Embedded journalism from the front lines of
Afghanistan & Iraq ~ by Mike & Carlos Boettcher

Traveling with the Army can be an exhilarating experience or a painful one, and my ride to JSS H2, a combat outpost manned by the 101st Airborne was no exception. Getting to H2 was unpleasant, mostly because the MRAP was crowded and I had set my bag on my lap at an awkward angle, resulting in my legs going numb yet again. Sitting in the vehicle I started to become oddly paranoid at how often my legs were becoming numb with all the rough transit I was doing, but looking around the MRAP I saw seven other men with equally awkward loads and lightened up a bit about the fate of my legs.

The drive was relieved by an excellent distraction, a soldier by the name of Sergeant Johnson sat across from us and before long we were covering a variety of topics. My first questions were about H2 and our ultimate goal, JSS Shula. He was more than happy to oblige, giving us a brief recap about his experiences there.

The one that stuck me most was a story he told about an IRAM truck that had been found outside of H2. IRAM trucks are among the most deadly examples of indirect fire deployed by insurgents against US Forces. The truck is filled with mortar tubes, each tube containing a round joined to a small rocket. The rocket gives the mortar exceptional range, something that is essential for an attack on a JSS as vigilantly guarded as H2. The mortar tubes are wired together and linked to a detonator of some kind, most likely a cell phone. The trucked is parked, the tubes are calibrated to hit the target, and the cell phone detonator is then called, releasing a rain of explosives that devastate their chosen target. Because the mortars fire so quickly, the time for the soldiers to get under cover is reduced to a matter of heartbeats, and the amount of firepower used means that a single wrong step can be a fatal one.

Sergeant Johnson told me how the Indirect Fire Alarms went off one night and everybody grabbed their weapon and got into the MRAPs, reliable cover for such an attack. The soldiers moved so quickly that they were outfitted in whatever they had been wearing at the time: for some it meant full uniforms, for others it was flip flops and underwear, any hope of sleep dashed by the sounding of the alarms. There were two constants, everybody wore their body armor, and every soldier had their rifle. Even in crisis they had their tools.

Patrols were sent out and the IRAM truck was found, its deadly cargo all set up and ready to go. When the soldiers investigated further they discovered the reason the mortars had not launched. The cell phone detonator, the most critical component of the improvised weapon, had been set to vibrate and not ringer as had been intended. A simple act of carelessness on the part of an insurgent had been the difference between life and death for the men at H2.

When he finished telling the story I found myself sitting up a little straighter, my eyebrows trying desperately to begin their final climb into my hairline. Such a small thing, something we have all done in our daily lives. For us it means a missed call, a minor annoyance we may grumble about but forget in a matter of minutes. For these soldiers it meant that they are still breathing today.

Sitting there I reevaluated my assumptions about being out here once again. I always thought that if you kept your head down and weren’t stupid, you would make it out of war in one piece. But life doesn’t like to play by such straightforward rules, and there are few things in life as capricious as a war zone. Out here, you do the best that you can do as much as you can. But sometimes there isn’t anything you can do; sometimes fate intervenes, for better or worse. Sometimes the difference between life and death can be one missed call.