The Midnight Hour

I wrote the following story about three months into my deployment but didn’t feel comfortable posting it until I returned.

It took us over an hour to get to Camp Smitty. The trip from Camp Fallujah had been a grueling 30-35 mile per hour ride with 3/5’s logistics train convoy. I vastly preferred hauling ass down MSR Michigan, like we do on actual missions. It appeared that day we were going to be following the MEF-mandated speed limit in Iraq: 35 mph. It is broken about as often as speed limits in the US. Speed equals security, and me, I don’t like getting hit by IEDs, but I’m a strange guy. Yes, sometimes slower is better, but I digress.

After introductions and such I found my team a home in “the hotel.” The hotel is a large building that has been converted to compartmented living quarters by means of lumber and nails. It wasn’t a bad place to live for a few days, but a few days would be plenty, thank you. Then I got introduced to the head facilities, a series of PVC pipes driven deep into the ground at an angle. You pee in the pipe. Quaint, but it works. For more serious head calls there is a wooden structure with several plastic toilet seats. You attach a “wag bag” to the seat, take care of business, and then seal off your wastes and carry them to a burn pit where diesel fuel is used to dispose of it nightly. Not exactly a porcelain bowl, but it beats digging a hole with your e-tool.

That night we started operations with a patrol of Ferris Town. Ferris Town is a rather large community south of Ameriyah. I am told it is one of the largest collections of apartment buildings in the world. About 350 three-story apartment buildings fill the complex along with all the associated infrastructure of a small city: mosques, schools, businesses, etc. Each building contains six swank apartments that I would be proud to call my home. The size of the apartment varies, but it is quite large compared to American apartments, well in excess of 1000 square feet.

We patrolled Ferris with an AAV patrol led by a Marine named Sergeant Burton. Seeing the patrol in action reminded me of just how much responsibility is placed upon Marine NCOs, most notably those in combat arms MOSs. This NCO, about the same age as me (24), was in control of three AAVs, one HMMWV, and enough rounds of .50 cal, 40mm grenades, and other small arms to occupy Paris. No college education, just a lot of training and confidence on the part of his commander.

We patrolled the route unsuccessfully several times before finally stumbling onto the guy we were looking for. Of all the dirtbags I’ve rolled, this had to be one of the dirtiest. What kind of guy gives himself the nickname “The Butcher?” What, does he slice a mean ribeye? Unfortunately, his nickname was rather deserved. I shall hereafter refer to him as “Butch.”

3/5’s style of hitting the apartment was a lot more, how do I say…”gentle” than most I’ve seen. I was sure that heavy wooden door was going to be splintered in a heartbeat, but I was wrong. The lead Marine tapped on the door with the muzzle of his shotgun. Someone answered and he calmly explained (through the language barrier) that we were coming into their house. The family sat quietly in the living room as Marines filled their abode. It was actually an eerie scene. They sat there calmly with the TV on, a little girl jumping on the couch, an old woman looking on, a pregnant lady lying down, and Butch there at the other end of the couch as we filed in. It appears that in his off-time from off-ing Americans, Iraqis, and anyone contrary to his interests that Butch moonlights as a Cleaver-esque family man. We took a look around, took a look at Butch, and quickly confirmed through some unmistakable physical features that he was our guy.

After detaining Butch we began a thorough search of the house. Butch’s sister spoke rudimentary English, so we had to exchange several words with her about exactly why we had interrupted their quiet weekend. We apologized for the inconvenience, but informed her we absolutely had to take him. She protested that they were a normal family and he was a normal man, but it was to no avail. I suppose I wouldn’t tell my devout Muslim sister that I was a murderer either. While the search went on we turned our attention to Butch’s wife, obviously about seven months pregnant. Our corpsman broke out his medical kit and checked her vital signs while we proceeded. When we departed we promised that the corpsman would return during the next two days to check up on her again. Everyone managed to stay quite calm about the raid, almost to an eerie degree. We polled everyone for candy, and finally found some, in order to reward the excellent behavior of the little girl. I’ve never raided a house where the children didn’t cry. This was a first. After seeing all the collateral damage there was to be done, I thanked God that we had suspected Butch would be unarmed – the reason for the relaxed hit.

This apartment was high class, no doubt about it. A far cry from the crude huts in Zaydan, southeast of Fallujah, it glistened with fine glassware, electronics, and exquisite furniture. The education of Butch’s sister also spoke to the elevated social status of this family. The apartment sported a kitchen that would overjoy most American culinary enthusiasts, complete with a full range, oven, and a gracious complement of cookware. The living room was complete with a Playstation video game console. A bidet was present in the bathroom underneath a tall toilet tank, which we did search, by the way. It took three of us to hoist me up to look into that tank, but I verified there wasn’t anything but water inside. In one of the back bedrooms we found some condoms and other devices of questionable intent tucked away in a drawer. We decided they were of no intelligence value and left them in place.

After about an hour we loaded up Butch and the results of our search into one of the tracks and took off to return to Camp Smitty. Butch would soon get processed into the detention facility at Camp Fallujah, and no doubt make his way to Abu Ghraib after a long series of administrative processes was complete. I’ve yet to figure out old Butch. My only theory is that he was funded by the insurgency, and received payment for his numerous crimes. Otherwise, what business did this guy have being an insurgent? He had a sterling little girl, a wife with a child on the way, and a life that is the envy of 95% of the Iraqi populace. Is he really just wacked out—an Islamic extremist? Does he hate Americans that badly? I just can’t put my finger on why Butch chose the path he did. I can however, put my finger on where Butch is going (at least on a map), a little walled compound between here and Baghdad—Abu Ghraib.