Come, they told me...

There was a bit of a birthday party here in Baghdad today celebrated by over 1 Million Iraqis who follow the Shi’a sect of the Islamic faith.

The pilgrimage across the Tigris River on the newly-rebuilt Sarifiyah Bridge and the subsequent celebration had all the qualities of the famed marches on Washington, D.C. back in the 1960’s. It was evident the Iraqi people are moved by their faith and are willing to show it publicly.

The celebration was for the 7th Imam, Musa ibn Jafar al-Kadhim, who served as the spiritual leader for all Shi’as for 35 years until his death in 799 C.E. His caliph is known as a time of much peace through his leadership, so he came to be called the “calm one”.

Musa al-Kadhim was famous and well known among the people for his generosity. He set free over one thousand slaves and was known to pay the debts of those who were poor. One of his most noted quotes is "The best generosity is the help to the oppressed."

There is a story of how al-Kadhim was honored with the kings gifts on the Persian New Year known as Norouz. The chieftains, dignitaries and nobles one by one presented their gifts of great riches. Finally, an old man came forward and said, “Oh son of the Islamic Prophet Mohammad, I do not have anything from this world to present to you, but I have composed a few poems to honor our faith which I have brought as a gift. Al-Kadhim was so moved that he presented all of the gifts and riches he had been given to the old man. He then said, “I bestow these gifts upon you, so that you are freed of poverty and hardships."

I know, I know, It is just like the little drummer boy…well almost…and we wonder where these stories come from…

But al-Kadhim also is known to have said, "The world is soft and beautiful like a snake, but there is a fatal poison hidden inside."

And this held true in the celebration this past week. As the crowds gathered in Baghdad, two Sunni terrorists took the opportunity to destroy the opposing faith. A bomber waited until several thousand people had moved into a street enclosed by buildings on both sides of the street. The woman then moved into the crowd and detonated the explosive vest laden with nails she was wearing under her robes. The explosion killed some within the crowd and sent the rest running toward the other end of the street. There a second bomber waited until she was surrounded by the rushing crowd than she detonating her suicide vest. The total carnage was 44 killed and 227 wounded. There were reports of others dying from their wounds later that night, but I have no confirmation.

Stunning.

It took hours to identify the body of the bomber. Soldiers and police had to sort through the debris and torn flesh to identify one body from the others. There is not much left after a person detonates herself.

This is what we face. There will be calm and a return to normalcy to the point the people feel comfortable enough to engage in celebrations that have been recognized for centuries. Then a small minority will seize the opportunity to destroy the peace.

I wonder what al-Kadhim would think about this. But then I don’t think the terrorists would care. Their aim is to disrupt faith, which is directly in contrast to the teachings of the 7th imam.

Suprisingly, the pilgrimage did not stop. The people continued to come through the next day to the Khadamiyah Shrine, to honor the “calm one”, to continue their prayers for peace, to maintain their faith even is the face of terror.

This is what faith allows us to do.

Time is the enemy to be defeated

People “back in the world” often ask what it is that soldiers think about the most, what is it that bears most on the mind. The answers could easily be: the soft embrace of one you love, a cold beer, or perhaps just a juicy steak right off the grill.

But the answer is almost always the same, what we think most about is time. Time rules our lives. Every soldier I know has a “doughnut” which tells exactly how much time he has left before he gets to go home. Many have multiple doughnuts (countdown calculators) which tell him how long until he gets to take leave, or even take a short pass to Qutar. The end time is always the same though: “How long until I am not here anymore.” It is not the things you miss the most, but how long until you can get back to them. My doughnut says I have 207 days until I go home and that I have been here 203 days.

You see the problem is we all work horrendously long hours. My work day is scheduled at 13 ½ hours, but usually ends up being more like 15. There is no union in the army.

