Iraq Conversation

The pictures in the news trigger memories of my own military experience. That’s the personal part.

I can see an H-46 in the news from Iraq and smell the pungent aroma of hydraulic fluid, the blood of the machine that courses throughout its metal which, ironically, is blood red in color. I can smell a squad of recon Marines rushing up the ramp after five days in the jungle as the rotors suck the air from the rear fuselage past our faces and out the open cockpit windows. It’s a grassy, green smell, not body odor at all, that envelops us as they enter. I can hear the crew chief screaming his count over the intercom as each Marine charges up the ramp. If we were extracting an eight-man squad, for example, he would shout his count so the pilot would know exactly when all were aboard and get the hell out of there. I can smell the jet exhaust of the turbine engines and I can hear the crackling of the radios as we monitored sometimes four different frequencies at once. I can hear the short, clipped monotone transmissions of the pilots, clear god-like commands from Landshark, the control center, and the excited pleas of the Marines on the ground coordinating our pickup as rockets and napalm landed sometimes almost at their feet.

“Say your color smoke, Redbud?”

“White! White! You’re 1-8-0 from us!”

“Roger, Redbud. White smoke. We’re inbound.”

I can hear the F-4 pilot key his mike and say calmly over the high-pitched whine of his engines that he’s a flight of two holding on the 2-7-0, Danang tacan, 1-9 miles, at level 1-5, and Landshark say, “Roger, BlueDog, hold your position.”

Over the barking of my own two 50-calibers that shake the aircraft when they fire, I can hear the Huey gunship pilot say, “You’re taking fire, Skyshadow! Tracers, nine o’clock.”

I can feel the rotors loosing grip, slowing, as I yank the nose of the big bird up and pull max power to stop its forward and downward momentum to land in a clearing only a few feet larger than the plane of the spinning blades.

“I got one! I got two! I got three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! I got eight! Go! Go! Goddamnit Go!”

The rockets from the Huey escort explode past us, walking the dog, laying them down on both sides of us, if not killing the enemy maybe scaring the shit out of’em long enough so we can get our turns up and get the hell out of there.

Away from the zone now and climbing, still in one piece, I hear Landshark clear Bluedog in for his run. We look back and see hell descend. Wump. Wump. Wump. The blasts send shocks through the helicopter as we turn for the airfield ten minutes away at Phu Bai, or Khe Sanh, or Dong Ha, or Monkey Mountain … and a San Miguel beer after the day is done.

Pictures bring it back and I remember what we did in Vietnam, over and over again. Sometimes I laugh out loud at what I see. Sometimes I fight tears. Sometimes the grip in my stomach surprises me and makes me flinch.

The political thing about Iraq? Frankly, the more threatening it becomes, the less and less of a rat’s rear I’m caring about the politics. Why? Because they’re out to kill us, and when someone has sworn to kill me, “by God”, I tend to get less concerned about the politics of a matter and more about where I’m going to find a 2X4 big enough to defend myself, including whacking him first before he whacks me.

I believe the whole terrorist thing is truly frightening and a threat to every country that is non-Muslim and some that aren’t. Terrorism and terrorist tactics are being developed to a high art. One does not need to be a citizen of a country to be a terrorist. You only need a cause, some training in explosives, access to explosives (like fertilizer, for Pete’s sake), and, Shazam! You’re a terrorist! I hate the Government so I’ll blow up a government building. I hate American infidels so I’ll blow up myself and a bunch of Marines. I hate the British so I’ll blow up some trains. Since that worked really well and I hate the Spaniards, I’ll blow up some trains there, too. But I really hate the American non-believers who give money to the Israelis so I’ll hi-jack some airliners and drive them into the Twin Towers. And, along the way maybe I’ll hi-jack a cruise ship and toss an elderly, crippled Jew over the side to make my point.

