War Porn (22 page)

 

when defending, or when temporarily halted

while making an attack, you must seek cover from fire

and concealment from observation

 

 

We hauled our gear into the new barracks at FOB Raptor: lines of squat, cinder-block rooms inside a dim, echoing, sheet-metal hangar. We were assigned four to. My roommates were Sergeant Chandler, Stoat, and Reading.

The best part was the latrine. Instead of porta-johns, we had an actual building. Gleaming mirrors. Linoleum floor. Toilet paper. Twenty stalls, separated by white plywood, with doors and flushing toilets. White porcelain sinks. Fourteen showers with curtains, drains, and high-power nozzles. Hot and cold running water.

We ranged the FOB with a quickness, reporting back to each other like kids scouting a theme park. There was a small PX, a hadji souvenir shop, a hadji coffee shop, laundry service with three-day turnaround, a hadji barber, internet café, hadji bootleg-DVD shop, hadji smoothie stand, gym with elliptical trainers, weight machines, and treadmills, and some outdoor volleyball and basketball courts.

Ninety days.

Too easy.

Our patrols weren't difficult. Baghdad had calmed down over the winter. There was less shooting, fewer IED attacks, fewer random ambushes. We rolled through the same garbage-strewn, sewage-washed streets over and over.

Men stood before turquoise-tiled mosque doors, impeccably dressed, watching us go by. Little kids in pink pants waved. Old women in niqabs waved. Shopkeepers waved.

We had terps with us every day now. There was Anuman, an older guy with a short beard, once an economist; Big Joe, who wore mirrored sunglasses and a black leather jacket, who loved American TV and thought American women were “the hottest bitches in the world”; Qasim, a nervous, stick-thin math professor with a Scottish accent; and Ramana, who we called Bertha, a great surly mound of a woman who used to do something with computers. There were others we only met once or twice: Frick and Frack the dental students, Akbar the pimp, Ms. al-Radi the psychiatrist.

Life took on a dependable rhythm. We went to the internet café. We emailed friends and family. Reading and Cheese played
Warcraft III
. Other guys posted photos on Hot or Not and bragged about their ratings. I googled places to go on vacation, broke up with my ex, and ordered thick nineteenth-century novels from Amazon.

We blew our tax-free combat pay on CDs, digital cameras, portable DVD players, creatine powder, protein shakes,
Maxim
, and cases of Red Bull. On patrol we'd drive to the hadji market in the Green Zone, which had the best bootlegs in Baghdad. Little kids ran up shouting “Ficky-ficky DVD,” their hands full of porn.

A private in Attack Battery got killed by an IED. At the ceremony, we stood in formation while the chaplain read from the Bible and some soldiers got up and talked about what a great guy the dead kid was. Lieutenant Colonel Braddock stood and told us how important it was that we were doing the job we were doing and how important it was to bring democracy to Iraq, and most important, how we were defending American freedom from the terrorists who hated our way of life.

The bomb had gone off under the kid's humvee. The charge had been buried in a pothole and covered with plaster of Paris, probably detonated by cell phone. One of the guys in Attack told me they left more of him stuck charred inside the truck than they put in the body bag.

“We're fighting them in the streets of Baghdad,” the Colonel said, “so we won't have to fight them in the streets of Jacksonville, Florida, or the streets of Galveston, Texas, or the streets of PFC Gabriel's hometown of Culver City.”

Taps played on a boombox. Halfway through, the CD started skipping. Then somebody bumped it with his foot and it stopped.

 

do not move: la ta-ta-HAR-rak

 

do not resist: la ta-QAOWM

 

 

We set up Traffic Control Points, usually at night, where we pulled over random hadjis and searched their cars. The LT's favorite spot was Checkpoint 15, an overpass spanning the main expressway along our route. On the north side it fed into a neighborhood, but on the south, the concrete dropped off twenty meters past the entrance ramp, making the overpass a one-way street and a low-traffic exit.

We set up on both sides to cover all the zones. Two guys stood at the top of the ramp with rifles and a high-powered flashlight. We'd flash a car and, once they pulled over, have them get out and open the doors, the hood, the trunk, everything. While the hadjis stood in the dark by the side of the road, we dug through all their crap, searching for weapons, I guess, or maybe bombs or some kind of Axis-of-Evil, al-Qaeda spy shit.

We pulled over a van full of young women in hijab, driven by a middle-aged guy with an enormous mustache. He got out, but when Qasim explained that the women had to get out too, he shook his head.

“La. La,” he said.

“Naam, motherfucker,” I said. “They come the fuck outta the van. Everybody.”

The man said something to Qasim and something to us. Burnett hefted his rifle.

Reading said, “Look at all them bitches!”

Qasim explained: “These are his daughters. He says they cannot be seen standing by the side of road in the night like this. Is very bad. Okay?”

“No, not okay,” I said. “They all gotta come out.”

“It is very
. . . 
ashamed for them,” Qasim said. “Is no good.”

“I get the one in blue,” Reading said.

“I don't fucking care,” I said. “Everybody comes outta the van.”

Qasim said something to the man, who exploded in frustration, screaming in Arabic. I shouted back: “Those girls come the fuck outta the car, or we zip you. Got it?”

Qasim translated and the man glared at me, stomping his foot.

“Tell him,” Burnett said gently, “they either come out on their own, or we drag 'em out.”

“Tell him if they don't come out, we're gonna rape 'em,” said Reading.

“Shut up, Reading.”

“Tell him they come out on their own or we drag 'em out, alright?”

Qasim translated and the man stood indignant.

“Hey, Reading,” I said, “will you get some zip-strips?”

“Roger,” he said, stepping off to the humvees.

