Interview with Mehr Ali Ebrahim Nejad

I was just a private (2)

Somayeh Eslami
Translated by Abbas Haji Hashemi

2015-12-29

Mehr Ali Ebrahim Nejad is a veteran of the Iraq-imposed war on Iran. He went to the ‎battle forefronts while he was still a teenager and fought for the country 90 months of the ‎‎94-month (nearly 8-year) war. The following is an excerpt of his Oral History Weekly's ‎interview with about on the occasion of the anniversary of Operation Muharram ‎‎(Monday, November 1, 1982). Here is the second episode of his interview with.

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Eslami: They say it hailed at the night of the operation. What happened then‌?‌
Yes, it rained cats and dogs that night. The rain was a divine bounty for us but for the ‎comrades in the Imam Hossein Division it was a disaster‌. ‌
Eslami: It looks like they had to suffer a huge death toll during the operation‌?‌
It's unlikely. I have only heard stories about Imam Hossein division and its casualties. The ‎truth is known only by God. I never pursued the truth. During the reconnaissance ‎operation the nearby river could be crossed by our forces but after the storm, it turned into ‎a torrent which took away a couple of the comrades. You know they drowned two by ‎two as they jumped into the water to save the previous two ones who had jumped into ‎the water to save others. This turned out to become a disaster for the division's forces. This ‎is what we used to hear about their sacrifices. I should say we were already too busy to ‎seek such stories. We just heard stories like this‌. ‌
It had become somewhat usual to see real deus ex machinas in our operations and one ‎happened during this operation because the comrades were already stressed about the ‎circumstances but the rain and the way they were saved by just chance was enough for ‎them to restore their freshness during the operation‌. ‌
The rain helped us because it blindfolded the enemy and this allowed us to move more ‎easily in the path we intended to, without being spotted by the enemy. We could climb up ‎the rocks and hills and perform reconnaissance of the region‌. ‌

Eslami: Didn't the rain hinder your progress‌?‌
Not really. We kept moving as we were before it fell rain that night. You know had it not ‎rained we would have to tread forward more carefully not to be heard in our steps, which ‎would slow us down. So, we would pace forward with the same speed with or without ‎the rain‌. ‌

Eslami: Did you suffer any casualties during the operation‌?‌
Yes, but not because of the rain. The sand in the region was in a way that made a sound ‎while you walked on it. Now, consider at least 1000 troops moving at the same time. We ‎were three divisions. A huge lot of people were walking at the same time. The rain did not ‎slow us down, but completely soaked us. After we arrived at the designated spot, we ‎waited a relatively long time for other troops to arrive. I think one of the reasons that ‎caused a delay in the operation was because many guys were killed by drowning in the ‎river‌.

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Eslami: Was it cold‌?‌
Absolutely. It was even too cold for the guys to pass water, because they would have to ‎wash themselves and this caused troubles for them in that cold weather. It was very ‎difficult to keep moving under such circumstances.‎
Anyway, as I was a member of group of a comrades tasked with removal of booby traps ‎and mines, we started off moving forward and were lucky enough that the lands had ‎already been cleared of the mines, so no one had to be killed for removing the mines. You ‎know the way we cleared the mines was by walking on them. This is how our comrades ‎worked. We had assigned a number of volunteers to doing that and I was one of them. ‎

Eslami: How did you share your responsibilities?‎
Decisions were always impromptu because no one had seen the area before us. The mine ‎field was clear where it started and where it ended. The cleared lands were marked by ‎our comrades for the troops could walk along. We usually marked strip of the land as ‎wide as usually a meter or so for the troops to cross. ‎
One of the interesting things that I saw there was that this guy, Hassan Kasaeian, who ‎was a commander of a nearby division himself, was clearing the lands that was startling ‎for me. A little further I saw this Iraqi guy who was like 4 times my size, I was nearly 48 ‎kg at that time, and when I wanted to shoot this guy I saw my jam was jammed and ‎wouldn’t shoot. I later called on the guys to shoot him and things turned ugly later on. ‎And scuffles began. We were again lucky that there weren’t many Iraqis in the region and ‎we easily outnumbered them and captured the area by an assault. They were only 40 or ‎‎50 of them but we were a lot more. As a matter of fact they had not guessed we would ‎have arranged an operation in that region. ‎
The trenches were sometimes made of concrete and sometime of soil. It depended on what ‎the Iraqis had decided before. ‎

Eslami: What did you see when you captured the region?‎
Trenches of the watchmen and a global canal that was linked to everywhere. Later on ‎Iranian forces could trace Iraqis through the same canals. The canals gave us a perfect ‎advantage in the front to open fire on Iraqi forces. This all happened during the night. In ‎the morning, it was too stormy and dust covered everything and we couldn’t event ‎breathe. The same day the cover forces arrived with more artery, machinery and machine ‎guns that would sustain our presence in the area. ‎
By the second night almost everyone was stationed in their own places and the area was ‎completely in our hand. ‎
Let me tell you a short story that happened to us in that desert. The night was too cold ‎and not enough blankets were available for the troops to keep the warm over the night. ‎One of the fellas soddenly came on and offered the guy clothes of Iraqis that he said he ‎had taken from them. After a while we realized that the clothes were not as they were ‎supposed to be, I mean they were wet, and guess what! They dampness of the clothes was ‎because they belonged to the dead Iraqis that the guy had taken off from their bodies after ‎the operation. You cannot thing how we felt at that night in which we could not even ‎light fire to keep us warm a little bit.

To be continued...

I Was Just a Private (1)