Terrorism knows no limits now. It has been released like a poison gas on the civilized world. It’s the zealots who are willing to blow themselves up to achieve martyrdom that have raised the ante. I can understand how there are militias that operate without allegiance to any government or recognized political boundary who follow only the bidding of the Immans that control them. I can understand how their strength comes from the money and guns of Iran and Syria. I understand how the Immans have strategically allowed the Muslim faith to be hijacked by the fanatics because it gives them, the Immans, more power and I understand how religious faith has become the fuel for the emotional fire that drives the killing and mayhem of terrorism. What I don’t understand is the real reason for the fight. What is their ultimate goal? Is the complete destruction of western society because it is not Muslim their objective? Is it the Immans who see the spread of western values eroding their Muslim traditions and religious and political power over such desert tribes as the Sunnis and Shiites, who are keeping the fires lit? I mean is that what it’s all about? Have they become so powerful that they can seriously seek to obtain a nuclear or other mass destruction weapon in order to destroy us across 10,000 miles of earth and ocean? All because they fear losing their own power? Really?

That is what scares the crap out of me. Whatever their reasons for causing the death of civilians and using the innocence of the innocent as weapons of war, they aren’t rational in a civilized world, and not truly understanding the reasons why they’re doing it denies us an effective, rational way to respond to it. Without understanding, we are left only with direct and forceful defensive action. Whack’em before they whack us.

So, despite my feeling that the closer the danger gets to me and my family the less important it is, on to the politics of it. Was the war in Iraq justified? Yes, knowing what I know today and what’s happening in the Arab/Muslim world that is so dangerous to the rest of us. I believe the U.S., if it’s going to be involved effectively at all, and surely it must, had to take a drastic step and Saddam Hussein gave us ample reason to take him out. Weapons of mass destruction? I believe firmly that he had them and was looking to use them. The problem was the lack of backbone and loss of time caused by the patronizing weaknesses of the United Nations which gave him time to secret them out to Syria before we got there. Right or wrong, though, we need to be there and as involved as we are, before those 10,000 miles are eliminated altogether. Yes, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon brought it to us but we will learn as a result, and new barriers will be created and erected to protect us until we truly understand why they’re so angry.

Which brings me to the issue, how is it all affecting America?

First, how do we define “it”? Well, “it” is not the war in Iraq. “It” is the war on terrorism. Were it not for terrorism, I think Iraq would not have been necessary, but the fact is that the DNA of terrorism comes from there, and Beirut, and Iran, and Syria and everywhere the Muslim faith is being morphed into the snake-headed hydra it has become. We needed a foothold without qualifications or limits so we can look Bin Laden and Zarqawi and Muqtada al-Sadr and all the rest directly in the eye and say, “You want us, here we are.” That part of America hasn’t changed. We can be pushed only so far, and 9/11 got us there on that brilliantly-clear-for-all-to-see morning in a digital media second. Once pushed there, we come together. We become one, no matter the color, the credo or the lingo. It is not bravado. It is an appreciation for freedom. That part of America has not changed. If it ever does, we are lost.

That is the fundamental difference with Vietnam. America did not come together there.

The circumstances were different. In Iraq, like I said, it has more to do with our response to terrorism and the horror and fear caused by 9/11 than anything else. Vietnam? The match was lit on a foggy black night in the Bay of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam when a U.S. warship fired at a blip on its radar that it later claimed was a gunboat making aggressive maneuvers. Congress really touched off the fire when it passed the Tonkin Bay Resolution authorizing further military action against North Vietnam, a small agrarian nation, fearing that the loss of its southern neighbor, South Vietnam, to communism would be the first of more. The Domino Theory. A major difference between Iraq and Vietnam is simply that the chalice of morality is filled higher for one than the other. Eventually, years and 48,000 American lives later, America did not buy it, did not come together, and we lifted the last of those we could from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon as the North Vietnamese Army took control and fled.

