“These bones belonged to someone who had a life once, who had a family and friends who loved him…”

Background information and commentary by Andrew Carroll: As the trial against Saddam Hussein begins, in fits and starts, for crimes against humanity, I was reminded of the many letters I've read by U.S. troops who visited mass graves in Iraq where the bodies of innocent men, women, and children have been found. During my own visit to Iraq in November 2003, I met a soldier named Mark Rickert who later shared with me a remarkable letter he had written to his grandfather, Merle Kilgore, about watching the remains of several Iraqis being unearthed. Please note: This letter is not for the faint of heart, but it is an important contribution to the historical record of the horror and brutality of what the Hussein regime inflicted on the Iraqi people. Rickert's letter is being published here for the first time. (Rickert has another, similar letter in BEHIND THE LINES, and the letter below was read by Hank Williams Jr. for the audio version of the book.)

September 14th, 2003

Hey Daddy Merle,

Hope all is well.  Things are decent here.  What can I say, I'm still in Iraq… 
A few days ago I teamed up with a small group of special agents from the 323rd Military Police Detachment Criminal Investigation Command (CID) who were planning to excavate mass gravesites at a Republican Guard military compound in Radwani, south of Baghdad.

The CID took me to the compound, along with three or four reporters from the major news networks, and we started searching the land. The compound wasn't much more than a few blasted-out buildings sitting on desert hardpan and a landing pad further out.  We started hunting for likely places where the republican guards would have buried their victims, and while we swept the area, we found a few unexploded ordinances just sitting there on the tarmac. After a few hours of walking around in that heat, the media guys were getting restless and it looked like we were leaving empty handed.

We started packing up the convoy when two Iraqis walked onto the compound waving at us (they must have seen the shovels.)  We couldn't understand what they were saying, but when they pointed us to a mound near the main road, the CID agents grabbed their gear and headed over to the area. Until that point we'd been talking and joking around, but when the agents started digging, an uneasy silence fell over everyone there. The wind started blowing hot sand in our faces, and that old Iraqi watched with his hands folded behind his back. A few of us wondered if his ken were buried there.

I started taking pictures. When they pulled a femur bone from the hole I almost dropped my camera. One of the agents pulled out a skull and held it up. There was a bullet hole directly between its eye sockets. They even found the slug that killed the victim. It was flattened out and about the size of a quarter…. But the eerie part was what the forensics officer said when he showed us the skull and the slug that had shattered it:  “This guy took one between the eyes.  He knew what his killer looked like.”

That drove it home. These bones belonged to someone who had a life once, who had a family and friends who loved him. Then he was shot in the face and buried in the middle of the desert without a headstone or any trace that he ever existed.

I guess you can see that I was pretty shaken up. Take care of yourself and send Judy my love…

Mark


NEXT WEEK: Two letters about Christmas—one by a soldier overseas coping with homesickness during the holiday, and the other by a man who watched as a kind-hearted American sailor brought the spirit of the season to a group of people in desperate need of Christmas cheer.