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| The "pool" at Camp Buehring |
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| Its been raining for an hour in this pic! |
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| Sandstorm around Noon! |
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| Walking to the motorpark! |
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| Leading edge of a bitchin' thunderstorm! |
Now, time to brave the heat and the nonstop sand and just make it back to Fort Hood!
Friday, June 1, 2012
Operation Spartan Shield...WTF?!?
Now, time to brave the heat and the nonstop sand and just make it back to Fort Hood!
Friday, February 3, 2012
I Miss Iraq. I Miss My Gun. I Miss My War. (Reposted from Esquire)
This was an essay written by a former US Army infantryman for Esquire magazine in 2007. Reposted with permission. Check out the original article here!
I Miss Iraq. I Miss My Gun. I Miss My War.
A year after coming home from a tour in Iraq, a soldier returns home to find out he left something behind.
By Brian Mockenhaupt
A few months ago, I found a Web site loaded with pictures and videos from Iraq, the sort that usually aren't seen on the news. I watched insurgent snipers shoot American soldiers and car bombs disintegrate markets, accompanied by tinny music and loud, rhythmic chanting, the soundtrack of the propaganda campaigns. Video cameras focused on empty stretches of road, building anticipation. Humvees rolled into view and the explosions brought mushroom clouds of dirt and smoke and chunks of metal spinning through the air. Other videos and pictures showed insurgents shot dead while planting roadside bombs or killed in firefights and the remains of suicide bombers, people how they're not meant to be seen, no longer whole. The images sickened me, but their familiarity pulled me in, giving comfort, and I couldn't stop. I clicked through more frames, hungry for it. This must be what a shot of dope feels like after a long stretch of sobriety. Soothing and nauseating and colored by everything that has come before. My body tingled and my stomach ached, hollow. I stood on weak legs and walked into the kitchen to make dinner. I sliced half an onion before putting the knife down and watching slight tremors run through my hand. The shakiness lingered. I drank a beer. And as I leaned against this kitchen counter, in this house, in America, my life felt very foreign.
I've been home from Iraq for more than a year, long enough for my time there to become a memory best forgotten for those who worried every day that I was gone. I could see their relief when I returned. Life could continue, with futures not so uncertain. But in quiet moments, their relief brought me guilt. Maybe they assume I was as overjoyed to be home as they were to have me home. Maybe they assume if I could do it over, I never would have gone. And maybe I wouldn't have. But I miss Iraq. I miss the war. I miss war. And I have a very hard time understanding why.
I'm glad to be home, to have put away my uniforms, to wake up next to my wife each morning. I worry about my friends who are in Iraq now, and I wish they weren't. Often I hated being there, when the frustrations and lack of control over my life were complete and mind-bending. I questioned my role in the occupation and whether good could come of it. I wondered if it was worth dying or killing for. The suffering and ugliness I saw disgusted me. But war twists and shifts the landmarks by which we navigate our lives, casting light on darkened areas that for many people remain forever unexplored. And once those darkened spaces are lit, they become part of us. At a party several years ago, long before the Army, I listened to a friend who had served several years in the Marines tell a woman that if she carried a pistol for a day, just tucked in her waistband and out of sight, she would feel different. She would see the world differently, for better or worse. Guns empower. She disagreed and he shrugged. No use arguing the point; he was just offering a little piece of truth. He was right, of course. And that's just the beginning.
I've spent hours taking in the world through a rifle scope, watching life unfold. Women hanging laundry on a rooftop. Men haggling over a hindquarter of lamb in the market. Children walking to school. I've watched this and hoped that someday I would see that my presence had made their lives better, a redemption of sorts. But I also peered through the scope waiting for someone to do something wrong, so I could shoot him. When you pick up a weapon with the intent of killing, you step onto a very strange and serious playing field. Every morning someone wakes wanting to kill you. When you walk down the street, they are waiting, and you want to kill them, too. That's not bloodthirsty; that's just the trade you've learned. And as an American soldier, you have a very impressive toolbox. You can fire your rifle or lob a grenade, and if that's not enough, call in the tanks, or helicopters, or jets. The insurgents have their skill sets, too, turning mornings at the market into chaos, crowds into scattered flesh, Humvees into charred scrap. You're all part of the terrible magic show, both powerful and helpless.
That men are drawn to war is no surprise. How old are boys before they turn a finger and thumb into a pistol? Long before they love girls, they love war, at least everything they imagine war to be: guns and explosions and manliness and courage. When my neighbors and I played war as kids, there was no fear or sorrow or cowardice. Death was temporary, usually as fast as you could count to sixty and jump back into the game. We didn't know yet about the darkness. And young men are just slightly older versions of those boys, still loving the unknown, perhaps pumped up on dreams of duty and heroism and the intoxicating power of weapons. In time, war dispels many such notions, and more than a few men find that being freed from society's professed revulsion to killing is really no freedom at all, but a lonely burden. Yet even at its lowest points, war is like nothing else. Our culture craves experience, and that is war's strong suit. War peels back the skin, and you live with a layer of nerves exposed, overdosing on your surroundings, when everything seems all wrong and just right, in a way that makes perfect sense. And then you almost die but don't, and are born again, stoned on life and mocking death. The explosions and gunfire fry your nerves, but you want to hear them all the same. Something's going down.
For those who know, this is the open secret: War is exciting. Sometimes I was in awe of this, and sometimes I felt low and mean for loving it, but I loved it still. Even in its quiet moments, war is brighter, louder, brasher, more fun, more tragic, more wasteful. More. More of everything. And even then I knew I would someday miss it, this life so strange. Today the war has distilled to moments and feelings, and somewhere in these memories is the reason for the wistfulness.
On one mission we slip away from our trucks and into the night. I lead the patrol through the darkness, along canals and fields and into the town, down narrow, hard-packed dirt streets. Everyone has gone to bed, or is at least inside. We peer through gates and over walls into courtyards and into homes. In a few rooms TVs flicker. A woman washes dishes in a tub. Dogs bark several streets away. No one knows we are in the street, creeping. We stop at intersections, peek around corners, training guns on parked cars, balconies, and storefronts. All empty. We move on. From a small shop up ahead, we hear men's voices and laughter. Maybe they used to sit outside at night, but now they are indoors, where it's safe. Safer. The sheet-metal door opens and a man steps out, cigarette and lighter in hand. He still wears a smile, takes in the cool night air, and then nearly falls backward through the doorway in a panic. I'm a few feet from him now and his eyes are wide. I mutter a greeting and we walk on, back into the darkness.
