Consequence (11 page)

The second day at Fort Bliss, Michelle Fields is nowhere to be found. She doesn't answer her phone and she doesn't respond to emails. Without the help of anyone from CACI, the five of us manage to navigate the initial stages of the deployment process over the next few days. The Army assigns us an in-processing number that allows us to schedule appointments with a variety of administrative offices on Fort Bliss. We find that we are required to have dental X-rays, medical paperwork, powers of attorney, and immunization records. None of us have this information. The soldiers in charge of processing wave us through and tell us to get these things once we're in Iraq. Bagdasarov asks the soldier how we're supposed to get these things in Iraq. The soldier says, “Iraq has dentists and lawyers.”

The Army requires all civilian contractors to get the smallpox vaccine. The disclaimer for the vaccine is full of dire warnings about preexisting medical conditions. There is a special section warning patients with cardiomyopathies to avoid the vaccine. I tell the doctor administering the shots that I have a cardiomyopathy. He asks questions about my condition. I give honest answers. He says I shouldn't be deploying to Iraq. I tell him my doctor has given me full clearance. He asks for proof. I don't have it. He says, “Do you want to go to Iraq or not?” After that, I get in line with Blee for anthrax.

On our third day at Fort Bliss, I stand in a line to meet with an Army lawyer who will help to prepare my last will and testament. There is a group of employees from KBR, one of the largest contracting companies in the country. They have been hired to provide logistical support to Army supply units throughout Iraq. Most have managed warehouses or distribution centers in the United States. We ask one another about pay, benefits, and vacation policies. We all complain about our employers and how uninformed we are about the process to get into Iraq. We pump one another for information, sharing rumors we've heard from other contractors and the unofficial musings of soldiers who know someone who has already deployed.

At night, the five of us sit in the barracks and complain about CACI. Kutcher and Henson talk about the bonuses they were awarded for agreeing to deploy before January 1. Bagdasarov, Blee, and I were never offered this money. Kutcher gives us the name of the hiring manager who awarded him the bonus and tells us to call the manager and act as if it was offered to us as well. Blee says this is wrong. He says we should stick to the contract we signed. Kutcher says, “Take what you can.” Bagdasarov and I talk Blee into asking for the bonus. We call the manager and lie about the contract. CACI agrees to award each of us an additional $2,500.

While Blee is on the phone, Kutcher and Henson raid his suitcase. When he gets back, we ridicule him for adhering to the official CACI packing list. He has the right number of socks, underpants, and disposable razors. He has individual packets of baby wipes stored in a ziplock bag. Henson holds him back while Kutcher inventories every last item. He comes across Blee's Bible. They don't make fun of him for this.

Eventually, I tell the group about my plans to attend seminary when I get back from Iraq. Kutcher says, “And we thought Blee was the Jesus freak.” They start calling me the pastor. At night, when we complain about CACI, they keep track of my profanity. There is a running tally of the number of times the pastor says “fuck.” Apparently, when talking about CACI, I say “fuck” a lot.

After five days at Fort Bliss, everyone is anxious to leave for Iraq. The last day of processing is spent at the base supply unit, where we are issued our equipment. Every civilian employee, regardless of company or job title, has been promised body armor. Some, including CACI employees, have been promised weapons. At supply, we receive neither. It's a Thursday, so Michelle Fields is in her office. She assures us the equipment will be waiting for us once we arrive at a staging base in Kuwait. We get angry and tell her this is not what we were told during our phone interviews. Bagdasarov is incensed. He demands answers. Michelle promises to make a phone call and clear things up. She tells us we will have all our questions answered by the CACI representative in Kuwait. She leaves. We never see her again. In the meantime, we draw clothing, sleeping bags, canteens, and gas masks.

That night I call Karin. I tell her about Kutcher, Henson, Bagdasarov, and Blee. I complain about Michelle Fields. I tell her about smallpox. I tell her about the gas mask. I ask her whether we've received anything from Princeton. She tells me about dinner at my parents'. She complains about a neighbor who didn't shovel his sidewalk properly. She describes a doctor's appointment. The conversation is stale and tired. We say goodnight. Blee and Bagdasarov are finishing up phone conversations with their wives, too. Blee is crying.

