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Photo 19. The U.S. Marine embedded advisers and the leadership of 2nd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 7th Division Iraqi army pose for a group photograph on Camp Ali.

Talk about having a high level of risk tolerance. I wish I could say this was a sign of Iraqi bravery, but I think it was more a sign of dumbassery. All the same, his actions were not very surprising. To the Iraqis, when and how they die is a matter of insha'allah. Thus there is no problem with standing on an IED, because God is going to choose when to kill you anyway. There is no point taking precautions against death. I guess this could also explain why the
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never wear their protective gear in combat.

After dancing on the live IED for a few minutes, Sermen and Juwad came to their senses and jogged back to the Humvee to give us their full report. Their estimate was that there were two propane tanks with three hundred pounds of PE-4 explosives per tank and fifteen 155-mm artillery shells set up to ensure the death of any vehicle that happened to stumble upon them. This was a huge IED and one that EOD needed to address. We decided to wait a bit longer for a response from checkpoint eleven on the status of the EOD team.

We sat, and sat, and sat. I drooped into the driver's seat of the Humvee, cranked up our defunct air-conditioner, and prayed EOD or a relieving unit would show up soon. I was about to go insane with boredom when I captured a glimpse of a sheep farmer walking through the wadi. He was slowly moving his way toward the IED.

I figured the sheepherder would not approach the IED. After all, it was likely he had played a part in providing the reconnaissance for the insurgents who actually placed the IED in the ground. I was wrong. The sheepherder slowly pushed his herd up the hill and headed directly toward the intersection of where the bridge met the road. He was about to turn his flock of sheep into one large shish kebab. I woke up Martin, who was in deep slumber. “Martin, dude, call Lieutenant Abass and tell him to yell at that herder before he blows himself up!”

After Martin's warning, Lieutenant Abass hopped out of the vehicle and hollered at the sheep farmer, “You are heading directly for an IED. Please move away. It will destroy your entire flock!” The sheepherder obviously did not get the message. He pushed his sheep to a small grassy area almost directly on top of the IED. Abass continued to yell to the sheepherder, to no avail. The herder was simply too far away to understand the message.
Thankfully, the man found out the news for himself. The sheepherder started running in circles. He realized he could lose his entire livelihood if the insurgents decided to detonate their IED. He jumped back and forth within the herd trying to get his flock to respond. The sheep were fixated on the grass. Every time the herder moved a few sheep away, they would sneak around him and run to get more grass. The scene was hilarious. Eventually, the sheep got the message after the herder smashed them on the face with a stick a few times and they exited the area. Phew, no shish kebab tonight.

Three hours later a unit from 2/3 arrived to relieve us. We regrouped the convoy and decided to create our own trail through the wadi so we could continue on the route. We had to go off road if we wanted to get through the three-hundred-meter-wide riverbed. For the Humvees this would be an easy task; however, our convoy had five Leylands full of
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going on leave, a wrecker vehicle, an ambulance, and a BMW sedan we had confiscated from suspected insurgents the prior week. This was going to be quite a challenge.

We snaked the convoy down the steep edges of the wadi along a makeshift cart path. Things were proceeding smoothly. We reached the wadi floor and cautiously drove a few miles per hour, on the lookout for any command wires leading to the IED on the bridge. Suddenly Doc yelled, “Gents, you see that shit? I see it glimmering in the sunlight!” I replied, “What are you talking about Doc?” He replied, “Look twenty feet on your left.” I glanced in the direction of where Doc mentioned. Sure enough, a thin bronze wire was on the ground, leading to the IED on the bridge. I slammed the gas pedal and crossed the wire safely. We were good to go.

The entire convoy had almost made it through the wadi when Mark frantically yelled over the radio, “IED! IED!” Because they were in the rear Humvee away from our view, we assumed something bad had happened. The Marine and Iraqi radio nets sparked to life and the convoy started moving faster. Mark had triggered everyone's survival mechanisms. Mark came over the radio again, “Uh, sorry. Actually, I just saw some command wires. Sorry about the confusion, I'm an idiot.” Doc, Gaines, Nuts, and I all looked at each other and said the same thing, “God, I want to kill that terp!”

After some more drama the entire convoy made it along the bypass route and we continued along Route Bronze. We would make it to Al Asad, but we would be more than four hours late.

IED Jackpot

I called EOD to get a report on the IED the Iraqis found on the bridge. The EOD tech on the phone answered, “Sir, we didn't find much of anything. Granted, it was dark when we got there. All we found was a few strands of copper wire and that's it.” I could not believe what I was hearing. I could still see the outline of the IED in the bridge when we were crossing the wadi the other day. I responded to the EOD tech, “Listen man, I know there is an IED out there. The longer it sits there, the longer it has a chance to blow up Marines. Ask your boss when you guys are free. We're going to lead you out there and show you the IED.”

We convinced EOD to convoy with us to the IED location near checkpoint eleven. We arrived at the bridge around 0830, well ahead of the EOD team, which decided to convoy on their own because they were afraid of convoying with the
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.

Whack! The EOD Humvee flew past my Humvee and took my left mirror with it. “What the fuck was that about?” I yelled to anyone who would listen. Major Gaines grabbed the radio to bitch at the perpetrator vehicle. “EOD, what are you doing flying by our Humvee? You took out a mirror.” The young Marine driver answered, “Uh, Sir, we didn't want to get off the road for fear of pressure-plate IEDs.” Gaines thickened his Texan accent and gave the kid an earful. “Listen, dumbshit, if you ever do that again I will personally kick your ass and a pressure-plate IED will be the least of your worries.”

