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Book: The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows by Brian Castner
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Authors: Brian Castner
Tags: History, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Military, Biography, War, special forces, Iraq War; 2003-
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fall.
And then nothing.
The scene was no more horrific than normal. Most gas stations in Kirkuk consisted of a man on the side of the road with a jug of piss-yellow liquid and a hand pump. This gas station, however, for police and government officials, had actual inground storage tanks, poured concrete islands to pull your car up to, and 1950s-era American rotary-dial mechanical pumps. An inviting target for a suicide bomber. Or two.
This time they got past the fences and guards using fake Iraqi Police uniforms and identification cards. Or they were real Iraqi Police, with real uniforms and badges. It was always hard to tell.
One bomber approached the aging pumps, idling cars, and quasi-important politicians and detonated his ball-bearing-laced suicide belt in the thickest portion of the mid-afternoon crowd. Fortunately for the assembled, though, he was also near a concrete light pole and pump that absorbed most of the explosive energy. The first blast caused confusion, hysteria, and a flood of police and nearby citizens drawn to the scene.
That was the moment the second bomber entered, detonating his belt in the middle of the Good Samaritan crowd. He made no mistakes, and was well clear of obstacles that would mitigate his effect.
The bombers probably hoped that the gas station itself would explode as the result of their attack. But Hollywood lies, and even aromatic, poorly maintained Iraqi petrol pumps won’t send up a huge fireball from a small belt or two. Instead, the bombers simply sowed panic, pain, and madness.
I only ever saw one Hollywood-style fireball. In Balad, one year before, on one of the few missions I completed on my brief, aborted tour.
Organizationally, the Balad EOD compound was a virtual hub for five spokes, five combat outposts that relied on the main base for logistical support. I only visited them once, to make the rounds—drop off mail and pick up gear, remind the guys to shave and take a shower, and swap them out, giving them a not always welcome break at the main hub for a while. Delivering the mail in Iraq is not an easy task. Five gun trucks, our EOD Humvee, and hours of planning and preparation were required just to leave the gate. Our security briefed the convoy order, actions to take on stops, the route we would follow—through the village of Al Dineria, where it was either bloody or muddy, according to the First Sergeant in charge—and how we would stop and fight if ambushed.
Bloody or muddy. Al Dineria turned out to be the latter. And how. The potholes in the hamlet’s semi-paved streets were the size of moon craters, and we nearly lost the front end of our Humvee in a harmless-looking puddle in the center of the road. The combat outposts where we stopped resembled frontier forts built to fight the Indian Wars in the American West. At FOB O’Ryan, Bradley armored fighting vehicles were lined up against the outer wall every twenty yards, 30-millimeter chain guns pointing out at the featureless floodplain, ready to respond to rocket and mortar fire. At FOB Paliwoda, foot-thick concrete slabs were stacked like LEGO bricks, building walls, roofs, and shelters for each tin can that housed beds or operations centers. And then to our last stop, across the Tigris, on a pontoon bridge only inches wider than our armored truck.
We picked up a package at that last stop. It was a present from the spooks. There wasn’t enough space at their FOB to detonate it. Could we take it back to Balad and dispose of it there?
“What is it?” I asked.
The bearded, plainclothed man handed me an irregular black package. It was the size and shape of a football, completely wrapped in electrical tape and incredibly heavy. On one end a small strand of green detonating cord stuck out.
“Don’t worry about what it is,” the spook said.
“Sorry, man. I can’t just blow things up if I have no idea what they are.”
Silence from the spook.
“At least tell me how big the bang is going to
And then nothing.
The scene was no more horrific than normal. Most gas stations in Kirkuk consisted of a man on the side of the road with a jug of piss-yellow liquid and a hand pump. This gas station, however, for police and government officials, had actual inground storage tanks, poured concrete islands to pull your car up to, and 1950s-era American rotary-dial mechanical pumps. An inviting target for a suicide bomber. Or two.
This time they got past the fences and guards using fake Iraqi Police uniforms and identification cards. Or they were real Iraqi Police, with real uniforms and badges. It was always hard to tell.
One bomber approached the aging pumps, idling cars, and quasi-important politicians and detonated his ball-bearing-laced suicide belt in the thickest portion of the mid-afternoon crowd. Fortunately for the assembled, though, he was also near a concrete light pole and pump that absorbed most of the explosive energy. The first blast caused confusion, hysteria, and a flood of police and nearby citizens drawn to the scene.
That was the moment the second bomber entered, detonating his belt in the middle of the Good Samaritan crowd. He made no mistakes, and was well clear of obstacles that would mitigate his effect.
The bombers probably hoped that the gas station itself would explode as the result of their attack. But Hollywood lies, and even aromatic, poorly maintained Iraqi petrol pumps won’t send up a huge fireball from a small belt or two. Instead, the bombers simply sowed panic, pain, and madness.
I only ever saw one Hollywood-style fireball. In Balad, one year before, on one of the few missions I completed on my brief, aborted tour.
Organizationally, the Balad EOD compound was a virtual hub for five spokes, five combat outposts that relied on the main base for logistical support. I only visited them once, to make the rounds—drop off mail and pick up gear, remind the guys to shave and take a shower, and swap them out, giving them a not always welcome break at the main hub for a while. Delivering the mail in Iraq is not an easy task. Five gun trucks, our EOD Humvee, and hours of planning and preparation were required just to leave the gate. Our security briefed the convoy order, actions to take on stops, the route we would follow—through the village of Al Dineria, where it was either bloody or muddy, according to the First Sergeant in charge—and how we would stop and fight if ambushed.
Bloody or muddy. Al Dineria turned out to be the latter. And how. The potholes in the hamlet’s semi-paved streets were the size of moon craters, and we nearly lost the front end of our Humvee in a harmless-looking puddle in the center of the road. The combat outposts where we stopped resembled frontier forts built to fight the Indian Wars in the American West. At FOB O’Ryan, Bradley armored fighting vehicles were lined up against the outer wall every twenty yards, 30-millimeter chain guns pointing out at the featureless floodplain, ready to respond to rocket and mortar fire. At FOB Paliwoda, foot-thick concrete slabs were stacked like LEGO bricks, building walls, roofs, and shelters for each tin can that housed beds or operations centers. And then to our last stop, across the Tigris, on a pontoon bridge only inches wider than our armored truck.
We picked up a package at that last stop. It was a present from the spooks. There wasn’t enough space at their FOB to detonate it. Could we take it back to Balad and dispose of it there?
“What is it?” I asked.
The bearded, plainclothed man handed me an irregular black package. It was the size and shape of a football, completely wrapped in electrical tape and incredibly heavy. On one end a small strand of green detonating cord stuck out.
“Don’t worry about what it is,” the spook said.
“Sorry, man. I can’t just blow things up if I have no idea what they are.”
Silence from the spook.
“At least tell me how big the bang is going to
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