Kaboom (24 page)

I looked around the room. I knew that how she saw us differed from how I saw us, but still, we were hardly in our most intimidating form. Staff Sergeant Boondock had his helmet cocked back, grinning widely, and PFC Smitty and Private Hot Wheels leaned against the back wall, pulling security casually with big wads of dip in their mouths. I myself was more interested at the moment in a mosquito I couldn't seem to swat than channeling raw American fury; coming to terms with my own boogeyman status proved a didactic experience. Subsequently, the sheik led the girl into a side room, returning some forty seconds later. His deep belly laugh filled the room like a balloon filled with hot air.

“She has Sunni boyfriend she visits at night!” he said between wheezes. “She say her father would beat her if he knew she had a boyfriend, especially a Sunni boyfriend!” The girl reemerged behind him, still petrified and unsure how to react to the old man's hysterics. I bit my lip to suppress a smile in light of the girl's embarrassment. “You understand why I laugh?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “My grandma was horrified when my mom told her she was marrying a Catholic. Same concept, right?”

My own family tale sent the sheik into a new fit of laughter. “Hah! Yes, yes! Catholics are like Sunnis! Ha ha!”

“Kind of like that Romeo and Juliet story, ain't it, sir?” PFC Smitty shook his head from the other side of the room. “Her daddy prolly
would
kill her if he found out.”

Suge stood up, patted the girl on the shoulder, and barked orders at the sheik's men. He turned back to me. “I tell them to take her home and not to tell father. She has suffered enough tonight. I do not think she will try to
sneak over to Sunni side for long time. That is okay with you, LT? I thought it is what you would want.”

I nodded.

Sheik Banana-Hands clapped his hands, ensuring his men followed Suge's instructions. After the sedan pulled away, girl in tow, he couldn't stop chuckling to himself. He turned back over to me and Suge, intertwining his long, long fingers into the Arab hand-and-arm signal for working together. “Maybe there is hope for future,” he quipped. “The younger generation have their own reconciliation!”

“This guy,” Staff Sergeant Boondock muttered under his breath, “is seriously fucking demented.”

I walked in an old-world dream
when the gunfire started. I sat straight up in the back of my Stryker and, according to my vehicle crew, yelled into the internal radio, “Burn it all down, you fuckers. Burn it all down!” I didn't remember that part.

While manning a late-night OP on Route Islanders, the platoon pulled security, slept, or discussed Captain Whiteback's upcoming change-of-command ceremony with Captain Ten Bears. Having worked with the affable Captain Ten Bears on the squadron staff in my pre-platoon leader days, I knew the troop would be in capable hands—hands that claimed to contain the strength of ten bears, always with a sly laugh.

In the meantime, a single gunshot echoed to the east, toward the town center of Saba al-Bor. A few seconds passed, and then a small burst of rounds erupted. Silence followed.

“1, this is 3,” Staff Sergeant Boondock reported through a bored yawn. “Gunplay in town again. One shot followed by a burst.”

“Roger,” I said, fully awake by this point. What we had heard was a nightly occurrence, and nothing to get too excited about. What we heard next was different.

A barrage of AK-47 output erupted just to the north of the original volley of gunfire, succeeded by the unrestrained chattering of automatic weapons. Sporadic bursts of both continued, and the black swirl of the sky lit up with
tracer rounds. By the time Captain Whiteback told us to head that way over the radio, our Strykers were already barreling in that direction.

The firefight continued as we got closer. “Be ready to dismount,” I said. “If you haven't already locked and loaded, do so now. Gunners, let us know what you see. Ensure your night-vision devices are on, and for Christ's sake, listen to the NCOs.”

As soon as our Strykers came within sight of the entrance into town—Route Maples, home of Saba al-Bor's largest market and its main artery—all of the gunfire so prevalent moments before crashed off with the alacrity of a cliff-jumping lemming.

“White 2, does your gunner have contact with anything? Either audio or visual?”

“Negative. Neither.”

“What about the dismounts in the rear air-guard hatches?”

“Negative. Neither do dey.”

“Roger. Same here. 3, 4, you all see anything different?”

“Nope,” and, “That's a negative.”

“What. The. Fuck. Over.”

Our Strykers crept forward, machine guns scanning for any sign of movement, until we came to the northern reach of Route Maples. In theory, a Sons of Iraq checkpoint existed here, although none currently manned their posts. Specialist Cold-Cuts spotted a group of crouching silhouettes off the street and in the adjacent field, all oriented southward. With the arrival of our ghost tanks, the Sahwa scurried over to us, and we met them on the ground. Super Mario provided the translation, although most of it wasn't necessary. Frantic, panicked pointing transcended the language barrier.

“Ali Baba shoot us! From down there!”

“Yes! Yes! Ali Baba! Shoot! We shoot back!”

“We shoot back lots!”

“Okay,” I said. My temples began to throb; I already knew it was going to be one of those nights. “Did you actually see who was firing at you?”

“Ehh . . . no.”

“Okay . . . did any of their bullets actually hit anything around here? Like damage something?”

“Ehh . . . no.”

“Okay . . . did any of you do anything but fire indiscriminately in the general vicinity that you heard the gun shots come from?”

“Ehh . . .”

I told the Sons of Iraq to resume their posts on the street, while we pressed south on Route Maples. I issued a silent prayer to God asking that somewhere in this hellhole, someone stupid would present himself as a known enemy and a viable target.

Not a soul stirred as we pressed south—not surprising considering the time of night and the minutes-old violence. We eventually made our way to the very southern intersection of Route Maples, finding a near-identical reflection of the scene we had just left in the north. Here though, a group of Iraqi police and Sahwa huddled in doorways instead of lying in a field. They ran up to us, and frantic, panicked pointing followed.

