"The Strip"
By Tamim Fares
It was a barren strip of land, roughly two kilometers long and 500m wide, that defined the Western border of our sector and was the dividing line between the Sunni and Shiite militias that dominated our part of Baghdad. Constantly at war with each other, if the militias weren’t shooting at us, they were lighting each other up.
Cache strip. 500 meters of brown dirt that may as well have been a chasm dividing two worlds. On one side, the sprawl of Al Hadar. On the other, towering apartment blocks that housed a Shiite minority which had long been oppressed by Sadam and the Ba’ath Party. We would patrol through the strip with Strykers and more often than not, we found bodies which had been dumped. EJK’s we called them–Extrajudicial Killings. A pleasant-sounding euphemism for a brutal act.
At night, in the courtyard of an Iraqi Police station on the edge of the strip, we watched the tracers flying back and forth. Reds and greens, crisscrossing in the night sky like a holiday light show. The IPs would lean back in their worn chairs and smoke their cheap Korean cigarettes. It was no secret that half of them were on the payroll of Shiite ‘resistance’ cells. All were funded by Iran and most were guilty of offenses against the occupying forces. Regardless, we sat and smoked with them. Trading incomprehensible stories in broken English and Arabic, while trying to get a feel for each other's enigmatic plans.
Several times we set up ambushes in an attempt to catch militants crossing the strip and kill them. Most of the time, there was no action and the ambush would shoulder their extra ammo and hump back to the COP. Pissed at the missed opportunity and tired from the night’s vigilance.
Every once in a while though, a group of militants on the edge of the strip would bump into a platoon on the prowl and a quick firefight would ensue. The insurgents always melted back into the wasteland before we could maneuver on them, a frustrating tactic that only increased our bloodlust.
Tamim Fares is a storyteller and Army veteran chronicling the stories of the Iraq War during the Surge. You can follow him here.
What’s happening at VetRep…
Catch our interview with Francisco Martinezcuello on the Savage Wonder Podcast this week.
Registration is live for our first acting and playwriting classes! The classes are being offered at our Quaker Ave. location on February 22nd and March 4th. Find more details and register here.
VetRep is hosting our second public workshop, this time for War Wound by Philip Korth. We’re proud to hold this event at American Legion Post 633 in Highland Falls, NY which is our sponsor for the reading. Get tickets here!