Wesley Gray - Embedded

Once my heart rate had settled, I asked an obvious question. “Where is the angel’s body?” Major Gaines replied, “Hrmm, Jamal, that’s a good question.” He turned toward Adams and yelled, “Figure out where the hell that body is.” Throughout the evening Adams called the 2/3 Marines living in the dam and asked everyone he knew if they had seen an angel come in recently. Nobody knew anything about it. The situation appeared hopeless until a Humvee came flying into our camp.

A young Marine lance corporal jumped out of the driver’s seat and said, “Lieutenant Adams, Sir, we were told to bring this to you.” We opened the back hatch of the Humvee. Body bags full of the angel’s main corpse, smaller pieces of the angel’s body, and blood-soaked combat gear were strewn about. Adams was pissed. “Devil Dog, who the hell told you to drop this body at the MiTT camp? We do not have a large refrigeration capability and we aren’t escorting the body until tomorrow!” The stunned lance corporal replied, “Uh, Sir, I have no idea. I’m just doing what I’m told. My boss is the 2/3 S-4 logistics officer.” Adams sneered and said, “Roger, thanks. I’ll talk to your boss this evening. Bring this back to the dam and tell them they need to refrigerate the body.”

As the lance corporal left our camp, the team burst into laughter. Nuts, in his trademark sarcastic tone, said, “So let me get this straight. When I get blown up by an IED, 2/3 is going to throw me in the back of a Humvee. I will then sit there for a day or two until they figure out what to do with me, and at some point they will send me to my family half rotten. Friggin’ awesome.”

It was 1415. I called the air officer before we departed for the top of the dam. The helo would be inbound at about 1530, plenty of time to reach the helipad. The air officer told me, “Roger, Lieutenant Gray, bird is inbound at 1530.” With the air officer’s confirmation we loaded up the Waz, a Russian made pile-of-crap jeep, and pulled out of the MiTT camp.

Captain McShane came sprinting to us. “I just got a call from the air officer,” he said, “and he tells me the bird will be here in ten minutes. You’d better hurry!” I gasped. “What the heck? Are you serious?” I turned to V. “V, it takes fifteen minutes to get to the dam. You think we can get there in ten?” V replied using one of the few Arabic phrases he knew: “Insha’allah.”

I put the Waz into high gear and slammed the gas. We somehow made it to the top of the dam in time. I asked the air-control Marine on duty, “Is the bird still inbound?” He responded, “Roger, Sir, should be inbound in five minutes.” I further asked, “Where is the angel’s body?” He responded, “Uh, I’m not sure. The S-4 said you guys would have it with you.” My jaw hit the deck. I could not believe this was happening again.

I rushed into a nearby office on top of the dam to borrow a phone. I called the Marine S-4 shop and asked them to explain what was going on. The S-4 Marine on duty explained the situation. “Sir, we are tracking on the body and there was a miscommunication between us. However, that said, we don’t have anyone able to bring the body to the top deck right now, you will have to get it out of the freezer on the seventh deck if you want it there in fifteen minutes.” I hung up and sprinted to the Waz.

I said to the air-control Marine, “Hey, can you have the bird wait twenty minutes while we go get the body?” He replied, “Sir, I can give you fifteen, at most.” Irked, I said, “Shit, well, we’ll take what we can get.” We remounted the Waz and raced to the seventh deck of the dam to retrieve the body. Unfortunately, to reach another level of the dam you have to drive nearly a mile along the dam where there is access to drive to the lower levels. The dam levels are similar to terraced agricultural fields, with minimal crossing points with which to move from one level to the other.

With the Waz in high gear we went flying through one of the Azerbaijani security checkpoints. Amazingly, they did not open fire on us and understood we were experiencing an emergency. We made it to the seventh level in record time, eight minutes and forty-five seconds.

Our next mission was to find the freezers. V, being the designated chow Marine for the MiTT, knew of only one set of freezers on the seventh deck—the chow freezers. “Dude,” I asked him, “you think they would be sick enough to store the body with all the meat, milk, and other perishables?” I was hoping to get a negative response. “Sir,” V said, “to be honest, those freezers are the only freezers on this level, they must have done that.” I screeched on the brakes as we approached the row of four large shipping container sized walk-in freezers.

V searched the first two freezers and I searched the second two. We both came out empty-handed. I asked V, “Shoot man, where the hell could they have stored that body?” At that moment, a Marine corporal wandered over to us, wondering why a Marine first lieutenant and a staff sergeant were rummaging through 2/3’s chow supply with sweat pouring down their faces. V took the lead. “Devil Dog, we are looking for a dead body. Seen one?” I thought for sure the Marine interrogating us was going to tell us to visit a psychiatrist, but he responded, “Actually, I heard the S-4 moved a body down here last night. Let me check real quick in the meat locker.”

The Marine plowed to the rear of the meat locker, smashing boxes out of his way. Sure enough, in the corner of the meat locker sat a bloody body bag and some bloody combat gear buried next to a stack of hamburger patties. V and I immediately needed to figure out the best way to get the angel’s body into the Waz. I established a plan. “V, you go to the Waz and figure out how we are gonna stuff this guy in the back. Corporal, you stay here with me and help me put all the pieces together so we can easily carry this body to the Waz.”

The corporal and I slowly moved the various parts within the body bag—arms, feet, and others—into the form of a human and propped it onto a stretcher. Once we loaded the body bag, we stacked the angel’s bloody flak and Kevlar on top of the stretcher and gingerly evacuated him from the freezer and into the Waz. V had a clearing in the middle of the Waz and had dropped the tailgate. “Shit, Sir, he ain’t gonna fit,” V proclaimed. I responded, “V, we don’t have much choice, hang on to this guy with your life. I’ll try and keep the ride smooth.”

The scene that followed was straight out of the movie Weekend at Bernie’s , in which a couple of young executives have to manipulate their boss’s corpse through precarious situations without being discovered. I put the pedal to the metal in the Waz, and V held the body with outstretched arms. We made it to the intersection in the dam where we could move to the top deck. It was going to be a steep drive uphill. To V’s horror I floored the Waz. “Sir,” he shouted, “I think I’m going to drop him. My forearm is ’bout to burst!” I encouraged V, saying, “Just a few more seconds till we get to the tenth deck. Hold on buddy!”

“V, we made it,” I said. “Il hamdu Allah.” V and I were now on the tenth deck and needed to race to the helipad before the bird left. We screamed along the top of the dam and arrived a few minutes later to the helipad. Hussein came running to us, “Shaku maku? Aku mushkila?” (What’s up? Are there any problems?) I replied, “La. Maku mushkila. Kullshi kullish zien wa sahel.” (No. No problems. Everything is very good and was easy.) Hussein looked at us with suspicion. V and I were dripping in sweat and obviously stressed. Even so, Hussein shrugged his shoulders, grabbed his gear, and sprinted to the bird, while V and I loaded the corpse.