I spent my final days in Iraq at the enormous FOB Striker.  I linked back up with my Regiment.  I saw soldiers from the Military Police unit that I lived with in Yusufiya.  I saw the Iraqi interpreter who taught me most of my Arabic and how to say "tishrub" when passing the hookah.  I saw Lieutenant Atkinson who was formerly in charge of the Brigade's reconstruction effort.  I saw British mercenaries that lifted weights at my gym in the Green Zone; they were hired guns for Division contracting.  Many people I worked with in Iraq were preparing to leave--to return to the States or go elsewhere in country.

The Battalion had left Dragon long ago, now we were neatly arranged in cavernous green tents with cots and air conditioners.  We stripped the plates from our armor and turned in our ammo.  The men watched movies on their laptops or slept...

Then, at the airfield, we palletized our green duffle bags and lines up for flight.  In the terminal a Hooters Girl competition was playing on a widescreen TV above our heads.  The First Sergeant tried to call out names for manifest.  But everyone's attention was on the girls.  We made the flight anyway, which came 2 hours early, and the last company of the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, boarded the Air Force C-17 for flight to Kuwait.

That night in a chow hall at our temporary staging area in Kuwait, CNN broadcast a show on Obama's challenges in Iraq.  Pundits came and went.  Bulletitzed comments read: "corruption in Iraq is widespread" and "militias remain armed."  I couldn't hear their opinions because the chow hall was churning with soldiers enroute to the United States.  The men laughed, predicted first drinks, swore off responsibility, speculated on Afghanistan.  What we owned in Yusufiya, fields and villages of the Euphrates River Valley, belonged again to Iraq.  We had defeated the insurgency there.  We were going home.

and it was as it had been before we left: a war of speculation.  of our own uncertain terms.  of patience as much as violence.

Get Out The Vote

Members of the PRT estimate there are 152 political parties competing for election in Baghdad province. And in yet another delay, the general election in Iraq is now rumored to be pushed back until February of 2009. According to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), the Iraqi voting database was flooded by recent rainfall. "...we are working rapidly to replace this critical infrastructure," assured one of their representatives. I'm guessing this means they're buying new computers?

Coalition Forces currently monitor the political wonderland in Iraq through an ad hoc meeting between international military, State Departments, and NGOs. Discussions are held around a massive wood table in a high ceilinged room--adorned by eggshell paneling and gold trim. Heavy green drapes were drawn from one window, revealing a neat stack of sandbags so high that the view was limited to only the fingertips of a dead tree.

Meetings like the Embassy Election Working Group confirm the permanence of Baghdad's seachange. The agenda consisted of Q and As about the political situation, timeline of elections, public outreach, and security. Hearing security discussed last and considering the topic of the meeting was a complete fiction only years ago it's clear that Iraq is maturing into something new. A representative of an active NGO involved in training political parties mentioned that now "we spend a lot of our time just trying to get them [Iraqi candidates] to go out and talk to voters... they couldn't really do this in 2005, then in 2006 they were against it..."

In the room I counted 15 military and 14 civilians. So the teams felt evenly matched. The co-chair of the meeting (USAFA, c/o '81) mentioned his staff was waiting on information concerning UN guidelines on soldiers staying away from polling centers--which conflicted with local Iraqi requests for American soldiers to "'show the flag' so to speak." At this point USAID and IFES exchanged a furtive glance.

I was sitting down next to the Palace pool to eat lunch when I heard a, "sir!"  It was a medic from battalion--we had seen much of Yusufiya and Oweisat together.

"doc, what you doing here?"

"I'm with Daniels," he motioned to a soldier who hung back, off the deck. "he's seeing the dermatologist at the Cash today." The Cash is the Combat Support Hospital in the Green Zone.

"He alright?"  I took a bite from my chow hall burger.

"well sir, he has these legions all over his body." I looked at the soldier, who was wearing the full Army Combat Uniform, regular long-sleeved blouse, trousers, and boots.  "It's like a mosquito bite when you pick at it, you know?  Like all over his legs and chest and stuff."

"what is it?"

"at first we thought it was scabies, that's what Colonel Foster said, you remember him, sir?"

"Yeah, the guy they called the 'Witch Doctor'?"

"he saw Daniels like 5 times and kept changing his diagnosis, first he said scabies, then the next time we took him in, Foster said it was impossible it was scabies, and I told him that's what he said before and he denied it so I showed him the form he filled out.  It said, 'scabies.'"

"How long's he had it?"

"Hey Daniels, how long you had it?"

