Fifty- Year Sword

One speaks: "We are the men Direction scorned
When he handed round charts
Of destiny ... our dooms were preordained
And we've no commerce with those of you
Whose courses from the outset were drawn straight.”
—Ashbless

It is night time here. It gets down into the nineties at night, so it is kind of pleasant. The tent I’m in, with a bunch of other guys, gets down into the seventies at night. I’m so acclimatized to the scorching heat outside that I feel like I’m freezing to death. I don’t usually wear much when I sleep, but I manage to put on socks, pants, and a shirt during the night. Last night I even draped a towel over my poncho liner. I did just shave my head again, so that makes me a little cooler. It’s funny to me that temperatures that I’d find too warm back home make me really cold here. I guess the body just reacts poorly to temperature changes.

The moon dust gets everywhere. Have I said that already? I think I have, but it is ridiculous. I used canned air to blow out my rifle several times a day. My pockets and boots always have little piles of dust in them when I’m going to bed. We had a pretty bad sand storm two days ago, and when I got back to my tent, all of my things—my cot, my ruck and assault pack, my shaving kit, my socks and shower shoes—were a uniform shade of sandy brown. Brushing the dust off just creates a choking cloud of haze. I can’t believe people live here and don’t either move or kill themselves. It is amazing to me that thousands of people leave this area to go to nice, temperate places for school or business for several years, and then come home again. If I were a young Arab male who’d gone to the States to study agriculture or computer science or something, you couldn’t get me back here at gunpoint.

The first group of us left tonight for home. They will go back to prepare the way for the rest of us. Things need to be in place for our return. The barracks need to be put in order, offices cleaned and buildings repaired, and our parts and supply accounts have to be reopened. The main body will follow along shortly. The last of us should be home in less than three weeks now. I am very excited about getting home, but am also dreading the vast amount of work that needs to be completed so we can leave. My job in particular will be difficult, as I will have to oversee the reconciliation of differences in the property registers of the outgoing and incoming units. The task is made more difficult by the fact that my boss tends to micromanage and, I suspect, give deliberately vague guidance; and by the fact that some of the people upon whom I rely are at best unmotivated. I am worried that one of them will forget to turn something in, or fail to accurately check a report, and it will hold us up here in theater. If I have to stay an extra week or two because of a foul-up or laziness, I will be very unpleasant to be around.

All in all, I think it has been a productive year for the task force. Insurgent activity is down in all of our AOs, and civil works are on the increase. The Iraqi security forces are nowhere near our level or proficiency, discipline or integrity, but they are adequate and have the proper tools in place to be excellent if they are able to resist the seemingly ubiquitous temptation to corruption. Electricity, sewer systems, public water, education, medical facilities, and other municipal and provincial areas have seen incredible improvements. We’ve hunted down and killed many, many bad guys, both local and foreign in origin. Lost one soldier, but this is much better than the average task force. The only area I wish we could have done more in is building bridges over the tempestuous waters of sectarian violence that sometimes threaten to blow the region, and I guess the country, sky-high. I do not have high hopes in this area, but I am trying to be optimistic, and I am praying for these people, if only because their standard of living directly affects how many terrorists they breed.

And the new guys are here. I feel sorry for them, but it is someone else’s turn now. I have many goals, personal and professional, set for the next eighteen months. I am looking forward to getting to work on them.