Bullets and Barbecue

Combat Outpost Badel, Kunar Province-

(Sgt. First Class De La Garza manning the grill.)

The smell of a barbecue wafted from under the camo netting on the top of the heavily fortified hill. Steaks and marinated chicken were better than the usual cardboard and plastic Meals Ready to Eat. And the soldiers would need the calories.

Early the next morning a squad of infantrymen from 2nd Platoon, Able Co. 2-503 of the 1-173 Airborne would hike through the terraced wheat fields to the gumdrop hill in the distance. They climbed the hill in darkness and set up defensive positions to wait for sunrise. The hill overlooked Subagar, a town they sometimes took fire from, on one side and a cache of smuggled wood on the other.

I had last visited the Badel valley in August. The air was then humid with summer heat and 10th Mountain soldiers tense with the upcoming national elections. Shots usually rang down from the surrounding mountain tops around dusk. The soldiers called it harassing fire. Some things had changed, much had not. I was interested in what the Able Co. soldiers thought about their mission here three months into it.

“Our purpose is to provide security for surrounding towns. To push out the Taliban. So far we’ve pushed them back to the ridge line,” said Sgt. Michael Dolce, 24. a team leader who'd last been deployed and wounded by an IED attack in Iraq.

One of Dolce’s soldiers, a 21-year-old private said, “I tell my wife we pull a lot of guard, meet Afghans, give them stuff. That we're trying to turn it from a third world country to a country we could visit some day.”

The 10th Mountain platoon wasn’t large enough to conduct patrols outside the concertina wire. Now, 2nd Platoon of Able Co. have twice as many soldiers at COP Badel. They expected to climb the surrounding mountains, it’s what they do in Afghanistan.

In ’07-’08 this unit out of Vicenza, Italy, was deployed to outposts deep in Kunar’s mountains like the Pesh Valley, where they operated mostly on foot. Their battalion got into 1,100 firefights during a 15 month deployment, according to several soldiers. Now they're back fighting the same enemy, on the same terrain.

“They’re smart,” said Sgt. David Lopez, 23, now on his second tour here, of Kunar's Taliban. “They know what they’re doing. They’ve been fighting for decades. They use some of the same movement techniques we use under fire.”

“They’re ghosts,” said Lt. Richard Hill, Able Co.’s 2nd Platoon Leader. Describing how the local fighters scale the mountains, and maneuver into position undetected, but for their coded radio chatter, which signals a coming attack, or a boast, or a bluff to keep the U.S. soldiers off guard. The bullets come when the soldiers are most vulnerable. When they don’t have helicopter support.

That morning, it was as they started to climb down the gumdrop. The crack of AK-47s and bullets whizzing.

(2nd Platoon over watching the Badel Valley from the gumdrop.)

There is no hesitation on returning fire. “At first you get that adrenaline, oh sh--, what am I gonna do? Now it’s second nature," said, Private First Class Jonathan Gallegos, 24. "Go to cover, charge the weapon without thinking."

One squad covered from behind trees and rock walls, as the other surged forward, through one of the towns, where kids carrying bundles of tree limbs stared at them. Back to COP Badel. These small firefights and retreats happen at least two or three times a week.

“It’s kind of like island hopping,” Lt. Hill said, describing their movement to surrounding villages, where they try to establish relationships with elders and offer assistance in exchange for a reduction in attacks.

“Security means projects,” Hill explained the carrot approach of the funding Able Co. doles out to surrounding villages. 2nd Platoon is trying to get the Narang district to use the money as its quarterly budget, so village elders can collectively deciding on projects and begin to maintain accurate records. The idea is that selected elders from surrounding villages will decide on how the budget should be spent, rather than the Army just handing the decision to the most powerful person in the village, as has happened in the past.

Easier said then Done

So far, the bulk of American commander allocated funding, or CERP, has been spent on projects that are easiest to allocate, like local wells, in order to gain quick credibility with the elders, if they can ensure security, said Able Co.’s Commander, Capt. Joe Snowden.

In Narang, the sub-governor came to Lt. Hill's last meeting with an entire quarterly budget proposal for two retaining walls and a pipe scheme for a village well. The price of these three projects- $240,000.

"It's very doubtful," Lt. Hill said of the cost. "Obviously they're looking at us as a giant cash cow." Lt. Hill now has to diplomatically reject, and help the district reprice the bid without the sub-governor losing face. He will face resistance, as he believes someone is getting a large kickback. Usually the deeper the village is in the valley the more resistant it is to U.S. forces.

