Wesley Gray - Embedded

I heard a refined English accent come from a doorway. “Hello, what is your name?” A young, clean-cut man came out to see what was happening on the porch. “I am Jamal,” I responded in Arabic. “I was explaining to your mother that we have detained your brother.” He seemed content with this answer. “I am not worried. I know you will treat him in a fair manner. I work for a man named Scott. He is a Marine.” The man’s comments astonished me. I realized that this guy must be a Marine human intelligence source that provided valuable intelligence to the Marines. This was one family we didn’t want to screw over.

“Sir, we gotta head south,” Sergeant Kelley said. I bid farewell to the mother and told her that God would take care of her son. She released her death grip from my arm, wished me good luck, and we continued to press south to the suspected IED site. Twenty minutes later we reached the vicinity of the potential IED sites. We asked the locals if they had seen any activity in the area in order to pinpoint where it was located. We stopped by the nearest house on the other side of a wadi (dried riverbed).

Foliage surrounded the home. This house belonged to the second detainee we had captured—the one whose wrist bled from the flexi-cuffs. I could not believe it. Amazingly, out of the hundreds of shanty homes to choose in the area, we happened to pick the two that were the homes of the detainees.

The scene at this home was similar to that at the last one. The mother was frantic and wanted to know that her son was okay. The father, a former military man, was the only voice of reason present. After explaining the circumstances of his son’s detention, he understood our situation and requested that we would take care of his son in a respectable manner. He followed up on the intelligence we had received from his son and elaborated on where he thought the insurgents had placed the IED.

We made our way through the thick foliage that surrounded the man’s house. The man pointed to an open area and said, “That is where the insurgents have been recently.” Kelley asked the Iraqi squad leader to gather some jundi -bots (Marine term for Iraqi soldiers who check potential unexploded ordnance and suspected IED sites) to assess the situation. While it seems insensitive to send a jundi to check on explosives, it makes more sense that a jundi rather than a Marine do this duty.

The two jundi searched around the suspected IED location for thirty minutes. They kicked trash piles, picked up metal fragments, and rummaged around in the dirt. This seemed to be a dry hole and we needed to move. We reformed the patrol and moved east across Boardwalk into the palm groves. We still needed to cover two and a half kilometers of ground to get back to the WTF. The last thing we wanted was to be in the palm groves in complete darkness—we had learned our lesson.

We arrived at the WTF with a mere glimpse of moonlight left. I had not slept in twenty-four hours, and it was time to hit the rack.

I decided to convince Hussein, the Iraqi squad leader, to add a layer of deception on our next patrol. I thought our patrolling patterns were getting routine and we needed to change things if we wanted to keep the insurgents on their toes. We decided that for this patrol we would head south into the village as we typically did but would cut the patrol short and head north back to the WTF as it was getting dark. This would convince the locals we were done patrolling for the day. Once we arrived at the back entrance of the WTF, which was concealed by a small wadi, instead of calling it quits for the night, we would sneak out the western side of the WTF and make our way to an observation point (OP) five hundred meters north of the WTF on a barren hill that overlooked Boardwalk. The intent of the deception was to trick the insurgents into thinking our patrolling efforts were finished for the night and that they could freely conduct IED activities for a few hours before we sent out the early morning patrol.

Hussein agreed on our proposed plan. He decided to claim the deception tactic as his own idea and explained it to the jundi in the squad. I had no problem with him stealing my intellectual property; this is how the adviser gig is supposed to work. The jundi were excited.

We pushed south into the village area near the WTF at 1800. The sun would set in the next two hours. We patrolled though the village. Everything seemed peaceful and tranquil—something had to be wrong. Even so, we moved north toward the WTF, walking across the tallest hill in the village to ensure we were seen by all the townspeople. We reached the wadi west of the WTF and disappeared inside, covering our movement to the townspeople and insurgents who were certainly tracking our movements. I radioed our situation to Major Gaines. “Sir, we are at the back gate, over.” Gaines responded, “Jamal, I got something for you. The Special Forces showed up and they want to send two of their snipers to the OP with you and the jundi . I’m sure you’d agree these guys are better marksmen than the jundi anyway, over.” I confirmed. “Roger, Sir. Send them our way; we have to wait here in the wadi until it gets completely dark anyway. Out.”

The thought of working with the Special Forces snipers was appealing. While the Hollywood appeal of Special Forces personnel had lessened since I had been working with them, I still thought it might be cool to have Special Forces snipers on our patrol. In fact, I knew this mission would be amazing. I would be the leading tactical adviser on a foreign military patrol in a war zone, speaking a foreign language and fighting alongside Iraqi soldiers as an equal. On top of that we were going to clandestinely move to a hill in the desert overlooking Route Boardwalk under the cover of darkness and hunt insurgents with help from a couple of Green Beret snipers. If this is not living the adventure, what is? I wondered.

The Special Forces snipers showed up at the west gate of the WTF. I sat them down with Hussein and had Hussein explain his plan to occupy the OP. It was a relief to work with the Special Forces. I knew I did not have to explain to the snipers why I was letting the Iraqis lead the show. They understand more than anyone that the role of being a military adviser is to advise, teach, and support—not to command.

Once the plan was in place we moved quickly and quietly into the desert under the cover of darkness. I felt a sense of peace in the silence. The footsteps of warriors walking in the desert broke the quietness. The jundi were not as graceful as I had hoped. On our way to the assembly area I counted five loud crashes caused by jundi who tripped in ditches and small holes in the barren landscape. Despite the racket we continued to push forward without notice. Route Boardwalk was a good six hundred meters away. If anyone had heard our commotion, the people would write it off as feral dogs thrashing around in the open desert.

We approached our tentative assembly area at the base of a small hill from which we would observe Route Boardwalk. From our position, we were not going to get close enough to the enemy to cut his throat, but we would have visibility on the road. At the assembly area the snipers and I had a U.S.-only meeting. We were carrying out a complicated operation and the last thing we wanted was the jundi to mess it up.

I addressed the Special Force snipers. “Listen, you guys know we are dealing with jundi here. I can guarantee that one of them is going to light up a cigarette while we are out here observing.” Both the men nodded in agreement and I continued. “I’m going to have these guys sit at the base of this hill and get into a security posture beneath the hill. They can be the security element for the mission while you guys go up on the hill and observe with your thermal scopes and infrared optics. I’ll be the middleman on the hill. If you guys need support or extra firepower let me know and I will signal to Hussein to rally the jundi cavalry.” The snipers liked my plan. The plan allowed them to observe Boardwalk for enemy activity without having to worry about the jundi compromising our position and ruining the mission.