On a typical day I swing from wildly optimistic to cold and withdrawn on a sort of parabolic path that probably coincides with how much sleep I got the night before and how long it's been since I ate. Part of me wants Iraq to succeed. I've met hard working, honest people who just want to regain a semblance of normalcy and are willing to put their lives at risk to meet that goal but then I see the poverty, garbage clogging the streets, the lack of adequate living, the greed, the corruption, the way those who have wrestled their way in to power now use it to a personal end and leave thousands wandering aimlessly, children who don't go to school, parents with little or no education who can't understand the importance of setting there kids up to make the next generation of Iraqis a more understanding and compassionate one. I don't want to come back here (ever really) when I'm older and still see kids begging for soccer balls and candy from passing humvees. Is this what we've taught them, have they been trained after six years that their best bet is to just sit around and wait for a possible hand out, to beg for trinkets? The Iraqis I know are proud and stubborn people, they carry a certain amount of pride, but I'm surprised how quickly they can turn into babbling idiots if they find there is something being given away. I compare it to when an American finds out a television camera is pointed at them when they are the spectator at a major sporting event or outside the window of the Today Show. The surprise, the rush of adrenaline, the uncontrollable urge to wave like and cry out greetings to loved ones wild eyed and incredulous even though most people are smart enough to realize that a camera mounted across a stadium can't pick up their voice. Maybe I get sad because I see this same trait in myself.
--
A man sat in a bus stop on a busy road in south east Baghdad. A few others stood around him waiting for a truck or a van with room to stop and pick them up. Across the road, workers in blue jump-suits tended to newly planted grass in the median as the pre-noon sun shone overhead. The heat wasn't oppressive yet. It won't be for another month or so, but a warm breeze blew through the scraggly palm trees and kicked up dust from the road. Iraqi police in their mix and match uniforms lazily manned a check point no more than 100 meters up the road resting their AK-47s on the toes of their boots. In the bus stop the man held a grenade inside his jacket. He rocked anxiously back and forth looking down the road as he fingered the safety pin and whispered softly reassuring himself.
His eyes grew wide as he saw the first truck in our convoy, a tan jagged toothed monster on the road compared to the compact and subcompact cars that clog Baghdad's byways, unmistakable. He stood up as our first truck passed and pulled the pin on the grenade. As the second truck came up he darted into the street and hurled the grenade overhand. A half a second. The driver swerved to the left as the parachute on the end of the grenade caught the wind and swung the warhead down as it ignited in a violent orange flash sending a liquid metal bullet tearing through the hinge of the passenger side front door, the TC's foot, and into the pavement. Before he had a chance to turn, shrapnel from the blast peppered the assailants face and he left a tiny trail of blood drops behind as he rushed off in to an alley to escape.
From my seat in the trail vehicle all I saw was the flash. As I heard the crack muffled by the com system on my ears I felt the over pressure of the blast and called out that we'd hit an IED to our 12 about 200 meters ahead. Reports went up on the net instantly, we thought we'd seen the man who threw the grenade run in to a small store up to our right. Everything happens so fast. You go from talking shit to scanning the roof tops all around you looking to see if you're being video taped. You're being watched, It isn't even a question really. Is there a secondary? Is this the beginning of a coordinated attack? Why are the Iraqi police so useful? You think of all these things and nothing at once. It's robotic.
We were lucky and the injuries were not severe. I'd never seen a through and through on a toe before. Then again I'd also never seen a piece of a bolt lodged in a sock. A piece of bolt that had just minutes prior been a part of a door of a humvee. If you looked at the hole the grenade made in the truck you could see a straight path to the ground beneath. An almost surgical wound in metal. This is what we fight against, men in bus stops with bombs in their hands.
--
Later that night on the way back to my room from eating dinner a loud explosion caused me to jump and assume my standard kung-foo stance I take when startled. My platoon leader and I laughed and said something about that one being pretty close. It's all relative, if you are used to hearing things explode you don't really take much notice unless it's happening within a distance that's going to effect you. Then we heard the whistle of the second and third round incoming and we started to run, of course laughing like little girls the whole way like soldiers are trained to react.
Actually I have a documented history of reacting inappropriately to danger. I took a video last deployment of an artillery barrage from my position on a roof top about 800 meters from the explosions. It's completely pitch black except for the for the purplish orange bursts in the distance and out of no where an arrant round lands a couple hundred meters to our right and as you hear the shrapnel fly past the camera you also hear me muffled sound of my idiotic laughter. What is funny about that? Natural selection may catch up with me yet.
A report came in that a civilian contractor had been injured so the aid station spun up and I hopped in the FLA to transport him back. He'd been hit just outside a fight of stairs and had dragged himself inside to take cover. When I showed up I walked down the stairs carefully avoiding the horror movie pools of dark viscus blood covering each step and walked in to the chaos of a new trauma being handled by a mixture of trained and untrained responders. Everyone wants to help, but at some point it always seems to become too many chiefs and not enough indians. Everything looked relatively under control so I went back up stairs to make sure the FLA was prepped and ready to take the casualty back to the aid station. We stabilized him, treated his wounds which were actually fairly extensive, a penetrating chest wound, a huge chunk taken out of the back of his right leg and various other puncture wounds, and drove him to the flight line to be picked up by a medevac bird. On the way to the HLZ, one of our providers was trying to keep the patient awake by asking him questions and he asked if he played sports, and I smirked and thought "not any more"... then I realized I needed a vacation.
I've heard in the days since that mortar rounds don't whistle, hence their name "the silent death". But I've never heard a mortar be called "the silent death" before and I definitely heard a damn whistle that night so whatever. I'm sticking by my story.
--
We carry around a good deal of gender bias with us no matter where we go. We are brought up that boys are blue and girls are pink and it can be difficult to overcome that ingrained prejudice. The other day a female medic asked me if I had any extra "cool guy" magazines because she was going to the firing range. I told her that I had last months Wired and Esquire and even a Pottery Barn catalogue (and no I have no idea why my mother sent me this). She laughed and said she'd be by later to pick them up.
