1993: Somalia Confidential

Time was going on, and our whole contingent was reorganizing. ENI was leaving the country, and rumors were that also our Brigade would not stay forever.

I was driving south along the Imperial Road to Bulo Burti to prepare our redeployment there in view of the arrival of a new Regiment, and for once we hadn't two vehicles to move, but only one jeep, with my driver and two Carabinieri as an escort.

The whole road between the two towns is absolutely straight and flat, apart from a single hill, which peaked with a few rocks and an abandoned wrecked house, where the road bended abruptly, drastically reducing visibility.

It was, actually, your most typical location for an ambush.

And ambushed we got.

My radio started creaking while we were driving up the slope, but the signal was very bad. I managed to get a female voice croaking something in English with an alarmed voice, which just worried me enough to be more present just one second later.

Our jeep just reached the summit of the slope, where the road went through two big rocks, and some idiot shot at us.

One, two times.

We were driving relatively slow after the slope, and were an easy target, but we were also in the best condition to react.

I can't explain exactly what happened. I just know that one of the Carabinieri in the rear compartment screamed something, the tiers squeaked badly on the old tarmac, and a second later I was crawling on the roadside, my rifle in the hands, trying to understand where the shots came from.

A quick burst: AK-47, the most renowned Kalashnikov. Two of them... No, three.

Behind the rocks, to the right.

"Captain, cover me!"

A second to react: fucking slow, but enough. One of the Carabinieri jumped from beside me and run for the nearest rock.

I shot two bullets straight over his head against the side of the rock to cover him.

He made it.

Then he gestured me to reach him, and I run for safety.

I heard other shots behind me, and understood the other two were shooting from behind the jeep to cover me.

Oddly, the ambushers weren't behind both rocks, in order to take us from both sides of the road, but were all behind the western one, just on the right of the side from where we came from.

A burst cheered me while I run, but ended up quite high. Another came once I was safe behind the rock. Too late.

OK, I was well protected now, together with a Carabinieri; the other one with the driver were less safe, just behind the jeep, which isn't such a protection.

"To the house!" I hissed over the wind, aimed at the wreck with my rifle muzzle.

Just that moment, another burst swept next to the jeep.

Too dangerous: they couldn't make it to the house.

I looked at the rock: it could be climbed on. I grew in the Alps, I am a climber.

So I moved upward, as fast as I could.

Another burst, I do not know where.

Somebody swore.

It was taking too long. Fuck, I remembered, I've got two hand grenades. Assault ones, little more than shock, but hand grenades.

Took one, pulled out the safety, checked the distance, and threw it over the edge of the rock.

One second, two, three...

BANG!

Screams in Somali language, rolling of stones, panting, somebody who runs, another burst of Kalashnikov.

I run up and somebody run besides me.

Another couple of single shots, both from Berettas.

My boys were at the house, sound and safe, and now they could shoot at the side of the rock I was climbing over.

The safe angle for the attackers was getting smaller and smaller; the Carabinieri who jumped with me was making it for the other side of the rock, and soon our ambushers would have been in trouble.

Or we would be, if there were too many of them.

The summit of the rock was just three metres away; I threw the second grenade.

BANG!

It was the first time in my life two out of two grenades went on without malfunctioning... Maybe it was good I was aiming at hard stone.

God bless Breda, I thought, while jumping up the rock, my hart pulsing hard in the throat.

And suddenly, I was at the top; nobody was there waiting for me. The idiots were down on the far side of the stone block, just metres from my isolated Carabinieri...

Three of them. No, four.

Four fools.

I aimed my old 7.62 FAL.

The idiots were all clustered together; one of them shot another burst, using the Kalashnikov like a hose.

Just a second to think of life and death, then I pulled the trigger.

Less than twenty metres distance, from high ground, against a fixed, large target. Impossible to miss.

I didn't.

I saw blood erupt from a body, the mass of bodies waved like a flock of blackbirds, somebody howled, the others screamed hysterically.

A body fell to the ground, a large pool of blood widening under his sobbing frame.

The others all turned at me; one shot.

Far high.

I shot a second time, aiming at the central and closer man.

Got him in the middle of the chest, and it was like seeing him explode. His body was lifted by the power of the impact and thrown a metre back, spraying blood in a wide arch before falling down on his back, the arms and legs convulsing in agony.

The other two screamed out, and one threw the rifle and run; the other just run.

I shot again and missed. Too bad.

My Carabinieri emerged from behind the rock, his modern Beretta 5.56 at the ready, saw the running guys and shot.

The two idiots were running away from the only cover, down the hillside, completely uncovered.

Like birds on the pole.

I couldn't believe they weresostupid. The most naïve of the ambushes, then the clumsiest of the close fights, and now the most idiotic of the disengagement attempts.

"Alt! UNOSOM!" I screamed, according to the Rules of Engagement.

They run.

I screamed again my warning, and the Carabinieri shot in the air.

The armed guy turned and shot a burst while still running.

