War in Iraq, a Soldier's View

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09-Apr-03 10:45 PM

Well tonight looks like it’s going to be a lot more comfortable than the last two nights.

I called home today, it’s always so nice to hear your families’ voice and just talk to them like you would if you were back at home. I told them I was at the air base outside An N??ir?yah and a little bit of what has been going on here, I mentioned how there’s been so little happening around here and its be really quiet so far as attacks and things like that.. I got a lot of information about what’s going on in that war around me. I guess there’s a possibility that Saddam may be dead now. The US Government got a tip that one of Saddam sons and most of the Iraqi leadership was in a bunker in Baghdad so they dropped 4 2000ton bombs on the bunker turning into a giant crater. The problem is that they don’t know if he’s dead for sure or not, they don’t have access to that part of the city, and if they did there probably wouldn’t be anything to ID.

They also told be the story about “Jessica” the female POW that had been rescued and how the Iraqis at the hospital had helped the Special Forces when they went in and got the girl out and they told where the rest of the bodies were buried. It’s nice to know that some of the people here just want to see an end to the fighting. We need to remember that we’re not fighting the country of Iraq, we’re fighting the leadership and that’s all.

Our news about going home has changed but now it’s so up in the air nobody knows what's going on. The current story is that we’re definitely NOT going home, we’re supposed to be going back to camp Doha because they have a back log of 300 vehicles that need to be fixed (yeah right) and our help is going to fix that. But the other part of the rumor is that there’s a General that wants us to go forward to Baghdad with him. Either way we’re getting screwed now, what kind of sick joke is it to tell somebody they’re going home after 6 months then saying never mind. On April 1st we thought of the jokes we could play on each other and one that came up was that we could tell people that we got orders to go home, but as soon as we said it we knew that it wouldn’t be funny at all, and it would end up with somebody getting the shit kicked out of them. Now the Army has played the same joke on us, but it’s worse because the rumor to go home came from the people who actually would be telling us when we do go home.

But I’m trying not to let it bother me, I was withholding my enthusiasm because I know that nothing’s official till the orders are in hand. So it’s back to just wishing I was going home. I told my family that I was moving either forward or back and we didn’t know where and they were really concerned because they wanted to know where I was, I guess since they have access to the news they can feel like they’re a little closer to me if they can see what’s going on around me.

Tonight is so much nicer than last night, not only is there a gentle breeze but there’s not dust in the air (or at least less than we’ve had recently) and the temperature is perfect, not too hot to sweat, not too cold to shiver. It’s so nice that everybody stayed up later than usual just talking. Me and SSG Andersen had a long talk about enjoying the moment out here. We talked about the experience that this will always be and what we’ll take home from it. Back when I was in Basic Training I was miserable and all I wanted was to go home, but now when I think back all I remember was the parts of Basic that I liked and all the good things I got out of it. That was back when I really liked the Army mentality, the camaraderie and such. It was only in the last year or two that I lost that feeling. But we wondered if we would have the same feeling about this deployment after it’s over. It’s hard to see the good in being here when you’re in the coolest place on base and you’re still sweating just sitting in your chair. But when the air gets nice and cool like it is now you don’t think this place is so bad. The whole conversation started when SSG Andersen asked me what I was thinking, I was staring at the runway lights thinking about the fact that I’ll probably never see this place again after this deployment is over. There are a lot of things that I’ll never see again (I hope), the explosions on the horizon, the EPW’s, the Iraqi kids standing on the side of the road begging for food, the A-10’s screaming into the sky on another attack run, the C-130’s taking off at night with lights off for safety, the gas alarms, the relics of a previous war during a war in the same place.

SSgt. Andersen talked about how much the things he’s seen here has mad him thankful for what he’s got. The average standard of living here is about the same a transient in the US has. Andersen talked about the trip to the training camp he went to this morning. On the way down the highway we had come up parents were sending their kids to the side of the road to beg for water by making the motion of drinking a bottle of water. He said he first noticed it when MAJ Yarber threw a full bottle of water out the window. He wondered what the heck he was doing then he saw and older woman doing the same thing to ask the convoy for water handouts.

At home we think we got it bad when we have to go to the grocery store to pick up some more food because the fridge doesn’t have any fresh food. The people here would consider themselves spoiled if they had running water coming out of a tap. They take water from a swamp and run it through a cloth to purify it before they drink it. No wonder they have such short life spans here, they spend they’re whole day doing all they can to barely squeak by with enough food and water survive.