A couple hours later she came by my room and I handed her a small stack of magazines and she gave me a funny look and said "no, dumb ass I meant like magazines for my M4, you have the P-MAG ones right?" Oh, that kind of magazine. With out giving it a second though I had just envisioned her becoming bored at the range and wanting something to read. I felt kind of stupid but I didn't have any extra to give her so I offered her the Pottery Barn instead... and she took it.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Physics: The Hard Way
In reception at Fort Jackson before basic training a slighter younger and more cock sure Stephen Covell stands outside of his temporary barracks in loose formation waiting to be marched to the DFAC for dinner. You know what it was like to be there you have to understand that at this stage in the game of soldiering you are nothing. You are lower than dirt, you aren't even scum yet. You're just a civilian that they toss some PT's on and yell at. Our instructor/baby sitter/PTSD poster child is a ex-Ranger who has been called up from inactive reserve for all the wrong reasons. He has a very Italian last name that is constantly being miss-pronounced much to his chagrin. "It's Lange-TEE, like spaghetti, you fucking retards!"
I feel bad for this guy in a way, he is a completely ruined shell of a man. He has a government issued memory stick that he carries around on a loop of 550 cord that in the course a week he has completely destroyed the metal USB connector because he can't figure out how to make it work. Plugging something in to a USB port on a lap top is an act that goes way beyond the amount of effort he is willing to put forth to anything aside from what I assume is a smothering love triangle involving Captain Morgan and Mr. Daniels.
Either way, he is excellent at yelling and making sure you feel generally terrible about your life which is likely the two bullet points they cared about most in filling his position. I don't caring much. I am excited to begin my new life and I've made friends with a fellow Californian named Neil Romans who is college educated and hails from just outside King City and thus is familiar and reassures me that I won't be totally surrounded by complete sociopaths. I also like Neil because he showed up wearing cowboy boots assuming that he would be given shoes once he arrived. The Army, having other plans, issued him his PT's with out shoes so the first few days he walked around in shorts and brown leather boots and took any attention that I would have otherwise garnered with my still untrained mouth and placed it directly on his unique fashion situation.
Neil is a good guy, a farm boy, honest and hard working. He wants to be a helicopter pilot so after he graduated college he enrolled in the Army's Warrant Officer program. The way it works is you go to basic training as a specialist and then the day you graduate you pin sergeant and then go to warrant officer school and then flight school. I thought that maybe I should have done the same since you only need an associates degree to enter but I still want to be a Ranger and do big tough manly things so I don't dwell on it.
So here we are in formation. Neil and I and a hundred or so eager and unruly pre-privates standing in the very same place that I was about to learn a very valuable life lesson. People who know me, people I grew up with, people who are not people who are standing in that formation know that I'm a bit of a smart ass. Shocking but true. I generally say what ever half baked, community college inspired dribble drab comment that travels the very short distance from my brain to my mouth with out doing much risk mitigation. I'm a hit at parties... but this is not a party and these are not my friends, a fact that was about to become blatantly obvious in about thirty seconds.
I am being loud, possibly making some kind of obnoxious noise, perhaps drawing undue attention to myself and suddenly from a few rows back a voice urges me to "shut the fuck up." What? What was this? A person telling me to shut the fuck up? Doesn't he know who I am? I play the guitar, and I'm pretty good! After a quick mental computation, I decide his request will ignored. Soon realizing that he had been dismissed he proceeds to inform me that he is going to "come up there and kick (my) ass". Oh, I think not good sir, for we are in formation, and one does not just break ranks to go about kicking the asses of whomever he sees fit. I tell him this over my shoulder in not so many words. And then something went terribly wrong.
I turn around and plant my nose directly in the heaving chest of a brick wall of a black man who's jail house tattoos echoed that he is in fact "no punk ass bitch" which I realize he is eagerly explaining to me and anyone within the quickly expanding ring of onlookers. My first reaction, due to many years of watching action movies and posing in mirrors is to jump backwards and scream "oh fuck!" A move which I execute with both grace and skill, but having accomplished this and thus exhausting my formal street fight training I begin to calculate the amount of time it will take to curl into the fetal position before I get kicked in the face. Then like an angel or a rodeo clown or perhaps a small child trying to retrieve a stray baseball by stepping in front of a city bus, Neil and his boots suddenly take up residence in between death and I. Neil is not a big guy, no where near the size of the brute who he was rapidly imploring to show mercy on me, the obviously mentally handicapped instigator of this whole ordeal. He's talking and using urgent arm movement but I can't hear what he was saying over the deafening sound of my body rapidly expelling my last reserves of dignity and pride. What ever he said, it worked and death turned and lumbered back to his den having effectively defended his honor against the ignorant suburbanite.
I've never ever in my life felt defeated like that. Never before and never since. I'm not one to put myself in positions where I am the underdog. I'm usually a little more clever. This is why I love the Army. It has given me the opportunity to look stupid, feel stupid and act stupid so many times that I've actually learned something. To talk less and listen more, to take stock the environment around me. To read people, to bluff, and more importantly to make sure I know who the fuck I'm talking to before I say something. Sometimes you just need a really big, black, horrendously frightening reminder of who and what you are, I'm just glad Neil was there because being in a coma kind of defeats the purpose of learning a lesson.
I feel bad for this guy in a way, he is a completely ruined shell of a man. He has a government issued memory stick that he carries around on a loop of 550 cord that in the course a week he has completely destroyed the metal USB connector because he can't figure out how to make it work. Plugging something in to a USB port on a lap top is an act that goes way beyond the amount of effort he is willing to put forth to anything aside from what I assume is a smothering love triangle involving Captain Morgan and Mr. Daniels.
Either way, he is excellent at yelling and making sure you feel generally terrible about your life which is likely the two bullet points they cared about most in filling his position. I don't caring much. I am excited to begin my new life and I've made friends with a fellow Californian named Neil Romans who is college educated and hails from just outside King City and thus is familiar and reassures me that I won't be totally surrounded by complete sociopaths. I also like Neil because he showed up wearing cowboy boots assuming that he would be given shoes once he arrived. The Army, having other plans, issued him his PT's with out shoes so the first few days he walked around in shorts and brown leather boots and took any attention that I would have otherwise garnered with my still untrained mouth and placed it directly on his unique fashion situation.
