Dispatches from Iraq — The Journey
It takes a long time to get to Iraq from Camp Pendleton, California
Febuary 2004 — It takes a long time to get to Iraq from Camp Pendleton, California. For me, the trip to my eventual destination, a combat base outside the City of Ramadi Iraq, is a four-day odyssey. It is part of an operation to send 20,000 of my closest friends to a faraway war. It is a major effort to move us all. My unique role as the 1st Marine Division’s lead on reconstruction means that I get to go first. In fact, I am in the lead group, advance party, of 12 Marines. They cycle us into the daily flow of personnel and material shipped into Iraq. The journey is slow, not glamorous, and descends into the bare basics of a combat zone existence.
As with every military trip, mine begins with an O-dark thirty wake up call (some time before 4 am). That is not my best time. I hate it. So much so that as I shave, I stare into the mirror and swear that when I retire, I will never get up before 10 am again. A luxury that I cannot afford for the next seven months in Iraq.
I scramble to pack my trash (bags), then board a charter bus to an airfield outside Riverside, California. There I begin my travels by waiting. Unloaded at a hanger, I begin the check-in process with my party of Marines. It takes time. Luckily, there are volunteers, veterans and spouses of veterans from the nearby retirement community. They ply us with cookies, coffee and other snacks. Chatty but pleasant folk. They thank me for my service and keep my plate loaded with food. It is a long wait, but finally, stuffed with cookies washed down with multiple cups of coffee, I get the call. I and my fellow passengers board a 747 for the first leg of the journey. A charter flight to Kuwait.
Charter flights are fun. They last forever, have every seat full (and all are large burley men), and allow no alcohol (because of the large burly men). You can figure on at least two stops on the way, the food will be bad, and total time is 20–24 hours with little or no sleep. My flight achieves and exceeds these requirements. It ends in Kuwait, and it is again O-dark thirty. I am shuffled into another hanger where they process us into the country. This consists with standing around and waiting to clear Kuwait customs. Once done, we get a brief on Army regulations and see a film on Iraq that tells you are going to a dangerous place, and to be careful. Then comes a pep talk from the local US Army Commander. Briefed, warned and motivated, I have completed my first leg. I am ready to move on.
The next phase of the travel includes more waiting, this time for two days. At the airport in Kuwait we are trundle out to buses, driven into the middle of the desert, next door to nowhere, and put in staging camps. Huge tent cities. The wind is constant, unstopping, blowing sand, which is irritating. The good news is that the chow is free. They serve it in pre-fab buildings that do a better job of controlling the sand. Best of all, it is very good chow. Halliburton runs the campus and provides the cooks. I am not sure they are making, but they are doing a superb job in the food department.
After two days of waiting, the last leg of my travel to the combat zone begins. This portion of the trip becomes more expeditionary. It is less comfortable, and less safe. The travel will be by military vehicles and aircraft. I travel with a small party of Marines headed to the same destination. We start our jump into Iraq by military cargo plane. The omnipresent C-130. A four engine propeller driven workhorse designed to carry most anything short of a tank. Tactical risk dictates we do the flight under the cover of night. This is to reduce risk of being shot down. They frown on being shot down.
We leave our dusty way station and take a bus back to the airfield at nightfall. I sit next to the window, peering out into the gathering darkness. We travel down a road lined by sand berms and date palms. Sand blown by the wind stream across the road in bands. In the distance, I can see Bedouin tents scattered across the Kuwait desert. It is an exotic sight. Then, as if on cue, out of the gathering gloom, a dachshund and a donkey stumble over and down the berm next to the road. They stop to watch my bus travel by. I stare at the pair. They stare back. This must portend something, I think. But what, I have no earthly idea, other than there is no “normal” in my life at that point.
My bus travels on, leaving the animal duo behind. At the airport airmen throw our gear on pallets. We gather in a group. A rather disheveled crew chief gives us a safety brief, things to do in case of an emergency landing, and hands each of us a packet with earplugs. A must as the noise on board our flight is deafening. Then, for the first time, I don my flack jackets and helmet. Required gear for the rest of the trip, and for the rest of my stay in Iraq. We board up the ramp through the back of the aircraft. Soft red lights color the scene and preserve night vision. There are no flight attendants, and I have to crawl over pallets of gear to get to my seat. A spot on a red cloth bench. Departure comes after that. One hour later I am on the ground at a desert airfield. Somewhere in Iraq.
There are no lights visible on the base. Stars hang above, diamonds scattered over a black landscape. The desert air is sharp, cold, dry. Airmen, managing the airfield, meet and lead us to an empty hanger. No coffee or cookies at this stop. Base personnel scurry about to unload our gear and equipment from the C-130. They reload it on our next mod of transport. Then, after a brief wait, they load us. Our ride is a Chinook, the US Army’s workhorse helicopter. Smaller than the C-130, it is still an impressive machine. With two rotors, it is big, and it is powerful. This is a good thing, because they pack the one we are on to the roof with people and gear.
I enter through the back with the rest of the travelers and again climb over another pile of gear. It is even tighter than the C-130. I have little room for my legs. My only thought is that if we crash, all that gear in front of me will crush me like a grape. The red lights in the cabin go off and the turbine engines above me start the whine as they light off. My last flight of the trip. A lovely jaunt in a large, dark, shaking machine, with cold air blasting through an open gunner’s door. I am crammed in between boxes and baggage and fellow Marines. The charter I took two days ago is looking fantastic at this point.
It is a claustrophobic trip which seems much longer than it is and ends with a dusty finish on an unpaved landing zone. Not waiting to shut down, the crew rushes us out the back and tosses our gear out after us. They leave us standing in a cloud of dust as the helicopter clatters off into the dark. Despite my best effort to keep track of my route, I have no idea where I am. I soon find out. We are inside a combat base along the Euphrates river, near the city of Ramadi. I am not there yet. Out of darkness comes tactical trucks. Turns out our trip has one more leg. We must drive off of one base camp, travel over the river and to another base camp. It is about 2 miles away, through uncontrolled territory. That base is my eventual destination. Time for one more dance.
A young solder jumps from the lead truck, opens the tailgate, and barks out instructions. It is dark; he cannot see who we are, and doesn’t care about, he just wants us to move. I don’t care either. Hanging around in a landing zone is always a bad idea. We scramble to toss personal gear up into the back of the truck, climb aboard, and sit on benches lined down the middle. Back-to-back facing outboard. Not your typical seating arrangement on a truck. A disembodied voice calls out again from the front of the truck. As instructed, we draw weapons, insert magazines, chamber a round and point downrange. Led by a gun vehicle, the trucks roar out the front gate. I stare into the darkness, looking for an unseen threat, as we dash to the next camp.
But the drive is uneventful. In the dark, guards wave our convoy through the stone arches guarding the entrance to the camp. One of many of the Saddam’s palaces. Abandoned at the start of the war, it is now the Headquarters for the 82nd Airborne Division. The soldiers direct us to our new quarters, a partially bombed out summer home. But the room they give us has four walls and roof. It will do, and it is now my home for the next seven months.
I have completed my travels. Welcome to Iraq.
