Read Online Princes of War by Claude Schmid - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Claude Schmid
Ads: Link
battlespace, showing daily soldiering in and outside of the wire. No Iraqis in any of the photos. As Wynn approached the S2’s office, Sergeant Rais, an S2 NCO, came out, saw him, and said, “We’re running behind, Sir. One of your fellow LTs is still at the dance.” Rais suggested Wynn come back at 1915.
Wynn left the building and walked to a quiet area with a view into the distance. To his front lay a mustard-colored landscape. The distant horizon, inexact and obscured by haze, appeared to mirror the turbulence and mystery of the human world. It made him realize how alone he was. After a few moments, he went back inside. Soon the steady rush of the electric noises of equipment around the HQ again flowed over him, and he felt reconnected. The technology-dominated mini-world the Americans had planted here could be reassuring. Millions of dollars’ worth of highly sophisticated computer and communications equipment purred, operated by trained soldiers, all installed inside a rudimentary nondescript masonry building, built 30 or more years before by local illiterate labor. Inside, the past was still present. A scent of urine suggested not everything could be erased. Iraqi plumbing, when it existed, was always inadequate.
1LT Nathan Petty, the Battalion’s Assistant S2, was Wynn’s trailer roommate and friend. Petty’s dad was a retired Air Force Master Sergeant and had taken a Korean wife. Now this officer, with 50 percent of his family heritage originating in the coastal Korean villages along the China Sea, tried to help the American Army understand what it faced here in Mesopotamia. Petty had once joked to Wynn that the Army’s multi-ethnicity represented a unique form of globalization. Wynn took a seat at a large brown table the size of something out of a Fortune 500 boardroom. Petty and a couple of S2 Analysts sat across from him.
“Hi Christian,” opened Petty, “good to see you.”
“Always a fine day when I can visit battalion,” Wynn responded.
“Glad to know you welcome the assistance we bestow,” said Petty, playing along.
Wynn grunted. “Assistance? You staff clowns run me through the wringer and call it assistance.”
Petty smiled and proceeded. “I’ve got a spiel here today that I’ve got to go over with all you guys.” His eyes glowed like a proctologist’s.
Wynn listened patiently for several minutes. The gist of Petty’s statement was that without good evidence, we can’t nail suspects. Wynn felt as if he was watching a TV cop show. Police made mistakes. Bad guys got turned loose because of lack of evidence. The Army role in Iraq was de facto police work. Get information about a crime. Go to the scene. Look at it. Gather physical evidence. Do the questioning. Assess, decide, and then make an apprehension, if possible, based upon the evidence.
“Soldiers make mistakes, too,” Petty said after a moment, almost sanctimoniously.
Then he explained that soldiers were constantly screwing up evidence. “Recently a platoon had a mission to pick up a suspected insurgent financier. They knew that finding the suspect’s cell phone was crucial to the raid’s success. They’d apprehended the target, but left his cell phone at the scene. They also left behind important documents. The papers they did bring in turned out to be nothing more than handwritten copies of a story about boating on the Tigris.” A hint of amusement crossed Petty’s face. “It turns out that the cell phone had been used to coordinate smuggling weapons, and numbers stored on the phone could have led to a breakthrough.”
Wynn sat silent. Although he understood Petty’s point, he sympathized in part with that platoon. You had a thousand things on your mind during a raid. In the field your translators didn’t have the time to review lots of documents. Details were easily missed. And every operation was dangerous, the men conducting them highly stressed, concerned about IEDs and enemy gunfire. If Iraqis civilians
Wynn left the building and walked to a quiet area with a view into the distance. To his front lay a mustard-colored landscape. The distant horizon, inexact and obscured by haze, appeared to mirror the turbulence and mystery of the human world. It made him realize how alone he was. After a few moments, he went back inside. Soon the steady rush of the electric noises of equipment around the HQ again flowed over him, and he felt reconnected. The technology-dominated mini-world the Americans had planted here could be reassuring. Millions of dollars’ worth of highly sophisticated computer and communications equipment purred, operated by trained soldiers, all installed inside a rudimentary nondescript masonry building, built 30 or more years before by local illiterate labor. Inside, the past was still present. A scent of urine suggested not everything could be erased. Iraqi plumbing, when it existed, was always inadequate.
1LT Nathan Petty, the Battalion’s Assistant S2, was Wynn’s trailer roommate and friend. Petty’s dad was a retired Air Force Master Sergeant and had taken a Korean wife. Now this officer, with 50 percent of his family heritage originating in the coastal Korean villages along the China Sea, tried to help the American Army understand what it faced here in Mesopotamia. Petty had once joked to Wynn that the Army’s multi-ethnicity represented a unique form of globalization. Wynn took a seat at a large brown table the size of something out of a Fortune 500 boardroom. Petty and a couple of S2 Analysts sat across from him.
“Hi Christian,” opened Petty, “good to see you.”
“Always a fine day when I can visit battalion,” Wynn responded.
“Glad to know you welcome the assistance we bestow,” said Petty, playing along.
Wynn grunted. “Assistance? You staff clowns run me through the wringer and call it assistance.”
Petty smiled and proceeded. “I’ve got a spiel here today that I’ve got to go over with all you guys.” His eyes glowed like a proctologist’s.
Wynn listened patiently for several minutes. The gist of Petty’s statement was that without good evidence, we can’t nail suspects. Wynn felt as if he was watching a TV cop show. Police made mistakes. Bad guys got turned loose because of lack of evidence. The Army role in Iraq was de facto police work. Get information about a crime. Go to the scene. Look at it. Gather physical evidence. Do the questioning. Assess, decide, and then make an apprehension, if possible, based upon the evidence.
“Soldiers make mistakes, too,” Petty said after a moment, almost sanctimoniously.
Then he explained that soldiers were constantly screwing up evidence. “Recently a platoon had a mission to pick up a suspected insurgent financier. They knew that finding the suspect’s cell phone was crucial to the raid’s success. They’d apprehended the target, but left his cell phone at the scene. They also left behind important documents. The papers they did bring in turned out to be nothing more than handwritten copies of a story about boating on the Tigris.” A hint of amusement crossed Petty’s face. “It turns out that the cell phone had been used to coordinate smuggling weapons, and numbers stored on the phone could have led to a breakthrough.”
Wynn sat silent. Although he understood Petty’s point, he sympathized in part with that platoon. You had a thousand things on your mind during a raid. In the field your translators didn’t have the time to review lots of documents. Details were easily missed. And every operation was dangerous, the men conducting them highly stressed, concerned about IEDs and enemy gunfire. If Iraqis civilians
Similar Books