Neil is a good guy, a farm boy, honest and hard working. He wants to be a helicopter pilot so after he graduated college he enrolled in the Army's Warrant Officer program. The way it works is you go to basic training as a specialist and then the day you graduate you pin sergeant and then go to warrant officer school and then flight school. I thought that maybe I should have done the same since you only need an associates degree to enter but I still want to be a Ranger and do big tough manly things so I don't dwell on it.
So here we are in formation. Neil and I and a hundred or so eager and unruly pre-privates standing in the very same place that I was about to learn a very valuable life lesson. People who know me, people I grew up with, people who are not people who are standing in that formation know that I'm a bit of a smart ass. Shocking but true. I generally say what ever half baked, community college inspired dribble drab comment that travels the very short distance from my brain to my mouth with out doing much risk mitigation. I'm a hit at parties... but this is not a party and these are not my friends, a fact that was about to become blatantly obvious in about thirty seconds.
I am being loud, possibly making some kind of obnoxious noise, perhaps drawing undue attention to myself and suddenly from a few rows back a voice urges me to "shut the fuck up." What? What was this? A person telling me to shut the fuck up? Doesn't he know who I am? I play the guitar, and I'm pretty good! After a quick mental computation, I decide his request will ignored. Soon realizing that he had been dismissed he proceeds to inform me that he is going to "come up there and kick (my) ass". Oh, I think not good sir, for we are in formation, and one does not just break ranks to go about kicking the asses of whomever he sees fit. I tell him this over my shoulder in not so many words. And then something went terribly wrong.
I turn around and plant my nose directly in the heaving chest of a brick wall of a black man who's jail house tattoos echoed that he is in fact "no punk ass bitch" which I realize he is eagerly explaining to me and anyone within the quickly expanding ring of onlookers. My first reaction, due to many years of watching action movies and posing in mirrors is to jump backwards and scream "oh fuck!" A move which I execute with both grace and skill, but having accomplished this and thus exhausting my formal street fight training I begin to calculate the amount of time it will take to curl into the fetal position before I get kicked in the face. Then like an angel or a rodeo clown or perhaps a small child trying to retrieve a stray baseball by stepping in front of a city bus, Neil and his boots suddenly take up residence in between death and I. Neil is not a big guy, no where near the size of the brute who he was rapidly imploring to show mercy on me, the obviously mentally handicapped instigator of this whole ordeal. He's talking and using urgent arm movement but I can't hear what he was saying over the deafening sound of my body rapidly expelling my last reserves of dignity and pride. What ever he said, it worked and death turned and lumbered back to his den having effectively defended his honor against the ignorant suburbanite.
I've never ever in my life felt defeated like that. Never before and never since. I'm not one to put myself in positions where I am the underdog. I'm usually a little more clever. This is why I love the Army. It has given me the opportunity to look stupid, feel stupid and act stupid so many times that I've actually learned something. To talk less and listen more, to take stock the environment around me. To read people, to bluff, and more importantly to make sure I know who the fuck I'm talking to before I say something. Sometimes you just need a really big, black, horrendously frightening reminder of who and what you are, I'm just glad Neil was there because being in a coma kind of defeats the purpose of learning a lesson.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Context free expert from the life of Stephen
Hitch: Here (hands me a small plastic basket loosely modeled after a camouflaged helmet filled with candy.)
Me: Is this supposed to be a parachute?
Hitch: No, it's a helmet.
Me: What's it for?
Hitch: Easter.
Me: Oh, is that today?
Hitch: It's Sunday, isn't it?
Me: Yeah. Is Easter the first Sunday of April?
Hitch: Fuck I dunno! Do I look like a bunny to you?
Me: Mmmm, mini snickers!
Me: Is this supposed to be a parachute?
Hitch: No, it's a helmet.
Me: What's it for?
Hitch: Easter.
Me: Oh, is that today?
Hitch: It's Sunday, isn't it?
Me: Yeah. Is Easter the first Sunday of April?
Hitch: Fuck I dunno! Do I look like a bunny to you?
Me: Mmmm, mini snickers!
Friday, April 3, 2009
Let Dreams Be Dreams
Great fiction, like great men serve as inspiration for the rest of us. It feeds us the archetypes of our inner most passions, giving voice to the sometimes crushing truths we tend to feel only exist quarantined within the boundaries of our own head. Fairy tales remind us of the joy and terror we faced as children when the world was still fresh and full of mystery. Short stories and novels give us passage into lives not lived roads not traveled. We need the novel because sometimes the best way to lead us to the truth is to lie.
The longer we live, generally the less we question; why mess with what works? But once in a while I come across a book that reminds me why I have to write. A story that cuts me loose from the bonds I've strapped myself in through experience and shoves me out of my dark little room into the harsh sunlight, the reality that there is anyways more to learn. I may never write anything of great significance, I'm not a chess player, I don't construct my paragraphs as I would move a pawn always looking to the steps ahead. I'd like to believe I'm that clever or that disciplined but I doubt I am. So I offer up what I know and what I think I know in the way a mason builds a wall, one layer at a time. Perhaps when I am finished I will sit on top and look down and be pleased with what I have created, but we all know the nursery rhyme of what happens to those of us who spend their leisure time atop walls... let me just tell you about this dream I had instead.
I'm standing on the sidewalk outside of the local library in Pacific Grove where I grew up. The sky is black and above me the grey swirling clouds form a ceiling that boils over like cheap special effects from 1980s sci-fi films. There seems to be an strangely large number of people walking around in small groups for it being the middle of the night but at the same time it doesn't feel out of the ordinary. A flock of Canadian geese comes into view out of nowhere and though they are flapping their wings at a normal rate their forward movement barely taking them anywhere and not in the way you'd expect to see birds flying against a head wind straining to conquer the opposing force, they just flap and crawl along. Around their legs are over sized rings of rotating yellow LEDs that are suspended without being held by anything physical. This, of course strikes me as completely ordinary.
