Part 14 (1/2)

The people we were fighting in Iraq, after Saddam's army fled or was defeated, were fanatics. They hated us because we weren't Muslim. They wanted to kill us, even though we'd just booted out their dictator, because we practiced a different religion than they did.

Isn't religion supposed to teach tolerance?

People say you have to distance yourself from your enemy to kill him. If that's true, in Iraq, the insurgents made it really easy.

The fanatics we fought valued nothing but their twisted interpretation of religion. And half the time they just claimed they valued their religion-most didn't even pray. Quite a number were drugged up so they could fight us.

Many of the insurgents were cowards. They routinely used drugs to stoke their courage. Without them, alone, they were nothing. I have a tape somewhere showing a father and a girl in a house that was being searched. They were downstairs; for some reason, a flash-bang went off upstairs.

On the video, the father hides behind the girl, afraid that he's going to be killed and ready to sacrifice his daughter.

HIDDEN BODIES

They may have been cowards, but they could certainly kill people. The insurgents didn't worry about ROEs or court-martials. If they had the advantage, they would kill any Westerner they could find, whether they were soldiers or not.

One day we were sent to a house where we had heard there might be U.S. prisoners. We didn't find anyone in the building. But in the bas.e.m.e.nt, there were obvious signs that the dirt had been disturbed. So we set up lights and started digging.

It wasn't long before I saw a pants leg, then a body, freshly buried.

An American soldier. Army.

Next to him was another. Then another man, this one wearing Marine camis.

My brother had joined the Marines a little before 9/11. I hadn't heard from him, and I thought that he had deployed to Iraq.

For some reason, as I helped pull the dead body up, I was sure it was my brother.

It wasn't. I said a silent prayer and we kept digging.

Another body, another Marine. I bent over and forced myself to look.

Not him.

But now, with each man we pulled out of that grave-and there were a bunch-I was more and more convinced I was going to see my brother. My stomach tightened. I kept digging. I wanted to puke.

Finally, we were done. He wasn't there.

I felt a moment of relief, even elation-none of them were my brother. Then I felt tremendous sadness for the murdered young men whose bodies we had pulled out.

When I finally heard from my brother, I found out that even though he was in Iraq, he hadn't been anywhere near where I'd seen those bodies. He'd had his own scares and hard times, I'm sure, but hearing his voice just made me feel a lot better.

I was still big brother, hoping to protect him. h.e.l.l, he didn't need me to watch over him; he was a Marine, and a tough one. But somehow those old instincts never go away.

At another location, we found barrels of chemical material that was intended for use as biochemical weapons. Everyone talks about there being no weapons of ma.s.s destruction in Iraq, but they seem to be referring to completed nuclear bombs, not the many deadly chemical weapons or precursors that Saddam had stockpiled.

Maybe the reason is that the writing on the barrels showed that the chemicals came from France and Germany, our supposed Western allies.

The thing I always wonder about is how much Saddam was able to hide before we actually invaded. We'd given so much warning before we came in, that he surely had time to move and bury tons of material. Where it went, where it will turn up, what it will poison-I think those are pretty good questions that have never been answered.