The Salacious and the Surreal

One evening, we took over what we thought was an abandoned apartment, since it was empty when we arrived. I was rotating with another sniper, and while I was off, I went hunting around to see if there was something I might use to make the hide more comfortable.

In an open drawer of a bureau, I saw all this sexy lingerie. Crotchless panties, nightgowns—very suggestive stuff.

Not my size, though.

There was often an odd, almost surreal mix of things inside the buildings, items that would seem out of place under the best circumstances. Like the car tires we found on the roof in Fallujah, or the goat we found in the bathroom of a Haifa Street apartment.

I’d see something, then spend the rest of the day wondering what the story was. After a while, the bizarre came to seem natural.

Not quite surprising were the TVs and satellite dishes. They were everywhere. Even in the desert. Many times we’d come upon a little nomad settlement with tents for houses and nothing but a couple animals and open land around them. Still, they were bristling with satellite dishes.

Calling Home

One night, I was on an overwatch and things were quiet. Nights were normally slow in Baghdad. Insurgents usually wouldn’t attack then, because they knew we had the advantage with our technology, including our night-vision gear and infrared sensors. So I thought I’d take a minute and call my wife back home, just to tell I was thinking of her.

I took our sat phone and dialed home. Most times, when I talked to Taya, I’d tell her I was back at base, even though I was really on an overwatch or in the field somewhere. I didn’t want to worry her.

This night, for some reason, I told her what I was doing.

“Is it all right to talk?” she asked.

“Oh yeah, it’s all good,” I said. “There’s nothing going on.”

Well, I got maybe another two or three sentences out of my mouth when someone started firing at the building from the street.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing,” I said nonchalantly.

Of course, the gunfire stoked up real loud as the words came out of my mouth.

“Chris?”

“Well, I think I’m going to get going now,” I told her.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh yeah. It’s all good,” I lied. “Nothing happening. Talk to you later.”

Just then, an RPG hit the outside wall right near me. Some of the building smacked into my face, giving me a couple of beauty marks and temporary tattoos courtesy of the insurgency.

I dropped the phone and started returning fire. I spotted the guys down the street and popped one or two; the snipers who were with me downed a bunch more before the rest got the hell out of there.

Fight over, I grabbed up the phone. The batteries had run out, so I couldn’t call back.

Things got busy for a few days, and it wasn’t until two or three days later when I finally got a chance to call Taya and see how she was.

She started crying as soon as she answered the phone.

It turned out I hadn’t actually ended the call before I put down the phone. She’d heard the whole gunfight, complete with shots and curses, before the batteries had finally run out. Which, of course, happened all of a sudden, adding to the anxiety.

I tried to calm her down, but I doubt what I said really eased her mind.

She was always a good sport, always insisting that I didn’t have to hide things from her. She claimed her imagination was a lot worse than anything that really could happen to me.

I don’t know about that.

I made a few other calls home during lulls in battles during my deployments. The overall pace of the action was so intense and continuous that there weren’t many alternatives. Waiting until I got back to our camp might mean waiting for a week or more. And while I’d call then, too, if I could, it wasn’t always possible.

And I got used to the battles. Getting shot at was just part of the job. RPG round? Just another day at the office.

My dad has a story about hearing from me at work one day when I hadn’t had a chance to call in a while. He picked up the phone and was surprised to hear my voice.

He was even more surprised that I was whispering.

“Chris, why is your voice so hushed?” he asked.

“I’m on an op, Dad. I don’t want them to know where I’m at.”

“Oh,” he answered, a little shaken.

I doubt I was actually close enough for the enemy to hear anything, but my father swears that a few seconds later, there were gunshots in the background.

“Gotta go,” I said, before he had a chance to find out what the sound was. “I’ll get back to you.”

According to my father, I called back two days later to apologize for hanging up so abruptly. When he asked if he had overheard the start of a firefight, I changed the subject.

Building My Rep

My knees were still hurting from being pinned under rubble back in Fallujah. I tried to get cortisone shots but couldn’t. I didn’t want to push too hard: I was afraid of getting pulled out because of my injury.

Every once in a while, I took some Motrin and iced them down; that was about it. In battle, of course, I was fine—when your adrenaline is pumped, you don’t feel anything.

Even with the pain, I loved what I was doing. Maybe war isn’t really fun, but I certainly was enjoying it. It suited me.

By this time, I had a bit of a reputation as a sniper. I’d had a lot of confirmed kills. It was now a very good number for such a short period—or any period, really.

Except for the Team guys, people didn’t really know my name and face. But there were rumors around, and my stay here added to my reputation, such as it was.