And long hours are bearable if you are engaged, but that is not really how a deployed soldier spends his time. While we may well be on the job, the job is often a job of waiting and watching. The soldier on guard duty is not doing something; he is waiting for the enemy to do something. And the enemy is waiting for the soldier to get distracted from waiting for him to do something so he can be successful in his attack. The problem this presents is it does not allow the soldier to read, or watch TV, or play a game of cards, or even engage in much conversation. He simply waits, day after day, finally waiting to the point that he hopes the enemy will come, so he at least has something to do.

Time works well for the enemy too. The more bored we become the easier it is for him to sneak up on us or for us to become careless. Time is even more on his side when it comes to the total time we have been in this war. We grow weary of war as a nation as time passes, and want to move on to other wars. Time works against us.

There is a popular clip on YouTube of some soldiers at a checkpoint out in the middle of nowhere, when a carload of Arabic guys drive up to be inspected. Before the soldiers sent the suspected terrorists on their way, they encourage the suspected terrorists to go to the next village, pick up their guns, to turn around, come back and attack. “Please come back down this road in one hour firing your weapons and we will fight.” Now of course they didn’t really want to be in a fire fight. The purpose of the video is to demonstrate how they just wanted something to do, even if it meant being shot at. To anyone who has "pulled guard duty" this makes perfectly good sense, to anyone else, it just seems bizarre. The simple hope is if they can get the fight over with, they can go home. Instead they wait.

How do you spend all that time doing nothing? You think about time. How long until lunch? That is an easily achievable time goal to reach. Now you have something to look forward to. When that comes you start to think, “How long until dinner?” How long until my shift is over so I can go to sleep and make time really fly. Then in the morning I get up and wait for time to go by once again.

The navy commander I room with is what we call “short”, which means he doesn’t have much time left. (It has nothing to do with how tall he is).He was a cheerful soul, scheduled to go home July 2nd. Everyone gets really friendly and optimistic when they become a “double digit midget” which means they have less than 100 days left on their deployment. When he became a “single digit midget”, meaning he had less than 10 days to go, he was given the bad news. He was going to have to serve additional “time”. It seems that the rapid drawdown from the surge had left us shorthanded, so he was “involuntarily extended" 120 days. Now there is nothing quite so depressing as seeing a “single digit midget” go all the way back above 100 days. It destroys the spirit. It destroys the will. He is not a cheerful soul anymore. I just asked him, “Aren’t you down to just 25 days again?” His response was, “No, 28”. He is afraid to get excited about being “short” again because he cannot stand the letdown.

My alarm just went off. That is a milestone. It is time to report for duty. Lunch is only 5 hours away.

The "rock star" was in the IZ last night

Candidates attempt to win elections through logic, but in the end, elections end up being emotional.

Sgt. Murphy is a 25 year old soldier I work with from Chicago. You would think she is everything that the Obama camp is attracting, young, idealistic, optimistic, and hope that a new perspective will alter what America has become. Yet we have had many discussions in which she explains why she simply cannot vote for him. She is well educated and has earned her Bachelors Degree in English from the University of Chicago. She feels that she should vote for him, but as she looks at him and his background she feels he is just not the right guy to fix our problems.

It is an interesting conversation and as the hours have turned into days and we are so immersed in every move the media makes she has not wavered in her position.

Last night Senator Obama, and the other two senators no one was paying any attention to, had a meeting where I work. The first two spoke briefly before Obama gave a nice ten minute talk praising all of the soldiers for the sacrifices they have made and the dedication they have show to not only American liberty, but also the freedom of the Iraqi people. I must admit, he is quite an inspirational speaker. I have met few people in my life who truly had charisma, but his was immediately apparent. He won the crowd over, all except Sgt. Murphy. She just stood there studying him.

There was the usually round of handshaking and casual conversation that accompanies one of these events. But Sgt. Murphy wanted no part of it and headed for door at the back of the room to leave.

I read an article today in the New York Times that talked about how on his visit to the Middle East Senator Obama had again demonstrated his ability to blend opportunity with luck to come out ahead. They went on to discuss how he has a gift for turning situations around to his favor.