The burst was high, but the Carabinieri replied with a single shot, and got him right in his belly, causing him to twist, fall, bump and roll down the hill in a mess of dust and rolling stones for at least fifty metres.

No visible blood this time: 5.56s pierce you without the splatter effect of 7.62s, but they weight less and you can carry much more ammo.

When the dust fell, there was no movement, nor noise. Probably a broken neck had put an end to his sufferings.

The last guy was unarmed, and run like a gazelle down the slope.

He fell like a hippo however, and rolled down catastrophically in another cloud of rubble and dust.

Somehow, he rose again and resumed his flight.

I aimed at him, wondering weather to shot on a running unarmed guy who just tried to kill me, when I saw a spark and then dust covered him as he jumped and fell down.

"Land mine!" my Carabinieri shouted loud, to make sure none of us was moving out of the road area.

Dust dissipated and I could see the guy lying next to a small hole in the ground, tossing and screaming out in pain. He was missing the whole right leg from the knee down.

Combat was over. It lasted less than three minutes.

I breathed hard.

I rose and joined the first Carabinieri where the two bodies lay down the rock, and the other two boys reached us there.

I looked down: the first one I took in the back of the left shoulder. The whole arm had been pulled out almost completely, and was still connected only by the drenched cloth; he was still moving and shacking a bit, but blood was flowing out so fast that it was a matter of minutes.

"Well done, Captain," cheered the second Carabinieri, who had seen the scene of my shooting from the wrecked house, "Good shot!"

I breathed hard, and the man in the dust stopped breathing that moment.

I just killed my first enemy.

"Go back to the jeep, the two of you," I ordered: "And keep the eyes open, there may be more idiots around."

"Right on, sir," he said, and walked away with the driver, mumbling something about the stupid animals living in those goddamned bushes.

The second I shot was cold dead. I got him right in the middle, and he fell on his back, in the largest pool of black blood I have ever seen: the 7.62 bullet had mashed his hart, and he probably died before hitting ground.

"Again, good hit Sir," smiled the Military Policeman next to me.

I said nothing.

It was Hamid.

He lay with wide-open eyes, a trickle of dark blood flowing out of his mouth, and there was no mistake at identifying him as the WHA gunman.

"Documents," I ordered the Carabinieri next to me.

Nothing to do about the other two thugs: you never enter a minefield if you don'thaveto; and we didn't.

The guy who hit the mine was whining desperately, but there was no hope for him... The last one was not ever making sounds, not after a bullet and his drop downhill.

"Sir, his papers," the MP told me, offering the bleeding documents out of Hamid corpse.

The drenched sheets were in Somali, but there was a small, plasticized WHA card in between.

So, that it was.

"Sir, shall we go?"

"Just a moment."

That whining was troubling me. I couldn't leave that idiot to die that way. I climbed back the rock to get a better view, aimed and shot a few bullets. It wasn't easy, he was at least three hundreds metres away, but our old FAL was precise almost as the venerable Garand M-1 from which it was developed, and at the fourth shot the whines abruptly ceased.

This time, nobody commented on my marksmanship.

Back to the jeep, I found my radio still croaking a female English voice.

"Hello, Captain Serra speaking," I called.

"Bob! Oh Bob, it's Carolyn here. Finally you hear me. Bob, pay attention please... We just fired Lisa's driver after talking to her, and he left shouting that you had to pay for it. Be careful, we hired him because he was known to be fearless and determined."

I didn't know weather to laugh or cry, so I just breathed deep before answering: "I know Carolyn We just killed him and three friends of him. But thank you anyway for the warning. It's nice to hear it wasn'tyouwho send him to do the job..."

We slept in our camp in Bulo Burti, after reporting the ambush to the Regiment and to the Brigade. Nobody liked the story, but I used the crypto to relay the background to the G2 Cell down at the Embassy, pointing out that WHAdidtheir best to warn us of the danger.

We had been lucky that the Somalis are far more aggressive than capable fighters, and lucky enough that they have far more guts than brain when it comes to set an ambush and shoot to kill.

As it turned out by the ensuing enquiry, the four fools had probably been surprised themselves by our arrival, likely because they set no sentry, so they were totally unprepared, but still they were so filled withchatthat they started shooting anyway, flashed by theirDelirium Omnipotentie, the peculiar effect of that popular drugs. The same trigger of most fighting in Somalia...

Think of the shit stuff is not even classified as drugs by WHO...

On the other hand, nobody is doing anything against ritual female castration either.

***

I think my youth as such died on that hill in the desert, the 10th of September 1993. Since then, I have been quite a different man. Disillusioned, more self-confident, a bit bitter when it comes to mankind maybe, but not a sad character, nor a cold, ironic veteran like novels and movies love to picture soldiers back from war after watching the white, cold eyes of the people they killed.

Ididsee the cold, white eyes of people I killed, but I was and I am aware I had to kill them because I wanted to survive, yes, but also because they were, basically, too stupid to survive.

Darwinism, essentially.

I will live as happily as I can, trying to defend innocents and to keep idiots like those I killed in Somalia as far away as possible from my own folks and our friends.

