I have talked a few times before about some operations we did that would last a few days and nights where we would have to set up a combat outpost (COP). A COP is basically a hasty base set up in order for us to rest and replenish our resources; most commonly those resources were water and ammunition. There is not really a set definition of what a COP is or what it has to look like. The most important aspect of choosing where to set up a combat outpost was choosing a location that would not leave us vulnerable to an attack so the obvious choice was the tallest building in the area.

Most of the time our missions were conducted in residential areas because our targets were usually people so that’s where we had to be. So what we would normally do when the end of a long day was getting near is start to look for the biggest and tallest house we could find in our area and then make it our own. Sometimes it was a house that had been abandoned by its residents which was always more convenient because then we didn’t have to use people to watch the family in the house, and sometimes it was a house that was still occupied. Despite the fact that occupying a house that had people in it was a bit more of a chore because we never knew whether they were appreciative of us or whether they were supporters of the insurgency. However, the benefits of occupying a house that had people in it, and it being the largest house in the area, they usually had a few amenities that made our brief stay a little more comfortable. A few of the luxuries that we enjoyed in these nicer houses were electricity, which was always spotty, and a functional bathroom with running water, which is something you don’t truly appreciate until you’ve spent a lot of time without it.

The best part of staying in occupied houses was the chance to interact with the Iraqi citizens that lived there. This was always something that I found really, really fascinating. We spent a few nights in the house of a family that were loyal supporters of Saddam Hussein and we spent nights in houses of people who were avid supporters of American intervention in Iraq. We spent one night in a house that turned out to be a stash house of weapons and explosives that we only discovered because our interpreter overheard the homeowners son asking his dad about the guns in the basement, and we spent a bunch of nights in the luxurious house of a local Al Qaida leader. This particular house had a lot of very unique items that were linked to Al Qaida that were liberated from his house.

The thing that I liked the most was that no matter whose house we stayed in, or whatever their beliefs were, whether they liked us or hated us we were always treated as welcomed guests. Obviously they would comply with our demands because when 20 heavily armed men come into your home there isn’t much you can do to stop them, but they would always offer to make us tea and cook as many of us dinner as they could feed. This isn’t something we asked for or expected or demanded of them, but their culture says that when there are people in your home you feed them and make them tea, and during dinner and tea you could always get people to talk to you and I really enjoyed hearing different points of view. And it was always very warming to see people that had so little willing to share what little they had with you, especially if they didn’t like you.