Sunrise Over Fallujah: List 6

Any time a guy gets a large package from home, everybody gathers around hoping it’s something to eat. So when Victor Ríos from Second Squad got a humongous package, all the CA people came over to our tent to see what was in it.

“I don’t know what’s in it,” he said. “It ain’t from my people in Albuquerque.”
“That’s not the point,” Barbara said. “The point is that it might be edible. Open it up!”

Jonesy was behind the wheel and it took us an hour and a half to reach the village, which was just outside of Al-Uhaimir. I didn’t know how anybody could live in such a desolate area.

The most impressive thing around was a huge terraced mound that looked like something from another world. We stopped to take a closer look at it. I heard Ahmed calling it a ziggurat; the redbrick mound seemed almost to shimmer in the bright sunlight.

The 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion was the main CA support group attached to the 3rd Infantry. They had regular missions and their own agenda while we were just a “flying squad.”

“Did anybody talk to the local sheik?” Miller asked.
Captain Coles shrugged.
Miller saw some Iraqi women and started toward them. Ahmed went with her, and me and Jonesy followed a few steps behind them.

What was happening, I thought, was that the humanity we were supposed to be showing the Iraqis was wearing thin.

“You say I speak good English,” said the woman who had invited us in. “My name is Halima Telfah. My friends call me Hali. I studied at the University of Washington in Seattle for three years and got my degree in biology there....
I was very respectful of Americans. I thought you were a wonderful people. You were so free you didn’t even know what to do with your freedom. Your women are free. Your men are free. Your children are free. I had so much respect for you and for your country.”

I patted the boy on his head and he pushed my hand away and stood up straighter, almost defiantly.

Back to Baghdad. I was glad to be back in the Green Zone, back to feeling safe. Coles read us his report. It said that there was no “friendly fire” incident, and that the village guys could be called enemy combatants.

When Harris came back in, Pendleton told him he was wrong to be hitting a member of our unit.
“You want a piece of me? You want a piece of me?” Harris stood up, glowering at Pendleton.

The confession box was a booth the Intelligence Unit had set up. They paid the Iraqis who anonymously visited the box for information on insurgents. Most of the information intelligence got was bogus. But every once in a while something valuable was passed on.

The confession box was a booth the Intelligence Unit had set up. They paid the Iraqis who anonymously visited the box for information on insurgents. Most of the information intelligence got was bogus. But every once in a while something valuable was passed on.

These people here have been at war for the last twenty or so years. Before they invaded Kuwait they were fighting with Iran. Intelligence estimates that there are over two million unspent artillery shells and mines spread across Iraq. Each one of them can be rigged into an IED.

These people here have been at war for the last twenty or so years. Before they invaded Kuwait they were fighting with Iran. Intelligence estimates that there are over two million unspent artillery shells and mines spread across Iraq. Each one of them can be rigged into an IED.

“They’ve got the weapons. And yeah, they’re crude, but they can kill you just as effectively as a sophisticated weapon. They’ve got the weapons all over the country, and the technology to arm them is spreading."

“We need some soldiers with people skills and with insights. And from what I’ve heard, that’s what you bring to the table.”

I also didn’t like searching people. I had been stopped on 136th Street once, just outside the Countee Cullen Library, by two plainclothes cops who had searched me. I knew what it felt like. Embarrassed that I had to stand there with my hands in the air while strangers patted me down and went through my pockets, humiliated because they were assuming power over me and I couldn’t do a thing about it.

Marla came in and she searched the women quickly and found nothing.
“I’ll get his name and address so we can compensate him for the damage,” Davis said.

“Hey, Marla, that was just luck, right?” I asked as we turned the Humvee around to head back to our camp.
“No, I like to cook,” she said. “One foster home I was in had me doing most of the cooking. I didn’t mind it. But nobody smoothes the flour out like that on top. That’s all show-and-tell, man.”