It's quite these days. This isn't the Iraq I remember. I mean it is still miserably hot and filled with people who don't like me, but the passion is gone. Now when a local flips me off he doesn't even fear for his life, where's the fun in that? Tom finally caught Jerry but he spent so much time on the chase that he forgot why he wanted him in the first place. Yeah I got it. It's time for the Iraqis to flex a little national pride. It's officially their country now. We are but guests now and believe me in most places that's exactly how we are treated. But there's a undercurrent of distain flowing through these city streets. It's as if society here is at once on the brink of sudden collapse as well as eternally unchangeable, like we came and ruined everything while doing absolutely nothing these last six years.
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With barely any real danger to be concerned by, I've become jumpy at little things. Ok, a M109 Paladin isn't exactly a little thing. But it's friendly enough when it's not pointed at you. The problem is, for what ever reason, they have been firing them off at odd hours of the night over the last week. These artillery tanks fire a 155mm round that produces a testicle retracting kaboom accompanied by a hollow organ rattling shock wave that is especially exciting if you aren't expecting it as you come out of your door at 10:30 at night. At least I didn't need to walk all the way to the bathroom anymore.
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There is something biting me. Not right now but at night occasionally there is something that bites my hands and toes and legs and feet and leaves red itchy little bumps that I scratch in my sleep and wake myself up. I hate these things. I have no idea what they are. Some people call them sand fleas, but apparently those don't exist, at least according to the internet. So there is this mystery bug that bites me in my bed and when I stand for more than a few minutes in one place outside and I have no idea what it looks like or how to destroy it and it's entire family. This must be what it feels like to become schizophrenic.
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With 10 months left in the service I spend a lot of time looking forward to what's next and looking back on what I've experienced and how it's shaped the person I am today. To say that this job has been an eye opening experience would be the grossest of understatements. I grew up in a world where parents stayed together, kids graduated high school and went to college, and arguments were solved with words not fists. That's not to say things always happened that way but when they didn't it was the exception to the rule and I could always turn back to my family, stare normal in the eye and let the worries of other peoples lives fade away. It was a great place to become an adult but like too much of any good thing, while enjoyable, it persuaded me to turn a blind eye to reality. Now my family is a volatile mixture of delinquents, thieves, liars, immigrants who gained their citizenship through the service, farm boys from Kansas, runaways, and more than a couple sociopaths. It's not always easy but dealing with that diversity teaches you that there are not good or evil people. We are all just people, capable of incredible kindness and terrible hate. And someone who you think you hate can turn out to be your best friend.
One of my favorite memories from my training days was sitting in this terrible mexican joint on Fort Benning that was within walking distance from the airborne school barracks. I would head up there every few days and order a beer and something that tried to pass for carnitas and just sit by myself and watch what ever was on the television hanging above the bar. I'd hit on the waitress who as I recall was neither particularly good looking nor interesting but conversation of any kind was good to have. My only friend that I'd come from AIT to airborne with had failed the PT test to get in... or rather her had been failed because he pissed off the instructor and they counted his push ups to 42 and then stayed there regardless of how correct his form was. You need 43 minimum to get in. This is called joining the 42 club.
My ritual continued this way for weeks. Beer, quasi-carnitas, and the wooing of the shrew. On our last week of training, sitting there at the bar I noticed another guy from my company come in and sit at a booth over against the wall to my left. I didn't know him personally but he had the reputation of being a bit of a country bumpkin and not very friendly. I went back to my food until about five minutes later when another figure came storming in the room and came to a halt directly in front of country's booth. I looked at and recognized the figure of a girl who I also knew by reputation, the kind you get by indiscriminately sleeping with anything that walks, and immediately my interest was peaked. Let me clarify first that I really do not care what other people do with their bodies. I'd heard about this girls exploits and the various names she was called and I remember thinking how typical it was that she did exactly what guys wanted but then they would turn around and look down on her... I'll save my feelings about sex rolls and the poor state of American sexual intelligence for another time though.
Standing with her hand on her cocked hip, with out a word she presented a home pregnancy test stick from her pocket and slammed it down on the table. Thinking back on that later I realized how those tests are taken and though "eew". But in the moment I was rapt which curiosity. Country took a bite of his taco looked at the stick and without even looking up said through a mouth full of food, "That shit ain't mine." Oh man, this was going to be some Jerry Springer type shit. I wasn't even trying to hide the fact that I was watching now. I had completely turned on my bar stool to watch the scene unfold while I sipped on my beer. What I expected to happen, having her explode in to some kind of white trash tirade, didn't. She angrily shot her hand out and grabbed the stick and was gone. Country looked up at me and I raised my eye brows signaling that unspoken male understanding that woman are generally completely incomprehensible. The end of his mouth curled into a half grin and shrugged as he went back to the business of consuming.
I later found out that he was not the first or the last of the guys she pulled this move on that day. I found this at once tragic and hilarious, and that is the Army to me. A place so ordered and regimented that you get to a point where you really have to just expect the unexpected. The undercurrent of human needs and wants covered by the gloss and shine of medals and uniforms, its a universe rife with extremes. I'll miss it I'm sure, but at the same time I'll probably spend the rest of my life getting as far away from it as I can.
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