"What, portambulitis?"

"Yeah."

"At least 9 months."  Daniels came over to the table.  He was small, with tanned skin, and bright black eyes.  His complexion seemed fine to me.  In fact, he looked quite clean and boyish.

I stood up and shook his hand.

"They didn't send you to a dermatologist sooner?"

"I asked Colonel Foster, sir, and he got mad because I guess he was a dermatologist on the civilian side, before the army or something, or he's a specialist, i don't know.  So he thought he knew what it was."

"tell him about the poison medicine."

Daniels laughed, "Foster gave me this cream to use and I read the label and it said 'poisonous if applied to broken skin' and I'm like 'poison,' what the..."

I took them inside the Palace, which houses the U.S. Embassy, and we drank coffee and laughed about the Army--which manages to survive and adapt unlike any other organization: because of soldiers who bear burdens both plain and hidden.  Because it fulfills it's own ends.  Because men endure.

The Capital

I visited the Iraqi Monument to the Unknown Soldier: a ziggurat-style flag pole and a massive cantilevered disc (online I read this is meant to represent a falling martyr's shield).  For some reason the monument does not contain remains.  But it was still solemn.  And it combines eras and textures in an arabic way.

I was with Diane (c/o 2001), a contractor who manages the arabis

ts who worked with my battalion in Yusufiya.   We parked next to an army checkpoint and started to walk towards the monument when a jundee (an Iraqi Army private) stopped us.  He called another soldier on his radio.  Several other jundees came over--one donned body armor, picked up an AK-47, and motioned us to follow.  He was our escort.

To reach the monument we had to walk up a wide, curving, ramp.  Its arc caused the awning of the tilted shield to slowly present itself to us.  First starting as a black arc--it grew into full shape, the pyramidal cones underneath bearing themselves like layered rows of shark teeth.  Under the shade of the shield is a cube of red fiberglass covered in metal shapes.  The jundee pointed to an Arabic word inscribed at the base of the cube: Khalid.  "The engineer," said the jundee.  

Expertise

Today members of a new Iraq Study group visited the PRT. Dr. Megan O'Sullivan chaired the entourage which included several thinkers, such as Colin Kahl, and Jeff Beals. O'Sullivan cast herself as a uniformed executive, wearing a black suit, black heeled boots, and toting a Furla purse (that I judged at around 600 bucks).

"It's a good thing we didn't 'liberate' the Iraqis," Kahl said before the meeting. "Otherwise it'd be Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL)." We sat in a high-ceilinged room surrounded by posters of Iraqi cities: Baghdad, Mosul, Samarra, and others.  No one touched the fresh fruit on the table. But the coffee was popular.

The discussion lasted about an hour and a half before the group went for a 'tour' through a Baghdad neighborhood. Almost the entire time was spent restating the question: 'what level of Iraqi functionality is acceptable for Americans to leave?' After about 30 minutes, O'Sullivan interrupted to explain, "...we're here at the invitation of Ambassador Crocker and General Odierno to give a fresh perspective." Then we went back to playing with the question.

Major issues facing Iraqi reconstruction were glossed over or hardly discussed. The downsizing of critical Arabic Subject matter experts employed by the Department of Defense, known as Bilingual Bicultural Advisors (BBAs), was brought up by General Swan (4th ID) but the group remained hung up by a rubric the Department of State uses to grade Iraqi government capability. Another daunting challenge for the coalition is the incredible amount of Department of State positions filled by 'direct hires' (which I prefer to call contractors). These 'contractors' flit in and out of employment, are forced to navigate an overly-complex hiring process, and--although significant contributors to success--only prove the ad hoc nature of the Department of State's organization here.

Another profitable topic: what are the staff positions required for a Provincial Reconstruction Team, and what are their respective duties and responsibilities? These roles are in constant flux because of employee turnover and the State Department reliance on personality instead of doctrine.

PRT Baghdad is an amazingly effective organization--they have mentored the local government into a functioning organization. But often they succeed despite themselves. And greater challenges, such as the Surge's natural death, have yet to be overcome.

Post Exchange

Here is picture of the Post Exchange at FOB Striker.  Some soldiers spend their entire deployment 5 minutes away from this store.  On large FOBs anything imaginable is for sale.  "Iraq is the best place to buy a harley," said one Senior NCO.  That's because Harley Davidson has offices here and at bases in Kuwait--both offer discounts deeper than anything you'll find in the States.

For one grand a soldier can buy a menacing broadsword.  One set, known as the "Freedom Fighter," comes with two axes, a shield, and a sword.  They even engrave the names of villages you've inhabited on the blade.