In the Badel Valley, Qala Wana is viewed as a friendly village where some projects have been built, where as Subagar's allegiance is more ambiguous, as exemplified that morning. The soldiers believed they spotted a man trading an Ak-47 off to others on a donkey train coming from Subagar, after shots were fired at them.

But the soldiers who are getting shot at, are not all pessimistic. “I see us turning some of the villages green,” Sgt. Lopez said. “The more we go in, the bigger impact. The more villagers see we’re not afraid.”

Climbing the Big Hill

Later that week, 2nd Platoon scaled the mountain directly overlooking their outpost, where they most often get hit from. The purpose was to scout out an observation post the Afghan Army could man. It was clear from the spent brass casings and bullet scarred rock, they would take away the Taliban’s favorite advantage- height. But the ridge line was precarious and even with all the resources and a reinforced outpost structure, it was questionable whether Able Co. would have time to complete the project or whether their battalion would approve to resupply the Afghans via helicopter.

Then there's the danger in staying up there for extended periods. As soon as the two over watching Kiowa helicopters went to refuel, 2nd Platoon could feel it. They were about to get attacked. They’d been monitoring radio chatter of two Taliban cells moving into position.

(Sgt. Eugene Lackey, 25, of St. Louis, climbing the big hill.)

“This is where they got us last time,” said Private First Class, Stephen Finch, 21, setting up his automatic rifle on a rock. “I don’t like carrying it, but I like shooting it... You can go through your rounds like that, so you have to keep a cool head.”

Sure enough, shots rang from the opposing ridge line. As soon as they returned fire, PFC Gallegos spotted a Taliban shooter through binoculars. “I saw him come up in brown man jamies," Gallegos said. "Sgt. Lopez said to engage him. I directed fire towards him. I could see the tracers coming back.”

Minutes later, the rotor thwock of the returning Kiowas. The smaller copters circled and laid down 50. caliber bursts, missile fires sounded across the valley. The fighters fired back at the helicopters and then reportedly retreated to a cave.

“Last deployment we would have been laying bombs,” several soldiers commented.

But at least 2nd Platoon's soldiers made the two hour descent through the mountain wash safely. Sweaty and dirty, with no running water, it was time to chug Gatorade and light the grill again.

Stories of getting shot at commenced. “If you didn’t laugh it off, you’d think about it too much and f--- yourself mentally... ", said Sgt. Lopez. "But we learn from it. Talk what we did wrong.”

“I just got in I my first firefight.
Shit was insane.
So much adrenaline,
Pumping through your veins,
Shots everywhere.
Just lighting up the sky,
like the fourth of July.
F----- wicked. Other than that everyone
was safe. No one got hurt.
We were walking those mountains all day.”

– PFC Jonathan Gallegos, recorded himself saying these words after his first firefight in early Jan.

Young medic put to test in Afghanistan

Imagine getting shot at on an exposed ridge line by a barrage of machine gun fire and rocket propelled grenades, and then running through such fire to save a buddy hit by a rocket blast.

Medic Joseph “LJ” Brown, 23, of Austin TX, didn’t know what he was in for on Feb. 28th when Third Platoon of Able Co. 2-503 Infantry of the 173rd Airborne, helicoptered onto a mountain top in Kunar Province of Eastern Afghanistan. Their goal was to meet with key village leaders. But the soldiers knew the village was probably an unfriendly place, where Taliban fighters regularly passed through into the Korengal, a valley notorious for firefights.

After walking almost five hours along the ridge line, carrying 70 pound packs, armor and weapons in spitting rain, shots rang down on them. It was the kind of complex attack, Specialist Brown dreaded. “Here we have mountains and valleys, and you don’t know who’s looking down on you... In Iraq, it was desert so if there was an accident, you knew what was around you, and you usually had time to prepare yourself mentally.”

A hail of bullets cut into trees above them and pinged off rocks as the platoon returned fire and ran for cover. A minute later Brown heard a yell that someone had been hit. Then it all became a blur. As the platoon medic, his training took over. He ran 20 meters down the ridge and saw Spc. Steven Dellinger with blood running down his face and shrapnel and gun shot wounds in his right arm and leg. “I’d never seen anything like that,” Brown said.

The young medic dragged Dellinger out of the line of fire and began strapping velcro and plastic tourniquets on his right leg and arm. As bullets still cut into the trees above him, he was joined by Staff Sgt. Josh Swilley and Staff Sgt. Brandon Casanova who helped Brown move Dellinger behind rock coverage.

