Jane Stillwater With the Marines in Anbar
Yep, my favorite blogger and intrepid war correspondent Jane Stillwater has made it to her embed with the U.S. Marines in Al-Anbar Province in Iraq. Here are some excerpts about the journey so far, from Kuwait to Baghdad’s Green Zone and on to “the middle of nowhere” (I Googled for a couple of pictures to illustrate Jane’s prose):
Then, finally, at 6:30 am, our plane took off and guess what? They had run out of space in the hold of the airplane and I was FORCED to ride up front in the cockpit. I am here to tell you that those guys are surrounded by all kinds of dials, wires, levers, switches and knobs. Plus I got to see everything as we went into the famous approach to the Baghdad airport, diving suddenly straight down while taking evasive action at the same time. Air sickness suddenly became a real possibility.
Once on the ground, I wandered around looking dazed and confused from lack of sleep and dragging a whole bunch of luggage behind me (it finally showed up) until someone finally took mercy on me and stuffed me into a bus to the nearest military transit camp and the nearest dining facility. The DFac! Yea! For lunch we had barbequed chicken, chef’s salad, mashed potatoes and — gasp! No pumpkin pie! So I sacrificed for God and Country and suffered along with plain old sweet potato pie. Ah the hardships of War.
I’m over here in Iraq right now. Two nights ago I ran the blood-alley road from the Baghdad airport into the Green Zone. It was spooky. In the dead of night, a herd of vehicles known as Rhinos pulled up in convoy, accompanied by a herd of Strykers and we put on our Kevlar and climbed aboard. Rhinos are big as a house. You wouldn’t want to mess with an angry Rhino. We made the trip unscathed.
Once in the Green Zone, I went to the Combined Press Information Center (CPIC) and bedded down. The next morning, I went to the press room. And talked with the reporters there all hunched over their laptops. And everyone there was talking about Iran. Iran did this. Iran did that. And then when I watched the Republican debates on TV, there it was again. IRAN. “We need to stop Iran. We need to bomb Iran.”
When I was in Iraq last April I got stuck in the Green Zone for three whole weeks. Other reporters came and went but I just stayed here and stayed here. But on THIS trip, however, I’ve been guaranteed tours of both Fallugah and Al Asad. “Just fly into the Green Zone long enough to get credentialed, Jane, and then we’ll have you out to Anbar province the next day,” they told me at the press information center. That was four days ago. History repeats itself. I’m stuck in the Green Zone again. De Ja Voo.
People here in Iraq talk about death all the time. It has become a permanent part of their lives. Death never gets invited to dinner. But he comes. He never gets any votes here but year after year he is re-elected. In this country, he’s the one you go to if you want to get anything done. In Iraq, Death is the ultimate problem-solver. Betsy, the only way in the world that there will be any kind of truce between Al Qaeda, the Shia, the Sunni, the Americans, the Iraqi mafia, the fundamentalists, etc. is if they all get together and vote Death out of office. But that just isn’t happening here — and won’t be happening any time soon.
… I’m finally scheduled to fly out of the Green Zone tonight! Anbar province, here I come — that is, if Death doesn’t roll out the welcome mat between now and then.
“So Jane,” said my press embed coordinator in Baghdad, “we finally got you a flight out to Anbar province. You will leave tonight at 9 pm.” But you always add at least three hours to showtime whenever you fly military air and so my helicopter didn’t take off until 2 am.
… What’s it like to ride in a Super-Stallion? Okay, I guess — except that the loading hatch at the back was wide open and I kept worrying that my luggage was going to slide out the door, open like a parachute and hit someone below on the head with my flower-patterned and lace-trimmed pink and blue flannel nightgown.
“Here’s the half-way point,” the gunner yelled in my ear. “You spend the night here.” Or at least what was left of the night. We filed out of the Stallion and onto a desert in the middle of nowhere with some barracks and porta-potties. “Grab a MRE and go find a cot.”
MREs. Meals — Ready to Eat. I started sorting through the bin. Cheese omelet? Beef ravioli? Ah, chicken fajita! “Don’t get the fajitas,” said a voice next to me. “Trust me. Try something else.”
… What next? A cot of my own in a plywood Quonset hut full of sleeping soldiers. I couldn’t get to sleep with the lights on and so stayed up and read for the rest of the night. Then at dawn I discovered that even out here in the middle of nowhere, there was still a five-star dining facility. Hooray.
At 9:30 am, they assigned me a flight on a C-130 troop transport plane and I went off to wait for a few more hours for it to take off. But then suddenly some guy comes running into our Quonset hut screaming, “HazMat! Hazmat! You all have to evacuate! Now!” We all grabbed our gear and moved out. What kind of hazardous material? Would it be radioactive? Were we all going to die? Couldn’t we all just get on the airplane and fly away from this threat? Nope, the airfield had been shut down. And there were all these cool-looking moon-walker-type guys all covered with silver, walking around and holding what looked like Geiger counters in their hands. We’re doomed.
By 10:30, however, we had found out the cause. “There’s been an acid spill of some kind.” Ho- boy.
Former flower-child that I am, however, I just couldn’t resist. “I can just see the headlines in tomorrow’s Stars and Stripes,” I laughed. “MARINES DROP ACID IN WESTERN IRAQ!” All the Marines next to me laughed too. Then we all popped onto the C-130. And just before we landed at our destination, the plane gave a lurch, dive-bombed and started shaking and spinning back and forth. But much to my surprise, my reaction was not, “Good grief, we are all going to die!” but rather, “What an interesting way to end my life — in western Iraq with a bunch of Marines.”
Then the guy next to me patted my hand and yelled — no one can talk on a C-130 in flight — “We were just taking evasive action. Not to worry.” Oh. No worries, mate. Then we landed in the middle of the desert in 102-degree heat in the middle of nowhere and that was the end of that adventure. More adventures to follow? Sure. Have I gotten any sort of handle on this “war” at all since I’ve been here? No. Has it been a grueling journey? Oh yeah. You have no idea what the US military goes through here day after day, year after year. Will anyone EVER find a way to end this money pit of a war? We will have to. When America goes bankrupt, we will have no choice — no matter how good a job our Marines are doing in western Iraq.
