ILLUSION OF CONTROL

I don’t know how others do it... its not something that’s openly talked about among soldiers... how do other people deal with being daily placed in situations where at any moment they could die... do they just suppress that fact, or do they just not realize the gravity of the situation... I know what I do... I think mitigation... I do the things that we are trained to do to lessen the chance of getting hit... I'm always focused... I'm always thinking... when out on the road, I'm paranoid... I try to think like the enemy... I try to see things from there eyes... tactical things... I look for our vulnerabilities.... I think that if I can recognize them, then I can mitigate a potential attack... but in the end, all I'm doing is creating an illusion of control... this illusion of control is every where... I'm the TC (truck commander) of our lead truck in our convoys... the TC is in control of their truck... he controls the driver by directing him when to turn, to veer right or left, speed up, slow down, go, stop, everything... he controls the gunner.... stop traffic on the left/right, clear traffic in front of us, change sector of fire to the 3,6,9,12, watch this guy, watch that car... use your horn, use your laser, spot light this, barrel on that, everything.... he controls his dismounts.... change radio freq to this, watch that guy behind us... help us back up, fix the radio, dismount.... this is the job of the TC... he is constantly thinking and ensuring that his truck is doing the right thing... it kinda seems like mental busy work... always checking then double checking... the soldiers in his truck rely on his guidance... all of this creates a false sense of control for the TC, cause in the grand scheme of things, I really control nothing... I could do all the right things and get everybody in my truck killed... I could do all the wrong things and everybody lives... there is no "do this and you will live"... everything is based off recent trends... nothing is guaranteed....

I respond to an EFP attack that enters thru the TC door and rides the dash board all the way to the drivers door.... for the next week I'm subconsciously trying to sit as far back in my seat as I can... its like I'm unknowingly afraid of my dashboard now... them we respond to another EFP that enters the TC door and rips the TC and drivers seats completely off... it rides along the backs of both the TC and the driver... now for the next week I'm trying to sit as close to the dash as possible... I respond to attacks and the only thing I see is the blood... its like everything else is in black in white but the blood is in color, and it covers everything.... I responded last night to an EFP attack that hit the TC and driver.... it’s like being hit by a missile... blood was everywhere... I looked inside the truck and the smell was deadly... it was a hot, explosive/blood/death smell... it was sickening.... blood doesn’t bother me.... it never has... but when I look into a truck that’s covered in blood, all I see is my truck... all I see is my soldiers and I... I see where we sit and who would have died had we been the ones to take that route first... I look around the area... I try to answer the unanswerable... how do I stop this from happening to us... its impossible.... stepping back and looking at the scene I see 10-15 different places where they could have attacked from... the gravity of it all sets in... Im at the grace of luck... does god have a say in this... maybe... I cant say for sure... i can say that i don’t have a say... i can scan, i can look, i can do everything right... but that doesn’t stop it... trying to find an IED/EFP in Iraq is like trying to find the proverbial needle in the hay stack....

when you do a job like PSD or other convoy operations like this, you can go months with nothing happening to your convoy... you don’t see any action what so ever... you get the Intel reports the morning of the mission, but they are really vague... they are picture less and come a crossed with a news report style writing.... they pretty much just cover the facts of the situations... when you read these for months and see nothing you become desensitized to the chaos an attack creates... you read that an IED struck the driver side of the last truck in a convoy and that one soldier died and 2 were wounded... that’s it... you read these 1000 times over... but when you see the truck and the blood, and the faces, it has a bigger impact... its not just words on paper anymore... its people...

it doesn’t help that this war is fought on two fronts... you have the soldiers on the ground.... we patrol the streets and give our lives, but have little said in what we can and cant do.... the other front this war is fought on is in our government and the upper echelons of our military... our TTP's (tactics, techniques, and procedures) ROE (rules of engagement) and EOF (escalation of force) are dictated on this front.... its very frustrating.... hearts and minds isn’t the preferred tactic of us on the ground... it feels like we are handcuffed sometimes by the higher ups... i don’t like placating to the Iraqi’s at my own expense... now I'm not arguing the long term affect hearts and minds can have... the short term is where we suffer... preventing us from being able to fully utilize our assets and to mitigate risk at the expensive of Iraqi's is what there plan forces us to accept.... hearts and minds forces us to give in and risk our safety and security by enabling freedoms to the Iraqi's that put us in tough situations.... back a few years ago the notion that civilian traffic can come close to your convoy was unheard of... they knew better... anything closer then 50-60 meters was considered a hostile act... now we are told we are to allow civilian cars to break into our convoys and to let there traffic flow with us... we aren’t to inconvenience them... when we have to stop and cordon off something... anything... we are to allow the traffic to flow along side us.... sometimes we have to sit on a site for 3-4 hours.... so for 3-4 hours we give the enemy time to put a big bomb in a car and drive past us and blow up... this isn’t a tactic the enemy isn’t familiar with.... this decision is decided by the higher ups... my contention is that if you want me to stand on the road for 3 hours hoping no one wants to blow me up today, then you stand with me... if your going to assume the responsibility of the decision, then you should reap the consequences of it as well...

Feeling like you have no control is a scary feeling... especially when you’re charged with keeping others alive..... having to explain the circumstances surrounding a death of one of my soldiers to a wife or a mom is terrifying to me... ultimately i make the decisions that decide weather they live or die... what i have trouble coming to terms with is that right and wrong decisions are decided after the fact.... in the moment, there is no right or wrong, there is no text book answer.... you make a decision... the situation plays out.... then when everything is done, when reflecting on those decisions, you are able to see what was right and what was wrong.... right and wrong tactical moves are largely hindsight determinations...

my current assignment allows me to see almost on a daily basis the devastating affect IED's/EFP's have... its crazy... when you get hit, its like being caught in a tornado.... you let it run its course and then if your still around you try to pick up the pieces..... i hate rolling up to a convoy who was just hit and seeing the faces of the guys on scene.... seeing the blood from the ones who were flown out.... it angers me... i hate seeing the faces of Iraqi's when i make them wait... when i don’t let them do what they want and i restrict them... i could care less what we are suppose to do, if i don’t want to let the traffic flow then i wont... ill take an ass chewing if it comes to that....

being in Iraq this time around feels like I'm standing in a pitch black room with all of my friends and family... all we can see is each other nothing else.... every once in a while someone else in the room that we cant see sucker punches one of us.... the sucker punch kills, and dismembers routinely... as soon as they appear they disappear right back into the darkness of the room... all we know is that now one of us is badly hurt or dead and we cant see who did it... all we really want is for someone to turn on the fucking light... but the light never comes on... we are left standing and waiting for the next sucker punch... this goes on for a year...



this is the driver side door after an EFP attack...



inside the door you can see the chaos an attack creates inside a truck... you can also see the blood stains... these pictures really don't do it justice... having a panoramic view of everything and experiencing the smells makes these attack 100 times more vivid....



this is the entry point... that's about the size of a bowling ball...

in the end, we control nothing.... these images remind me of that fact...