America has and will continue to change as a result of terrorism. Freedom is not free. Our brand of freedom while based upon simple human axioms is a living, complex brand of government that must continue to change in a changing world. Many freedoms taken for granted until now will need to be more particularly defined. Yes, we will always be free to travel any where we wish but now there will be a more refined need to know who is traveling with us and whether or not they have a bomb in their shoe. Yes, we will always be free to say what we wish but now there will be a more refined need to know it isn’t being used to incite zealots to commit suicide against us, or to raise money for those who would a la Sami al-Arian. Yes, we can always buy fertilizer for our fields but there will be a more refined need to know it isn’t going to be used to blow up government buildings instead, or another World Trade Center. Yes, we will always have a right to bear arms but there will be a more refined need to have a reason for owning a scoped rifle and carrying it around when the President’s in town.

America is changing. Its naive trust in the goodness of its people is being eroded by those who would take advantage of its naiveté to destroy it. I believe I have overcome it now but when I first returned from thirteen months in Vietnam, I felt a very strong aversion, i.e., negative emotional reaction, to anyone clearly oriental. I have talked to Marines back from Iraq and they speak of similar feelings toward anyone clearly middle-eastern. Non-specific fear of others will separate us, reform the shape and consistency of the human family we are as a country, and terrorism has the capacity to do this by causing fear when and where none need exist. That aspect of life today alone will transform us as Americans. I am not schooled enough to know the mechanics of it. I just feel it in myself.

Our view of religion is changing. Once religion was simply a personal choice we respected in anyone that, when acknowledged, assured us they could be depended upon to follow a reasonably acceptable code of behavior, certainly a non-threatening one. No more. Now we have learned that belief in God can be used to justify the most horrid of carnage that humans might perpetrate on other humans. How will we now tolerate a belief in God that does not acknowledge our right to exist because our beliefs are different? Has the sanctity of the concept of God been hijacked from our own sense of faith as it has been so certainly hijacked from the Muslims?

Email from Cindy

-----Original Message-----
From: Cindy
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 9:44 PM
To: sonny
Subject: email

Sonny,
Thanks for sending the site. Pop forwarded it to me. Attached is the most recent photo Geoff sent today. He is on the left with floppy hat (takes after granddad) I have many photos that cannot be shared, please know know he is well and working hard. Give Aunt Donnie a great big hug and kiss for us.
Love Cindy



From: Sonny
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 11:30 PM
To: Cindy
Subject: email

Cindy,

You’re certainly welcome.

I think a lot about the soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, and everywhere that our men and women in uniform are in danger on behalf of what this country stands for. I know that while it is different from my own experience in Vietnam, some aspects will always be the same in war, i.e., the feeling that every day you’re alive is a good day, handed to you more by fate than good sense; the ache inside the fear, wondering if you’re being remembered by your loved ones as they carry out their routine, stateside lives going to jobs, paying bills, sleeping in comfortable beds, waking to a secure world every day; … feeling like your own life has been suspended for reasons you’re not sure you completely understand or agree with but you endure because of a larger belief that, right or wrong, if not you, who?

The poignant pictures found seemingly everywhere on the internet these days often bring tears to my eyes. I worry that my sensitivity might be noticed by those near me so I hide it, not wanting my friends and family to think there’s something left over in me from my own experiences … I don’t know why … a soldier sitting, staring into space, holding a letter from home; a soldier with his arms around his buddies laughing, in a bunker, dirty, seemingly oblivious to the danger outside, mistakenly understood by those who haven’t been there as “courage.” I saw one the other day of two women soldiers asleep in the sand, one resting her head on a hard metal box in the shade of an armored vehicle, the other with her head resting on her comrades thigh, both obviously bone tired, not ready to go back to their sleeping area before getting up and doing again whatever it was that was so needed by their fellow soldiers. I reacted, I guess, because of the exposed innocence it portrayed on the violent edge of war that is in all young soldiers. It’s called allegiance to duty, unquestioned loyalty, camaraderie, passing of childhood, unwitting participation in history, sensing change in one’s self as one never thought possible …and more, so much more. I guess I hide my emotions because I don’t want to appear sappy about what is so common “there.” Maybe I shouldn’t.

Satellite phones and e-mail may have changed it all now. I don’t know. I’m sure it’s different … but in many ways, it’ll always be the same.

Tell Geoff, we think about him … every minute, every day.

Sonny