Army Captain Gates Brown saw it all during his 2006-2007 deployment to Iraq, most spent just north of Baghdad. He spoke of the good (trying to make a better life for young Iraqis), the bad (the apartness from Iraqis inherent in the way U.S. troops deployed) and the ugly (his wounding, and the amazingly screwed-up trip home it set in motion).

Some soldiers can tell a good war story, if there is any such thing. Brown tells several in this January interview with the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Excerpts:

The Good:

When we go to the provincial center, the government center, for these weekly meetings, there was always a little girl there and she might have been eight or nine. I could never figure out why she was there.

She was one of the caretaker’s daughters. She was standoffish and, in the beginning, always a little scared and concerned about what we were doing. We looked intimidating.

In just talking with the people and we eventually got to know her backstory a little bit. Before I left — well, I don’t want to say that because it sounds like I planned to leave and I didn’t — I was able to get a picture of her and I together.

I look at now and I think, well, that’s maybe like the strategic end-state we didn’t quite get in Iraq, but I am sure that there are a lot of personal connections that people were able to make. In that sense, I am happy about that.

Was I able to change her life? No.

But, maybe she realized that we weren’t the monsters that some people would tell her that we were.

The Bad:

We showed up and we took over this house and we say we want to be part of the community and the first thing we do is put up these huge HESCO barriers and wall ourselves in. In putting up the HESCO barriers, we actually slashed through their water line.

Building a HESCO wall in Iraq.

I say water line, it was really a plastic tube, but no pressure and it supplied a couple of houses. We didn’t even realize it was there until the engineers were out there and they were excavating dirt for the HESCOs and water starts coming up. Not like a water main, but just kind of bubbling up.

They said, “Well, like what is going on?” It looked like bigger than an icemaker tube, one of those plastic. That’s what it looked like. It was bigger than that, but not a whole lot bigger.

I thought, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Sure enough, people across the street came over.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re the neighbors.”

I think I didn’t understand the problems with setting up security, because for me that’s second nature. We’re, this sounds terrible, we’re out in Indian country. We need to protect ourselves.

Certainly they’ll understand, but from their perspective if we really wanted to be partners then, “Why are we making it impossible for them to come up and come into our house? Why are we making it impossible for them to feel safe walking in front?”

Because we have guys with machineguns who are there 24/7 and their watching. They don’t feel comfortable walking in front. I wouldn’t feel comfortable walking down the street if I knew somebody had a machine gun trained on me…

We were part of a huge FOB [forward operating base], relatively speaking. It was the brigade headquarters, not as huge as Anaconda or Liberty, but we had the mess hall, had more than enough to eat.

As far as petroleum and food, rations, and water stuff, never had any issue with not getting fuel, always had water. It was really logistics push, we never had to try to pull anything. That was good…

I think we were pretty well supplied. I never wanted for anything, which was incredible. By the time I got there, everything was set up.

You had this huge infrastructure of logistics convoys that were going. I mean, we had semi-trucks, half a dozen semi-trucks a day coming into FOB Warhorse with just crap.

Some of the stuff — it was to the point, you could go to the Post Exchange (PX) — matter of fact, my computer died while I was over there. I went to the PX and bough a laptop. It was to the point that they had got into the “nice to have” and you didn’t really want for the “need to have” stuff. I was impressed…

When we lived in FOB Warhorse I had a containerized housing unit (CHU) that was air conditioned. I shared it with my platoon sergeant. We had a satellite TV. We got tons of channels, nothing you’d want to watch.

When you hear about some people’s war experiences, Vietnam or World War II, you don’t think about, “Oh well, I went out and I did a patrol and I came back and I surfed the internet for a while.”

After the first month, we got satellite internet. The platoon went together and paid some guy to come out and put up a satellite internet for us.

Everything was good in the beginning of the month, until you hit your data limit. Then they would throttle you back. Then you wait for the next month. That’s just crazy. That you can have an internet connection and you can do whatever you want in your little CHU.

If that doesn’t work you can go down to the morale, welfare, and recreation and use their internet. Guys had X-Boxes…that’s what they would do. If they weren’t on patrol, they’d be in the gym or they’d be playing X-Box.

We never asked the question, “What do guys need or what should we provide?”

It was always, “What could we provide?”

And the answer was, “Everything.”

They did and I don’t necessarily think that was a good thing.

What it created was a mentality where you really wanted to be on the FOB, because life was nice. It was air conditioned…

It was crazy, because you leave the wire and even in the nice part of Ba’qubah you didn’t have power 24-hours a day, 7-days a week. The infrastructure was terrible and life sucked.

