"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.
