IRAQ STORY - THE STORY YOU’LL NEVER GET FROM THE MEDIA | LIFE ON A FORWARD OPERATING BASE IN A WAR ZONE

“All of y’all are goin’ to a WAR ZONE!”

It doesn’t matter how many times you hear it, if you haven’t been to an actual war zone, there’s just no way to understand what the words mean. I guess that’s why the people in Houston getting us ready to go to Iraq kept saying it over and over. It has about the same effect as speaking slowly and loudly to someone who doesn’t speak your language... they still won’t understand what you’re saying. But the first time you hear an explosion loud enough to literally shake the building, or in my case, the tin trailer you’re in, you quickly begin to get the idea.

Last night at a little after 9:15, the thirty five or so guys with whom I’m sharing this wood-paneled, fluorescent-lit, air-conditioned, bunk-bedded tin can/oasis were all in bed, fairly exhausted after a 16 hour, 124 degree day. We’re in Camp Anaconda, the largest U. S. Military base in Iraq. Many of the KBR personnel here are waiting to be sent to our actual work sites—this is just a stepping stone for a lot of us. The guys were all pretty quiet, and the lights were out. Then it comes. First the noise hits, immediately followed by a shock wave that rattles the walls, the beds, and your teeth. It’ll get your attention, right away.

We’d been to an orientation meeting earlier in the day, and the woman speaking walked us through it. “What’s the first thing you do when you hear an explosion?”

You get down as low as you can and try to melt into the ground, that’s what you do. You literally throw yourself on the floor, as fast and as hard as possible. If there’s any shrapnel flying around, the lower and flatter you are, the better.

You wake up to the boom and the rattling in a mild state of denial and confusion, not quite knowing, not quite believing what you’re hearing. The deeper, more primal parts of your brain are pumping adrenalin into your system and screaming “Emergency, Emergency”, but the rational part of your mind is still asking, “What’s going on? Do I really have to get up?” You drop out of the bunk bed, and get as flat on the floor and as compact as you can.

While you’re laying there next to the guy who bailed out of the bunk next to you, you roll around and wiggle your way into the 45 pound flack jacket you’ve been silently (or not-so-silently) cursing all day, for the stress it’s been putting on your shoulders and back. Now, you quietly take back all those nasty things you thought and said about it, and realize that you’re really pretty glad to have it after all. And the helmet that awkwardly hangs off your belt during the day feels pretty good, too.

Nobody panicked at the explosion, partly because most of us didn’t really know for sure what had happened. But we were nervous enough, and a few of us were talking to each other, like kids in the bunkhouse the first night at summer camp.

“OK, boys, get it together. The bad guys are actin’ up.”
“Think that’s for real?”
“It’s damn sure real enough. Get your gear on.”

Then there was a little debate. Some of us thought we should stay right where we were, some of us wanted to get to the nearest hardened bunker, a foot thick concrete upside-down U-shaped tunnel, about 7 feet high and 15 feet long. It was just a short run from the door of our container. But by the time we’d talked it over, it’d been a few minutes, and there hadn’t been any more detonations. So a couple of us went outside, and looked for someone with a radio. I found a security guy, and asked what was up.

“That was a scheduled event” he told me, “No need to worry.”

“And no need to go to the bunkers?”

“Nope. Stand down.”

You don’t have to be military to know that’s good news. A “scheduled event” means it’s us doing the noisemaking, not the bad guys. But you can understand why people are a little edgy. Just four days ago, a mortar was lobbed “over the wire”, the chain link and barbed wire fence surrounding the base, and 15 guys here were knocked down. No one was killed, but three soldiers were critically injured, and sent on a medical evacuation flight to Germany for advanced medical care. The other twelve are still here, just a few minor injuries, but it’s enough to make you think. More than that, it’s enough to make you react, even before your brain fully understands what’s going on, when you hear, then feel that first WHOOMPH!

