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In The Words Of The Dead

by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 26 March 2008

Wars and conflicts International

Lizette Alvarez and Andrew Lehren

March 26, 2008

BY THE time Jerry Ryen King decided to write about his experiences in Iraq, the teenage paratrooper had more to share than most soldiers.

In two operations to clear the outskirts of the village of Turki in the eastern Diyala province, Specialist King and the rest of the 5th Squadron faced days of firefights, grenade attacks and landmines. Well-trained insurgents had burrowed deep into muddy canals, a throwback to the trenches of World War I. As the fighting wore on, B-1 bombers and F-16s were called in to drop a series of powerful bombs.

Once the area was clear of insurgents, the squadron, part of the 82nd Airborne Division, uncovered hidden caches with thousands of weapons.

Two months later, King, a handsome former honours student and double-sport athlete from Georgia, sat down at his computer. In informal but powerful prose, he began a journal.

"After 232 long, desolate, morose, but somewhat (sic) days of tranquility into deployment, I’ve decided that I should start writing some of the things I experienced here in Iraq. I have to say that the events that I have encountered here have changed my outlook on life.— Jerry Ryen King,

"The most recent mission started out as a 24-36-hour air-assault sniper mission in a known al-Qaeda stronghold just north of Baghdad. We landed a few hours before daybreak and as soon as I got off the helicopter my night-vision broke, I was surrounded by the sound of artillery rounds, people screaming in Arabic, automatic weapons, and the terrain didn’t look anything like what we were briefed. I knew it was going to be a bad day and a half."

journal entry, March 7, 2007

A month later, on April 23, 2007, King was sitting inside his combat outpost, an abandoned school in Sadah, when suicide bombers exploded two dump trucks just outside the building. The school partly collapsed, killing King and eight other soldiers, and making the blast one of the deadliest for Americans fighting in Iraq.

In that instant, King became one of 4000 service members and Defence Department civilians to die in the war — a milestone that was reached late on Sunday, five years after the war began in March 2003. The last four members of that group, like the majority of the most recent 1000 to die, were killed by an improvised explosive device, known as an IED. They died at 10pm on Sunday on a patrol in Baghdad, military officials said; their names have not yet been released.

The year 2007 would prove to be especially hard on American service members; more of them died last year than in any other since the war began. Many of those deaths came in the midst of the 30,000-troop build-up known as "the surge", the linchpin of US President George Bush’s strategy to tamp down widespread violence between Sunnis and Shiites, much of it in Baghdad. In April, May and June alone, 331 American service members died, making it the war’s deadliest three-month period.

But by September, the strategy, bolstered by new alliances with Sunni tribal chiefs and a decision by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to order his militia to stop fighting, appeared to be paying off as the country entered a period of relative calm.

In the past month, though, there has been a rise in killings and explosions, particularly suicide bombings.

Unlike the soldiers of previous wars, who were only occasionally able to send letters home to loved ones, many of those who died in Iraq left behind an extraordinary electronic testimony, describing the labour, fears and banality of service. In excerpts here from journals, blogs and emails, five soldiers who died in the most recent group of 1000 mostly skim the alarming particulars of combat.

Hurriedly, with little time to worry about spelling or grammar, they riff on the chaos around them and reveal moments of fear. As casualties climb and the violence intensifies, so does their urge to share their grief and foreboding.

"Hey beautiful well we were on blackout again, we lost yet some more soldiers. I cant wait to get out of this place and return to you where i belong. I dont know how much more of this place i can take. i try to be hard and brave for my guys but i dont know how long i can keep that up you know. its like everytime we go out, any little bump or sounds freaks me out. maybe im jus stressin is all. hopefully ill get over it.— Juan Campos, email to his wife

"you know, you never think that anything is or can happen to you, at first you feel invincible, but then little by little things start to wear on you

"at times id like to even just spend 1 minute out of this nightmare just to hold and kiss you guys to make it seem a little bit easier. im sure he will like whatever you get him for xmas, and i know that as he gets older he’ll understand how things work. well things here always seem to be … uhm whats the word … interesting i guess you can say. you never know whats gonna happen and thats the worst part. do me a favor though, when you go to my sisters or moms or wherever you see my family let them know that i love them very much … ok?

well i better get going, i have a lot of stuff to do. but hopefully ill get to hear from you pretty soon … tell mijo im proud of him too! love always, your other half"

December 12, 2006

Campos, a member of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, Charlie Company out of Germany, was one of thousands of infantrymen assigned to stabilise Baghdad and the surrounding areas last year during the troop build-up. Troops were sent deep into insurgent neighbourhoods, where they lived in small outposts, patrolled on foot, cleared houses, mingled with Iraqis and rebuilt the infrastructure.

The extra 30,000 service members — 160,000 in all — were deployed to Iraq to help quell the runaway violence that threatened large-scale civil war. Most soldiers spent 15 months in Iraq, a length of time that military commanders have said is unsustainable. Many had fought in the war at least once. A few had been in Iraq several times.

"My only goals are to make it out of this place alive and return you guys and make you as happy as I can."— Juan Campos, email to his wife,

December 15, 2006

But to Campos and the rest of Charlie Company in Adhamiya, a north Baghdad stronghold for Sunni insurgents, the build-up seemed oddly invisible. The men patrolled almost every day, sometimes 16 to 18 hours a day for months, often in 50-degree weather. Exhaustion was too kind a word for their fatigue.