Another night we're lost in a dust storm. I'm in the passenger seat, trying to guide my driver and the three trucks behind us through this brown maelstrom. The headlights show nothing but swirling dirt. We've driven these roads for months, we know them well, but we see nothing. So we drive slow, trying to stay out of canals and people's kitchens. We curse and we laugh. This is bizarre but a great deal of fun.
Another night my platoon sergeant's truck is swallowed in flames, a terrible, beautiful, boiling bloom of red and orange and yellow, lighting the darkness for a moment. Somehow we don't die, one more time.
Another night, there's McCarthy bitching, the cherry of his cigarette bobbing in the dark, bitching that he won't be on the assault team, that he's stuck as a turret gunner for the night. We'd been out since early that morning, came back for dinner, and are preparing to raid a weapons dealer. Our first real raid. I heave my body armor onto my shoulders, settling its too-familiar weight. Then the helmet and first-aid kit and maps and radio and ammunition and rifle and all the rest. Now I look like everyone else, an arm of this strange and destructive organism, covered in armor and guns. We crowd around a satellite map spread across a Humvee hood and trace our route. Wells, my squad leader, rehearses our movements. Get in quick. Watch the danger zones. If he has a gun, kill him. I look around the group, at these faces I know so well, and feel the collective strength, this ridiculous power. The camaraderie of men in arms plays a part, for sure. The shared misery and euphoria and threat of death. But there is something more: the surrender of self, voluntary or not, to the machine. Do I believe in the war? Not important. Put that away and live in the moment, where little is knowable and even less is controllable, when my world narrows to one street, one house, one room, one door.
We pack into the trucks after midnight, and the convoy snakes out of camp and speeds toward the target house. I sit in a backseat and the fear settles in, a sharp burning in my stomach, same as the knot from hard liquor gulped too fast. I think about the knot. I'll be the first through the door. What if he starts shooting, hits me right in the face before I'm even through the doorway? What if there's two, or three? What if he pitches a grenade at us? And I think about it more and run through the scenarios, planning my movements, imagining myself clearing through the rooms, firing two rounds into the chest, and the knot fades.
The trucks drop us off several blocks from the target house and we slip into the night. As always, the dogs bark. We gather against the high wall outside the house and call in the trucks to block the streets. The action will pass in a flash. But here, before the chaos starts, when we're stacked against the wall, my friends' bodies pressed against me, hearing their quick breaths and my own, there's a moment to appreciate the gravity, the absurdity, the novelty, the joy of the moment. Is this real? Hearts beat strong. Hands grip tight on weapons. Reassurance. The rest of the world falls away. Who knows what's on the other side?
One, two, three, go. We push past the gate and across the courtyard and toward the house, barrels locked on the windows and roof. Wells runs up with the battering ram, a short, heavy pipe with handles, and launches it toward the massive wood door. The lock explodes, the splintered door flies open, and we rush through, just the way we've practiced hundreds of times. No one shoots me in the face. No grenades roll to my feet. I kick open doors. We scan darkened bedrooms with the flashlights on our rifles and move on to the next and the next.
He's gone, of course. We ransack his house, dumping drawers, flipping mattresses, punching holes in the ceiling. We find rifles and grenades and hundreds of pounds of gunpowder. And then, near dawn, we lie down on the thick carpets in his living room and sleep, exhausted and untroubled.
Many, many raids followed. We often raided houses late at night, so people awakened to soldiers bursting through their bedroom doors. Women and children wailed, terrified. Taking this in, I imagined what it would feel like if soldiers kicked down my door at midnight, if I could do nothing to protect my family. I would hate those soldiers. Yet I still reveled in the raids, their intensity and uncertainty. The emotions collided, without resolution.
My wife moved to Iraq partway through my second deployment to live in the north and train Iraqi journalists. She spent her evenings at restaurants and tea shops with her Iraqi friends. We spoke by cell phone, when the spotty network allowed, and she told me about this life I couldn't imagine, celebrating holidays with her colleagues and being invited into their homes. I didn't have any Iraqi friends, save for our few translators, and I'd rarely been invited into anyone's home. I told her of my life, the tedious days and frightful seconds, and she worried that in all of this I would lose my thoughtfulness and might stop questioning and just accept. But she didn't judge the work that I did, and I didn't tell her that I sometimes enjoyed it, that for stretches of time I didn't think about the greater implications, that it sometimes seemed like a game. I didn't tell her that death felt ever present and far away, and that either way, it didn't really seem to matter.
We both came back from Iraq, luckier than many. Two of my wife's students have been killed, among the scores of journalists to die in Iraq, and guys I served with are still dying, too. One came home from the war and shot himself on Thanksgiving. Another was blown up on Christmas in Baghdad.
Thinking of them, I felt disgusted with myself for missing the war and wondered if I was alone in this.
I don't think I am.
After watching the Internet videos, I called some of my friends who are out of the Army now, and they miss the war, too. Wells very nearly died in Iraq. A sniper shot him in the head, surgeons cut out half of his skull—a story told in this magazine last April—and he spent months in therapy, working back to his old self. Now he misses the high. "I don't want to sound like a psychopath, but you're like a god over there," he says. "It might not be the best kind of adrenaline for you, but it's a rush." Before Iraq, he didn't care for horror movies, and now he's drawn to them. He watches them for the little thrill, the rush of being startled, if just for a moment.
McCarthy misses the war just the same. He saved Wells's life, pressing a bandage over the hole in his head. Now he's delivering construction materials to big hotel projects along the beach in South Carolina, waiting for a police department to process his application. "The monotony is killing me," he told me, en route to deliver some rebar. "I want to go on a raid. I want something to blow up. I want something to change today." He wants the unknown. "Anything can happen, and it does happen. And all of the sudden your world is shattered, and everything has changed. It's living dangerously. You're living on the edge. And you're the baddest motherfucker around."
Mortal danger heightens the senses. That is simple animal instinct. We're more aware of how our world smells and sounds and tastes. This distorts and enriches experiences. Now I can have everything, but it's not as good as when I could have none of it. McCarthy and I stood on a rooftop one afternoon in Iraq running through a long list of the food we wanted. We made it to homemade pizza and icy beer when someone loosed a long burst of gunfire that cracked over our heads. We ran to the other side of the rooftop, but the gunman had disappeared down a long alleyway. Today my memory of that pizza and beer is stronger than if McCarthy and I had sat down together with the real thing before us.
I Miss Iraq. I Miss My Gun. I Miss My War.
A year after coming home from a tour in Iraq, a soldier returns home to find out he left something behind.
