Matt Gallagher - Youngblood

I chose second platoon for these missions because they are my best platoon at kinetic operations.

I do not know the name of the source that informed us about the bed-down location of Saladin al-Badri. I try not to micromanage my intel team.

The source who led us to the bed-down location of Karim al-Badri, known as “Haitham,” works for Karim the Prince’s father as a Sahwa militia shift leader.

Both Saladin al-Badri and Karim al-Badri were shot in accordance with “kill or capture” guidance from higher. Both men were armed and intended to fire upon friendlies. My soldiers followed all current rules of engagement.

The similarity between the outcomes of the two missions does not raise any concerns for me. Both men were known operatives of al-Qaeda. It’s unsurprising that they would use similar tactics in dealing with US forces. Al-Qaeda routinely tries to take advantage of our rules of engagement, which they know almost as well as we do.

I am aware of, and took part in, the debate over whether the man shot on May 1 was indeed Karim the Prince. After investigation, we determined conclusively that it was him. Though no identification was found on the body, and brain matter obscured his face, a hooked nose and wire rim glasses matched the target’s description. Further, the body measured 5 feet 6 inches tall and approximately 145 pounds in weight, also a match.

Two other men were detained on site and captured without incident. They are presumed to be Karim’s bodyguards, also affiliated with al-Qaeda, and were turned over to interrogators at Camp Bucca.

I’m not aware of the use of drop weapons, and have never had reason to suspect that such a practice was used by my company. The allegation was made three times, once for Saladin al-Badri, once for Karim al-Badri and once before, in January — each time anonymously. I took these allegations seriously, despite the lack of evidence. After careful review, I concluded that the utter lack of evidence suggested the allegations must have come from a disgruntled junior soldier. They have no bearing in reality.

I also want the record to show my company’s successes since Staff Sergeant Rios went missing. Charlie Company has been the main element for all of Operation Fumble Recovery, a division mandate. We’ve detained 34 Sunni locals and 9 Shi’a locals during the operation and killed four enemy insurgents.

The fifth man who died was an elderly local. He died of a heart attack, not through the actions of my soldiers, who tried to resuscitate him. As per battalion policy, the family was offered condolence funds, which they accepted.

Though Staff Sergeant Rios’ body has yet to be found, he is now classified as killed in action due to a tissue sample found on his recovered plate carrier. We will continue our search for his full remains so they may be sent home to his family. Though our relationship with Karim the Prince’s father, Sheik Ahmed, and the Sunni Coalition of Ashuriyah have been negatively affected by these events, I consider the matter closed.

I also believe the matter of the drop weapons should be closed, as my understanding is that there’s zero evidence. Unless the battalion commander recommends otherwise, I will keep second platoon’s leadership in place. With only two months of our deployment left, it makes little sense to change things up in my most capable platoon. I won’t punish them for doing their jobs.

NOTHING FOLLOWS

INITIALS OF PERSON MAKING STATEMENT KT

The days of rage returned to Ashuriyah underneath a strawberry cream sky. Gunfire rolled across the town in a torrent, block by block, street by street, house by house. Shi’a gangs began calling themselves Jaish al-Mahdi again and fought among themselves for power, while Sunnis segmented into al-Qaeda, 1920 Revolution Brigade, and Jaish al-Rashideen and fought over control.

A generation of angry young men who knew nothing but strife, they all wanted establishment blood on their hands, like their dead fathers and missing brothers. That meant Sahwa blood. And jundi blood. And American blood. In between, they killed one another’s families; we found the heads of three storekeepers in a ravine on one patrol alone. Their skin had been charred beyond recognition and their jaws hung open in everlong shock and their neck stems were roots to nowhere, smelling of smoke and maggots.

The Salah prayers echoed every dawn and dusk, carried in the desert wind. Civil service missions became movements to contact, presence patrols became raids. We shot bad guys dressed in black who multiplied into more bad guys dressed in black. Everything smelled like shit and hot trash, from the huts we raided to the sewer wadis we stepped into to the indolent blue streams where we found rockets in the banks. The locals huddled in kitchens and bedrooms during midnight raids, mere outlines of people in night vision green.

Late one morning, an artillery round hidden in the carcass of a camel exploded next to our vehicle. Our Stryker flipped onto its side and everyone lived, though Doc Cork and I got concussions and Dominguez spent hours getting camel guts off his face and vest. He didn’t like talking about it.

Ortiz of second squad wasn’t as lucky. The night of the D-Day anniversary, he looked up at a crescent moon and stepped on a dismounted IED buried in the dirt, which sent hundreds of metal ball bearings screaming through his ballistic vest and his doll body twisting through the air. Missing both legs and one arm, he suffocated to death in the sand because the metal balls had punched holes through his lungs. We had to pull Doc Cork off the corpse. He didn’t cry, though some of us thought it would be good for him to.

Losing another soldier did something to me, too. Two things mattered now and only two things: honor and survival. Sometimes in that order, sometimes not.

“There’s a beast in the heart of every fighting man,” Chambers said to us under hooded eyes. “And it’s time to embrace it.”

“Embrace what?” I asked.

“Embrace it before it embraces you.”

And like every fighting man before us, that’s what we did, as the red coal sun turned the world to flames.

Ana Amreeki. Ayna taskun?”

“Good, Lieutenant! And if the Iraqi you encounter is female?”

“Ayna… ayna taskuneen?”

“Jaeed!”

“Thanks, Snoop. Shukran , I mean.”

He grinned. “Iraqis will be impressed. Americans that speak Arabic are… seal-a-brated?”

“Celebrated. Ce-le-brated.”

“Yeah, that’s what I say.”

We sat in the terps’ room by ourselves, he on a top bunk chewing on sunflower seeds, me on a plastic chair next to the television, an Arabic dictionary in my lap. The rotating fan in the corner blasted out hot breath. I checked my watch: we’d been at it for an hour.

In addition to improving my Arabic, these sessions with Snoop allowed me to avoid the unfinished paperwork in my room. Somewhere between the sniper and the IED attacks, everyone in the platoon had earned the Combat Infantryman Badge, which meant we’d “actively engaged the enemy in ground combat,” which wasn’t supposed to matter, but it did. It mattered a lot. It meant we’d finally been to war. I just needed to finish typing out the reports to prove it. And I would, as soon as I stopped associating the award we’d wanted so desperately with the two dead soldiers it had cost.

Snoop leaned over the top bunk. “Hey, LT? Can I ask a favor?”

“Shoot.”

“I need a letter from an American officer saying I am a good interpreter, and an honest person.” Snoop looked embarrassed, as if pushing himself to continue. “After the war, I hope to move to America. Letters from officers help get the right papers for this.”