Camp Anaconda had taken about 150 mortar and rocket rounds over the wire in the previous month, an average of five a day, so we’re definitely on somebody’s agenda. As our KBR Security Chief here put it, “We’re plagued with insurgency”, and then he went on to list eight or ten aggressive local groups of people who’d prefer us to be somewhere else. This is supposedly the “hottest” location in the country, and one soldier told me that Anaconda gets 53% of all the hostile action in Iraq. Funny, I’d never even heard of this place in all the war-related news stories before we got here. There’s my first hint at the gap between what’s reported to Americans in the States, and what Americans here are actually experiencing.

While riding around the base on one of the air conditioned mini-shuttle busses that criss-cross this gigantic military installation all day every day, I asked one of the army guys what the mission is for the soldiers stationed at Anaconda. He said, “Here’s how it is… We’re in the wild west, and this is Fort Apache. When the bad guys act up, we send out some soldiers, and calm things down.” “Calming things down” means we use overpowering force to convince the opposition that it’s not in their best interest to “act up”.

A lot of it is high-level security, and I don’t have a need-to-know very much. But I do know that we’ve got some pretty amazing technology at work here. We’re not allowed to take pictures in a number of areas, nor of the planes and weapons, but we know that one of our technological toys will tell our guys not only precisely where an incoming mortar or rocket will hit while it’s still in flight, but it can pinpoint exactly where it was shot from, as well. That information is immediately followed up with a helicopter assault, and then two 500 pound bombs. It’s what our security chief calls a “forceful” response. And we’ve got patrols outside the wire every night. Night before last, there were 14 patrols outside the perimeter of the camp.

The army walks a thin line. They’re here to help stabilize the country, protect themselves and us, and not to make more enemies. During the day, when riding to the DFAC (the dining facility) or PX (more formally called the Post Exchange, the Army’s version of your local 7-11 or Quickie Mart) on one of the base shuttles, you can sometimes see Iraqis just outside the wire. Farmers, I’m told, and while they’re watched closely, they are not challenged.

While riding on one of those shuttle busses, a soldier told me that on the Marine bases here, if you get within eyesight of the wire, you’ve got weapons pointed at you. If you don’t leave immediately when warned to do so, you get shot. No hesitation, no debate, and certainly, no regret. Consequently, the theory is, there’s less hostility at and around the Marine camps. Of course, it’s hard to see how you can win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people that way. But I’d guess the civilians and soldiers in those camps sleep just a little better at night.

This is all rumor and speculation, though. I haven’t been to any Marine bases in Iraq, but it does fit the no-nonsense impression I have of the Corps. I remember thinking more than once in Houston, “Please, please, please, let me get assigned to a base full of pissed off young Marines with something to prove.”

We had another “scheduled event” the night before last, too. Of course, the fact that it’s called “scheduled” doesn’t mean any of us outside the military know about it in advance. While it would save some nerves, it’s pretty easy to understand why these “events” aren’t announced. We have a large number of locals, that is, Iraqis, working on the base. They’re known as “LNs” or “Local Nationals”, and they’re involved in construction, cleaning, and drive a few of the busses and trucks around the base, as well. We have no particular reason to think that they’re likely to pass information to insurgents, but there’s even less reason to take any chances. So it’s always a surprise when we hear an explosion, and it’s never a pleasant surprise.

I was in a Morale, Welfare, and Recreation trailer at the time, waiting to get on a phone to call home at about 9:45 p.m. There were 10 or 12 people ahead of me, and only 5 phones. Each of us gets 15 minutes to talk, so I was looking at a fairly long wait, when we heard two explosions somewhere nearby. As a rookie, I was fairly slow to react, but though we’re not required to wear the PPE gear indoors, the people around me had their flack jackets and helmets on and were out the door in a flash, headed to the nearest bunkers. The building security guy’s radio informed us just then that this one had been a “scheduled event”, and there was no need to react.

In war, as the saying goes, there are the quick, and there are the dead. This was one of the few times that a slow response worked out. All of a sudden, with everyone else in a bunker, I was promoted to the front of the phone line, and learned the truth of the old saying.

It really is an ill wind that blows nobody good.