By Brian Mockenhaupt
A few months ago, I found a Web site loaded with pictures and videos from Iraq, the sort that usually aren't seen on the news. I watched insurgent snipers shoot American soldiers and car bombs disintegrate markets, accompanied by tinny music and loud, rhythmic chanting, the soundtrack of the propaganda campaigns. Video cameras focused on empty stretches of road, building anticipation. Humvees rolled into view and the explosions brought mushroom clouds of dirt and smoke and chunks of metal spinning through the air. Other videos and pictures showed insurgents shot dead while planting roadside bombs or killed in firefights and the remains of suicide bombers, people how they're not meant to be seen, no longer whole. The images sickened me, but their familiarity pulled me in, giving comfort, and I couldn't stop. I clicked through more frames, hungry for it. This must be what a shot of dope feels like after a long stretch of sobriety. Soothing and nauseating and colored by everything that has come before. My body tingled and my stomach ached, hollow. I stood on weak legs and walked into the kitchen to make dinner. I sliced half an onion before putting the knife down and watching slight tremors run through my hand. The shakiness lingered. I drank a beer. And as I leaned against this kitchen counter, in this house, in America, my life felt very foreign.
I've been home from Iraq for more than a year, long enough for my time there to become a memory best forgotten for those who worried every day that I was gone. I could see their relief when I returned. Life could continue, with futures not so uncertain. But in quiet moments, their relief brought me guilt. Maybe they assume I was as overjoyed to be home as they were to have me home. Maybe they assume if I could do it over, I never would have gone. And maybe I wouldn't have. But I miss Iraq. I miss the war. I miss war. And I have a very hard time understanding why.
I'm glad to be home, to have put away my uniforms, to wake up next to my wife each morning. I worry about my friends who are in Iraq now, and I wish they weren't. Often I hated being there, when the frustrations and lack of control over my life were complete and mind-bending. I questioned my role in the occupation and whether good could come of it. I wondered if it was worth dying or killing for. The suffering and ugliness I saw disgusted me. But war twists and shifts the landmarks by which we navigate our lives, casting light on darkened areas that for many people remain forever unexplored. And once those darkened spaces are lit, they become part of us. At a party several years ago, long before the Army, I listened to a friend who had served several years in the Marines tell a woman that if she carried a pistol for a day, just tucked in her waistband and out of sight, she would feel different. She would see the world differently, for better or worse. Guns empower. She disagreed and he shrugged. No use arguing the point; he was just offering a little piece of truth. He was right, of course. And that's just the beginning.
I've spent hours taking in the world through a rifle scope, watching life unfold. Women hanging laundry on a rooftop. Men haggling over a hindquarter of lamb in the market. Children walking to school. I've watched this and hoped that someday I would see that my presence had made their lives better, a redemption of sorts. But I also peered through the scope waiting for someone to do something wrong, so I could shoot him. When you pick up a weapon with the intent of killing, you step onto a very strange and serious playing field. Every morning someone wakes wanting to kill you. When you walk down the street, they are waiting, and you want to kill them, too. That's not bloodthirsty; that's just the trade you've learned. And as an American soldier, you have a very impressive toolbox. You can fire your rifle or lob a grenade, and if that's not enough, call in the tanks, or helicopters, or jets. The insurgents have their skill sets, too, turning mornings at the market into chaos, crowds into scattered flesh, Humvees into charred scrap. You're all part of the terrible magic show, both powerful and helpless.
That men are drawn to war is no surprise. How old are boys before they turn a finger and thumb into a pistol? Long before they love girls, they love war, at least everything they imagine war to be: guns and explosions and manliness and courage. When my neighbors and I played war as kids, there was no fear or sorrow or cowardice. Death was temporary, usually as fast as you could count to sixty and jump back into the game. We didn't know yet about the darkness. And young men are just slightly older versions of those boys, still loving the unknown, perhaps pumped up on dreams of duty and heroism and the intoxicating power of weapons. In time, war dispels many such notions, and more than a few men find that being freed from society's professed revulsion to killing is really no freedom at all, but a lonely burden. Yet even at its lowest points, war is like nothing else. Our culture craves experience, and that is war's strong suit. War peels back the skin, and you live with a layer of nerves exposed, overdosing on your surroundings, when everything seems all wrong and just right, in a way that makes perfect sense. And then you almost die but don't, and are born again, stoned on life and mocking death. The explosions and gunfire fry your nerves, but you want to hear them all the same. Something's going down.
For those who know, this is the open secret: War is exciting. Sometimes I was in awe of this, and sometimes I felt low and mean for loving it, but I loved it still. Even in its quiet moments, war is brighter, louder, brasher, more fun, more tragic, more wasteful. More. More of everything. And even then I knew I would someday miss it, this life so strange. Today the war has distilled to moments and feelings, and somewhere in these memories is the reason for the wistfulness.
On one mission we slip away from our trucks and into the night. I lead the patrol through the darkness, along canals and fields and into the town, down narrow, hard-packed dirt streets. Everyone has gone to bed, or is at least inside. We peer through gates and over walls into courtyards and into homes. In a few rooms TVs flicker. A woman washes dishes in a tub. Dogs bark several streets away. No one knows we are in the street, creeping. We stop at intersections, peek around corners, training guns on parked cars, balconies, and storefronts. All empty. We move on. From a small shop up ahead, we hear men's voices and laughter. Maybe they used to sit outside at night, but now they are indoors, where it's safe. Safer. The sheet-metal door opens and a man steps out, cigarette and lighter in hand. He still wears a smile, takes in the cool night air, and then nearly falls backward through the doorway in a panic. I'm a few feet from him now and his eyes are wide. I mutter a greeting and we walk on, back into the darkness.
Another night we're lost in a dust storm. I'm in the passenger seat, trying to guide my driver and the three trucks behind us through this brown maelstrom. The headlights show nothing but swirling dirt. We've driven these roads for months, we know them well, but we see nothing. So we drive slow, trying to stay out of canals and people's kitchens. We curse and we laugh. This is bizarre but a great deal of fun.
Another night my platoon sergeant's truck is swallowed in flames, a terrible, beautiful, boiling bloom of red and orange and yellow, lighting the darkness for a moment. Somehow we don't die, one more time.
