A Battlefield Tourist

An Experience in Baghdad

Sep 26 at 4:04am by David Tate

I was up bright and early Tuesday for my last combat patrol of this trip. My time would be spent with a squad from 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment. Up until a year ago, this unit was based out of Ft. Lewis, Wa., but more recently they’ve been assigned to Germany. It’s the same unit that is now immortalized by the very popular mili-blogger, Michael Yon, who details their work in Mosul during their last deployment.

I needed to be at the command post by 0230 for the briefing of that day’s operation which included three platoons set to clear several blocks of houses in the Doura neighborhood in East Rasheed. This area is on the southeastern edge of Baghdad and had not seen a coalition or Iraqi security presence for several months before members of “The Wolf Pack” got the assignment in late August.

I’d never been in a Stryker and they are quite impressive. The vehicle is a top-notched advancement in infantry mobility and seemingly perfect for the setting they are now operating in. In all, the day would start out with more than a dozen Strykers descending on the area as they continued a north/south clearance pattern that is an extension of the daily, non-stop work of previous days.

I asked to go with “Gold Platoon”, which included the route clearing and EOD team, figuring that would be the best place to get good images. I was told I’d be better off with “Blue Platoon”, which to be honest, put me as far back from “the front” as possible in this particular situation. It was a bit disappointing.

As we moved through Baghdad I watched the screens in front of me that provided daytime views of the nighttime scenery. One view from the gunner’s screen, another from the driver’s point of view. In between the two, I was able to watch on a Google earth-type map, as all the units in this patrol appeared in real time at their particular locations.

After a 45-minute ride and another 45-minutes of positioning, the rear hatch dropped and we hoped out to join the rest of the squad that we would be working with on this 8-hour patrol (which was originally scheduled for 22-hours, according to one soldier.).

As we all crouched next to a wall in the blue, pre-dawn light and using the Stryker for cover, we waited for the order to clear the first house. The lead Sergeant banged on the locked gate several times with no response before the soldiers broke through the gate and entered the yard. “Breach open!”, someone would yell each time we went through this process.

As we entered the yard, the soldiers quickly cut all the visible wires, not knowing if they were linked to booby traps. Still no sign of anyone, so the door was kicked down and we rushed into the house where we were met by a groggy, half dressed man who seemed a bit bewildered by what was happening. The soldiers made their way quickly through the home, clearing each room until the house was secure. Then a thorough search was completed as the man and his wife were questioned about the position of IEDs and the whereabouts of the terrorists.

This is what we did for the next six hours. House after house, door after door. So much happened that it’s hard to remember the sequence of events. Some of the houses had been abandoned for some time. Others seem to have been abandoned within the past few weeks. One house we went in looked as if the occupants literally dropped what they were doing and left with just the clothes on their backs. You could tell because there was half-eaten meals left behind or a strainer with tea leaves in it sitting next to a cold kettle still on the stove.

This neighborhood was about 85% Sunni and 15% Christian/Shia. It’s hard to tell what the makeup is now. Sectarian strife and Al Qaida in Iraq has all but turned this world upside down.

As we left one house we heard the impact of a bullet nearby, quickly followed by the report of a rifle. A soldier returned fire as we ducked back into the walled yard. After that, smoke was used often to cross open streets, that every once in a while, would echo with the exchange of gunfire; usually a few heavy shots of the AK-47, followed by a quick, but violent response by American rifles.

At one point during the day I could see some guy up the street, in a different squad, waving his arms in our direction. It wasn’t a soldier and I actually thought it was an interpreter. Turned out it was Roggio trying to get my attention. Our two squads briefly met, we shook hands and went opposite directions. I didn’t realize Baghdad was so small.

By the end of the day, I was tired, hot and a little confused. While the soldiers I was with were good guys and did their jobs well, they were in a state of frustration because of the inability to properly do their jobs. Our squad didn’t have a translator, which in my opinion, was a serious issue. Many times they would enter a home and have no way to communicate, no way to follow the orders of the day that they were given.

In the morning brief, the Captain told the men to go into the homes and tell them they were good Muslims and they (the soldiers) were there to help protect them. They were to ask these residents for help in identifying potential IED sites and the whereabouts of the terrorists. They were also tasked with finding any illegal weapons. None of this, except the latter, was possible because the men I was with had no way of communicating with the populace. This often resulted in frustration among the soldiers and fear among the people they were encountering. It happened so often that I wondered what good was being accomplished in comparison to the damage to hearts and minds they were causing as doors came off their hinges, windows were broke, bedrooms were disheveled and homes invaded. I could see in the faces of those people, a sense of hopelessness as the soldiers made themselves at home, walked across their sleeping mats and smoked cigarettes at will in their homes.

I wondered to myself if these soldiers had empathy for these people as equal human beings or had this war, lack of cultural understanding and lack of ability to communicate reduced that perception. This was a different side of the war I had not seen here before and it wore on me.

In one home we were let in by an old woman with tattoos on her face. With her were three young women. Together they sat patiently in the kitchen while their home was searched and the two young men of the house were tested for evidence of explosives residue. A young soldier, who was guarding the door from the kitchen to the outside, lit up a cigarette as the women trembled and the occasional sound of something breaking echoed through the house. “Hey man, it’s Ramadan… you shouldn’t be smoking in front of them”, I said. “Yeah… I’ll smoke outside”, he said. I sat there on their kitchen floor, occasionally looking at the women, but for the most part, I looked at the floor as emotions raced through my mind. The old woman was trembling and tears were swelling in her eyes. I could only imagine what was going through her mind. The fear she has had, even prior to us showing up that day. I wondered what this family,and the hundreds of thousands of families like hers, has endured during this war. Then I thought of my grandmother and I felt sad that this is how it is in their lives. Innocent people caught between a ruthless element of terrorists and those that believe they are helping fight that terror.

I am not passing judgment on these soldiers because this is just one small slice of their daily fight for survival on these mean streets that have claimed their youth and their friends. There’s no way for me, or you, to judge a group of soldiers based on an eight hour day with them. To be fair, the soldiers only kicked down doors that weren’t answered in a quick fashion. They also always asked for the keys. In fact, the majority of kicked in doors were in abandoned houses that were locked up tight in the owner’s absence. However, the experience did make me wonder how you can convince a population to help if you cannot communicate with them, if you cannot cultivate a relationship with them, leaving the soldiers only an option of kicking in a door, clearing a home and then moving on.

This was clear to me when we encountered a family where a woman spoke descent, but broken English. As she sat on the floor holding a clearly malnourished child, the soldiers told her it’s about time for the Iraqi people to stand up for themselves and they should help the soldiers find the terrorists. She agreed with the assessment but added that it’s difficult to stand up to terrorists when there’s no permanent security to help protect them. Her husband was chased from his work and they have no food. They claimed they don’t even leave the house for fear of being killed. She claimed the house they were in was abandoned by her neighbors… they’re too afraid to stay in their own home. She begged over and over that the Americans needed to stay in the neighborhood instead of just coming through it during the day, then leaving at night. Something the Americans are just learning in outer-lying areas of Baghdad I have visited recently, but something that is not in any near term plans for this part of town.

I will have one final dispatch in the next few days, wrapping up this latest chronicle. If you have enjoyed and learned from my experience here in Iraq, I urge you to contribute to Public Multimedia Inc., a non-profit, independent media company founded by Bill Roggio. Your donation is tax deductible. Learn more about our efforts here: http://www.longwarjournal.organd here: http://publicmultimedia.org/donate.html