More than 150 soldiers lived in a two-storey house with portable toilets, no air-conditioning and temperamental showers. Sleep came only a few hours at a time. The fighting was vicious.

"They walled us in and left us there," Staff Sergeant Robin Johnson, 28, said of the 110 men in Charlie Company. "We were a family. I would die for these guys before I die for my own blood brother."

On patrol, sniper fire rang out so routinely that soldiers in Campos’

platoon seldom stood still for more than four seconds. They scoured rooftops for Iraqi children who lobbed grenades at US soldiers for a handful of cash. Roadside bombs burst from inside drainage pipes, impossible to detect from the street. The bombs grew larger by the month.

Charlie Company soldiers found a steady stream of Iraqis murdered by insurgents for money or revenge. Some had their faces wiped clean by acid. Others were missing their heads or limbs.

For the soldiers in Iraq, reconciling Adhamiya with America was not always easy. One place was buried in garbage and gore and hopelessness. The other seemed unmoored from the war, fixated on the minutiae of daily life and the hiccups of the famous.

Sergeant Ryan Wood, 22, a gifted artist, prolific writer and a shy romantic from Oklahoma, was also one of the bluntest soldiers inside Charlie Company:

" ’What the hell happened?’ any intelligent American might ask themselves throughout their day. While the ignorant, dragging themselves to their closed off cubicle, contemplate the simple things in life such as ’fast food tonight?’ or ’I wonder what motivated Brittany Spears to shave her unsightly, mishaped domepiece?’— Ryan Wood, Myspace blog,

"To the simpleton, this news might appear ’devastating.’ I assume not everyone thinks this way, but from my little corner of the earth, Iraq, a spot in the world a majority of Americans couldn’t point out on the map, it certainly appears s. … To all Americans I have but one phrase that helps me throughout my day of constant dangers and ever present death around the corner, ’WHO THE (expletive) CARES!’ Wow America, we have truly become a nation of self-absorbed retards. … This world has serious problems and it’s time for America to start addressing them."

May 26, 2007

The sombreness of the job was hard to shake off. But, day to day, there was no more reliable antidote than Private First Class Daniel Agami, a south Floridian, and Private First Class Ryan Hill, a self-described hellion who loved his "momma" and hailed from what he called the "felony flats" of Oregon.

Their "mother jokes" — the kind that begin, "your mother is so …" — were legendary, culminating in a MySpace joke-off. It ended abruptly after an enough-is-enough phone call from Hill’s mother, who ranked No. 1 on his list of heroes in MySpace. Agami proclaimed victory.

"About a month later I went to my room and my mattress was missing and all my close (sic) were being worn by other people. I couldn’t figure it out so I knew right off the bat to go to Hill. I saw him walking down the hall wearing five of my winter jackets. He sold half my wardrobe right off his back to people in our company and my mattress was in someone else’s room. So then I had go to around and buy all my stuff back. (Now I think he won)."— Daniel Agami, email eulogy to

Hill’s mother, January 29, 2007

Among Charlie Company, Agami, 25, was one of the boldest and most resilient. He also had time for everyone, and everyone had time for him. Affectionately called GI Jew, he held his religion up to the light. He used it to build tolerance among the troops and shatter stereotypes; few in his unit had ever met a Jew. He flew the Israeli flag over his cot in Adhamiya. He painted the words Hebrew Hammer onto his rifle.

"Commander Mom, I cant wait to come home and when I do, dont worry ill have allot (sic) to say to the congregation. Dont worry about my mental stage either, we all receive counselling and help from doctors when something like this happens. I am a strong individual physically and mentally and if there is one thing the army teaches you, it is how to deal with death. Everyday that passes it gets easier and easier. I miss you guys very much and I love you!"— Daniel Agami, email to his mother,

October 28, 2006

It did not get easier.

"I try not to cry. I have never cried this much my entire life. two great men got taken from us way too soon. i wonder why it was them in not me. I sit here right now wondering why did they go to the gates of heaven n not me. I try everynight count my blessing that I made it another day but why are we in this hell over here? why? i cant stop askin why? "— Ryan Hill, Myspace blog,

November 1, 2006

Hill was riding in a Humvee on January 20, 2007, when an IED buried in the road detonated under his seat, killing him instantly.

Campos was riding in a Humvee on May 14, 2007, two weeks after returning from Texas, when it hit an IED. The bomb lifted the Humvee 1.5 metres and engulfed it in flames. "That’s when we just left hope at the door," Johnson said. With severe burns over more than 80% of his body, Campos lived two weeks. He died on June 1. Another soldier, private first class Nicholas Hartge, 20, of Indiana, died in the same attack.

Agami was driving a Bradley fighting vehicle on June 21, 2007, when it hit an IED. The explosion flipped the 30-tonne vehicle, which also carried Wood. Both men were killed, along with three other soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter.

"Obviously, it came to a point, you didn’t care any more if it got better," said Staff Sergeant Jeremy Rausch, 31, one of Campos’ best friends in Charlie Company. "You didn’t care about the people because they didn’t care about themselves. We had already lost enough people that we just thought, you know, ’Why?’."

During their time in Adhamiya, the soldiers of Charlie Company captured more than two dozen high-value targets, found nearly 50 weapons caches, detained innumerable insurgents and won countless combat awards. They lost 14 men. Their mission was hailed as a success.

 http://www.theage.com.au/news/world...