"No Bad Wine" Day

Two years ago today, we lost three amazing men. Terry Barnich, Maged Hussein, and Navy Commander Duane Wolfe were killed when their vehicle hit an IED outside of Fallujah, Iraq. Terry and Maged were friends of mine. We worked together in the Iraq Transition Assistance Office (ITAO) at the US Embassy. They were, literally, our two finest, and their deaths hit all of us who knew them very hard. I wrote about them in a blog post here.

Terry had a close call once before. During one of the innumerable rocket attacks on the Green Zone and Embassy, a piece of spent shrapnel hit him on his nose. After thinking about it, he announced that life was short and that he would never drink bad wine again. And he didn't.

Memorial Day is coming up soon. It was not created as an excuse for furniture sales, it was to remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Most of us think of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines on this date (if we think of them at all), but you should include civilians as well. A life given for our country is a life given, no matter what clothes they wear.

For me, though, Memorial Day is a day to remember those losses in the aggregate. I knew Maged and Terry personally, and saving their remembrance for Memorial Day doesn't seem right. So I've set aside May 25th, the day they were killed, as my own personal day of remembrance. And, in honor of Terry's credo, I've tagged it as National "No Bad Wine" day.

So right now, I'm sitting here with a glass of fine 2007 Cabernet. I've also got a glass of iced fresh water in honor of Maged, who was in charge of our water development projects. Two men forever in my memory. Here's to you, guys.

Sen. Kerry's Remarks on Terry Barnich and Maged Hussein

This item was sent as a comment to my previous post. However, I thought it worth a post of its own.

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Hi Skip. I thought you might like to know that after several weeks of working with the Senate Foreign Relations staff, Chairman John Kerry has placed a remembrance into the Congressional Record regarding Maged Hussein and Terry Barnich, your two friends who were killed on Memorial Day 2009 when their vehicle was destroyed by a roadside bomb outside of Fallujah, Iraq.

Kerry addressed the memorial statement to President Obama during the July 7, 2009 Senate meeting in Washington, DC.

I am sure that Maged’s and Terry's many colleagues and friends, both at Embassy Baghdad and around the world, are grateful for this honourable tribute.

I have copied a summary of the CR page below.

[Congressional Record: July 7, 2009 (Senate)][Page S7189]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr07jy09-186]

REMEMBERING TERRY BARNICH AND MAGED HUSSEIN

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I would like to say a few words about two brave Americans who were tragically killed in Iraq earlier this year. On May 25, 2009, Terrance Barnich of Illinois and Maged Hussein of Florida died when an improvised explosive device detonated near a construction site outside of Fallujah.

Terry Barnich was the deputy director of the Iraq Transition Assistance Office in Baghdad. He had signed on for multiple tours in Iraq and was the senior American expert responsible for expanding the generation of electricity across Iraq. Dr. Maged Hussein was the senior adviser for water resources in the Iraq Transition Assistance Office and a civilian member of the Army Corps of Engineers. He, too, volunteered for multiple tours in Iraq.

These two men represent the very best America has to offer. Both gave up the comforts of home to live in trailers in Baghdad in an effort to help provide a better future for Iraq. Countless thousands of Iraqi civilians have access to electricity and potable water as a result of Terry's and Maged's efforts. Along with the personal tragedy, their loss represents a serious setback for American reconstruction efforts in Iraq. We mourn their passing and offer our deepest condolences to their families.

Memorial Ceremonies

There were memorial services on Thursday and Friday for my two friends, Terry Barnich and Maged Hussein, as well as Navy CDR Duane Wolfe.  All three of them were killed in Fallujah on Monday.  The services were exceptionally well attended.  My command held one in our DFAC on Thursday for CDR Wolfe, since he came under our Army Corps of Engineers umbrella organization.  It was a very moving ceremony, well done.  On Friday, the Embassy held a service for Maged and Terry.  They were expecting about 500 people, but my guess is about three or four times that many showed up.  In addition to Ambassador Hill, we had General Odierno, the Japanese Ambassador, the Iraqi ministers of water and electricity, and many many others.  I found the service to be exceptionally moving, particularly the tributes from my boss at the Embassy and her husband, who each talked about their friendship with Terry and Maged.  Their testimony and their personal pain was heart-wrenching to experience.

