Kaboom (12 page)

“Let's rock and roll, you stupid bastards,” Private Van Wilder crowed, as he rolled into his driver's seat. “I got a hot date tonight with a fat Iraqi chick, and I don't want to be late. Fat chicks love my molest-ache!”

I climbed into the back of my Stryker, which had already been prepped immaculately by Sergeant Spade, Specialist Flashback, and Private Smitty. All I needed to do was plug in and start conducting radio calls. In the beginning, I had tried to help my guys ready the vehicle, but this had only horrified Sergeant Spade, who thought it reflected poorly on them; now I just stayed out of their way and let them do their jobs. Phoenix was already loaded up in a seat and bantered back and forth with Private Smitty, arguing about some video game fallout from the previous evening. I gave the platoon three minutes, then asked them if they were ready to begin our patrol.

“White, this is White 1,” I said. “Report your redcon [readiness condition] status in sequence.”

“This, uhh, White 2,” Staff Sergeant Bulldog drawled. “We redcon-1.”

“White 1, this is White 3. We're redcon-1!” Staff Sergeant Boondock burst.

“This is 4,” SFC Big Country thundered. “Let's roll.”

“On your move, 2,” I said, watching the wheels of my senior scout's vehicle churn forward. I let X-ray know we were departing, and then, just like every day, our Strykers moved past the gate, out of the wire, and into the enduring reality of Saba al-Bor.

Our stated mission for the day was to conduct an electricity assessment of one of the local Shia blocks. We weren't supposed to use the term
presence patrol
anymore—some doctrinal debate fought at levels way above me had resulted in this change in policy—but pretty much anytime an American convoy of combat vehicles maneuvered in Iraq, it acted as such. At every corner and sidewalk in every neighborhood of our AO, the reactions were exactly the same—the children waved giddily, hoping for chocolate; the women dressed head to toe in black robes stared rigidly at the ground; the old men nodded with hard, empty eyes; and the young men stared back at us callously. All cleared a path for our Strykers. Somewhere over the course of this war, they'd learned not to get in the way of the armored vehicles and their machine guns.

We turned onto Route New York, a side street off of Maples, and stopped at an empty lot across the street from a long-abandoned school. Staff Sergeant Bulldog found an open area for us to coil our vehicles. “This work, 1?” he asked.

“Sure does,” I responded. “Let's get on the ground.”

Tired, dirty boots met Mesopotamian soil for the umpteenth time. SFC Big Country, ever the perfectionist, adjusted the vehicles slightly, optimizing security scans for our gunners. Like locusts descending on ancient Egypt, Iraqi children surrounded us immediately, clamoring for our attention and clawing at our pockets. “Mistah, mistah, gimme chocolata!” they screamed. “Gimme football! Gimme, gimme, gimme!” My men reacted differently to the horde, depending on their general patience disposition and the amount of sleep they got the night prior.

“You gimme chocolata!” Private Smitty replied, picking up one of the kids, twirling him around.

“Gotta love the effects of the welfare state. Go play in some traffic,” Specialist Flashback said, reaching for a cigarette and ignoring the children gathering around him.

“Nothing like enabling future terrorists,” Staff Sergeant Boondock shouted, all the while handing out candy. He noticed me arching an eyebrow his way and started chuckling. “Don't judge me, LT, and don't you dare think I've gone soft. It's all a part of my master plan.”

I turned to a small child with doubting eyes, ruffled the hair on his head, and pointed at him. “Ali Baba?” I asked, using the Arabic term for thief and general villain. The group of kids around him giggled hysterically and chanted, “Ali Baba! Ali Baba!” while the victim of my slandering protested his new label. I put my hands out and let the kids play with the hard plastic that lined the knuckles on my gloves.

The children ran away from Private Das Boot, petrified that the American giant would accidentally step on them. They pointed and whispered from afar though, and Phoenix translated their murmurings: “A man that tall must be able to see the whole world.” Private Das Boot just snorted and shook his head, bumming a cigarette from Specialist Flashback.

“Don't these little bastards ever go to school?” Sergeant Cheech asked. I didn't think it was a serious question, although it was a legitimate one.

