We Meant Well (24 page)

With the ice broken, the Iraqis all started talking at once about cow stomach issues. Cows eat all sorts of junk off the ground, including bits and pieces of metal that can then tear through their multiple stomachs with fatal results. Lacking the science and tech to perform surgery, the Iraqis instead forced the cow to swallow a strong magnet. The magnet attracted and held the loose metal in one part of the cow's tummy, so the cow was not shredded internally. Bovine bloat, gargantuan gas, was a huge issue. Without access to medication, the farmers poured soda down the cow's throat, which made the cows belch in a horrific way but cured the bloat. While missing some steps in modern science like germ theory and pasteurization, the locals had nailed large portions of folk medicine. One exception: some problems were still resolved by tying a written prayer from the imam onto the cow's tail. Dairy Carey stood on a chair to direct the conversation, acknowledging the folk cures while explaining what the modern vet tools and limited medicines we could provide would do to help make better milk. Quantity was thrown out in favor of quality, a first for our ePRT, maybe for any PRT.

Dairy Carey did indeed make some waves, sometimes even getting a little wet, but in our case she jettisoned a well-written plan that would have failed anyway to give people something they needed, something they could see would help. In Iraq, we were faced regularly with such frustrations and such cynicism that when something, anything, seemed to work, it was a special day.

4-H Club Comes to Iraq

When we tried to grow oaks from acorns overnight, it didn't work. But our agriculture team's modest attempt to set up a 4-H club in Mahmudiyah set down tender, delicious roots, Dairy Carey at work again. 4-H is a well-known agricultural club for kids, a kind of Boy Scouts for little farmers. In the United States, 4-H (the four
H
s stand for head, heart, hands, and health) teaches farm things, like how to raise animals, and also citizenship, manners, getting along—that kind of stuff. Even though 4-H was new to Iraq, approximately twenty-four children showed up. The children introduced themselves and we had a short discussion about the donated computers (old laptops from our office scheduled for the trash, or more likely the black market by way of the trash). We talked about the election of officers, the upcoming pen pal program with a 4-H club in Montana, and the care of lambs donated to the club by a well-to-do local farmer. The club would teach the kids how to raise the lambs.

“Design a Clover,” as the 4-H symbol is a four-leaf clover, was the last activity. The kids wrote out their goals, one on each leaf. Most of them wanted to learn how to use computers and a few hoped to play better soccer or learn to swim. One veiled twelve-year-old girl was crying, so we pulled her aside to see what the problem was. Her parents had never sent her to school; in Iraq's male-dominated society only her brother had received an education. She could not read or write and thus, of course, could not write a goal on her paper clover. We helped her laboriously write out “I want to read” and invited her back. We'd try to teach her to read a little.

Nothing breeds incest among PRTs better than success, and buoyed by our photos of the kids, other PRTs started their own 4-H clubs. Our club idea even threatened to dethrone widows from their position atop the PRT project ziggurat. Unfortunately, our success also attracted attention at the Embassy, feeding its desire for some media.

Real good news was hard to find, so when it happened we tended to overdo it. Even worse was when we manufactured the illusion of good news and beat the hell out of that. Look at the story of Operation Little Yasser. A sister PRT singled out an orphan and built a whole phony project around him, something about bringing a greenhouse to an orphanage so the kids could heal by growing squash. The kid, Yasser, was just a prop for the media to write stories about, describing him as a “sweet, fragile child, whose soulful eyes reveal some of the heartbreak he's endured.” The kid did not get anything out of his exploitation, kids rarely do, but the Embassy sure got some major PR miles. Who knows if the orphanage ever got the greenhouse?

For our 4-H club, the Embassy lined up several local reporters paid by—er, supportive of—the United States for the trip out to our kids. Because the room we used for meetings was singularly unphotogenic, we had to cajole a local sheik with promises of a new well to open his house for us. The guy rose to the challenge, throwing in for the cameras both an impassioned defense of the American invasion and a strong push for a well on his property. The Embassy handlers' request for shots of kids together with their animals failed when one of the critters, left roped to a pole in the sun too long, passed out. Nonetheless, the kids made some cute remarks on camera, and a
Washington Post
stringer later picked up the story. I, too, was interviewed, having first been reminded by the Embassy team to give most of the credit to my boss. At least everyone was excited to see themselves on TV that night.