“Ali Baba shoot us! From up there!”

“Yes! Yes! Ali Baba! Shoot! We shoot back!”

“We shoot back lots!”

I sighed and rubbed my temples.

Before I could ask for a damage assessment of the area, the unmistakable tread churning of T-72 tanks rolled in from the west. The Iraqi army had responded to the scene too and, as per their standard operating procedure, busted out their metaphorical sledgehammer. They cleared every house within a three-block radius, filling the streets with irritated families and producing zero insurgents.

Ten minutes later—after the arrival of the IP command—damn near every security element in Saba al-Bor perched itself somewhere along Route Maples. After a rather heated discussion with the IA lieutenant and Sahwa commanders, the IP colonel and I convinced them that the majority of rounds exchanged had been friendly fire. While I was initially open to the possibility of an enemy combatant firing a few rounds at the southern checkpoint, the piles of brass collected at the two checkpoints and the lack of any positive identification persuaded me that failure to adhere to trigger discipline had been the biggest threat during the skirmish. Amazingly, no one had been hurt, despite the number of rounds expended. The IPs consequently returned to their normal patrolling schedule, and I instructed the Sons of Iraq to return to their checkpoints. Then I asked the Iraqi army lieutenant, a chubby man with an immaculately trimmed moustache named Zuhayr, about his plan for the duration of the night.

“I . . . I cannot say in front of my men.” Having worked with Lieutenant Zuhayr before, I knew that choosing between paper and plastic at the grocery store overwhelmed him. Still, though, I expected at least a half-hearted lie
on his part. Staff Sergeant Spade (recently promoted) and PFC Smitty turned around from their security positions, as confused as I was by this secret plan of no plan.

“What do you mean, you can't say? If you have actionable intelligence, action on it. Do you need our help? I doubt clearing every house is going to do anything but piss off the locals. Why don't we go back to the combat outpost, make some calls to our informants, and—”

Lieutenant Zuhayr turned around and walked away from me. The red clarity seized me, and I exploded in rage.

“HEY!” My voice echoed across the side street we had huddled on, startling everyone. Standing my ground and calling the IA officer back to me with my index finger, I tried to make my lecture as constructive as possible. “If I'm gonna risk the lives of my men by coming here tonight, we're going to work fucking together or I will fucking skull-drag you back to the unemployment line myself.” I paused, letting Super Mario translate my words while he attempted to match my anger. The IA lieutenant stared dully off to my right.

I hated these petty Arab alpha-male games. Really, I did.

“I know your major insists that we work together, so you better drop the bullshit attitude and realize that smashing things isn't always the correct course of action.” I then decided to use one of the locals' favorite analogies. “After all, even the most ferocious tiger needs a tail. Now,” I said, taking a deep breath—“this is your mission, your town, and your country. We are willing to help. Do you need it? Yes or no. Either way, brief me on your plan.”

He looked back at me with his eyes bouncing back and forth. “I . . . I do not know who shot at the checkpoint. Perhaps it was a ghost.”

I felt my anger break, and I relaxed my posture. “That's cool, man. I don't know who shot at the checkpoint either. It wasn't a ghost though.”

I looked at my IA counterpart and tried to relate to him. Men who couldn't admit that they didn't know something or refused to admit that they were wrong about something always failed as leaders, be they American or Iraqi. I was no Dick Winters, but I knew enough to understand that people responded to authenticity, and soldiers did not differ in this regard. This poor bastard never stood a chance. He worried too much about people's opinion of what he was doing rather than just doing it in the first place.

Lieutenant Zuhayr finally said that he'd meet me back at the combat outpost, and we'd plan from there. He left some of his men at the Sahwa checkpoints, beefing up their security temporarily. We exchanged forced
pleasantries and a too-hearty handshake. As we walked back to our Strykers, Staff Sergeant Spade and PFC Smitty laughed about their normally goofy lieutenant temporarily turning into the Incredible Hulk.

“You should've knocked his ass out,” Staff Sergeant Spade said. “We had your back.”

“You know what you should've said, sir?” PFC Smitty offered.

“What's that?”

“You should've said, ‘Fuck you and your street. We're going home to America to drink some beers. Handle your own problems.'”

I laughed. We all could've used some beers.

After we got back into our vehicles, I briefed the rest of the platoon on what had happened. Then we returned to the combat outpost and made some telephone calls to our JAM and AQI informants. No one knew anything about the incident.

In late May,
word disseminated through 2-14 Cavalry that Lieutenant Colonel Larry would only promote junior officers to developmental positions if they planned to make the army a career. This positional power play was an overt reaction to the long list of junior officers in our squadron getting out of the military once our tour ended, a list that included my name. While I enjoyed the army, valued my service, appreciated the experience, and certainly had nothing against the institution, I'd already decided that I held other ambitions for my life. As I was happy to stay a scout platoon leader, Lieutenant Colonel Larry's edict originally sounded like good news to me. This reaction didn't last very long.

The next day, Captain Whiteback called me into his office and informed me that the squadron field-grade officers had decided to move me to the position of executive officer (XO) in another troop. This switch, while technically a promotion to a job of greater authority if not higher rank, would take me off the line and away from my soldiers. Although not pleased with this reality, I grudgingly acknowledged that such was the nature of the position. Further, as no new lieutenants were in country, Captain Whiteback said SFC Big Country would assume platoon-leading duties for the Gravediggers. I became
especially aggravated by this, not because my platoon sergeant wasn't up to the task, but because it showed an egregious lack of planning and foresight on the part of my superiors. Surplus officers crawled around every staff office on Camp Taji, and the thought of a line platoon going short in such an environment lit my already short fuse.