Another night, there's McCarthy bitching, the cherry of his cigarette bobbing in the dark, bitching that he won't be on the assault team, that he's stuck as a turret gunner for the night. We'd been out since early that morning, came back for dinner, and are preparing to raid a weapons dealer. Our first real raid. I heave my body armor onto my shoulders, settling its too-familiar weight. Then the helmet and first-aid kit and maps and radio and ammunition and rifle and all the rest. Now I look like everyone else, an arm of this strange and destructive organism, covered in armor and guns. We crowd around a satellite map spread across a Humvee hood and trace our route. Wells, my squad leader, rehearses our movements. Get in quick. Watch the danger zones. If he has a gun, kill him. I look around the group, at these faces I know so well, and feel the collective strength, this ridiculous power. The camaraderie of men in arms plays a part, for sure. The shared misery and euphoria and threat of death. But there is something more: the surrender of self, voluntary or not, to the machine. Do I believe in the war? Not important. Put that away and live in the moment, where little is knowable and even less is controllable, when my world narrows to one street, one house, one room, one door.
We pack into the trucks after midnight, and the convoy snakes out of camp and speeds toward the target house. I sit in a backseat and the fear settles in, a sharp burning in my stomach, same as the knot from hard liquor gulped too fast. I think about the knot. I'll be the first through the door. What if he starts shooting, hits me right in the face before I'm even through the doorway? What if there's two, or three? What if he pitches a grenade at us? And I think about it more and run through the scenarios, planning my movements, imagining myself clearing through the rooms, firing two rounds into the chest, and the knot fades.
The trucks drop us off several blocks from the target house and we slip into the night. As always, the dogs bark. We gather against the high wall outside the house and call in the trucks to block the streets. The action will pass in a flash. But here, before the chaos starts, when we're stacked against the wall, my friends' bodies pressed against me, hearing their quick breaths and my own, there's a moment to appreciate the gravity, the absurdity, the novelty, the joy of the moment. Is this real? Hearts beat strong. Hands grip tight on weapons. Reassurance. The rest of the world falls away. Who knows what's on the other side?
One, two, three, go. We push past the gate and across the courtyard and toward the house, barrels locked on the windows and roof. Wells runs up with the battering ram, a short, heavy pipe with handles, and launches it toward the massive wood door. The lock explodes, the splintered door flies open, and we rush through, just the way we've practiced hundreds of times. No one shoots me in the face. No grenades roll to my feet. I kick open doors. We scan darkened bedrooms with the flashlights on our rifles and move on to the next and the next.
He's gone, of course. We ransack his house, dumping drawers, flipping mattresses, punching holes in the ceiling. We find rifles and grenades and hundreds of pounds of gunpowder. And then, near dawn, we lie down on the thick carpets in his living room and sleep, exhausted and untroubled.
Many, many raids followed. We often raided houses late at night, so people awakened to soldiers bursting through their bedroom doors. Women and children wailed, terrified. Taking this in, I imagined what it would feel like if soldiers kicked down my door at midnight, if I could do nothing to protect my family. I would hate those soldiers. Yet I still reveled in the raids, their intensity and uncertainty. The emotions collided, without resolution.
My wife moved to Iraq partway through my second deployment to live in the north and train Iraqi journalists. She spent her evenings at restaurants and tea shops with her Iraqi friends. We spoke by cell phone, when the spotty network allowed, and she told me about this life I couldn't imagine, celebrating holidays with her colleagues and being invited into their homes. I didn't have any Iraqi friends, save for our few translators, and I'd rarely been invited into anyone's home. I told her of my life, the tedious days and frightful seconds, and she worried that in all of this I would lose my thoughtfulness and might stop questioning and just accept. But she didn't judge the work that I did, and I didn't tell her that I sometimes enjoyed it, that for stretches of time I didn't think about the greater implications, that it sometimes seemed like a game. I didn't tell her that death felt ever present and far away, and that either way, it didn't really seem to matter.
We both came back from Iraq, luckier than many. Two of my wife's students have been killed, among the scores of journalists to die in Iraq, and guys I served with are still dying, too. One came home from the war and shot himself on Thanksgiving. Another was blown up on Christmas in Baghdad.
Thinking of them, I felt disgusted with myself for missing the war and wondered if I was alone in this.
I don't think I am.
After watching the Internet videos, I called some of my friends who are out of the Army now, and they miss the war, too. Wells very nearly died in Iraq. A sniper shot him in the head, surgeons cut out half of his skull—a story told in this magazine last April—and he spent months in therapy, working back to his old self. Now he misses the high. "I don't want to sound like a psychopath, but you're like a god over there," he says. "It might not be the best kind of adrenaline for you, but it's a rush." Before Iraq, he didn't care for horror movies, and now he's drawn to them. He watches them for the little thrill, the rush of being startled, if just for a moment.
McCarthy misses the war just the same. He saved Wells's life, pressing a bandage over the hole in his head. Now he's delivering construction materials to big hotel projects along the beach in South Carolina, waiting for a police department to process his application. "The monotony is killing me," he told me, en route to deliver some rebar. "I want to go on a raid. I want something to blow up. I want something to change today." He wants the unknown. "Anything can happen, and it does happen. And all of the sudden your world is shattered, and everything has changed. It's living dangerously. You're living on the edge. And you're the baddest motherfucker around."
Mortal danger heightens the senses. That is simple animal instinct. We're more aware of how our world smells and sounds and tastes. This distorts and enriches experiences. Now I can have everything, but it's not as good as when I could have none of it. McCarthy and I stood on a rooftop one afternoon in Iraq running through a long list of the food we wanted. We made it to homemade pizza and icy beer when someone loosed a long burst of gunfire that cracked over our heads. We ran to the other side of the rooftop, but the gunman had disappeared down a long alleyway. Today my memory of that pizza and beer is stronger than if McCarthy and I had sat down together with the real thing before us.
And today we even speak with affection of wrestling a dead man into a body bag, because that was then. The bullet had laid his thigh wide open, shattered the femur, and shredded the artery, so he'd bled out fast, pumping much of his blood onto the sidewalk. We unfolded and unzipped the nylon sack and laid it alongside him. And then we stared for a moment, none of us ready to close that distance. I grabbed his forearm and dropped it, maybe instinct, maybe revulsion. He hovered so near this world, having just passed over, that he seemed to be sucking life from me, pulling himself back or taking me with him. He peeked at us through a half-opened eye. I stared down on him, his massive dead body, and again wrapped a hand around his wrist, thick and warm. The man was huge, taller than six feet and close to 250 pounds. We strained with the awkward weight, rolled him into the bag, and zipped him out of sight. My platoon sergeant gave two neighborhood kids five dollars to wash away the congealing puddle of blood. But the red handprint stayed on the wall, where the man had tried to brace himself before he fell. I think about him sometimes, splayed out on the sidewalk, and I think of how lucky I was never to have put a friend in one of those bags. Or be put in one myself.