As I'm turning the corner of the sidewalk to enter the library somebody calls to me and I turn around to see a man in his 60's with wispy tufts of white hair clinging for dear life to odd parts of his head. He's dressed neatly in a blue collared shirt and and a maroon sweater vest and his hands are tucked absently into the pockets of his corduroy pants.
He's calm but his face is pinched with creases of concern and he says, "Did you hear about Jim?"
Without thinking about which Jim this might be I reply, "No, I've been kind of out of the loop."
"Oh, well he passed away two days ago," he mumbles still noticeably shaken by the news.
This news is at once poignant and useless to me since I still have no idea who white wisps is or why we are speaking about Jim so I offer up a standard line of condolence hoping to placate this old mans sadness and give me an exit from this increasingly awkward exchange. As if lightening had sparked from the heavens, wisps body straightens up and his face twists with rage as his finger fires up in line with my chest marking the spot he'd surely have shot me dead if he'd been armed and he screams, "Well maybe if you weren't such a pot smoking hippie living under a rock you'd have more of an idea what was going on around you!"
How did he know I hate hippies? "I'm a mother fucking soldier in the United States Army, you asshole," I yell as my shoulders square up and my fists clench ready to do battle with this sexagenarian son of a bitch.
"I am too!" His voice clipped on the verge of tears as he turns on his heals and runs away holding his hands like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.
And then I woke up. Can you believe I was actually angry when I thought back on it. Well first I was confused then amused and finally settled back into mild discontent. I actually cared that someone had disrespected my profession. I'm not that guy. I'm so stubbornly independent that it usually takes blunt force trauma to get through to me but I think it's finally taken me. I think after really doing my job, what I signed up to do, caring for the casualties of war, I'm proud of it now. For years I felt like a fake and like I didn't deserve anyone's praise or thanks but I think I can hold my head up high as strangers shake my hand in airports and when I open care packages from Midwestern church groups (I'm still enjoying my back issues of Family Circle). And so fiction becomes fact and the roles we play turn us into what we are but seriously, how did he know I hate hippies?
The longer we live, generally the less we question; why mess with what works? But once in a while I come across a book that reminds me why I have to write. A story that cuts me loose from the bonds I've strapped myself in through experience and shoves me out of my dark little room into the harsh sunlight, the reality that there is anyways more to learn. I may never write anything of great significance, I'm not a chess player, I don't construct my paragraphs as I would move a pawn always looking to the steps ahead. I'd like to believe I'm that clever or that disciplined but I doubt I am. So I offer up what I know and what I think I know in the way a mason builds a wall, one layer at a time. Perhaps when I am finished I will sit on top and look down and be pleased with what I have created, but we all know the nursery rhyme of what happens to those of us who spend their leisure time atop walls... let me just tell you about this dream I had instead.
I'm standing on the sidewalk outside of the local library in Pacific Grove where I grew up. The sky is black and above me the grey swirling clouds form a ceiling that boils over like cheap special effects from 1980s sci-fi films. There seems to be an strangely large number of people walking around in small groups for it being the middle of the night but at the same time it doesn't feel out of the ordinary. A flock of Canadian geese comes into view out of nowhere and though they are flapping their wings at a normal rate their forward movement barely taking them anywhere and not in the way you'd expect to see birds flying against a head wind straining to conquer the opposing force, they just flap and crawl along. Around their legs are over sized rings of rotating yellow LEDs that are suspended without being held by anything physical. This, of course strikes me as completely ordinary.
As I'm turning the corner of the sidewalk to enter the library somebody calls to me and I turn around to see a man in his 60's with wispy tufts of white hair clinging for dear life to odd parts of his head. He's dressed neatly in a blue collared shirt and and a maroon sweater vest and his hands are tucked absently into the pockets of his corduroy pants.
He's calm but his face is pinched with creases of concern and he says, "Did you hear about Jim?"
Without thinking about which Jim this might be I reply, "No, I've been kind of out of the loop."
"Oh, well he passed away two days ago," he mumbles still noticeably shaken by the news.
This news is at once poignant and useless to me since I still have no idea who white wisps is or why we are speaking about Jim so I offer up a standard line of condolence hoping to placate this old mans sadness and give me an exit from this increasingly awkward exchange. As if lightening had sparked from the heavens, wisps body straightens up and his face twists with rage as his finger fires up in line with my chest marking the spot he'd surely have shot me dead if he'd been armed and he screams, "Well maybe if you weren't such a pot smoking hippie living under a rock you'd have more of an idea what was going on around you!"
How did he know I hate hippies? "I'm a mother fucking soldier in the United States Army, you asshole," I yell as my shoulders square up and my fists clench ready to do battle with this sexagenarian son of a bitch.
"I am too!" His voice clipped on the verge of tears as he turns on his heals and runs away holding his hands like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.
And then I woke up. Can you believe I was actually angry when I thought back on it. Well first I was confused then amused and finally settled back into mild discontent. I actually cared that someone had disrespected my profession. I'm not that guy. I'm so stubbornly independent that it usually takes blunt force trauma to get through to me but I think it's finally taken me. I think after really doing my job, what I signed up to do, caring for the casualties of war, I'm proud of it now. For years I felt like a fake and like I didn't deserve anyone's praise or thanks but I think I can hold my head up high as strangers shake my hand in airports and when I open care packages from Midwestern church groups (I'm still enjoying my back issues of Family Circle). And so fiction becomes fact and the roles we play turn us into what we are but seriously, how did he know I hate hippies?
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
God is a Smoker and The Truth About Anger
I'm doing pretty good so far. I'll be home in May for a couple weeks then maybe as early as September for good. But more likely November. Going to be single by then?? :)
Here's my latest journal thang for you since I didn't have your named on the list. It will be on it next time.
