Wesley Gray - Embedded

After speaking with Abdulredha the boss started approaching my Humvee. I muttered to myself, “Oh God, here he comes to save the day.” He asked, “Lieutenant Gray, what’s going on? Why the hell are the Iraqis running off like that? Did you tell them they could do that?” I cut him short. “Sir, Abdulredha and I are in control of the situation. You can stay back here with the rest of the convoy and provide security.” The boss responded, “Uh, okay, just keep me informed of everything that goes on.” I replied, “Roger, Sir, will do.”

Abdulredha and I hopped out of our Humvees and walked up to the staff sergeant I assumed was in charge of the operation. “Staff sergeant, how’s it going?” I asked. “I’m Lieutenant Gray and this is Lieutenant Abdulredha. What’s going on? You guys need our help?” He responded, “Sir, we actually could use your help. We called EOD and they aren’t going to be here for at least three hours. The lieutenant and some of the Marines moved toward the small village to our east [Abu Hyatt] to search for the triggerman and any evidence. The problem is we cannot get comms with them. Can you go out there and see how they are doing?” I replied, “Roger, no problem. We’ll be in contact via radio. If something goes wrong we will pop a green cluster.” I looked over to Abdulredha, who understood English pretty well, and asked, “Fitihemita?” (Did you understand him?) He laughed and responded in English, “Of course, Jamal. I am wannabe American, you know!”

“Doc,” I ordered, “make a path toward the village to our east and don’t hit any IEDs.” Doc immediately punched the Humvee across the desert toward the edge of a small hill that overlooked Abu Hyatt. The Iraqis followed. We approached the top of a ridge to get a better view of the small village. Abdulredha and I jumped out of our vehicles and met at the hood of his Humvee. He pointed. “Jamal, I see the Marines. Look about five hundred meters toward the river.” I followed his directions. “Roger, I see them.” Before I could even ask Abdulredha what he wanted to do next, he was in his Humvee burning a path through the desert to the Marine location.

We linked up with the Marines searching local homes. I approached the lieutenant in charge. “Dude, how’s it going?” He replied, “We are good to go—no worries. We could use your jundi though. This woman came out of her home and pointed us in the direction of this home directly in front of us. I had my Marines go in there and check it out. They found weapons, washing machine timers, hollowed out 155-mm artillery shells, a book on the physics of electronics, and a bunch of copper wire. If that ain’t fishy, then I don’t know what is.” Astonished, I responded, “No kidding? What do you need the Iraqis for? You need them to ask the homeowner what’s up or something?” The lieutenant replied, “Yep, exactly.” Abdulredha, who had overheard our conversation, said, “Roger, Jamal, I am already sending soldiers to check it out.”

I approached the jundi and asked, “Shaku maku wiya il biet?” (What’s up with the house?) Abdulredha came to explain the situation. “The women of the home said all of the men were gone for the day and that she didn’t know how this stuff arrived in her home,” he said. “She said it is the male’s property and that she has nothing to do with it. This is an insurgent home, I know that.” I replied, “Roger, well, we will cause more problems by detaining the lady. I guess all we can do is confiscate the illegal material and be on our way.” I jumped in my Humvee and waited for the Iraqis to wrap up their business.

Abdulredha radioed over the Iraqi radio net to Martin, relaying the message they were ready to move. Martin, in uncharacteristically honest form, looked at me and said, “You need to look in the Iraqi Humvee before we leave. They took that woman’s antique shotgun. I think they are trying to steal it.” I knew Martin was not being honest for honesty’s sake, since he was the shadiest bastard in Iraq. I also knew that Martin did not get along with Abdulredha and that this might be a false alarm. Nevertheless, I investigated.

I looked in the back of the Iraqi Humvee, which had the woman’s shotgun, a legal weapon for Iraqis to have in their home. I approached Abdulredha, disappointed, and asked, “Why did you guys take this weapon? These people are authorized one weapon and this one obviously isn’t meant to kill people.” Abdulredha grinned and said, “Jamal, the lady already has an AK-47, so we took this shotgun.” I laughed. “Listen, this is an antique shotgun that would have a hard time killing a bird. You can take it if you want, but I’ll tell you this, you had better be able to justify this to Colonel Abass when we get back to the camp. If you don’t think you can justify this with Colonel Abass, I recommend you return the lady’s antique.”

Abdulredha knew he had been caught red-handed engaging in some Ali Babba activities and decided to choose the path of righteousness. He ordered one of the jundi to return the antique weapon to the lady. He smiled at me. “Jamal, you know what that thing is worth in Baghdad? Big money, man, big money.” I replied, “Well, I think you did the right thing. Good work.”

We returned to the main convoy body, which was still sitting on Route Bronze. I arranged to bypass the 2/3 convoy and we continued on our mission to Baghdadi. A mile from Baghdadi, Abdulredha stopped the convoy and ordered his jundi to search the bridge ahead for IEDs. The Iraqi jundi -bots got out of their Humvee and screened the path. Ayad, one of the searchers, sprinted back to the convoy, flailing his arms in all directions. He had found an IED. “I looked in one of the old IED craters and saw copper wire coming out of it,” he explained. “I didn’t stay to check for details, but I’m sure there is an IED there.” We immediately cordoned off the area and set up security. We all knew we would be here for a while, waiting for EOD to come to our position and clear the IED.

I started transmitting my EOD nine-line. “Checkpoint twelve, line one: 151300 Zulu, line two: grid, thirty-eight Sierra—” I could not transmit another word because my jaw had dropped. An American convoy was heading right for the IED Ayad had located. The jundi in the front Humvee were all out of their Humvees waving frantically to get the Marines to stop before they crossed the bridge. I quickly switched frequencies to contact the convoy that was about to run over an IED. I was too late. By the time I contacted the convoy commander, their Humvees were already past the kill zone of the IED. Even so, the IED never detonated. Either the convoy coming our way knew something we didn’t or they had Allah on their side.

I addressed the Marine convoy commander, who stopped to chat. “You guys know there is a suspected IED on that bridge and your convoy just drove over the top of it, right?” The lieutenant convoy commander replied, “Hey man, EOD took care of that IED last night. I was here when they did the controlled detonation. It looks like they didn’t pick up all the wires in the detonation pit, hence the reason the jundi thought there was an IED in there.” I was speechless. EOD had already screwed us over, and this was just another addition to my long list of EOD complaints. I replied to the lieutenant in a sarcastic tone, “So what you’re telling me is we have been sitting here for an hour, calling in the nine-line, setting up the cordon, setting up security and making traffic wait, because EOD is too lazy to pick up the wires?” He responded bluntly, “Yep, pretty much.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, shit, at least we’re all alive, right? Oohrah. Be safe, dude.”

Our Iraqi-led convoy finally made it to the Baghdadi Iraqi army compound. We were greeted by Nuts, Lieutenant Adams, and Captain McShane, who had spent the past four days in Baghdadi helping 3rd Iraqi Company prepare for their move to Camp Ali. Nuts chided us. “Hey, thanks for leaving us down here to help the jundi organize their mountains of trash,” he said. “We really appreciate it, guys. I hope you all die tomorrow.” McShane replied, “Yeah, it pretty much sucked down here, but what can you do? Let’s get this convoy rearranged and get the hell back to Camp Ali!”