Hey Yah

Charlotte Brock

“Hey Charlotte, guess what time it is?”

“Uh-oh. Don’t tell me it’s…

“SYSCON DANCE PARTY!” we shouted together.

“One Two Three Uh!”

Outkast – the band – blared out of the speakers hooked up to our computers. We jumped out of our chairs and danced to the center of the small room, singing along with André and his chorus of happy partiers.

“My baby don’t mess around because she loves me so…”

Teresa and I had stripped off our blouses and wore our green sweatshirts with our desert digitals and dusty tan boots; it was in the low forties at night this time of year, and the small room we had to sit in for hours on end, the “SysCon” (Systems Control), had few creature comforts. About six feet by eight, it was made of bare concrete, the walls covered with Arabic graffiti. A large steel hook hung from the ceiling, and we tried to avoid thinking what it had been used for. After all, Camp Taqqadum, or “TQ,” was an Iraqi military camp before the U.S. liberation/invasion, and it was known that some of the buildings here had held torture chambers. Teresa, a.k.a. “Little T” (she was a very small Marine officer) and I inhabited the SysCon twenty-four hours a day between the two of us. She had walked in a half hour before, to relieve me and take the next twelve-hour watch.

“So why you, why you, why you, why you, why you are we so in denial when we know we're not happy heeeerrreeee...”

Teresa did the Snoopy dance. I countered with the Running Man. Then she did the Muppet. I did the Hammer dance. Neither of us could dance worth a lick, of course, but hey, who was watching?

The dancing warmed me up quickly and I pulled my sweatshirt off my torso and arms, but left it hanging on my head, so that it covered my hair veil-style.

“Yo dude, what the fuck, are you going Virgin Mary on me?”

“Nah, man, it’s my new hairstyle!” and I waved my head around like I was in a shampoo commercial.

“Oh yeah?” In response, Teresa did her best impression of Sultan Hashim Ahman Al-Tai, sinking her head into her shoulders and adopting a ridiculous, spacey smile.

Sultan Hashim Ahman Al-Tai was the ex-Minister of Defense of Iraq. Like fifty-one other former government officials, he was on America’s “Most Wanted” list. I had bought the “Most Wanted Iraqis” deck of playing cards in Kuwait: each card had a picture of one of the men (and the lone woman) whom American soldiers and Marines were supposed to capture or kill. The pictures were nearly all black-and-white, fuzzy, and could have been mug shots; the villains looked like villains. Except for Sultan Hashim Ahman Al-Tai, who figured on the eight of hearts. The ex-Minister of Defense looked jovially into the camera, garbed in green, gold and red. Either he was truly short and squat, or the picture had been stretched somehow to make him look that way; the effect was quite humorous. He looked like a young Santa Claus (in Iraqi military uniform), with red cheeks, a full mustache, a double chin, and a face beaming with happiness. As soon as Teresa had seen the eight of hearts, she had burst out laughing.

“Dude, check this guy out!” He looked so out of place among the stern, grim henchmen that I had to laugh too. It had quickly become an inside joke in our little group of lieutenants and warrant officers. All you had to do was say “eight of hearts” and Little T would start giggling. It was so cute and funny to see her go into peals of laughter that I couldn’t help laughing with her. We got many a belly-ache from looking at the infamous and unfortunate (but oh-so-joyful) Sultan Hashim Ahman Al-Tai.

Teresa and I laughed so hard we had to stop dancing. We turned down the music and sat on our desks.

“Holy Shit. We are going batshit crazy!” I said when we had recovered our breaths.

“Well, I know I am…” Pause. “Hey, it’s three, did you send the SysCon report to MEF?”

“Uh, no, hold on, lemme do that before I leave.” Oops. I had forgotten to send the report, again. It felt silly though to send a report that no one read. If I didn’t send it, nothing ever happened. Except that I would gulp guiltily when Teresa came on watch and asked me if I had sent it. I sat behind one of the six laptops in the SysCon and typed up my report.

There were two forms of email in Iraq: the regular internet, which we called “NIPR,” short for “Non-Secure Internet Protocol,” and the “SIPR,” or “Secure Internet Protocol.” The two systems were totally separate. NIPR was the internet as known throughout the U.S. and the world; the world-wide-web, with pages and sites and email applications. The SIPR was a similar network, except that access to it was strictly limited to those who had at least a Secret clearance and a need-to-know. Stateside, very few Marines used SIPR regularly. In Iraq, we communicated with other units almost exclusively over the SIPR. NIPR was used to write back home, and for the internet.

Ten minutes later, I had sent our higher headquarters, the First Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) SysCon in Camp Blue Diamond, a synopsis of what had happened during the last six hours (we lost the satellite from midnight to 0130, then it came back up; the multi-channel link to Camp Rhino went down briefly at 2220, 2300, and 0210) and the current status of communications on Camp Taqqadum (SIPR is up, NIPR is SLLOOOWWW, all radio nets are good, phones are up).

I checked the SIPR for intel updates one last time before leaving. MEF Headquarters, as well as other units, maintained sites that summarized everything combat-related that was going on in the Anbar Province. Discoveries of weapons caches were the most frequent type of event, but there were also reports of Indirect Fire (IDF) on US or allied camps, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) found on main routes, suspicious activities by local populations, shots taken at helicopters, and firefights. My eyes scanned the most recent entries for the dreaded words: “US KIA.” This time, they weren’t there.

I wished Teresa a good night and a quiet watch and headed over to the female head trailer to make a head call before I hit the rack. In my backpack, which I wore everywhere, I had toothbrush, toothpaste and facial soap. That way I wouldn’t have to spend another twenty minutes going back to the bathroom after getting to my tent.

By the time I had walked the half-mile or so across Tent City, unlaced my boots, taken off my blouse, unhooked my bra and threaded it through my sleeve so as not to have to take my T-shirt off, rubbed my feet together to try to rid them of sand, and found my way into my sleeping bag, all in the dark, it was 4:30 AM. Most of the women in my tent would be getting up in an hour or two to get to the DFAC (Dining Facility, Army term for Chow Hall) before it stopped serving breakfast. I lay in bed listening to the reassuring hum of the A/C. I liked the sound, but I hated how cold it was set! I had to pull my sleeping bag over my head to conserve warmth.

Light crept into the corners of the tent, past the mosquito net that hung from the top bunk, and through my closed eyelids. I tried to turn the other way and get back to sleep, but my tent mates were just getting up and dressed. Despite their best attempts to be considerate for those whose nights had just begun, they made noise. It was even louder outside. Groups of soldiers and Marines walked by on their way to chow, conversing loudly, laughing, scuffling, rifles and gear clinking. Minutes later the flap of cloth that served as a door was untied and blinding rays of light pierced the dim interior and stabbed at my brain. Ugh. I had finally fallen asleep only minutes ago, it seemed. Maybe after everyone left the tent I could get back to sleep… But the day only got brighter and I barely managed to doze off a couple times. Finally, at 9:30, I got up. If I was going to get some PT in, I had to do it now: lunch was over at 12:30, which meant I had to be there at 12:15 at the latest, and it took about forty-five minutes for me to shower and change after PT, so if I wanted to get a run and weightlifting in, I had to start before 10 AM. In any case, I had to pee pretty badly, and there was no going back to sleep after a fifteen-minute walk to the head and back. I found my shower shoes by my cot and stood up. Another day had begun. Heey Ya! Hey Yaah.

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