Foreign relations is a tricky business. Foreign relations with people who speak a language with absolutely no english cognates is even trickier. Hand gestures are useful. Body language works too but when it comes down to it you're still a unwashed American trudging through sand. I try not to offend usually. There's days when the right combination of caffeine, sleep deprivation and frustration set me right on the edge of homicide but mostly I'm a passive observer watching hands and faces through the glass porthole of my cocoon in the rear of the humvee.
Some time ago while pulling security for a meeting between civil affairs and the Iraqi workers they support I was given a falafel (some falafel?) to eat since we were going get back after the DFAC closed. If you've never had it, falafel is kind of like peta bread stuffed with what I guess are little fried balls of some kind of bean mush spiced up and laid on a bed of lettuce and chopped tomatoes and onions. Depending on the vendor they are usually pretty tasty especially if the bread is fresh. There was a group of teen age Iraqi kids that had been asking me questions all morning sitting to my left and by the time the food came around I was getting pretty tired of playing "what's this?" with the stuff on my kit so I had removed myself from their semi circle and sat off alone to space out for a few minutes while I enjoyed the first thing I'd eaten that day. As I ate I noticed that they had somehow become even more interested my activities and I tried to ignore them staring at me and asking me questions in arabic that I was sure they knew I didn't speak by that time. As I finished I swept a little pile of crumbs that had fallen on the floor and one of the kids jumped up which made me jump up and start to raise my rifle. A middle-aged man in a tan leather jacket who had been following the exchange from halfway across the room walked and with a disapproving glare and looked down his nose at me as the boy who had jumped up began to speak to him in rapid spurts. The man then asked me if knew God. In the way you'd ask a child holding a baseball bat, who broke the vase.
"We believe that food is a gift from God and to disrespect food is to disrespect God," he continued. "The boy wants to pick up your crumbs for you and dispose of them properly. That is what he's been asking you to do."
Well of course, silly me how could I have misinterpreted that? There were two distinctly separate reactions going on in my mind at that moment. One was a feeling of total embarrassment and the other was the urge to put the butt of my rifle through this mans face for talking to me like I was supposed to understand the nuances of Muslim culture because my job forces me to spend time under it's watchful eye. In the second it took me to decide my course of action I went with embarrassment. I felt stupid, uneducated and disappointed which aren't three things I'm used to feeling especially at once so I apologized and looked like an idiot as I bent over the bulk of my kit to pick up pea sized falafel bits off a dirty floor. The boy came over and took them from my hand and disposed of them properly... which was to put them in the ashtray. So in the same day I learned though God isn't so hot on feet, he isn't above refrying the occasional Newport.
---
I'd like to tell you that we do wild and crazy things. I'd like to have stories that are exciting. I'd like to say that we did a chinese fire drill in the middle of a busy Baghdad street. But we've definitely never done anything like that.
---
Everything you've ever been taught about anger is a lie! The kind and gentle grease we use to lube the cogs of the social machine is a fabrication, a fiction woven to usher the meek in to their position of biblical prophecy. No really though, think about the last time you were really angry for a good reason. A righteous fury. Do you remember the feeling that swept through you entire body, the pulsing, pounding energy, the strength it gave you to fight for what you believed in, even if it was just the fact that your position at the register got swooped because you were oogling the cover of US Weekly. It's a rush and I think we rob ourselves of one of our most useful emotions by tempering our feelings. Just make sure you're right first.
I wear dark Oakley wrap around sunglasses during the day on patrol. It helps the ol' crows feet from getting any worse and it's like a shield against stares. People in this country have a staring problem. Like a real glaring into your eyes for way to long kind of problem. It's not something you get much in America even if someone doesn't like you. It's unnerving at times and I've had to teach myself not to look away. I make it a game now. Who can stare longer. Usually I win because... probably because I'm the only one who knows it's a game. But one day I was caught off guard.
In my usual seat in the back of the truck I was staring out at traffic with my body turned toward the outside resting up again the 240 ammo cans. This sometimes makes my back feel better after sitting in my gear for a long period. The cars were at a stand still waiting for our trucks to move so everyone was upset to begin with. There is no patience in driving here. Every little delay is a catastrophe in the mind of a Baghdad motorist and in this city there's always a delay. It's not unusual to watch a myriad combination of wild gesticulation accented by yelling and the ever present sound of the horn. But this was different.
A man with a scraggly black beard was staring at me from the cab of his white flatbed truck. Not staring at my truck or the machine gun mounted on top or our driver but directly at me. His face glistening with new sweat and his dark blue shirt dirty and loose around his neck he actually was leaning forward around another man to his side to look at me. I looked away. It didn't bother me at first because like I said it's not unusual to see any of this but something started burning inside me chest. A strange sensation began to build inside me and I looked back at him from behind my dark glasses and I occurred to me that I wasn't playing around with this one. I was getting mad. Really mad. I took my glasses off and stared with what I can only assume was a face I tried to configure into an internationally recognizable look of "I don't feel like being fucking stared at". But he kept glaring at me his face stuck at this infuriating point between stupidity and anger. And I exploded.
"I'm going to come out of this truck and FUCKING KILL YOU!"
The vic system on my ears went silent. The rest of the truck had been chatting back and forth before my outburst but all was quite now.
"Doc, you ok?"
Uhh. Yeah. The man was no longer looking at me. He had sunken back into his seat so far I couldn't see him behind the man at his side who was nervously avoiding everything in our general direction. My whole body was quivering. I felt like a lion inside of a tiger riding an elephant on a rocket. And for what? I don't know but it was amazing. I never get angry but for that brief moment the crystal clear vision of throwing open my door, jumping up, slamming my M4 through the window of that truck and laying waste to everything on the other end of the barrel seemed like the only sensible and correct course of action given my circumstance. Do I recommend that to anyone? No. But everyone should have that experience at least once. Or if you're our TC, once every 15 minutes.
Here's my latest journal thang for you since I didn't have your named on the list. It will be on it next time.