After things settled EOD sent their EOD robot to rig the IEDs for explosion. Meanwhile, we went into the wadi to collect the copper command wires so the insurgents could not use them again. We came across the wire I had spotted the day before. Doc got out of the Humvee with a pair of pliers and prepared to cut the wires. At the same time EOD called on the radio, “Shadow, get in the truck! Don't cut the wire by hand—it may be booby-trapped. Snag it on the back of the Humvee and break it.” We all yelled at Doc, “Don't cut the wire!” He calmly opened the Humvee door. “What's all the fuss?” he asked. “I already cut it.” We burst into laughter. “So much for listening to EOD,” Gaines said.

After rolling up nearly a thousand meters of copper wire, we remounted the Humvee and drove up the side of the road to check on the Iraqis who were looking for wires farther into the wadi. We approached the crest of the hill leading into the wadi. An Iraqi Humvee was heading straight for us at fifty miles an hour. Chatter was streaming over the Iraqi radio net. Something was going on.

Lieutenant Abass sprinted through a cloud of dust that had billowed from his Humvee's immediate stop a few meters from the front of our Humvee. Frantically, he addressed me, “Jamal, Jamal, we saw the insurgents. We saw them.” I replied, “Abass, calm down, man.” Gaines ordered Martin, “Get out here and translate this so everyone knows what's going on and not just Jamal.” Abass told the story to Martin, who relayed the news. Abass explained, “When we crested the hill, our gunner saw a four-door, white, Kia pickup moving toward the bridge location. The truck had a bunch of copper wire in the back. When they saw our Humvee on top of the hill, they immediately turned around and rushed to the village before we could even react. We were going to follow them, but we wanted to get your help in case there was an ambush setup.”

We all digested the situation. Major Gaines concluded that it was time to play a little Cowboys and Indians. Gaines made the call to mount up; we were going insurgent hunting. Abass ordered his Humvee to start moving in the direction of the white Kia. We followed.

We piloted across the hilly desert terrain at fifty miles per hour; the ride was better than a roller coaster. Dust was flying, rocks were hitting the windshield, and Nuts was yelling more curse words than a sailor as he was bucked back and forth in the gunner's turret. Up ahead the
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stopped at an odd-looking rock formation. We all got out to investigate.

The rock formation was in the shape of a triangle. Doc stood behind the formation, looking at it from the perspective the insurgent would have had. He proclaimed, “Holy shit, this is their aiming device!” We each looked at the top of the rock formation. It was angled perfectly in line with the end of the bridge almost eight hundred meters away. Doc was right.

We mounted the Humvees immediately. We were hot on the trail. Abass led us into a local village another thousand meters east of our current location. We figured we would run into the four-door Kia at best, and at worst we could find the insurgent's back entrance into the wadi. We cautiously moved through the town. All the civilians gave us the evil eye; we had spoiled all the fun. Unable to find the white Kia pickup, we pushed through the village until we found the route the insurgents were using to get into the wadi.

We found the mother lode. Every hundred meters a new copper command wire was strewn upon the ground, each of them going in different directions to various routes. This was the central hub of IED emplacement.

Sermen gave us double “hang loose” signs and yelled in broken English, “Fuckin' cool man. Fuckin' cool. We kick the erhabi [insurgent] fuckin' asses.” He then showcased two different wires he had found. The guy was ecstatic. I laughed hysterically and threw him my wire cutters. “Start cutting, brother,” I said.

We destroyed all the wires we could find. It was a great day to be with the Iraqi army and to be a Marine. We felt like triumphant treasure hunters. Our combined efforts had destroyed hours of insurgent work, found a key node of IED operations, and had probably saved lives.

Gaines got on the radio to EOD. “Listen gents,” he said, “we have found the goldmine of IEDs down here. Request you copy the following grids.” Gaines proceeded to send the grid locations of all the IED wires we had found to the EOD representatives so they could follow up on each of them and destroy the ordnance associated with each wire.

It was nearing 1300 and we needed to get back to Camp Ali to conduct a pay run. I radioed to the EOD team at the bridge and told them the situation. They suggested they return home with our convoy and told us they would return later in the afternoon to investigate the remaining IEDs we had found. We hoped they would actually do their job this time around.

The IEDs Come Back to Bite Us

Juwad came tearing through the MiTT camp in a Waz jeep. In broken English mixed with Arabic he frantically questioned, “Jamal, shaku maku [what happened] to all the people bil [in] Baghdad?” I was confused. Had the Green Zone been attacked? Had Al Qaeda attacked the capital again? I asked, “Juwad, I have not seen the news on Baghdad, what happened in Baghdad?” Perplexed, he responded, “No Baghdad—what happened in Baghdad?” Completely lost, I replied, “Juwad, treed ta'aroof an Baghdad loo Baghdadi?” (Juwad, do you want to know about Baghdad or Baghdadi?) He promptly responded, “Oh, yes, yes, yes—Baghdadi!”

I rushed into the MiTT COC and called 2/3's command center to see if there was any current action in Baghdadi. Sadly, there was action, and it involved our team. The team had been hit with an IED on their way to Baghdadi, near where we had found the IEDs.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Based on the location of the IED, it sounded like the same IEDs we'd found—the IEDs that EOD was supposed to have destroyed. If EOD caused someone in our Iraqi army or our MiTT to get jacked up, there was going to be some serious hell to pay. I
rushed to call EOD to see if they had followed up on the IEDs from the day prior. The EOD clerk responded, “No. We did not have time.”

I was furious. I called up to the dam hoping to get more information from 2/3. The watch officer on duty proclaimed, “Lieutenant Gray, the latest information we have is that the convoy was hit by an IED thirty minutes ago.” “Great, that was really helpful,” I said. I hopped into the Waz with Juwad. “Yalla, nrooh lil harakat” (Let's go to the Iraqi COC), I said. I knew that relying on the Marines for the latest information on the MiTT was not the smart choice. Getting information over the Iraqi radio net was the way to go.