20/20: The Iraq and Afghanistan Narratives

20/20:

The Iraq and Afghanistan Narratives

Jonathan Pickering

Copyright © 2016

by Jonathan Pickering

Publishing by Jonathan Pickering through Smashwords.com

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be recreated or shared in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, without the author's consent except for review purposes.

For more information about this book please visit www.2020narratives.com.

Hard copies of this book are available through Amazon.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction

My Pledge

We Said No

Thunder Run: Invading Iraq

The Second Battle of Fallujah: My First Firefight

Hearts and Minds and Toy Guns

The War from Inside Camp Liberty and Back Home

Sand in his Crack

EOD Pressure and Fighting a War of Attrition

A Year in Rocket City

Helping to Start From Within – Aiding Women in Afghanistan

No Black and White: Negative Experiences with the Afghan Culture

Surviving the Surge, Green on Blue Violence, and Trust Issues

The Frustrations of Tracking the Bad Guys in Afghanistan and Other Issues

Chasing the Rabbit

Women Get Purple Hearts Too

They Have Been Fighting Since Before I was in Diapers

Gray Scale

Dealing with Suicide, PTSD, and Working as a Veteran

Friendly Fire and Battling PTSD and the VA

Take a Knee, Drink Water, and Face Out

Nobody Can Heal by Themselves – An Examination of the VA

Sources

Introduction

I trace the beginning of 20/20: The Iraq and Afghanistan Narratives to a party in late 2007 at my alma-mater, Emerson College. I remember little from that night except being completely dumbfounded by a comment a peer made. Hanging out in a poorly lit kitchen, sipping keg beer, people were talking about the problems we faced as a nation and as graduates. After griping about the economy, climate change, and a few other issues, I spoke up and said, And don’t forget the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Without pause, someone emerged from the crowd and responded: Yeah, but they aren’t like, real wars. Those surrounding me quickly agreed.

It was at that moment that I got a glimpse of the level of confusion and apathy some have toward our military presence in the Middle East and the issues that surround it. As a young writer, ready to change the world with my new BFA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing, I was driven to learn all I could about these conflicts.

I always considered the events surrounding Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom to be important, ever-evolving issues. Even today, as both wars begin to fade into history, their effects remain. In Iraq, ISIS continues its atrocious rampage, spilling into Syria and beyond. In response, the U.S. is sending our troops back to train Iraqi forces and engage in select combat mission in order to fight this wicked group of zealots. In Afghanistan, alongside the Afghan National Army, the U.S. military battles for supremacy over the Taliban as the United States continues to remain, train, and assist ANA soldiers while Special Forces patrol for insurgents with no clear end for a full-scale U.S. withdrawal in sight.

Yet, there is little wonder why these wars lost headlines sooner than they've concluded. These wars are perplexing, have had little tangible impact on the majority of Americans, and have run concurrently as two of the longest wars in our nation’s history. Added to this fact, there are other reasons why these wars are far from popular, or even relevant conversation topics. Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom were composed of an all-volunteer military, compounded by an all-time high of contracted logistic and security forces. Politicians and the media seem bewildered and conflicted over how to address the public concerning these wars and what they mean to our country and others. And finally, there are new economic, social, and martial conflicts to focus on. For these reasons and more, the American cultural landscape seems to have a general disinterest concerning these conflicts and its military as the 21st century dawns.

In recent history, some of the public’s maltreatment of our military after our troops returned from Vietnam was patriotically noted, and for the most part, discarded as an improper way to address our military personnel. However, ribbons on our bumpers and a sweeping appreciation for everyone in our armed forces doesn’t diminish the fact that our national connection with our military, its resonance, and how it affects our political and cultural identity, as well as those around the world, is weaker due to how we have chosen to use our military post-9/11.

As evidenced by the young party-goer and many other examples across our nation, the need to understand these conflicts and their impact is readily apparent.

