The Story of a Deployment in Iraq

Exterminating ISIS tells the story of the author’s deployment in Iraq in 2011 and 2016, in the latter as a HIMARS rocket artillery specialist. It gives a vivid, detailed, and factual picture of how long range and precision strikes were conducted from the “strike center” controlling air bombing, HIMARS, and drones with Hellfire missiles. It tells us exactly what it was like to be there, and what it felt like – not as a formal history but as a memoir. As the author puts it “…a holistic look at warfare and my role in it, as a catalyst for reflection that stays with me as a constant reminder of my actions.”

The change in the nature of warfare brought about by precision guided weapons is astounding (but advancing daily in the Ukraine), and a major reason for reading this book. In 2011 it was necessary to patrol and search for enemy fighters with infantry under helicopter cover; in 2016 it was possible to observe them electronically, on TV screens in the “strike center”, anywhere in Iraq and hit them remotely, without warning. Thus, it eliminates the familiar advantage of the guerrilla and makes it possible to take the offensive against enemy fighters who would in the past be buried invisibly among the civilian population, able to attack at will and without warning. This book is certainly required reading for anyone interested in how this magic trick is done. But the author’s avowed purpose in writing this is to explore the mind of the person doing it. He gives us a deep reflection on the psychology of the soldier – and specifically the psychology of killing.

Guilt is always a part of it – even if only conspicuous with its absence. But it’s always a moving target. There are few better depictions of its puzzling indeterminacy and variability than the episode in All Quiet on the Western Front where Paul Bäumer, fights a French soldier hand-to-hand in a shell hole. Paul stabs him and then sits beside him as he dies in agony. Paul is stricken with guilt, and begs him for forgiveness. But when he returns to safety in the morning, he sees his feelings of guilt already starting to dissipate and compares himself to a sniper who laughs and brags that he just killed seven enemy soldiers that morning.

Dostoevsky tells us guilt rises unbidden in the human heart. The problem is that it comes and it goes – and sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. Killing can ruin our lives or drive us to suicide, or fill us with sadistic pleasure – and there are some who can smugly talk themselves out of the guilt with self-righteous moralisms. But as the author tells us we’ve got something of a special case here, where the distance from the actual killing creates an emotional detachment, dehumanizing the enemy. Well, this is plain enough with the sniper in “All Quiet…” who only sees his victims through his telescopic sight, vs. Paul who lies for hours beside his dying enemy. But how much is too much?

The author suggests that for most people in the normal range of human sensitivity, this is a problem that can’t be avoided. He himself saw ISIS as evil, deserving no (or little?) sympathy, and himself as highly professional and a full participant in the camaraderie of the warrior. But, he is very careful to identify those odd moments when the humanity emerges of the ISIS members being targeted on the TV screens of the strike center. Why, at that moment and not before?

The author describes cooly watching strike victims taken out, or reacting with derisive humor. For example, a concussed strike victim getting up and running head first into a wall. Well, that one was TOO funny, and watched over and over again on video until the realization sank in that this person was suffering. “…taking a life should not be so easy on the spirit…” He and his friends begin to blame themselves not for the killing, but for the loss of respect for those they kill.

Or, they strike a boat, and start laying bets on how many of those struggling in the water will make it to land. None do; and as they watch them drown, the author finds himself thinking of his first experience of death, when a school friend drowned. And the whole strike cell had gone silent, emotionally invested in the struggle of these men to live.

Or again, letting the video linger too long over a dying man. Or enemy fighters disposing of the bodies of their dead. “There was something inherently disturbing about watching people care for their dead. As a soldier, mortuary affairs hit too close to home.” Such are the little things that wake us up to the humanity of the enemy. And they still rely on seeing the enemy suffer and die. What about the bombing of civilian populations from the air? Didn’t Douhet, Trenchard, and Billy Mitchell argue that killing the enemy population directly was a positive good, more efficient than armies? What about unrestricted submarine warfare - how could the United States have gone to war against Germany in WW I for breaking the conventions regarding the killing of innocent passengers, and then done the same without a qualm in WW II? So what’s the solution?

Perhaps Major Deveraux is telling us there is none – except acting with the maximum wisdom, self-awareness, and restraint we can muster. Truthfully, this reviewer has spent years pondering over academic philosophy, including Ethics, and I would say the chief benefit I’ve gained from it is to see there are many solutions to this problem – all partial, incomplete, and flawed. I really think our minds are not big enough to get around this problem of human aggression, so deeply ingrained in our nature it is.

I should say I can also imagine trying to talk about this book among another audience – in, say, certain intellectual circles – whose reaction would be that all killing is fundamentally evil and that the author and his military comrades are simply bad. But I can’t help thinking that Pacificism as a stand is truly more culpable, often concealing hypocrisy and Pharisaism, and at best is dishonesty, willful self-delusion. For aggression and war are real and dangerous, and not capable of being wished away. This very thoughtful and perceptive book deserves our respect for telling us so, and Major Deveraux deserves our thanks for writing it.

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Our Reviewer: Robert P. Largess is the author of USS Albacore; Forerunner of the Future, and articles on the USS Triton, SS United States, the origin of the towed sonar array, and the history of Lighter-than-Air. He has contributed book reviews to ‘The Naval Historical Foundation’ (http://www.navyhistory.org) and The International Journal of Naval History (http://www.ijnhonline.org). His earlier reviews here include The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command, King Arthur’s Wars: The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of England, Clouds above the Hill: A Historical Novel of the Russo-Japanese War, Winning a Future War: War Gaming and Victory in the Pacific War, The Fate of Rome, "Tower of Skulls", A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: From the Marco Polo Bridge Incident to the Fall of Corregidor, July 1937-May 1942, Nathaniel Lyon’s River Campaign of 1861, and Korea: War without End.

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Note: Exterminating ISIS is also available in e-editions.

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