Author: Cottonwood roots led to success

EMBEDDED:
U.S. Marine Corps 1st Lt. Wesley Gray is flanked here by two of his closest Iraqi Army friends, medical corpsman Hussein, left, and supply driver Amir.

Cottonwood's sweltering late-summer heat and the rigors of daily double practice sessions with the West Valley High School Eagle's varsity football squad might seem odd preparations for a tour of duty in Iraq with the U.S. Marine Corps.

But they are two things that Wesley Gray (Class of 1998) credits for successfully surviving 210 days of living with and fighting beside Iraqi soldiers in Al-Anbar, one of the most dangerous and austere provinces of western Iraq.

Upon his arrival in 2006, Gray and his fellow military advisers dealt with the aftermath of an insurgent population traumatized by a massacre of 24 men, women and children shot at close range by U.S. Marines in retaliation for the death of one of their own from a roadside bomb.

Gray, who celebrated his 29th birthday Saturday, May 2, recently authored a book of his experiences titled "Embedded: A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army," published April 1, 2009, by Naval Institute Press.

The 272-page hardcover book retails for $28.95 but can be found online at Amazon.com as well as Barnes and Noble websites for under $20.

"Being captain of the Eagles and doing double practices in 110-degree heat prepared me for the Marines, taught me the value of teamwork and helped me understand just what the body can do under extreme conditions," Gray said during a telephone interview from his home in Chicago, where he is completing a doctorate at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.

Gray, then 24, interrupted his studies to join the Marine Corps in 2004, partly because "the Cottonwood community is so very supportive of the military," he explained.

"I went in as an officer, so I was in the upper end of the age group for new recruits, but there are a lot of crazy Marines who have served 10, 15 or 20 years, so I definitely wasn't one of the oldest either," said Gray, who attained the rank of 1st Lieutenant.

As an intelligence officer, Gray spent time in a joint military operation with the Philippine Army and participated in the bilateral Japanese and U.S. military war game "Yama Sukura" in Kumamoto, Japan, prior to his deployment to Iraq.

"I made my knowledge about (the Iraqi) language the focus of my training. I memorized a lot of nouns and heard language tapes constantly on my MP3," Gray said, referring to a personal listening device that can digitally record hundreds of hours of audio and video for playback through a miniaturized headset.

"I didn't rely on my English. I embedded with the Iraqi troops and I was immersed in their language and culture," Gray continued.

Even family photos proved to be invaluable, he reveals in Chapter 7 of his book.

"During predeployment, I put in a lot of time learning about Arab culture. One thing I took away from my studies was that family is central in Arab life. I knew the Arabs perceived Americans as godless heathens, more concerned with material wealth than family. To combat this stereotype, I created a family photo album the I could show the Iraqis," Gray writes.

He kept this "top-secret weapon" that was neither secret nor a weapon in a cargo pocket of his fatigues.

"I included photos of me working with the sheep on our ranch, my family baling hay on the farm, and photos out at our cabin in the mountains," Gray continues in the book.

Instinctively, he did not include photographs of his recent wedding at a rented mansion in Pennsylvania, hugging the family dogs or raising pigs, all images that he knew "would not go over well in Iraqi culture."

Two other secret weapons that increased his <I>wasta</I> - a mysterious combination of pull, connection, knowledge and charisma that earns respect in Iraq - involved Gray's philosophy of leading by example and his facility with computers and peripheral equipment.

For these skills, the Iraqi soldiers considered him an Arab brother and fondly named him "Jamal."

Despite losing his best friend to a roadside IED (improvised explosive device) and witnessing some of the atrocities of modern warfare, Gray credits maintaining his sanity to writing a daily journal of his experiences.

"I'm not really a writer, but I figured I had an interesting story to tell. I tried to make my book different from all of the run and gun stories that are out there," Gray said of his often humorous and sometimes introspective memoir.

"My general opinion, now that I have the advantage of hindsight, is that it was a terrible decision our government made to go into Iraq because the original intelligence (about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction program) was all wrong, but since we did go in and topple Saddam's regime, we need to make the best of that decision," said Gray.

Back home in Cottonwood, Gray's father Bill, a veterinarian, and mother Jill, who runs the Cottonwood Veterinary Clinic, are thankful their eldest son returned safely from Iraq and justifiably proud of his book.

"We read it in early draft form some time ago," commented Bill Gray.

"For Wesley, the book was a very helpful thing for him to do," added his mother, Jill Gray. "His grandmother and I have both told him, however, that we just wished he hadn't cussed so much in the telling of his story."

However, Mrs. Gray quickly admits that such raw language is understandable since the book is intended primarily for a military audience.

The book might also prove instructive to those young men and women heading overseas into harm's way, said Bill Gray, the author's father.

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