"I was going to buy one, but they didn't have my crest," said one soldier.

Dragon

As we prepare to re-deploy, my team was moved from the patrol base in the city to the battalion headquarters at Combat Outpost Dragon. Dragon is housed in the skeleton of a half-built Thermal Power Plant. When the American Army fought their way into Yusufiya, Al Qaeda was using the plant as a base of operations. Legend has it that the first American army unit found open graves with the bodies of Russian workers with dog heads sewn on their necks.  In the rafters, faint graffiti reads 'allah is great.'

The army installed plywood offices in the concrete high-rises meant to hold condensers and conduits of steam.  The towering concrete smoke-stack became our polestar.  During our air assault across the Euphrates,  a glance at the horizon explained our position.

When I told the Iraqis we were moving to the power plant, they were confused.  "The Russian power plant," I explained.  "But that's never produced any power," they laughed, finding it ironic that the American Reconstruction Team was to live in a non-functional power plant.

Surrounding Dragon are fields of potatoes and houses of mud or brick.  The farmers have watched activity at the power plant for at least 10 years now.  Like other aspects of Iraq, Dragon is a modern complexity amidst an ancient culture.  And it has yet to produce.

Pop Art

MGMT might film a music video here: where a tangerine tiger reposes under cherry blossoms beside downy cascades. Jungle encroaches at the edges. William Blake wrote a poem about that tiger, right?

This picture hangs in our interpreter's hooch and I've seen it throughout town in homes and restaurants. Surreal art with incandescent color is the norm. In one cafe on Outpost Dragon, a 4ft tall mirrored-imaged baby stares back at you, with his twin. Sky-blue script promises, "HAPPY BABY."

"Why do you like this poster?"

"Because happy baby, mister!" insisted the store owner.

The General

Speaking of literature, the New Yorker recently published an article by Steve Coll about General Petraeus.  Everyone seems to agree: the General is a gentleman.  I detected some latent skepticism though--that somehow he might be a rouge soldier with cabalistic designs.  Can't American's just be good at winning?

During recent visits to Yusufiya the General was charismatic, informed, and attentive.  After listening to one briefing he encouraged us to continue finding ways to kill the enemy.  He also asked company commanders about their future plans--and listened patiently.

Coll's article is well written--in true New Yorker form.  Also, it's interesting to note how many influential positions, many of them interviewed in the article, are held by WestPointers.  How long before the Ivy Leagues catch on?  By not participating in the officer corps they're in danger of becoming impotent.

Columbia University has been making headlines over their refusal to allow ROTC on campus.  The President cites the mythological "Don't Ask Don't Tell" as grounds for military disdain.  I'm beginning to think it would be harder to get a Columbia grad promoted to General than officially allow gays in the military.  Somehow those two problems are related.

Fitness

This picture was taken by photographer Petr Josek last year.  It shows the terrain here: agricultural farmlands along the Euphrates, perforated by canals.  This can be a challenge on foot with an increasing equipment load.

Many men in the Task Force have started doing workouts from www.crossfit.com.  Already this website has received a steady following of soldiers and police.  Detractors say it causes Rhabdo.  When SSG Smith and I did the Hero workout named "The Murph,"56 minutes of suffering ensued.

Today we packed our gym--a sure sign that things are winding down.  Often the gym is the inner sanctum of a patrol base.  In Yusufiya the walls are lined with American flags, pictures of Governor Schwarzenegger, and the names of countries the U.S. Army has occupied.  In 1901 we took Peking.  I guess we gave it back.

Gates of Yusufiya

Typical Iraqi homes are surrounded by a gated courtyard.  Though the houses are a drab sand or concrete color often the gates are ornate and personalized.  On patrol I took pictures of several.  One door is spray-painted with a lament for an Islamic superhero, "Hussein was betrayed."

Mascot

The Iraqi news media covered the Democratic and the Republican national conventions.  I watched coverage from Iraqi anchors attending both.  At the bottom of the screen the party mascot was displayed along with the news ticker.

"What's the donkey?" asked Blade

"It's the Democratic Party mascot, their symbol."

He laughed, "why, man, donkey?!  They're stupid."

Sonic agreed, "Donkeys go crazy and kill themselves..."

"Suicide donkeys?"

"Insurgent donkeys," Blade laughed.

Sonic explained, "during the war [Iran/Iraq] donkeys carried supplies up mountains.  You teach a donkey the way two, three times it will walk by itself, man I'm serious.  But they never rested the donkeys so they just go crazy and walk off a cliff."

