My brother Owen was hit in the head by a sniper bullet yesterday in Baghdad. He’s uninjured, through some incredible luck, or perhaps just leftover grace from one of his myriad religions (ranging from Christianity to Harley-Davidsons). The bullet pierced his hi-tech Army headphones, ripped through the kevlar lining of his helmet, and… stopped. At first he thought he’d been hit by a large and well-aimed rock.
He’s been in Iraq for a year. Coincidentally, yesterday is the day he would have been climbing into a C-130 and heading home to his wife, dog and margarita blender, had his tour not been extended as part of The Surge.
So I’m reclaiming the yellow ribbon. On this post, at least, it no longer means that somehow, our troops wound up in a war, and it’s our duty to support them.
3,500 soldiers have died in Iraq and each one of them is President Bush’s fault. His fault for making up the reasons to go to war, his fault for not planning for an occupation, his fault for lacking the imagination to think of another course, his fault for not having the basic American guts to admit he was wrong, his fault for thinking that cocky = capable, his fault for thinking democracy could be pushed like religion in a revival tent.
His fault for running for re-election on a yellow ribbon, then hiding behind it until 2008.
Much is made of how our armed forces are the best-equipped, best-trained fighting force the world has ever seen. But even the Titanic sank when someone steered it straight into an iceberg. This is an amateurishly conceived war led by a president who is totally out of his depth and clung to by politicians who can’t imagine any disaster larger than the loss of their own jobs.
Periodically, Owen writes about daily life for the Sandbox under the pseudonym Sgt. Roy Batty. His reports are more vivid and more enlightening than anything on TV. Read one here, and e-mail a word of support to sgtroybatty at yahoo dot com. The troops can hear us, even if their leaders can’t.
I am relieved to hear Owen was not injured. I cannot imagine the emotional trauma that must be sweeping through your family.
I cannot disagree with any of your analysis of the situation. I think we would have eventually ended up in a second confrontation with Hussein, but I believe we should have waited for him to make a move that would have resulted in a more broadly-based decision to remove him from power. The motive for going in was wrong, the international support was insufficient, and there were to few planners which resulted in a lot of critical aspects of the plan going unquestioned.
What a mess.
As I said on Eric’s blog, I’m happy to hear that your brother is all right. I don’t know either of you from Adam but I get pissed every single time I hear of another soldier that’s not coming home. In your brothers case I’m just as happy to hear that he will be returning from this ill-conceived, poorly planned, war.
I regularly search for messages from SGT Batty, and have Google send me a notice when a blog with Sgt Roy Batty shows up. When I first read your post it caused me to stop breathing for a split second. I can only thank whatever power one thanks that Owen has survived. His writing has been a magnet to me, a worker in the defense business who truly believes in the often abused term Support the Troops. The fact they can keep doing their job and supporting each other considering the shit they have to continually put up with is a testament to their strength and dedication. Thank you SGT Roy, keep your head down. I want to be able to keep reading your writings.
Thanks Eric, Doug, and Mark for your support. It means a lot to me, my family, and especially Owen. I enjoy reading the comments that Sgt Roy Batty gets on his posts because it drives home the point of how badly people want and need to hear things described from Owen’s point of view – thanks for underscoring that here, Mark. And Eric, thanks for posting on your blog. Best wishes to all.
Yo Scrib: two ticos are sending some pura vida to Sgt Roy and yourself–when I saw the post heading I realized I was holding my breath and only let it out after reading he was well. Stay strong bro, and pass it along to Owen when you get the chance.
I can’t believe I’ve read (and been fascinated/terrified/intrigued by) your brothers words on the Sandbox, and never knew he was family! I am so very glad that he’s ok. It’s really all so infuriating, I know not what else to say. Your words say it best. Much anger and relief and support from the field on the flank of Barba Volcano.
I read “Brother Dodges Sniper” and I am totally relived that the situation isn’t as bad as it could be. (Not Iraq; Roy/Owen. Surely Iraq has bottomed out by now…?) I’m a big fan of Roy’s blogs. I see the stuff he writes as an articulate reality check in a sea of flag-waving horse-shit. There, now I’ve said it! Hello, Mr. Gonzales, hi, Mr. Cheney! Please don’t eat me.
There’s just a couple teensy little things left out of the reasons we occupied Iraq… it’s that slimey black stuff…and oh, yeah… no-bid contracts. Take it easy, Roy. Welcome Home.