Several other 3rd Platoon soldiers were also hit by shrapnel, but kept firing, as five of the platoon attempted to load their wounded buddy onto a field liter but were afraid that because of the steep and rocky terrain, they might drop him.

Sgt. First Class De La Garza radioed for a Medivac helicopter to bring a hoist. Brown and Casanova, the second medic on the scene, began patching Dellinger’s wounds with gauze so as not to move the tourniquets in flight, while making sure he didn’t go into shock. “Delligner was conscious the whole way through,” Brown said, and still making the sarcastic comments he is known for.

“When we heard the helicopters it was the best feeling of my life,” Brown said. Spc. Dellinger was loaded on to the chopper and zipped to immediate care in Asadabad. Brown called him at the Combat Support Hospital at Bagram Air Field the next day. “He said he didn’t have the words to thank me.”

“I always wanted to help people. When I joined the Army, in the back of my mind I wanted to go to war. Now I don’t wish it on my worst enemy, but I wouldn’t change a thing,” Brown said, “We’re one big family over here.”

Still, going through an experience like that has after effects. “Nineteen days later, when I hear loud noises, it still jars me,” Brown said. “They say it will go away. I don’t remember a lot of it... I’ve been shot at before, but until I saw him laying there,” he pauses, “I hadn’t seen anything like that.”

“This time I had no time to think. That’s the Army training, how to work under stress and exhaustion. All my guys who helped me had been trained as Combat Life Savers, and knew how to apply tourniquets.”

Usually when they take fire, Doc Brown, as he’s called, says he knows to duck for cover. As a senior medic in Iraq told him, “You have to be the most selfish guy in the platoon.” If the medic gets hit, who’s going to treat the other wounded?

“Some guys say I’m lazy for it,” Brown says. “After the attack, I asked, Do you guys still think I’m lazy?” They said, “No, we love you.”

Brown’s parents, Rena and Joseph, have resided in Austin for the last five years. His father, Col. Joseph Brown Sr. moved to Austin after retiring from 25 years of service in the Army, during which he served in the initial Iraq invasion.

[All photos courtesy of Spc. LJ Brown]

Rocket hits Afghanistan's largest base, one civilian killed

Bagram- This gigantic air base and military industrial boom town was hit by a rocket attack sometime during the early morning hours. One person was confirmed dead and two wounded according to U.S. military sources.

Bagram, home to 24,000 military and contracting personnel experiences infrequent attacks. "It's the first one in a month and a half," said Lt. Col. Clarence Counts, a public affairs spokesman. "In the 11 months I've been here we've had about four attacks that have caused deaths or injuries."

Col. Counts said the task force which defends the base uses roving patrols and technology to pin point attacks and predict when they will most frequently happen. "Usually it's on weekends," he said, "but it's starting to get warm," meaning more attacks come with better spring weather in a region where snow still crests the outlying peaks.

"We don't use automatic fireback because it's a populated area," he said, adding that, the insurgents use some kind of timing device on the rockets, so they are usually well out of range when the rockets launch.

According to the AP, a Taliban spokesman said two rockets were fired at the base. Last year insurgents launched more the a dozen attacks killing four people, according to the same report.

Photography of the damaged hut was not permitted at this time.

Farewell Baghdad

(photos by Ceerwan Aziz, award winning photographer and friend, who covered election day in Baghdad)

I left Baghdad today. If not for good, for a long time. I have lived in the city for almost two years, yet I know very little about it. Most of what I know is T-walls. The grey monoliths of poured concrete encased rebar that serve as blast walls. The ones that surround our compound, the U.S. bases, the government ministries-- following this summer's bombing massacres. The T-walls that weave around the outside of the International Zone.

This morning at the checkpoints leading to the air base, we were forced to stop and wait in the line reserved for what they call Third Country Nationals, mostly Filipinos and East Asians and Local Nationals- Iraqis. This checkpoint entails a pat down search, and a retina scan. African guards almost confiscated my phone and pocket knife. Then we waited in a gravel holding pen for about an hour. We drove a mile to the next checkpoint and repeated the process. Another hour.

This is what the Iraqis who work in the IZ and military camps go through every day. It was my first time I was treated like this, and only because I surrendered my badges that say I'm an American contractor before leaving the compound. I know very little about Baghdad.