But the memories, good and bad, are only part of the reason war holds its grip long after soldiers have come home. The war was urgent and intense and the biggest story going, always on the news stations and magazine covers. At home, though, relearning everyday life, the sense of mission can be hard to find. And this is not just about dim prospects and low-paying jobs in small towns. Leaving the war behind can be a letdown, regardless of opportunity or education or the luxuries waiting at home. People I'd never met sent me boxes of cookies and candy throughout my tours. When I left for two weeks of leave, I was cheered at airports and hugged by strangers. At dinner with my family one night, a man from the next table bought me a $400 bottle of wine. I was never quite comfortable with any of this, but they were heady moments nonetheless.
We live easy third-person lives but want a bit of the darkness. War fascinates because we live so far from its realities. Maybe we'd feel differently about watching bombs blow up on TV if we saw them up close, if we knew how explosions rip the air, throttle your brain, and make your ears ring, if we knew the strain of wondering whether the car next to you at a traffic light would explode or a bomb would land on your house as you sleep. I don't expect Iraqi soldiers would ever miss war. I have that luxury. I came home to peace, to a country that hasn't seen war within its borders for nearly 150 years. Yes, some boys come home dead. But we live here without the other terrors and tragedies of war—cities flattened and riven with chaos and fear, neighbors killing one another, a people made forever weary by the violence.
And so I miss it.
Every day in Iraq, if you have a job that takes you outside the wire, you stop just before the gate and make your final preparation for war. You pull out a magazine stacked with thirty rounds of ammunition, weighing just over a pound. You slide it into the magazine well of your rifle and smack it with the heel of your hand, driving it up. You pull the rifle's charging handle, draw the bolt back, and release. The bolt slides forward with a metallic snap, catching the top round and shoving it into the barrel. Chak-chuk. If I hear that a half century from now, I will know it in an instant. Unmistakable, and pregnant with possibility. On top of a diving board, as the grade-school-science explanation goes, you are potential energy. On the way down, you are kinetic energy. So I leave the gate and step off the diving board, my energy transformed.
But the memories, good and bad, are only part of the reason war holds its grip long after soldiers have come home. The war was urgent and intense and the biggest story going, always on the news stations and magazine covers. At home, though, relearning everyday life, the sense of mission can be hard to find. And this is not just about dim prospects and low-paying jobs in small towns. Leaving the war behind can be a letdown, regardless of opportunity or education or the luxuries waiting at home. People I'd never met sent me boxes of cookies and candy throughout my tours. When I left for two weeks of leave, I was cheered at airports and hugged by strangers. At dinner with my family one night, a man from the next table bought me a $400 bottle of wine. I was never quite comfortable with any of this, but they were heady moments nonetheless.
We live easy third-person lives but want a bit of the darkness. War fascinates because we live so far from its realities. Maybe we'd feel differently about watching bombs blow up on TV if we saw them up close, if we knew how explosions rip the air, throttle your brain, and make your ears ring, if we knew the strain of wondering whether the car next to you at a traffic light would explode or a bomb would land on your house as you sleep. I don't expect Iraqi soldiers would ever miss war. I have that luxury. I came home to peace, to a country that hasn't seen war within its borders for nearly 150 years. Yes, some boys come home dead. But we live here without the other terrors and tragedies of war—cities flattened and riven with chaos and fear, neighbors killing one another, a people made forever weary by the violence.
And so I miss it.
Every day in Iraq, if you have a job that takes you outside the wire, you stop just before the gate and make your final preparation for war. You pull out a magazine stacked with thirty rounds of ammunition, weighing just over a pound. You slide it into the magazine well of your rifle and smack it with the heel of your hand, driving it up. You pull the rifle's charging handle, draw the bolt back, and release. The bolt slides forward with a metallic snap, catching the top round and shoving it into the barrel. Chak-chuk. If I hear that a half century from now, I will know it in an instant. Unmistakable, and pregnant with possibility. On top of a diving board, as the grade-school-science explanation goes, you are potential energy. On the way down, you are kinetic energy. So I leave the gate and step off the diving board, my energy transformed.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
1st gear is a little tricky!
That was the start of the journey. Turned out to be an understatement. Add to that, “If you can’t find it grind it” and countless numbers of whiplashing brake checks that would have snapped off the head from a bobble head doll, that’s how the journey to Arifjan went from Buehring. Mind you, it’s a 2-2.5hr trip that took 4hours. How, I still don’t know. But then, the trip from Kalsu to Adder was only supposed to be a 4 hr. trip and it took nearly 10 hrs. That’s the Cav. for ya. Drivers in Kuwait are nuts. More so than Iraq, I think. A car cut off our bus from behind the truck just forward and to the right of us. I mean, if this car was 15’ long, he had 16’ to maneuver! And our driver would see the bus in front of us slowing down, brake lights blazing and he wouldn’t stop or even slow down until he was forced to SLAM on his brakes. Normally that’s jarring in a car with hydraulic brakes, but air brakes are just downright brutal. Add in the fact that I was tired and trying to sleep, I hear the squeal, raise my head just in time for the brakes to grab and bounce my forehead off the seatback in front of me. Ay yi yi! Crazy I tell ya! Now once we got close to Camp Arifjan, at the outskirts of the nearby city, we had a police escort. That was cool. They’d fly past us, stop traffic at intersections so we could roll thru red lights. Felt like a VIP! But they are crazy drivers too!!! All in all, we FINALLY made it and had the evening off. Walking around the camp, that place is HUGE. Way bigger than Camp Buehring. We were in Zone 6 which I guess is transient housing for units drawing vehicles, and had to drop paperwork off at the TMC in Zone 1. Taking a bus (yeah, it’s that big, no walking!) we ended up over there and were floored. They had a REAL track (that rubber stuff) and a turf soccer field. The fake kind with the little rubber pellets. They also have a pool, 2 PXs, the obligatory Starbucks and a Hardee’s. That’s Carl’s Jr. for you West Coast people.
Early the following A.M. we woke up got chow and coffee then went to the draw yard. Who has 2 thumbs and forgot to put on sunscreen thereby getting wind and sun burned? THIS GUY! Yeah. I’m rocking the raccoon eyes for a bit as my cheeks are RED. Kinda like a good day at the Wedge or Big Bear. Just not as fun ha-ha. But my Sr. medic and I got our vehicle checked out, all done and had hours to spare. We got back in time for dinner and then bed. The next morning we got to sleep in a bit, then formed up to go back “home”. Buehring being home. A bad omen was the busses showing up 30-40 minutes late. THEN we go and sit in a staging line for 30 min to an hr. I mean WTF, I’m sure there’s a legit reason, but I coulda used getting on the road in a timely manner! On our way back, we got the police escort, but these weren’t normal cops. Normal cops don’t drive camo pickups with machine guns in the back. Not even in Kuwait (I think lol) But on our way back got to see a lot of Bedouin tents. It was highway, then 100m off was the tents and then a 1000m away was a town/city. Very interesting. As you leave the city the number of tents drops too. Near Ali Al Saleem Air Base was a Bedouin camp w/ a herd of camels. Very cool. Being in Arifjan you had to REALLY remind yourself you were in the Middle East, more than we have to do here at Buehring. Driving into AJ (short name for Arifjan) you can see past the refineries and oil pipes and such and see the ocean. SO close yet SO far!