It seemed like everywhere I set up, I’d get a target. This started to piss off some of the other snipers, who could spend whole shifts and even days without seeing anybody, let alone an insurgent.

One day, Smurf, a fellow SEAL, started following me around as we went into an apartment.

“Where are you setting up?” he asked.

I looked around and found a place I thought looked good.

“Right there,” I told him.

“Good. Get the hell out of here. I’m taking this spot.”

“Hey, you take it,” I told him. I went off to find another spot—and promptly got a kill from there.

For a while, it didn’t seem to matter what I did, things would happen in front of me. I wasn’t inventing the incidents—I had witnesses for all my shots. Maybe I saw a little farther, maybe I anticipated trouble better than other people. Or, most likely, I was just lucky.

Assuming being a target for people who want to kill you can be considered luck.

One time, we were in a house on Haifa Street, where we had so many snipers that the only possible place to shoot from was a tiny window above a toilet. I had to actually stand up the whole time.

I still got two kills.

I was just one lucky motherfucker.

One day, we got intel that the insurgents were using a cemetery at the edge of town near Camp Independence at the airport to cache weapons and launch attacks. The only way I could get a view of the place was to climb up on this tall, tall crane. Once at the top, I then had to go out on a thin-mesh platform.

I don’t know how high I went. I don’t want to know. Heights are not my favorite thing—it makes my balls go in my throat just thinking about it.

The crane did give me a decent view of the cemetery, which was about eight hundred yards away.

I never took a shot from there. I never saw anything aside from mourners and funerals. But it was worth a try.

Besides looking for people with IEDs, we had to watch out for the bombs themselves. They were everywhere—occasionally, even in the apartment buildings. One team narrowly escaped one afternoon, the explosives going off just after they collapsed down and left the building.

The Guard was using Bradleys to get around. The Bradley looks a bit like a tank, since it has a turret and gun on top, but it’s actually a personnel carrier and scout vehicle, depending on its configuration.

I believe it’s made to fit six people inside. We would try and cram eight or ten in. It was hot, muggy, and claustrophobic. Unless you were sitting by the ramp, you couldn’t see anything. You kind of sucked it up and waited to get wherever it was you were going.

One day, the Bradleys picked us up from a sniper op. We had just turned off Haifa onto one of the side streets, and all of a sudden—buh-lam. We’d been hit by a massive IED. The back of the vehicle lifted up and slammed back down. The inside filled with smoke.

I could see the guy across from me moving his mouth, but I couldn’t hear a word: the blast had blown out my ears.

The next thing I knew, the Bradley started moving again. That was one tough vehicle. Back at the base, the commander kind of shrugged it off.

“Didn’t even knock the tracks off,” he said. He almost sounded disappointed.

I

Today I couldn’t tell you their names if my life depended on it. And I’m not even sure that I can describe them in a way that would show you why they were special.

Me and the boys from Arkansas seemed to get along real well together, maybe because we were all just country boys.

Well, they were hillbillies. You’ve got your regular redneck like me, then you got your hillbilly who’s a whole sight different animal.

Onward

The elections came and went.

The media back in the States made a big thing of the Iraqi government elections, but it was a nonevent for me. I wasn’t even out that day; I caught it on TV.

I never really believed the Iraqis would turn the country into a truly functioning democracy, but I thought at one point that there was a chance. I don’t know that I believe that now. It’s a pretty corrupt place.

But I didn’t risk my life to bring democracy to Iraq. I risked my life for my buddies, to protect my friends and fellow countrymen. I went to war for my country, not Iraq. My country sent me out there so that bullshit wouldn’t make its way back to our shores.

I never once fought for the Iraqis. I could give a flying fuck about them.

A short while after the election, I was sent back to my SEAL platoon. Our time in Iraq was growing short, and I was starting to look forward to going home.

Being at camp in Baghdad meant I had my own little room. My personal gear filled four or five cruise boxes, two big Stanley roller boxes, and assorted rucks. (Cruise boxes are the modern equivalent of footlockers; they’re waterproof and roughly three feet long.) On deployment, we pack heavy.

I also had a TV set. All the latest movies were on pirated DVDs selling at Baghdad street stands for five bucks. I bought a box set of James Bond movies, some Clint Eastwood, John Wayne—I love John Wayne. I love his cowboy movies especially, which makes sense I guess. Rio Bravo may be my favorite.

Besides movies, I spent a bit of time playing computer games—Command and Conquer became a personal favorite. Smurf had a PlayStation, and we started getting into playing Tiger Woods.

I kicked his butt.

Date: 2016-01-03; view: 553