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

I woke up thoroughly disoriented, the basement was still pitch-black, and it took me a handful of seconds to get a bearing on where I was, which is a disconcerting experience when you realize you have woken up somewhere in Baghdad.  There is nothing quite like gaining consciousness in the bowels of a base in Baghdad to throw the day into rather unique  perspective.

My father’s bed was empty, he was already out and about, and I got dressed, intent on finding him before the day got any older. The Baghdad sun hitting my eyes snapped me into wakefulness instantly; I could tell it was still early in the day: it was warm, but not hot, and my shadow was long against the the sand-colored walls. Breakfast was my first priority, and I followed the soldiers marching in and out of a door on the second floor. In my experience, the only thing a soldier is better at finding than food is somewhere to rest his head and grab a few minutes of sleep.

My assumption proved correct, and I was soon eating breakfast with my father as we talked about our plan for the day. We ironed out who would be carrying what equipment-I with the still camera, my father with the video-and we discussed the cave that would be our home for the next few days. It would become the topic of choice for the rest of our time at Apache.

After the meal we made our way to the Attack Co. TOC, hoping to figure out out plan for the day. When we got there we met Captain Spencer, the Attack Co. Commanding Officer, someone we would become very familiar with over the course of days.  He was brief, but informative, giving us a sketch of the day, and a little information about himself. He was a prior enlisted officer, which means he was an NCO before before becoming a commissioned officer; it was only later that I found out he was an E-7, a Sgt. 1st Class, a development which surprised me, mostly because he looked so much younger than he was.

We were going to head out with his Black Platoon, his platoon, in an hour or so, accompanying him to a tribal council meeting in hopes of getting an idea of the local political climate in Aadamiyah. He kept his face fairly blank as he told us this, but I expected he was fairly unenthused about attending a tribal council meeting. Most of the meetings I had attended blurred into a haze of cigarette smoke, sweet tea, and mustaches yelling in arabic; an experience which was comedic in small doses, deathly serious at times, but fairly impenetrable overall.

We went back to our corner of the cave and got our equipment together: cameras, gloves, pens, notepads, and most importantly, our body armor and helmets. Those were the pieces of the puzzle we were least likely to forget, the added weight had become familiar, constant, albeit unpleasant at times. There was a certain amount of comfort in feeling all 35 lbs attached to your body; sometimes I would idly rap my fingers against the heavy plates on the front of my body, taking satisfaction in the hollow knocking noise, the sound of safety, I hoped.

We headed out to wear the trucks were spooling up, and though we were fifteen minutes early, we could see that the platoon gathering, getting ready to head out. We quickened our pace, we didn’t want to miss more of the meeting than we already had, and we didn’t want to make a bad impression on our first day with Black Platoon. We merged into the larger circle, listening intently, ready to go out on mission.