Outside the Wire

Letter from Michael:
May 9, 2008

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, and after 6 years of military service, I had the opportunity of traveling “outside the wire”. “Outside the wire” is military speak for venturing away from the relatively safe and [less-relatively] friendly confines of our Forward Operating Base (FOB). Every grunt worth his salt yearns, even lusts for the chance to go outside the wire. You see, inside the wire, everything the Marine Corps does seems to be with the singular purpose of making life for those trapped inside the wire more burdensome. Working parties – small groups of Marines who appear to have nothing better to do than play cards, read a book or work out, are assigned laborious tasks such as burning the crappers (Marines prefer a different term but I will stick with “crappers” as it is the least offensive of descriptors). Yes, burning crappers. To understand the woes of such a task, one must first understand why such a task is necessary. We have no plumbing out here. Well, we have no mechanical plumbing. Nevertheless, God, in His infinite wisdom, gave the human body its own plumbing. And a human’s plumbing is like clockwork, unless something is wrong. With no mechanical plumbing, we are left to relieve ourselves in what can only be described as outhouses. You take a big gasoline/oil barrel, cut it in half, and build a rickety wooden structure to fit over it, and the end result looks like one of those old west-style outhouses. Well, with several hundred Brits and Yanks working all hours of the day and night out here, those half-barrels fill up pretty fast. One of the biggest concerns in a place like this is sanitation, so the only feasible solution is to burn our waste. Two Marines, usually very junior Marines or Marines who have done something to upset “the man” will be tasked with burning the crappers. They take some gasoline, soak the barrel with gas, then toss in a match. The good news is that the piles of waste are reduced to ashes. The bad news is…well, you can’t really understand just how putrid the smell is until it hits your nostrils. You can imagine, but you’ll never fully understand the smell of burning human waste until you experience it. Such is life “inside the wire”.

But I digress. So yesterday, a Lance Corporal (junior Marine) comes running into my bunker looking quite panicked. He tells me that I am needed in the COC immediately. I tell him that I’ll be right there. I meander up to the COC and am told that I have 10 minutes to get whatever gear I need to go out to the front lines to conduct an investigation. I can’t tell you what I had to investigate for security reasons, but let’s just say it wasn’t pleasant. I think it was God’s way of protecting me by giving me just 10 minutes to get ready. I had no time to let fear set in. Yes, I was scared. Not the paralyzing kind of fear, but the kind of fear that lets you know that you are alive, and that you want to remain alive. The survival instinct if you will. So I gathered what I figured I’d need: my flak jacket (i.e. bullet-proof vest that weighs about 40lbs), my M4 carbine rifle, and a backpack that I threw a bottle of water, 5 packets of Gatorade that I had stockpiled from lunch (to give to the troops on the front lines, the ones who really need it), some writing materials, and some baby wipes. If I had been given more time, I would have taken more time to think about what would have been really useful, such as bug spray, my camera, etc. But with only 10 minutes, I was in survival mode and just trying to get what I needed or thought I needed.

The drive out to the front was hot, dusty (hotter and dustier than normal because I was stuffed into the back of the Humvee like a refugee) and bumpy. There are no paved roads out here, just dirt trails that we have carved into the desert. We hit some big bumps and I am thrown from my seat into the ceiling of the Humvee. Good thing I am wearing my body armor and helmet. After an hour-long drive through a wasteland of desert, we arrived at a small village. I looked out of my window and saw what looked like the set of an old spaghetti-Western, a bad one at that. One main street through town, surrounded on either side by mud buildings. The place looked deserted at first. I saw not a soul. There were bullet holes in most of the buildings. Old and crumbling walls sat behind newer yet still crumbling walls. To keep outsiders out? Perhaps to keep the villagers in? The street was lined with trash. I couldn’t even make out what the trash used to be. As we pushed deeper into the village, I saw some children. They waved and gave us warm and honest smiles but with rotten teeth. I thought about those children and the kind of life they will probably live. A hard and, in all likelihood, short life. The life expectancy out here is not good, maybe 45 years. These kids were herding goats, and it reminded me of seeing my kids with goats. The only difference is that my kids were petting the goats at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. These kids were moving goats from point A to point B in order to survive, not as some sort of barnyard photo op.

We drove by one building and I saw pictures of Osama bin Laden plastered up on its walls. I wondered if it was the Afghan version of a wanted poster, or maybe it was a political ad…Four more years! Four more years! I kicked myself for not having a camera. We arrived at our location and I was greeted by several battle-hardened Marines. At this point in my career, I know better than to act as if I belong. I readily acknowledge that I am not a grunt, nor do I wish to be one. I freely admit that I am not a combat veteran, battle-tested and keen to kill. I am perfectly okay with that. I have always believed that the Marine Corps pays me to use my brain as a weapon. As a result, I tend to have a self-deprecating style and sense of humor, in an attempt to put the Marines at ease that I am not out on their turf as some act of bravado or to earn a medal. I am just a guy trying to do my job and go home to my wife and kids. After several hours of questioning Marines about what happened, I made my notes, handed out the Gatorade packets, and waited for my ride home. All in all, the trip took about 8 hours. Not once did I get shot at, or even hear a gunshot. I would call my first trip outside the wire pleasantly uneventful.