The Eyes of the Children
By John Roth
Sgt US Army. Combat tour OIF 3, Tal Afar.
Cavalry Scout
Many people ask me how it was. I try to give the
best answer possible but, frankly, I’m very tired of
telling the stories. I’m very tired of political
debates. I can understand now why most war veterans do
not wish to talk about their experience. I have started
to believe that it is not because of the violence they
witnessed, or the things they were forced to do. I
believe that it is more to do with being tired of people
asking about it.
“Did you kill anyone?”
“So, what do you think of the war?”
Of course this might now be the case for every veteran,
but I find it is the case for me. I therefore have
decided to write this account. I will carry it in my
back pocket and when someone asks me about my experience
I will simply hand it over. This should bring me a
small ounce of relief I think.
In the fall of 2004, my unit, Blackjack Troop 2/14
Calvary and I were deployed to a northern city of Iraq
called Tal Afar. Our mission was simple. Kill or
Capture AIF, or Anti Iraqi Forces. There are many
events I will remember from that year, and I could go on
for ten more just talking about it. One I will share
with you now is the events of November 14th, 2004. This
was my platoon’s baptism by fire, and it is a day that
will, like the smell of the gunpowder, forever be burned
into my memory.
It was the afternoon, and we had been sitting in a
traffic circle on the southern corner of the city for
almost two days. During Ramadan, insurgents had blown
almost every police station from Mosul to the
border. We were assigned to guard one of the last
remaining in Tal Afar. It had been a quiet day so far,
and it was close to my relief. I was eager to get off
the gun and sleep for awhile. I was about to wake my
driver, when I spotted a young teenager walk up to the
station. He told us that “Ali Baba”, the word used for
a thief or someone with a bad label, were up the road
and preparing for an attack. We geared up and moved out
to patrol the area.
We spent about forty minutes patrolling the outskirts of
Al Seriah*, the worst neighborhood in Tal Afar. This
was a place where it wasn’t if you got shot at, it was
when. We headed up the road leading from Al Seriah to
the main highway of the city, and turned around for a
third pass. It was then that we passed by the police
station at the entrance to the city. I surveyed the
damage caused by a bomb the day before. It had been
leveled. The perfect distraction, it seemed that the
tip was a false alarm and I was going to get my rest
after all. That was when someone yelled it.
“Grenade!”
I turned to see a young boy no older than twelve toss an
object at our vehicle. Time slowed like one of those
John Woo action films. I watched, mouth gaping, as the
explosive flew over my dismount’s head and landed on the
other side of the Stryker. It exploded and shook the
world.
Almost immediately, I heard the retort from his
weapon. A pair of bullets ripped through the air,
cracking past the boy as he bolted down the alley
paralleling us. The street turned to utter
chaos. People ran in every direction, cars sped away,
groceries flew, mothers screamed. They knew what was
coming. From every window AK-47 fire erupted in
bursts. We were in the middle of a planned
ambush. Most of the battle was a blur, accentuated by
explosions, cracks of automatic gunfire, and the pink
mists that appeared when they hit their targets. I was
the gunner of our .50 caliber machine gun, and unleashed
upon that street a lead hell. I fired at everything and
everyone, because that was where the gunfire was coming
from.
More clear than anything that day is a moment frozen in
time. One single moment that wasn’t drowned out by the
noise and smell of gunfire and smoke. We had been
separated from our convoy when my driver did not take a
turn. This forced us back through the carnage, because
I’ll be damned if I was going into Al Seriah! Ahead of
us, a car had driven across the road and smashed into a
truck that was parked. It was blocking the road. My
driver asked me what to do.
“Smash through it!” I screamed.
He slammed on the gas, and at the exact point of impact
I glanced into the back of the truck. Time halted for
that instant.
Curled in the bed of the truck was young boy. He
couldn’t have been any older than six. I have never
seen anyone so terrified in my life. He looked up at me
with those eyes and burned that moment into my soul. I
will never forget those eyes and the face they were held
in.
As quickly as it had stopped, time resumed. The car,
the truck and everything in it flew onto the sidewalk in
a twisted mess of steel and glass. We had made it out
alive, but the street and everyone, and everything on
it, had suffered a horrible wrath.
We headed back to our security spot to link up with the
rest of our platoon. Fortunately, none of us had been
hit. I could still feel the adrenaline flowing through
my body. As we entered the traffic circle, crowds of
people lined the streets. I screamed at them, waving my
weapon in the air like a gladiator who had just won his
match. I felt great. I felt alive. All we could do
was laugh, because we had made it. Upon further
investigation of my turret, I found a bullet hole that,
at its trajectory, should have hit me square in the
face. For some reason I’m still here. God knows we
were protected that afternoon.
When I think about that day, I think about how lucky I
am to be alive. I am grateful to have been born in a
country where war and violence is not a daily part of
life. I think about how I should never take advantage
of a single second of this precious life we are
given. Most of all, however, I think about the eyes of
the children, and they will haunt me until my dying day.
* Spelling of this could be wrong….
 Go
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