Quick Response

January 2, 2008

Last night I was up late watching my new favorite show, “Battle Star Galactica”. Over here you can get any movie, new or old, any TV show, new or old, on DVD for just a few bucks. So I am crash coursing all 3 seasons of BSG in short order. I hope to have it done by the end of the week. Anyway, at about 1015 a call goes out over our radios for our Deputy Ops Chief from the FOB security base. After a few calls “Goose”, (our Dept Ops Chief), answers. He was obviously in bed, as was the rest of the team. But we are all required to keep our radios on 24 hours a day just in case. The caller says he has 7 inmates over at the prison being moved out of their unit and didn’t know why. I didn’t know this, but they have cameras in some parts of the prison being monitored 24 hours a day. Goose tells the guy to stand-by and that he’ll be over there shortly. I took this to mean that he was going to get up, get dressed, armor up, and roll over to the prison in the dead of night. I thought I would be gracious and offer my assistance, so I did. Of course, after I chimed in on the radio offering help several others piped in too. (I guess not everyone was asleep.) He told us all to stand-by and he’d get back to us. But me, being the proactive person that I am, decided to get suited up and roll over to the staging area and wait there just in case Goose came back on the radio asking for volunteers. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity to see the prison at night. So I hollered at my roommate and we got up, got dressed, armed ourselves, and scooted over to the Haji-Shops to wait.

This may come as some surprise, but the Iraqis have been known, on occasion, to walk inmates right out the front gate of the prison. In fact, a few months back, the Warden of the segregation unit waited until about 11 at night and loaded 3 high profile inmates into his personal car and drove them right out the front gate with only a wave and a nod. None of the Inmates, or that particular Warden, has been seen since. Only speculation can explain what caused him to do it. Maybe he’s a rich man today, or maybe he saved the lives of his children. We may never know. So when we hear that 7 inmates are being moved in the middle of the night and nobody knows why we have to assume it might be because someone is going to drive them right out the front gate too.

My roomy and I arrived at the Haji-Shops before anyone else. As it turned out, Goose and our boss showed up just a few minutes after us with 3 other guys and they were ready to roll out right then. So it was a good thing we got our booties over there or we would have missed the party. 2 guys jumped in with us and the rest went in another rig and away we went! It was all very quick. No explanation, no instructions, no clue. Guys were just locking and loading their shit in the back seat, which is normally bad ju-ju on the FOB. So that told me we weren’t out tonight to mess around with “Health and Welfare” checks. Now, usually when we roll off the FOB enroute to the prison and we hit all the check points along the way the young Ugandan security guys wave us through with an AK47 and a smile. But tonight we were all blacked out and driving faster than we should have been, (If you roll up too fast to one of these check points these little African bad-asses will shoot you dead!) So I was a bit edgy, to say the least. I mean, the air in my rig was already adrenalin thick. And now we’re hauling ass up to these check points with our damn lights off! Let’s just say the pucker factor for old Jimbo was at an all time high!

So we arrived at the front gate to the prison without incident. The guards open it up and we drive right through the damn looking glass. The place looks bad during the day because it’s 3^rd world dirty, and there are people walking around mish-mash everywhere, etc. But at night it has a whole different feel. Right off the bat I see a small camp fire near the front gate where the 2 guards are obviously doing their best to stay warm. Now this may sound funny…but a camp fire out in the open at a prison in the middle of town is just plain weird! And then the darkness hit me. It was dark everywhere! Where the hell were all the lights!? As we drove deeper into the prison a few street lamps popped up here and there, but this place is just plain dark at night. Again, call me crazy…but shouldn’t a place where you are hoping to keep bad people in and worse people out have a little light to help you in the endeavor!? And then there were dogs. There were lots of these stray Iraqi dogs running around chasing our cars, hunkering in dark corners, or sifting through garbage. They are dogs like I’ve never seen before. They’re tall and lanky like a greyhound, but have the face and snout of a Shepard. (I’ll have to get a picture of one.) We were tasked with driving to the very back of the prison and checking the furthest gate to make sure it was secure. So as we drove deeper and deeper into the place I started to come across people popping up in dark places, some huddled by small fires and some huddled by TV’s. It was eerie to see silhouettes cast by the dim light of a TV set out in the open air. It was Stephen King creepy! We got to the back gate and found the tower guard asleep, woke him up, checked the gate, and then headed to the unit where the inmates were seen being moved from. We got there and Goose and #1 were already there. We parked next to their rig and jumped out. One of the other senior guys made sure I was locked and loaded and told me that when we have to do one of these “QRT” things that we “go heavy” right there on the FOB. I didn’t need coaxing.