The crowd was so large that many did not get a chance to shake hands with him, and he had a tight schedule so he had to go. He waved good bye and again thanked all of the troops. And as luck would have it he headed out the door no one expected him to take, the very door Sgt. Murphy was going out.

As he passed she faced him and he stopped to look at her. She looked at him closely before she put out her hand and congratulated him on the fine work he was doing to change the way we look at being American. He took her by the hand, looked at her name tape and rank and said, “It is I who must thank you Sgt. Murphy. Thank you.”

There was a pause, just a brief few seconds, but there was an obvious connection. I knew right there that the polls had changed. Take one vote from John McCain and put it in the Obama tally.

And this is how elections are won.

Good Morning Iraq...

How to have a perfect morning in Baghdad…

As I stepped outside today at 0430 I was presented with a perfect morning. The sun was not yet up so the temperature was just above 100 with just the suggestion of a gentle breeze. Strangely it felt almost cool. Off in the distance was the coo of pigeons calling to one another while the cloudless sky was scattered with smaller birds at play before the heat of the coming day. There was even an absence of distant gunfire. This will indeed be a beautiful morning.

There is a magical quiet time here when it is light enough that the generators that produce our electricity have been turned of, yet the trucks, troops, and terrors of war are not yet awake for the day.

I was up early so I could get in some physical training, because there is nothing like a quiet run before the IZ comes to life. As I ran though the streets I was welcomed first by my Peruvian guard friends who watch over the area night and day. “Buenos Dias, Hombre!” These guys are always friendly, but with their machine guns at the ready. They have on their floppy "boonie hats" so their "intelligence" tells them there is no insurgent mischief in the works. This is always a good sign.

Passing hundreds of date palms I noticed the harvest is about ready to come in as the brown and green dates have begun to fall to the ground. I picked up a few and carried them with me for a snack later on today. Where else in the world can you get fresh dates like this. This alone has made the run worthwhile.

On my way back in I pass a couple of Iraqis with thier Ak-47s slung across their backs playing soccer in the street using a water bottle for a ball. They smile and wave. "A salama lakum". I respond with, "Lakum a salaam". The game goes on and I finish my run.

After the workout I shower and head into the “chow hall” for breakfast. My father would be happy with the mandatory hand washing station followed by jugs of hand sanitizer. I wash up, scan in my ID card and try to decide what I will have.

At 0530 the building is nearly empty except for the International fare of a few guards and soldiers: Ugandans, Georgians, Australians, Brits, Peruvians, and this American. The state department will not stir for hours so the civilian population is not yet accounted for.

I think I will have an omelet this morning so I step up to the grill and begin pointing at ingredients: cheese, tomatoes, onions, jalapeño and green peppers, and mushrooms. This should be nice and hot. I point, because the Middle Eastern cooks do not speak English. He begins to cook the egg and I step into the next line to order up some bacon, corn beef hash, hash browns, a biscuit and gravy. He still is not finished with the omelets so I step to the next line and choose some French toast over the blueberry pancakes. I pick up my eggs, get a cup of coffee and settle down for a quiet meal. Wow....what a great breakfast...good thing I had that run.

Heading out of the chow hall I follow a Ugandan who not noticing me, lets the door go in front of me. He then notices, turns and begins to apologize, smiling and patting me on the back. I shake his hand, smile and head back to my hooch. On the way I pass the pool where soldiers and marines are swimming early morning laps. I decide to sit on a lounge chair and watch the sun come up over the Tigris River. You always get a great sunrise here. During the summer months there is never a cloud in the sky. Imagine four months of cloud free days.

But there is a price to pay for this. As soon as the sun breaks the horizon the heat immediately begins to mount. I could notice a quick building of heat. This was my signal it was time to head in, change into my combat uniform, and begin the day’s duties.

An hour later as I walk to my duty station, the magic is all gone. There is the rumble of trucks, the roar of helicopters and chatter of distant gunfire. The perfection has been removed by the general mele that is war.

