20 April 2003

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Another "keep on working through the night shift" so I have plenty of time to write and much to write about. We just got back from visiting the Theater Internment Camp that holds more than 6000 of the Enemy Prisoners of War (EPWs) yesterday in Iraq. One of our guys works the non-lethal weapon sets for the MPs and went to talk issues on getting them what they need. I led the convoy. My nickname here is Mr. GPS because I can find just about anything. It's been a gift of mine all my life. I just always seem to know where I am, where I'm going, where I've been (in case I need to get back in a hurry), and exactly what direction I'm pointing; one look at a map and I can get from point A to point B pretty easily. Sure I get temporarily misplaced sometimes, but that is usually because the map is wrong or they failed to build a road where they should have. It drives my wife nuts.

The EPW camp is run entirely by Army Reserve soldiers in an MP BDE, mostly from New York City. The guy in charge of it is a New York City fireman in his civilian job, and he named the camp, Camp Bucca, after Ron Bucca who was an Army reserve warrant office in their unit, also a NYC firefighter, who died in the WTC on 9-11. The COL said that he lost 10 very good friends in 9-11 and was happy to get called up to active duty shortly after that. It was refreshing to know that the camp held Al Qaeda members in addition to Iraqi EPW's. While we were there, the International Red Cross was there conducting an inspection. The burly old NYC Firefighter didn't even shrug about being inspected by foreign civilians because he knew it was part of the rules of war. As far as I was concerned, they only had to know one thing... the prisoners were living exactly like the folks that were guarding them.

My earlier accounts of the Seersucker were accurate. The Iraqis were aiming right for the camp. The COL told us that it flew right over his tent and landed 1000 meters on the other side of the camp. He said it sounded just like an F-16 flying 30 feet over his head and that he thought that a coalition aircraft had crashed. The Regime was trying to kill their own soldiers so that Bozo in Baghdad could tell his buddies in the media that we couldn't protect the EPW's.

It was peculiar looking at the face of the enemy up close. Some of them were just normal looking civilians, but others just had that "bad guy" look, and that's what they were. I waved at some in one of the compounds and they waved and smiled back. Another one who was coming back from the medical tent scowled at us and called us what I'm sure was some ungodly name in Arabic. It was probably something like, "you're in the same dump as me?" He was guarded in front and back by young Army Reserve soldiers who a couple of months ago were maybe college students or holding some normal job in Anytown, USA. One of them was a 20-something year old female.

Are we winning the war on terrorism? Next time you're in the supermarket and some young female is there ringing you up at the check-out counter, picture her in DCU's with an M-16 individual assault rifle escorting the "baddest of the bad" Al Queda terrorist back to his holding pen in the Iraqi dessert. If he runs or makes a wrong move, she'll kill him. It's happening right now. We have a ways to go, but that sounds like progress to me.

After the Internment camp, we decided to visit Basrah, which the Brits control. We went through Um Qusar as well. Along the way, all the people were very friendly -- waving at us and cheering us. What was heart wrenching was the children. They were living in absolute squalor. We passed a few military encampments that had been hit by air and were in the usual condition after a visit from a JDAMS. One of them had a communication tower that was draped over the building with the burn marks right at the base of the tower. Not even really big ones, just enough to bring it down. The Ba'ath party headquarters is going to have to do some remodeling. Then there was his palace; we didn't see anything except the entrance, but just by seeing the entrance it was apparent where the money was going. I'm speculating here, but I would say the town of Basrah and Um Quasar holds oil reserves that would make it one of the top 10 natural resource centers in the entire world. The Shiites in the south bore the brunt of Hussein's oppression so while they had enough natural resources to make every man, woman, and child very wealthy, I saw child after child begging for water. This is water that they never had, not water that the media says we knocked out. Makes me sick when you hear them talk about the reconstruction of Iraq with the finger pointed squarely at the coalition, when in fact, we are fixing what the regime broke, not what we broke. These kids and their mothers get their water from streams and rivers.

The men in Basrah looked at us with some suspicion, or what I would characterize as uncertainty. After all, it wasn't but a week ago that we were the bad guys to some of the men who were soldiers that simply melted back into the population into civilian clothes. One guy that we were following in a taxi kept looking back at me. Not really the, "I don't like you" look like the EPW, but the "don't shoot me look". He really looked frightened. At first I wanted to look "determined" at him to let him know that if he did anything, we were not going to play; but instead, I chose the passive approach and waved with my hand instead of my weapon. He told the driver to pull over so that we could pass.

We crossed the Tigres river and turned south at a busy intersection on the southeast part of town and headed to the southern limits of the town where there was a huge fire burning. There were burned out T-55's in a classic defense in depth configuration, along with some BMP's. All of them had been destroyed, and we couldn't tell if they were from this conflict or older ones. For all we knew these have sat in place since the Iran-Iraq war that ended in 1988. I thought about the 1 million people that had died in and around this town during that 8-year conflict, as well as the fact that many chemical and biological weapons had been employed there during that war.

On the way back, we took a more direct route back to the border. We saw two mosques that were very ornate, and although there was an artillery tube in between them, it was untouched. The kids continued to wave. They were all along the road, and some of them just simply pointed to their mouths. One of the folks in the back took this picture of this little girl -- it's the best one we took all day, but characterizes all the kids.

Now I didn't engage the enemy directly during this war, but I would like to think that I helped kill the regime when I offered a smile and a wave to this little symbol of the future of Iraq. It made my heart sink because she was so happy and her eyes made you melt with a smile that was as wide and pretty as my own daughter's back home. Who knows, maybe she'll grow up to be the first female Iraqi president in 40-50 years. It's hard to say with the Islamic influence in the region exactly what her future holds, but I have to believe that it's much brighter than it was a month ago. I hope she remembers my smile as being genuine because I can't remember having one as genuine since my wife gave birth to my own children.

Later down the road we saw a couple of kids playing on some burnt up weapon of war in front of their little mud hut, a little boy and a little girl. I told one of the guys in the back to get a box of water we had and pull over. He sat the whole box down and waved to them as they ran over to claim their newfound treasure; very cool as we worked a little slice of diplomacy. At the border, there were hundreds of kids that were exercising some good 'ol western capitalism. They had wads of Iraqi dinar with the evil guys picture on every denomination. My boss said, "if you stop, we'll get mobbed," to which one of my buddies in the back said, "after these last 2 months, I could use a good mobbing." So we stopped to allow ourselves the luxury of a good liberation mobbing. And everyone wanted some dinar as a souvenir. Now if anyone doesn't think that capitalism will work in this country, they didn't get swindled by the same kid that swindled me. I had a bunch of quarters in my pocket, and I offered him a bright shinny American Quarter with none other than GW's mug on it. "No Mister, 5 dollars." I didn't have anything but a few 20's, so I tried to talk him down, but he wasn't budging. I offered a Kuwaiti dinar, which is about $3, and he gave me a 250 Iraqi dinar. Now at a '3500 to 1' exchange rate and dropping fast, the kid just sold me about 7 cents for $3 -- about a 4000% profit. Another kid didn't have any money, but I gave him my MRE. He was overjoyed and ran away as fast as he could, as if I would change my mind. I just hope it was the MRE with the M&M's in it.

My replacement is here. I'll be on my way home in 2 days and a wake up. I can't wait to get home. However, after what I saw yesterday, there's a big part of me that wants to keep spreading the joy that I saw on those kid's faces. I have to let it well enough alone and leave it to the troops that will still be here battling the spring and summer heat (over 100 today), and get back to my other job. I won't miss this place too much, but the smile on that little girl's face is etched in my mind forever.