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I remember our first nights in Baghdad. We slept on the roof of our building on the edge of the Tigris river. The sky would darken and the air would cool ever so slightly. I would sit on my cot and slowly smoke a last cigarette of the night, always my favorite smoke of the day. I would look over the oily black sheen of the river to city across from me. I could here the guns in the streets. Knowing other soldiers were out there fighting for their lives, just to get through another night. I could see fires from bombing burn late in to the night. I remember finishing that last cigarette and finding an absurd calm in the midst of the fighting around me. I would lay down pulling a single cover over myself and drift off to the sounds of guns in the distance, hoping that no rounds would stray our way and that I would wake up in the morning.
I remember an old man with a tray of bread. He was rather small and frail, he wore a dishdasha. And he didn’t just carry his tray of bread, he had a tray of neatly stacked rings of bread, each precisely laid on top of the next. He kept this tray balanced on his head. He didn’t say much, we knew the deal as well as he did. We would pull out a few dinar and flag him down. He would stoop, we would take a few rings of bread gently off the top of the stack. He would pocket the dinar, thank us repeatedly and continue on his way down the street with a tray of bread rings balanced on his head so carefully.
I remember the mortars. At first they were terrifying. I could taste the burnt powder and chemicals left in the air as they went over. We would all seek cover, waiting in silence for an all clear. Quickly the mortars became nothing but a nuisance. We knew they would come, twice a night, and they would miss us again. I would stay up a little longer, smoke one more cigarette, waiting for the first rounds of the night. Then I would go to bed, it wouldn’t take long before I started sleeping through them.
I remember the kids at the orphanages. They damn near rioted when they saw us. They knew we had presents for them. Paper, pencils, pens, and candy; not wanted by the soldiers. Nothing but leftovers and garbage to us was pure treasure to these kids. They would crowd the trucks, wanting to touch us and our gear. Admiring our radios, guns, and pockets. Little hands reaching out to touch and grab at our gear. My logic know they were just curious excited kids, but my adrenaline would pump, I would brush them off. I would try to smile and be nice as I pushed them away. I remember one particular orphanage the boys were aggressive to see us and talk to us. The girls stayed to the back. The kids got too riled up and we decided it was safer if we just left. As we pulled out of the compound the boys began throwing rocks at me and laughing. I remember looking past them and seeing several girls standing in the barred windows of an old concrete building. Like small dirty faces from a prison window; their hands gripped the bars, as they watched us go. They looked so scared and so sad. I can’t imagine the fate of a young girl orphaned in a country like Iraq.
I remember sitting out back of our building in the hot sun. I would put on head phones and turn up the music as I cleaned my weapons. I remember the smell of the gun oil and the feel of the metal in my hands as I wiped the dirt and grim of the city streets away. Piece by piece I would pull my weapon apart, examine it, clean it, take a long slow drag of my cigarette. It was like mediation, it was time inside myself, inside the quiet. I would finish cleaning my weapons, reassemble them, check to make sure I had done it right, and check again. I remember setting my weapon in my lap, folding my hands over it, taking another long slow drag of my cigarette, that now tasted like the gun oil on my hands. I would close my eyes, tilt my head back and just soak in the heat, the quiet, and the calm of that short moment in time.
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