Shade it Black by Jessica Goodell

Author:Jessica Goodell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS027130
ISBN: 978-1-4804-0655-1
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Published: 2011-05-24T16:00:00+00:00

Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) quickly became the favorite weapon of the insurgents. They were easy to make, transport, conceal, and detonate. And they were effective. (Photo courtesy of Bill Thompson)

16

Boom

It is a grim reminder of the cost of war. But for Marines based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, getting a meat tag—a tattooed copy of their vital information inked into their skin—means paying a visit to Jesse Mays before they head off to war.

“They’re used to identify a corpse. They’re not for the living.

“Meat tags are so they can make it home,” Jesse says. “No matter what. So someone can grieve over them.”

Taken from information that soldiers wear on metal tags around their necks, meat tags go one step further. Jesse tattoos that same information on their bodies, usually on their ribcage just under their armpit.

“Flak jackets are amazing things,” explains Lance Corporal Andrew Sichling, who isn’t opting to get the tattoo tonight, but may do later.

“I understand why guys get ‘em. If you get blown up, this,” his hands frame his torso, “might be the only part of you that comes home.”

From: “The Man Who Makes Sure Dead Marines Get Home,” by Kristin Wilson Keppler, BBC World News America, Jacksonville, North Carolina

Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) quickly became the favorite weap on of the insurgents. They were easy to make, transport, conceal, and detonate. And they were effective. Artillery shells from the hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives abandoned by Saddam Hussein’s military were hidden beneath sandy roadways or in animal carcasses or trash or discarded appliances or cars. Triggered remotely by cell phones, car remotes, garage door openers and dishwasher timers, they offered the element of distance and safety and, therefore, the prospect of detonating others in the future.

The explosions can be powerful enough to instantaneously erase a Humvee and its occupants. It can make a tank and its crew disappear, leaving only its tracks. The blast’s shock waves send thousands of pieces of shrapnel spewing outward at astounding speed, and the gases created by the explosion can set a nearby vehicle or vehicles on fire.

The blast snaps bones and tears away arms, legs, and heads, shooting them up and away from the blast site, only to thud down into the sand tens of yards away, with the heads bouncing and rolling like so many soccer balls. They come to a stop wearing varying facial expressions beneath identical Marine Corps haircuts. The pressure from the explosion tears open air-filled ears and lungs and digestive tracts. Resulting fires burn and may incinerate the flesh.

While estimates varied—and they also changed as the IED technology changed—the consensus was that sixty percent of our injuries and up to eighty percent of our deaths were caused by IEDs. Most of the Marines we processed died from explosions. We would take classes on IEDs that were taught by infantry soldiers or grunts who lived among them and treated them with the respect they demanded. Many of us knew first-hand a Marine who was going home without his leg or legs or life because of an IED.

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