They Fought for Each Other

They Fought For Each Other

 

CHAPTER 1

Second Platoon Meets Adhamiya

At their tiny combat outpost in the Adhamiya neighborhood of Baghdad, the soldiers of second platoon acted like kids going to an amusement park: jumping around, grabbing gear, punching shoulders. They hugged the other members of the company like long-lost brothers, joyful to be part of a whole. Nothing could be worse than the two months they had spent separated from the rest of Charlie CompanyÑthey had not even lived on the same post. The men of second platoon had been attached to another unit, as often happens in war zones, and their company com-

mander, Captain Mike Baka, had fought hard to get them back.

Baka, grinning at their antics and their proximity, gathered his boys in October 25, 2006, for their first formation back together in months. Now that he had them back, he had to prepare them to do battle in Bagh-dad’s worst neighborhood.

“Second platoon!” he shouted, and the men stopped kicking up dust and stood still to listen. “Welcome to Adhamiya!” Baka paused as a barrage of deep-voiced “Hooah!’s” erupted from the platoon and bounced off the khaki-colored buildings.

“If there’s no violence in your sector, something’s amiss,” Baka con-tinued.

“If 1 percent of the 400,000 people who live in Adhamiya are shitheads, that’s 4,000 shitheads. We’re up against some bad odds.”

“Roger that, sir!” yelled Private First Class Daniel Agami, and everybody laughed, eager to see their new sector.

“The enemy does not have a uniform,” Baka said. “You won’t know who you’re up against, but they’ll know who you are. There is no front line. There is no moving forward. You will have to get to know the people. You will have to assume they want to hurt you while you treat them like neighbors.”

The guys grew quiet, having already met fear and pain two months into their deployment, but still not quite clear about the exact nature of the new mission or, for that matter, the mission in Iraq. They knew they were part of the “surge,” and they had heard the term “counterinsurgency,” but many of the guys believed the two words were interchangeable without understanding the philosophy behind the new counterinsurgency manual written by General David Petraeus and his aides. In fact, they did not know the manual existed. According to the manual, they were supposed to spend just as much time sitting in living rooms drinking sweet, strong tea and trying to make connections with Iraqi citizens as they did rolling down the narrow streets shooting insurgents. But they would learn quickly.

Second platoon arrived at Combat Outpost Apache on a brilliantly sunny day and Baka decided to welcome them by taking them on a three- hour tour of the two- kilometer- by- three- kilometer neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad. Baka’s other platoons first, third, and the scouts had been patrolling Adhamiya since late summer.

From: THEY FOUGHT FOR EACH OTHER by Kelly Kennedy copyright © 2010 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Press, LLC.