Free Redeployment by Phil Klay Page B

needed his hand held. In the HMMWV it was me, PFC, PV2 Herrera, and SGT Green. Up in the turret on the 240G was SPC Jaegermeir-Schmidt, aka J-15.
    There wasn’t a lot to look at on the MSR south of HB. We scanned for all the different types of IEDs AQI would throw at us. IEDs made of old 122 shells, or C4, or homemade explosives. Chlorine bombs mixed with HE. VBIEDs in burned-out cars. SVBIEDs driven by lunatics. IEDs in drainage ditches or dug into the middle of the road. Some in the bodies of dead camels. Others daisy-chained together—one in the open to make you stop, another to kill you where you stand. IEDs everywhere, but most missions, nothing. Even knowing how bad the MSRs were, knowing we could die, we got bored.
    PFC said, “It’d be cool to get IED’d, ’long as no one got hurt.”
    J-15 snapped, said, “That’s bad juju, that’s worse than eating the Charms in an MRE.”
    Temp was 121, and I remember bitching about the AC. Then the IED hit.
    PV2 swerved and the HMMWV rolled. It wasn’t like the HEAT trainer at Lejeune. JP-8 leaked and caught fire, burning through my MARPATs. Me and SGT Green got out, and then we pulled PV2 out by the straps of his PPE. But PV2 was unconscious, and I ran back for PFC, but he was on the side where the IED hit, and it was too late.
    PFC’s Eye Pro cracked and warped in the heat. The plastic snaps on his PPE melted. And even though J-15 left his legsbehind, at least he got CASEVAC’d to the SSTP and died on the table. PRP had to wash PFC out with Simple Green and peroxide.
    The MLG awarded me a NAM with a V. Don’t see too many 3400s got a NAM with a V. It’s up there next to my CAR and my Purple Heart and my GWOT Expeditionary and my Sea Service and my Good Cookie and my NDS. Even 03s show respect when they see it. But give me a NAM with a V, give me the Medal of Honor, it doesn’t change that I’m still breathing. And when people ask what the NAM is for, I say it’s so I don’t feel bad that I was too slow for PFC.
    In boot camp, the DIs teach you Medal of Honor stories. Most recipients were KIA. Their families didn’t get a homecoming, they got a CACO knocking on their door. They got SGLI. They got a trip to Dover to see Marines lift the remains out of a C-130. They got a closed casket, because IEDs and SAF don’t leave pretty corpses. The DIs tell you these stories over and over, and even a POG like me knows what they mean.
    So I tell my family, “I’m staying in—the G.I. Bill can wait.” And I tell my OIC, “Sir, I want to go to OEF. OEF’s where the fight is now.” And I tell my girlfriend, “Okay, leave me.” And I tell PFC, “I wish it’d been me,” even though I don’t mean it.
    I’m going to OEF. As a 3400. As a POG, but a POG with experience. I’ll distribute CERP again. I’ll roll with 03s again. And maybe I’ll get IED’d again. But this time, out on the MSRs, I will be terrified.
    I will remember the sounds PFC made. I will remember that I was his NCO, so he was my responsibility. And I will remember PFC himself as though I loved him. So I won’t really rememberPFC at all—not why I gave him low PRO/CONs, not why I told him he’d never make E4.
    Instead I will remember that our HMMWV had 5 PX. That the SITREP was 2 KIA, 3 WIA. That KIA means they gave everything. That WIA means I didn’t.

MONEY AS A WEAPONS SYSTEM
    Success was a matter of perspective. In Iraq it had to be. There was no Omaha Beach, no Vicksburg Campaign, not even an Alamo to signal a clear defeat. The closest we’d come were those toppled Saddam statues, but that was years ago. I remember Condoleezza Rice declaring that civil administration and police functions had no part in a military campaign. “We don’t need to have the 82nd Airborne,” she said, “escorting kids to kindergarten.” In 2008, around the time I got there, the 82nd Airborne was building greenhouses near Tikrit. It was a brave new world, and as a Foreign Service Officer heading an embedded