*****This post is part of the Real Army Wives of Fort Hood series. A new chapter is published each Monday. (Well, I aim for Monday..) Click here to read last week’s chapter: The Only One Without Mid-Tour Leave*****
I was awakened by a phone call from Alan’s parents. Remember, they watched the news constantly, while I only tuned in occasionally.
“Turn on the news, April!” Nonna urged.
I sat up in bed and turned on the little 19 inch that I kept in my room to watch Lifetime shows at night.
I found a news show, and there it was. The news was on every network and cable news channel there was. “Saddam captured by US forces!”
“That’s where Alan is!!” Nonna explained excitedly, “Ad Dwar!! He gets to be there for this!!”
“Oh, wow, you’re right. That’s a small town, so that’s EXACTLY where Alan is!!”
Everyone was so excited, especially since no one had had much hope. After all, it’d been 2 years since 9/11, and they had yet to find Osama bin Laden. If they couldn’t find bin Laden, maybe Saddam would prove just as difficult.
Thankfully, that proved to not be the case. Do you remember watching all of this on t.v.? Well, special forces soldiers came in and found and extricated the ex-king, but Alan’s unit, 4-42 Field Artillery was there to support them, so Cloe’s husband and Kayla’s husband were involved too. And really this victory belonged to all of 4th Infantry Division. This provided some much needed excitement and encouragement!!
Alan and other members of his unit went over to the hole and took photos the next day.
Saddam Hussein was discovered on December 13th, and for you youngsters, Saddam Hussein was the President of Iraq from 1979-2003. He was a notorious figure due to his invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and genocide of groups of Kurds and Shiites.
However, our camera was off a month, so the time stamp says 1/14/2004. But in 2004, the hole was cemented over to prevent it from becoming a monument.
Saddam was hiding in a rural area, close to the Tigris River. He was living in a hut, with a trail that led through an orange grove to the river. The hole that we all saw on the news was his hiding hole. How much of the time he spent in the hole vs. the hut, I do not know.
I asked Alan a few burning questions:
“How many times do you think you walked super close to the notorious Saddam Hussein and never even knew it?”
Maybe once.
“Did you ever go to that orange grove before?”
We’d been within 20 feet of it, but only once, and only a week before that. I’d never been to the back of the grove.
“Had you ever seen that shack?”
I had never noticed it.
!
This is Saddam’s hometown, so yeah, of course they came out to protest this event. This was the whole crowd. Alan said he went into his base, and saw soldiers gathering around the t.v.
“They are making this look like a huge protest of 100s of people on t.v., when really it’s like 50 people.”
The soldiers often became disenchanted with American media coverage of this war.
All the school books were riddled with pictures of Saddam Hussein; he was a little less than humble! In hindsight, Alan said there were some older males in back that were putting the school teachers and students up to the trouble by tearing out pictures of him and just causing a raucous to just see how the Americans would handle it. The armed guards in front of Alan were of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. These were newly trained males by allied forces such as Alan’s unit, to handle general security tasks alongside our troops and the new Iraqi government.
The timing of this capture was perfect. It gave us all a sense of progress and victory and hope going into Christmas, for everyone involved.
It was such a surreal thing to be closely involved in an event of international importance like this. I remember being very aware of the enormity of it all.
Well, he was tried by 5 Iraqi judges as part of a special tribunal. He was found guilty of the 1982 Dujail massacre, and he was sentenced to hanging. The hanging was carried out in December 2006, 3 years after his capture.
For more information on Saddam Hussein’s history and capture, you can read these articles which were also my sources.
Saddam Hussein Trial Fast Facts–CNN
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How can I find out more about it?
I learned so much! Talk about living history. So incredible Alan got to be there for this. That's a story for the decades. The way he shared it in his letter, lol, classic Alan.
Thank you for sharing these!!!!!
Holy cow is that history. I had to do a project on him in 6th grade and my teacher was like, "Wow.. you HATE the guy." Well.. yeah!
This is insane, April!
This is so interesting. These are lots of pictures we have never seen! Great article!
Thank you! So neat that Alan got to witness history like this first-hand.