Iraq Dispatch 2

Even though Lt. John Hintz attained confirmed kills as an Army sniper, the execution sites his platoon discovered this Saturday managed to disturb him. “I don’t mind seeing dead bodies, but seeing bodies executed like this, that’s sick,” he says.

While clearing a road of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) Stalker platoon happened to stop a local shepherd whose son had found two bodies outside the al-Madhkur village. With the shepherd’s help, Stalker platoon located the bodies, both shot execution-style in the head. The bodies had no identification cards, but according to the shepherd they were part of a local Imam’s security detail.

Several hours later helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division directed Stalker platoon to another execution site with four bodies. Three of the victims appeared to have been shot within the last two weeks. The fourth body looked about a month old and had been buried up the neck. The skull lay next to the burial mound. It was unclear whether the victim had been decapitated or the head fell off as part of natural decay.

Coming only two days after the Iraqi Army discovered forty-seven bodies in the same region, these new execution sites add new layers of confusion and frustration to Stalker platoon’s struggle to comprehend an elusive insurgency.

Perhaps most baffling to American soldiers in the Diyala province is the randomness of the insurgents targets. Aside from the rumor that two of the victims provided security for a local Imam, no one can find a clear reason why insurgents killed fifty-one Iraqis at the other two sites. The forty-seven killed on February 23 were a mix of Sunnis and Shi’as from different towns across the province.

“The insurgency would like you to believe that there’s a reason or a purpose, but there’s not,” says Lt. Ted Goldner, executive officer of Attack Company, which contains the Stalker platoon.

Hours after Attack Company has handed over control of the execution sites to the Iraqi Police, reports begin to filter back to Attack headquarters that insurgents now accused villagers around the execution sites of cooperating with the coalition troops. The insurgents threatened to kill the villagers.

Stalker’s brother platoon, White dispatched immediately to help the besieged village. Insurgents fled upon seeing the approaching humvees. The intervention left White’s medic, PFC Roberts, with mixed emotions. “Most Iraqis want us to leave, but these people wanted us to stay in their houses all night,” he said. Roberts and many others are beginning to believe that they’ve become mediators in a war between rival thugs and criminals.

Stalker platoon and the rest of Attack Company are tasked with patrolling Iraq’s entire Diyala province, excluding the province’s capitol city, Baqubah. Within the company there are about eighty available men and fifteen vehicles to police the province, an area roughly the size of Rhode Island.

Diyala consists almost entirely of farmland, canals, winding dirt roads and occasional villages of mud-brick homes. Discoveries like the execution sites are usually accidental. “Sometimes we get lucky,” explains SSG Jon Foster who has patrolled the area for over two months. “You just go search an area and you never know what’s out there.”

Less than twelve hours before discovering the first execution site on Saturday, SSG Eric Moroge’s humvee ran over a pressure detonated IED that sprayed the vehicle with acid-coated shrapnel. The explosion blew out the vehicle’s two front tires, but no one was injured.

Following the blast Stalker platoon could not find anyone to engage or detain. Sgt. Joseph Garcia, the turret gunner in the humvee directly behind Moroge’s, sprayed a palm grove with his .50-caliber machine gun immediately after the IED detonated. The scouts refer to this as “reconnaissance by fire;” the theory being that anyone hiding will emerge while trying to avoid getting shot. Lt. Hintz ordered Garcia to cease fire, fearing that there might be civilian houses in the palm grove.

Those in Moroge’s humvee had nothing to do but change their tires and laugh off the explosion. SGT Jesse Trumpore, the vehicle’s turret gunner, examined the acid splattered along the side of the humvee. As the only exposed person in the vehicle Trumpore believes that the acid targeted him specifically. This detail seems to bemuse rather than threaten him. “I love it when people try to kill me,” smiles Trumpore, who is serving his second tour of duty in Iraq.

“It’s hard to know who’s putting (IEDs) out there. Is it an insurgent, a criminal element, someone who’s getting paid by criminals or is it in revenge for patrols we’re conducting?” Wonders Capt. Mark Beckage, the Attack Company commander.

Despite these frustrations soldiers of Stalker platoon try not to let their experiences get to them. After spending the day searching execution sites for additional bodies Stalker platoon and other elements of Attack company return to base for lunch. PFC Matt Graham asks, “Does anybody else think this isn’t normal? We just saw a bunch of rotting, dead bodies and the first thing we do is come (back to base) and eat?”