Foreign relations is a tricky business. Foreign relations with people who speak a language with absolutely no english cognates is even trickier. Hand gestures are useful. Body language works too but when it comes down to it you're still a unwashed American trudging through sand. I try not to offend usually. There's days when the right combination of caffeine, sleep deprivation and frustration set me right on the edge of homicide but mostly I'm a passive observer watching hands and faces through the glass porthole of my cocoon in the rear of the humvee.
Some time ago while pulling security for a meeting between civil affairs and the Iraqi workers they support I was given a falafel (some falafel?) to eat since we were going get back after the DFAC closed. If you've never had it, falafel is kind of like peta bread stuffed with what I guess are little fried balls of some kind of bean mush spiced up and laid on a bed of lettuce and chopped tomatoes and onions. Depending on the vendor they are usually pretty tasty especially if the bread is fresh. There was a group of teen age Iraqi kids that had been asking me questions all morning sitting to my left and by the time the food came around I was getting pretty tired of playing "what's this?" with the stuff on my kit so I had removed myself from their semi circle and sat off alone to space out for a few minutes while I enjoyed the first thing I'd eaten that day. As I ate I noticed that they had somehow become even more interested my activities and I tried to ignore them staring at me and asking me questions in arabic that I was sure they knew I didn't speak by that time. As I finished I swept a little pile of crumbs that had fallen on the floor and one of the kids jumped up which made me jump up and start to raise my rifle. A middle-aged man in a tan leather jacket who had been following the exchange from halfway across the room walked and with a disapproving glare and looked down his nose at me as the boy who had jumped up began to speak to him in rapid spurts. The man then asked me if knew God. In the way you'd ask a child holding a baseball bat, who broke the vase.
"We believe that food is a gift from God and to disrespect food is to disrespect God," he continued. "The boy wants to pick up your crumbs for you and dispose of them properly. That is what he's been asking you to do."
Well of course, silly me how could I have misinterpreted that? There were two distinctly separate reactions going on in my mind at that moment. One was a feeling of total embarrassment and the other was the urge to put the butt of my rifle through this mans face for talking to me like I was supposed to understand the nuances of Muslim culture because my job forces me to spend time under it's watchful eye. In the second it took me to decide my course of action I went with embarrassment. I felt stupid, uneducated and disappointed which aren't three things I'm used to feeling especially at once so I apologized and looked like an idiot as I bent over the bulk of my kit to pick up pea sized falafel bits off a dirty floor. The boy came over and took them from my hand and disposed of them properly... which was to put them in the ashtray. So in the same day I learned though God isn't so hot on feet, he isn't above refrying the occasional Newport.
---
I'd like to tell you that we do wild and crazy things. I'd like to have stories that are exciting. I'd like to say that we did a chinese fire drill in the middle of a busy Baghdad street. But we've definitely never done anything like that.
---
Everything you've ever been taught about anger is a lie! The kind and gentle grease we use to lube the cogs of the social machine is a fabrication, a fiction woven to usher the meek in to their position of biblical prophecy. No really though, think about the last time you were really angry for a good reason. A righteous fury. Do you remember the feeling that swept through you entire body, the pulsing, pounding energy, the strength it gave you to fight for what you believed in, even if it was just the fact that your position at the register got swooped because you were oogling the cover of US Weekly. It's a rush and I think we rob ourselves of one of our most useful emotions by tempering our feelings. Just make sure you're right first.
I wear dark Oakley wrap around sunglasses during the day on patrol. It helps the ol' crows feet from getting any worse and it's like a shield against stares. People in this country have a staring problem. Like a real glaring into your eyes for way to long kind of problem. It's not something you get much in America even if someone doesn't like you. It's unnerving at times and I've had to teach myself not to look away. I make it a game now. Who can stare longer. Usually I win because... probably because I'm the only one who knows it's a game. But one day I was caught off guard.
In my usual seat in the back of the truck I was staring out at traffic with my body turned toward the outside resting up again the 240 ammo cans. This sometimes makes my back feel better after sitting in my gear for a long period. The cars were at a stand still waiting for our trucks to move so everyone was upset to begin with. There is no patience in driving here. Every little delay is a catastrophe in the mind of a Baghdad motorist and in this city there's always a delay. It's not unusual to watch a myriad combination of wild gesticulation accented by yelling and the ever present sound of the horn. But this was different.
A man with a scraggly black beard was staring at me from the cab of his white flatbed truck. Not staring at my truck or the machine gun mounted on top or our driver but directly at me. His face glistening with new sweat and his dark blue shirt dirty and loose around his neck he actually was leaning forward around another man to his side to look at me. I looked away. It didn't bother me at first because like I said it's not unusual to see any of this but something started burning inside me chest. A strange sensation began to build inside me and I looked back at him from behind my dark glasses and I occurred to me that I wasn't playing around with this one. I was getting mad. Really mad. I took my glasses off and stared with what I can only assume was a face I tried to configure into an internationally recognizable look of "I don't feel like being fucking stared at". But he kept glaring at me his face stuck at this infuriating point between stupidity and anger. And I exploded.
"I'm going to come out of this truck and FUCKING KILL YOU!"
The vic system on my ears went silent. The rest of the truck had been chatting back and forth before my outburst but all was quite now.
"Doc, you ok?"
Uhh. Yeah. The man was no longer looking at me. He had sunken back into his seat so far I couldn't see him behind the man at his side who was nervously avoiding everything in our general direction. My whole body was quivering. I felt like a lion inside of a tiger riding an elephant on a rocket. And for what? I don't know but it was amazing. I never get angry but for that brief moment the crystal clear vision of throwing open my door, jumping up, slamming my M4 through the window of that truck and laying waste to everything on the other end of the barrel seemed like the only sensible and correct course of action given my circumstance. Do I recommend that to anyone? No. But everyone should have that experience at least once. Or if you're our TC, once every 15 minutes.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Sucks To Be The Carrot
Many a strange event I have seen in this life, but never would I have guessed that I would witness the act of a sheep being inflated like a ballon with a bike pump. It was a routine afternoon with Team Black meandering through the mahalos, ferrying soldiers between FOB's, JSS's, COP's and other acronyms, nothing out of the ordinary. It may or may not have been the same day we saw live Hawks for sale in the market. According to our interpreters they cost somewhere between $10 and $1500 apparently allowing some margin of error. Regardless, I was absently staring into the middle distance as we rounded a corner when I saw it. Two boys in the median flanking a freshly slaughtered goat carcass that now more resembled a pinata than it's former animal self. A good person would have quietly observed the unfamiliar customs of a foreign people with respect and patient interest. I, however, burst out laughing. Laughing so loud that the kids heard me 30 feet away through 3 inches of steel armor and looked up as we drove by. They saw me smiling and pointing and smiled and waved back as they continued to pump more air into their project.