The only place I could think to begin to understand these wars was by going to those whom our nation has so paradoxically embraced as heroes, yet have not bothered to truly understand: our veterans. By speaking with a cross-section of the men and women who served during these conflicts from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, I aimed to glean a better fundamental understanding of these conflicts. I started by having in-depth discussions with veterans I knew personally, then moved to the use of social networks, various military and veteran websites, personal connections, and other means, to get in touch with veterans that had stories to tell. It should be noted that I used pseudonyms for my subjects to protect their anonymity.

Aside from transcribing and editing the conversations that would make up the final narratives, what editorial liberties I have taken come in the form of segues to illuminate particular parts of any given narrative. Added to this, I include brief introductions to describe the interviewee and the general content of each narrative.

Before attempting to compile this text, I knew very little about the details surrounding these wars. Coming from this simple perspective, the aim of this compilation is toward those I reflected before I began this journey: people that may have little to no knowledge of these events.

Now, in late-2015, having spent years gathering information and veterans' stories while exploring what these conflicts mean, I have come away with little I fully understand about our country and its connection to its military except the following:

Bobby Muller, a Vietnam veteran and author of the introduction to the collection of military stories entitled What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It penned by Trish Wood, identified the problem in our national mindset toward understanding our conflicts and our military when he wrote: The wars our country fights are our wars. We, as people, are responsible for them. The failure of many Americans to appreciate what’s involved in fighting a war is a source of frustration and alienation for those who have served […] and it’s not just happening to them, it’s happening to us (Muller, xviii).

Here you will find what I hope will aid in remedying what Muller says is, happening to us, this separation between soldier and civilian.

As a writer, my hope is that my readers find the stories presented here as important as I do, and can take from them some small piece of knowledge concerning what war means to our military and our country. Understand though, this compilation is only a small example of all the countless stories that exist from these conflicts. All the veterans featured here deployed to one or both of these wars. Yet every veteran, offering their story in this compilation or not, fought their own version of Operation Iraqi and Enduring Freedom and took back with them their own distinct saga of life in the war zone. So many stories have yet to be told. More importantly, so many wounds have yet to heal.

My Pledge

The stories presented here are not my own. These are the stories of a handful of men and women whose job it was to serve our country, often times putting their life at risk to do so. As the editor of this compilation, I offered these men and women nothing more than a chance to tell others what they experienced. In doing so, the tellers of these tales have offered much of themselves by sharing something so intense and honest.

Given the fact that these are not my stories, and that those whom I interviewed gave much of themselves in first bravely serving our country, and then, with another kind of courage, opened up to tell their piece of history, I have pledged to donate all of the profits I receive from this publication to two veterans associations.

The organizations I will donate profits to are the Veterans of Foreign Wars (www.vfw.org) and the Disabled American Veterans Charity (www.dav.org).

Both of these organizations have a long history of helping veterans in a variety of ways and are at the forefront of healing the wounds of America's wars.

These organizations and I have not had, nor will have, any contact concerning my work. Neither are these organizations aware that they will benefit from the publication of this text.

It is my hope that the money offered to these groups by way of this compilation helps to alleviate some of the trauma caused by man's most horrible act. Although my donations may be just a drop in an extraordinary large bucket, perhaps many such drops will eventually work to fill it up.

20/20:

The Iraq and Afghanistan

Narratives

We Said No

Refusing orders in the military is treasonous. The punishment for refusing an order is severe, including the possibility of a long prison sentence or even death. 40 year old Army Sergeant Aaron Horford knew these risks and decided to refuse one of his orders anyway. What would push a soldier to give up on his duties?

Horford answers this question by detailing the horrors and inner turmoil he went through answering the call to arms after 9/11 and his experiences during his first tour out of Tallil Air Force Base in Iraq as a Motor Transport Operator. The most poignant moment of Horford’s tale comes when he enacted a rare piece of military jurisprudence. Horford and 17 or 18 members of his convoy team refused a mission they deemed unlawful and saw as a suicide mission, forcing an investigation into his command and putting him and his unit at risk for treason charges.[1]

Horford details his anger over being used as a pawn in the Iraq War and how his experiences turned him away from the military he had been a part of for almost two decades. However, despite all the personal difficulties caused by his service which remained with Horford once he returned home to his family in Florida, Horford was dutiful to his military contract.