I looked across the coil and saw Corporal Spot turn to Sergeant Axel. “Think it's cool if I give them dip and tell them it's chocolate?” he asked.

“No,” SFC Big Country said, walking up behind them. He had a large trash bag filled with toys sent to us from family members back home. He attempted to organize the gaggle of children into a single-file line of disciplined order, a concept so foreign to them that they simply laughed at his directions and encircled him. Most of the children barely came up to his waist, and while towering over them, my platoon sergeant began to pass out small plastic cars. Pandemonium ensued.

“Stay in line! Goddamn it, stay in line!” he yelled without effect. He ignored the temptation just to throw the bag into the middle of their youthful jubilee, though, and handed the toys out to the snatching hands one at a time.

“Now the fireworks start,” Doc said to Specialist Tunnel, watching as the kids began to steal the cars from one another, often using the toys themselves as synthetic weapons of mass destruction against each other. This phenomenon inevitably led to hysterical cries and tears. Staff Sergeant Bulldog strutted over to one of the head-cracking bullies, grabbed a toy away from him in a huff, and brought it over to a well-mannered runt standing away from the mass, watching quietly.

“Staff Sergeant Bulldog, you're the biggest bully there is!” Specialist Haitian Sensation yelled, smiling. “You bullied the bully!”

Staff Sergeant Bulldog nodded, satisfied. “You know it.”

“Time to go,” I said, moving away from the vehicles with one dismount team, while the other one stayed with the Strykers for local security. Half
the children followed our movements into their neighborhood, something I didn't mind. Being encased by a bubble of Iraqi street urchins probably contributed to our security element in ways I barely comprehended. The enemy had to fight the public relations battle as well, and shooting at Americans surrounded by local kids wouldn't go over well with the Arab soccer moms.

The Iraqi children spiraled around our wedge formation, collecting rocks out of sewage dunes the way their Western counterparts picked out seashells on beaches of white sand. I sporadically selected local citizens to engage in discussion, sometimes seeking out the welcoming faces, sometimes seeking out the hostile ones. This day was like any other day spent asking the populace to explain the details of their daily existences: Life in Iraq sucked and had always sucked and continued to suck. The specific neighborhood didn't matter; the citizens of Saba al-Bor all had the same complaints. “We don't have clean water.” “We don't have jobs.” “We only have fifteen minutes of electricity per day because the Sunnis take it all.” But the Sunnis say the Shias take all the electricity, I remembered. “They Ali Babas. We think America very good. Gimme water, mistah. Gimme job, mistah. Gimme power, America.” Gimme, gimme, gimme.

“We're trying,” I told them, “but shit like this takes time.” I felt momentarily obliged to instruct the locals to turn to their own government for these civic matters, as a way of empowering themselves, but quickly discarded such thoughts. I'd already learned that lesson. Mere mention of the Iraqi government just led to another stratosphere of bitching from the Saba al-Bor citizenry. I also internally debated whether I should discuss the history of America's evolving democracy and explain that civil services took time to establish themselves, especially in Third World countries. Ever heard of the Articles of Confederation, Mister Unkempt Iraqi Man addicted to the hand-out? That era made the Paul Bremer years look like pure genius. I smiled to myself, thinking about this lunacy. I had tried that approach once too, some weeks ago. It hadn't spawned the intended effect.

I sometimes felt my compassion for fellow human beings leaking out of me like oil leaving an engine, so slow it was barely evident and yet dripping with enough regularity that I knew the problem was severe in nature. I had only been deployed for three months; twelve more months of seepage waited. I hoped being cognizant of this leak would help me plug it back up when the time came to do so. Not that such a time awaited on any near horizon.

I took another sip of chai. I now conversed with a group of local men who claimed the Sunnis didn't let them use the fuel station on the other end
of town. They also insinuated that the Sunni Sons of Iraq were housing a sniper somewhere near this fuel station, knowing full well that the word “sniper” ensured we would check out the validity of the tip—even if “sniper” for Arabs usually just meant an unknown person firing a gun somewhere within audible distance. This qualified 90 percent of Iraqi men for sniper status.

