Covered Position / Vehicle

A broad concrete roof fills the upper frame, supported by square columns. A hard-top Humvee configured as a TOW missile carrier stands side-on near the center-left beneath the shelter. Long launcher equipment silhouettes against the brighter opening, while clothing and gear hang along the vehicle's side.

A silver BMW 740i occupies the right middle ground, partly draped with clothing. A larger truck stands beyond it. Pipes and industrial machinery appear at the bright left opening. A Marine stands at left with one hand raised to shade his eyes. Lance Corporal Jamie Herman sits in profile at the lower right beside the table and chairs the Marines placed in the shade. Warm interior shadow gives way abruptly to bright midday light outside.

The photograph divides into three depth zones: the cut-off seated profile nearest the camera, vehicles and belongings under the canopy, and sunlit industrial structures outside. The abrupt change from warm shade to bleached daylight makes the shelter boundary visible.

A hard-top Humvee configured as a TOW missile carrier and a BMW 740i stand beneath the covered power-plant position. The Marines parked and lived beneath this concrete shelter for roughly six to eight weeks. Lance Corporal Jamie Herman sits at a table in the lower-right foreground.

We confiscated the BMW at gunpoint from people we caught looting the weapons-manufacturing complex. On the drive back, I stopped for fuel and opened the trunk to find an adapter that let the local pump fit the German-made filler. The trunk also held large cellophane-wrapped stacks of 10,000-dinar bundles, about twelve inches high and two feet by two feet, with papers bearing Ba'ath Party symbols under the wrapping. Only then did we infer that the people were likely Ba'ath Party officials.

About twenty feet from the shelter was a tiny local snack shop. When we arrived, its shelves held very little, but the owner made small kabobs in pita bread with fresh vegetables. As the Marines became regular customers, he added a refrigerator and deep freezer and filled the shelves. I still think about those kabobs.

Photograph by Kenny Bass.

Photograph 9 of 15.

• The close double portrait and the group photograph with Salah and the blue prayer beads were made within the same covered power-plant position.
• Power Plant / Industrial Structure was made after Bass stepped out from beneath this shelter and aimed upward; the shelter's concrete roof crosses the lower-left part of that photograph.

The exact Humvee model and BMW model year remain unconfirmed. The men's likely Ba'ath Party affiliation was inferred from what the Marines found in the trunk.