We had once again stumbled blindly onto a winning formula. The Iraqi parents who sat in on our first sessions took control of the club, without our paying them to do it. They organized a visit to a local dentist's office and all the kids got free cleanings, the first dental care many had ever received. Eager to help further, the dentist scheduled appointments for a few kids with obvious cavities before enrolling his own children in 4-H. Not to be outdone, the farmer who donated the lambs now wanted to donate other animals for the kids to raise. The adults organized a trip to a local civic hall, where another group we had not paid displayed their paintings. Civic leaders who wanted in on the club bought hats for the kids.

After almost a year in Iraq for this ePRT, the 4-H club was still our most successful project, maybe our only genuinely successful one. We spent almost no money on it, empowered no local thugs, did not distort the local economy, turned it over as soon as possible to the local Iraqis, and got out of the way. The kids' selection of officers for the club was their first experience of grassroots democracy. The powerful sheik's son went home crying because he lost the race for the presidency to a farmer's kid, and the sheik did not have anyone's throat slit in retaliation. The things the club had to look forward to, pen pals in Montana and more animals, were real and could be done without any money from outside. There remained the tiniest possibility here, where in most everything else we had done there was none, that a year later there would still be a 4-H club in Iraq.

The morning after one meeting, an IED detonated at the Mahmudiyah local government building, just across the street from where the 4-H club met. The city council chairperson was slightly injured, along with two others. The explosion happened within eyesight of the building guards, who saw nothing, of course. None of the 4-H kids were around, but we all thought the same thing: twenty-four hours earlier, what would have happened?

This was what tore you apart in Iraq, that every small step forward seemed followed by some tragedy. If I were religious I would have asked why God fucked with these people, and if I was me I would try to believe the sum of karma, the weight of good on one side and bad on the other, would someday, somehow balance, even though I could not for the life of me imagine what that process would be. Much as we tried to stick a finger in the dike to block the cynicism that otherwise washed over us, we ended up most nights drinking hard, cursing the darkness.

Checkpoints

A SIGACT is milspeak for a “significant action.” Some things were always significant, such as the death of a soldier, while other things, like destruction of a campaign poster, might be significant in the run-up to an election and not important at all a month later. The bases kept logs of SIGACTs and, following whatever criteria their boss set, soldiers would add things to the log as required. Often the log was updated right from the field via a satellite communications system called Blue Force Tracker. Given the combination of a lame on-screen keyboard and a Vehicle Commander typing in a moving truck, these SIGACT entries were often terse, full of acronyms, quickly classified under a default setting, and then forgotten. The locations were usually expressed in the form of a grid, a series of numbers that referred to classified maps. The more numbers, the more specific the location (8734961230 was a place your friend died). You needed an interpreter to read a SIGACT entry.

AT 2036, (
_____
) WAS ATTACKED BY IDF IVO BALAD. RADAR ACQUIRED THE POO VIC (
_____
) CONDUCTED CF WITH 6
×
155MM HE. NO INJ/DAMAGE.

Translation: At 8:36 at night, location (
____
) was hit by indirect fire from the vicinity of Balad, a nearby town. Our radar located the point of origin in the vicinity of (
____
). We fired back with six shots of 155mm high-explosive artillery. There were no injuries or damage on our side.

One category stood out from the mountain of SIGACT reports: AIF attacks on CPs, or anti-Iraqi forces attacks on a checkpoint. The idea of checkpoints was that by stopping vehicles, well, everywhere, all the time, soldiers, cops, Sons of Iraq, militiamen, and anyone else with a gun had a chance to prevent the easy flow of weapons, bad guys, and car bombs. You couldn't drive very far anywhere in urban Iraq without stopping at a checkpoint to have your ID looked at and your vehicle searched. Checkpoint duty was so ubiquitous at one point in the war that even
Doonesbury
spoofed it.
45
Some searches were thorough, some lazy, and bribery at Iraqi-manned checkpoints was a regular option for those with something to hide as well as those in a legitimate hurry.

