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Saturday, March 29, 2008
U.S. base in Iraq offers no safety
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
BAGHDAD — This is a different sort of fear, the kind that can do a number on your head. You begin to live with the chilling notion that you can die a gruesome death at a random moment, in a random place.
“You think you’re on a FOB, that you’re going to be safe,” says Spc. Juan Herrera, 25. “The fact of the matter is they can get you right here.”
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| Soldiers fill a bunker during a mortar attack at Forward Operating Base Falcon, Arab Jabour, Iraq, Tuesday, March 25, 2008. View more photos |
Forward Operation Base Falcon is the current home to Herrera’s unit, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment from Fort Stewart. Rockets and mortar rounds have slammed into this base southeast of the Iraq capital since mid-March. One soldier has been killed.
The attacks give new meaning to the common statement about Iraq: There are no front lines here. The war is everywhere.
After 10 most nights, the soldiers at Falcon unwind with music, a movie, a shower. Many are back in their tents and on their cots, spent after a hot, strenuous day.
Then comes the ominous whistle overhead. Immediately, the soldiers begin dropping to the ground. Everyone knows what’s coming.
Boom! Boom!
The earth shakes. Bottles of Gatorade and mp3 players fall from shelves. Obscenities fly.
“Go, go, go!” someone shouts.
They scramble to grab helmets and body armor. And run into darkness, all the time hoping another rocket won’t explode before they can get inside something more solid than plywood and tarp.
Like bees to a hive, the soldiers hurtle toward the nearest bunker, encased in 9-inch-thick concrete.
“It keeps you on edge,” says Spc. Matt Brawner, 23, of LaGrange.
“You think about it all the time. You’re always looking over your shoulder,” says Sgt. Wes Marriner, 44, of Hull, Mass.
Imagine a quiet afternoon at home, listening to music or watching television. A bomb comes out of nowhere and destroys your world.
Private 1st Class Tyler Smith 22, of Bethel, Maine, was a sapper scout but on March 21, he wasn’t out in Baghdad clearing roads or shooting at insurgents. He was on this fortified base that gives, perhaps falsely, a sense of security.
He was killed when mortar rounds hit near his living quarters. He died when he had his guard down; when there was no expectation of death.
There was no warning, no chance to seek cover. Soldiers aren’t supposed to die in that fashion on the FOB, said Tyler’s squadron commander.
This is the constant stress of Iraq.
When soldiers roll out of the gates of a military base, when they go “outside the wire,” they learn to expect certain things. They have their game-face on. They are mentally prepared, as much as they can be, to be targeted, to be shot at, to drive over an improvised explosive device.
But these days at Falcon, the soldiers are vulnerable in their beds.
The barrage of attacks on Falcon is part of a recent escalation of violence in Iraq that recently tipped the U.S. death toll over 4,000. The soldiers speculate that warmer weather brings out the insurgents.
Recent news reports suggest that the bloodshed is related to rising anger within the ranks of the Mahdi Army militia, led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Black humor in the dark
Private Smith’s death on Good Friday cast a pall over Easter weekend and beyond.
Soldiers at Falcon are under orders to wear full body armor all day. The base feels desolate; no one wants to walk around carrying 70 pounds of extra weight. Or wander far from the bunkers.
Easter decorations in the dining facility were bright and festive — colorful eggs and bunnies and an ice sculpture. But the tables were empty. Safety regulations required everyone to get a plate to go.
The 1-30 Infantry has soldiers scattered at several bases near Falcon: patrol bases Red, Murray and Hawks and two smaller outposts farther south. The unit was part of the surge, and the idea was for soldiers to live among the local populace, not commute to work.
Falcon is a fairly large and established U.S. military base. The 1-30 soldiers living at the smaller facilities rotate through here so they can eat a decent hot meal, get a haircut, shop at the PX or use a bathroom with a flushing toilet.
But at the moment, they are glad to stay away. Last Tuesday, the sirens rang as late as 11 p.m. after a day of constant runs to the bunkers. On Thursday, a rocket whizzed through the air, again late at night. Friday, the sirens for incoming rounds rang past midnight.
As the rockets rain down, soldiers huddle between the barriers in the dark and wait for more booms.
“Get down. Get low. They’re close,” comes an order from a sergeant.
Hearts are racing. Everyone is thinking the same thing.
Every few seconds, a face is illuminated in the glow of another cigarette lighting up. Nervous small talk is interrupted only by crackling radios. And occasional black humor.
“You know why they put up fences around graveyards?” asks one soldier. “Because everyone is dying to get in.”
Lulls only temporary
Every night, I push back the time when I take a shower for fear of being caught in an unprotected area of the base during an attack. Friday night, I have just put shampoo on my head when I hear that all-too-familiar whiz. Then the sirens. “Incoming! Incoming!” I drop to my knees inside the plastic shower stall.
For a few seconds, I am paralyzed, not knowing whether to stay in the shower or run. Run where? And expose myself to the attack? I have no body armor or helmet.
Finally, I manage to get clothes on and sprint to a bunker, shampoo still in my hair.
Someone else has been caught in midshower. He is there in his black Army shorts and flip-flops. You keep laughing to get through the ordeal.
Spc. Francisco Martinez is standing in his socks on dirt and gravel. He was sleeping and had no time to put on boots. “At least they match,” one of his platoon mates says.
Martinez, 25, of Lubbock, Texas, doesn’t look down at his feet, doesn’t respond to his friend. He contemplates the war: “It’s not like a video game.”
Relief comes finally through the loudspeaker: “All clear!”
But everyone knows the lull is temporary.
The medics ask if the soldiers are OK. A few days ago, I watched the medics run instinctively toward the place where mortar rounds exploded, stretchers and medical bags in their hands.
They wore no body armor, no helmets. They were doing what they are trained to do: seek out the injured. I don’t know many people with the courage to run toward bombs.
There’s not much you can do when you’re hit by an incoming rocket or a mortar round. You can’t fight back. All you can do is hope that it doesn’t send shrapnel slicing through your body.
Nearing their 12th month of a tough 15-month deployment, 1-30 soldiers are starting to turn their thoughts on going home this summer. With rounds slamming into Falcon almost every day, they say they just want to stay alive to see their families again.
“Everyone wants a break,” Herrera says. “We’re not going to get it.”
Marriner, the sergeant from Massachusetts who is on his second tour of Iraq, has a solution: “I’m going to put a bunk bed in the bunker for the next three freakin’ months.”
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