--
Recently a couple one liter bottles of light yellow hand soap showed up in our bathroom. Crudely written on the side in sharpie marker are the words "hand soap." These words have been X'ed out and underneath them in even more primitive script appears the word "urine." I refuse to use this soap. I know that the labels do not truthfully describe what the bottles contain but the thought that there may even be a remote chance that some percentage of what ever is in those bottles is actually the aforementioned waste liquid, won't allow me to take the chance. This either speaks to how much we allow our perception to shape our reality, or how little I trust my coworkers.
--
There are few pleasures more pure than watching your boss be mauled by a police dog. Seriously, it's hilarious, even if like me, you like your boss. It's like watching a home video of a guy taking a shot in the nuts with his kids wiffle bat. You laugh because it isn't you. And if it is you, you laugh because you can't legally murder your kid.
The medical platoon somehow coordinated a session with the MP's to act as agitators for their K9 counterparts. They dressed us up in a over sized padded green bomber jacket and gave us specific instructions on how to act around the working dogs. Unlike working girls, the standard "no eye contact", "pay first" rules don't apply. We were told to some important tips like to twist our arm if the dog grabs more than just the jacket and not to make a fist so your hand won't be crushed if it's targeted. I didn't volunteer.
MP's use a few select breeds for police work. We got the pleasure of watching a Belgian Malamute, which look like a German Shepherd mated with a harpoon, leap full speed and attach itself to one exposed appendage after another. The full take downs were the most entertaining but it was also funny to watch the dog "watch" the victim when it was ordered not to bite. |'ve never seen an animal display such unadulterated desire. It's the real world counterpart to a Bugs Bunny's eyes turning into carrots. None of the MP's had ever unleashed their dogs in a real world situation but I can tell you that you definitely don't want to be on the receiving end of those teeth.
Sucks to be the carrot.
--
Recently a couple one liter bottles of light yellow hand soap showed up in our bathroom. Crudely written on the side in sharpie marker are the words "hand soap." These words have been X'ed out and underneath them in even more primitive script appears the word "urine." I refuse to use this soap. I know that the labels do not truthfully describe what the bottles contain but the thought that there may even be a remote chance that some percentage of what ever is in those bottles is actually the aforementioned waste liquid, won't allow me to take the chance. This either speaks to how much we allow our perception to shape our reality, or how little I trust my coworkers.
--
There are few pleasures more pure than watching your boss be mauled by a police dog. Seriously, it's hilarious, even if like me, you like your boss. It's like watching a home video of a guy taking a shot in the nuts with his kids wiffle bat. You laugh because it isn't you. And if it is you, you laugh because you can't legally murder your kid.
The medical platoon somehow coordinated a session with the MP's to act as agitators for their K9 counterparts. They dressed us up in a over sized padded green bomber jacket and gave us specific instructions on how to act around the working dogs. Unlike working girls, the standard "no eye contact", "pay first" rules don't apply. We were told to some important tips like to twist our arm if the dog grabs more than just the jacket and not to make a fist so your hand won't be crushed if it's targeted. I didn't volunteer.
MP's use a few select breeds for police work. We got the pleasure of watching a Belgian Malamute, which look like a German Shepherd mated with a harpoon, leap full speed and attach itself to one exposed appendage after another. The full take downs were the most entertaining but it was also funny to watch the dog "watch" the victim when it was ordered not to bite. |'ve never seen an animal display such unadulterated desire. It's the real world counterpart to a Bugs Bunny's eyes turning into carrots. None of the MP's had ever unleashed their dogs in a real world situation but I can tell you that you definitely don't want to be on the receiving end of those teeth.
Sucks to be the carrot.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Lovely Hat!
We are pirates and lost boys, the dreamers and downtrodden; men who gave up one life for another that few truly embrace. From all over the country and the world we came together and formed a unit and a family, bound both emotionally and contractually. Here rank and ability replace skin color and privilege, regardless of where we came from we are here now, sharing both triumph and tragedy as one. That’s not to say that we don’t have our differences, it’s just pleasing in a way to watch television and see how differently soldiers process hardship. It’s empowering in a place where you have control over so little.
I get concerned for the younger guys because I know how it feels to stare across that divide. To see on the other side your old life and friends knowing there may not be a way to bridge the distance. All I can do is help them along on their journey. It’s easy to see the anger in their eyes and hear the arguments through these thin walls. They know they are missing out on a lot by being here. Relationships are hard enough when you can sit face to face but how anyone can build a new marriage from across the world is beyond me. We aren’t that patient of a culture.
--
I got to walk through one of the poorer neighborhoods in our OE (operational environment) a couple weeks ago where we were to pull security for a school opening. It’s hard to gauge how people really feel about us still being here when they seem to have day to day operations pretty well under control. To be there and see the happiness on the faces of both the children and the parents helped clear up some doubts I’d had. They understand it’s going to be a long, long journey back to normality after all the conflict but there is a strong national pride at least among the people in Baghdad. They want to see improvement and they are working toward that goal.
--
There’s a giant poofy white blimp that flies over our FOB keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding area. I’ve named it Mr. Blimp and I sort of worship it like a god. I do little dances for it and in turn it never transmits video to the TOC of me picking my nose when I walk home from the DFAC after dark. It feels like a sort of Orwellian Stay-Puff Marshmellow Man is constantly looking over my shoulder. It’s comforting and creepy all at once, like family reunions.