After a week at Fort Bliss, I've met four men who will be working with me in Iraq. Two are qualified to do their job; three of us, including me, are not. Our liaison from CACI avoids us. A number of promises have already been broken. We're surrounded by other contractors who know less about what to expect in Iraq than we do. The Army seems unconcerned with our qualifications or experience. They overlook gaps in our paperwork and make exceptions to rules whenever convenient.

On the way back from an appointment at the financial office, I overhear another contractor talking on a cell phone. He's talking to a high school football coach in Georgia. He talks about his playing days at a junior college in Florida. He mentions a mutual friend and then thanks the coach for offering him a position on the staff. He'll be available for the winter weightlifting sessions and spring practices. He just needs to spend a few weeks in southwest Asia. When he hangs up the phone, he talks to another contractor. He tells the other contractor he is going to spend one day in Iraq to earn a $10,000 bonus before resigning and returning home to coach football. He offers to put the other contractor in touch with his hiring manager. He says, “It's easy money, take what you can.”

I think about what my friend from the FBI said about sticking with the professionals, what he said about not trusting contractors. I think about going home. But I also think about what the psychologist from the NSA said during the hiring process. He said my frequent career changes demonstrated instability. I don't want to look unstable. More important, I don't want to look like a coward.

I want to go to Iraq because I feel obligated to do my part, obligated to serve alongside my colleagues, and obligated to contribute to a national war effort. But I also want to go because of the way it makes other people think about me. Heart failure closed a door. Iraq will open it.

The experience at Fort Bliss makes it clear that CACI and other contractors are not properly prepared to send their employees overseas. At best, they are disorganized. At worst, they are indifferent. But there is an expectation that things will improve once we make the transition into Iraq. It is December 2003. Little is known about the impact contractors will have on the war in Iraq. Most Americans know nothing about CACI, KBR, or Blackwater. Even fewer know anything about places like Fallujah, Mosul, or Tikrit. And no one has heard of Abu Ghraib. In 2003, working in Iraq as a contract interrogator still sounds like a path back to law enforcement. I have doubts about CACI, but they're overshadowed by my desire to find my purpose again. My purpose was to protect people, but I've lost sight of that focus. I'm going to Iraq to protect myself.

5.1

After ten days at Fort Bliss, the Army transports us to an airfield where we board a chartered civilian aircraft for the flight to Kuwait. I sit next to a civilian who is wearing a shirt and tie. He is a Blackwater employee. I tell him about having my luggage moved out of the barracks by his comrades. He says, “That was the younger crew, shitbags, bottom-of-the-barrel types.” He asks about CACI. We talk about DLI, Egypt, the 101st, and SERE school. We talk about the police department and my experience with weapons. We talk about seminary. He offers me a job. He says, “Not with the bottom-of-the-barrel types. And we'll give you all the weapons you want.”

The CACI representative is not there to greet us when we land in Kuwait. Instead, we find other CACI employees who are expecting to meet the CACI representative on our plane. We ask them about body armor and weapons. They laugh. One of them says, “You've been talking to Michelle Fields, haven't you?” The Army instructs us to put our names on a flight manifest and wait until a military transport becomes available into Iraq. We ask about CACI. No one has heard of the company.

We rest in large circus tents near the airfield and wait for news on a flight into Baghdad. There is a large-screen television near the front. We watch
Saving Private Ryan
and
Full Metal Jacket
. On Sunday morning, I walk to a tent where a chapel service is being held. On the way, I meet the Blackwater employee from Fort Bliss who offered me a job during the flight. He's wearing body armor and carrying weapons. I tell him I hope to get my body armor and weapons in Baghdad. He reiterates the job offer, so I skip chapel and have breakfast with him. I tell him if things don't start improving with CACI I'll give him a call.

I spend five days in Kuwait. It has taken me nearly two weeks to go to war. I have no body armor. I have no weapon. I have a job offer from Blackwater. On the morning of my flight to Baghdad I check email at the Internet café. There is a message from Karin. I've been rejected by Princeton Theological Seminary. I am relieved.

5.2

“No, there's no body armor, but we'll have it soon.” This is what the CACI representative tells us in Baghdad. It is the first time we have met someone from CACI since Michelle Fields abandoned us with the gas masks in Texas. There are no weapons, either. The representative will get back to us on that one.

