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March 2004 - We didn't know what to expect. The tension increased by each day. The events in Falluja with the Blackwater guys were fresh in our minds. The Coalition (= ambassador Bremer) closure of the Muqtada Al Sadrs newspaper had stirred up n a general unrest not only in Baghdad but in most of central and Southern Iraq. Attacks were reported in several areas like Al Kut, Nassiryah and Najaf.
In the Green Zone rumors of imminent attacks coming from the river had us all revising our security measures and starting to plan possible escape routes.
I was alone in the building with the five bodyguards. The rest of the staff was outside Iraq and I had ordered them to stay out until we had a better overview of the situation. I had moved from my top floor bedroom to the ground floor together with the bodyguards in order for us to react as fast as possible in the event of an attack. The Coalition JOC considered an attack by Mahdi forces imminent, so we had to do our planning. Apart from packing a bag with the absolute essentials passport, money and rations, we all had our guns ready and with extra magazines. The Body armour we would wear during trips out side of the zone became our second skin in earnest those days.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
The throne room was was in some ways an eerie place. If felt like that not least because the event for which I had gone there , was a memorial service for a US soldier.
Knowing that Saddam had been in that room several times and that right here and now it was going to be the setting for a memorial service added a surreal sense to the room.
Mike H. came into our overheated office in the palace - the outside temperature was about 120F and we had no air conditioning in the office - and for the first time I saw him in uniform. He had normally been dressed just as casual as the rest of us. The reason soon became apparent as he asked me, if I was going to the memorial service. Communication at that time in the CPA was more oral than anything else, so I had actually not heard about the memorial service until Mike mentioned it to me. I had heard about the sergeant who had died, but such news traveled rather quickly around the place.
Just two days before I had been out on an escorted trip, and it might have been sergeant Travis leading the escort. Thus I felt it only natural to join Mike and the others for the service. This was the least I could do to honor those, who every day risked their lives to protect people like me.
People started trickling in most of them were in combat fatigues. The mood was somber.
At one end of the large room was a small platform on which a pair of army issue boots placed. Behind them a rifle with the muzzle pointing down and on the butt a helmet was placed bearing the name of Sergeant Travis. The platform was flanked by the US flag and the flag of his army unit.
This was the first - but sadly not the last - memorial service that I attended, so I did not not what to expect. But what impacted me most was the roll call when members of his unit stood up and and answered when their names were called out - but for sergeant Travis. His name was called out three times. Neither I nor Mike who was standing next to me could avoid or many of the others present could help being touched by emotion, knowing that the name of this dead soldier had been called out. Tears were streaming down on several faces. At the end of the ceremony a lone piper played "Amazing grace". For me at one time both a tremendously beautiful tribute to this young man and a terribly sad moment knowing that he had died for us and that he left behind a small family somewhere in the US.
It was a very touching ceremony amidst the uncertainty as to where we were headed in the reconstruction effort and with ambassador Bremer having taken over from Jay Garner as the Coalition's civilian administrator just a few weeks earlier.
Little did we know what was in store for us...
Knowing that Saddam had been in that room several times and that right here and now it was going to be the setting for a memorial service added a surreal sense to the room.
Mike H. came into our overheated office in the palace - the outside temperature was about 120F and we had no air conditioning in the office - and for the first time I saw him in uniform. He had normally been dressed just as casual as the rest of us. The reason soon became apparent as he asked me, if I was going to the memorial service. Communication at that time in the CPA was more oral than anything else, so I had actually not heard about the memorial service until Mike mentioned it to me. I had heard about the sergeant who had died, but such news traveled rather quickly around the place.
Just two days before I had been out on an escorted trip, and it might have been sergeant Travis leading the escort. Thus I felt it only natural to join Mike and the others for the service. This was the least I could do to honor those, who every day risked their lives to protect people like me.
People started trickling in most of them were in combat fatigues. The mood was somber.
At one end of the large room was a small platform on which a pair of army issue boots placed. Behind them a rifle with the muzzle pointing down and on the butt a helmet was placed bearing the name of Sergeant Travis. The platform was flanked by the US flag and the flag of his army unit.
