DISPATCHES
Letters From a Soldier
Several
weeks ago, I got a letter from a fellow who had been corresponding
with an US Army soldier stationed in Iraq. He and the soldier
got into a conversation and my name came up. The soldier asked
if the letters could be forwarded to me. They were sent. I
read them and asked if I could post them. We worked it out
and here they are. The soldier is typing this from one of
those cyber cafes on base, during one of his breaks, so there's
some typos and they're just one young person's
views on what he's going through so please just take
it for what it is. Thanks for reading. --Henry
02-01-06
It isn't that my job here is really important, it is just
kind of surviving. The conditions are pretty much shit.
I live in a space about 8x8. I am on 24 hr a day call and
have to be out the hooch (room) and out the front gate in
15 minutes. I sleep fully clothed and armed at all times.
I started wearing my biker shorts so my pistol holster doesn't
rub my leg raw. I have one day a week off, and its not
like you can go to McDonalds or the bar when you are off.
So I end up spending my day off doing laundry or whatever
else I may be able to get myself into. We have a gym in a
tent, but it doesn't have very much equipment.
Overall this base is pretty lame.
Insurgents almost everyday mortar us. They might take
a couple of days off until some Muslim cleric starts wailing
over the loud speakers to attack Americans. That’s
when they get all wound up and start to fight. They
hate us here. The only thing that they understand is
violence.
The town of Ramadi has a population of about 300,000 people
of which nearly 100% are Sunni. Ramadi is one of the
most dangerous places to be stationed in Iraq. Our latest
battle was just in the news. The press reported that
we only killed 2 insurgents, but we whacked 15 of those bastards.
The fight lasted about 45-60 minutes. Fucking crazy.
I always seem to end up in the middle of shit. They
initiated the ambush with rockets. I could see, hear, and
feel the rocket wiz about a foot from my shoulder, then the
bullets started coming. One rocket hit the Humvee, bounced
up hit the gun shield and then hit the 50 cal right in its
side but it never detonated. The stupid fucks don't
know that they have to pull the safety pin on the rockets
before they shoot them. Thank god they are bad shots.
The gunner came out of the turret and hit the ground behind
the hummer. I kept yelling at him to look at me. I had
to run over to his hummer and check him out. He was
dusted by something but was ok. You could tell he thought
that he didn't have a face left. That was when I started
shooting. I got one fuck for sure and maybe another
one, but a grenade round detonated behind him right when I
was shooting. We ran out of ammo. It was a hell
of a fight. I am not sure if my dick got hard during
the fight but was hard for 4 hours afterwards. It was
like the scene in Blackhawk Down when the RPG blows up near
that one guy. He gets covered in dirt and is unable
to hear anything all awhile bullets are hitting all around
him, which is exactly what this fight reminded me of.
We had one guy who was hit in the ankle.
I try not to think too much of the future these days.
02-09-06
Dude, we are taking a beating here. Politics is what
is getting us killed. If only we could keep going with
things instead of trying to appease the populace back there.
People back home need to get a backbone and realize we have
to fight the only way they know how. And that way it
isn't very nice. War isn't nice and it isn't pretty.
I have a mission that I have to go on to give medical attention
to some families. It is an attempt for us to win the
Iraq’s hearts. I hate the mere thought of it.
These people know the insurgents and they are afraid, that
I can understand. They won’t give us information because
they fear that the insurgents will think they are helping
the Americans. At the same time they fail to understand
that if they do help us we could assist them in industrializing
their society.
Their average income is around 250 dollars a year. The insurgents
offer them $500 to plant an IED or a mine in the road.
We have found some people in raids with American money on
them. The mosques are funded by the insurgents and are
used as a tool to disseminate American messages and propaganda.
It is a static war. We are unable take any ground and
hold it. The Iraqi army gets into firefights and they
drop their weapons and run. It is crazy over here. I
just worked on one insurgent who was shot in the chest.
Sometimes I feel like just letting them die. They are
worthless. It is like the Wild West here.
I start to think about my plans for when I get back home.
Then I think, ‘well, lets first make it back’.
And then I try not to think of home. I see so much death
and pain here. It isn’t anything that I can’t
handle, it just seems senseless to keep fighting this way.
When it comes down to it, it is about the men you are with.
That is all you have here.
Bill out.
02-11-06
I try to give you the details from my eyes of my surroundings
and from my ears from the things we hear and what our Iraqi
interpreter tells us. There is so much that I am probably
missing or don't have the time to write because we are limited
on the computers here. It is hard for me to break away
from my hooch and get to the internet cafe. I am on
a QRF (Quick Response Force) team and we are on 24 hour alert
if the shit hits the fan.
We got shot at again today and the Iraq army guys just sat
there and didn't do a fucking thing. Then there were
some people in the alley who watched the whole thing go down.
I pointed my weapon in their direction and said a few words
in Arabic that I have picked up from the interpreter.
These stupid asses can’t even fight for there own town.
