Fun and games while driving a truck in Iraq

The Necklace

 

          “That does it. I’m going back to England. You Yanks can’t even keep toilet paper in the porta-potties.” The green fiberglass porta-potty rocks back and forth as Gary bumbles around in it. The door opens and Gary with his pants around his knees hobbles to the next. That door opens and he moves to the third. There are five in a row. In a few minutes, Gary comes out in a better mood, “That’s better. How are we getting to the trucks,” he asks.

          “They are sending buses.”

          “Are you sure?”

          “Is anybody ever sure about anything around here.”

          “No.”

          We walk a few steps in silence then I ask, “Were you cold last night? I nearly froze my ass off.”

          “Aye, did you see the size of the air-conditioning unit? You could cool an office building with that bloody thing. We had spent the night in a twenty-man tent on the grounds of Sedum Hussein’s palace in Baghdad. My friend Gary and I are walking to join the rest of our group after breakfast. We are civilian truck drivers. As we walk, Gary holds an ear-bud from his IPod to my ear and quickly pulls it away.

“What’s that song,” he asks.

          “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

          He laughed. “Aye, you never miss.”

          “Anybody my age can do that. They were huge.”

          Gary is from Liverpool, home of the Beatles. It fascinates him that I can recognize a Beatles song in just a few notes. I am in my early sixties. Gary is in his mid forties. He is a retired English Army Sergeant.

The bus arrives. We board and ride through the palace grounds. In a few minutes, we arrive at our trucks. The day before, we parked them near the Crossed Swards monument. No doubt, you have seen this monument on TV. It is a giant reproduction of Sedum Husain’s hands holding two giant swards high in the air. There is a reviewing-stand between the swards. Sedum had weekly parades here. I had seen pictures of him standing at his place in the center with his arm in the air in a salute.   Gary took a picture of me, standing in Sedum’s place with my arms raised as though I were he. Then we went to our trucks and waited for our turn to be loaded. 

          As we waited, he usually jovial Gary was somber and seemed in deep thought. He told me about his service with the English Army in Ireland.

Bob, I promised his young Privet’s misses that I would bring him back alive. I was his Platoon Sergeant, you see. When we were off duty, we went to this pub. I had a beer with this Irish fellow. He left and as soon as he did the pub blew sky high. The explosion killed the lad. I had to tell his misses. It was the worst day of my life. She went berserk on me. The man I had a beer with was the vary man who placed the bomb. I had to testify at his trial.

 The IRA blew me up three times in Ireland. These fucking Moslems extremist aren’t the first terrorist I’ve tangled with. I’ve been at this game for a while now.

Gary is one of the more interesting in our ragtag group of men and women who play truck size Russian roulette. By now most of us have been blown up at least once, but we have been lucky. Only a few have been injured.

I believe that there are two types of people who are willing to do this job. A few are too dumb to grasp the danger, but most need the mental stimulation and crave the excitement. In our group, we have an ex Coca Cola executive and a man who was chased on the TV show Cops. Patriotism motivates many of us. Money motivates all of us. Most are Veterans.  The McKinsey massacre always lives in the back of our minds. The insurgents killed four KBR drivers there. One of the drivers recorded the ambush on video. All of us have seen it on the internet.  

Wildfire joins Gary and me for a few minutes of conversation. She is one of several woman drivers in our group. After she leaves Gary says, “That Wildfire she is a bit of a looker isn’t she Bob?”

I answere, “Yes, Gary, she certainly is.”

That day we drove only as far as our base at Taji and stopped for the night. The food at Taji is especially good. It was steak and lobster night, very different from the C-rations I ate in Vietnam.

KBR operates the mess halls in Iraq. They employ workers from all over the world. Few realize there are more civilian workers in this war than there are soldiers. The number of civilian workers that have been killed is considerable, especially foreign national truck drivers operating out of Turkey. Unlike us, they drive standard unarmored trucks. In this war, more people have died in road side attacks than combat actions,

That night we slept in barracks that were built for Sedum’s troops. Next morning, Carolina, our convoy commander has us assemble near the trucks. Carolina has been in country for three years now. He is cool and capable. The drivers have complete confidence in him. He is in his early forties and as you might have guessed from his call sign, he is from North Carolina.

Anaconda, our base near Ballad, is our destination. The trip is uneventful, until I see tracers skipping across the road and I think, oh, shit, their green. Our tracers are always red. We are getting hit. My heart rate rises. With my earplugs in, the sound of the shots is surprisingly muffled.

I reach for the turn signal lever. Turn on the left turn signal. Turn on the left turn signal, now. I push the leaver down. The light blinks and blinks again as if in slow motion. The turn signal does not signify a turn. It tells the gun trucks from which side the fire is coming.