On FOB Warhorse, you had ice cream every night. You had power all the time. You had running water, clean water. Life was good.

So we didn’t understand what they struggled with, “Oh yeah, your power sucks. I’m really sorry about that. I’m going to go back. We’ve got power there.”

You know, they see that. They see, “Oh well, you’ve got huge generators that you’re able to supply. We can’t do that. Our hospital runs out of power and yet, you’ve got video game systems.”

Does that make sense?

We didn’t ask that question.

We just thought, “Soldiers need to be comfortable. They’re sacrificing. We need to mitigate their sacrifice as much as possible.”

I think it depends on what you end state is. Is your end state to have a fat and happy Soldier who sits in Iraq for a year, or do you want somebody who’s there that can be reasonably emphatic with the struggles of the people he is supposed to be liberating. Yeah, logistics was really good. [Laughter]

Sometimes at the expense of other goals, but that’s okay.

The Ugly:

There was a supply convoy that was under attack [Jan. 19, 2007].

There was another element from our troop there that was paired with an Iraqi Army unit. This captain and his group were going to be the folks leading the effort to go and relieve the logistics convoy under attack. We were going to fall in under them.

Since we knew where we were going, we said, “Okay, fine. We’ll take the lead. We’ll get you down there and then we will figure out how we are going to crack this nut.”

My section sergeant who normally took the lead had just gotten back off of his two-week rest & relaxation (R&R), so he said, “Well, I don’t know exactly where this is. I have been gone for two weeks.”

I said, “Okay, fine. I’ll go first.”

That’s how I got to be in the lead [second generation up-armored HMMWV] vehicle, because normally I would be second in the order of march, which is — the Infantry always puts their platoon leaders first, Armor you’re always second. The idea is, well, if something happens to your first vehicle you would like to be able to fight your platoon, but if the platoon leader is in the first vehicle and something happens there now the platoon leader is out of the fight.

But, like I said, he felt uncomfortable, so I said, “Not a problem. I’ll lead from the front…”

So, we were going to go down the main road. We had got a report that there was IEDs in a checkpoint and they told us the checkpoint number.

So, plot it and I said, “After the checkpoint that is just to the north of the checkpoint where we know there are IEDs, we’re going to switch lanes, so that we were off the lane where the IEDs were.”

Gates Brown

Okay.

Well, it turned out the checkpoint was the one prior, not the one that they told us.
Military intelligence.

They had buried a 120 mm mortar beneath the road and it wasn’t command-detonated, it was pressure-detonated.

As the vehicle rolled over it, it exploded…

You have that half second of, “Wow.”

Because we had been attacked by IEDs before, but I had never been in a vehicle that had gotten hit. Usually what happened is the IEDs had hit — they would either be command-detonated so they would happen either too soon or after our convoy, or it would be a vehicle that was a couple in front of us, depending on what our layout was, or it would be behind.

So I had seen these things, but like I said, being in the vehicle was a much different situation…

I gently encouraged [the driver] to move and get the vehicle out. We were able to get the vehicle out and at first, both my feet hurt, a lot. Then I noticed that my left foot was getting better, but my right foot was getting worse. At first, I kind of thought, “I’ll be okay. I can probably push through this.” Then I quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen.

Initially, I looked down and there was a rip in my pants, because when the bomb went off, my knee went into some ledge or some piece of metal and it cut. I looked at my pants and I thought, “Okay, it’s a cut, maybe it’s not that bad.”

That was what I thought was the extent. I just notice that my right foot hurt more, and more, and more, and more.

I said, “Something’s got to happen. I need to be EVACed.”

I called my platoon sergeant and I said, “We need help.”

They got up there and I was ground EVACed first. They got, a Bradley was coming up from the ambush and so they put me in the Bradley with a couple other Iraqis who were hurt from the ambush.

Then they got me to the FOB and when they got me in there, they stripped me down and I realized that the cut on my knee was actually to the bone and I looked up and I could see my knee cap.

I don’t know what happened, maybe I turned white, I don’t know, but I remember I was looking at it and then I laid back down.
I didn’t think I did anything, but their like, “Oh my God, he’s . . .”

I don’t do really well with blood, especially with my own blood. I really don’t like to see that. I am sure I thought, “Oh God.”
Luckily, they got morphine started really soon. My medic was great about that.

As far as that aspect of it, the MEDEVAC went relatively well.

The intelligence part of it failed miserably…

I went from Warhorse to Anaconda and that was by helicopter. One thing that I was really surprised, as they were putting me on the bird, the brigade commander at Warhorse, the brigade commander of Warhorse, came out there and saw me off. Told me that, I can’t remember exactly, basically said, “Hey, we’re proud of you.”

