Stepping into the Millenium Gap
After the IED strike of August 3 in which two Marines were wounded and their Humvee destroyed, the 1/6 commanders are on the hunt for those responsible. Yesterday, I accompanied a foot patrol of more than 100 Marines from our base at Strong Point Bravo to the village closest to the site of the attack. Despite the 120-degree heat, and the fact that each Marine is loaded down with body armor, helmet, weapon and gear, we covered the two miles from the base to the village in just under 40 minutes, walking in two staggered files alongside the canals that crisscross this area.
The people were wary at first - probably thinking we were coming to exact retribution for the attack. As we stopped and spoke with a few farmers near the village, all denied having known of or even heard the blast - despite the fact that it was comprised of an estimated five to seven kilos of explosives, and completely destroyed a heavily armored humvee. The Marines expected as much.
When we reached the village, most people hid inside their homes and peeked out their gates as we passed. The Marines waved and smiled, and stopped to talk to a few more people. They also passed out some printed flyers with instructions for what to do if the people came across any unexploded ordnance. These had a limited effect, since less than 20 percent of the population here is literate. That said, we still were able to find a few villagers who spoke a little English.
At one end of the village we encountered a group of men squatting in the dust outside the only store, which consisted of a hut the size of a walk-in closet stacked up with bags of fertilizer, some food stuffs and cigarettes. The village Elder approached us and asked why we had come. With the help of our interpreter, we spoke with him at length about the attack, and he vigorously denied that anyone in his village had been involved, blaming people from the next village over. He invited us to search his village, and said that if we found anything to disprove him, we could take him to jail.
The Marines did a cursory search of a few random homes in the village - but found nothing. Even if there had been anything there, it isn't likely we would have found it because the people had plenty of time to hide or move it before we arrived. In addition, the Marines were very sensitive to the cultural considerations concerning women in the village. Before entering a home, they allowed the women to all go into one room, and the Marines then searched the entire house except for that room. Not the ideal way, but this fight is about much more than finding weapons caches - it's about taking the moral high ground.
The village breathed a sort of collective sigh of relief as they realized we weren't there for revenge, and more people came out to greet us. Before long, we had a large group of children following us around, and it was fun to see them interact with the Marines, joking and laughing. And on the way out of town, some emerged with gifts of fresh-baked bread.
As the dusk turned to darkness, we trudged the long two miles back to the base. On the way, I wondered about the complexities unique to this battleground - it's a very, very different fight than the one in Iraq. One of the biggest, from what I saw today, is that the culture here is several hundred years behind where Iraq was - it at least had roads and infrastructure to build off of, and a people who understood the modern world on some level. The villagers here in Garmsir are living largely as they have for thousands of years, and overcoming the "millenium gap" brings with it a whole different set of challenges.
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Chuck Holton