Hatfields and McCoys

Another .milblogger wrote a post a while back on the relationships between Sunni and Shi’a in his area, and did a far better comparison than I am about to, likening the two groups to Shakespeare’s Montagues and Capulets. What’s going on in our area is a little different, as there aren’t really extensive problems between the two sects. While our area is polarized into predominantly Sunni and predominantly Shi’a geographic areas, that isn’t really where the problem lies. The issues here are really within the sub-tribes of the area, or between tribes within the same sect, with constant shuffling and jostling for political and economic power. Thus my relation of our current long-running feud between neighbors to the well known Hatfield-McCoy feud from West Virginia and Kentucky during the late 19th century.
While legend has that the H-Mc feud started over a quarrel concerning ownership of a pig, and while this particular animal would not be apropos in our current location, the concept (that of economic gain and the underlying ‘real’ reason of land ownership) is certainly valid. Now that the per-capita level of shitbaggery has been significantly reduced, the old standbys of unfair economic gain, political influence, and the ever-present standby of unrighted wrongs against family once again rear their collective ugly heads. It is interesting to note that the H-Mc feud involved several instances of inter-marriage, and that our current crop of sycophants belong to two relatively distinct tribes. While there are a number of different intra-tribal quarrels, one of the inter-tribal spats that I witnessed evidence of firsthand happened between two tribes which I’ll call Hatfield and McCoy.

It would seem that a number of both the Hatfields and the McCoys used to be involved in various levels of nefarious excrement, but by and large, the members of these two clans had no direct conflict between them. Historically, there’s always been a level of friction between tribes here, as there is a constant and reoccuring shuffle for stature. It really is just sound and fury, since this place makes the nastiest bung-hole of a neighborhood I’ve ever been in stateside look like Monaco. Granted, I have heard stories of some Hatfield (now inevitably either dead or in CF custody…) who in the chaos following the downfall of Saddam thought that the wholesale killing of a number of McCoys would be a good way to improve their power base in the area. Of course there were nearby McCoys who on hearing this would then kill Hatfields in their area. This continued until CF set up shop in the area, at which point both sides thought it would be a good idea to get in bed with the local heavy-duty d-bags. Similar to both sides of the original H-Mc feud joining up with the Confederates during the Civil War, this later proved to be “A bad idea[tm]”. So now, after we have gone through the entire area and done a block purge on s-bags, d-bags, and other assorted assclowns, the local Hatfields and McCoys are back where they started: fighting each other. Except they understand we don’t really tolerate the open warfare that happened before… so they pursue alternate routes.

So where do I come in? Here:

Granted, they’ve been out under the ground in that orchard for some time, but they are still completely viable as IED casings. Iraqis are quite squirrely when it comes to hiding ordinance, so there’s probably at least this much stuff in 1 out of every 5-10 fields in this country, but I digress. Anyway, while BDE soldiers proceeded to follow their ‘source’ around digging everywhere he pointed, my counterpart and I headed across the road and got hip deep in the local feud.

First house we stopped at didn’t have any male family members at home, as they were all out working.

Being Hatfields, they complained about some problems with the local McCoys swearing out warrants against the other Hatfields without any evidence. Remember this theme…

Second house, one young male, and an older man who was visiting with his wife (apparently the sister of the matron of the house).

Also Hatfields, also complained about baseless warrants.

Third house, no picture, but I wish I had one. A local schoolteacher had taken it on herself to stack all the desks from the classroom in the entry to their carport as local CF had promised they would do some construction there. Not wanting to possibly lose the desks, she secured and stacked them (about a 3-cord volume) . Completely separate from the feud, as many schoolteachers seem to somehow be.

Walking around the back of house #4 we encounter this scene:

My counterpart pulls me aside, and explains “I know that old woman. She was in the car with two men I went out to a checkpoint to pick up after they were detained yesterday…”. I knew about the two men, as my NCO had checked on them the day prior after they were snatched up “for having warrants” at one of our BN’s checkpoints. So we roll up and find out their story. Apparently he was the son of the older woman to the left of center, and the brother of the woman at the extreme right. He and his (much) younger brother had been rolled up for warrants… wait for it… sworn out by McCoys. Of course their story of not knowing why they had warrants made more sense now. Apparently the older Hatfield had either been involved with, or been affiliated with other Hatfields involved in nefarious excrement during the “rough time”. Of course no one has directly witnessed the purported shitbaggery, so all that occurs is that multiple McCoys who “know he’s bad” go to the courts and swear out statements against him. [Don’t think for a moment, dear readers, that this doesn’t happen on the other side of the fence as well, we were just witness to this particular incident]. My counterpart did a good job explaining that they were being treated well, and that if indeed the warrants amounted to nothing, the courts would solve the issue, but that it was squarely in Allah’s hands… That took almost a half-hour.

The last house in the area was owned by a man who wasn’t a part of the feud, as he was from a completely different tribe, and lived a bit outside his tribe’s area. He was rather well-to-do, as he had a number of orchards, a good number of sheep, and was in the process of building a second house inside his compound for his new wife. That concept may be a topic for a later diatribe, but is too far askew from this one for now. Of course being the hospitable landowner, chai was the order of the day:

He did note that since CF had arrived, things had gotten considerably better, with the exception of… Ta Daaaa! the ongoing squabbles between the Hatfields and McCoys.

Here’s the rub: The warrants get coordinated through the local Qada (kinda like a town council) govt, then get sent up through army and police channels, then down to all the local units… WITHOUT a centralized database. Which can take a significant amount of time. So, some of the warrants the BN is operating from have already been rescinded by the judge, because they were proven baseless, and no-one bothered to check the warrants. Some individuals have answered in court multiple (like up to six in one instance) times. For the same warrant. The Hatfields and McCoys both know how the system works, yet use it to their advantage while simultaneously complaining about their poor undeserving cousins getting locked up… It really is a self-licking ice cream cone. My counterpart understood the inter-tribal issues when I backbriefed him following a meeting with the BDE intel officer and some local CF, but insisted that he was ‘just doing his job’. Which by the way was how ‘ze germanz’ tried to cover numerous atrocities. Not that I’m saying that serving old warrants is even close to genocide, but “I was just doing my job” leads to far too many “Papers, please” type situations, at all levels.

As an aside, this week’s post wins “Worst Photos of the Rotation” hands down. I somehow forgot to return the picture size and quality from the smallest and lowest possible to the largest and highest possible before rolling out on this mission, so what you see is pretty much what I got. My camera says it’ll take almost 9,000-odd of those sized photos on a 1gb memory card, or ~300 of the full sized ones… Oops.

Back on the FOB, I have a couple more examples of my developing “drive-by photography” tactic. This pic is the second in a series I shot where the first has SFC Scheidt walking out of the frame, this one where they’re just realizing I’ve got a camera, and the third one which was thus useless.

On the way into the maintenance tent where SFC Scheidt was helping the IA guys get some training from our local wrenches, I stopped, pulled out the camera, shot this, and then kept walking.

Finally, an ‘action shot’…