The Tourist

     I got my tourist opportunity in today.  I went with some fellow Soldiers onto Victory Base to tour the never completed but very bombed to pieces “Victory over America Palace” that Saddam was building in anticipation of whupping the world’s largest super-power.  Back in 2003 the palace wasn’t completed, or even occupied but had to be bombed on sheer principle alone because of its incredibly presumptuous name. 

     I walked through four levels of rubble that once was marble and carved stone.  An elaborate testament to the state one finds themselves in when they fight against U.S. Soldiers.  From one of the top balconies I took pictures of “The Flintstone Village” That Saddam had built for his grandchildren to play in after he had killed their fathers.  I suppose his thinking was “Dads will be missed, but a good playground is forever”. 

     So in the very halls built to celebrate my demise I took pictures of myself smiling amidst the debris and enjoying such classical pieces of U.S. art on the walls as “I love you mom.” And “Suga-Nuff was here.”  Shock and Awe people, shock and awe.

A Food Coma

    

     What a fun day!  The sermon I preached on this morning came from the Book of Daniel chapter one, and was all about how to be people of integrity and praise God even when life doesn't work out the way we want it to.  With this sermon ready things began giving me opportunity to practice what I was about to preach as the proxima for the songs that we had spent a lot of time on refused to work.  It was turned on but no matter what I did (even those things that had worked previously) the computers screen would not show on the proxima.  The Colonel sat waiting, my Rater and Senior Raters sat occasionally checking their watches for the start time when I made the decision for no slides.  I walked up to the choir director to whisper discreetly that he just teach us the words as we sang, and he stood up, walked to the back where the computer was and pushed the same buttons I had been pushing and the songs appeared like magic on the big screen...The first song "How Great is Our God."  Unfortunately somehow the W had disappeared mysteriously and in great big bold font on every slide was "Ho  Great is Our God."  The Ugandans sang it loudly just as they read it.  I prayed God would let me keep my internal monologue internal.  After the service a Soldier shook my hand as she was leaving and said "The choir is so good, I felt like they were singing right to me." I couldn't shake anymore hands and excused my smiling self for lunch.

     Lunch was at an Iraqi restaurant and it was delicious!  I ate Hummus, and beef kabob, and pork kabob, and two different kinds of soup, and multiple forms of rice, pita bread, veggies, jalapenos...I wobbled away from the table with blurry vision and was just a breath mint away from slipping entirely into a food coma. We drove back to Camp Cropper around 3 O’clock and SFC Ford said at 5:30 we would meet back up to go to dinner at the local Iraqi Generals house.  I laid down on my bed and was instantly awakened by a tapping on my door.  Struggling into an upright position I cracked the door open to see SPC Nelson as he said, "Are you ready to go Sir, its 5:30."  I had indeed suffered a two hour food coma from which I was not entirely recovered. 

    We drove onto the Iraqi compound as the last rays of light from the sunset began fading to darkness, and the first thing I saw was three men around a burn barrel made out of what looked like an old sink and I knew we were in the wrong neighborhood.  On one side of us the grass was as tall as our vehicle, and I was told by MAJ Johnson that this used to be a wildlife preserve.  As we pulled in front of a mini palace I saw a horse tethered to a tree and wondered if it was scheduled to be up-armored at some point.  Off to our right was a large cage filled with monkeys and I began wondering what dinner was actually going to consist of.  Inside was a mixture of US Soldiers, Italian Special Forces, and every uniform in the Iraqi inventory. Small glasses on saucers were filled with piping hot sweet Chai Tea and we were quickly given ours. In the center of the room was a circular drop-off into a body of water that flowed in from somewhere below the building.  I was told that crocodiles used to help interrogate people there at one point in history.  Alongside the railing of this drop-off to the water ran a massive banquet table filled with every kind of Iraqi food imaginable as well as drinks, and plates...but no chairs.  The table was of normal height so eating while sitting was out of the question.  One of the Iraqi interpreters from Camp Cropper saw us and came over to explain.  He said the General had been serving this great Banquet for everyone each Sunday for the past four years.  He took us near the table and had us stand near a plate.  He said when you hear the bell ring, rush to the plate and start filling it with food before it is gone.  The first ones there get the best things.  I guess Iraqi dinners aren’t that different from my house after all. 