As we spread out and walked through the compound, in the pitch dark, I thought to myself, “What the hell am I doing?” (I’d use the real expletive…but my mother may read this.) I had no idea what I was looking for, or supposed to be looking for, or whether or not I could shoot the first SOB I came across. But these other guys were cruising around at the high ready so I guessed that I should be too. I decided I’d ask questions later and “act as if” for the time being. We found Goose and #1 around the back of the compound at the door of the unit. We fanned out and provided cover as they went inside to figure out what was going on. The other guys all picked a corner to cover so I did the same. My particular corner happened to look down a long passageway that ran between the length of the building and the compound’s perimeter wall. So I posted myself there and kept my eye on this corridor. As I’m standing there all sorts of freaky thoughts start to run through my head. The least of which is that I’m in Baghdad, Iraq, in the middle of the damn night, with a loaded rifle, in the middle of a 9000 man, shitty, 3^rd world prison! Just what the hell did I think I was doing!? And then, as I’m standing there imagining hordes of insurgents piling over the wall right in front of me, I see movement down in the bushes. And sure as shit, this guy comes walking out of the bushes right towards me. Of course, I’m thinking, “Oh shit, here’s some stupid inmate out wandering around and I’m going to make CNN by having to shoot him!” So I level my rifle at this turd from about 50 yards away. I left it on safe just in case he moved off and headed in another direction. But as he walked closer and closer, and I realized he was coming right to me, I clicked the lever to “burst” and said in a quick, husky tone, “Hey…” This stupid SOB walked right up to me and had no idea I was there because I startled him and he looked at me with fear and surprise in his eyes. He was close enough for me to see that he was wearing sweat pants and a standard issue ICO shirt. He said something in Arabic and pointed to the door next to where I was standing. I poked my head in the door and found a bathroom. The guy was an ICO taking the long way to the crapper! At first I just kind of calmly waved him on but then thought better of it and asked to see his ID. He didn’t know what I was saying so I pointed at my own ID and then at him. He pulled his ID out of his pocket and handed it to me. Sure enough, “Haji Ali Babba somethingoranother”, and his picture matched. So I said, “Salaam Alekum”, and waved him on. I put my rifle back on safe, muttered a silent, “oh shit”, to myself, and then went back to my corner.

Turns out the 7 guys were being moved legitimately but no one was notified. That’s a problem above my pay grade, so I don’t have to worry about its disposition. I brought up the fact to my Warden, (who is sometimes the night time Duty Officer), that all these ICO’s should be wearing their uniforms and have their ID’s visible at all times. He told me, through my Terp, that he’s tried to ensure all his ICO’s follow the dress code, but that nothing ever happens to them if they don’t. He told me that one or two should be fired on the spot to send a message to the others that wearing your uniform and ID is an important part of running a prison. I told him about the incident from the night before and he told me that if I’d have shot that ICO the same message he was talking about would have been conveyed to the rest of the staff. I could only chuckle at that.

It was in interesting night, to say the least. I hope that every now again something like this happens to remind me just where I’m at and just what I’m supposed to be doing. Yes, it was dark and spooky over there at the prison. But I felt as alive as I’ve felt in a very long time.

-Jim Franks