The Men and the Dominos of Haditha

When I think about Haditha I can’t help but think about the Marines directly involved. Thinking about them and their families, and the families of those who died there, is what causes much of the conflict I feel about this horrific event.

The troops who fight in our Armed Forces are taken from the homes and streets of America and they bring with them a wide array of character, maturity, socio-economic backgrounds, education, self-esteem, disciplinary tendencies, and personalities. New recruits are punched through two to three months of boot camp and, perhaps, a few weeks of “advanced” infantry training. Then, we put them on a ship or an airplane and we send them to Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea, the Balkans, or some other high-pressure hot spot in the world. Most of the troops who patrol the streets of Iraqi cities are still called “kids” by most of us; they’re 18 – 20 years old in a setting where 25-year olds are the “old salts” and the “lifers”.

Nothing rivals Iraq as a human pressure cooker. The stress on the young men and women fighting there is tremendous, and unrelenting. Their lives are on the line almost every hour of almost every day. They see comrades, many of whom have become friends, get killed and sent home in body bags or blown up and sent home with missing limbs or other life-altering injuries. They experience tremendous frustration on mission after mission, on patrol after patrol, as they strive to accomplish ill-defined objectives and try to interpret signs and indications of eminent danger with every tick of the clock.

The enemy in Iraq isn’t in a uniform; the enemy could be anywhere at anytime. The enemy could be old; could be female; could be another “kid”. Our guys aren’t at or behind classic “front lines” over there; their front line is a three-foot circle around where they stand or walk. Their Humvees are one tire rotation away from disaster on any given road at any given time.

Then one day the tires rotate and an explosion ends the life of another friend. An almost perpetual anger becomes a flash of rage and the question becomes – will the rage be controlled or unleashed? Unbelievably, it’s controlled in almost all circumstances, which is a tribute to these amazing young men and women and those who are leading them. We should never forget the disciplined restraint that is exercised by the overwhelming majority of the men and women under fire in dire conditions. The rest of us can only wonder what we would do under similar conditions.

Occasionally, however, the rage is unleashed and a hole to hell opens up under those who fight.

Nothing said above is an excuse for what happened in Haditha; if what happened is murder, be it cold-blooded or hot-blooded, there is no justification for it. But, all killings and all murders happen in a context and at some point that context can become relevant, in determining punishment if not in determining guilt. There are few, if any, contexts more convoluted and troubling than war. An occurrence like the one in Haditha is one of the grotesque things that war produces; it represents one of the costs that are rarely taken into account until after those costs have been incurred. Unfortunately, the accounting for this cost is, in all likelihood, far from complete.

I fear that the deaths related to Haditha haven’t all been counted. A single domino fell on November 19, 2005, and the toppling of other dominos as a result has yet to stop. That single domino was not at the front of a long line; it was at a hub. The dominos that are falling now are falling in many directions, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. Haditha will be more hellish in the future than it was on November 18, 2005. The dead in Haditha will become martyrs and others will seek to follow or avenge them. Iraqi men who have resisted the call to insurgency will now respond to that call; those already in the insurgency will make “Remember Haditha” a battle cry.

Other Americans will die because of vengeful retribution; other Americans will die because they hesitate to respond in battle for fear that it’s not within the newly reemphasized rules of engagement. Fear will be compounded in many minds. Military leaders and trainers will respond but they will fight the tendency to either under respond or over respond.

More than likely, the politicians in Iraq and the U.S. will under react or overreact, as politicians are wont to do, thereby setting off other reactions and adding fuel to the fire. We will hear more references to My Lai in the coming year than we’ve heard in the last 30 years. Haditha will make Abu Ghraib look like a bunch of schoolyard pranks; it will make Guantanamo look like a juvenile detention center.

Another story for another day is the possible cover-up of what happened at Haditha, which is the subject of a second and separate investigation. As that story unfolds it will produce its own energy and its own domino effect, both in Iraq and in the U.S. The implications and impacts of the two investigations could be far-reaching, inside and outside the military.

It will be a long time before the explosive energy unleashed at Haditha will dissipate. The laws of physics remind us that energy is never destroyed – it's only converted to other forms of energy. We will now have to wait and see where this powerful wave of energy takes us. I don’t think this wave is going to take those who are in it to the beach; I think it’s headed to the deep, blue sea.