Blue Helmet: My Year As a UN Peacekeeper in South Sudan - Hardcover

Carpenter, Edward H.

 
9781640125995: Blue Helmet: My Year As a UN Peacekeeper in South Sudan
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 164012599X ISBN 13: 9781640125995
Verlag: Potomac Books Inc, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

Blue Helmet: My Year as a UN Peacekeeper in South Sudan tells the story of a country, a conflict, and the institution of peacekeeping through the eyes of a senior American military officer working on the ground in one of the most dangerous countries on the planet. South Sudan is rich in natural resources, and its fertile soil could make it the breadbasket of East Africa. Yet it remains the poorest and most corrupt country in the region, plagued by disease, famine, and ethnic strife. Abductions, sexual violence, death, and displacement affect tens of thousands of people each year.

Edward H. Carpenter pulls readers into his world, allowing them to experience the powerful, poignant realities of being a peacekeeper in South Sudan. In the process, the author reveals how the United Nations really conducts its missions: what it tolerates and how it often falls short of achieving the aims of its charter-equal rights, justice, and economic advancement for all people-with the use of armed forces limited to serving those common interests by keeping the peace and preventing the scourge of war. It is a story that is eye-opening, unsettling, and always compelling.

Global leaders may fairly claim that they have done everything they can to help South Sudan help itself: they’ve dispatched thousands of peacekeepers and provided billions of dollars in aid. So why is the UN still struggling to fulfill its mandate to protect civilians and safeguard the delivery of humanitarian assistance? What could be done better? Bringing the reader to the forefront of action, Blue Helmet answers these questions and raises others about how modern peacekeeping missions are organized and overseen, shedding light on some of the contradictions at the heart of peacekeeping.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Edward H. Carpenter is a retired lieutenant colonel, a veteran of America’s “Long Wars” who served in the U.S. Army and Marines for a total of twenty-nine years, from Afghanistan to Japan, Indonesia to Saudi Arabia. He has written for the Washington Post and is the author of Steven Pressfield’s “The Warrior Ethos”: One Marine Officer’s Critique and Counterpoint. Carpenter is the founder of the nonprofit organization World Without War, to which he is donating his royalties from Blue Helmet.

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1 The Worst Day

Only the dead have seen the end of war.
—George Santayana

10 April 2019. Our mission—to visit a government official at his country
estate to gain insight into human rights violations reported in the area—was
fairly routine. Traveling in a pair of white sport utility vehicles (SUVs)
with a local doctor as our liaison and wearing the traditional blue helmets
of United Nations (UN) peacekeepers, we passed through the first several
checkpoints with ease. These roadblocks were a ubiquitous sight in this
war-ravaged nation. They were usually manned by police or soldiers in
and around the capital, but out here in the countryside, the guards wore
the mismatched uniforms characteristic of the local militia. We weren’t
hassled for bribes, but once we were asked for food. “As’eef,” I said in my
poorly accented Juba Arabic. Sorry. The man shrugged and waved us on.

As we approached the turnoff for the official’s residence—a big house set
in a wooded area about a quarter mile off the main road—we passed through
a checkpoint that was unmanned. The circumstance was odd enough that
I halted our little convoy and called our headquarters for guidance, which
was—unsurprisingly—to continue our mission. As we turned onto the
narrow dirt road leading into the wooded area surrounding the house, my
mind was already moving ahead. Would our contact have the information
we needed? How would his armed guards react to a half dozen blue helmets
walking up to the door? Would he c—

The improvised explosive device (IED) exploded to our left, shearing the
front axle and slamming our vehicle to a halt. Even though my ears were
still ringing from the blast, I could hear bullets hitting the right side of the
SUV. I shouted, “Bail out left!”

If it hadn’t been for the lessons drilled into me in our pre-deployment
training, I would have followed my instincts and made my exit in the oppo-
site direction—away from the blast, the fire, and the smoke. Going left was
a dice roll, but it was still a better choice because the vehicle gave us a little
more protection from the incoming rifle fire.

A quick count of the team confirmed my four peacekeepers were up—alive,
uninjured, and returning fire. Our helmets and body armor had done
their jobs. The doctor was not so lucky; his body had been thrown clear of
the vehicle and lay a few feet away, his left leg partially severed. Blood was
soaking his shirt from some upper body trauma. I had no idea what exactly.

I shouted at the team to lay down covering fire, grabbed my buddy Mack,
and sprinted toward the doctor. He was not a small man, and the weight of
his unconscious body, slick with blood, defied our first attempt to lift him.
Forced to settle for an undignified drag, we managed to get him back to the
cover of the vehicle, where we put a tourniquet on his leg and strapped him
to a stretcher made of flexible plastic that could be hauled across the ground.

Kneeling over our doctor-turned- patient, I also realized that we were
outgunned and running low on ammunition. I had already handed both
of my extra magazines to the other peacekeepers who were still returning
fire. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. We were here as observers,
and most of our colleagues traveled unarmed. We Americans, Canadians,
Australians, and Germans were the only ones who carried weapons, which
were nothing more threatening than pistols.

Bullets continued to hum through the air above us and smack into the
side of our vehicle as we crouched behind it in a slick mixture of blood and
sweat. We had to get to a more defensible position and quickly. Frantically
scanning for an escape, I glimpsed a house on the other side of the road we’d
just left. Shouting an order to pull back, I drew my pistol and led the way at
a sprint. Mack and Danny followed, dragging the doctor on the stretcher,
and behind them—still firing their pistols toward the muzzle flashes in the
trees—came Christopher and Emm.

We made it to the building, cleared and occupied a room, and treated
the doctor. We applied a chest seal to plug the wound in his right side;
performed an essential, albeit gruesome needle decompression to allow
his collapsed lung to expand; and ran a nasopharyngeal airway down his
nose and into his throat to help him breathe easier. I had just called for the
quick reaction force and a medevac helicopter when I heard our instructors
shouting, “endex! endex! endex!” The exercise was over. This “worst day”
was just to prepare us for the real thing.

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Verlag
Potomac Books Inc
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
164012599X
ISBN 13 
9781640125995
Einband
Tapa dura
Anzahl der Seiten
408
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Verantwortliche Person
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