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.
Posted by bobokelley 