It looks like Wildfire is getting hammered pretty hard.

I reach for the two-way radio’s microphone. Grab the mic. Grab the mic. I fumble for it. I find it laying out of its holder on the dash.

            Now, speak calmly. Show no fear in your tone. “Carolina, truck thirteen, we are taking small-arms fire back here from the left at truck eleven.”

“Good copy, Truck eleven, Wildfire, you okay?”

“Roger, I’m okay, but my fuel tank has been hit. I can’t tell how bad it’s leaking.” As I drive, I see a dark streak of fuel on the pavement.

“Girl, whatever you do don’t stop. Drive it as far as it will go.”

“Good copy.”

Then Caroling calls Kurt in truck twelve, “Kurt are you taking fire?”

“Roger”

“You okay?”

“So far.”

“How bad is Wildfire leaking?”

“Pretty bad, but we should all clear the kill zone before she runs out of fuel.”

“Wildfire, drive it like you stole it, okay.”

“Okay.”

BOOM

An RPG (rocket) zooms across the road. It hits Kurt’s trailer but it doesn’t explode. There are large holes in each side of Kurt’s trailer where the rocket passed through. I can’t believe the good luck and I think there is a God, thank you Jesus. If it had blown, I would have been a sitting duck, stuck and under fire.

Now, it’s my turn to drive through the kill zone.  Green tracers pass in front of my windshield. I hold my breath and press the accelerator to the floor. Thank God, this truck is armored.

 I oughta be all right.

I oughta be all right.

Where the hell are the gun-trucks?

Why aren’t they returning fire?

Where are the fucking gun trucks?

I drive into the green tracers expecting to hear the thump, thump of bullets hitting the truck, but I hear nothing. I pass through the kill zone. It seemed to take an eternity. Fear grips me. It always comes after the fight. Anaconda is nearby. We do not stop until we are safely inside. We park and inspect our trucks.  I guess they were reloading as I went by. Unbelievably, my truck was not hit, not even once.

Wildfire jumps out of her truck with an AK-47 round in her hand. It had entered the cab at the back where there is no armor. Her long blond hair blows in the desert wind as she speaks, “Hey, Bob, check this out.” She shows me the bullet. “I am going to get it gold plated and make a necklace out of it. What do you think?” She holds it up as though it were on a chain around her neck. 

“Wildfire, I think that’s a great idea. Think of it as gift from al-Qaida. Only, they intended for you to wear it in your head, not around your neck.”

 

This is a story based on two separate missions. The trip to the Green Zone in Baghdad occurred in November of 2006, and the ambush occurred in March of 2007. The characters and events are real.

Things were a little rough in 1864

                                                                                                                      

Luther Mann 

 

 

Luther Mann is my name and they think I’m simple. It has always been that way since I was a tiny boy, but they are wrong.  I’m gonna show’um. I got  the most important job in Clayton County now.

My brothers Raymond and Richard joined the Militia a few years ago, but Momma would not let me do it. She said I was not suitable for military service. Not suitable for military service, she said. So I ran away to the recruiters in Jonesboro to join-up all by myself, but they poked fun at me. Oh, they were nice and polite to my face, but when they thought I wasn’t looking, they laughed, and some of them laughed at me when they knew I was looking. I have grown use to it, though. The people in Jonesboro have always mocked me. That’s just the way town folk are, and that is why I like it here on the farm.

I’m gonna show them all, especially the ones who laughed at me at the recruiters. Of course, the Yankees have killed most of them by now, but maybe they can see me from heaven. I’ll ask Nate what he thinks. “Nate, you think those mean men at the recruiters can see me from heaven.”

“Maybe they can see you from hell, be more like it, Mr. Luther.”

He made me laugh. Nate has always cutting up, ever since were little children. He is a good Negro, and he is my best friend, but do not tell anyone I said that. Some people would not like it. Nate has a wife now, and babies too. We are getting ready to go on a long trip together.

“Nate, have we got everything?”

 “You got the money ain’t you Mr. Luther”

“Yes, Nate indeed I do.  Momma sewed it in this cloth around my waist, and

 she packed some food for us. Of course, there isn’t any meat, just some grits and beans, but that’s as good as anybody got around here these days.

Have you got the gun?”

“Yes, Mr. Luther, I got it all right.”

“Better give it to me. It’s against the law for you to have it”

“Mr. Luther, Ms. Maggie told me to carry it. She said it was all right now, cus those days are over”

“That ain’t right, Nate. I should carry it. I’m the White man.”

