Around Iraq in 4 Days

U.S. Army historian Sherman Fleek came to Iraq to write the official record of postwar reconstruction. With thousands of projects underway across the country, there was a sense of urgency to his research.

From Baghdad, he decided, his first venture would be to head north to review work on an academy for Iraqi army officer candidates in Mosul. He gave himself two days to get there, do the research and return, figuring that would be sufficient for the 450-mile round-trip in a Black Hawk helicopter cruising at 145 mph.

But Fleek, a retired lieutenant colonel who teaches military history, was about to become acquainted with the awesome complexity of the system that moves soldiers around a war zone the size of California. With the roads too dangerous for routine travel, about 100 helicopters serve as taxis for soldiers and civilians on U.S. business, carrying them to and from scores of far-flung bases with names like Courage, Danger, Liberty and War Horse.

There are no flight schedules. For security reasons, the military does not disclose details on the number of flights or routes. The Army press office in Baghdad says routes are made up daily in response to need. Any flight can be canceled on short notice because of combat action.

The transit system is a hybrid of military and civilian styles, with hundreds of contract employees working alongside men and women in uniform in makeshift flight operations offices. Passenger manifests are drawn up by computer, but the flights are posted on whiteboards.

If your name is on the list, you will usually get a seat. But most travelers are like Fleek, flying “space available,” the military equivalent of “standby.”

Because the carrier is the U.S. Army and not JetBlue, a simple ride from Point A to Point B can be a gantlet of inscrutable procedures, unbelievable discomforts, lose-lose choices and long, cold waits.

14:30 Saturday. Baghdad.

Fleek’s mission begins at Landing Zone Washington, a field of concrete in the fortified Green Zone, where Black Hawks swoop down in pairs all day long, like airport limousines.

A distant roar announces the arrival of Fleek’s flight. Two dark shapes appear in the hazy winter sky, hover, and gently sink to the pavement, unleashing a blast of wind that rips at clothing and obliterates speech.

The flight crews, two members to a helicopter, slide back the passenger doors and beckon to Fleek, another civilian and more than a dozen soldiers. A small group was in Baghdad for a conference. Others are heading back to their posts after leave. One by one they clamber up, swinging M-16s, duffle bags, backpacks and other odd-sized boxes of weaponry and personal belongings.

It takes nearly 20 minutes, blades whirring the whole time, to get passengers snuggled into the helicopters, four each to a bank of canvas sling seats. Baggage is piled in the cavity between the copter’s machine guns, on the floor between the riders and on their laps. Further burdened by 30-pound body armor and helmets, the passengers can do little but move their hands. The whine of engines and the battering sound of blades preclude conversation.

Everyone stares ahead blankly, some no doubt pondering the risks ahead. More than 30 U.S. military helicopters have gone down over Iraq since 2003.

The Black Hawks lift off in unison. Cruising about 200 feet off the ground, they afford a dizzying picture of Baghdad rooftops, then fields and mud-and-stone villages. Twenty minutes later, they touch down for refueling. With hand signals, the flight crews direct all passengers to a waiting area behind a concrete wall for 10 minutes.

The next leg is just a hop from the fueling stop to the landing zone on the other side of Forward Operating Base Balad, a transit crossroad north of Baghdad and the end of the line for the flight.

Two hours of daylight left Saturday. FOB Balad. Distance traveled: 45 miles.

Fleek, a former Army helicopter pilot who has lost the battle of the midline but still retains a stride worthy of Gen. Patton, follows the others down a muddy road to the flight operations office in a trailer under camouflage. A young woman behind the counter checks her computer and gives Fleek the bad news. The next flight to Mosul will not be until the next morning, at 08:20.

For such situations, a bus from the flight operations center drives the stranded to a distant barracks for the night. But with a savvy honed by 27 years in the Army, Fleek does better. He chats up some public affairs officers from the flight. Their hospitality includes a semiprivate bunk, an evening of spirited conversation and a wake-up knock.

The knock comes at 06:00. Check-in is 06:50, apparently leaving time for a stroll to the dining facility before the 08:20 flight. When Fleek returns to the flight office at 07:20, the other passengers are gone. There was a 07:10 roll call, and then they were all bused to the landing zone.

“Wait right here,” commands a stern young woman with a walkie-talkie.

A few minutes later, a bus pulls up. When it reaches the landing pad, near a helicopter that is already loaded with its rotors turning, the flight chief gives Fleek a look that could be understood even through his black plastic visor: You’re late. After that, Fleek would never leave line again.

The helicopters take off into brisk morning air that grows colder as they climb. There is a stop at FOB Speicher near Saddam Hussein’s hometown, Tikrit, to let soldiers on and off. The final leg, over low mountain ranges and stretches of wheat fields, lasts a bone-aching two hours, then ends in a familiar pattern: A refueling stop and a short hop to the flight operations center at FOB Diamondback on the south side of Mosul.

Six hours of daylight left Sunday. Mosul. Distance traveled: 170 miles.

After an hour of futile dialing on a field telephone, Fleek finally gets through by e-mail to the Army Corps of Engineers’ tiny detachment on the giant base. In a few moments, Master Sgt. Tawna Ayers, who had waited for Fleek the night before, arrives in a mud-splattered SUV.