When I get back there we will have to sit and talk about this
for some time. Things are always going to be there after
this. Maybe we could tape it and keep it for historical purposes.
You know me too, I definitely won’t take any shit from
these hajji's. So far I only have two kills, but I may
have more. The insurgents are like cockroaches, they
pop up from nowhere, attack you and then they try to run away.
An IED (improvised explosive device) disabled a tank the other
night and we had to go out and pull security for the recovery
vehicle. I like this job and what I do here because
it is always different. Sometimes we have to pull security
for the signal jamming vehicles and the EOD (Explosive Ordinance
Disposal) guys as they clear a MSR (main supply route) We
had small arms fire the other night on one of the OP's (outpost)
and we got called in to support the towers in the fight.
We got stuck in the mud for a bit and when we got there the
insurgents had already ran away. We had to go out and look
for bodies to see if any were killed or wounded. We
had a chopper go down and had to pull perimeter security until
it could be destroyed and all sensitive items and equipment
could be removed. Some things I will have to talk about when
I get back there.
It always seems like I am in the middle of the worse situations
in life. I may have to sit back and reflect on that
one. There may be days or even a week or two that go by and
not hear from me. It all just depends on how busy I
get. We are the Brigades bitches. I am trying
to get a video of us all getting ready as soon as we get the
mission call. I want to see if I can take pics and video
through my night vision too. Explosions are bright through
them. It is pretty bad when you get accustomed to being
shot at, bullets hitting the doors of the Humvee, almost being
hit by explosions and shrapnel smacking the windshield.
There is a God.
Anyway, I must jet for now, but will talk to ya soon.
You watch your six and stay safe back there. Rest assured,
that while I am here, by my hand these terrorist bastards
will not have time to concentrate on harming any Americans.
Ok man. I will talk to you later.
02-15-06
Good to hear from you again. Try to keep my stories
to yourself. I shouldn't be talking about a lot of this.
I am good on things I need as far as personal stuff. My space
is only about 6x6 so you can’t fit all that much in
there.
We are putting together some videos of the pictures that we
have taken here and adding music. I will try to send it to
you, but I don't know how long it will take for me to upload
with satellite internet. It will kind of give you a
story from out training up to where we are now. It still
won’t do justice to the feeling you get here and the
smells.
A lot of people here on the base don't go outside the wire
into the city and they are the ones telling our story.
I just found out the other day that another unit was taking
credit for our battle along the Euphrates. About 35
insurgents ambushed us there, and 15 were killed. I
don't know if I told you about that fight or not. All
the battles start to become the same. But that fight
was a big one because it lasted about 45 minutes to an hour.
I think back to that one and I can’t remember the sounds
of the battle. There were explosions and bullets hitting
everywhere, but I just can’t seem to remember the explosions,
the noise of them. You become so focused on fighting.
Normal people have the flight mechanism kick in, but you want
your buddies to be safe and you do what ever it takes to lay
down fire with them. I have started to have dreams as
well. I usually don't dream.
Right now I am trying to hook up with a civilian contractor
so I can do some bodyguard work over here. He is operating
out of Turkey and running VIP's all over Iraq. I guess
I always have to have that edge.
As far as the body armor goes, I guess mine is fine.
We had a guy hit in the chest the other day. The bullet
fragmented and hit him in the arm. So his armor worked.
The first time I almost got whacked was by a rocket anyway.
Body armor wouldn't have helped. It flew past twelve
inches from my left shoulder. Those twelve inches seem
like a mile to me now. Fuck ‘em.
Well, you keep your head down and I look forward to the next
e-mail. If something should happen to me Mark will know.
My mother has instructions to call him. He is supposed
to throw a party if I get it. So it is when you hear
from him that something has happened. You stay safe
too.
02-20-06
God was with me again today. Got a purple heart today.
Took some shrapnel in the right calf. I will have a few days
off. It is nothing that stitches can’t handle.
I am ok. We had some UN officials that we escorted to a government
center for a meeting and an IED on the way back hit us.
There was a report of the attack was on yahoo news.
It gave credit to the Marines and reported that no one was
hurt. No leaks on the story. I will fill you in when
I get back. A lot of security issues on this one. Got
to run for now, it is late
Talk to you soon
03-04-06
Been getting busy as the weather warms up. The natives
get restless. We seem to be pushing the insurgents back
further in the cit of Tamin but in Ramadi they are still hitting
the main drag. They just had two suicide car bombs breach
the walls of an Iraqi police station. No one inside
got hurt but two tower guards, Americans down the road had
a rocket go through both of them. We had a rocket hit
the base here and hurt like 20 some and 15 badly. I
will sit down with you and talk about there tactics when I
get back. I have my laptop here now and have hooked
up to a pc to phone service and I have a web cam coming, so
maybe I could do a little conference to the kids if you have
the capabilities. Thanks for the oatmeal and reading
material. I do read a lot. I like a lot of Henry
Miller stuff. The Book of Five Rings, The art of War, a lot
of military motivational stuff around here. Moving Mountains
by some General in the first gulf war. Lately I have been
exhausted. They have us running all the time and I just
want to come back to the hooch and crash. When the pucker
factor is up and the adrenaline is constantly pumping it wears
you down. I am trying to do two weeks in the med station
so I can get some education credits and I need to get some
clinical time in a hospital so I figured why not do it while
I can get paid for it. I do have DVD and CD capabilities
for my laptop. Haven't seen any new movies at all. Hell
I don't even know what is out there that is new. Well thanks
again for the box of goodies and I will be in touch.
