Outside the Wire

  We’ve got to keep Haji on his toes, lest he think he can blatantly transport weapons and bomb-making materials through our area of operations. Those who would do us harm need to know that we frown on this behavior, we Americans fighting over here, and if they’re going to try, they better damn well be afraid of getting caught.

   As I’ve stated many times in this blog, I am a communications officer. My job on this deployment is to keep my Battalion connected through various means. I advise the Commander and staff on all things Signal. Still, the Commander feels it is important for even his staff officers and NCOs to get out and participate in operations. This doesn’t happen all the time. We are usually highly engaged in organizing our sections, planning, and prioritizing the workload. But some days, when asked, I go out and help where I can.

    I recently had a day like this. I rolled out of the FOB with a few other vehicles. We were heavily armed, locked and loaded of course, and just plain old bristly with our antennae and the gunners sticking out of the top of the Hummers with their Billy-Bad ass weapon systems. So, we rolled up on a Main Supply Route, a local highway more or less, and started driving aggressively against traffic.

   The sky was a flat gray and I could almost feel its weight. I could smell rain in the air. We were just cruising- always on the alert for a suicide vehicle borne improved explosive device (SVBIED), or any number of other threats. As vehicles saw us coming towards them, they would stop on the shoulder of the highway, not unlike you might do back in the States when a cop or an ambulance speeds past. I won’t discuss tactics of course, but I’ll tell you that we configured our vehicles in such a manner that just as Haji thought we were going to roll on past, we had him trapped. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do except get out of the car and be a good boy. Again, I won’t discuss the type of individuals or vehicles we were targeting, but suffice it to say we weren’t just picking randomly. Every soldier on the mission knew what to look for.

    I was on the vehicle search team. We’d block in big 18 wheelers, cars and trucks of all types. At one point, there was a Suburban in the bunch with a wooden coffin on top, secured with ropes. A distinguished, mature woman leaned out of the back window. She seemed fatigued, and she wore a dark maroon headscarf and dress. She looked at us and said, “My mother,” in perfect English, pointing upwards. We told her to drive on through using hand signals. We smiled and waved, and she said “Merci. Merci,” and smiled back at us as she drove away. Once we had the passengers out of a vehicle, and the driver had opened all doors, the hood and the trunk, another soldier and I would move in and check the vehicle thoroughly. It was interesting work to be out there in the middle of an interstate in Iraq, 8,000 miles from home, one of the most dangerous roads in the world, leaning into these people’s cars, running my hand under their seats, checking their glove boxes, their trunks. I felt like a fully armored futuristic cop.  

   We had a good stand-off distance. We took measures to ensure our safety. But these guys are crafty to say the least. As I approached the vehicles, I still had that fraction of fear, that omnipresent possibility that it could explode and send me into oblivion. This kind of work tests your resolve, forces you to face your fear. It’s therapeutic. I have a lot of respect for the soldiers who are outside the wire every day, and it increases every time I go out on a mission myself.

   And it’s great for the appetite. I ate a huge dinner that night. I was back on the FOB within a few hours, sitting at my computer, writing some awards, coordinating some projects, basically being the geek that I am. In the big scheme of this war, it was just another day in the Al Anbar Province. 

  As one example of the great work your military is doing, here is a story from US Army CENTCOM (Central Command) about a weapons cache that was found recently in Al Anbar. Can you imagine the lives that were saved by finding before it was fired at us? We do this every day, and the presence of all these weapons is a testament to the fact that if we wouldn't have brought the fight to them, they would most certainly have continued to bring it to us back in the homeland.

Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it.

-William Durant, founder of General Motors

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