--
We’ve adopted a sort of unit mascot in the visage of the one they call Swamp Thing. If you haven’t seen the pictures of him I’ll try and describe just how awesome this guy is. Personally I think it’s an act. We thought that he was crazy when we first got here because he looked so incredibly dirty but after talking (and a few photo ops) with him I’ve come to the conclusion that he does this act for money. It’s bad luck not to give money to the needy here, so the homeless and mentally ill roll around with fat wads of cash in their hands as they walk down the street asking for more.
Swampy hangs out on a road that is pretty much entirely made up of automotive repair shops so it isn’t uncommon for people to be covered in dirt and grease from working on vehicles, but his get up is unique. His outfit is something of a cross between a burlap sack and a special needs Peter Pan tunic replete with pieces of fabric added in the way you would put camouflage on a guille suit. It looks tailored in a way but completely haphazard in another. His face and arms appear covered not just in filth but actual caked on chunks of mud, one particular piece protruding from under his left eye hasn’t seemed to change in either size or consistency in the weeks that I’ve been paying attention. His hair is a mess of semi-dreadlocked lumps forming a natural helmet that I would assume is solid to the touch… I will not test this theory.
Oddly enough he doesn’t smell. In a country where personal hygiene regiments are pliable, I’d say he’s pretty high on the standards scale. How he achieves this is a mystery of both nature and science but I believe that what ever the answer is it may also help us discover a cure for cancer.
--
Our truck is somewhat of an anomaly. We actually have fun when we roll outside the wire. It’s rare to find a combination of people who can sit in a confined space for 12 hours at a time and not get bored of each other. This is the first time I’ve felt like I was working with people who I consider more than just co-workers.
A few days ago we were taking a left hand turn onto a street and cut the corner a little sharp forcing a taxi to have to back up to let us through. Our TC told our gunner to stand up and give the taxi driver a “loud shukran” by which he meant say “thank you” loud enough so the taxi driver could here us. Our gunner, who we always joke with because he isn’t very intimidating despite his size and the arsenal at his disposal, stands up and yells “LOUD SHUKRAN!” causing us to almost hit a pylon because everyone in our truck including our driver were laughing so hard we couldn’t see straight.
It reminded me of that Daniel Tosh stand-up where he wonders if there has ever been a case of polite tourrette syndrome, “LOVELY HAT!”
I get concerned for the younger guys because I know how it feels to stare across that divide. To see on the other side your old life and friends knowing there may not be a way to bridge the distance. All I can do is help them along on their journey. It’s easy to see the anger in their eyes and hear the arguments through these thin walls. They know they are missing out on a lot by being here. Relationships are hard enough when you can sit face to face but how anyone can build a new marriage from across the world is beyond me. We aren’t that patient of a culture.
--
I got to walk through one of the poorer neighborhoods in our OE (operational environment) a couple weeks ago where we were to pull security for a school opening. It’s hard to gauge how people really feel about us still being here when they seem to have day to day operations pretty well under control. To be there and see the happiness on the faces of both the children and the parents helped clear up some doubts I’d had. They understand it’s going to be a long, long journey back to normality after all the conflict but there is a strong national pride at least among the people in Baghdad. They want to see improvement and they are working toward that goal.
--
There’s a giant poofy white blimp that flies over our FOB keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding area. I’ve named it Mr. Blimp and I sort of worship it like a god. I do little dances for it and in turn it never transmits video to the TOC of me picking my nose when I walk home from the DFAC after dark. It feels like a sort of Orwellian Stay-Puff Marshmellow Man is constantly looking over my shoulder. It’s comforting and creepy all at once, like family reunions.
--
We’ve adopted a sort of unit mascot in the visage of the one they call Swamp Thing. If you haven’t seen the pictures of him I’ll try and describe just how awesome this guy is. Personally I think it’s an act. We thought that he was crazy when we first got here because he looked so incredibly dirty but after talking (and a few photo ops) with him I’ve come to the conclusion that he does this act for money. It’s bad luck not to give money to the needy here, so the homeless and mentally ill roll around with fat wads of cash in their hands as they walk down the street asking for more.
Swampy hangs out on a road that is pretty much entirely made up of automotive repair shops so it isn’t uncommon for people to be covered in dirt and grease from working on vehicles, but his get up is unique. His outfit is something of a cross between a burlap sack and a special needs Peter Pan tunic replete with pieces of fabric added in the way you would put camouflage on a guille suit. It looks tailored in a way but completely haphazard in another. His face and arms appear covered not just in filth but actual caked on chunks of mud, one particular piece protruding from under his left eye hasn’t seemed to change in either size or consistency in the weeks that I’ve been paying attention. His hair is a mess of semi-dreadlocked lumps forming a natural helmet that I would assume is solid to the touch… I will not test this theory.
Oddly enough he doesn’t smell. In a country where personal hygiene regiments are pliable, I’d say he’s pretty high on the standards scale. How he achieves this is a mystery of both nature and science but I believe that what ever the answer is it may also help us discover a cure for cancer.
--
Our truck is somewhat of an anomaly. We actually have fun when we roll outside the wire. It’s rare to find a combination of people who can sit in a confined space for 12 hours at a time and not get bored of each other. This is the first time I’ve felt like I was working with people who I consider more than just co-workers.
A few days ago we were taking a left hand turn onto a street and cut the corner a little sharp forcing a taxi to have to back up to let us through. Our TC told our gunner to stand up and give the taxi driver a “loud shukran” by which he meant say “thank you” loud enough so the taxi driver could here us. Our gunner, who we always joke with because he isn’t very intimidating despite his size and the arsenal at his disposal, stands up and yells “LOUD SHUKRAN!” causing us to almost hit a pylon because everyone in our truck including our driver were laughing so hard we couldn’t see straight.
It reminded me of that Daniel Tosh stand-up where he wonders if there has ever been a case of polite tourrette syndrome, “LOVELY HAT!”
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