What I do know is through friends. Iraqi friends who tell me things about life outside. How the Iraqi military tends to drop in on the neighborhood and search house to house. How the politicians are all rotten. How applying for a visa to the U.S. is not an if, it's a when. One friend was recently upset when some local kids broke her cat, Tush Tush's leg. Somehow she got him a cast.

One talented graphic designer said he wanted to vote in the March 7th elections but it wasn't worth the risk. Another friend said she voted for ex-PM Ayad Allawi and if he doesn't win, it's surely because incumbent Nouri Al-Maliki cheated. The count so far shows Maliki in the lead in Shia South and Allawi leading in the mostly Sunni North. The allegations of fraud seem to be more one party accusing another, rather than systemic problems.

These young, English-speaking Iraqis don't hold much faith in their politicians or the political process. But I saw many inked fingers on the compound. There had to have been a reason they risked going out on a day punctuated by mortaring and bombs. Were Iraqis proud to have voted? Some scrubbed their fingers of the purplish ink or covered it with bandaids. Others seemed to proudly show their purple indexes as they talked.

Iraqi elections compete with Hurt Locker for world's attention

Just as Baghdad was rocked by hundreds of election morning mortars, so is a global audience riveted on this evening's chances of a lone bomb-defusing Sergeant in Baghdad defeating the blue defenders of Avatar.

The attention of the world is focused on Iraq today, really and surreally. Of course there's the election, with some 19 million registered Iraqi voters, and then there's the Oscars, with a TV audience of who knows how many gazillion worldwide.

Although it's slightly easier to attend your neighbor's lame Oscar party, than for a regular Iraqi, to risk his life, and family's livelihood, to go vote for a candidate possibly beholden to foreign interests, yet thousands, millions are voting and 38 Iraqis were killed in the act today, standing in line to enter the cardboard voting booths, as seen on Al Jazeera, or even the ones who stayed home.

Now, halfway across the world, Hurt Lockers gonna win best picture. And while braving the dip bowl, some are wondering, if by the way, Hurt Locker by Kathryn Bigelow, based on an embedded reporters script from his experiences with an EOD (Explosives Ordinance Demolition) unit in Baghdad, is really that good or is it more a series of mission impossible, booby trap scenarios barely escaped by a balls-to-the-walls, cool guy with a sensitive, alcoholic, risk-taking personality.

Hurt Locker captures the adrenaline of soldiers trying to survive the war, and it does extremely well in the first few minutes of letting us feel the sand, dust, sweat and shock wave. But, when our anti-hero escapees one trap, he next finds himself encircled by trip wires connected to nine artillery shells, having already removed his bomb-proof helmet, shit!

But he escapes death only to later confront a Frankenstein-like Iraqi victim entrapped in a suicide cage of death, and I start to feel like I'm watching the latest first person shooter game featuring a Baghdad-like interface on HD.

U.S. Veterans have weighed in on Hurt Locker from both sides, from Bouhammer's blog post claiming he was "amazed a movie so bad could get any accolades," and breaking down some of the more absurd scenes, like our protagonist running unmolested through downtown Baghdad at night in his ACUs and combat boots, to a soldier wounded in Iraq calling the movie "therapeutic."

I hate to be a hater on a story that has touched so many and made millions, especially on a war reporter Mark Boal's script, which he adapted from a story he wrote for Playboy; or to be one of those war nerds who breaks down what's unrealistic about every weapon fired, movement made and/or violent death in every scene. But without the emotional truths of risk taking ripping apart the EOD team, and the after-effects of how this kind of work makes it very difficult to get into say, going to the supermarket with your estranged wife, Hurt Locker, is a bunch of booby trap scenarios akin to the Saw series filmed in Baghdad, without the killer in the goofy mask, but featuring a bad ass bomb killer with mercury in his veins, and a cool bomb-proof suit that sometimes works.

Now on to the real stuff that's harder to parse- Iraqi election machinations. There is now only a placeholder government in Iraq, the Parliament is in limbo waiting for its elected Parliamentarians to take their new seats. Because Iraq is based on a Parliamentary (read British) system, the party with the most votes chooses the next Prime Minister.

With neither the party of Maliki, Hakim or Alawi predicted to get a clear majority of today's votes, the coalition building (read horse trading) among the parties has been going on for months, according to a long time government of Iraq advisor.

For the pessimists, it took five months for a coalition government to be formed in 2005. For the optimists, Iraq is now the only Arab country that has held two successive, somewhat transparent elections in which voters today, voted for actual candidates, not just party placeholders.