When I Was In Iraq: Part Twelve - "Tom"

There was a CIA agent on my base named "Tom."  (Maybe his name wasn't really "Tom," maybe it was something else and I'm changing it to preserve his anonymity).

He arrived after me, I don't exactly remember when I first met him. He would stay on after my departure for a full year tour at that position. 

But I do remember immediately upon meeting him, that I was face-to-face with easily the funniest person I had ever met in my entire life.

Now don't get me wrong, he was professional. He did his job well. By the nature of my job, which I have been able to only lightly describe in these posts, I would interact with him on a daily basis. But the guy would light up the room with hilarious comments. 

In any regular day, in which I would go into the CIA FEBR (Federally Evaluated Blast Resistant [Building]), I would leave there telling him that he needed to write these things down, that comedic gold was just spontaneously spewing from him.

He is a very smart man and he knows he's funny, in fact, he admitted that he had contemplated writing a script encapsulating his humor in the framework of a CIA station in some random place like Iceland (where we don't even have a CIA station, by the way [Or do we?...].)

"Tom" helped me survive my deployment. I mean, to get up every morning and just know that a belly aching laugh awaited you later in the day because of him--that is precious.

As I was approaching my departure, "Tom" told me that he had a bottle of liquor with him. I'm not even exactly sure if it was brandy or whiskey (it was more than twelve years ago)--it doesn't matter. He asked me to share it with him before my departure. I was touched and I suspended my ordinary schedule of being lights out at 8:00PM just for him. That's how much he meant to me.

I have fond memories of reclining on chairs looking into the night sky over [THE NSA SAYS I CAN'T NAME THIS CITY], sipping liquor with this dear man. 

We drank and we said the things that needed to be said.

"Tom" is still in government service. Pray for his safety as he continues to serve our nation in harm's way. And I also pray that someday he puts pen to paper and lets the entire world smile and laugh from his comedic gift...

When I was in Iraq: Part Eight

The Second Attack

I had heard the low thuds of car bombs going off in the distant city on June 24. Our base was on the outskirts. I sincerely hoped that my three months could pass without any significant incident in my immediate proximity.

That was all about to change.

I don't remember what day it was. It doesn't matter. As I have described, you are constantly rehydrating in Iraq, so I was on my way to the latrine (in the daytime I treated myself to the bathroom itself).

On my way, I heard someone slam a door so hard, so loudly, that my visceral reaction was anger.

"Why should someone slam a door like that??!!" I thought.

I kept walking. And then it happened again. Someone was slamming a door shut, so hard that it echoed through our compound. And my anger mounted. Why the f%$k was someone slamming a door shut like that?

And that's when I saw it. This object was tumbling end over end through the sky, it landed outside our concrete walls. And then I both saw, heard, and felt the shock wave of an explosion. I had just seen a mortar land. And I retroactively realized--the slamming door had also been mortars.

And then I saw another one. It was tumbling end over end. I stood there, watching it as it also, thankfully, landed on the other side of our wall. The explosion washed over me.

A moment of silence. It was over. Only then, I suddenly realized, HOLY SHIT! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK! I ran to the CIA blast resistant work space. I would wait there until they declared the all clear.

I should have run to cover the moment I knew I was in danger. But I had not done so. And that's because, like so many people, I don't realize I'm in danger until long after the danger passes. 

I have learned after the fact that the human body turns new experiences into things it understands. That's why I heard those first mortar attacks as slamming doors. My brain was turning those sounds into something it understood. Once I saw the bombs in the air, I was able to hear the explosions occurring around me.

I have called this the "FIRST ATTACK" because it would not be the last.

As we all caught our breath that day, we took stock of the fact that we were in a war zone. I recall pensive and nervous glances exchanged over dinner. It was only somewhere inside July. I would not leave until mid-September. My tour would not be as long as many people. But it was longer than anyone I knew at the time. 

That would not be the last attack our base would face. But that's for another day...

When I Was in Iraq: Part Seven

As an NSA agent in Iraq during that war, I served my country to the best of my ability, using my talents in the area of "Force Protection," meaning finding any information that implied attacks upon our War Fighters and communicating that to our Military Command.

But in the course of my time living in that country, I did one thing in particular that I am not particularly proud of. That is perhaps why it needs to be told.

I have previously described how I jealously maintained a schedule which ensured eight hours of sleep every night.

And I learned my first night sleeping at my base why that would be difficult.

Keep in mind, it's always above 100 degrees during the daytime in Iraq during the summer (it was June when I arrived). So you need to be constantly hydrating. And that means that you will invariably need to relieve yourself. I woke up in the middle of my first night on base needing to do just that. I walked the 100 or so feet to the latrine and urinated. I walked the 100 or so feet back to my little cabin...and never slept again before morning.

Houston, we have a problem.