A band crossed my radar about a year ago. Alestorm. Scottish pirate metal. What is pirate metal? Well, it’s a heavy/speed metal band that sings about being pirates. Everyone knows pirates are cooler than ninjas. It blends Pirates of the Caribbean with Iron Maiden and Dragonforce. Pretty cool stuff. It makes a long drive go by faster and makes you wanna hit the ocean. One song, “Back through Time” is about getting time warped from the pirate age to the Viking age and destroying Vikings. Entertaining to say the least. This is the perfect music to listen to while playing Battle Pirates on Facebook.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Occupy.....Starbucks
So the Army has this wonderful idea of making these mandatory online courses. Problem is, internet around the living tents SUCKS. But Starbucks has GREAT internet. So, i go and start my courses. 5 days later, i've finished my courses but have found that i pretty much live there. save myself the effort, i should move my locker and bed down here and leave to go to PT formation. The Venti Caramel Latte is on the verge of being renamed. And then i discovered the White Mocha. this sin in a cup is NOT good. it tastes delicious, but is of the devil. You drink it knowing that you are headed down a bad path. and then you order another and another. All this time online has led me to the phenomenon of Battle Pirates. Basically the bastard offspring of Command & Conquer and POTC (Pirates of The Caribbean). So with all this time spent at Starbucks, my family thought it genius to send their son gift cards for Christmas. ANYWHERE else in the world, awesome idea, perfectly executed. However. the ONE starbucks that i have in my AO, doesn't accept them. "The one downtown does" says the barista. WTF?!?! I can't GET "downtown" and he says downtown all nonchalantly as if i was in LA by the Colosseum and a tourist asked me where the Staples Center is. THAT is downtown. like a couple miles away. NOT 4 HRS away!
Its illegal to walk in the road on post. Do it and you're slapped with a $25 ticket. I'd frame that! But its odd. what is the street? The street is very different than the sidewalk, mind you. The sidewalk is DIRT or SAND with some rocks. the street, on the other hand, is vastly different: It's gravel, with some dirt and sand. Easy. no confusion. Roger. Tracking. Horse puckey! you start out on the "sidewalk" and then BAM! you're in the middle of the road. its like Doc Brown altered the Space-Time continuum and you shifted grid squares.
So, this medic is bored. fortunately the CO signed my Tuition Assistance paper so i can go to REAL college and the legitimately need starbucks just to stay awake. On a side note. its interesting, that we make fun of the beret wearing starbucks patrons and in a strange twist, we ARE beret wearing (not as much anymore) patrons. Only difference, we're trained killers, not haiku writing pansies who wouldn't even wear a free-range organic leather cut from the hide of an already dead cow belt.
Tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel, same bat drink, one step closer to bat-shit crazy.
Its illegal to walk in the road on post. Do it and you're slapped with a $25 ticket. I'd frame that! But its odd. what is the street? The street is very different than the sidewalk, mind you. The sidewalk is DIRT or SAND with some rocks. the street, on the other hand, is vastly different: It's gravel, with some dirt and sand. Easy. no confusion. Roger. Tracking. Horse puckey! you start out on the "sidewalk" and then BAM! you're in the middle of the road. its like Doc Brown altered the Space-Time continuum and you shifted grid squares.
So, this medic is bored. fortunately the CO signed my Tuition Assistance paper so i can go to REAL college and the legitimately need starbucks just to stay awake. On a side note. its interesting, that we make fun of the beret wearing starbucks patrons and in a strange twist, we ARE beret wearing (not as much anymore) patrons. Only difference, we're trained killers, not haiku writing pansies who wouldn't even wear a free-range organic leather cut from the hide of an already dead cow belt.
Tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel, same bat drink, one step closer to bat-shit crazy.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
I.N.T.C.
So after completing our mission in Iraq, we've convoyed south to Kuwait. Instead of goin home right away, we get to "stay n play" so to speak. I was struck the other day, in the midst of formations and just overall surroundings, that this feels like being at NTC at Fort Irwin, CA. We arrive at Buerhing in July, spend a couple weeks there (like RUBA at NTC), head north into Iraq (the Sandbox) for our war games and field exercises, then rotate back into Buerhing (RUBA again) to prep our stuff to go home. It feels a little surreal. Like i'm not REALLY in the middle east. In Kuwait, there are no mortar attacks, Improvised Explosive Devices, improvised rockets, or people shooting at you. It's easy to get complacent here. Military bearing is KEY. We're in garrison, but still deployed. You've gotta remember to keep hands outta pockets, salute officers and then there are the bugles. Reveille, retreat, Taps, etc. JUST LIKE HOME.
So, the question gets asked to every soldier, whether its by family, friends, strangers, reporters, or each other: Was it worth it? And to me, the answer is always "Yes." In varying degrees, this conflict, this war, was worth the blood and sweat and tears that American service members gave. The lives laid down, opened up this region to democracy. Some people say "Well, it was better under Saddam." To them i say really? Power/electricity generation and distribution is 2x what it was PRIOR to the invasion. The sacrifices made by our soldiers and marines also have contributed, albeit out of necessity, to the medical community in ways previously unimagined. Tourniquets are being used in the private sector to save lives AND limbs, IV fluids like Hextend are being used on patients prior to arriving at a trauma room. Hextend boosts blood volume and blood volume only. Where normal saline will temporarily refill the blood vessels, by its neutral nature, it quickly is absorbed through osmosis into the intercellular spaces and into the surrounding cells, allowing the blood pressure to drop. Hextend stays in the blood stream, allowing less fluid to be used overall (avoiding dilution) and increasing the chances of the patient. Breakthroughs in artificial limbs, recognition and treatment of head injuries, ALL have occured because of the war. Negatives influencing the positives. Newton's Laws stripped down to humanity's level. For every action there is a reaction. in this case, for every negative (battlefield casualties) comes a positive (better treatments, training and skills that not only benefit future soldiers, but the entire civilian population as well).
So, again, was it worth it? Yes. But thats all i'll say about that. I know of people who aren't returning home alive, and i have close friends who are forever affected by that. But, how dare you try and say we accomplished nothing. That all our blood, sweat, tears, time and lives were all for naught.
