the road until we came to 123rd MSB, which was the first right after the airfield but clearly not where we were going, so we turned around again and this time took the next left after the left we'd taken before, which led to a guarded compound with a locked gate which the guard wouldn't even tell us what it was much less let us in, but he did give us directions to the MP station, so we drove back down the road and found the right turn and pulled into a brightly lit compound, the largest section of which was surrounded by nested chain-link fences topped with triple-strand razor wire. Hadjis in orange jumpsuits and ankle cuffs shuffled chained in trios through the yard inside the fence.

We parked and downloaded the prisoners and took off their blindfolds. Lieutenant Krauss went in to talk to the Sergeant of the Guard. Our hadjis shivered in the chill.

“Probably fucking insurgents and shit.”

“Even if they sold the rounds, they'd get used on us anyway.”

“Fucking hadjis.”

Burnett spit on the ground in front of the one in the Def Leppard t-shirt. The hadji glared up at him. “You want some?” Burnett barked. “Eyes on the ground!” Burnett pointed. “Put your eyes on the ground!”

The hadji glared up.

“Get your eyes down, shithead.” Burnett grabbed the man by the back of the neck and pushed his head toward the ground. “Watch the dirt.”

Lieutenant Krauss came out and asked Staff Sergeant Gooley and me to follow him inside to help with the paperwork. He had a list of the hadjis' names along with the info that came up in interrogation, and we filled out two double-sided forms for each one, going over
address of suspect
and
identifying marks/tattoos
. Mostly we filled in
unk
and
n/a
.

Eventually we finished and handed the forms to the SOG, who stacked them in the corner with a pile of other forms then turned to a lanky, dark-haired corporal. “Hey, Sto, go grab some guys and process these EPWs
, would you?” We stood outside watching the first two get processed—screamed at, kicked, manhandled, handcuffed, then led away to get their very own orange jumpsuits. Burnett and some of the others clapped.

“I wonder what's gonna happen to those guys,” I said.

“They'll be processed. There'll be an investigation,” Lieutenant Krauss said.

“What the fuck do you care?” Burnett glared at me.

He was right. What the fuck did I care?