At the time I was kind of in and out, but looking back I thought, that really to me was important to do and I thought that was a good thing.

They got me to Anaconda and they went in and they had to do fasciotomies, because I had compartment syndrome, where the inside of my foot and leg was swelling faster than the outside could handle.

So, it was cutting off blood flow. What they do is they go in and just cut the fascia to let the inside, basically, push out. They did that and they assessed it. What they do, if you can return to duty within 24/72 hours, they keep you in country.

If not, you’re going to Germany and then you might come back. Then if you’re going to Germany and you can’t be returned in however long, you’re going back to the States.

I don’t remember getting to Anaconda. I remember them putting me under. Then I came out and I was able to talk to my mom and [wife] Marty, but I didn’t understand the extent of my injuries at the time.

I knew that I was going to Germany, but I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know if I was going to Germany to come back or if I was going to Germany to go home. It didn’t really hit me what was going on at the time. I knew that I was glad to talk to my mom and I was glad to talk to Marty and both of them they were crying…

On the flight back to Bragg, because I was on the pain pump, they couldn’t control the pain as well on the plane. I started to have some pain on the plane and I called the nurse over and they’d say, “Well, there’s really not much we can do, because this is the last time you had a shot.”

I was like, “Yeah, but I am hurting now.”

…I just thought, “You got to be kidding me. I’m in pain right now.”

I started having fever because of the pain. It was ridiculous. It’s also a bad way to fly, because you are on this cot and they stack them three deep and I was in the middle, either the middle or below. Anyway, all I know is that I was looking up at someone else’s butt.

It was a non-stop flight from Germany to Washington, D.C., and couldn’t move, because I was there. I was like, “Oh my God, this is terrible.”

The only thing you had to do was concentrate on whatever hurts, so that is what you do.

You call people over and they say, “Oh, I’m sorry. I really can’t.”

You got a whole bag of stuff and you can’t give me one thing. Thanks a lot.”

Before I left Germany, I remember they told me that my leg was broken in seven places. I thought, “There’s no way it’s that bad. Really.” I didn’t think it was that bad…

With your feet on the floor and with a flat bottom, it is just like a drum. When that concussion came up all that force went right into my foot. It just rippled through. It was all from the concussion.

Which is actually a good thing, because I didn’t have a compound fracture. The only break in the skin was from the cut and the risk of infection was a lot lower because of that.

That is one of the nasty things, there is just so much crap in Iraq and with shrapnel wounds, with bullet wounds, you have a lot of problems because your clothes get pushed into the wound. You might have an infection that comes months, years after the fact, because your body can seal it but maybe you get hit again and it breaks that seal and now you have all that stuff inside your body.

It was good, plus I would have freaked out if I would have seen a bone, I’m not that strong. I just know me and that would have been bad…

I was going to Womack [Army Medical Center], Fort Bragg, because it wasn’t an amputation and it wasn’t a burn. Womack has a really good orthopedic section, because airborne operations, they see a lot of broken bones…

When I got to Fort Bragg, we flew in a C-130 and they took us off and they took me to the emergency room.

I thought, “That’s really odd.”

I thought I was going to be going to a hospital room, because I was a single lieutenant, my parents and fiancé were in Kansas. It is not as if they could discharge me, I didn’t have anybody there.

The fact that I knew my leg was broken in seven places and I knew that on the grand spectrum of war wounds, this is not the worst, but it is not good either. This is probably not my only hospital appointment.

But, I am sitting there and I see people being discharged and I keep asking, “When are you going to do something with me?”

Because I really need pain medicine, the pain pump is running out and I haven’t had any medication.

I really need something, they are like, “Oh, no, no, no. We’re getting to you, we’re getting to you.”

They finally get to me after they had sent everybody else home and what had happened is somehow I had gotten classified as kind of an outpatient person.

When they finally got to me, they realized that, “No, he’s not an outpatient. He’s going to be in the hospital for a while.”

I get to the room and it was 8:00 or 9:00 o’clock and I finally thought, “Okay, good. I am in my room. I can start to get some fricking pain medicine.”

I wasn’t even able to get into my hospital bed until they came and said, Oh, we got to get some computerized tomography (CT) scans.”

I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. I really need some medication. This is crazy.”

They said, “As soon as we get you back from your CT scans.”

So we go take the CT scans, we get back to the room, and it’s close to 10:00 at night.

I ask the guy, “When am I going to get some medication, because I am going crazy here. I really, really need some help.”

