24 August 2007

On living with the enemy

I was sitting in a house in Old Baqubah. I’ve been in this house a hell of a lot. In fact, I realized several weeks ago, much to my chagrin, that I’ve been in this house more than I’ve been in the new houses or apartments that any of my friends have gotten since graduating college. This house is and was held by the Baqubah Guardians, essentially a neighborhood watch group that we’ve been working with to keep stability and security in Old Baqubah. We meet with them on a regular basis to discuss how the neighborhood is doing, what we need them to do, what they need from us, etc. I don’t even remember the details of this meeting – It could have been about people in the neighborhood had been detained, the curfew in OB, questions about suspicious AK gunfire during the night – anything.

I was speaking to the BG leaders through my old interpreter, JJ, for a while. As happens a lot, there were long periods where one side would talk, and the other, not having a bloody clue what the other is saying, has to pretend to be interested until the other party stops and the terp gets his turn. (A good terp can handle these really long, complex exchanges, which really allows much more complex, natural conversation – with a bad or inexperienced terp, you have to talk in short burst, about a clause at a time, and check that he knows the words you’re using.) During one of these particularly long exchanges, I began spacing, and thinking about how Old Baqubah had been much more dangerous immediately before I arrived. US forces didn’t operate in OB the way we do now, as recent as June. It really is a remarkable turn around, and I only hope it can last.

I began thinking about how, less than two months prior, sitting down in this house, with the level of security that we had would have been out of the question. I had a decent sized element, all armed of course, with me, but we were surrounded, and outnumbered by Iraqis with AK-47s. These were Iraqis who, when the Battalion entered Baqubah in March, might have been shooting at Americans. Short term or long term, it would make no sense for them to shoot us right then – every one of them would have been killed, half the neighborhood would have been destroyed by missiles and artillery and the inroads into power that the Baqubah Guardians had made would be lost.

Regardless, I began to think of, in the ways of a paranoid fantasy, what would happen if this meeting, this day, was an ambush. I began picturing, quickly what might happen if one or more of these Iraqis were to open fire on me and my men. Who was keeping a close eye on all of the Iraqis? How easily could I lift my weapon, considering my posture and body armor? Could I sweep it around to the guy over my right shoulder? How was the background – was I going to hit any of my own men? Might they hit me? To the best of my knowledge, I showed no outward signs of my train of thought – I kept looking at the BG leader who was speaking, though I understood perhaps one word in twenty – and these thoughts lasted perhaps ten seconds. A couple of seconds after I mentally dismissed this line of thought as paranoid, and a little funny, I noticed, out in my peripheral vision, the man over my right shoulder raise, very quickly, his arms up. There was a pause, and then a small motion and loud, complex “click.”

It took me, perhaps, two tenths of a second to realize that he was lighting a cigarette.

posted by Interested Soldier @ 05:25