From Barwick to Babylon—and back

In many ways, Marlin Carr is your typical district resident. He works in the bush, raises cattle, goes to church on Sunday, and generally leads a quiet life.
The 33-year-old bachelor lives alone with his dog, Champ, on a farm along Highway 71 about five miles north of Highway 11. Although of less than average height, he carries himself in a way that suggests there’s more to this man than meets the eye.
You see, Carr has witnessed the worst humanity has to offer, yet has managed to maintain his own personal values more than ever.
On Dec. 22, Carr returned to his home of nearly 30 years after spending nine months in the desert of Iraq with the U.S. Army’s 353rd Transportation Company, where he held the rank of Specialist.
It was the responsibility of his unit to maintain a reliable supply line of jet fuel to forward air bases of the coalition forces.
It was nine months that changed his life forever.
Carr was born in 1970 in Harrisonburg, Va., but moved up here when he was four and has called it home ever since. He speaks with a curious accent that is a blend of soft, southern drawl laced with many local idioms and inflections.
He chooses his words carefully and talks almost reluctantly.
“My dad liked the country and the people up here,” he explained. “He liked the laid-back lifestyle.”
Carr’s parents moved back to the States last year, but he still has two brothers in the area—Gerald, who lives in Barwick, and Daniel, who lives over in International Falls, Mn. He says both were of enormous help to him while he was away.
In addition to owning his own business, C and M Contracting, he also runs 120 head of cattle on the pasture owned by his parents adjacent to his property.
With his business affairs in safe hands, Carr was free to apply himself fully to the task at hand.
So why would a man who is obviously happy with his lot here risk his life in a war that was never sanctioned by the United Nations or Canada?
Apart from still being an American citizen, Carr said the events of Sept. 11, 2001 decided him on a course of action that eventually took him to a place he never imagined.
“I was down in Minneapolis working on my real estate licence when the Sept. 11 thing happened,” he recalled. “Seeing that and all the news, I decided to sign up with the reserve unit in Buffalo, Mn.”
It was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, however. That is not his style. He thought about it for a month or so, and after consulting his conscience and his church, he signed up with the army reserve.
That was not a decision he took easily. Carr is a Mennonite and in joining the army, it meant turning away from his church. He did not, however, turn away from his beliefs.
He’s been a member of the Calvary Baptist Church in Emo for more than two years and as circumstances unfolded, that church became the foundation of his strength when he was in harm’s way.
On Feb. 10, 2003, Carr was called up and ordered to report to Fort McCoy, Wis. Shortly thereafter, he shipped out to Kuwait to await deployment.
“When I signed up, I didn’t see this coming,” he admitted, referring to Iraq.
But having taken the man’s gold, as the saying goes, whatever doubts he had were irrelevant. However, it didn’t take him long to realize he had made the right decision.
“As a soldier, you go when your orders are called, but after getting in-country [Iraq] and seeing the people that were so happy to see us, I was glad we went,” he remarked.
“When we rolled across the border [in late March], people were lining the streets cheering us. Children were serving us tea and brought food out to the road for us.
“It was like we were liberating them.”
Carr recalled one instance shortly after entering Iraq, where a six-year-old child ran up to him and said, “Mister, I love you.”
“That was the sentiment of the people,” he said. “That made it worth it right there. As a soldier, that’s a good feeling.”
It didn’t take Carr long to get a clear sense of what the Iraqis had been dealing with. Everywhere he saw evidence of the tyranny under which they had been living for so long.
“When you mention Saddam Hussein, they just cringed,” he recalled. “They had been living in fear.”
Nowhere was that more the case than in the south along the Kuwaiti border, where the majority of the population are Shiites. It was these people who bore the brunt of Saddam’s vengeance after the first Gulf War in 1991.
“The Shiites had helped us during the ’91 war, so Saddam took out his punishment on them,” Carr explained. “They were heavily persecuted.”
But as he moved north toward Baghdad and beyond, there was a subtle shift in the attitude of the people toward the invaders. “As you moved to the north toward the ‘Sunni Triangle,’ the people weren’t so friendly,” he noted.
And no wonder. Although the Sunnis are a minority in Iraq, they also represent the bulk of the supporters of Saddam’s Baath Party, which had ruled Iraq since the early 1970s.
Theirs was an entirely different lifestyle. “The Shiites lived in mud huts and tents. The Sunnis drove Mercedes,” Carr observed.
The third major ethnic group in Iraq is the Kurds, but Carr said he never encountered them because they live primarily in the far northern regions of the country near the Turkish border.
But Saddam loyalists gave his company plenty of trouble. After capturing the international airport in Baghdad, his unit moved north to a base in the heart of the “Sunni Triangle” and there, life was anything but secure.
Although his unit never encountered regular units of the Iraqi army, danger and death were never far away. On several occasions, the 353rd came under enemy attack—usually by surprise.
“Our unit took injuries and at the base where I worked, we lost six people,” Carr recalled.
The attacks usually came in the form of booby traps and landmines the Iraqis had pre-positioned. Although considerable effort was made to find and remove these deadly threats, some always would avoid detection.
The other major threat was from snipers and little could be done about those until they revealed their position by shooting.
“It was not an enemy you could see,” Carr said.