"Donkey is no good," agreed Blade.

Obama's picture came on the screen.

"Captain, you like Obama or McCain?"

I wanted to know their honest opinion so I said I was unsure.

"Obama no good," Blade and Sonic agreed.

I asked why.

"McCain is a soldier, he knows.  And he's friend with Bush."

"You like President Bush?"

"Bush capture Saddam... and help us kill Al Qaeda."

The Holidays

Right now the Arab Homeland is celebrating Ramadan.

"It's when the Prophet received the Qu'ran," said Ali. "When the angel Gabriel told him."

Muslims believe that Mohammed received the Qu'ran from the mouth of the angel Gabriel.  Although Ali doesn't normally pray 5 times a day--he does during Ramadan.  He also fasts from dawn to sunset.

"Because it's hard, it's discipline," he explains.  "In the past, Muslims used to fight wars and not eat for many days.  This tells you what it's like."

Another Iraqi on the patrol base told me that fasting, "reminds you of the poor, it reminds you what it is like to hunger.  Many people give away food during Ramadan."

"Not everyone fasts?"

"You can eat after sundown."

Often Muslims enjoy large feasts during Ramadan evenings.  It is a month of extremes.  Of hunger and satisfaction, of prayer and conversation, of solitude and companionship.

"Allah tells us to fast."

"In the Qu'ran?"

"Yes, and everything is good, like good points, you earn good points when you fast... forgiveness."

"You become holy?"

"Yes, even your breath it is holy."

Another Muslim on the patrol base asked me if we could give extra fabric to widows in our sewing class "as a present for Ramadan."  Mohammed asked if we could buy 100 sheep to give away poor families in the city.

"Where would we put them?  There'd be a riot."  I could see a mob of sheep and poor Iraqis swarming the front gate.

"Like Christmas," explained Mohammed.

"Riots?"

"No man, gifts... to celebrate."

Arabic coffee is made instantly from fine powder and water, then boiled.  After tasting an excellent cup you exclaim, "hatha kaleel" (this is mascara).

Here's a steaming pot sitting on a dustbin of coals.

Iraq and Burma

George Packer recently published an article in the New Yorker about Burma.  You can read it here.  Some of their social plight reminds me of Iraq.  Packer talks with a theatre producer named Thar Gyi: 

“American people say that political changes will change the conditions in our country,” Thar Gyi said. “That’s true. But I think we need to develop our own capacities. We are not ready for democracy. We don’t have any good platform, good foundation, to get those changes.” He spoke of the garbage that often blocked the drains, flooding the streets of Rangoon. Residents complained that the city was dirty, he said. “Where does that garbage come from? People throw it recklessly. When there was a flood, people said that is the responsibility of Yangon City Development Committee. It was their fault!” Thar Gyi’s whisper gave his voice a strange urgency. “But you can’t just say, ‘You should take the responsibility!’ That’s why I want to use the arts. I want to teach people critical thinking.”

I encounter similar difficulties in Yusufiya.  Streets are lined with careless trash: candy wrappers, cans, rotting food, animal hides.  The cleanest parts of Iraq are probably American patrol bases.  I saw an Iraqi man throw a cigarette butt in the street one day.  Through an interpreter I asked him, "why not throw that in a trash can?"  He answered that it was the government's job to clean up trash here.  "But the government has no program for this yet," I pointed to the mountains of trash in the street.  He shrugged.

One night, during A'adil's poetry class, we had the students follow the rubric of an "I am..." poem from this website (thanks Mom!).  The hardest lines to finish?  Anything involving the imaginary.  "I pretend..." took almost 10 minutes to explain.

"They don't get it," said Mike, my interpreter.  He graduated college in Texas so I knew his translation was accurate.

"How are you explaining it?"

"I asked them, what do you do when your Mother isn't there--one said 'homework' so I clarified..."

This went on for a while.  Finally the kids settled on "policeman" or "soldier."  One outlier wrote "I pretend I'm sick."  And there were verses that came from a world only Intervention could have created:

"I understand geography

I believe in helping to build Iraq

I help the sick

I dream of the clouds

I hope to become president of the Republic of Iraq

I am a good student and I love my school.

-Abdul Aziz Hashim, 11"

Recruitment

Almost every night I watch satellite television with our Iraqi interpreters.  Some channels are infamous for anti-Western propaganda.  Such as the Al Jazeera Documentary Channel--which has great cinematography and an artistic eye, but has aired two features on White Supremacists in the last week.  One showed footage of skinheads at a death-metal concert in Europe.  A teenager at the bar had SNIPER tattooed on the back of his head.  He used to be in the army.  Later in that feature, the skinheads assembled for a torchlit march through the city.  Their flames were endless, trailing off into the night.

