Leaving a base in a war zone for the first time is frightening. This was certainly true for my friend Albert Herbokowitz, a lance corporal in the Marine Reserves who was deployed to Iraq’s Anbar province in 2007.
Then 19, Herbokowitz was a rock-solid Marine trained to operate M198 howitzers, beasts that could spit death, in the form of 155 mm shells, for 14 miles. Yet instead of raining high explosives down on the enemy, his company, or battery, had been deployed as provisional military police. Their primary duty was providing convoy security west of Fallujah.
By 2007, nobody in the military doubted the courage of those on convoy duty. They were constantly under threat from improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, a technical term for the deadly roadside bombs used by Iraqi insurgents. Herbokowitz was well aware of this danger as he drove a brand-new MRAP, an IED-resistant light armored vehicle, out on his first convoy. Right outside the base, a sign read: “Complacency Kills. Is Today Your Last Day?” Death was on his mind.
Herbokowitz was scared, but looking back, he recalled drawing strength from his faith in the Lord. “I remember thinking, ‘I’m totally at peace if I die right now,’” he told me. “I was completely confident in my salvation.”
Herbokowitz’s battery had replaced one that had lost a few Marines to IEDs. Early in his deployment, one of his battery’s platoons had reported a suspicious-looking garbage pile on the side of the road. The Marines’ bomb squad investigated and found a hidden IED. This put Herbokowitz on edge, but for the first two months, his platoon’s convoy duty went smoothly. He drove carefully, watching for random packages and garbage piles, but nothing happened. He and his fellow Marines were confident. They were good at protecting convoys.
Then one day his platoon assembled for a briefing. At first, the guys talked and joked. Then, their platoon commander introduced a video before showing it on a large screen. The video had been found on the cellphone of an insurgent the Marines had captured relaxing outside Ramadi’s version of Starbucks. Soon, Herbokowitz’s platoon was watching a video of their own convoy recorded by the enemy. They listened to the insurgent prattle excitedly in Arabic as the American vehicles rolled by. They could hear the fury in his voice when his IED failed to detonate. No interpreter was required. A cold quiet settled over the room as Herbokowitz and his brothers in arms realized that some of them would be dead had they not activated their IED frequency jammers, devices that scramble transmissions to prevent trigger men from setting off IEDs using cellphones or garage door openers.
“It was kind of scary,” Herbokowitz recalled. “We hadn’t had anything happen, so you kind of gravitate toward ‘Oh, it’s no big deal.’” When he watched on screen as his own vehicle rolled through the kill zone he realized, “This was real.” That day could easily have been his last.
After the briefing, Herbokowitz’s battery had four months remaining in their tour. The video had been an important, perhaps life-saving, reminder of the serious nature of their mission. The Marines trusted their equipment, remained vigilant, and worked hard. Although they sometimes took small arms fire, everyone in the battery made it home alive and well.
In war, everybody knows the enemy is out to kill him, but almost nobody, not even those who come under attack, gets the chilling opportunity to see their own potential death through the eyes of the enemy.
Trent Reedy served as a combat engineer in the Iowa National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
