Tuesday, our class traveled to West Point to participate in an exercise where we were imbedded in Iraq. We were playing a sort of video game with cadets at West Point, as if we were really reporting in Iraq.
The following is my story - the characters are true but the events themselves are just what transpired during the video game.
By RACHEL MORGAN
BAGHDAD - For some soldiers, being stationed in Iraq is all about waiting.
“This is what the military is all about – you hurry up and get somewhere, then you wait,” said 20-year old Andrew Cavallo, an Army gunner whose humvee is part of a convoy on the lookout for a high-value target – a possible violent insurgent - on the outskirts of Baghdad on Nov. 10.
The humvee driver is 22-year old Rich Rendon, an Army brat born on Fort Belvoir in Virginia who has followed in both his father and grandfather’s military footsteps. Cavallo also has family ties to the military – his father served 28 years in the Air Force and his brother Mark is a student at the United States Military Academy at West Point in upstate New York.
Both Cavallo and Rendon are members of the Army’s 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, deployed to Iraq in Aug. 2009.
In the outskirts of Baghdad, palm trees and clusters of run-down buildings dot the horizon. Very few Iraqis are visible. The only sign of conflict are the three humvees that routinely cruise the 23-square mile piece of land southeast of the city.
Rendon and Cavallo are part of these convoy - they scan the area, then head northeast toward the city. They investigate an abandoned parking lot, a mosque.
“[Mosques] are where the bad guys hang out,” Rendon said. “There might be terrorists there.” But they find nothing.
They sweep the barren, dusty landscape for an uneventful three hours. They plow over fences, kick down doors.
“We’re destroying most of their city right now, but it’s all in the name of democracy,” Cavallo said. “They need a democracy… There are no hajjis here, let’s go,” he said after investigating an empty home.
Both refer to Iraqis as ‘hajjis.’ Traditionally, a hajji refers to a Muslim person who has taken the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, but since the start of the Iraqi War, soldiers use to it refer to any Muslim in Iraq. In that context, the word is derogatory, Renden said.
“After you see your brother, sister, fellow soldier killed by these people in the most cowardly ways, it’s hard to see them as people,” Cavallo said.
They say they actually look forward to conflict, to fighting. It’s better than the alternative – waiting, hoping that death doesn’t knock at your door.
“[Fighting] means I’m doing my job,” Rendon said. “That’s what I’m trained to do.”
“It’s like the night before Christmas,” Cavallo added. For the first time, his youth becomes apparent. “It’s probably going to pick up soon. This is the calm before the storm.”
He had no way of knowing how true these words were.
Their communication with other humvees was spotty at best – many radios lost battery power and quit working altogether. The pair continued on alone. After three hours of driving around the in dusty, 95-degree heat, they approached Checkpoint 5, en route to South Baghdad.
Army soldiers are under strict orders not to inflict harm to Iraqis unless they pose an immediate danger to themselves or other soldiers or are blatantly committing another crime, such as rape. They are not so harm anyone who is removed from fighting due to injury or surrender.
But it’s not always black-and-white.
“I know the rules are if they’re shooting at you [you can kill them,] but if a guy has an RPG, you have to use your head,” Cavallo said. “You don’t want him to engage you first. If they’re unarmed, we just keep an eye on them, but you never know what they’re hiding – bombs, RPG’s, AK47’s.”
He spotted some Iraqis throwing rocks at other soldiers.
“Dude, they’re throwing rocks, should we kill them?” he said.
“Better safe than sorry,” Rendon said.
Cavallo shot the man once, twice, three times. The man’s body crumpled onto the sand. Another Iraqi wearing a red and white checked turban sprinted toward the humvee brandishing an RPG. Rendon presses hard on the accelerator and the man disappears beneath the tank. His crushed body is visible through the back windshield.
“You get used to seeing it,” Rendon said.
Cavallo disagrees.
“You don’t get used to it, you just tolerate it.”
Less than five minutes later, they would both be dead.
They are suddenly surrounded by insurgents. Another humvee rammed their humvee. They realize it’s not one of their own in the driver’s seat.
“OK, we got an insurgent humvee,” Rendon said. Neither have time to react. Chaos ensues, shot after shot is fired from the 50-cal mounted on the back of the now-enemy tank. Bullets ping off Rendon and Cavallo’s humvee, shattering the windows. It’s only seconds before both Rendon and Cavallo are hit, Cavallo multiple times in the chest, Rendon in the face. Seconds later, they are both dead.
They are two of the eight soldiers and two journalists who died Nov. 10, 2009, just south of Baghdad. Most were in humvees with little or no communication, a fact that “absolutely” contributed to casualties, said Battalion Commander Garrett Guidry.
“At the beginning of the [mission,] the company commander and I didn’t have a working radio,” he said. “We got radio about five minutes later, but not enough information was being passed up and down.”
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