Another channel had an advertisement promoting the Iraqi Insurgency.  A man wearing a dishdasha crawled under concertina wire at the Iraqi border, he was carrying a blue duffle-bag.  I asked the Iraqis if they were ever asked to join Al Qaeda.

"Oh yeah, when I was in Syria," said Ali.  "When I worked in the grocery stand."  His family moved there several years ago and opened a small business.

"How did you know they were Al Qaeda?"

"These four guys, they come to the store and ask, 'how much this' and 'how much that' but I know these guys do not want to buy anything.

So I said, 'what do you want?'

'We're here to tell you good news.  To show you the way.'

They knew my family was Iraqi, see?

'We can help you go back to Iraq to fight,' they said.

'I don't want to fight Coalition Forces.'

'Why? You scared?'

'I'm not scared but I'm not crazy either.'  I asked them, 'where you from?'  Two were from Iraq and two from Syria.  'Okay, man so you're Iraqi, so why you go back to Iraq and kill your brothers?'

'They aren't my brothers, they're bastards.'

One said, 'Americans in the Arab Homeland, man!'

I told them if I ever saw them again, even just in the street somewhere, I would kill them.  So they left.  And my father he say this was dangerous and ask me why I talk that way but I knew how to deal with these guys."

"Did you see them again?"

"No, I left to come here.  I decided to be interpreter with the Coalition Forces."

Ali was impassioned: "and now Iraq become the first country to defeat Al Qaeda!" The channel we were watching showed another cache of enemy weapons discovered by the Iraqi Army.  "See?" Ali pointed.  "I'm going to have grandkids, and I'll say 'let me tell you a story, we were the first country to defeat Al Qaeda: they were a bunch of assholes who did not deserve to live and we kicked them out.'"

Watch the Stars

"Maybe something going to happen," said Mohammed, one of my advisors. He's an Iraqi with citizenship in America and Canada.  He completed an engineering degree in England 30 years ago.

"Why?"

"Because, last night, the earth crush the moon."

"The eclipse?"

"Yes, it's a sign."

I disagreed.

"Because how often does that happen?" Mohammed reasoned.

"Infrequency doesn't make something a sign."

"Everything has a reason."

"Couldn't the reason be: the earth passed between the sun and moon?"

"Yeah, but there's another reason.  Our Prophet, he set all the stars."

"That doesn't mean this is related to a human event though.  Does the Qu'ran say all eclipses mean something?"

"Our Prophet, he give a special prayer for this."

"What does it say?"  Most prayer in Islam is scripted.

"I looked last night but I couldn't find it."

"Have you seen an eclipse before--one that was related to a sign?"

"It happened 1,000 years ago.  Over 1,000 years.  The Egyptians: they could predict the future with the stars."

"What happened to Egypt then?"

"They forgot."

Dark Knight

While Batman makes a zillion dollars in the 'west,' Islam is celebrating their own superhero who died 1300 years ago.  This weekend millions of Shi'as will walk to Karbala to mourn the slaughter of Imam Hussein--a contender for succession to Mohammed's throne.  One of the soldiers who died with Hussein was his brother Abbas.  He's a superhero too.

One Muslim recounted the legend of Abbas' death to me: "...during the battle of Karbala the enemy forces kept Imam Hussein and his men from the river and they began to get thirsty.  Abbas was so strong he killed 4,000 enemy just to get water for Hussein.  But on his way back a guy chopped off his arm, then another guy chopped off his other arm, so he dropped the water.  Then an arrow hit him through the eye."

"Is all this in the Qu'ran?" I asked.

"Oh, no--this is the legend.  This was after the Qu'ran."

"Right in the eye?"

"Yes!" Mohammed pointed a finger at his eye, "they hit his head with a big metal pole too, and smashed it."

When we walked through the Yusufiya market the other day I saw two posters of Abbas.  Like most Islamic art they are comely, surreal depictions: comic book superheroes.  At the bottom of the picture the arabic reads, "Hussein, Peace Be With You."

Bruce Wayne is multi-cultural, suave, athletic, rich, and enigmatic.  He uses technology and determination to defeat the forces of evil.  With every generation Batman is re-invented.  Abbas was devout, strong, simple, and righteous.  His servanthood and sacrifice made him a martyr.  His legend has inspired Muslims for over a millennium.