I stopped being polite.

He said, “Well, you’re not admitted.”

Just by coincidence, my cousin’s husband, is an Army ER doctor. They were stationed at Fort Campbell and because the Army has electronic medical records, he was able to track me from being EVACed to Anaconda all the way to being in Fort Bragg.

He couldn’t tell the family, but he could tell them, “He’s okay. This is where he is. I can’t tell you exactly because of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and all that.”

At the time, when he talked to me he asked me if he could tell everybody and I said, “Yeah, you can tell everybody.”

I understood why, I thought it was interesting that he couldn’t say anything. Anyway, he didn’t. He called me because he realized where I was.

He called me and he said, “Hey, how are you doing?”

I just fell apart, “It’s fricking 10:00 o’clock at night. I haven’t had any pain medication for hours. They tell me I’m not admitted. I don’t know what to do. I am a lieutenant. Something supposed to be happening and nothing’s happening. My units in Iraq, so I don’t have anybody here.”

Then about ten minutes later, just a flurry of activity. Dudes coming, “What do you need? What’s going on? What can we do? What can we help?”

So, I finally got admitted and everything was good.

If you are severely injured, the Army will send out your next of kin to help you recuperate. So, they were going to send my mom out. Well, my mom, the unit had notified her and after my cousin’s husband had talked to me, he had talked to her and told her what was going on and told her how to start the process.

She contacted the hospital, because they needed something from the hospital to say that, “Yes, he’s admitted.”

The hospital said, “Well, he’s not admitted. We don’t have any record.”

She said, “He’s in room,” whatever the room was, “Lieutenant Brown.”

“Ma’am, we don’t have anyone by that name in this hospital. There’s nobody there.”

Luckily, my commander — and this is weird — my squadron commander was on R&R at the time, so he came up to see me in the hospital.

It was really good to see him, but I was also able to say, “You know, sir, for some reason my mom’s calling the hospital and they are telling her that I am not here and she can’t get a plane ticket from the Army until the hospital says I’m here. I don’t know what to do.”

It was another one of those things, he went down there and then ten minutes later somebody from the hospital is calling my mom, “Oh, Mrs. Surrel, we are so sorry. Here, we can help you. Here’s the guy to arrange your travel.”

…I was in the hospital for almost a month. Then we had to stay in the Fischer House on Fort Bragg for another couple of weeks, maybe three weeks…

When I finally got X-rays, after they got me off the plane and my wait in the ER, when I talked to the doctor — I still, nobody had told me what we’re looking at. I knew it was a broken leg, but what are we talking about.

I asked the doctor in the ER after he saw the X-rays, “What are we talking about? Is this a short-term thing is this is like a long-term thing? Is this months, is this years?”

He said, “Yeah, this is not good.”

Basically, he kind of told me, “We don’t need to talk about when you’re going to get back to normal. We need to try and figure out what normal is going to be.”

I said, “Oh, my God.”

I told him, “Amputate it.”

I wanted to run, I wanted to get back to running.

I said, “Cut it off.”

He said, “We can’t have that conversation now. We’re not.”

That was the first time that I realized, “This is going to be a bigger deal than I thought.”

Up to that point I thought, “I have a broken leg. They’ll put a cast on it. I’ll be on crutches for a while, but you know. . .” [Laughter]…

Now I’ve got a brace. The Army came up with, it’s called the expeditionary exoskeleton brace [energetically-autonomous powered knee exoskeleton]. They developed it down at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas and it’s based off of that cheetah foot design.
What it does, you put it on, it is a prosthetic that you kind of wear. It takes all the weight and puts it in your knee. There is a carbon fiber two struts that go down to a carbon fiber foot.

When you put pressure on the carbon fiber foot, it loads it in the struts and that is how you get your return energy, so you don’t actually put any weight on your foot, ankle.

So I can run.

The Bottom Line:

I feel like I did a good thing. In some ways I wish I felt like there was a — I have yet to get to the point where I felt that things were worth it…

I think the things that we were trying to correct are cultural and societal.

I think I made some, I hope that I was able to dispel some stereotypes or misconceptions that Iraqis had of U.S. troops. I always tried to be fair. I always tried to be understanding.

I think, on a personal level, I probably did some good, but if you always try to put things in a bigger context and hope — especially when you look at the Army’s paradigm conflicts in World War I, where they made the world safe.

I think if you are going by that metric, yeah, I don’t feel that things are what they could be or hopefully will be.

Who knows what’s going to happen in the future.

Vietnam is now a trading partner, so. . . [Laughter]

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