          Momma called from inside, “Luther, Nate, come here.” We went into the house and Momma began lecturing us, “Here is a list of the towns you will go through on the way to Savannah. When you get to McDonough, find somebody and ask them how to get to the next town on the list. Keep doing that until you get to Savannah. Then find someone who can tell you how to find the Great Southern Provision Company at this address,” she pointed to the address on the note then gave the note to Nate. “If they don’t have salt, find a store that does. We can’t cure meat without salt. If you do not get salt, there will not be any meat this winter, understand. Look at me son, GET SALT. Nate I want you to carry the gun and do not hesitate to use it. Deserters, Yankees, and runaways are everywhere. You know from experience what they will do. Don’t you?”

Nate said, “Yes Ma’am, I most certainly do.”

And I said, “Yes Mother I do too,” then she kissed me on the forehead.

“Take care of him Nate. Now, go tell everybody goodbye. I’ll see you in a month.” I could see that she was crying, and Momma does not often cry.

I said goodbye to Betty, Betsy, Susan, little Tommie, Grandmother and old Mr. Jennings.  I said goodbye to the Colored Folks. Most of them stayed after Sherman came through. Some left, but I think that they will come back. How are they going to live without somebody to take care of ‘um?”

          We were lucky. Sherman did not burn our place. He burned all farms like ours and all the big plantations, unless you happened to be one of his brothers in the Masonry, then he would pass you by, and he burned the all the towns too. His soldiers stole everything we had that was worth stealing, but they did not kill even one of us.

A day or two before the Yankees came; Momma had Nate pull up the floorboards upstairs bedroom. We put hams in the space between the floor and the ceiling, and nailed the floor back down. The Yankees didn’t find them. They kept saying, “I smell ham in here. I smell ham in here.” I laughed and laughed, but I didn’t let them see me laughing. All the hams are gone now. The only thing left of them is the greasy spots where the ham grease soaked through the ceiling.

We drove the live stock go into the woods where the Yankees could not find’um. They caught the horses and the cows, but the hogs were too clever. They couldn’t catch them no matter how hard they tried. That’s because, hogs are smarter than Yankees. After the Yankees left, the hogs came back home, and we got’um back. They caught Miss Molly, Papas old broodmare, but she was too old and worn-out, so they did not take her. She’s the only horse we got now. They burned all the cotton, and took all the corn they wanted, then burned the rest, and Mommas’ silver! They stole it, and broke all her china just for the sport of it, and they rode their horses inside the house!

After Nate and I said goodbye to everybody, we drove our wagon off our place and onto Mundey’s Mill Road. We passed the Mundey’s Mill and the Fitzgerald pace. The Yankees had burned them both down. We got to Locust Grove with no problem. Of course, it’s not that far. The Yankees had burnt it down too. Nate said, “Looks like there ain’t nothing left in this country but chimneys.” He was right. Everywhere we looked chimneys were sticking up out of the rubble toward the sky, as if they was fingers reaching up to God praying for some help, but didn’t any come. I think God has forsaken us, and I wonder why?  

We found a man who could read our note, and he told us how to get to Milledgeville. It was the next town on the list, but it’s a long way, so we had to sleep in the woods.

That night we could hear men nearby, and see their fire. We were quite and did not build a fire of our own. They did not know we were there. Doing this was Nate’s idea. In the morning, Nate said, “Lets hide real good and when they will pass us by we will observe them, and find out if they are friend or foe.”  We hid extra good and watched.

Sure enough, they came by, and sure enough, they were foe, Yankees, three of ‘um, but we could not tell if they was real Yankees or deserters. They were in their uniform, though. Nate thought that they were deserters and I thought they were soldiers. It didn’t matter. Either way they were against us. 

We tarried for several hours after they passed. Two of farm wagons passed going our way. Nate said, he thought that it was safe to go, because old Miss Molly was so slow and farm wagons were between them and us. So we went on. It was the same everywhere we looked, burnt up.

A bear came around our camp next morning, but he did not get after us. Next night Nate slept in his shoes. I asked him, “Nate why you sleeping in your shoes.”

He said, “I’ve got them on incase that bear comes around again. I’ll be able to run away faster.”

I said. “Nate, you can’t outrun a bear.”

He said, “I ain’t got to outrun the bear. All I got to do is outrun you, because the bear is gonna be busy with the last one in line, whichever one of us it may be.” Then he laughed, and I knew, he was teasing me, so I laughed too.

But I didn’t laugh long, because after we got going just a little ways, those three Yankees stepped out from the underbrush right in front of us with weapons drawn. One of them said, “Now that’s a sorry sight a Nigger and a moron. I don’t know which one is dumber.”

Now, that made me mad, so I said, “We might not be as dumb as you think, Mister.”

I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. I don’t know why. Nate sat still and did not say a word. The gun lay on the seat in between us, but they could not see it because our coats laid over it.

