U.S. Marine Corps Captain Wesley Gray always assumed that convincing soldiers of the need for bulletproof vests would be an easy sell.
Yet Gray, a Chicago Booth PhD candidate who suspended his studies for military service, found that Iraqi military trainees viewed their safety through a different prism.
Why bother, they argued, when only God could decide whether they lived or died? “They said, ‘If God wants me to die, I could have 10 of these things on,’” Gray recalls. “And obviously, I’m sitting here as a Marine thinking, if you have a bulletproof vest and someone shoots you, then there’s a lot better chance that you’re gonna be safe.”
These moments of cultural friction were a crucial aspect of Gray’s tour in Iraq, where he spent eight months on a Military Transition Team fighting alongside Iraqi soldiers. Gray reflects on his experiences, as well as the wider conflict in Iraq, in his new book Embedded: A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army.
Gray joined the Marines in 2004, two years after beginning his PhD in finance. He had always planned to join the military, and sensed the moment was finally right. “After living in a cave for the first two years of the [PhD] program, it was a good time to take a break.”
“I’m pretty patriotic, and I just felt lucky to be born [in America],” he says of the decision to serve. “I’d had a relatively easy life, and I thought, ‘Hey, at some point I’ve gotta pay my dues.’”
Ever the economist, he adds, “My opportunity costs weren’t getting any lower.”
‘Marines Are From Mars, Iraqis Are From Venus’
On the transition team, Gray served in Camp Ali, an Iraqi base near Haditha. Officially, its mission was to train and mentor the Iraqi army. But Gray explains “the reality is that my mission was to go ‘native’: live, eat, sleep, and fight inside an Iraqi battalion, establish positive relationships with my new family, and help the Iraqi army fight insurgents.”
To prepare for the mission, Gray learned as much as he could about Iraqi culture. He pored over articles about the region; among his favorites was “Marines Are From Mars, Iraqis Are From Venus,” which a fellow Marine had written.
“[The author] writes it through the Iraqi lens,” Grays says, “and you actually get to see through Iraqi eyes how they interpret our culture.”
To learn Iraqi Arabic, Gray set aside his books and used a different method—a third-person video in which players walk and talk their way through a virtual Iraqi town. Still, virtual reality was no match for the reality of Al-Anbar province. “You can never really prepare for how different [the Iraqis] are,” he admits.
The cultural differences complicated every aspect of Gray’s mission in Iraq. Not only were the new soldiers resistant to wearing protective gear, they also expected more leave and time off with their families than American soldiers. Because honor is highly prized in Iraqi culture, many Iraqis were reluctant to overtly critique one another. “They’re a lot less direct than Americans are,” he notes.
Over time, Gray began to build bridges between Marines and Iraqis. He talked to Iraqi soldiers about Islam, hoping to show that Americans respected their faith.
But his “secret weapon” was a photo album filled with family snapshots. It immediately resonated with Iraqis, who often keep similar albums at home. “The minute you can make them feel you’re like them, that you have a family and you have the same struggles they do, that you’re just trying to get food on the table, it’s a good thing to talk about.”
The Best Economists
Gray left Iraq in 2008 and returned to civilian life, a transition he says was like “switching minds.” He’s finishing his dissertation, running a hedge fund, and he recently welcomed his first child.
His military and student lives now seem worlds apart. He avoided discussing his academic work in Iraq, fearing it might play into the stereotype of American materialism. At Chicago Booth, he rarely talks about his time in Iraq—though for a very different reason. “Most of the conversations I have with students or faculty revolve around nerdy stuff like asset pricing, economics, or stock tips.”
And yet, Gray sees certain connections between his academic background and his time in Iraq. He describes the employment of Iraqi soldiers as, “very Chicago School economics. It’s all about dollars and cents and getting down to business. In America, we can underpay our soldiers because they get pride, they feel good about the work, and they get support. [In Iraq], that doesn’t work. It’s just, ‘I want my market wage,’” he explains.
“One thing I would say about Iraqis is that they’re survivors. And survivors are the best economists in the world.”
By Susie Allen, 2009 graduate of the College