As the conversation continued, I caught a fleeting glimpse of two pairs of alluring dark eyes peeking out at us from behind a cracked front door across the street, alluring dark eyes that belonged to young female faces and flowing black robes that failed to cover every curve the way they were designed to.

I wasn't the only one who took notice. Phoenix left me alone to discuss business in broken sign language with the men, while he walked across the street, waving the young women out. Usually this direct tactic failed to work, but today it somehow managed to succeed; I assumed the girls' parents were not home. Without my terp, my conversation with the locals quickly dissipated, but Phoenix's exchange had just begun. We spent the next ten minutes pulling security around a house in a small alleyway of Saba al-Bor so that our twenty-one-year-old terp could flirt with two giggling Iraqi teenagers in Arabic. I finally yelled, “Phoenix! Wrap it up!” He smiled, embarrassed on finally realizing an entire section of scouts was watching him, but he still pulled out a piece of paper to write down his cell phone number. He gave one of the girls the paper and waltzed back over to me.

“I big pimp,” he said.

“You big liar,” I responded. “Those chicks think you're an American, don't they?” His black skin and dummy rifle often confused the locals.

He shrugged his shoulders and repeated one of his favorite sayings, picked up from watching Staff Sergeant Bulldog play poker. “If you ain't bullshittin', you don't deserve to be playin'.”

When we returned to our Strykers, a frago message from Captain Whiteback awaited us. Due to an extemporaneous meeting at Camp Taji regarding squadron uniform standards, he wasn't going to be able to make a planned engagement with Sheik Banana-Hands, so he needed me to go in his stead.

And. Roger.

Time passed differently on missions; seconds, minutes, and hours disappeared into an abyss of repetition and flickering echoes, sometimes slowing things down, sometimes speeding things up. Sometimes time stopped so that the mind could take a mental snapshot of an unchecked shadow, a dead dog, a lonely child, a desert sun fading into the abstract possibilities of tomorrow.
A stranger in a strange land issued habitual orders on the radio without any real thought. And then we were on the south end of Saba al-Bor, traveling on Route Swords, to Sheik Banana-Hands.

Goddamn it. Remember why you're here, I thought to myself. It isn't for your dreams. It's for theirs. Stay sharp.

“Chai hunting again, sir?” My platoon sergeant asked on the radio.

“It is absolutely instrumental to the continued development of Iraqi security that as much chai as possible be consumed by Coalition forces,” I replied. “It's somewhere in the counterinsurgency manual.”

My Strykers automatically moved to the intersections, gunners scanning alleyways and rooftops, waiting, hoping really, for a heat signature to be identified as a terrorist's skull. Ten Iraqis in body armor and carrying AK- 47s were clustered around a small gate in front of Sheik Banana-Hands's warlord manor—a sizable two-story house by Western standards but absolutely Gomorrah-esque for Saba al-Bor. As soon as Specialist Flashback dropped the back ramp, I stalked over to the Iraqis position with Phoenix. Private Smitty scurried by me, assuming the point position. He took his unofficial role as my guardian very seriously, and I'd still been unable to figure out which NCO tasked him with that mission. It wasn't like I wandered off by myself. Not anymore, at least.

Sheik Banana-Hands greeted us at the gate, hand outstretched, smile open and welcoming—just a bit too open and welcoming for Staff Sergeant Boondock. “I'll take charge of the dismounts out here, sir,” he said, chuckling at my offer to join us inside. “Let me know when I can use my weapon again.”

We walked into Sheik Banana-Hands's office, Private Smitty in front, Sergeant Cheech and Corporal Spot filing in behind me. They posted security inside the room with one of the local Sons of Iraq, with whom Private Smitty exchanged cigarettes. I joined the sheik at the back end of the room, away from the doorway and all of the windows. We sat down across from one another on hard wooden chairs, and Phoenix grabbed a plastic chair from a corner and sat next to me.

“Captain Whiteback is very sorry he could not make it today. He only missed this because an emergency popped up at the last minute.”