SADDAM INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, 14 April 2003 — Six rifles, six helmets, six sets of dog tags, six pairs of desert boots — it almost seemed like everything was normal. Except that the six US airmen who belonged to the gear were dead.
A memorial service is never cheery at the best of times but in a war, the hundreds of soldiers who came to pay last respects to their fallen comrades knew one somber thing: it could just as easily have been them.
They came to a hangar at Baghdad airport to say goodbye to colleagues who died flying a dangerous mission over the sweltering desert sands near Karbala in southern Iraq.
The six were in a Black Hawk helicopter, carrying out command and control, helping out their colleagues as US forces pounded Saddam’s Republican Guard forces in the darkness somewhere below.
They called themselves the Night Hawks and it was some time in the middle of the night on April 2 — they were trying to make their way home, mission completed — when everything went terribly wrong.
The Pentagon said that their chopper had been shot down. Central Command later said it didn’t know how it happened.
But in the war-weary faces of those paying tribute, some of them choking back tears, you could see that how it happened didn’t matter so much now. What mattered was that their friends were gone.
For this final goodbye, their six rifles were placed in a neat row, topped by their helmets and a set of symbolic dog tags — the real ones, if they were ever found, would long since have been sent back to their grieving families. Each rifle stood on its own tiny podium, accompanied by the night goggles and whatever photos of the dead their colleagues could dig up. Most of them were just computer printouts, soldiers making do amid the business of war.
Two Black Hawk helicopters were parked in the hangar, and a soldier was busily trying to wipe off the dust, to polish them up for the service, to make sure the names that had been painted on one would not be dishonored.
Capt. James Adamouski, Chief Warrant Officer Erik Halvorsen, Chief Warrant Officer Eric Smith, Chief Warrant Officer Scott Jamar, Sgt. Michael Pedersen, Specialist Mathew Boule. Killed in action.
It wasn’t much as far as memorial services go, but the smoke still towering over Baghdad off in the distance as the sun was going down was a sign that there was little time for all of the niceties.
The soldiers and the officers stood in formation in full battle gear, wearing their bulletproof vests, ready for anything. The brass up front sat in folding chairs.
The commanding officer gave a short eulogy praising the dead for their bravery.
A program had been printed up, explaining how the men had played a vital role in a battle that played a vital role in a war that was still unfolding. It gave the location as Baghdad International Airport, Republic of Iraq — two new names for a new reality delivered by the war.
The silence was broken by the traditional 21-gun salute, and the bugler who played Taps. Some of the soldiers hugged each other afterward, but very few could find the words — any words — to speak.
“It was a sad occasion,” Chief Warrant Officer Scott Diaz said. Not more than 30 minutes, before the soldiers shuffled back outside under a slowly darkening sky.