Standing Guard

I spoke with a soldier on guard the other day.  It was hot and the day felt old and still.  We stood in the top of a concrete guard tower.  A machine gun in one window.  Binoculars in the other.  One of the questions soldiers eternally ask one another is, "where you from?"

"San Diego, sir."

"You enlist out of high school?"

"No, sir.  I waited a few years."

"Doing what?"

"Ever heard of Bextel, sir?  Flooring?"

I waited.

"They make glue for floors--I worked in the shipping office."

"So why'd you join?"

"Wanted to try something else.  See what it was like."

"that's a good reason," I said.

We drank water.  I asked if he was married.

"Not really, sir."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, I have a girlfriend... she's pregnant now she says."

We watched the city from behind camo netting; each of us looking out a different tower window.

"So you're getting married?"

"I don't know, sir.  I don't want one mistake to cause me to make another."

"What does she want to do?"

He wasn't sure.

"She wants to get married.  I promise."

"We only just started dating, it had only been three weeks..."

"You just met?"

"I knew her from before, but we just started dating on leave.  I went back in May."

"What do her parents think?"

"They liked me I guess.  They're real nice people."

"They probably want to kill you now."

"They're real nice though, sir."

"What about your folks?"

"Well, that's it, sir--they don't know yet."

Faceless

My new favorite living author is V.S. Naipaul.  Barbara sent me his book, Among the Believers--an account of his travels through various Islamic States in the early 80s.  Naipaul describes his meetings and conversations with poets, civil servants, Imams, and other citizens.  The chaos in Iran just after the revolution is most tragic--and revealing.  Naipaul points out the similarity between the Communist and Islamic propaganda.  Below are some striking posters from the revolution I found online.  See them all here.

Both ideologies seek to erase the individual--through clothes, argot, and art.  In Islam, women wear black to hide their hair and skin.  When I recently travelled through Kuwaiti International Airport, I saw women totally covered in black robes, headscarves, gloves, stockings, and face-masks.  They were waiting in line for expressos at Starbucks.

Here in Yusufiya some men wear western-style clothes: jeans, t-shirts, or slacks.  But most wear dishdashas of neutral color and headscarves.  The restaurants all serve the same 4 dishes (falafel, tikka, roast chicken, or carp).  Everyone is muslim.  Everyone plays soccer.  No one owns a musical instrument.

"Could you imagine wearing the exact same clothes as your dad?  As your granddad?" I asked a friend of mine in Angel Company.

He shrugged.

"They all wear the same clothes!  It's strange, man."

"Yeah, but so do we."

And so it was--both of us standing outside the chow hall in our Army Combat Uniforms.

All citizens are silhouettes.  A mob.  The arabic says "there is no god but god."

This poster proclaims "the march towards a unitary, classless society."  Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic Republic, is pictured.  Also notice the sickle and rifle.

On one side is the old, degenerate way of learning.  On the other is Utopia.

Notice how on the right, everyone is identical.

Independence Day

I arrived in Baghdad on the 4th of July.  My first duty assignment was a urinalysis: a droll reminder of the duality in soldiers...  often heroic yet sometimes debauched.  U.S. Army urinalysis regulations require an "Observationist."  As in "we'll begin as soon as the 'Observationist' arrives."  There were 15 soldiers waiting for testing.  Once it was my turn I signed for my issued cup and the Observationist escorted me to the porta-john.

"I hope no one asks me what I did for the Fourth this year," he said.

I told him he was a great American.

Greatness

Celina lives several blocks from the Cathedral de Notre Dame so we walked past it daily.  It was glorious.  Apartments and offices in Paris are kept low; around 5 stories high.  So churches and monuments dominate the skyline.  Inside the Cathedral a plaque showed it was built in the 12th century and it was still great--even now.  And at the Louvre--it too was a building far greater than I imagined.  It's columns and curtains and the audience of artistic masters that surrounded the square--I felt diminished before the art.

One sculpture piece was my favorite work in the museum: Captifs.  It was a presentation of four bronze captives representing four nations conquered by France.  Spain, Brandenburg, the Roman Empire, and Holland.  Each represented a different response: revolt, hope, resignation, and grief.  Like the Louvre and Notre Dame they were massive.  And I thought that the French have great things too--just like the Americans--and not everything in Europe is economized or small.  

Axe Historique

During mid-tour leave I saw Paris for the first time.  The sophisticated window frames, the grey stone, and notched spires, and bulbous light, and people wearing skinny jeans, and holding hands, and drinking carafes of wine: all of these impossibilities in Yusufiya.

