Sep. 11 -- Arrival in Baghdad

Anniversary and first attack

We flew into Baghdad in the early morning of Sep. 11 – the 6th anniversary of the attack on America. A fitting reminder, as if I needed one, of why I am here, and why I am doing this. I know that a lot of people back home wonder if what we're doing here is the right thing, but I know that it is.

I couldn't put it better than how it was stated by Sgt. Todd, the driver in my truck during convoy training last week.

"Sir, I know we're doing the right thing," Sgt. Todd said. "I knew it when I met a little girl on the streets of Baghdad four years ago."

He explained that the girl is almost the same age as his daughter. As they stopped, the little precocious Iraqi child came up to them and started talking in good English.

"You see," Sgt. Todd said. "Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay would often kidnap young Iraqi women - some as young as 14 - and rape them. Girls like this little girl I met on the street. And then one day, one of the sons found that his brother had already raped a girl he had kidnapped. So they started branding the girls - to mark their territory."

A happy-go-lucky Californian, that conversation was the only one I had with him where he wasn't joking or playing pranks. We had long discussions as we drove through the Kuwaiti desert about geopolitics. Although his understanding of the world was a little naive and limited, he understood what growing up in Iraq under Saddam, Uday and Qusay meant to little girls like the one he met.

"Sir, that's why I'm glad we're here, and damn anybody who thinks that that isn't good enough."

I tend to agree with Sgt. Todd.

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We flew over in a C-130, jammed packed. We sat in canvas seats that lowered down from the bulkhead, crammed in side by side in rows facing each other. It was so tight we had to arrange our knees so that they alternated with those of the person across from you. Jammed in there too were all of our weapons, which we carried on the plane, and some small backpacks with essentials. We all wore are body armor and helmets.

Much has been said about the violent spiral/evasive pattern that aircraft often make as they approach Baghdad International Airport (BIAP). However, when it came, it was not so bad as I expected. Pulling only a few more Gs than I did as a private pilot in a Cessna, the flight was more like a tame roller coaster. The landing itself was perfect.

It was 5:30 a.m. when we arrived, and I didn’t get a ride until nearly 9 a.m. An army specialist with my unit picked me up in a pickup and drove me to my new home, Camp Victory, which is part of the sprawling mass of bases clustered around the airport. Naturally, as I am now in theater, I will have to leave out much of the details of my adventures for security reasons. In fact, there’s not much about my actual job that I can tell you in any event. But I’ll go ahead and give you the basics about the camp where I’m at, since they’re well-known and you can google them yourself.

Camp Victory sits atop a palace complex built by Saddam Hussein. It includes a large man-made lake, around which several palaces are arranged. The place looks very much like a very large theme park. My first thought, upon arrival was, “Wow! I get to live at Sea World!”

Only here, the Sea Lions don’t lob mortars at you every day.

Most of these palaces are now home to American and coalition forces. My new office, in fact, is inside one of the largest of these palaces. Saddam built palaces for just about everything. He built them for himself, and for his friends. He built one for his prostitutes. He built them to memorialize great occasions of his reign, some of which were more fairy-tale than reality. A few hundred yards from the “Victory over Iran Palace” is an incomplete structure he called the “Victory over America Palace.” Yes, that’s right. The 1991 Gulf War, to Saddam, was a victory.

After being picked up, I was driven to my temporary quarters, which I’ll inhabit for the next couple of weeks until a permanent space becomes available. Right now, I’m in a tent. Eventually, I get to move up to a trailer. Who’d have thought Arkansas was so close to Iraq?

I’d been up for over 24 hours, so after checking in at work, I had the day off to relax. I went back to my tent, unpacked my gear, and lay down to take a nap.

Boom!

I perked up my ears.

Whoooshhh!

A sound, very clearly of some large object flying through the sky, from my left to my right, as I sat in my tent.

BOOM!

I sat up. At about that moment, the loudspeakers outside cried, “Incoming!” I had no fear. I had heard the object clearly, and it had passed completely over me – perhaps a little bit far off. A few minutes later, the all-clear sounded. I went back to sleep.

From my training, I knew that insurgents shot off mortars and other objects at our large base every few days, and that they were poorly aimed, and almost never hit anything substantial. Later that day, I talked to an Army Captain. The object I had heard was indeed a rocket of some sort, and it had landed near the center of the base. The first sound was the launching, then I heard it's trajectory, and then finally, it's impact.

There were injuries, but it didn’t sound substantial. I can’t print where it hit, as such information would allow the insurgents to recalibrate for the next time. But suffice it to say that it missed anything significant. It was a bit of a wake-up call, but it didn’t really bother me all that much. I had heard it, and it missed. As the Army Captain said, “You’re just as likely to get hit crossing the street.”

That’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but the truth is, much of the violence here is random, and unless you’re outside the wire, it’s only a matter of pure chance when someone is hit. And just about anywhere is as likely to be hit, so there’s no use trying to hide. Of course, if a number of mortars ever came over, in a concentrated volley, there are concrete bunkers to hide in. But for the most part, you might as well just go about your business.

That’s life at Camp Victory.