When I made it back to the WHA a full week later, another gunman opened the gate and waved me to the lounge.

Carolyn greeted me with a smile that looked sincere for the first time since I first met her.

We shook hands, and she had me accommodated in the couch, sitting in front of me, without any attempt to seduce me this time.

"A beer?" she offered.

I smiled: "A cold tea will do, thank you. What happened?"

I got her story: after I left her with the pictures, Carolyn had confronted Lisa, asking her about the affair with Philippe and, most of all, with Hamid. Lisa had broken almost immediately, telling her about the frustration of being incapable to seduce me as completely as she believed she could, about her meeting Philippe atSave the Children, and them getting quickly intimate. As for Hamid, the Blackman had always intrigued her, but nothing had ever happened, until they ended up in the bushes, where he had taken advantage of her lust and of Philippe obvious perversion.

After the confession, Carolyn had simply called the gunman in, and fired him on the spot. The guy had left shouting, but came back with friends a couple of days after, threatening his old pals at the gate and shouting outrages in Somali, which the interpreter had gotten and reported, so Carolyn had gone to our camp as soon as she could, to warn us. I wasn't there, and she couldn't communicate with my people, so just went back to the radio and tried to contact me.

I told my side of the story, and Carolyn looked quite horrified.

"Damnit, Bob, I am so sorry. It's so difficult to hire the right people in our job... And I am not talking about Hamid."

I smiled sympathetically. I could imagine.

"I am sorry. Lisa looked like a good young recruit, fit for her job. My only excuse is that it wasn't me to choose her ...'

"Where is she now?"

"On an airplane, on her way back to Denver, Colorado." Carolyn sobbed, and then added: "Don't be angry at her, she got much more punishment she deserved, poor girl. She will get free intensive care, but is marked forever, in the best case. She's turned out to be HIV positive after the last test."

I gulped: "Oh my God... Hamid?"

Carolyn shook her head: "Philippe. Or maybe they infected each other after being with Hamid... We will never know, unless we can check Hamid's blood. Does it matter?"

"When did she get the lastnegativetest?"

"One month ago. Are you worried?"

I breathed: "No, not really. We did it the last time more than a month and a half ago... No, I am not worried, but I'll take a test anyway at our field hospital."

"You can get it here and now, if you want."

I looked at her and smiled bitterly.

She looked back at me, and asked plainly: "Would you trust me onthat?"

I thought of it for a moment, and then I shrugged: "What the hell, if you say so, of course I will trust you! A soldier needs to believe in something like friendship and comradeship... And we are supposed to be friends andallies, don't we?"

Carolyn got my blood in a sample and took it to the lab.

"It will be a matter of a few days. We will give it maximum priority."

"Thanks."

"May I do something else for you?"

I thought of it. And I thought of my nice words about friendship and comradeship.

"Actually, there is one thing. Carolyn, I think it would be fair if I could get the negatives of those pictures from the party."

"Yours?"

"No. The ones with our two "cousins". They are quite in deep shit, and don't deserve it."

Carolyn looked at me with a strange expression.

"You are an idealist," she said.

"No. But I believe in what I say, and fight for what I believe in."

She nodded, and left for a few minutes.

When she came back, she had two films.

"Do you know them well?"

"No, not really. But they are comrades of mine. Like your guys down in Moga. And we stand together in this shit."

"Do you believe they would do the same for you?"

"I like to think they would."

Carolyn smiled: "I stand right. Youarean idealist."

I shrugged and offered my hand.

Carolyn kept the films: "Tell me whyIshould do it."

I smiled: "It would make you feel better."

"Andstupid."

"Maybe. Better feeling well and stupid than bad and smart."

The woman sobbed and handed me over the two films.

I smiled: "Thank you, Carolyn. Oh, another thing. Our ENI prospections team will leave Moga tomorrow. They finished the entire drilling program and got absolutely no results. There is no oil, in this goddamned desert."

She smiled bitterly: "Oh? Why do you thinkthismay be interesting for me?"

I shrugged: "You helped me. So I feel like helping you."

Another smile, far more bitter: "The world doesn't work like that, Bob."

"Maybe yours doesn't, Carolyn. Mine, it does."

I got no answer to that.

We rose, and when she offered her hand, I shook it warmly.

"Oh, another thing. Carolyn, please have my file updated. You know: I got engaged just before coming to Somalia, and I plan to get married within a year. She is a Dutch girl, her name is Karin, and I am very much in love with her. It was a hard game, to play with you..."

Theydidupdate my file.

I discovered it two years later, in Bosnia.

***

I am fully aware I made a few of potentially controversial statements... Please keep in mind this was just the point of view of a guy who has been there and saw a few things. I know I may sound cynical and disillusioned, and maybe I am. I probably also developed strong feelings towards some cultures and beliefs...Basically I am just another soldier serving his Country overseas and trying to do his best for the Western civilization, like so many other American and European colleagues and friends. Please feel free to criticize the story, the language and the opinions, only don't tell me I am a racist: I am NOT, as you will hopefully find out soon!