Same As the Old Boss

These people, with their rusty armor and hewn shields, had seen Lancelot here and there. They spoke of a harnessed ugly man, praying at a wayside cross—of a worn face asleep in moonlight on its shield. They spoke also of unbelievable things—of Lancelot unhorsed, defeated, kneeling after he had been knocked down.
--White, The Once and Future King

I finally collected all the foodstuff from my last ten or so packages and distributed it to my platoon. I filled a whole 5-gallon bucket with the stuff. I kept the Starburst, the Cheezits and the M&Ms, of course, but stuff I don’t care for or would feel guilty about eating, I gave away. Some of these guys aren’t lucky enough to have people sending them things. The bucket is already about a third empty. I think it is interesting that the snacks disappear so quickly.

My new commander is here. He remembers me vaguely from some dealings I had with him in his former job. I am hoping he doesn’t also remember a time when my company couldn’t get any eye protection issued to us, because both of our parent battalions were arguing about whose responsibility we are. So I bullied one of the lower enlisted soldiers that worked in his office into opening up the supply shed and letting me have a pair for each person in the company without signing for them. By the time I got the angry phone calls, I had already issued them all out and told the soldiers to take them home, so they ended up letting us keep them. He wasn’t happy, though.

I burned the boxes from the packages today. You have to burn things with addresses or names on them, and shred or burn sensitive documents, which we produce at the rate of hundreds of pages a day. This is so insurgents don’t sift through our trash and find out our families’ addresses. Apparently at the beginning of the war several units let their soldiers just throw their packages away, and some poor mothers and fathers and wives got harassing letters from the terrorists, claiming to have murdered and tortured their deployed relatives. So now we burn them.

I am going to sleep early tonight—only about 0030—and it makes me feel very old to realize how excited I am about this. I long for sleep sometimes in a way that I never have before. It is so hot, and we often work such long hours, that I get exhausted very early in the day. I have always been a daydreamer, and while walking here or there or waiting for a meeting to start I often let my mind wander to video games, or coming home to my wife, or memories of good times with my buddies from school. Lately I have been daydreaming of sleep. That is odd enough, but the sad thing is that I don’t sleep well at all here. Sometimes before or after missions I have nightmares, but that is not it; I think I just sleep better when I’m not alone. I miss Jennifer.

I have written the first chapter of a book and sent it to my wife and best friend to read. Jen says it is great, but I am reminded of Sean Hanks’ character in Orange County, who suspects that his girlfriend may like his writing so much only because she loves him. I am interested to hear what Nick has to say. I have set a rule for myself with this book: I will not read anything I’ve written at any time. Once the whole thing’s done, I’m going to throw it down and not even pick it up for a month or so. Only after awhile will I come back and read it all together. I tend to get bogged down in constantly rewriting if I read my old stuff, so I am avoiding it this time.

We are coming up on eight months here now, and I am surprised to find that it is more stressful, and that I miss home, much more than I did in the beginning. I think six months, like the Marines do, is the ideal deployment length. EOD deploys for only six months as well, so I am looking forward to that. Although by the time I get into EOD, who knows where we’ll be fighting.

While You Were Out

The battery grides and jingles,
Mile succeeds to mile;
Suddenly battering the silence
The guns burst out awhile . . .

I lift my head and smile.
-Nichols

So how are we doing here? Are we making any progress? Is our mission proceeding smoothly? Is the region and our country safer for us being here? Or I am I only going to talk about XBOX and movies and how hot it is?

Like I’ve said before, I’m in the Eagle’s Nest of Iraq. This place, more than any other, should be the main hive of anti-American attitudes. This should be IED central. But it is the exact opposite. It is so much quieter than even a year ago. We have only lost one soldier from our battalion; the battalion we replaced lost twelve. (We hunted down and killed the guy responsible for the soldier we lost, by the way, and when we found out who paid him and gave him the sniper rifle, we went and arrested him and his friends. Then we made them watch us bulldoze their houses and burn the rubble.) The IA battalion we’ve been training is now officially in charge of the battle space. They are undisciplined and lazy and careless, but they are willing to learn and show amazing displays of initiative. Their NCOs especially are extremely competent and very brave. The platoon I’ve been personally training, in particular, is very good. I think there are probably other platoons in the IA battalion that are better infantry and better marksmen and whatnot; but mine is definitely the hardest-working and the smartest. I sound like some kind of racist, being all surprised that they are normal people and can learn and improve; but like you, I consume American media too, so I had been led to believe on some level that these people were a lost cause, or cowards, or undercover terrorists.

