Kaboom (39 page)

“Hah!” This story became more believable by the minute. “What did you do?”

“The only thing I could do. I listened to him for forty-five minutes because no one else would. Then I gave him a claims card, showed him how to fill it out, and told him to go to Camp Taji with it. Hopefully, they'll pay him there.”

“Yeah,” I said, “hopefully.” I paused and gave a fist pump. “In other news, I'm up to 6,000 points on the helicopter game.”

“You bastard!”

While the alleged car wreck paled in comparison to some of the greater private security firm scandals of the Iraq War—like the Blackwater Baghdad shootings in Nisoor Square on September 16, 2007, when seventeen Iraqi civilians lost their lives—it served as a firsthand display for me that contractors played by different rules than those of us on active duty. While the majority of these security contractors doubtlessly executed their duties professionally and honorably, the stark lack of accountability after a crisis continued to plague the firms. Because they were beholden to their respective companies rather than to a nation or a national purpose (like the Iraqi counterinsurgency), private security firms in the Iraq War incarnated President Eisenhower's worst fears. As with any private enterprise, they were motivated to make money and protect their investments, even at the expense of more ambitious and loftier goals. Providing for oneself and one's family definitely qualifies
as an honorable intention for an individual, but that can't be said for an organization as a whole. While the military had its own share of scandals over the course of the war, the institution itself held grander ambitions and higher purposes than financial benefit. The same could not be said of the private security firms. It showed.

“So, Ali, who do you think
is going to win the Super Bowl this year?”

Hooting and hollering from the group of soldiers in Alpha Company's common area drowned out the familiar jingle of the cable television channel ESPN's
Sportscenter
, which played on the television in the front of the room. At a complete loss for words, I did my best to soak up the surrealism of the moment, while standing in the back of the room. Seven of Lieutenant Mongo's soldiers sat on leather couches or stood, holding their M4s, most watching ESPN through the Armed Forces Network on television. Four of them wore skeleton masks on top of their heads, a remnant of the mission they had completed twenty minutes earlier on this Halloween night. One of the others sported a rainbow clown wig and a big red clown nose. Meanwhile, two bound and blindfolded Iraqis sat on the couches between them in grimy brown and grey pajamas, giving the illusion that they were just as entranced by the football highlights on
Sportscenter
as the soldiers. The unintentional comedy of the situation registered off the charts, something not lost on the men assigned to guard the Iraqis.

“Someone needs to record this shit,” a junior NCO said as he gave one of the men a bottle of water. “We could be on the next ESPN commercial and get famous.”

One of the Iraqis mumbled something in Arabic and held up his hands, likely claiming they were bound too tightly. While a young specialist went over to him to loosen the flex-cuffs, another soldier patted the Iraqi on the back. “I agree, Mohammed. The Patriots suck this year without Tom Brady. Good fucking point. If you ever get out of jail, you should become a broadcaster for ESPN 12: The Hajjis.”

The room exploded with laughter, and I chuckled right along. The irony of the moment demanded it.

The backstory for our current set of circumstances wasn't quite as hilarious. Acting on a local-national tip, Lieutenant Mongo's platoon cut short their Halloween party to conduct a raid in Hussaniyah for Abbas the Beard, Ali the Beard's younger half-brother. Both served as high-ranking JAM special-groups leaders. The house reported to us proved to be a dry hole, but in the building next door, the Bad Boys found a man matching Abbas's physical description with two other military-aged males. Captain Frowny-Face gave the go-ahead to bring them in for tactical questioning; according to both American regulations and Iraqi laws, we had twenty-four hours to keep them at the JSS before we needed to free them or officially detain them and transport them to Camp Taji. Once they arrived back at JSS Istalquaal, though, we realized that the trailer normally used to keep potential detainees had been moved by an engineer unit. Since the HUMINT collection teams preferred to tactically question the men one at a time in the meeting room, we found the next-best option for available waiting space while the three rotated through—the common area.

I left the soldiers and the Iraqis to their football highlights and walked into the sheik meeting room, where Staff Sergeant Sitting Bull and Specialist Wildebeest sat with Eddie, talking to the purported Abbas the Beard. The Iraqi's blindfold had been lifted, and he spoke wildly, tongue wagging like an auctioneer's. Specialist Wildebeest spoke to him, while Staff Sergeant Sitting Bull stared at him protractedly and dismissively.

“How goes it?” I asked.

“Same old story,” Staff Sergeant Sitting Bull replied. “He says he isn't Abbas the Beard, but he has heard of him. We have the source Las Cruces coming in to identify him.”

“Las Cruces? You seriously couldn't come up with a better nickname than Las Cruces?”

Staff Sergeant Sitting Bull laughed. “Don't hate, sir. It sticks out in your mind, doesn't it?”

I scratched my head. “Yeah, I guess so. Where's Lieutenant Rant?”

“He's inventorying all the stuff they brought back with the three Iraqis in the radio room.”

“Cool. Come get me when Las Crucifixion gets here, okay?”

“Will do.”

I found Lieutenant Rant in the radio room, just as Staff Sergeant Sitting Bull had stated. He wore a pair of blue latex, antiseptic gloves to keep his fingerprints off the inventory.

“They find anything good?”

Lieutenant Rant shook his head. “Just the one AK every household has. There are a bunch of papers too, but they really aren't worth checking out unless we get confirmation that this is actually Abbas. At first glance, it just looks like typical household stuff, like bills and journals.”

A few minutes later, Staff Sergeant Sitting Bull walked into the radio room. “We may have a problem,” he told me and Lieutenant Rant.

“What's that?”

“Las Cruces says it's not him. We showed him a digital photo of these guys outside. He says it looks just like him, but it's not the actual Abbas the Beard.”

“Fucking fantastic.”