By 2009, the United States was no longer responsible for most checkpoints in Iraq, though we regularly sent our guys out to “advise and assist” the Iraqis. I spent a sweaty cold night at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Baghdad hanging around with soldiers who spent more than too many nights out there. Soldiers who would joke about anything—a dead dog, your divorce, child porn—became really quiet on a 'point. Within the limits of available electricity, they would try to light up the spot as best they could (you could run only so many watts if all you had was some crappy Chinese portable generator) so drivers could see them. Iraq at night was a dark and dangerous place, and drivers were not going to slow down or, God forbid, stop without a good reason. So step one was to brighten up your checkpoint so the drivers couldn't miss it. The next step was to somehow communicate to drivers that they had to stop. There was no such thing as getting a license in Iraq; someone showed you how to drive and that was it. Driving a truck was sought-after employment, so fibbing about actually knowing how to drive was popular. It was possible the guy heading toward your checkpoint had never passed one before.

Standing at a checkpoint in a dense area was easier than out in the countryside, as the jammed-up traffic meant cars approached at a crawl and everyone had time to signal their intentions across cultures and languages. In the suburbs or on a lesser-traveled road, things got stickier. You could start with big signs in Arabic and English that told folks to slow down, but there was that light problem again, plus many Iraqis were illiterate. You could set up all manner of flashers and twirling things—a good start but ambiguous. Drivers might think it was a wedding party (plenty of guns there as well).

Car bombs were a big thing to be scared of at a checkpoint. Usually the explosives were intended for some other target and were just passing through your 'point. But if the driver thought you were on to him, he'd blow up the car bomb right there and never mind the real target. Checkpoints also made everyone nervous, and nervous people and guns were a bad mix. Iraqi drivers hit the gas a lot, worried, angry, maybe feeling the need to show the US Army who had the big brass ones in a really dumb way.

As cars approached, soldiers would be thinking about the ROE, rules of engagement, which stipulate when you are allowed to kill someone legally. Even wars have rules, and nobody went outside the wire without knowing exactly what they were. ROEs changed all the time, but at a checkpoint they typically went like this: Try to stop the car with lights, sound, and hand gestures. If it keeps coming, try shining a laser or bright light at the driver (called “beaming”). If that does not work, fire a warning shot or a nonlethal round. Still coming? Fire into the engine block to disable the car. Not enough? Kill the driver.

In theory, this all seemed logical enough. In reality, it didn't work as well. The soldier might have been up the last eighteen hours on patrol and is staying awake only with the constant application of Rip It energy drinks and instant coffee crystals crunched between bites of candy. Last night one of his buddies was almost killed by a driver who got scared and hit the gas. He is on the move and sweating despite the cool weather because standing still anywhere, never mind under bright lights, can attract snipers and he does not want to get popped. The vehicle approaching has only one headlight and it looks like there are several people in the front seat, where there are usually only one or two. In the span of three seconds he needs to try to wave down the driver, beam him with the laser if the guy doesn't slow down, fire a nonlethal round if he keeps going, and then switch weapons and be ready to take a life. He's Zeus, fucking Thor throwing lightning bolts. Make the decision. Shoot or don't shoot the motherfucker. Decide, asshole.

He doesn't shoot this time. He gets to decide many times every night.

The vehicle with one headlight slowed down of its own accord late in the cycle. Maybe the driver couldn't find the brake, maybe the brake didn't work, maybe he was rehearsing for a suicide run later that week, who knows, he slowed and stopped. Front seat full of kids, driver dad, mom in the backseat with a baby. They stopped, the search came up empty, the IDs didn't have any of the unpronounceable Iraqi names on the bad-guy list. The hard stares from the passengers said “fuck you” without a word's being passed. They pulled out, maybe eyeing the weapon but likely with no idea the soldier had just weighed their lives against his. He chugged another hit of energy drink and waited for the next car. No SIGACT. It could take a lot of balls to not shoot someone at a checkpoint. Some nights things went well, and some nights he went back to the FOB knowing why this shit sucked so much.