Once again, thanks to all the well-wishes. Especially all you pre-existing Batty fans who found this blog and commented. I passed on your wishes to my brother in Iraq. Best, H
Hey bro! Love your website, and wanted to send a quick ‘thank you’ from Baghdad, both to you and the folks that posted, about my recent close encounter with an AK round. Crazy shit continues on a more or less daily basis here. A couple of days after the sniper incident, a 62mm mortar round exploded right in front at me, less than 30 feet away. An NCO to my right took a chunk of shrapnel in his buttocks, but I was unscathed (again). Eight more came in right behind it, but I was back inside my truck by then.
Two days after that, one of our trucks got hit by a big IED that was hidden in a sewer drain. It left a massive crater, but only did light damage to the truck. One of our drivers, SPC Boykin, got medevac’d out of country to Landstuhl for a severe concussion, but he will make it. The funny thing about that one was that it should have been my truck–they replaced me at the last moment due to maintenance issues.
The next day one of our soldiers was killed in nearby Adamiyah by a RPG-29 that came through her window, through her head, and then out through the windshield. She was responding to a coordinated ambush that killed five other soldiers, all infantry. We also took four other wounded soldiers from our company that day. It was the single worst day for US fatalities in the history of the war.
Then, yesterday, we got attacked by a sniper and coordinated ambush at the same time, right at our very own IP station, just two blocks north of Sadr City. The sniper shot a dismounted infantry soldier in the neck, behind our station, and then attacked us. We had .50 caliber machine guns, M240 machine guns, M4 rifles, PKC machine guns, all yammering away at each other. I was on the front gate and jumped out and put down suppressive fire on some guys across the street that were shooting from the rooftops at us, with my M4 on 3-round burst while screaming “BRING IT, MUTHAFUCKAS!” at the top of my voice. It was a bit of a cathersis for me. The infantry soldier was even luckier than me. The round went straight through his neck, and hit….nothing. A hairline fracture of his C2 vertebrae, and nothing else.
Too bad my platoon sergeant did not dig it, since he told me that it was not an MP tactic to leave cover and shoot back during enemy attacks. Said I should have stayed low and “waited for further instructions”. Which goes against twenty years of tactical training for me. Apparently he is trying to send me to Headquarters platoon to do menial jobs for the rest of the deployment.
Can someone please tell me what the hell I am doing here? Apparently it is to drive and stand around, and wait to get killed. God forbid that we actually shoot back.
So, yes, I totally agree with your assessment of the war and the dumbasses that have us stuck in the middle of this shithole. If only you knew just how screwed up it really is. I take real exception to the neocon assholes who whine that the media never shows any of the good stuff here. The media covers less than 1% of the shit that goes on here every day–only if it has a high body count or is unusual in nature. I honestly have seen no positive action of any kind. No construction, no improvement of the infrastructure, not even any improvement of the Iraqi police agencies.
Anyway, enough of that crap.
Thanks again, everyone, and especially my uber-cool brother for the awesome positive energy from your posts. Your support and concern truly make a huge difference for all of us that are stuck in this mess, and they give me hope to trudge on for that magic day when I can come home. I can only hope I look as good in a wetsuit when I get back as Hugh does 🙂
me and my dad are relieved that sgt roy/owen is ok because we mailed him and when he stopped mailing us and stopped writing blogs we got worried so we are happy that owen is alive and mainly well because he had quite a voice in his writing and i do not want any more soldiers to die in iraq that do not deserve to die.
It is good to know there are Batty-hunters like me out there, checking in now and then just to see he is ok. And as for that hanging post left on Sandbox that said he’d been sent to Germany, that’s plain cruel – to walk you into a battle then leave you wondering.
If you were a fiction writer, Roy, you would be one of my faves. But someone writing what you are actually seeing and hearing I just wish you weren’t so good. I wish your descriptions were poetic licence. That it wasn’t so completely screwed up. That there was some point where your country and mine could say there: job done, problem fixed, now on to the next one. But you are damnably believable and it really is as bad as that and worse.
Glad, really glad, you are safe.
Whew! You had me going there, Owen! I miss the Sandbox letters and search everyday for one. I too was worried about what happened after, but I guess it was pretty basic crap from a goof who thinks that sitting back while being shot at is a good idea. Glad you’re safe and would love to see a book (no, change that – I wouldn’t love to see *anything* come from this CF other than our troops home) from you when and if this ends.
Take care and God bless.
Mike
Want to start your private office arms race right now?
I just got my own USB rocket launcher 🙂 Awsome thing.
Plug into your computer and you got a remote controlled office missile launcher with 360 degrees horizontal and 45 degree vertival rotation with a range of more than 6 meters – which gives you a coverage of 113 square meters round your workplace.
You can get the gadget here: http://tinyurl.com/2qul3c
Check out the video they have on the page.
Cheers
Marko Fando