Butts the Mangy Mutt

Emails from Iraq

Photography by Jayel Aheram.

Before actu­ally expe­ri­enc­ing it first-hand, I too had this same ques­tion in my mind: how do you go about send­ing a com­pany of armed Marines (some­times dual-armed with both the M16A4 ser­vice rifle and the M9 pis­tol) into a com­bat zone? Well, it starts with a long bus ride…

Then a very long 28-hour plane ride (char­tered from the nice folks of RyanAir) with fuel-stops in Indiana, Iceland, Germany (I asked a German lady if she calls “German Pretzels” just “pret­zels”), before end­ing up in Kuwait. In Kuwait, a very tense bus ride from the air­port to an Army base with a chow hall bet­ter than any the Marine Corps has to offer. We stayed there for a few days before mak­ing yet another tense bus ride back to the air­port. From there, a C-130 rolled down the strip with Marines on board. It ended up in Al-Asad, yet another awe­some Army base with a chow hall three times bet­ter than the one in Kuwait. It also has a Burger King and a Pizza Hut and a place that sells stereos for your car. Yes, car stereos in Iraq. You might be dodg­ing IEDs, but at least you will be pimp­ing with the lat­est in audio tech­nol­ogy. All of these places staffed by smil­ing Iraqi nation­als (but then you won­der if they are really fan­ta­siz­ing about slit­ting your throat as they serve you yet another serv­ing of filthy, unclean pork). But we were only there for a few days before we finally shuf­fled, Marine Corps shuf­fled into a large heli­copter and landed in our area of oper­a­tions. The heli­copter ride was sur­pris­ingly… smooth. I thought I was going to feel every bob and dip, but I did not even feel the take-off! Next thing I knew, we were in the air. I fell asleep instantly… That is how smooth it was.

I have heard of Butts even before I met her. She had the rep­u­ta­tion of being equally the most ugli­est and the most sweet­est dog you will ever meet. She came to the Marines and sailors on this base at her most piti­ful. There are wild dogs that roam the desert around this base and appar­ently, she had an unfor­tu­nate encounter with a few of them. The Marines and sailors on this base pam­pered her and nursed her back to health. They gave her the name “Butts” for her ten­dency to snack on cig­a­rette butts left around by the nicotine-addicted Marines on their very fre­quent and unhealthy cig­a­rette breaks. I finally met Butts the first time I was posted guard in Post 1, which was located between the Iraqi Army com­pound and the main American mil­i­tary com­pound. She had the mang­i­est fur I have ever seen on a dog. Post 1 was a bit dif­fer­ent from the other posts in such that it was only manned by a sin­gle Marine. That night, I vol­un­teered for that post, think­ing I will have the chance to prac­tice my Arabic. It was silly, of course. There would not be many chances for me to “prac­tice my Arabic” as I had hoped in the 2100 to 0500 shift that I had. Being alone, it was a strug­gle to keep awake, but for­tu­nately I had Butts to help me along. She sat next to me or near me the entire time I was on post. I would scratch her behind the ears or rub her tummy. As post com­pan­ion, she was per­fect. She remained vig­i­lant, if not a bit too enthu­si­as­tic in her role as guard. She would occas­sion­ally cross the wire and harass the Iraqi sol­diers by bark­ing at them if they get too close to my post.

We moved in to a new tent since the unit we were reliev­ing just left. I was for­tu­nate enough to have snagged extremely prime cot space. I have two sides of a wall, a mat­tress on my cot, and it is right next to an air-conditioner in an extremely hot tent. My cot space is equiv­a­lent to a pent­house, basi­cally. The bet­ter tents were taken by the NCOs and staff NCOs (they have work­ing air-conditioners, TVs, refrig­er­a­tor). I sup­pose since they spend most of their times in these tents any­way, bet­ter to let them have it.