Horford also briefly details his struggle to get help with PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – a common mental disorder many veterans experience that causes symptoms from anxiety to depression, bipolar disorder, verbal and physical ticks, fear of loud noises or sudden movement, flashbacks, and other mental issues.[2]

In conjunction with his struggles with PTSD, Horford also explains his frustration with the Veteran Affairs (VA) system, the national organization that allots veterans their medical care, disability checks, and other benefits. Although he has issues with the system, Horford is largely thankful that there are safety nets for veterans in place.

The first time I enlisted, I was in college, I was 22 [in 1991 as part of the Army Reserves. Horford served during, but not in, Operation Desert Storm]. I was 32 when I went back in after 9/11. I was quite a bit older than most soldiers. Most of them were 18, 19, 20. I was 32, had a family, was college-educated, so I was a little different. An 18 year old doesn't have any sense they could die.

I wanted to train to be a nurse. I wanted to do something productive to help. I really didn't want to kill anybody, but I wanted to help. I also wanted a set of skills so that when I came out I could use them for a job. I thought nursing would be great for me, but I didn't get nursing.

Horford was trained as a Motor Transport Operator, learning how to drive massive rigs through different terrains as part of a larger convoy. Horford was selected for this because he spent a brief stint driving a truck around a college campus in order to pay for his education as part of the Army Reserves.

I initially reported to Fort Stewart, Georgia, home of the 3rd Infantry. I spent two months in Fort Stewart for initial training going through mobilization stuff, getting our shots, combat training, learning how to convoy, just all the basics. Then, I was sent to Kuwait where I underwent more training, additional convoy skills, what to do when you come under fire. After two weeks in Kuwait we sandbagged up our trucks. Basically, we didn't have any armor at that time, so we used sandbags; put them all over the floor of the truck, on the door, on the roof. That was the first nine months. Then after that we got our hajji armor, which are steel plates.

In Iraq, IEDs were the weapon of choice. (IED stands for Improvised Explosive Device. IEDs vary widely in makeup, size, how they are detonated, and destructive power. Generally, they are homemade bombs hidden along highways or other high traffic areas, detonated when the opportunity to do the most damage to a unit presents itself.) There were TCNs, third country nationals, that would be with us. The roads got so bad that these TCNs refused to go with us. Our mission was to drive these roads. We transported food, water, military supplies. The truck I had was very old, beat-up, falling apart.

Horford drove a five-ton M930s series 6x6 truck. The M930s have three axles, six wheels, a 250 horse-power diesel engine and can haul up to 215 pounds per square inch. They are the military's construction trucks: various kinds and sizes of dump trucks, tractor-trailers, and vans.[3]

When we put those sandbags on, our truck had a soft-top, and about an hour to two hours into a convoy the weight on the roof was so heavy that the soft top was wiggling back and forth and the entire structure collapsed on us while we were driving. We had to pull over to get this shit out of it. When we were pulled over, my unit just kept on going. I was like, Come on, what the fuck? My unit was horrible and this kind of thing became the norm for us.

Part of the problem too was, we would be driving down a road, and there was always so much dust. It was so heavy and so thick that you can't see three, four, five feet ahead of you. So, you are just praying the guy in front of you doesn't stop. Meanwhile, convoys are coming the other way. They come so close that we would always break our mirrors off on other trucks. Also, our equipment was in such disrepair that out on the road tires would go flying off their axles, flat tires were constant; grease and oil from the bad axles would go flying everywhere all over the truck. Anytime we went out on the road something was going to break. We had to start cannibalizing our equipment. This truck is still working, this one isn't, but we had to keep moving.

Our routes, they were like spider webs depending on where your assignment was. We would load up with our fuel at Tallil and usually you could make a run within a day. If we couldn't make the run within a day, we would stop at various FOBs along the way. (FOB stands for Forward Operating Base. An FOB is a military base/outpost. FOBs vary in size and capability from a patch of tiny tents with a few people to a massive base with full amenities where thousands call home).

We would bunker down for the night and continue the next morning, then we would turn back to our home point. Sometimes though, we would spend two or three weeks out on the road for one mission before returning to our barracks in Tallil.

In my case, when we did