We walked along the line of the city, Le Axe Historique, where the Arc de Triomphe is framed by the promenade of the Champs.

"Welcome to the West," Celina said.  And we crossed the Place de la Concorde at the base of a gold-capped obelisk.  It was carved with hieroglyphs.  "I bet that's stolen from Egypt," I said.  Celina didn't know.  I learned later that Josephine asked Napoleon for an obelisk before he set out for Egypt in 1798.  Even though Napoleon won many victories then the obelisk wasn't taken until later.

So it seems the West is always conquering the East for something...

Judgement Day

Emad's father died so we visited the wake.  The family welcomed us and poured more pepsi and we said the first Surah of the Qu'ran as is the custom.  The Exordium.  I sat quietly while the muslims held their hands palms up and whispered from memory: ...praise be to god, lord of the worlds... master of the Judgement Day..."  Afterwards silence prevailed.  "Can we speak?" I asked BBA Mohammed.  "Yeah, sure."  "Are all these men family?"  Mohammed spoke with the men.  "They're brothers--Emad's uncles," Mohammed pointed to six older men.  "Everyone else is family too."  Chai was served (I drank a cup for you, Walter).  Then Emad said the Iraqi Army had turned away several out-of-town family members--but eventually agreed to allow visitors with valid ID cards.  We gave Emad money for the burial as we left, another Arab custom.

In the HMMWV soldiers played"Brass Monkey" by the Beastie Boys on their ipod.  "Brass monkey, that funky monkey.  Brass monkey, junkie."

Proof there is something irreverent about every sober moment in Iraq.

Water Theft

Yesterday we escorted a crane to a poor farm area in order to rip out buried irrigation pipes. These pipes provided water to fields of tomatoes, cucumbers, and hay. "That's a corn field there," said BBA Mohammed. I've never seen corn here so we argued about this for a minute.  All the pipes we destroyed were illegal. Farmers siphon water from nearby government canals to keep from having to clean their own canals. "Did you ever think the government would come here and do this?" I asked one delinquent farmer. "I've been taking this water for a long time," he said.

In 1982 Saddam paid Turkish engineers to build 150km of canals in Yusufiya for irrigation and potable water. At the time Yusufiya was world renown for date palm trees. But Saddam's wars prevented important irrigation maintenance. Until recently Al Qaeda shot or threatened government workers who tried cleaning the canals. Nasar, the Yusufiya government irrigation engineer, asked American and Iraqi soldiers to escort him into the fields. The farmers knew they were breaking the law and didn't argue when the crane smashed their pipes. One farmer gave us lunch: unleavened bread, salted cucumber slices, wheels of cheese, fried eggs, and marmalade that everyone sipped from the same jar.

the Path of Literature

A'adil is a short, leather-brown Iraqi man with ashen hair and deep set eyes.  He smokes "5 Star" cigarettes and always wears trim khakis.  "My life was school, the army, the wars, all of it was controlled, it was as though I lived in a tunnel," he explained.  "I don't want this generation to have the same experience."

 

Though he has a Chemical Engineering degree and Newspaper editing experience, A'adil fixes televisions.  Even plasma screens.  He repaired one on the patrol base.  When I heard he was a writer I asked him to teach a class at the renovated Community Center (a project completed by the Infantry company here).  A'adil agreed to teach poetry.

Last night was his first class.  15 teenage boys attended: sitting in two rows, taking notes, and standing up to ask questions.  "What is poetry," A'adil rhetorically asked, "An expression of the human soul with special words--to reach a certain aim or goal."  Ali translated all this for me on the fly.  "There are two types of poetry: classical or 'vertical poetry' and modern," continued A'adil.  "Any questions?"  A boy raised his hand, "sir, will there be an exam?"  "No," laughed A'adil, "I want to give you this class to teach you the way of literature instead of killing."  Another boy asked, "are there long poems?"  It was a good class.

A'adil read a poem by Dr. Hazim Souleman entitled: Waiting.

You say wait a minute, Spring will come

For Spring is fruitful all the time.

Winter has gone and Springtime has come

but Spring became like Winter.

There's no generosity that I expect

And you were not truthful with me and I am disappointed.

You are as you are in both seasons:

A scent that looms; a natural light.

"This poet was executed by Saddam Hussein," said A'adil.

Oscar

I just read "The Picture of Dorian Gray." A treatise on pleasure. Everyone is beautiful and selfish or ugly and envious. Either way you die young or unrequited or victimized. Oscar uses words like pomegranate, sphinx, and vermillion--which I haven't heard in a while. His characters are dukes, lords, and countesses. No corporals or sheiks.

