“The whole reason I went to Baghdad was because I was bored late one night and decided to help out the guys in the Third ID by fixing a refrigerator that wasn’t cooling their water bottles,” McDougal explained.
Diligence and hard work opened the door for McDougal to a new opportunity. He became part of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, led by Slocum.
Thank you for the blessing you provide as the result of diligence and hard work.
“Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings; he will not serve before obscure men.” (Proverbs 22:29)
January 24
Palaces and Mass Graves
“My collateral duties ended up being the major part of my job,” Navy Lieutenant Sean McDougal explained about his work in Baghdad in 2003.
McDougal’s Iraq experience was common. Often collateral or “side jobs” took precedence over designated responsibilities. McDougal described collateral duties this way: “If your main duty is to be a dad, your collateral duty might be taking out garbage.”
“My job was to fix up Uday Hussein’s palaces, mansions,” McDougal noted. However, because he had LIVE weapons training and had set up antiterrorism force protection for the Navy as the director for Schoolhouse training in Hawaii, he took on hefty collateral duties. He provided security for teams that “went out of the wire” and into Baghdad searching for evidence of embargo violations by Saddam Hussein. They were seeking proof that he had misused oil money.
One of McDougal’s collateral duties took him to a site he never imagined he would ever see: mass graves. They were looking for evidence of abuses.
What made these graves so secret was not the style of burying. These weren’t deep holes with mounds of bodies covered by several feet of dirt. Saddam chose distance, not depth, to bury evidence of his dastardly deeds. He picked remote locations in the desert, such as the site that McDougal visited about an hour outside of Bagdad, to hide his evil. Saddam had Iraqi soldiers buried in mass graves to hide the number of casualties in Iraq’s war with Iran. He or his sons also ordered thousands of Iraqis killed.
These graves were very shallow. Sand thinly covers the skulls and bones that remain. From a distance, these graves look like dimpled sand dunes against an otherwise smooth terrain.
Small signs, as crude as a typical handmade yard sale sign in America, mark the graves. With Saddam dead, Iraqis felt free to the mass graves. They hoped to find even just a remnant such as the sole of shoe of their loved one, and carry it home as a reminder of the one lost.
The uncovering of these mass graves revealed that in the end, Saddam’s evil could not be kept a secret. The evidence was obvious to all who visited these remote desert dunes.
Thank you that you are a God of justice who knows all things.
“He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him.” (Daniel 2:22)
January 25
BRICKS AND LIONS
“I took thousands of pictures in Iraq, especially of my tour of Babylon. I have very visible proof that there are four ages of Babylon. The wear and tear on the bricks show all four ages perfectly,” Navy Lieutenant Sean McDougal noted.
McDougal also took pictures of the Saddam Hussein bricks. Saddam ordered workers to reconstruct King Nebuchadnezzar II’s massive palace. One brick in the center of each wall was inscribed with praises of Nebuchadnezzar. Saddam also had a brick placed in the center of each wall. These bricks proclaimed him as the fourth emperor of Babylon and a descendant of Nebuchadnezzar. By some accounts Saddam used as many as sixty million bricks to rebuild Babylon.
“Saddam saw himself as the fourth person to rebuild Babylon. All that made me see Daniel Chapter 2 in a whole new light.”
Daniel interprets a dream for Nebuchadnezzar and details the four emperors of Babylon. The fourth kingdom had feet made of iron mixed with clay. “As iron is strong but brittle and does not mix with clay, the fourth emperor will fall quickly and the nation of Babylon will not be united and will split up.”
That is exactly what Saddam tried to do and he fell quickly. McDougal visited Basra’s underground prison, which many Iraqis claim as the lion’s den where Daniel was held.
“The tour guide told us of the story of Babylon and how the Nazis came in WWII, and took everything. The only statue left was what they call the Lion of Babylon, or to some, the Lion of Daniel,” McDougal said. The guide’s account seemed ripped from an Indiana Jones movie.
The tour guide claimed that the statue is the only statue of a human and lion in which one is not trying to kill the other. “The Lion of Daniel” shows a lion standing over a man as if protecting him.
Whether or not the Basra prison was the site of Daniel’s imprisonment, there’s no doubt that this prison was a dark, dark place under Saddam’s rule. Many service members have taken pictures and heard stories that document the maze of evil.
The Bible refers to lions nearly 120 times, proving the presence of lions in the ancient Middle East. Lions are now extinct in Iraq. And thanks to the bravery of United States service members such as Sean McDougal Saddam Hussein’s evil reign is also extinct.
Father, thank you for breaking the chains of evil.
“The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.” (Daniel 6:23)
January 26
WHATEVER PROVIDENCE BRINGS
Whatever providence brings, I can claim to have found such meaning and satisfaction in my employ among all of you.
I am one of thousands. Just one among tens of thousands (reservists) called-up in the past weeks and months, and one of countless thousands for whom the oath we swore, to protect the United States Constitution
