Today was rather slow, conversationally, and I have been somewhat isolated. After much personal debate, though, I have decided to release some of the entries in the journal I have kept during my "business trip" to Iraq. The following is the first entry.
Early Impressions
It is early afternoon, and I have a moment to collect my thoughts.
By most accounts, this would be considered a beautiful day. The sun is shining, there isn't a cloud in the sky, there is a strong breeze coming from my right, and the humidity is well within tolerance. But this isn't a day at the park, or a quiet moment in the backyard or at the beach. This is post-war Baghdad, where "too much of a good thing" has taken on a whole universe of meaning.
I am surrounded by contrasts. I have seen a few of the opulent palaces, most with surprisingly little damage to the exterior. But the efficient use of high explosives has had its effect on the subterranean plumbing, and the now famous gold-leafed fixtures stand unused. Except for one. A sink, salvaged whole, has beel placed on a cart next to a row of portable toilets, a rubber hose supplying it with another attached to the drain and running off into the dust.
There is water all around at the palaces, which makes a sort of perverse sense. In a country like this, the ultimate show of wealth would be your own private lake. Here, there are lakes, and ponds, and canals, and swimming pools. One building has a swimming pool on the second floor.
Another day, I put on full body armour, strapped on a helmet, and rode in an armed convoy across town. The damage along the way was more intense, more visible. Shattered buildings, like skeletal hands reaching toward the evening sky, stand at the outskirts of populated neighborhoods where children play and old men sit in the shade smoking water pipes. In the suburbs, life appears to go on, in spite of the Abrams tanks at every major intersection and concrete barricades blocking the side roads. We drove alongside ordinary traffic. As I ride along in the back of a humvee, the doors removed, a microbus passes us on the right, occupied by a group of men that appear to range in age from the mid 20s to late 40s. Possibly a carpool returning from work, at this time of day. The soldiers surrounding me stay alert but make no move to indicate they are concerned.
At our destination, business is conducted in another palace. I am here at the request of persons who shall remain nameless, to do work that shall remain nameless. Let your imagination wander, and you probably won't be too far off. Discussions are brief and direct, and all concerned return to their work after an agreement to meet again at another location.
The return trip is much like the first. A boy shouts something at us as we pass his neighborhood, but beneath the roar of the engines "Horray" sounds too much like, "Go away", and enough like "give me a candy bar", to know how to respond. Tensions elevate at the traffic stops, but not so much that I won't hang out the door, snapping photos with a disposable camera, once we start moving again.
I've been told what many of you are hearing back in America; that the troops are disgruntled, that they don't know when they are going home, that they would like for heads to roll. I see them every day, though, and I don't find a barely-controlled mob on the verge of rebellion. I see hard-working young men and women, of all races and creeds, just trying to get from one day to the next, and perhaps make the world a little safer place in the process. There is enough to be disgruntled about when you live in a tent with a dozen other people. The little choices you have to make, and those of the people around you, are the abrasion that irritates at first, but eventually smooth the contact between you and those with whom you carry the load. There are places they want to go. They want to go to Hooters. They want to go to Wal-Mart. They want to go to an indoor bathroom.
They want to go home.
Naturally, though, the ones making the most noise are the ones that are most disgruntled. Not much of a story in "I'm fine, thank you." No one wants to stay, of course, but there are few that would complain outside his or her circle of compatriots. If you ask them, they say they are proud to be a part of rebuilding this place. They say they will stay as long as it takes. Even the single parents, more of whom are out here than one would like to think, will tell you they miss their kids, but they won't complain to you. That's just not the way things are done here.
More to follow.