US pulling out of Iraq - Page 8

Before departing we were treated to the excessive hospitality of the USO crew. Tables of items free for the taking were set up; snacks and food, cards, toothpaste, and various assorted novelties to appease the occasionally suspended fear and reluctance of soldiers preparing for war. We were given a quick briefing. They collected all lighters and knives before allowing us to board the plane with our semi-automatic rifles in hand. On the way to the plane we were ambushed by eagerly patriotic Americans handing out and waving American flags, and chanting the feel-good cliché mantras of "Thank you, Good luck, Thank you for serving, Take care..." As though the enlistment bonus were not sufficient compensation.

Life on a cot in a large tent with three inches of personal space in every direction is surprisingly palatable contrasted with the vicious heat outside. Some soldiers even quit smoking to avoid standing in the heat. What for years tobacco cessation campaigns, classes, and laws failed to do, the Kuwaiti sun accomplished in less than a week. While in the grasp of the heat, all desires are leveled and replaced with a singular purpose: to escape it.

We flew over the Iraqi desert. Upon first sight, a landscape devoid of mountains or trees, only plumes of black smoke rising from a barren, yellow wasteland. This is a land forsaken by God. An inhospitable and tortured land, who returns the suffering it has received upon its inhabitants. Upon first sight of this wasteland, extremism did not appear so extreme. Here, extremes are the norm. Extreme temperatures, disparity between worthless dust and black gold, religious and political civil war.

The FOB was a world of dust, concrete, and machinery, a constant hum of generators and the percussion of rotor blades chopping through the air. My only connection to the past was the cloudless blue sky. I walked into the first portable toilet I found and saw graffiti and words scrawled across the walls. “I hate this place!” It was a warm welcome. As I walked back to the tent, a soldier spoke to me.

“Welcome to Kalsu. Hey, it could be worse man. Just keep lying to yourself everyday and tell yourself you are doing great things.”

Who the hell is this guy talking to me? I just ignored him and walked on.

The next day we rested in the tent. One of the air conditioners was broken, and we lay on our bunks sweating, the noon sun beating down on the heavy tarps above us. Finally, the stereotypically recourseful Gutierrez managed to get the air working again, and we had a few minutes of cool air, until the power went out and we had to sweat it out again.

This is going to be rough, I thought. This is going to be a very long deployment. We walked to chow and counted the craters in the ground where mortars had struck. Back in the tent, the silence of the night was periodically broken by the loud crack of artillery. Bright red flares lit up the sky and slowly floated down, faded away and returned the darkness for only a moment.

You didn't admit things were bad. You were an inferior person if you ever complained. If you were macho-tough, nothing bothered you, and you never thought bad thoughts. It was a brilliant system of self-deception. It was a cliché to repeat over and over again; “When something needs to be done, I don’t complain, I just do it. Because complaining doesn’t change anything.”

The first time I was shot at, it was by British soldiers. As their convoy rode by in the distance, someone on the FOB did a test fire. Apparently they didn't know the FOB was there, so they fired back. The military was like any other goverment institution: it exemplified incompetence.

The Iraqis hit us at noon every day. It was like clockwork. They were trying to hit the dining facility at lunch time, killing as many of us as they could. Luckily, they were a horrible shot. And still, we lined up every day and crowded into the building, playing russian roulette in exchange for a meal. It wasn't like we could go to McDonalds instead. You hear the whistling crescendo, and wait for the dart to hit the board. We know when and where they plan to attack every day, and yet we can't stop them? What the fuck is this?

Finally they succeeded. You walk into the DFAC, and a huge gaping hole sits where the wall and roof used to be. Sunlight pours in, the flourescent lights flicker, and the tiles on the ceiling hang down in disarray. The mirrors in the gym next door were all shattered. But of course, it wasn't the loss of infrastructure we cared about.

The West lives in a bubble. A stable, calm, bubble, green with well-watered lawns. A convenient bubble, where they can be free to make laws and rules and worry themselves with moral indignation at all they see wrong with the world. All values and morals and ethics had been drilled into me since birth, but in truth such things were nothing more than wishful thinking, human delusions to contrast reality. At bottom, life is survival, and nothing more. That is part of growing up, in a way, parting with all of the well intentioned bullshit that society stuffs into the youth. They all want their children to believe in Santa Claus. But here, I was seeing life and the world as it truly was outside of the bubbles: imperfect, messy, violent, ruthless, dirty, poor. It was almost liberating.