It is nice to get up early and take in the quiet before the day is ruined. It helps me to forget where I am for a few moments, but then it all comes back as the sun rises and we awake to destory the perfection.

I hope you all can have an equally perfect morning.

I am back in the war zone....update

This is where I live. To the left is our row of "hooches" and on the right is the hundreds of sandbags that protect us from schrapnel from the mortars and rockets. I have just returned from R&R and I wanted you to see my lovely neighborhood here in the prestigious Riverside area. This is where I sleep and shower, but that is about all the time I spend here.

The question that continued to enter my mind as I returned from my vacation from the war was, "At what point will I really know I am back?" Sure, when I step off the airplane and I am in the middle of the desert is a pretty good indicator, but I was not convinced that would be the true indicator. And I was right about that.

When I flew out of Baghdad a couple of weeks ago the temperature was 122 degrees, but when I returned the city was experiencing a "cool" spell and the temperature was only 111 degrees, but not to worry it is forcasted to reach 118 today so it is definitely warming up.

One of the first things to greet me when I flew into Kuwait to transfer to a military flight to Baghdad, was the reissue of my body armor. Oh yeah, 35 pounds of tight sqeeze lovin. It missed me and squeezed me extra tight as I strapped it on for the first time. It made its impact known immediately. The weight and restrictiveness tend to add 20 degrees to the outside temperature. The sweat began to pour and I was confident I was truly protected when the streams of sweat that flowed down my body formed into a river that flowed down the crack of my butt. Oh yes, I remember that feeling. That was the kiss to go with the squeeze.

While I was waiting for a bus ride from the commercial airport in Kuwait city to Ali Al Salem in the desert, I witnessed our bus driver lay a carpet in the sand, get on his knees and begin to pray toward Mecca. I got the feeling I was not supposed to see him because he stopped mid bow and gave me the evil eye. I just smiled and said, "Sorry". I was kind of hoping he would ask me to join him. I thought that might be pretty cool, to pray to Allah in the desert on a magic carpet in the middle of the night. But I guess he wanted to be alone.

The ride was about an hour long, and I tell you, I thought all the way that this guy might have been doing his final prayer before blowing the bus and all us on it to hell. But it was not to be. We arrived safely and I then knew I had brought more than a few extra pounds back with me, that while back in the states I had renewed my American prejudice. It is more infectious than I thought. I will have to work on that.

I finally flew into BIAP (Baghdad Airport) but just barely because a nice sand storm had blown up in the night and shortly after my arrival all air traffic was grounded for the day. That was not good news because the best way to get to the IZ (International Zone) where I live is by helicopter. So sadly I scrubbed my flight and went in search of other transportation. It seemed that even the Rhino that makes several runs down the once dreaded Route Irish to the IZ was overbooked because all of the flight cancellations. So I was stuck at FOB Victory and all I wanted to do was to go "home".

So I talked with a security patrol that was going "out the wire" and asked if I could hitch a ride with them and they could drop me off in the IZ. I was in luck and got a nice ride in one of the new MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles as they conducted their sector search of Baghdad. The crew was careful to ensure I understood how to survive an IED attack on this unique vehicle. Fortunately for all of us, we did not have that experience. It was an interesting ride with great views of the city I had not seen before. We only had a couple of exciting moments but in the end no one was hurt and I was delivered to my destination.

And let me tell you, those things may be air conditioned, but not so good with all the gear we wear over here. All we wanted to do was to get out of the vehicle is a safe area, peal off the body armor and let our selves cool off in the 111 degree heat. Crazy, I know, but this is life as a soldier in Iraq.

So after an interesting journey I stopped by my unit, picked up my weapon, and went back to my hooch for a long 12 hour sleep. I am home at last; at least my home for the next 8 months. It sure is nice to sleep in your own bed.

Out of the war for a few days....I will be back soon.

To my dedicated and much appreciated readers, I appologize for the delay in reports from over here.

I have been on Rest and Recreation (R&R) for the past 15 days.

I will send out new reports again starting on July 18th. There is much to tell you so please stand by.

John