Col (Ret.) Nate Slate: Iraq – Into the Biblical Wilderness

When we finally arrived in Kuwait, the nature of this war was completely uncertain.  The Iraqis, after their dismal beginning, had elected not to fight.  The word was that they had abandoned their equipment everywhere.  Our mission to provide direct support to the 3^rd Armored Cavalry Regiment quickly went by the wayside.  Instead, we were directed to prepare to conduct “nonstandard” operations.  To begin with, we would assist with policing up the unimaginable number of ammunition caches that literally littered the landscape.

We created lanes for training in preparation for this new mission.  We tried to imagine all the different types of challenges that awaited us.  We used the intelligence we were receiving from those who had already gone forward to design our training.  The desperation they described in the Shia south was hard to imagine.  Convoys were warned that the crowds of starving Iraqis who crowded the highways by the villages would push small children into the roads to halt convoys so that they could beg, and steal, needed resources.  Units had been assigned the support mission for these people – bringing water, food, and clothing.  Our orders were to get through the south as quickly as possible and make our way to the Sunni Triangle.

We reviewed everything we had been taught about the Iraqi people.  The instruction was pretty much black and white.  We were not to discuss religion as this would lead to conflict.  We were not to speak to women.  The cross on our ambulance and the cross on our chaplain’s helmet were all said to be inflammatory.  There were no gray areas.  According to our instruction, there was no room for interpretation.

Our Soldiers were very creative in putting together the lanes.  They dressed up like civilians on the battlefield and thought of all sorts of creative ways to halt a convoy.  The Soldiers playing themselves in the convoys were truly challenged to handle the drama that was presented.  Yet, when we headed north into Iraq, we could not have been prepared for what we saw.

Saddam had cut the water off to the Shia south to punish them for their support of Iran.  Such an act was unimaginably cruel given the dependence on the rivers for life.  Gusts of wind would make walls of sand come up from the bottoms of the former irrigation canals.  The landscape was lifeless.

The Shia people lined the roads by the villages.  Their starved faces full of excitement and hope.  Who did they think we were I wondered.  What did they think we would bring?  First and foremost, we brought water and food.  We brought sustenance.  Certainly, the route their future would take had changed.  For the first time in their lives, there were possibilities.

As we moved north up Highway 1, from time to time we passed rest areas.  Or, that is what they appeared to be.  It looked like there had once been a modern highway here that people could drive freely.    Some of the rest areas had tables with little medal roofs – although the harsh desert winds had taken advantage of neglect and twisted them beyond recognition.  The sight of this lost progress gave me the sensation of being on a forgotten planet.  There were signs that an advanced race had once lived here.  But, for some reason, these civilized people had gone extinct.

One thing was for certain, we had gone back in time.  This brutal climate was the feared desert of the Old Testament.  The incredibly cruel treatment of people we had witnessed was a staple of the ancient past.  We were about to learn a lot about the “first world.”  There was a sensing from the beginning that the gates to heaven and hell stood wide open here.  The winds of time were bound to expose our troops to a range of experience that few could have imagined.

INTO THE BIBLICAL WILDERNESS