When the man saw the zip-strips, he relented. He herded the girls as far away from us as we'd allow, angry and alert as a riled dog. The women stared at the ground. Reading hung back by the railing so he could ogle their asses.

“Come here and open the trunk,” I said to the man. Qasim translated. The man looked at the girls, at Reading, at the van, at us. He didn't move. “Fucking c'mere, bitch,” I shouted, and Qasim said something to him. The man came over reluctantly, watching the girls back over his shoulder, opened the rear door of the van, then scurried back.

We took our time completing the search. We poked under the sunshades, we dug under the seats. Burnett cut a hole in the rear bench with his knife. The glove box was closed so we yelled for the guy to come open it, which he did, then we had him come back again to open the engine cover.

“You wanna fuck with him?” Burnett asked me.

“Maybe. How?”

“Let's tell him we think there's an IED in the van, so we zip-strip him and his daughters and leave 'em sit awhile. Then we just stand around, right, let him fucking sweat.”

“Seems more trouble than it's worth.”

“Let him cool his heels awhile,” Burnett said. “That fucking guy needs to learn who's boss.”

“Alright,” Staff Sergeant Smith shouted from the humvees. “There a problem or you gonna get that van outta here?”

“We're trying to score with these bitches, Sarnt,” Reading shouted back.

“Score with bitches on your own time, Private. Get that van outta here.”

I told Qasim to tell the man he was free to go, but that the next time Coalition Forces told him what to do, he better just fucking do it. Qasim translated and the man barked back at us in Arabic, spit on the ground, and stamped his foot. He loaded up his girls and drove off.

Later that night we stopped a car full of hadjis with a flat of beer in the back seat. Foster and Burnett started giving them a hard time, so the men offered us some. Burnett took the cans and passed them around, plus one for Staff Sergeant Smith and one for the LT, then let the car go. We drank and watched the traffic go by under the bridge and decided to start a shakedown.

“You give me beer,” Burnett would say, leaning in the window.

“No beer,” the hadji might say, and we'd let them go, or “Beer, yes,” and they'd hand us some cans.

After four or five successful contraband seizures, we broke down the TCP and just drove around, our buzz brushing the night to a smooth gleam.

Walking back to the barracks one day from visiting Villaguerrero at Battalion, I saw Qasim sitting outside the terp shack, smoking and drinking tea.

“Sabah al-khayr,” I said.

“Sabah al-noor,” he replied. “You speak very good Arabic.”

“Not really, but thanks. You off today?”

“Yes. I was going to go see my uncle, but he says to me… is very dangerous, Qasim, and better you not come.”

“Dangerous how?”

“My, how you say, the husband of my uncle's daughter?”

“Shit, I don't know. Cousin-in-law?”

“So, my cousin-law
. . . 
is very religious and
. . . 
he does not like the Americans. He wants you to go home, because you are not Muslim. So sometime he stays with my uncle, because
. . . 
because. Other times he goes to family. When he stays with my uncle, I do not go. Because I work for you.”

“That must be hard.”

“Is better than Baqubah. After the invasion I go to Baqubah because my wife and mother
. . . 
My wife
. . . 
My mother, she is dead now.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“Many are dead now. Hers was quiet. Hers was at peace. She's with God now. But in Baqubah, it is very difficult. Too many religious, Sunni, Shia, same-same. They fight. Baghdad is not so difficult. Things are bad—but bad all over, so maybe Baghdad is more good. Better.”

“Is it better now? I mean now that we got rid of Saddam?”

“Some ways better. Other ways more bad. Instead of one Saddam, now too many Saddam. You see? You need to stay, you need to be
. . . 
on the street. You need to be very strong. It is very difficult for Iraq; we have no parliament, no Magna Carta. We have tribes, families. We have the sheikh, we have the ayatollah, we have the imam. You see? No Saddam, no sheikh, then we fight, and is why we need you to stay. Yes? You will be here a long time, I think.”

“I don't know,” I said. “Probably.”

“A long time, I think,” he said. “Many things are very bad now. Water is very bad. You see
. . . 
how do you say,
sewer
? Yes? The sewer when we patrol? Very bad. Electricity very bad. Economy bad. Shops are open but there is much
. . . 
Some things very expensive. Small things. Also security very bad, very dangerous, especially for woman. A woman cannot go out from the house. My uncle, his daughters make him crazy. For why? Because they cannot go out. Two men to go out of the house, and the woman have to wear v
ery much hijab, and the man have a gun. Very dangerous. Very bad. In Baqubah is worse. I work with the American there, like here, but Baqubah very small. Everybody
. . . 
how you say
. . . 
everybody all up in each other's shit. So I cannot work in Baqubah, because they say they kill my wife and family. But in Baghdad is okay. Sometimes they try to shoot or kidnap. But they know my face only. They don't know who is my family, where I live, and when I go to my uncle, I am very careful. My
. . . 
cousin-law, he does not know, but if he did, is safe. N
ot okay, but safe. Because family is number one, yes?”

“Are you glad we came? Are you glad we got rid of Saddam?”

“It is no good to be glad or sad of God's will. We live. We die. God's will. What do I say to you, Specialist Wilson? Are you glad you came?”

“I'm glad we made it this far.”

“Yes. This far.”

“Yeah
. . . 
Well, I should go hit the gym. It was nice to talk with you, Qasim.”

“Okay, yes. Very nice to talk with you, Specialist Wilson. You see, we can all speak together, Iraqi and American. Friends, yes? But soon I must go from Baghdad and return to Baqubah. My wife is sick. I think you will not see me for many weeks. But someday we meet again, insha'Allah.”

He gently shook my hand, then touched his heart.

“Stay safe, Qasim. Salaam a-leykum.”

“Leykum a-salaam, Specialist Wilson.”