It was funny, too, as odd as it may seem.  Karen and John recounted a few stories of Maged and Terry's exploits, and since those two men were full of life, there were plenty of stories to choose from.  Because this was a very public tribute, John chose not to mention that crude story about Terry's speaking abilities that I described in my last post ... good choice, John.  But he did tell about the time that Terry got hit on the nose by a piece of spent shrapnel.  It only gave him a minor cut, but that brush with mortality caused him to refocus his attention on what was important.  Terry soon afterward announced his resolution to never drink bad wine again.  And to our knowledge, he didn't.

I came to my own epiphany during the ceremony.  In case anything ever happens to me, I do not want some guy with bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace".  No way.  If you gotta have a bagpipes, well, okay, but keep the "Amazing Grace" stuff off the playlist.  Instead, I want a brief ceremony, and then at the end, I want 'em to turn up the sound system and play "I Like To Move It Move It".  Who says you can't have fun at one of these things?

Two Friends Gone

On Monday evening, Memorial Day, I learned that two friends of mine from the Embassy had just been killed.  They were on a visit to one of our major projects in Fallujah when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb.  A third individual with them, a Navy officer whom I did not know, was also killed.  Two security personnel were badly wounded but survived.

Hearing news like this is a punch in the gut.  These two men, Maged Hussein and Terry Barnich, weren't just names to me, or faces I knew around campus.  We were teammates in the Iraq Transition Assistance Office (ITAO).  And these two were the stars of the team.

Maged was an American of Egyptian background.  He was tall, slender, impeccably dressed, modest, gracious, funny, and brilliant.  He was a true gentleman.  He never mentioned his PhD and never copped an attitude with anybody.  When I first got to the Embassy and was trying to learn my job, Maged spent hours with me going over projects, funding, technical details, political implications, how each effort fit (or didn't) in the grand scheme of things, and the background of each one.  Maged rarely had to look things up - he knew everything going on with dozens of projects.  And he told it straight, no matter what.  Maged was our "water guy".  He was in charge of everything ITAO was doing with water treatment plants, sewer systems, irrigation and drainage, dams, everything.  Including the Fallujah waste water treatment plant, which is what the team was visiting that day.  Because of Maged, there are literally hundreds of thousands of Iraqis tonight who have clean water or working sewers.  He would shrug it off or say I'm exaggerating, but it's the truth.  Maged made a difference in this country.

Terry Barnich was just as brilliant and just as much a gentleman.  He was also very outgoing, athletic, good-looking, and a bit of a mischievous rogue - but always in the spirit of fun.  Terry was always game for something new, and if it happened to push the boundaries a bit, so much the better.  He had a background in law and an incredible talent with words, so he was often called on to provide briefings to the multitude of study groups and high-level visitors coming through.  One of our office partners, after hearing Terry spin a problem project as a great success story, said "Terry can polish a turd better than anybody I know".  A bit crude, but true, and Terry loved that phrase when he heard it.  He served as the deputy in the office, and with his innate grasp of the political environment in both the Iraqi government and our own Embassy, he kept our office well-positioned to do our job.  I always enjoyed working with Terry - his comments and advice were excellent and he respected my input.  And he jumped in and provided cover for me on a couple of occasions when I got myself into hot water.  Most people would've let me flounder.  Not Terry.

And now they're gone, killed by a bomb planted who-knows-when by some nameless goon.  These deaths are a tragedy.  Not just to Maged and Terry's friends and families, but to the Iraqi people.  When I heard the news, I just felt like saying "fuck it, if that's the way they're going to be, then let 'em have this goddam country".  But that's not right.  Terry and Maged came here to make this place better.  "Came here" isn't the right term ... that sounds passive, as if the fickle finger of fate pointed to them and said "You!  Go!".  No, to get to a job here takes a tremendous amount of time and effort.  You don't just raise your hand.  These two guys worked hard to get here, then they worked amazingly hard to make a difference.  And they made a helluva difference.

Another thing.  As bad as I feel right now, and as all ITAO members feel, there's not an Iraqi in this town who hasn't had the same experience.  One day, something bad happens, and somebody near and dear is dead.  The Iraqis that I work with have had enough of that.  They just want to have a job, take care of their families, and live in peace.  They're sick of the fighting and killing.

So I've buried myself in my job the past couple of days.  I'm okay until somebody asks me about it or makes some sympathetic remark.  Then I have to struggle for control.  Terry and Maged worked as hard as they could to make Iraq a better place, so Iraqis like those I work with will have a better chance at life and fewer reasons to take up the gun.  Neither of them would have walked away from the job if the bomb had hit a different vehicle.  I can't, either.

But Memorial Day will forever mean something different to me.