Road trip with Darwin
I came up from Camp Doha, Kuwait to get away from the fog of peace, and try to make the best of the next six months in theater, since a week before we got the word that we would be staying for a straight 365 in-country. My civilian job (which I left two years ago) was export sales management, and I had the idea that if I could get involved with the Ministry of Trade I might be able to do some good and grab up some good business contacts as well. So we waited around Doha sleeping, eating, working out and sleeping again while the Army figured out they couldn’t fly us up to Baghdad. Darwin (rank and name withheld) emailed his contact at CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) and hooked us up with a place to stay, and then we got a convoy together and left a couple days later on the road north.
We prepped and loaded the vehicles that night and then met at 7 AM in front of the brigade TOC (tactical operation center) and did our commo checks. Small problems can stop you pretty quick and we discovered our Thuraya sat phone didn’t have any minutes left on it and no one had a pre-paid card to load the phone, so I dug mine out of my didi bag and kept it out for emergencies. When you go up the road you stay on a 911 radio frequency which the MP’s monitor 24/7. We use the phones to call back to the unit in case we have a glitch (humvees break down, ambush, etc…). The phones work pretty well.
We have to stop on the way out of Doha for JP8 (diesel fuel) and then we take off. I’m driving the 2-pac with Darwin on my right. We both have M16’s, 9mm pistols, and a bunch of other stuff. I carry a red star cluster and hope never to have to use it; if we call in a dustoff at night we pop the flare and the bird sees us on the ground. Darwin has a couple of frags in his vest that we never want to have to use, either. He spent a lot of time in Korea and Colombia and both of us have been ‘situationally-aware’ for way too long. We chain smoke all the way up to Al-Hillah, the place where we stay overnight before doing the last two hours into Baghdad.
There are trucks and cars everywhere on the road. We learned early on that speed equals security, so we spend the whole day weaving in and out of convoys, civilian traffic, and farm animals, all the while dodging the occasional 735il series beemers that seem to be everywhere. We get to CPA South-Central just before dark, pass through the Gurkhas at the gate and pull into the parking lot. It’s still pretty hot and we are worn out from the trip. COL (x) meets us at the front gate and shows us where to hang out for the night, then takes us out back to the KBR dining tent.
The food is good, and after dinner we find the showers, clean up and move upstairs to the third floor of the hotel building housing CPA South-Central and play pool for a while. We haven’t had alcohol since early March so the bar is pretty tempting. I meet up with a friend of mine from our unit and catch up with the latest gossip about when we all might go home (same shit; nobody really knows). Later we go down, lie down, and sleep.
In the morning we are up early and leaving to Baghdad at 0700. Darwin and I smoke some more and I drive us up the road through Iraqi-style rush hour traffic and into town. We do about 70 miles per hour for most of the way and drive towards BIAP (the airport) and end up at our higher-unit headquarters. They occupy a palace, like most of the headquarters in Iraq. We report in and after a while move over to CPA, at the Republican Guard palace. It’s hard to miss; the dead giveaway is the four huge busts of Saddam on top. They remind me of Monty Python; I imagine at any moment they will rise up, sprout flowers from their ears and drop down inside the palace, burping little Saddam’s from their mouths. The rumor is that they will come down at some point, but for now they sit perched on top of CPA reminding us all that the guy is still out there somewhere.
We find cots in the North wing of the palace and bring in all our shit from the trucks; the Iraq’s see us dragging ass and help with carrying duffle bags, ice chests and rucksacks. I gave them a dollar tip and “shukran jazeelan’ and they took off. Boring is good in country; boring means nothing bad happened, and we enjoyed being bored all the way up from Doha. We sleep and wonder what life will be like in a palace where the marble could be measured in acre-feet, like water.
The convoy mission worked; we are in Baghdad and start our new gig with CPA.
Copyright, 2oo3, Tom Kinton
We prepped and loaded the vehicles that night and then met at 7 AM in front of the brigade TOC (tactical operation center) and did our commo checks. Small problems can stop you pretty quick and we discovered our Thuraya sat phone didn’t have any minutes left on it and no one had a pre-paid card to load the phone, so I dug mine out of my didi bag and kept it out for emergencies. When you go up the road you stay on a 911 radio frequency which the MP’s monitor 24/7. We use the phones to call back to the unit in case we have a glitch (humvees break down, ambush, etc…). The phones work pretty well.
We have to stop on the way out of Doha for JP8 (diesel fuel) and then we take off. I’m driving the 2-pac with Darwin on my right. We both have M16’s, 9mm pistols, and a bunch of other stuff. I carry a red star cluster and hope never to have to use it; if we call in a dustoff at night we pop the flare and the bird sees us on the ground. Darwin has a couple of frags in his vest that we never want to have to use, either. He spent a lot of time in Korea and Colombia and both of us have been ‘situationally-aware’ for way too long. We chain smoke all the way up to Al-Hillah, the place where we stay overnight before doing the last two hours into Baghdad.
There are trucks and cars everywhere on the road. We learned early on that speed equals security, so we spend the whole day weaving in and out of convoys, civilian traffic, and farm animals, all the while dodging the occasional 735il series beemers that seem to be everywhere. We get to CPA South-Central just before dark, pass through the Gurkhas at the gate and pull into the parking lot. It’s still pretty hot and we are worn out from the trip. COL (x) meets us at the front gate and shows us where to hang out for the night, then takes us out back to the KBR dining tent.
The food is good, and after dinner we find the showers, clean up and move upstairs to the third floor of the hotel building housing CPA South-Central and play pool for a while. We haven’t had alcohol since early March so the bar is pretty tempting. I meet up with a friend of mine from our unit and catch up with the latest gossip about when we all might go home (same shit; nobody really knows). Later we go down, lie down, and sleep.
In the morning we are up early and leaving to Baghdad at 0700. Darwin and I smoke some more and I drive us up the road through Iraqi-style rush hour traffic and into town. We do about 70 miles per hour for most of the way and drive towards BIAP (the airport) and end up at our higher-unit headquarters. They occupy a palace, like most of the headquarters in Iraq. We report in and after a while move over to CPA, at the Republican Guard palace. It’s hard to miss; the dead giveaway is the four huge busts of Saddam on top. They remind me of Monty Python; I imagine at any moment they will rise up, sprout flowers from their ears and drop down inside the palace, burping little Saddam’s from their mouths. The rumor is that they will come down at some point, but for now they sit perched on top of CPA reminding us all that the guy is still out there somewhere.
We find cots in the North wing of the palace and bring in all our shit from the trucks; the Iraq’s see us dragging ass and help with carrying duffle bags, ice chests and rucksacks. I gave them a dollar tip and “shukran jazeelan’ and they took off. Boring is good in country; boring means nothing bad happened, and we enjoyed being bored all the way up from Doha. We sleep and wonder what life will be like in a palace where the marble could be measured in acre-feet, like water.
The convoy mission worked; we are in Baghdad and start our new gig with CPA.
-30-
Copyright, 2oo3, Tom Kinton
posted by tomk at 8:14 AM
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