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| For once, a quiet night in Baghdad for Company B By Kevin Dougherty, Stars and Stripes European edition, Sunday, March 21, 2004
BAGHDAD — When Jamie Birkett was growing up, his father didn’t speak much of his experiences as an infantryman in Vietnam. Even today, the war stories of Jim Birkett remain a closed subject. In 1987, the elder Birkett died of cancer relating to his exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange, leaving his teenage son with precious little insight into his father’s military service. So years later, in effort to help bridge that gap, Jamie Birkett decided to follow in his father’s boot steps. “I joined [the Army at the age of 30] to get to know him a little better, and to honor his memory,” Birkett said as he sat in the back of a Bradley in Baghdad, “and here I am.” Baghdad is quite different from the jungles of Southeast Asia, but it’s war, nonetheless. Like his father, Birkett is now a seasoned infantryman, having spent nearly a year in Iraq with the 1st Armored Division’s 1st Battalion, 36th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade. He carries a rifle, but Birkett is also a “breacher” for Company B’s 2nd Platoon. That means he uses an assortment of gadgets to break open gates, doors and drawers, something he was called upon to do during a recent nighttime sweep through Baghdad. “I get to be a little more destructive than the other guys,” Birkett confessed. It was St. Patrick’s Day night, normally a rambunctious time for many of these men, Irish or not. But instead of hoisting pints, the platoon and others in the company were pouring into Adamiyah — a Sunni neighborhood and insurgent stronghold. Situated on the east bank of the Tigris River, the specific area of concern had been the source of recent mortar attacks on a U.S. Army compound just across the waterway. A planned cordon-and-search operation would take care of that, the soldiers’ reasoned. “This is one of the few areas that’s still highly active,” Capt. Chris Ayers, the company commander, said before the mission started. The search was really part of an ongoing campaign named Operation Iron Promise, a broad effort to catch bad guys and confiscate illegal weapons. It also afforded the fledgling Iraqi Civil Defense Corps another opportunity to work alongside U.S. forces. At a news conference afterwards, Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the 1st AD commander, said as of Thursday, one man was killed and another 88 were arrested. “The most significant capture was one individual who we absolutely know has a linkage between one of the international terrorist organizations and one of the extreme religious organizations that we know operates inside of Baghdad,” Dempsey said. Soldiers recovered an assortment of weapons, including 109 rifles, 44 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 71 artillery rounds, 54 sticks of dynamite and 10 machine guns, according to Dempsey. By comparison, Company B’s 2nd Platoon had a long, but rather quiet night, except for one elderly woman. For several minutes, she stood outside her tall, wooden door admonishing the troops who had just left her house. According to one Iraqi translator working with the platoon, the woman was repeatedly saying: “I’m old. I’m alone. Why are you bothering me?” “I’ll tell you one thing,” Staff Sgt. Mike Galaway said as he listened to the public scolding, “she’s gutsier than most of the bad guys.” A search of more than 50 homes recovered just two AK-47 magazines and a framed picture of Saddam. (Another Bravo platoon working nearby did arrest two men with about 40 pounds of bombing-making materials.) Around midnight, Staff Sgt. Mark Newlin approached his Iraqi translator, Salam Iwad. The squad leader wanted to know why it was so tranquil. In previous sweeps through the neighborhood, there was always gunfire and other activity. Not far from here was where 1st Brigade Command Sgt. Maj. Eric Cooke died on Christmas Eve from an improvised explosive device. What’s the problem, Newlin wanted to know. “This is the problem,” Iwad said. “There is no problem.” The sweep began at an Iraqi police station and ended more than five hours later on a riverfront street lined with several luxurious homes. In between, the soldiers proceeded from one narrow street to the next, passing piles of rubbish and sagging structures. Along some stretches were puddles of raw sewage. “Iraq has a million smells everywhere you go,” Spc. Joseph Jakupczyk said with a sniff as he stood on a street corner, “and most of the smells you get aren’t good, either.” The soldiers snooped around, but found nothing out of the ordinary. They searched a men’s club, but Iraqis inside were more interested in dominos and an Olympic qualifying soccer match between Iraq and Saudi Arabia than they were in mischief making. Each Iraqi household is permitted to have one weapon, and many on this night did. Still, soldiers always ask if a weapon is present. “If they tell us the truth about what they have,” Newlin said, “they won’t go to jail.” On this night, no one in this section of Baghdad went to the slammer, and Birkett didn’t have to breach much of anything. Perhaps sedated by the silent night, the 32-year-old specialist briefly nodded off on the way back to camp, his father’s picture tucked away in the lining of his Kevlar helmet. |
