Adelaidian Frank Weyer recently spent some time as part of a truck convoy driving from Kuwait City to Baghdad. The adventure ended when he was blown up. Here's the first of three parts of his story, told exclusively to Merge over a few beers one hazy Sunday arvo.

 

Black and brown flickered in my sight.

 

I couldn’t see or hear anything except the explosion: the spatter of dirt and heavy metal clatter. The gravel tore the side of my face that had been dragged across the road, and my legs were full of burning hot shrapnel from the cab.

 

I can’t remember my thoughts; I was too busy trying to get it together. I do remember the first thing I saw when my senses returned, though – the tyre of one of the convoy’s Humvees about two inches from my face! I learnt from the US soldiers who pulled me up and dragged me out of that tangled mess that they saw a rocket fired and raced up from the back to secure the site.

 

Yeah, and they almost secured my face against their fucking wheel! But really, I was pretty glad to see those guys and hear them dropping the clatter on the desert where they saw the rocket come from.

 

 

 

I went to Iraq out of a belligerent lust for adventure. But what I found, felt and saw, would never reconcile itself with that most powerful motivation: self perseveration. And so I lived for two months, at the edge of my wits, trying to ignore my middle-aged sensibilities.

 

I’m starting at the end, though. Iraq, the war zone, is full of stories just like mine. The TV news is full of stories and pictures which are like my experience – but nothing like the violent truth.

 

The ad in the paper had read: “Truck Drivers wanted for Kurwait”. The fine-print divulged the adventure: “For convoy to Baghdad”. This was how it all started.

 

 

 

It happened on a Saturday when I was looking through the Trading Post for some rural property, a nice 20 acres somewhere. On the page opposite the listing, a word caught my eye: KUWAIT, in big bold letters. It’s the sort of thing that gets your attention. Under that was more of the story: “Drive trucks in Iraq!”

 

Out of interest I rang the number at the bottom of the ad. It was a machine that answered and I left my details. I pretty much forgot about it until, three days later, a letter arrived from Truckers for the USA.

 

After some correspondence organising my Kuwait work visa I received my letter of departure and was told to pick up my tickets from the airport. Three big, black SUVs were parked at the Kuwait airport terminal, waiting for myself and the other truckies on the flight. We were taken immediately to the International American Products (IAP) building, where the company had more paperwork for us to sign.

 

20 pages of bullshit, and it took nearly half an hour to fill out. But when I got to the last pages it asked for the contact details of my family, in case I was injured or killed. Being in Kuwait and so close to Iraq, it slowly began to sink in what I was doing. And the final thing when you sign, which is witnessed with another signature, is a release form for the company: “IAP is not accountable for loss of life on the mission”. With that, I signed my life away.

 

 

 

After signing the document we were issued with a bullet-proof jacket and helmet and driven to the apartments where we were staying. Exploring the city was a total shock. I’ve never been in a Muslim country before and it was so strange – a total alien environment. The local people would just stare at you – stare with disgust – and the whole time you fear that someone will bomb you or stick a knife in you. But we didn’t have much free time to indulge our paranoia. We were off the next day to Port Doha and the US military camp to get our military clearances.

 

Camp Doha is massive. What amazed me was this place called the USPX – the United States Post Exchange – which was basically a shopping mall for the army. Here you could buy anything from a radio to condoms to socks, whatever you like you could get at the USPX. We milled around with the soldiers a bit where they were serving food and it was amazing: McDonald’s, Burger King and Pizza Hut. It was just like we were in the US. Americans go to war and they bring their junk food with them.

 

 

 

We got up early on the day of the trip. 4am we were on the road to the truck holding yard, a half hour trip across the city.

 

The holding yard was big and an absolute quagmire of mud beneath the lines and lines of trucks. There were easily four hundred semis there and after the sign in you’re allocated a truck and given the keys. With all my rations, my fart sack (sleeping bag) and clothes all stuffed in a big green garbage bag I trudged through the eight inches of mud to find my truck. If you’re lucky, you get a good truck. If you’re not you get a TCN truck. TCN stands for Third Country National and it’s an acronym the Army has for third world countries.

 

As soon as I opened the door I knew I had a TCN’s old truck because of the stench. I cannot describe it. Sweat, shit and tobacco were deeply ingrained into the mattress – the mattress that you’ve got to sleep on for the eight-day drive. I went back to reception.

 

 

 

“I’m not driving that fuckin’ truck! It stinks, I can’t live in there!” I yelled.

 

“You have to,” was the only answer the genius behind the counter could muster.

 

“There’s 2,000 trucks here," I said in disbelief, “give me another one. That feral mattress is full of stains”. It was clearly stated that if I refused to drive I’d be sent straight home. Such was the stink of that cab that I didn’t care – bullets, RPG and roadside bombs were one thing but I couldn’t stand the stench of that feral truck. So I got a new truck in the end.

 

Frank's story continues right here!