Many Iraqis do not have electricity. Many more have it only a few hours a day. Nevertheless, over 30,000 new businesses have been started here since the war began, and the Iraqi stock market trades over $100 million A DAY. You didn’t even know there WAS and Iraqi stock market, did you? And people say the media isn’t biased. 77% of these businesses are projecting significant growth and profit in the next year. There are over 3 million Iraqis who have cell phones. When the war started, there were virtually none, because they had neither the infrastructure to support a cell network nor, most people, the financial wherewithal to make the regular payments for a cell plan. Coming back to electricity, like I said, there is little infrastructure to support a national power grid; but many, many people are wealthy enough now to buy generators, and the gas they use to run them is certainly in good supply here.

In 2005 alone we trained over 100,000 Iraqi soldiers and police to a satisfactory level. Many are not what I would call proficient yet, and will not be for some time; but they are getting better, and the stigma of corruption and evil attached to soldiers and cops under Saddam’s regime has vanished. Most promising of all, over 70% of Iraq’s registered voters turned out for the December elections. This is a higher turnout than America has had in years, even the 2004 election, which was our highest in decades. Election days are also remarkably quiet, without the calamities and coordinated countrywide attacks by terrorists that many naysayers predict (and, I think, hope for) every time an election looms near.

I talk to Iraqi soldiers—and not just their joes, but their company and field-grade officers and civilian authorities—and they are all optimistic. They want American troops to leave, yes, but when it’s time; and certainly not because they resent us. I have developed close friendships with several of their NCOs and officers. I must note here that there is one thing that disturbs a significant number of them: the way the American media covers the war. They get Fox and CNN and C-SPAN too, so they know that most American journalists would rather cover nothing than a positive story. They have asked me, outraged, why our citizens allow journalists to file such one-sided and sometimes blatantly false stories. What kind of answer can I give them? I myself am ashamed that many journalists on all sides of the political spectrum file “news” stories that are apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, as a way of disguising an op-ed piece. So I cannot bring myself to confess this to them. They ask me if America really wants to abandon them, if our citizens back home really hate Iraqis so much that they want us to stop helping them. Again, what the hell am I supposed to say to that? Do I tell them that American and European journalists are, to quote one of my soldiers, “nothing but f—king liars,” looking to manipulate public opinion through yellow journalism, selective reporting or misleading poll numbers? This concept is so upsetting that I don’t even want to accept it myself, much less confess it to our friends.

These people are doing great. They are not Americans, and never will be; they would still, I believe, accept tyrants and hardship much more readily than we would. But they are coming around. They have tasted freedom, and it is my fervent hope that they will slowly persuade themselves to work harder and harder toward it.

Juliet Tango Mike Alpha

Dark and silent late last night
I think I might have heard the highway calling
Geese in flight and dogs that bite
The signs that might be omens say
I’m going, going
I’m gone to Carolina in my mind
--Taylor

Another boring dispatch from the land that time forgot. The sun has finally remembered that we are here, and it is repaying all of the heat that it forgot to kill us with all winter. It is getting pretty hot during the day. Walking over to the CP or the DFAC is getting to be an endeavor in and of itself. It is already impossible to go to the portajohns around noon, because it’s so bad in there. Like somebody had an accident in a sauna.

Still haven’t gotten my Rosetta Stone Arabic language program. Not happy about this at all. It has been about three weeks since I ordered it. I’ll give it a little while longer, and then I’m calling those guys and yelling at them.

