Excerpt from New Manuscript "Voicing the Eagle"

The following is an excerpt from the book I am currently working on documenting Fadi's experiences as a local translator working for U.S. forces in Iraq from 2003-2009.

“TAKE COVER!!!” The Major screamed as the echoes of AK-47s and small arms fire rung out across the field. The seven Marine’s of Major W’s Civil Affairs team along with me, their translator, all hit the ground. We were in a cattle pasture on the outskirts of Ramadi when, once again, it seemed we were being attacked by ghosts. Bullets rained down on our position from God knows where. We were all flat out on our bellies as rounds pinged off the humvees behind us. As usual, no one could see who was shooting at us, we only had a general idea from which direction the fire was coming.

Fadi "Allen" and Major W near Ramadi, Iraq

“Allen! Get your ass in one of the humvees!” The Major shouted to me. Allen isn’t my real name, but Americans struggle to pronounce my Iraqi name so they all called me “Allen” instead. I crawled to the closest humvee and scrambled inside as quickly as possible. Yeah, they wouldn’t need me to translate anything for a while so it was better just to stay out of the way.

Aside from the Civil Affairs Marines, there were about 30 U.S. Army soldiers in our convoy out on patrol with us. They were all on the ground too. A few minutes later there was a slight lull in the enemy shooting. Some of the U.S. soldiers started returning fire and Major W and his Marines started making their way toward the group of houses the hostile fire seemed to originate from. The guys driving the humvees in the convoy drove along slowly with the unit trying to provide cover for some of the soldiers. Within minutes the shooting started again – the enemy had obviously stopped to simply reload or perhaps move to better positions. A few seconds later there was a massive BOOM!, and I saw one of the humvees towards the front of the convoy nearly roll on its side and burst into flames after taking an RPG to the front right fender. I realized then that the humvees were nothing but sitting ducks making great targets for the enemy, so I bailed. I slipped out the back door and started crawling through the field trying to catch back up with Major W and the rest of the team.

I finally made it to Sergeant J who was covering the rear of the group. “The Major told you to stay in the humvee,” he shouted at me.

“They are blowing them up!” I retorted. “Figured my chances were better with you guys.”

The hostile fire trailed off again and we all popped up to get our bearings and regroup. We noticed the Major was way ahead of us, so Sergeant J and I got to our feet and started running to catch up. The distinct POP! POP! of AK fire started again – resuming more quickly this time than before. They’d either gotten faster at reloading or had only stopped in hopes we’d reveal our positions. Sergeant J and I both tried to drop to the ground again, but it was too late. Before my knees hit the grass I was struck with a searing pain in my chest and was knocked back several feet. In an instant I was flat on my back staring up at the sky. It felt like I’d been hit by a truck. The air had been sucked out of my lungs and I gasped to catch my breath. Sergeant J threw his body over mine, making it even harder to breath.

Once I was finally able to get oxygen back into my body I saw the blood. “I’ve been shot!” I screamed. “Get off of me!” I yelled as I struggled to push this massive Marine Sergeant off of me. I was wearing body armor but from the pain I was in and the blood I saw I was sure the bullet had gone through it.

“Stay down!” Sergeant J yelled back at me.

“I’m hit! It went through!” I continued to scream and squirm under his weight.

Seconds later the choppers arrived overhead to provide air support with suppressive fire and finally the enemy shooting ceased for good. Sergeant J sat up and straddled me to hold me down so he could survey the damage. “Where are you hit!”

“My chest!” I blurted. The blood was smeared all over the front of my uniform and across my body armor. “Oh fuck! Oh fuck! I’m bleeding bad!” I was in a lot of pain but actually relieved because I knew the pain meant I probably wasn’t dying. Sergeant J ripped the Velcro straps from my bullet proof vest and pushed it up over my head. He ran his hands up and down my chest and stomach and across my shoulders.

“There’s nothing Allen! It didn’t go through. You’re fine.”

“But I’m bleeding!” I argued.

“No you’re not. I am,” he replied in a surprisingly calm tone.

I looked and saw Sergeant J’s uniform near the top corner of his right shoulder was ripped. Blood was seeping from the area and dripping down his arm. He’d been grazed by a round – perhaps the same one that took me down. When he’d thrown his body over mine he bled onto me so I actually had more of his blood on me than he did. “Shit dude, you’re hit! We gotta get you to a medic.”

“It’s fine. It looks worse than it really is. I only got grazed,” he said as he grabbed my vest and looked at it. His finger found the indentation where the AK-47 round that took me down was embedded deep into one of the chest plates. “See,” he said pointing it out to me “the bullet that got you is right here. Put your vest back on, we’ve got to catch back up with the Major.”

I slipped the body armor vest back over my head and strapped it on. Holy fuck. I looked down and noticed the bullet was lodged in the area right over my heart. I’d have been dead.

Before we headed toward the houses I told him to let me look at his shoulder. I pulled apart the material of his uniform where it’d been ripped and surveyed his wound. It was a superficial gash and the bleeding seemed to have already stopped. “Alright man, I guess you’re ok,” I said wiping the blood off my fingers onto my pants.

As we started jogging to catch up with the rest of the team I didn’t know which was worse – the throbbing pain in my chest or the beating I was probably going to get from Sergeant S, the Marine back on base whose body armor I’d borrowed that day. He was going to be really pissed when he found out what I did to his vest.