Ayers drives Fleek to a trailer where she says he can make himself comfortable until the convoy arrives to take him to his destination, FOB Courage, on the north side of the city. He has missed the morning convoy. At 15:00, Fleek reaches Courage, with just enough time to get a bunk and dinner. There will be no more travel that day.

09:00 Monday. Mosul.

The trip to the officer training academy north of the city goes smoothly, and after a brief tour, Fleek is ready for the journey back. It is early afternoon, time enough, with luck, for a quick flight to Baghdad.

But instead of taking Fleek to the airfield, his convoy pulls into another base. Fleek will have to catch the afternoon shuttle from there back to Diamondback, a Stryker convoy leaving at 14:30.

The Stryker troop carrier is a heavily armored steel box on wheels with just enough headroom for soldiers to sit on two unpadded benches. A video monitor provides the only outside contact as the engine revs and the box lurches forward. Muscles strain to anticipate the jerking turns. Rumps turn numb before the 20-minute drive is over.

15:00 Monday.

FOB Diamondback. Distance traveled: 15 miles.

When the vehicle thuds to a stop, Ayers is waiting again. Fleek learns there are no more flights to Baghdad that day, the third day of his trip. But at 10:20 Tuesday, he can catch a one-hour flight on a C-130 transport plane.

“I’ll take it,” he said.

07:00 Tuesday. Mosul.

Fleek awakes in good spirits. But then he comes face to face with the one person who can make the difficult impossible: an unmotivated civilian contract employee.

“I need your passport and orders,” the clerk says.

For the first time, Fleek’s frustration boils over. Heatedly, he says he has flown halfway across Iraq without either. It makes no difference to the civilian.

In a flurry of cellphone calls, Ayers determines that orders can be produced.

But the clerk won’t budge on the passport. Sometimes, he says, the flight skips Baghdad, and instead goes on to Kuwait. He says he has been chewed out before and he isn’t going to let it happen again.

That leaves Fleek with two options: take a helicopter that afternoon back to Speicher outside Tikrit with the hope of a night connection to Baghdad, or wait a day for a Baghdad flight that might be full.

It’s no choice, really. Fleek takes the bird in hand. Daylight is fading over Tikrit when the Black Hawk touches down on the pavement at Speicher.

17:00 Tuesday. FOB Speicher. Distance traveled: 120 miles.

Fleek strides into a cylindrical tent that houses flight operations and receives the usual good-news-bad-news. There is a flight at 19:00 to Balad, but the waiting list is overflowing with the names of soldiers stranded the night before.

Fleek gets a burger at the base’s imitation Main Street of fast-food eateries and returns to flight operations.

In the darkness, he takes his place near the end of a line of 27, three more than the capacity of two Black Hawks, even if they arrive empty.

At 19:00, his spirits lift when a giant form descends from the night sky.

“It’s a Chinook,” Fleek says gleefully. “It holds 40 people.”

The emotion is fleeting. Shouting over the jet whine and prop blast, the flight leader informs the ground crew that most of the space is filled with cargo and there is room for only a dozen passengers.

Fifteen don’t make it, and Fleet is among them. They trudge with their gear back to the tent to find out when the next flight will be. Most are told it will be 21:00 the next day, more than 24 hours away. With polite acceptance, the soldiers step into the night to find their bunks.

The young operations officer is telling Fleek he should return at midnight to get his name at the top of the waiting list. But his luck suddenly turns. The flight leader of the Chinook appears at the door.

“I need three for Balad,” he says in a tone that means, “Right now.” Miraculously, Fleek has gone from last to first in line.

Minutes later, he is packed in the cold, dark chamber of the helicopter, immobile with soldiers on either side, their baggage forming a wall at their feet. Huge boxes loom in the rear. The rotors blow frigid gusts of wind through the fuselage, biting through Fleek’s soft jacket.

The helicopter rises, then flies lumberingly, slower than a Black Hawk. In flight, the wind mercifully stops and the fuselage grows comfortably warm. Fleek gives a satisfied thumbs-up. He believes the goal is near.

Then the Chinook touches down.

“Kirkuk,” the flight leader yelled.

18:30 Tuesday. Kirkuk. Distance traveled: 70 miles -- in the wrong direction.

This is just a cargo stop. The bay door opens. Eerie shafts of light from a tractor’s headlights illuminate the fuselage as half a dozen men struggle to unload boxes and put others in their place. The work goes on for 20 minutes. Again, the rotors are blowing bone-chilling wind over passengers staring silently at one another.

When the Chinook takes off, it makes a short hop to a refueling field, where the passengers sit motionless another 20 minutes.

Then it hops to another part of the base to let a soldier off.

One more hour in the air and Fleek lands in Balad.

22:00 Tuesday.

FOB Balad. Distance traveled: 105 miles.

First comes the cargo stop, with more shuffling of boxes, then Fleek finally is deposited at the flight operations shack he left three days earlier.

He is told the next flight to Baghdad will leave at 07:10. He has missed dinner. There will be time for five hours of sleep and no chance for breakfast.

“I’ll take it,” he says.

The knock comes at 05:00. At 06:00, Fleek stands in the dark beside a blast wall. He waits an hour as the crew prepares the craft and day dawns over Balad.

The flight is cold but short.

08:10 Wednesday

Fleek steps onto the tarmac at Landing Zone Washington. His five-hour round-trip has taken four days.