The man on the left said, “Bill do you think we should see if they have anything worth steeling before we shoot them, or shoot them and then look.” Then without warning he shot me. Before I died, I saw Nate shoot him and one other. The third man killed Nate.

Now, that happened on September 14, 1864. My baby sister, Tommie, give birth to Mary. Yes, I know Tommie sounds like a man’s name but it’s not. Mary told her grandson, Bobby, what she knew about my murder, and she gave him all the old tintype pictures of our family. Over the years, Bobby lost track of just who was who in the pictures. He does not know it, but he has a picture of me.  

My murder is forgotten now. He is the last one alive, who even knows it happened, but there is no force that can stop the truth from being told, even death; so one day while he was writing, I decided to whisper my story into his ear. He heard it, and wrote it down for me, and I thank him for it. 

 

How James Brown stole the show and saved a city

 

 

 

          It was hot in the days before air-conditioning. That was a fact we had to accept. In the evenings, the afternoon heat lingered in the houses forcing us to the porches. We knew our neighbors. We knew the good. We knew the bad. We heard it all through the open windows. The bad was louder than the good.

          I would come home from high school and find my mother and Annie working around the house, cleaning, cooking and doing what must be done. Annie was our Afro-American maid. Having a maid was not a sign of wealth in those days. Most Southern families had help as the maids were called. It was a custom that went back to slavery, but things were changing. The Civil Rights movement dominated the news and in Atlanta racial tensions were high.

          Everyday afternoon I went to the big RCA hifi stereo that sat in the living room and filled the house with the sound of James Brown or Otis Redding. Annie liked the music. Mon tolerated it. When my mother was not at home, Annie would turn on the art deco radio that sat on the kitchen counter and we would listen to Gospel music, or the soulful sound of Piano Red, a local Afro radio personality. This scene was being repeated in homes throughout the south, and it was placing Black musical ideas in young white minds.

          In the summer of 1963, James Brown was to do a show at the Atlanta City Auditorium. I planned to attend. Only a few Whites would be there, but I didn’t care. Just a few years prior, at shows like this, Whites by law had to sit in the balcony leaving the main floor for the Afro-Americans. It never occurred to me that I was an integration ground breaker. I just wanted to see James Brown.  

          At the city auditorium, the crowd squeezed through the doors, extended across the sidewalk and into the street. I felt white, too white and I was afraid but no one mistreated me.  Integration was the goal of the Civil Rights movement and I was doing that.

 I found my seat. After a few minutes, someone called from behind.

          “Bobby, hey, Bobby, it’s Bobby, hey, hey Bobby!”

          “Hi Hattie.” I said.  Hattie worked for out next-door neighbor. She had watched me grow while sweeping their floors and washing their clothes.

          “Lan, boy, you are the last person I thought I would see here. You like James Brown?”

          “Yes ,ma’am, I do. Can I have one of those beers?”  Hattie had snuck a six-pack past the security guards in her large purse.

“Listen at you. I know how old you are. Yo moma would have my hide if I gave you a beer.”

Overhead through the sound system we heard: LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, GIVE A BIG ATLANTA WELCOME FOR THE HARDEST WORKING MAN IN SHOW BUSINESS–JAMES BROWN AND THE FAMOUS FLAMES.

The band played, and the auditorium exploded with dance and screams. Women shouted, “Try me James, try me,” referring to his hit record Try Me. I did my white-boy dance as best I could, but I was not comfortable with it. My rear-end would not find the seat again that night, not until after the finale in which his back-up singers place a cape over his shoulders as they sang, “Please, please, don’t go.”

In 1968 when Martin Luther King was assassinated, James Brown happened to be in Atlanta. In many cities, there were riots but as yet in Atlanta, there had been no trouble. My father owned a tuxedo shop. It was downtown in an area where riots were expected. He borrowed a pistol and a shotgun from his friend, Buster, who was a World War II hero and owned a nearby pawn shop. Dad, Buster and other merchants sat in their stores armed awaiting the rioters. I begged him not to go. He said he could not stand by and watch a lifetime of work go up in smoke without putting a fight. I feared for his life. For me, it was a sleepless night.

A crowd gathered not far from his store. Mayor Allen went to the trouble area. He climbed on top of a police car and with a bullhorn he begged for calm. He made little progress until James Brown joined him there and reasoned with the mob. There was no riot in Atlanta. My father’s business was spared and returned unharmed.

Years pass and the past is forgotten. It is a hip-hop world now. The young accept things as they are and don’t look back. Brown is ancient history, but he came to mind when I heard his song Out of Sight. It was among the forty gigabits of music a young friend downloaded to my computer. In looking back, I don’t think Brown has been given enough credit for what he did that night in Atlanta, nor do I think enough credit has been given to the roll music played in ending segregation.