CACI personnel in Baghdad are housed on Camp Victory, the expansive U.S. military base near Baghdad International Airport. They have secured a series of small buildings and established living quarters for the two dozen employees currently in Iraq. The complex is affectionately called CACIville. New arrivals are assigned a room within it and issued a case of bottled water. Bagdasarov, Blee, Kutcher, Henson, and I stick together and occupy the same room. Inside, we sit on canvas Army cots and wait for instructions. We cough and wheeze as our lungs adjust to the dust-filled air of Iraq. Like every other foreigner arriving in Iraq, we are stricken with sore throats and fevers. Kutcher and Henson make fun of Blee. Everyone continues to keep track of my profanity. I don't tell anyone about the rejection letter from Princeton.

Bagdasarov, Blee, Henson, and Kutcher are assigned positions at a large prison complex fifteen miles west of Baghdad. CACI employees call it Abu G. No one wants this assignment. There are rumors about bad food and crowded sleeping quarters. CACIville is far more desirable: we are near the Bob Hope Dining Facility, well known for serving steak and lobster on Friday nights. It's where President Bush served Thanksgiving dinner to the troops in 2003. We are near the airport, where the duty-free sells alcohol. We are near clean showers and operating toilets provided by KBR. There is a base store nearby that sells Doritos and Gatorade.

I receive an assignment in Baghdad. My contract calls me an interrogator, but in the time it has taken CACI to process me through Fort Bliss and get me to Iraq, the company has pitched a new contract to the government. CACI will provide the military with HUMINT support teams (HST). These teams are designed to develop relationships with Iraqis and gather intelligence from a number of sources throughout the region. Members of these teams are required to have language abilities and high-level security clearances. There are only a handful of interrogators working for CACI who speak Arabic, and none of them hold a security clearance as high as mine. For now, I'm the only one qualified to work in this position. I'm told to sit tight and wait for other employees like me to arrive. I ask how long. “Three or four days, a week at most.”

The five of us spend one final day at CACIville. We drive to Baghdad International Airport. There are no passengers or flights, but the duty-free shop is open. We wander through the abandoned airport. We climb the escalators that are frozen in time. We pass by the empty booths at passport control and we walk past the darkened storefronts and food courts. The tarmac is crowded with dormant aircraft painted in the lime-green color scheme of Iraqi Airways. I buy Jack Daniel's and Jim Beam.

On Camp Victory, we receive incoming mortar fire, but the immensity of the base makes it ineffective. We sit on the roof of our building, drink whiskey, and listen to the mortars land in empty fields. A CACI employee who has been to Abu Ghraib sits with us and says, “Just you wait.”

The next morning CACI leaders organize a convoy to transport the new hires who have already been assigned to work at Abu Ghraib. The onsite CACI manager says I should consider going to Abu Ghraib as well. He says I can come back to Camp Victory as soon as my other teammates for the HST arrive. “It will be good experience for you.” He says I'll only be gone a week or two. He says, “If you go to Abu Ghraib, we can give you body armor.” Kutcher convinces me to go along. He doesn't trust CACI. He says the five of us should stick together.

I attend the convoy brief, where, at last, I am issued body armor. It belonged to another CACI employee who quit earlier in the morning. We're told he was the kind of person who just wasn't cut out for this type of work. A CACI supervisor says, “This isn't for everyone. You have to be the type of person who wants this.” CACI confiscated the employee's body armor and sent him to the airfield in Baghdad to wait for a flight. The airfield was mortared while he waited. His blood type is written on the front of the body armor. I cross it out and write “O positive.” There are still no weapons.

There is an Army liaison at the convoy brief. He has been instructed to assign a soldier to each of our vehicles to serve as protection during the convoy. Our vehicles are white Toyota Land Cruisers. CACI leased them from a company in Kuwait. The lease requires that the vehicles be returned in their original condition, so CACI does not allow us to alter the vehicles. They have no radios, no first-aid kits, and no armor. The Army liaison inspects our vehicles and decides not to assign soldiers to them. He calls them death traps. He says, “Not one of my guys, no fucking way.”