“But”—Staff Sergeant Sitting Bull paused, choosing his words carefully—“Las Cruces has mad street cred because he used to be in JAM. He might still be with them. So he might be lying to try to save Abbas for whatever reason.”

“Possible,” I responded. “Any chance any of the other sources could come in and say definitively?”

He shook his head. “No, sir, not with the time requirements we have. Most of them are too scared to come here, especially at night. They think the IPs and the NPs have rats who'll spot them. Captain Frowny-Face told me to send the photos to brigade, though, for confirmation up there. Sometimes they have more info and better photographs than we do.”

I walked back to the common area and joined the soldiers and the Iraqis for more
Sportscenter
highlights. The paradoxical contrast of the situation had faded, and to a man, we all just wanted some clarification so we could go to bed. I fully expected brigade to confirm Las Cruces's assessment, and then we'd free the three Iraqis, apologizing profusely and giving them a free breakfast MRE (Meal, Ready-to-Eat, prepackaged army food) for their trouble. When Lieutenant Rant walked out of the company TOC ten minutes later, blinking in surprise, I asked him what had happened.

“I just talked to some intel major from brigade on the phone. She says it's definitely him.”

“Definitely? How definitely?”

“As in 100 percent, no doubt, we're-taking-him-off-the-brigade-HVTLTHIS-VERY-MOMENT 100 percent.”

“Uhh . . . cool.”

Being found with one of the brigade's top targets provided enough to bring in the other two Iraqis as well, so we began drawing up the detention paperwork, and the medics conducted a physical on all three men. About
an hour later, as Lieutenant Mongo's platoon prepared to depart the JSS with the detainees in tow, we received another phone call in the company TOC. Captain Frowny-Face answered it, and in the span of thirty seconds, I watched his face turn red, then purple, then finally white. After saying nothing more than “roger” five or six times, he hung up the phone.

“It's not him. They are now 200 percent certain that man is not Abbas the Beard.”

A few isolated groans could be heard in the room, but most of us just sat there in resigned silence.

“How . . . do things like this even happen?” Lieutenant Rant asked.

“Have Lieutenant Mongo drive them back home instead of to Taji,” Captain Frowny-Face said. “Let's not talk anymore about this until tomorrow.”

As I walked out of the TOC and past the common area, intent on screaming away my frustrations in a dark, isolated corner of the JSS, I saw Lieutenant Mongo's soldiers take off the blindfolds and cut the binds of the three almost-detainees. After Lieutenant Rant and Eddie explained the mix-up to the men, they began walking outside to the Strykers, clearly eager to go home. A soldier smiled and sarcastically wished them a happy Halloween. One of the men found with the Abbas look-alike started to hum on his way out the door. It took me a few seconds to recognize the tune he hummed as the
Sportscenter
jingle.

“Good Christ,” I said out loud to myself, now standing alone in an empty room. “The world can be a really fucking sick place sometimes.”

As President-elect Barack Obama
strode to the podium in Chicago to give his election day victory speech, four soldiers and I watched on television from JSS Istalquaal's common area with the light initiates of dawn piercing the glass of the small window in the corner. One of the soldiers, a young black NCO who sat on the couch in front of me, spoke for all of us and to no one in particular at the same time. “Holy shit,” he said. “I can't believe this is actually happening.”

When the outcome of the election had become clear a few hours earlier, most of the politically inclined on our JSS called it a night, but a few diehards and I stayed up to watch the victory speech in Grant Park. Such a choice
had little to do with my own politics and more to do with the knowledge that history had been made, and since I couldn't participate in it, witnessing it would suffice. Further, we all understood the potency of this moment, as it directly related to our professions as military men: The so-called forever wars we fought in would now actually have an ending.

Civilians often asked about the military vote and what the military as a whole sought from American politics. In my experience, soldiers' politics varied almost as much as those of the greater populace. To begin with, even in the best-educated military in the history of the world, a sizable percentage simply didn't give a damn. They came to Iraq to kill people, or for the money, or for the health-care benefits. The political happenstance of their station in life seemed superfluous to the pragmatic needs of the now.

Obviously, the army was no bastion of liberal ideology. A majority of the politically engaged Joes, NCOs, and officers were conservative by nature, if not necessarily Republican in practice—numbers backed up by a
Military Times
poll conducted in the lead-up to the election, which saw 68 percent of those polled voting for Senator John McCain, while 23 percent pledged their support for then-senator Obama. Much of this derived from a variety of socioeconomic reasons, not to mention the military's inherent nature and traditional appeal. However, after five years of war in Iraq and seven years of war in Afghanistan, some soldiers were just as tired of the status quo as the larger population. Such a sentiment, be it spoken or not, was certainly not an indictment of Senator McCain, as he justly received universal respect from the military community for his own service and sacrifices. Beyond that, the military had a long and proud tradition of stoically and silently following and respecting its presidents as the commander in chief, whoever they were and whatever their politics. Such was an absolute necessity in a free society and the bedrock of the American republic. But as private citizens, it seemed, more and more soldiers—particularly junior officers, including myself—yearned for something new and different. The outcome of this election would directly impact our futures, not to mention the future of the nation we all treasured.

And so two soldiers, two NCOs, and one officer watched President-elect Obama's speech in a dusty, dirty room in the center of Iraq at five or so in the morning, putting all the distress and chaos and rage of war on hold, determining that nothing mattered more at this time than what we watched on the screen before us. Some of us were black, some of us were white, and some of us were brown—a fact that, when I realized it, caused me to search for a joke in order to temper the politically correct banality of the situation.
I wanted to somehow include the absurdity of the word “postracial” in the quip but never got around to it. Instead, I got goose bumps when President-elect Obama said, “To those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.” I didn't feel like joking around anymore.