To my brothers and sisters, HOOAH, OOHRAH and SEMPER FI!
So, the question gets asked to every soldier, whether its by family, friends, strangers, reporters, or each other: Was it worth it? And to me, the answer is always "Yes." In varying degrees, this conflict, this war, was worth the blood and sweat and tears that American service members gave. The lives laid down, opened up this region to democracy. Some people say "Well, it was better under Saddam." To them i say really? Power/electricity generation and distribution is 2x what it was PRIOR to the invasion. The sacrifices made by our soldiers and marines also have contributed, albeit out of necessity, to the medical community in ways previously unimagined. Tourniquets are being used in the private sector to save lives AND limbs, IV fluids like Hextend are being used on patients prior to arriving at a trauma room. Hextend boosts blood volume and blood volume only. Where normal saline will temporarily refill the blood vessels, by its neutral nature, it quickly is absorbed through osmosis into the intercellular spaces and into the surrounding cells, allowing the blood pressure to drop. Hextend stays in the blood stream, allowing less fluid to be used overall (avoiding dilution) and increasing the chances of the patient. Breakthroughs in artificial limbs, recognition and treatment of head injuries, ALL have occured because of the war. Negatives influencing the positives. Newton's Laws stripped down to humanity's level. For every action there is a reaction. in this case, for every negative (battlefield casualties) comes a positive (better treatments, training and skills that not only benefit future soldiers, but the entire civilian population as well).
So, again, was it worth it? Yes. But thats all i'll say about that. I know of people who aren't returning home alive, and i have close friends who are forever affected by that. But, how dare you try and say we accomplished nothing. That all our blood, sweat, tears, time and lives were all for naught.
To my brothers and sisters, HOOAH, OOHRAH and SEMPER FI!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Of Mice and Men
As we wind down here at COS Kalsu, we start looking forward to the next phase. Kuwait, then home. However, sometimes a light scratching or squeak brings you hurtling back to the present. I’m in a metal box where the sound of birds and mice on the roof is bad enough as it is, and I have a furry companion that decides it likes my rice crispy treats more than I do. Maybe it’s the warmth and free food. MAYBE it’s my charming personality. I’m gonna go with the former. Having spotted this invader a few weeks ago, I thought he was gone. That was until I grabbed a rice crispy treat prior to patrol without looking, only to find a hole nibbled in it and a decent chunk eaten out of it. Blasted creature. Then I found the hole. I plugged it up good n tight and thought “There, now I have beaten you, Jerry.” Until last night, when I felt the little bastard on my arm and leg as I groggily woke from my dreamscape. I saw him multiple times this morning, attempted to catch or corner him just as many times, my futility often making the little bugger laugh. Now I know what you’re thinking. “But Nash, mice can’t laugh at you.” Oh, but they can and will. Taunting you with a flash of light brown as they dart from behind the fridge to the locker. Or as they perch on your waste basket, peering in as if to ask “what goodies have you left me in here?” The sound of little claws scurrying on the linoleum, or as he sits under my bed squeaking away, teasing, and LAUGHING. Anyways, I digress. With the help of my roommate, I cornered, caught and dispatched the little squeaky nuisance so he will never disturb another soldier just trying to make it to the next day and the next and the next until we’re on our way home.
Haji, however, doesn’t give 2 shits about that. They launched 7 mortars at the COS, yet hit nothing. That’s not to say they weren’t close. They were DAMN close. One was so close it rattled my CHU like a Cali Quake. I even thought that at first, but then snapped back and went “wait, I’m in Iraq. Time to head to the bunker!” It’s been cold. REAL cold. Not just crisp. That’s reserved for the day time. At night, it’s been getting down around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s pretty damn cold for this area. Day time highs reach maybe 75-80 now. It’s a big difference than when we first got here. I’ve found myself comparing the daytime to October or November in Cali. Bright blue skies, super crisp. Like New Year’s Day after it rains, and its 60 degrees, light breeze and you can see snow on Mt Baldy.
So as I’m writing this, NO SHIT, I hear a noise coming from my ACU top hanging up. I see it moving. I’m thinking “WTF?!?!” I open the door, grab the shirt and turn it around. I HAVE A FUCKING MOUSE ON IT! So I hit the inside of my shirt and sent the little shit FLYING out the door. Man. Like Jacob Marley coming back to scare Scrooge. Hopefully that’s the last of him! Aye yi yi!
After being told we’d be home by the end of the year, we were let down when it was revealed that instead, we’d be doing our full year tour, but in Kuwait. I just want to get home. See my girlfriend, my family and my friends. It’s barely been 4.5 months and it feels like forever. Stupid garrison style rules that make no sense in a combat zone, make being in country difficult. Patrols are welcome as they get us away from that. They allow us to sample the local food, which I think is delicious. Having spotty internet and no mail really drags. Fortunately we’re almost outta here. Until next time. Vanilla Gorilla, out!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Another Month Down and the Trip of a Lifetime
Wow, time really flies when you're constantly busy. Everyday is the same thing, just different times. And when you wake up late at night to go out early in the am, to return mid-morning, and then have lunch, gym then back to sleep all afternoon, the days disappear. Its a vicious cycle that can break you off. The monotony will get to you. You forget what day of the week it is. Your only reminder that it's Sunday again is when you go to lunch chow and are greeted by an omelet bar. Oh yeah, its Sunday Brunch....again. Its been 1 full moon cycle, 5 loads of laundry, 3 haircuts and here we are again. Only difference was 2 weeks ago we had the opportunity to escort some people from the State Dept out to the ruins of Babylon. Yup. THAT Babylon. The Babylon that is an hour away, was ruled by Nebuchadnezzar 1 AND 2, conquered by the Persians and Alexander the Great, and saw the likes of Ezekiel, Daniel, Jeremiah, and BFF's Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
Listening to the US archaeologist, I felt catapulted into an Indiana Jones movie. Only he wore a "Welcome to Egypt" Gilligan hat instead of a sweet fedora. He had the satchel, the local head garb worn as a scarf/ascot, and was a real archaeologist. However, no whip or 5 o'clock (and then some) shadow, so he lost major cool points. However, walking around the ruins, I felt like all of a sudden Nazi troops would appear, or the roof of some temple would be discovered and opened releasing gas and lightning, or I'd hear "snakes....why'd it have to be SNAKES?!?!" Raiders of the Lost Ark not withstanding, we were among buildings built in 600 BC, and earlier. Some were 3500 years old! Walking a good 4 km, we walked passed guard towers erected in the Invasion of 2003 (since this land had been invaded multiple times throughout history), the footprint of the Tower of Babylon, and a pit that had tons of pottery shards scattered about. From high up on this vantage point we could see the old palace of Nebuchadnezzar that had been rebuilt in the 80's by Saddam Hussein. Brick by brick, he rebuilt the palace ON TOP of the buried, existing walls and foundations. I learned that in 1900, the Germans excavated this place, only to BURY it again to hide it during the wars. Yup, Indiana Jones easily could have been here too. It was funny but the Indiana Jones theme song was echoing in my brain as we walked around.