I have a particular issue wherein, if I wake up too much in the middle of the night, I have serious difficulties in falling back asleep. Even now, when I wake up,  I do the best I can to do my business, keeping my eyes shut as much as possible.

But obviously, I could not keep my eyes shut and walk 200 feet every night.

I was describing this problem the following morning to a CIA agent at breakfast. And he told me of the solution he had already discovered. Keep several empty water bottles around. Relieve yourself into them. And empty them in the morning at the latrine. 

That night I tested the method. I awoke. I went. A minute later I was back in bed. A minute after that, I was asleep.

Thank you, CIA agent! It worked!

The following morning, on my way to brush my teeth, I took the previous night's piss bottle along, emptied it, rinsed it out, and set out into another day.

I worked that assignment for a total of 90 consecutive, eleven hour days. At some point, I decided that there was no urgent reason to bring the previous night's single piss bottle to the latrine for disposal. I could surely wait until the next day and bring two.

Piss bottles awaiting latrine delivery would be stored under my bed, which you can see in the picture to the left. That was my simple dwelling. I watched the 2004 Summer Olympics on that TV. Ah, good times...

You see where this is heading, right? I am a lifelong procrastinator. And so, in the course of time, it would not be unusual for me to be carrying four piss bottles to the latrine for disposal.  

I had agreed to three months at the assignment. My handler suddenly was asking me just a few weeks before my departure if maybe I could stay another month. I utterly refused. I was imagining surviving those three months and the attacks it included and then the potential of being killed in that final month. No way I was going to risk that. As a result of my refusal, personnel were shifted around and the man who replaced me arrived on the very plane I would fly out on. He would take over my job and my living quarters. He and I shook hands on the tarmac. I wished him well.

I was thousands of feet in the air on my way back to Baghdad, and then onward travel to Amman, Jordan, before returning home when...I realized...there were three piss bottles under my bed.

Sorry, dude. 

I'm not proud of what I just described. Forgive me. It was war.

When I was in Iraq: Part Four

As I've said, this series will be more about my emotions while I was on my deployment, than about details that I have already published in other blog posts, as well as in my book, Top Secrets: Lessons for Success from the World of Espionage.

I settled into life on the base. I slept every night in a little cabin, packed on the roof and around the area of my bed with sand bags in case a mortar landed in the night.

The CIA agents slept in the main house, where we also took our meals. It was a big house. It was never away from my mind how much safer they were than me.

The Shack in which I slept

They worked in a FEBR (Federally Evaluated Blast Resistant Building).  I worked in a cabin identical to the one I slept in. When our base was targeted in a mortar attack on two occasions when I was there, we ran in terror to the FEBR. They didn't even hear the attack inside.

I worked 90 consecutive 11 hours days in Iraq. 

We started at 6AM, worked an hour and then took a half hour for breakfast. We then worked until 12PM, when we took another half hour for lunch. Then we worked until 6PM, after which we went to dinner at the main house where the CIA agents lived in comfort.

I decided early on that the only way I was going to do any exercise was to do it before my regular day began. And so, I was lights out at 8PM every evening. I slept eight hours every night and woke up at 4AM. So I worked out from 4AM for an hour and then took a shower and prepared for my work day to begin.

I had been given advice before this deployment from a long term agent that the best way to survive any deployment was to plan your life around eight hours of sleep. Here were the reasons. First off, you are simply healthier with eight hours of sleep. When you are in harm's way, such as living in a war zone, you never know when something will require you to skip nights of sleep. And you will pull that off better if you are completely rested--caught up on sleep on your sleep. 

In 90 days of that deployment, my sleep was only disrupted twice. Once we received a shipment of a bunch of technical equipment that arrived at 2ish, and that meant I was up to help with the processing and never slept again. On another occasion, the CIA Station Chief decided to hold a base-wise security drill at 3ish in which we all ended up in the main house and I basically missed only the final hour of my regular night's sleep.

Okay, I've covered a lot of technical details in this post on my life at my posting in Iraq over ten years ago. And I promised that this series would be more about my emotions than about the mission.

There are plenty of emotional tales that will take place in months two and three of this deployment.

But I close with the following anecdote.

As I said above, I worked out from 4 to 5ish before my regular workday began.

Early on, I was working out and there were all these feral cats around. (The Prophet Muhammad loved cats, hence their widespread prevalence in Arab lands.)

As I was working out on a particular weight machine, one of these cats kept rubbing her face against my foot. I was avoiding her, because she was this horribly mangy mess of an animal. 

And then I looked out into the brightening morning sky. I was in Iraq. I was in serious danger. And I realized in that moment that I needed that animal's affection.

I picked her up and I cuddled her to my chest, and I cried. And I felt her purr against me. 

And I thought to myself, "What the fuck [pardon my war jargon] have I gotten myself into?"