Carr has a number of souvenirs from his adventure. He has a collection of shrapnel that struck vehicles in which he was riding, as well as numerous rounds of live and expended ammunition from both sides.
Perhaps his prize item is the padlock he took from the gate at Baghdad (formerly Saddam) International Airport.
Carr also has many bank notes totalling thousands of Iraqi dinars that bear the face of Saddam. Today, of course, they are worth nothing.
But other souvenirs—those he carries in his head—have a value beyond measure. Most of all, Carr remembers the tremendous support he received from his family and the congregation at the Calvary Baptist Church.
He claims he has absolutely no doubt it was that—more even than his training—that kept him alive and well.
“The success of our mission and the low injury and casualty count was due a lot to the prayers of the church and friends back home,” Carr stressed.
“It was unreal the number of letters that came out of this area in support. For a soldier in the field, a letter from home is so important,” he added.
Andrew Hall, the pastor at Calvary Baptist Church, knows Carr as a “very modest, humble, hard-working man” who’s been a member of his flock for several years.
“I sensed in him an incredible change since Iraq,” said Pastor Hall last week. “If anything, he is more gentle and more patient.”
Pastor Hall noted Carr was seen as a mentor by his comrades—most of whom were much younger than he.
“He was a calming influence on the younger soldiers who were always quick to pull the trigger,” he remarked. “He always seemed to be the one to volunteer for high-risk missions because he didn’t want the married guys taking risks.”
Nonetheless, there were moments when Carr must have been frightened, but he chooses not to remember them.
“As a soldier, when you’re under attack, you just follow through on your training and do what you’re supposed to do, which is carry on with your mission and protect your friends,” he explained.
Perhaps his best friend over there was the M-203 rifle he carried with him everywhere. It is a modified version of the standard-issue M-16 fitted with a grenade launcher and it was never far from his side.
But the best moments are easier for him to recall than the scary ones.
“That’s easy,” he said with a shy grin. “When the people welcomed us on the first day, seeing people with hope in their eyes for the first time in years.
“And then, six months later, seeing the markets open up and business starting to happen. Seeing children going to school and not having to swear allegiance to Saddam.
“Seeing the change that democracy was bringing was the high point.”
Though obviously pleased to learn of the capture of Saddam last month, Carr does not feel that event in itself will prove to be a watershed moment in the ongoing war against terrorism.
“It was an end to an unclosed chapter; it put an end to a lot of myth and rumours, but it would be nice to see the same thing with Osama bin Laden,” he reasoned.
Carr has many thoughts and opinions on the war he fought as well as the ongoing one on terrorism. For instance, he is not surprised the coalition forces have yet to find any evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
In his opinion, they never will. Although he saw ample evidence of chemical canisters and delivery systems, all were empty or unusable.
“After the first war, he [Saddam] was under such tight restrictions, I don’t think he could have produced much and we got most of what he had,” Carr said.
That is not to say the Iraqis have been playing by the rules. Carr has irrefutable proof they have been using battlefield ordinance that is in flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and other legislation governing the conduct of war.
Opening a drawer, he pulled out several examples.
In one hand he held an empty .223 cal. shell case from his M-203. He also held the bullet it fired—a 55 gr. solid lead bullet with a full-metal jacket. This is standard issue.
Such bullets tend to resist deformation on impact, often drilling a neat little hole through the target. Unless a vital organ or major blood vessel is hit, such “through and through” wounds often are survivable with prompt medical attention.
Next, he produced a shell case from the AK-47 the Iraqis use. With it he had several examples of the bullets they fired—one of which he dug from the upholstery of the vehicle in which he was riding.
Even to the untrained eye, there was a marked difference. There was the familiar full-metal jacket, but the jacket was hollow. These rounds, Carr explained, are called “tumblers”—and for a good reason.
“The outer shell has a hard tip that is designed to penetrate our Kevlar body armour,” he explained. “Then the jacket peels back and inside is an oblong projectile made of brass, I think.”
When the outer jacket peels back, the enclosed projectile tumbles through the body, tearing through the tissues and causing horrific damage. That is merely one reason Carr feels the war he fought was a just one, but the war on terrorism is far from over.
“I would say that it’s a slow thing,” he surmised. “It’s going to take a lot more time and a lot more sacrifices, and not just from the United States.”
Carr said the events of Sept. 11 reminded him that the freedom he has enjoyed his entire life in Canada and the U.S. is a fragile thing and, like so much else in life, is not guaranteed.
Would he go back if called up again? He has another four years on his contract, during which he will report for duty two days every month and for two weeks every year.
That’s fine with him—even though he no longer lives in the U.S.
“Canada has always been my home since I was a child and I still look at Canada as where I live,” Carr said. “A lot of people look at the war on terrorism as an American problem. It’s not. It effects all of us.
“I can’t say the decisions being made are always right, but I can say that when you see what terrorism does, it’s not something you want to see in our society.
“I’ve seen it up close and personal.”
So now Carr is back to tending his cattle and taking care of his business. In his spare time, likes to hunt and even managed to bag a buck in Virginia before returning to Barwick.
And when spring finally arrives, he will be down on the river working a couple of secret honey holes for walleye.
But if he gets the call again, the walleye will have to wait because he’ll be after bigger game.