03-09-06
Appreciate all the shit man. I like Rollins too. Never
saw him live though. Me and another dude are looking
at coming down to visit Steve and you around two weeks after
we get back. They have a day trip free from Ft Lauderdale
for vets to the Bahamas. I have a lot of pics so far,
around 250 pics and about25 videos. I will send you
one of an area that we get hit at all the time. It is
a town called Tamin, it is like the suburbs of Ramadi.
It would be like the ghettos in York, but 100 times worse.
The other day we had a suspected suicide bomber with a suspected
explosive vest on. This was a new situation for us.
He was shot three times I found out when we finally disrobed
him. Took three hours to get close enough. He
laid there for two hours and then got up tried to get away.
Finally we said to hell with it and rushed him, held him down
and just ripped his clothes of to see if he was strapped with
explosives.
There are so many crazy stories to tell. I will not
forget the good ones and the very bad ones.
I received e-mails from some of Mark’s friends, no one
seems to know what to say to me when they write me though.
03-17-06
Hey man, good to hear from you. I don’t know if
you ever read any Henry Miller books or not, but if you haven’t,
grab some of his stuff. Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of
Capricorn, Stand Still Like a Hummingbird. He was banned
in the US and moved to France. His life kind of reminds
me of how I have lived.
I try to write you to give you, my perspective, attitude,
and insight of life here. I have been pretty hardened
through the years and I am accustomed to not having it easy.
So this is a bit easier for me to handle than some around
me. You can tell that the guys handle things in different
ways. Some get very quiet, some laugh and joke about
it, some just don’t give a fuck, and some become angry.
I think we all get angry when we are outside the wire, but
some keep it when we are back here in the hooch. There
is one thing you don’t see here and that is sadness
or sorrow. Even when our EOD tech had his head blown
off, it was more disbelief than anything else. We are
here talking about making a plaque with spurs on it to send
to his parents. The spurs are a right of passage to
the Calvary units. It goes back to the days of knights.
I myself have started to have dreams of things, but the death
and misery here doesn’t seem to get to you, openly that
is. You do begin to hate these fuckers and look at them
as objects and not even human beings. The area I am
in is 100% Sunni. They are about 15% of the population
and were in power forever. So now the insurgents use
this fact to enlist their help. Life for them was good
at one time, now they are pissed. They ruled with violence
and this was how the minority maintained power.
Our interpreter is from a town south of Baghdad and told me
of a small child they lit on fire because the father wouldn’t
give in or disagreed with them in some way. He is a
Shiite. When we first invaded and the Sunnis had to
pull back, on the way out of Baghdad they took all of the
pregnant women from the hospitals, laid them in the streets,
cut their babies out of them, placed them on the women's chests,
and stabbed them. These fuckers are ruthless and if
we want to make a difference here we have to be ruthless as
well. They don’t understand any other way.
If people really want our soldiers to come home, then they
have to quit tree hugging and start supporting violent acts
towards these bastards and show the Iraqi populace that it
is worse dealing with us than with the insurgents. We
roll outside the wire and wait to be ambushed. Fuck
that. Let us mass and just tear the city apart.
But instead we try the diplomatic approach. Win their
hearts and minds, they do not understand this. And they
play both sides. 90% are uneducated here and all they
have is their religion. Other parts of the country are
better, but here is probably the worst place in Iraq right
now. We do have offensive missions, but only after intel
has verified, without a doubt, that the target exists.
By time that happens they have killed or wounded a few more
of us.
We had a VBIED (vehicle borne IED) try to attack us today
and we blew the fucker up. They pack a car with explosives,
by the way I am getting mortared as I write this, I can hear
them exploding outside of the hooch, and they try to ram you
with the vehicle and then detonate it. No one is supposed
to get within 150 meters of us or we shoot. We had one
stupid Haji fuck that rammed a vehicle and crashed the car,
his legs became trapped in the VBIED and he couldn’t
get out. He tried to detonate the car, but his little
button wasn’t working and the stupid fuck was trapped.
We moved the vehicle and he was pushing and pushing the button,
but it still wouldn’t detonate. We dropped a few pounds
of C-4 on the bitch's lap, backed up an helped the fucker
out a little bit with our flawless detonation. Turned
the stupid ass into a pink mist. That's what it looks
like when you blow them up, grapefruit mist. I just
came up with a new drink. Grapefruit and vodka, Haji
Mist! Don't get these stories out into the public.
I don’t know what I am allowed to really say.
You can't win a war by slapping their faces.
Later