My sleep schedule is getting really screwed up. We are turning in some of our useless or rarely-used trucks in preparation for redeployment, and the convoys that cart them off come in the dead of the night. A lot of us have to stay up until a godawful hour to load the trucks onto the HETs. We’re back to getting three and four hours of sleep a night several times a week. As many calories as we burn working during the day, the sleep deprivation takes a lot bigger toll than it would in garrison. I’d PT an hour and a half every day back at Campbell, and I would still be productive on only five or so hours a night. But now I need at least seven or I feel like I’ve been in a fistfight towards evening. And you can only make coffee so strong before it’s undrinkable.

We are changing out commanders in a couple weeks. I am apprehensive. I’ve had my differences with this one, but every time I’ve stood up to him on something, he’s let me have my way. I’m afraid this new guy will think he has to “show his ass,” to use an army term, and be all hardcore at first. I am especially afraid he’ll make me go to PT. I hate these units that do collective PT in the mornings. This is a damn combat zone. Collecting in large groups without armor or weapons is just asking for it. I hope the new guy is alright.

More and more of my buddies are starting to go on leave, and a lot of them are already back. My leave is in June, and I can’t wait. I would like to sit out on my porch with a Jack and Coke and spend a long time hurling various toys down the hill for my dog to tear after. No grand schemes or big plans. No expectations. Just Home. It is getting harder and harder to keep it off my mind.

FLE

The sand unbroken, time unkept
On shallow plains with boots untrod
We stride upright between the wells
To patronize an alien god
-Elmwood

We caught several pretty bad guys on an op this last week. These were not the half-assed wannabes who plant roadside bombs because they’ve been whipped into a frenzy by a smooth talker or a financier. These were dyed in the wool, hardcore killers. Real terrorists. And disappointingly, they gave up without a shot fired. I mean, thank God all of us came home okay, but I am amazed at the level of cowardice. It’s like picking a fight with the meanest guy around, and then he gets all apologetic and backs down. And then you find out he’s not twenty years old, but seventy-five. These guys were mostly very old. I’m not sure what to think of the people who supposedly answer to the man himself. They must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel if this is what passes for the infrastructure of a powerful terrorist organization in one of the most visible cities in the country.

I didn’t take anything to read, since I assumed we’d be busy the whole time. But since everyone surrendered so readily, we had nothing to do after about the first eight hours. So we ended up sitting in my truck and talking for the next two days. I tried to engage everybody in word games and whatnot, but mostly they just wanted to talk about movies and music. I can talk about movies forever, so that was fine with me. I ate some MREs, which hasn’t happened in a very long time. I think the last time may have been in Kuwait. I also forgot how much I hate, um, using the facilities, so to speak, out in the wilderness. There’s just no tactical way to do it. Especially with the body armor—you have to take it off or you can’t even get your pants down. I’m not sure which terrifies me more: the idea of getting shot, or the idea of getting shot while doing my business.

My uncle, or actually I believe he’s a second cousin, got me a subscription to The Economist. I have to say, this is one of the coolest things I’ve gotten since I’ve been deployed. I am also getting the Smithsonian magazine now, to which my grandmother subscribed me, I think. I therefore have two periodicals that come weekly or semi-weekly, and so I have an alternative to Reader’s Digest magazines from the Carter administration. Not quite as entertaining as books, but better in some ways. A magazine is a lot better to read while waiting for a meeting to start (or end, if you are discreet enough).

I received my evaluation from my senior rater today. He gave me very good reviews, as did my rater and intermediate rater. I am very pleased with this evaluation. It is nice to hear that you are appreciated and the things you’ve done have been noticed. I said in one of my first entries that I don’t care about my report card, and it’s still true, but getting a good one is always better than getting a bad one.

I called Jen on her birthday. It was only the second or third time she’s gotten really upset on the phone. And it was just for a few seconds. But I forget sometimes how hard my deployment is on her. I have a lot to do to keep my mind off of how miserable I am. I live with lots of people that I get along with well. There is always someone awake, at every second of every day, that I am good friends with and can talk to. None of that is true for Jennifer. I worry about her. I plan on making lots of opportunities for us to get reacquainted—away from television, video games, friends and pets. Little mini-vacations, on long weekends and whatnot. I really can’t wait.