This was the first - but sadly not the last - memorial service that I attended, so I did not not what to expect. But what impacted me most was the roll call when members of his unit stood up and and answered when their names were called out - but for sergeant Travis. His name was called out three times. Neither I nor Mike who was standing next to me could avoid or many of the others present could help being touched by emotion, knowing that the name of this dead soldier had been called out. Tears were streaming down on several faces. At the end of the ceremony a lone piper played "Amazing grace". For me at one time both a tremendously beautiful tribute to this young man and a terribly sad moment knowing that he had died for us and that he left behind a small family somewhere in the US.
It was a very touching ceremony amidst the uncertainty as to where we were headed in the reconstruction effort and with ambassador Bremer having taken over from Jay Garner as the Coalition's civilian administrator just a few weeks earlier.
Little did we know what was in store for us...
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Roll Call - part 1
Yesterday I happened to watch the movie "Taking Chance" with Kevin Bacon. Perhaps in itself not a great movie, but the story nevertheless had a profound impact on me. It sent me almost six years back in time to Iraq. I was posted there from end of May 2003 until July 2005. The story of the movie suddenly came alive and I relived some of the incidents that I witnessed close up in Iraq.
The burning Humvee on the road from the airport to the Green Zone the day I set foot on Iraqi soil for the first time. The increasing number of bombings and mortar attacks since the bombing of the UN Headquarters i Baghdad, the attack on the Rashid Hotel, the events in March and April of 04 with Muqtada Al Sadr and his Mahdi Army - and the memorial service for a sergeant of the US Army.
The Memorial service was what the movie brought back to my mind with both so much clarity in the form of crisp images stored somewhere in my brain - and the emotions reliving that particular event.
It was probably the first such memorial service to be held in the Republican Palace - or the Freedom Palace as the Americans liked to call it. Once one of Saddam Husein's preferred dwellings - although he rarely stayed for more than a day or two in most of his different hideouts around Baghdad and Iraq. What made the memorial Service special and in many ways ironic was that it took place in the "Throne Room". Saddam's gold chair - his throne - was there in front of the enormous painting of the" holy SCUD Missiles" and with the Al Aqsa mosque surrounded by jumping Arabic horses painted on the ceiling.
I was working for the Coalition Provisional Authority - CPA - but sent out to Baghdad by one of the Coalition Partners. Most of my co workers were American, but there were a few Brits and Australians and a single Dutchman an Dane in the team as well.
At that time some of us would drive in our own armored vehicles (I did not have my own at the time so I piggy bagged on the Brits and the nice guys from USAID) but without any escort to places around Baghdad to participate in meetings mainly with U.N. officials as there was no local Iraqi authority anywhere to deal with. The few escorts provided by the U.S. Army were used almost exclusively by the Americans. On a rare occasion the rest of us got a chance to get this extra security - and we were grateful for that. And this is where the memorial service comes in..
The burning Humvee on the road from the airport to the Green Zone the day I set foot on Iraqi soil for the first time. The increasing number of bombings and mortar attacks since the bombing of the UN Headquarters i Baghdad, the attack on the Rashid Hotel, the events in March and April of 04 with Muqtada Al Sadr and his Mahdi Army - and the memorial service for a sergeant of the US Army.
The Memorial service was what the movie brought back to my mind with both so much clarity in the form of crisp images stored somewhere in my brain - and the emotions reliving that particular event.
It was probably the first such memorial service to be held in the Republican Palace - or the Freedom Palace as the Americans liked to call it. Once one of Saddam Husein's preferred dwellings - although he rarely stayed for more than a day or two in most of his different hideouts around Baghdad and Iraq. What made the memorial Service special and in many ways ironic was that it took place in the "Throne Room". Saddam's gold chair - his throne - was there in front of the enormous painting of the" holy SCUD Missiles" and with the Al Aqsa mosque surrounded by jumping Arabic horses painted on the ceiling.
I was working for the Coalition Provisional Authority - CPA - but sent out to Baghdad by one of the Coalition Partners. Most of my co workers were American, but there were a few Brits and Australians and a single Dutchman an Dane in the team as well.
At that time some of us would drive in our own armored vehicles (I did not have my own at the time so I piggy bagged on the Brits and the nice guys from USAID) but without any escort to places around Baghdad to participate in meetings mainly with U.N. officials as there was no local Iraqi authority anywhere to deal with. The few escorts provided by the U.S. Army were used almost exclusively by the Americans. On a rare occasion the rest of us got a chance to get this extra security - and we were grateful for that. And this is where the memorial service comes in..
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