Now, at the palace, there is a fenced off area surround the ORIGINAL King's Road. The pavement still exists, in its original form, albeit littered with some water bottles here and there. We had an Iraqi guide who worked on the excavation and rebuilding between 87-03. Hearing a Muslim man refer to the Bible and Torah and talk about Daniel and Ezekiel and others was pretty surreal. He took us down hallways and into various rooms, the palace was labyrinth. He showed us original sun baked bricks that had cuneiform inscriptions indicating it was laid during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I. He showed us the throne room that had held the kings of Babylon as well as saw the reign and death of Alexander the Great. I was able to gaze on the wall (or the recreation) that God Himself scribed with his finger during a royal feast. And the Muslim mentioned this! Incredible! After exiting the palace, we walked amongst the ramparts of the city walls. a maze of tunnels and pathways. Original masonry still intact. The walls were so thick and so tall, it was intimidating as rubble, a soldier could only imagine what it would have a) been like to gaze upon them as an invading army with primitive siege weaponry, and b) the horror of the occupying army watching the invaders breaching your massive and presumed impenetrable defenses. Massive engineering overcome by massive will power. Following that, we saw the Ishtar Gate, with the 3d bricks. These are multiple bricks that have protrusions that when laid together into the wall, create the image of animals. Now the Ishtar gate was reserved for the priest and he was the most powerful man in Babylon. More powerful than even the King. I was disappointed that i couldn't locate the site of the furnace, or the lion's den. However, the CURRENT Ishtar gate is built on top of the original, which due to hydroelectric project on the Euphrates has raised the water table and covers the original walls.
After that, we drove up to Saddam's palace. WOW. This place was MASSIVE. from a basketball court sized room over looking the Euphrates with floor to ceiling windows offering a 180 degree view to the roof some 50-70 feet above the ground, the tallest point for MILES. Hidden staircases and rooms and bathrooms EVERYWHERE. And also not a single pane of glass left intact, 99% of the doors gone, and TONS of pigeon crap was everywhere. The walls were tagged with Arabic graffiti and every light switch, outlet, and the covers were gone. Oddly, most of the marble was still intact. One of the bathroom door jambs had a pull up bar installed when the military used it as a base during the invasion.
All and all it was an amazing trip. One that 160+ pictures can't even begin to describe. "You had to be there" is an understatement. Hopefully, once all "this" is over and the region hopefully stabilizes, I'd like to return, retrace my steps, and see it all again. This time, without having to wear body armor and carry and M4 (you know, JUST IN CASE someone decides to make it past all the Iraqi Police securing the area)
Listening to the US archaeologist, I felt catapulted into an Indiana Jones movie. Only he wore a "Welcome to Egypt" Gilligan hat instead of a sweet fedora. He had the satchel, the local head garb worn as a scarf/ascot, and was a real archaeologist. However, no whip or 5 o'clock (and then some) shadow, so he lost major cool points. However, walking around the ruins, I felt like all of a sudden Nazi troops would appear, or the roof of some temple would be discovered and opened releasing gas and lightning, or I'd hear "snakes....why'd it have to be SNAKES?!?!" Raiders of the Lost Ark not withstanding, we were among buildings built in 600 BC, and earlier. Some were 3500 years old! Walking a good 4 km, we walked passed guard towers erected in the Invasion of 2003 (since this land had been invaded multiple times throughout history), the footprint of the Tower of Babylon, and a pit that had tons of pottery shards scattered about. From high up on this vantage point we could see the old palace of Nebuchadnezzar that had been rebuilt in the 80's by Saddam Hussein. Brick by brick, he rebuilt the palace ON TOP of the buried, existing walls and foundations. I learned that in 1900, the Germans excavated this place, only to BURY it again to hide it during the wars. Yup, Indiana Jones easily could have been here too. It was funny but the Indiana Jones theme song was echoing in my brain as we walked around.
Now, at the palace, there is a fenced off area surround the ORIGINAL King's Road. The pavement still exists, in its original form, albeit littered with some water bottles here and there. We had an Iraqi guide who worked on the excavation and rebuilding between 87-03. Hearing a Muslim man refer to the Bible and Torah and talk about Daniel and Ezekiel and others was pretty surreal. He took us down hallways and into various rooms, the palace was labyrinth. He showed us original sun baked bricks that had cuneiform inscriptions indicating it was laid during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I. He showed us the throne room that had held the kings of Babylon as well as saw the reign and death of Alexander the Great. I was able to gaze on the wall (or the recreation) that God Himself scribed with his finger during a royal feast. And the Muslim mentioned this! Incredible! After exiting the palace, we walked amongst the ramparts of the city walls. a maze of tunnels and pathways. Original masonry still intact. The walls were so thick and so tall, it was intimidating as rubble, a soldier could only imagine what it would have a) been like to gaze upon them as an invading army with primitive siege weaponry, and b) the horror of the occupying army watching the invaders breaching your massive and presumed impenetrable defenses. Massive engineering overcome by massive will power. Following that, we saw the Ishtar Gate, with the 3d bricks. These are multiple bricks that have protrusions that when laid together into the wall, create the image of animals. Now the Ishtar gate was reserved for the priest and he was the most powerful man in Babylon. More powerful than even the King. I was disappointed that i couldn't locate the site of the furnace, or the lion's den. However, the CURRENT Ishtar gate is built on top of the original, which due to hydroelectric project on the Euphrates has raised the water table and covers the original walls.
After that, we drove up to Saddam's palace. WOW. This place was MASSIVE. from a basketball court sized room over looking the Euphrates with floor to ceiling windows offering a 180 degree view to the roof some 50-70 feet above the ground, the tallest point for MILES. Hidden staircases and rooms and bathrooms EVERYWHERE. And also not a single pane of glass left intact, 99% of the doors gone, and TONS of pigeon crap was everywhere. The walls were tagged with Arabic graffiti and every light switch, outlet, and the covers were gone. Oddly, most of the marble was still intact. One of the bathroom door jambs had a pull up bar installed when the military used it as a base during the invasion.
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