     Dinner was magnificent!  I ignored my stomach screaming that I had lost my mind and cleaned my plate then downed several more glasses of Chai as I walked around like a happy tourist and took pictures with every group of Iraqi Soldiers I could see.  We returned to base around 9PM and after spending some quality time thinking about the consequences of my gluttonous ways in the latrine I decided to share my fun day with whoever wanted to read.

Unseen Badges

                                    "Even in Laughter the heart may be sad." (Prov 14:13)

     I laugh a lot.  Most Soldiers I know laugh a lot.  Dave Roever, a motivational Christian speaker who was horribly wounded serving as a Navy Seal in Vietnam once said "I beat back depression one laugh at a time."  I spend a lot of my time laughing with Soldiers, drinking coffee, talking about extremely insignificant things often in inappropriate ways as they decelerate and defuse from unseen pressures that would crush softer souls yet they seem to bear up under the weight with the strange help of the many callouses Military life has earned them.  The harder the pressure the more necessary the laughter.  The times I sit and laugh about nothing unjudgementally, undemanding, tends invariably to somehow earn me the right to later sit on sacred ground with those same Soldiers and hear stories that wrench all laughter away from me.

      I have noticed a pattern among the warriors of our time.  Broken relationships laughed at hours before wept over in private conversation.  Nightmares that are held at bay only by the body refusing to go to sleep.  Barely contained to uncontrollable anger at the slightest provocation, usually dealing with mundane issues that were once easily overlooked.  Addictions from sleep aides, to smoking, to drinking, to a host of others drowning out reality at all cost.  Struggling with every bit of fight within them to avoid becoming zombies inside living but dead with each day being nothing but a gray haze of survival.  Young men and women on their third, fourth, even fifth deployments to the only life that still has any color in it left for them, and yet they serve with pride. 

     These scars they bear are unseen badges earned by sacrifice to a Country that loves them but is filled with people that don’t understand them.  How does one explain for instance that feeling alone while in a crowd is the saddest feeling that I wouldn’t trade for anything? I wouldn't lose its awkwardness because it was purchased by huddling together in instantly over crowded bunkers with other wide eyed ridiculously grinning Soldiers while being attacked at 2 in the morning.  And now that crowd of Soldiers with the same shared terror of mine are lost to the pages of yesterday’s war and I find myself lonely in crowds yet unwilling to have the unseen badge taken from me at any price. But how do you say that? 

     So we laugh...I found myself tonight at Camp Liberty at a sister Cigar Club to Camp Cropper’s as a host of Soldiers I had never met laughed at relationship pains and failed coping mechanisms, and shared badges that each of us could see plainly and felt a camaraderie from the shared knowledge that we were the only ones who could, and that was ok.

A Fathers Protection

     I am addicted to Spice Chai Lattes from Green Beans.  They taste like melted Pumpkin Pie. I was impatiently waiting for my fix to be fixed this morning when SGT Smith who I wrote about earlier walked in to get his daily dose of liquid sunshine, (which was necessary today as the rain has been relentless.  I believe it is dutifully watering the desert so that the sand can grow big and strong this summer).  As soon as he saw me he broke into a big smile and said he had been looking for me. 
     Apparently after I had finished our game of chess and prayed for him, his family and his unit's protection SGT Smiths group was called out on a mission.  Someone had been spotted digging a hole near the Camp.  As a side note, if you are a treasure hunter and decide to dig in the cradle of civilization for some of the oldest treasures on Earth, I would recommend doing it somewhere far away from the watchful eyes of a US Military installation as it will quickly summon a large group of well-armed Soldiers hopped up on caffeine and a little disgruntled at having been called away from their Spice Chai Lattes.  Anyway, when they reached the location no one was in sight and they proceeded to do a dismounted reconnaissance of the area.  Just then from some unseen location our aforementioned treasure hunter detonated his buried IED.
     A few hours later SGT Smiths wife received a phone call on the Anniversary of her son's death in Iraq...  It was from her husband telling her that he loved her.  Due to some miscalculation, or perhaps hasty plant, not a single Soldier or vehicle was harmed by the detonation. The Spice Chai Latte sat forgotten on the counter as SPC Nelson, CPT Murragurah, SGT Smith and myself huddled in a circle in the middle of Green Beans on a rainy day in Iraq and thanked God for a Fathers protection.