Back home the water we use to keep our lawns green in the middle of the desert is drinkable. We literally throw away as much water in a day to have a green lawn in the desert that these people would give their weeks salary to have. Even for us soldiers we only get a ration of three boxes of drinking water per day, one box of water is about as much as one flush of the toilet back home. So if you flush the toilet three times you’ve wasted the same amount of drinking water that we are allowed for 17 soldiers per day. And we have it great compared to the Iraqis around us.

Andersen is right; when I get home I need something to remember how well I have it back home.

If you can sleep in a shelter that has temperature regulation you have it better than me.
If the water you drink is at room temperature or colder you have it better than me.
If you can travel in one mile in any direction without an armed escort you have it better than me.
If you don’t have to worry about stepping on a UXO when you walk where there’s not any foot prints you have it better than me.
If you don’t have to carry a gas mask on you because of the threat of being killed in a gas attack you have it better than me.
If you can sleep through the night without waking up sweating from the heat at 2:00am you have it better than me.
If you don’t have to keep two armed guards up all night to protect about an enemy incursion you have it better than me.
If you don’t have to deal with dust so thick it literally chokes you have it better than me.
If you don’t have to shit in a wastebasket you have it better than me.
If you don’t have to burn your shit wastebasket once a day you have it better than me.
If you don’t have to go to the fuel point every other day to keep the electricity flowing you have it better than me.
If you don’t have to go to a water point once a day to get washing water you have it better then me.
If you can take a shower with more than a spigot on the end of a 5 gallon can you have it better than me.
If you can have a day to spend by yourself you have it better than me.
If you can do laundry with anything instead of doing it in a bucket of water you have it better than me.
If you have access to a phone more than once a week you have it better than me.
If you have access to the internet you have it better than me.
If you can eat a fresh cooked meal you have it better than me.
If you don’t have to pick up your eating and drinking water every morning you have it better than me.

If you don’t watch the sunset go down every night I got it better than you.
If you don’t get paid to relax and talk to friends all day I got it better than you.
If you don’t think of your friends and family daily I got it better than you.

11:59 PM

I had to go out and do some thinking but I’m back now. I hope that this movement that’s coming up turns out to be for the best. That seems to be the only sure thing is that we’re probably going to move. The 183rd will be here so they don’t need us here.

If we go forward toward Baghdad I hope the living conditions get a little better, and I want to see some more of this country. It’s too bad we can’t just go sight seeing around here, this is the birthplace of one of the oldest civilizations in human history. Before our short lived country, before the kingdoms of Europe, before the Romans, and before the Greeks. Plus the religious history here is amazing, just outside of the airbase is temple that’s the birth place of Abraham of the Old Testament. The three major faiths of the world all believe in Abraham, even though I’m not religious it would be great to go to a place that’s that important. It’s like being at the birth place of Christ, or Mohammed. But it’s been deemed off limits because some officers had gone in and left their trash in the temple and the local people noticed it. Too bad maybe I can get a Humvee ride nearby and get some pictures.

I all comes back to that feeling about just how important this experience is. A very small number of people have experienced the type of things I have. Not many people have been in an actual war, it’s not a training exercise, it’s not a hostile zone, or a small military action; it a real war. The chance of death is real, the rounds in our M-16’s are live rounds produced given to us with the intention of us firing them against an enemy trying to kill us. The gas masks are kept on us so we don’t run the risk of inhaling a chemical that would cause the lining of our lungs to blister and bleed till we drowned in our own fluids.

It’s all for real.

And like SSG Andersen mentioned, it’s funny how the mind deals with what it’s given. Here we are with our lives in danger and we spend our night up in T-shirts and pants talking about the dumbest subjects that come to mind. Even when the gas alarm goes out it feels like a chore to wear the mask and MOPP suit. With the heat the way it is you just keep hoping the all clear will come soon because you want to tear off the mask and suit because you feel the heat is going to smother you before the gas can kill you.

I don’t fell special for what I’m doing; I’m no more a hero than any other person in the US. But when I tell anybody else back home they make it seem like I’m somehow stronger or more powerful than the average US citizen for being able to stay out here. But I’m still scared, I still get sick of being here and want nothing more than to go home. I don’t care how the war ends, or when as long as I go home soon. How does that make me a hero? If anything this deployment has made me angrier at the US than I was before. I feel less inclined to fight its wars, and do what the Politicians want me to. Why should people look at me a more Patriotic than others?

My mom says that it may not seem like it to me but I do have more mental constitution that most people would have out here, the fact that I can stay out here more than a month without losing it sets me aside from others. I’m not sure if that’s true or not. In the middle of the night when I realize how alone I am and that I’m thousands of mile away from all the people I care about I think how my life could end so quickly and easily.
I don’t feel any more capable than anybody else.