I remember a documentary film about soldiers in Iraq. Their commander said he was reading "Harry Potter" books as a way to temporarily escape war and reconnect with his children in America. I don't have kids. And I've never been much of an escapist. But "Dorian Gray" is definitely impossible in Baghdad: for G.I.s and Iraqis alike.

Everyone's preoccupied here. On one extreme you have duty and fraternity. On the other: survival, loneliness, and boredom.

Rebuilding Iraq

I recently wrote a letter to the editor of the Christian Science Monitor about a ridiculous story: "What Would Really Rebuild Iraq".  I'm sure you've heard of the writer, Walter Rodgers, he provided legendary coverage of major world events such as Jimmy Carter's concession and the Falklands War.  Rodgers was also an eyewitness during the attempt on Reagan's life.  So he's been nearby when great things have happened.  He also loves stripes: 

His kind of journalism reminds me of why I love the New Yorker magazine so much.  I just read Paumgarten's article about elevators; it deepened my appreciate of the City and our urban culture--there was something revealing about his work.  Paumgarten, Frazier, Acocella, Sedaris, Buford: they are belletrists, not just writers.  They explain events and ideas; they don't just stand close by.

Anyway, back to Rodgers' opinions, we can talk style later.  I'll post my letter to the editor below.  It was published on the CSM website last week.

Dear Editor,

I was shocked to read Walter Rodgers and Yasmeen Alamiri's article lamenting school development in Iraq.  As a U.S. Army Captain in charge of projects for the Yusufiya area in South Baghdad I've had first-hand experience with local schools.  They're flourishing!  And the military, both Iraqi and American, is assisting the local government with repairing and securing schools.  As early as November last year our unit, 3-187th Infantry Regiment, paid over 140,000 dollars to renovate classrooms for over 300 students. Our unit has provided 10 other schools throughout the area with this type of assistance--which includes contracting, supervising, and paying for the work.  The Iraqi Ministry of Education has been conducting surveys, inventories, and providing equipment as well.

Supporting and enabling education and family is a priority for our unit.  We have built and repaired community centers, supplied food and clothes to needy families, dramatically improved sanitation, and installed an Iraqi staffed

radio station.  All this in addition to our regular patrols and combat operations.  Insurgents fear us not only because we are the 187th Infantry Regiment but also because we are part of the Iraqi families in our area.  We share meals together, we share hardships together, we are rebuilding Iraq together.

I'm not surprised Rodgers' evidence was anecdotal jokes and UN reports.  His other complaints about the dearth of chai and sheesha are just ridiculous.  Even in Yusufiya, a rural farm area, there's plenty chai.  In fact, if Rodgers is willing to visit I'll take him down the street to the house of Sheik Somer and we'll enjoy a cuppa.

The Monitor ended up censoring (editing) my last paragraph.  I guess Walter doesn't accept personal invites.  I looked on my computer and found a picture of us distributing new backpacks to kids last October.  We've spent almost 1 million dollars on schools in Yusufiya since.  As for the chai, you can see a picture of some at the top of this page.

Iraqi Priorities

The other day Wolfpack Company brought Emad and Somer to the ground-breaking of a new health clinic in Qarghuli.  Emad invited me to his house to meet his father.  We were about to eat lunch.  "Can he eat with us here?" I asked.  Emad explained his father was bedridden with cancer.  Though Emad lived an hour away, in another city, his father lived nearby.

"He wants us to visit?  but his dad's sick."  I asked my interpreter.

"just go, man.  he wants you to go."

"Where does he live?"

"Yellow house, after the bridge."  Emad answered.

Good enough directions for the infantry.

As soon as I walked into the courtyard I could see an old man prostrate on a mattress in the doorway of the house.  He managed to sit up and shake hands with us: 8 American soldiers and our two interpreters.  We filled the room.

"salaam alekum" peace be on you.

A television in the corner the only furniture.  We sat on the floor in silence.  A group of kids gathered at the door.  The father lay still; his wife fanned him with a piece of cardboard.  There was an IV port in his hand.

"Where did Emad go?"

"I think he went to get us drinks."

"Doesn't he want to talk to his dad?"

Emad reappeared with pepsi and glasses and ice and he went to each American: pouring a glass.

This is prevalent in Iraqi culture: the desire for you to meet their family, the insistent and  sacrificial hospitality.   Emad said almost nothing to his father.  Emad was busy serving us.