In this area, as in many others in which al Qaeda has lost legitimacy in the eyes of the local Iraqis, one can blame al Qaeda just as much as one can praise any great strategic shift in American policy. In conversation with Iraqis, I heard time and again stories of torture, public beheadings, children of uncooperative Iraqis being tortured or killed, men having their fingers cut off or hands broken for smoking, and al Qaeda forcing local women to marry their fighters, among other atrocities and insults to local honor. It brings to mind Mao’s warning that “because guerrilla warfare basically derives from the masses and is supported by them, it can neither exist or flourish if it separates itself from their sympathies and cooperation.” Once the Sunnis saw the life al Qaeda wanted to impose, they rejected it and switched sides.


My first night with B company, I rode along on a night patrol with 1st Lieutenant Max Pappas’ 1st Platoon. Rolling down one of the many unlit country roads in the area, which are still pockmarked by the ghostly holes left from exploded IEDs, we came upon a man and an adolescent boy digging a hole in the loose dirt near the side of the road. Thinking that they had possibly stumbled on an IED emplacement team, the Strykers screeched to a halt and the platoon piled from the back of the trucks, quickly surrounding the two. They told Pappas—a lanky, sarcastic, 2006 West Point grad on his first tour—that they were simply digging for carrots in their field, but this seemed an odd thing to be doing so late on such a frigid night. The Lieutenant led a squad down a dirt path to check the area near where they were digging to check out the guy’s story. Since I was the only one not wearing night vision equipment, and couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of my face, I stuck close to the soldier in front of me.


To our right lay a canal and a reed line seven or eight feet tall. To our left was open farmland. A nearby group of dogs barked wildly, leading Pappas to observe that it’s impossible to sneak up on a house in Iraq, since every farmhouse has a group of mangy dogs that live outside to serve as an early warning system. Suddenly, a single gunshot pierced the night about ten meters in front of me. I couldn’t see a thing in the darkness, and didn’t know who had fired, or why. A few seconds later, the soldier who fired the shot yelled out that a dog had charged him, and he shot it. Lt. Pappas wasn’t thrilled at the shooting, but everyone agreed that given the choice of shooting a dog or being attacked by the possibly rabid animal, the soldier did the right thing. Pappas apologized to the man for shooting what was probably his dog, but the farmer replied that he was glad the Americans had killed it, since it was his uncle’s and he hated it, anyway.


Stepping over the dog on the narrow path, we came on a large mound covered with a tarp. Poking around, we found that sometimes a carrot framer really is just a carrot farmer, regardless of the odd hours he does business. We had uncovered a cache of carrots. Walking back out, again stepping over the dog, the platoon gave the farmer’s family some bottles of water, offered a few more apologies, mounted up and headed out to check in on some Sons of Iraq checkpoints.


There was an alert out, meanwhile, for a Bongo truck that intelligence said was rigged with explosives, (Bongos are small, open cab trucks used by most of the farmers in the region, making the search for one almost futile, unless you stop each one and search it), so Lt. Pappas and his squad leaders asked at each checkpoint if any of the Iraqis had any information on suspicious trucks. At practically every stop, we could hear the chatter of brief, scattered gunfire off in the distance, and the thud of muffled explosions rippled across the landscape from time to time. Each time, the soldiers would stop, half turn their heads and, when the noises didn’t seem to come any closer, would turn back to whatever it was they were doing, as if the sounds of war were nothing more than the peals of distant thunder.


These brief check-ins brought to us the usual complaints: the Iraqis needed more ammunition, heavier weapons, more food, better shelter, boots, heavy jackets, and night-vision equipment. The American Army already pays them $300 a month each, and occasionally drops off water and some rations, but other than that, American commanders won’t give in to the requests. Still, there are moments of mentoring. At one checkpoint a line of Bongo trucks had been pulled over and lined up by the Iraqis, who were checking the IDs of the drivers. The trucks, spread out over a couple hundred yards of roadway, were hauling fifty-five gallon drums of gasoline and diesel fuel to Ramadi, and in lieu of caps on the drums, had rags stuffed in the spouts. We carefully walked the line of trucks while Sgt. Bobby Fuchs observed how the Iraqis were checking (or not checking) the interiors of the trucks. Walking the few dozen meters between trucks was an exercise in expectation, knowing that each of the half-dozen vehicles fit the description of the supposed bomb-rigged truck. Any one could explode as you got closer.