Chapter+33

//Personal Story of Second Lieutenant Dave Walker//

There were few in the platoon who would have come here on their own free will. They didn’t like the sand, which with every blast of air was thrown into their faces. In fact, had the air force dropped by and given them the choice of leaving, most would have thrown down everything and surged into any vehicle ready to take them. Unfortunately none of the thirty-six soldiers were to have any choice in that matter as they sat, rather dispirited, on the sidewalk a few feet from the barricade. The metal and cement barricade that we had established on the intersection would be a vital point for stopping numerous cars that had been loaded with high-grade explosives. Our job was to stop any bombs from going off, and control the area against breakthrough by enemy units.

Sitting on the curb a few feet further away, I could hear the wind blowing through the houses, most of which had been evacuated. This area of southern Kuwait was for the most part deserted, though it clearly contained some beat of life. We could hear them at night, the whimper of a child, the hushed tones that drifted through the silent air. Occasionally a car would pass, if it wanted past the barricade, past us to the safety of the outlying lands, it would hold. We would search every corner of the vehicle, and rarely found anything.

It was on this day, this day just like all other days that it happened. Second Lieutenant Dave Walker, that’s me, woke up early and got ready for another boring day in the hot weather of Southern Kuwait. I have found that all this gear, most of which is rather useless, increases the temperature by a possible fifty degrees Fahrenheit. The wind, blowing leisurely through the street does little to assuage the terrible heat that can only be felt by me and my men, it could be said that the only reason the wind was blowing was to sting my eyes, as it randomly through sand in them, and fan my black hair, which was matted against my head because of my helmet.

“Another beautiful day, isn’t it sir?” Glancing up from the wash basin, the basic deep dish with water in it, I notice my trusty assistant Sergeant First Class Mitch Williams walking up to me.

“Sure, the beautiful sun shines, and tonight I’ll be sleeping with…,” my sentence ends abruptly as Williams lunges at me with a laugh. I dodge, giving him a friendly punch to the shoulder.

“We have no contact as of yet, and last night was uneventful,” he relates to me as we make our way toward the small command post that was set up to monitor data coming in from high command. Mitch and I had met in Iraq; I had just completed a recon mission when my platoon had stumbled across his team. After assimilating them into our platoon Mitch and I became close friends. My sarcastic humor and quick thinking worked well with his strategic mindset and quick wit. Details that I’d miss, he’d catch and the other way around. Thinking about it now, we made the perfect team. That was at approximately 6 A.M.; things hadn’t really changed as far I was concerned. The sun still shone, though our shadows were now located in a rather different position. Glancing at my watch, and noting to myself that it was about 2:15 P.M., I stood and walked toward the corner of one the adjacent buildings. The occasional thump could be heard from far away, the continuous bombing of the city by our troops. Looking down the empty street, and glancing at the silent phone, it would be safe to assume that there were no cars coming. Come to think of it, there hadn’t been any real interaction between us and another carbon based life form in the last week. Moving along, I took up a stance next to an old bakery, watching a couple of rats fight over a moldy finger. I became curiously preoccupied with the four rats; this being largely attributed to the lack of anything better to do. The sudden blare of the mobile communications kit caught me by complete surprise.

“One car coming your way, I repeat, there is a white Paykan coming your direction. Intelligence Command says it’s loaded,” squawked the voice on the other end. Loaded could only mean the explosives that would be tied all around the insides of the car, it was time to act.

“You heard him, you lousy maggots,” I scream at the rest of the platoon, dully staring at me like I had just popped up in a clown costume, “Let's move, into position. Quickly, quickly, you move like a bunch of old ladies.” They shuffle into position; I hear the scream of tires as the turn the car turns the corner about 5 blocks from our location.

“Stop the car, stop it NOW!!!!” I yell as loud as I can. The car was coming at us with 3 men inside, yelling loudly back at us, something I couldn’t understand, the only problem was they wouldn't stop. I yell the order again, this time raising my fist in a standard order of stop, yet once again there was no slowing down. With the thought that this car was loaded with explosives, I ordered my men to open fire.

“Ready...set,” it hit me hard for a second that the next thing I could be doing is lying on the ground without arms or legs. I could be dead. It struck me, struck me hard, so hard that it could have drawn blood. In that moment my surroundings flared, the cool wind in contrast to the warm sun beating on my neck, the sand shifting quietly on the street. It all stood out in a stark image that froze in my mind, “FIRE!!!” I yell, accompanied by the almost perfect staccato of gunfire. Bullets pelted the small car like rain, the small bullets riddled through the hood and tore up the engine, my eyes picked up the shocked, and horrified look of the driver as his body shook in fear, and his arm swung the car into the left wall. Instead of smashing right into it, he hits the wall from the side, flipping the car on to its back. We stormed forward, confused at the lack of explosion that a bomb loaded car usually experiences after being shot numerous times. The driver pulls himself out of the car, I see his left arm dangling loosely and nearly torn off by the bullets we had fired into the car. He staggers toward us, falling at the last couple steps, and seemingly unconscious. I order my men to examine the car, and the rest of the passengers, as I crouch down with the platoon medics to help the driver. I open his hand and read the note he was holding. I recognize it as a propaganda flyer that the US Army and Marines were distributing in all the major cities. It basically read that all civilians should evacuate major parts of the city they were in, and get themselves into the countryside, to escape the bombings we were conducting. I look up seeing Mitch assisting one of the passengers coming toward me. I stand up and stride toward them, preparing to ask a couple questions of my assistant.

“The car was totally clean sir, they didn’t even have handguns, if these are some kind of terrorist, then they’re really getting desperate,” he nods toward the last passenger, “the last guy will probably make it, but he can’t get out of the car, got his leg caught on something.” He explains as I seize up the man before me.

“Why did you shoot, we were just doing as you were telling us to” he hands me another one of the flyers, his voice near hysteria as his brain comes to grasp with the pain that must have been excruciating. I crumple it in my fist, anger swelling up in my head. I see a medic telling me something, something important, but it doesn’t matter. A haze of blood passes over my vision, and my hearing is blotted out by the loud beating of the blood in my head. My mind flies back to all the training sessions, the sessions were they drilled into our minds the idea of insurgent car bombings, the few minutes ago, where the outpost had told us that the car was loaded, and me ordering fire on a bunch of innocent civilians.



I remember that day clearly in my memory, October 24, 2004. I remember it, as I remember the 14 other times the same thing happened while I was stationed in Iraq. I know why I made the choice I made; I know why I quit military life. It wasn’t just incidents like that, once we were ordered to stop a demonstration in Baghdad. When we arrived there were only civilians, but HQ informed us that terrorists were hiding in civilian outfits, ready to kill us should we turn our backs, we opened fire. Moving around the dead, bleeding bodies that littered the ground moments after, I saw children, I saw women, and I saw innocents. I even pulled a small, frail baby out from underneath its now dead mother. Both experiences were too much for me to bear. I can only hope that people will know of what is going on. I can only hope that people will question what is actually happening across the ocean. In a land filled with death, filled with war and sorrow, I can only hope for a better future.

pludwig

Rockwell, Paul. "Atrocities in Iraq." SACBEE 16/05/2004 5. 28 June 2007 .