Chapter Seven

          Without delving into the obvious cliché that juxtaposes my relationships with both 6th graders and Jihadists, I will simply state: children scare the hell out of me.   

          Maybe “scare” is the wrong term because I’m pretty sure I could handle myself if a group of them decided to launch a surprise attack.  But I certainly don’t like them very much.  This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone familiar with my past as it would indicate that I didn’t really like any of them when I was a child myself.  It turns out that sarcasm doesn’t make you very popular until your peers start catching on.  Even then, it’s marginal.   

          Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on The Western Front, spends most of chapter seven describing the main character Paul’s return to his hometown on furlough from the fighting.  In the only portion of the story that takes the reader away from the trench warfare of WWI, Paul confronts a personal hell when reuniting with his grieving and sickly mother, his curious father, and a handful of pompous politicos who claim a more thorough knowledge of the war in which he has fought for years.  In the novel, Paul holds back from relating the truth about his gruesome reality in an effort to ease his mother’s fear and maintain his mental reserves for the inevitable return.  Truthful descriptions of the front may also brand him as unpatriotic or aggrandizing.  He eventually breaks down in his mother’s arms and weeps for his lost childhood.       

          I’ve read chapter seven several times over the past few years.  I guess it helps to know that disassociation with civilians is a typical experience for soldiers and maybe I’m not as big an asshole as I sometimes feel.  My most recent return is substantially less difficult than my first.  I had a much less exciting tour, I’ve grown up a little, and maybe my loved ones just expect a lot less.  But let’s be serious, old Paul Baumer was a million times tougher than me and he fought in a time when war was hard.  It’s not like I was out bayoneting the wounded or choking on mustard gas over there.  We had ice cream sundaes and Internet for God’s sake!

          But our returning “heroes” can expect a certain amount of oddness.  While deployed, they are inundated daily with news and information concerning the Iraq war and all that goes with it.  It can be surprising to come home and remind yourself that it just hasn’t been news for at least a couple years.  I guess the general public thinks we’ve won or at least there are fewer of us over there.  For the record, troop levels in Iraq remain above 130,000 (higher than pre-surge) and this does not include the tens of thousands in Afghanistan, and those numbers continue to grow.    

          I don’t waste any time blaming the media for ignoring the wars.  They’ve gotten pretty boring.  Ask anyone over there, they’ll tell you how bored they are.  But it may be interesting for viewers to hear the occasional story about how much everything costs.  Because if there’s one thing that television likes to tell me about, it’s money.  You can’t seem to avoid an economy story unless there’s some sort of ongoing pirate saga.  Pirates?  Seriously?  I’m only glad that the Navy finally has something to do while they’re out floating around.  Now if we could only figure out a way to keep our Air Force relevant…   

          So without the news saying anything about the war, it really is up to the men and women serving to relate whatever they can.  This is a remarkably tall order.  It’s easy to feel like an expert when everyone knows so little.  On the other hand, it can be very uncomfortable describing anything due to the background information required to put any story or situation into context.  It’s much easier to just remain quiet and spare everyone the awkwardness of listening to stories full of acronyms.  I find myself talking about farm animals a lot.  They seem to be a rare subject where the listener and I can find common ground.  And who doesn’t like a good goat story.   

          But let me get back to those kids.    

          Ninety pairs of beady little eyes gripped me with the kind of intensity you’d expect be reserved for the Jonas Brothers.  I felt a little drippy palm-sweat moisten my shirt cuffs and my heart tried to beat through my chest.  I was honestly amused at how incredibly terrified I was to be talking to these little devils.  I can’t remember the last time I was so nervous.   

          My sister Jennie, a 6th grade English teacher and the coordinator of this impromptu “assembly” introduced me as her little brother who just got back from Iraq.  “He’s really nervous, so be nice and keep the questions appropriate.”  I wasn’t thrilled to hear her describe me as nervous.  I was doing my best to look cool. Cool and threatening.  One kid told me to just picture them all in their underwear.  I told him I thought I could get arrested for that kind of stuff.  He shrugged in what I perceived was agreement, and I took a second to reflect on how deeply aware our society had become concerning sexual predation.  I’m not sure if that’s a necessarily a positive cultural trait.  Either way, I was uncomfortable enough with everyone’s clothes on.  I ignored his suggestion and just went straight into my farm animal material.  “Hey, bet you don’t know how much cows like to eat garbage?”   

          Remarque’s characters may have dealt with a much harsher reality.  And while they served in a time of nationalistic fervor that catalyzed their enlistment and subsequent sacrifices for the good of the homeland, they were never expected to field the questions of pre-adolescents.   

          And the questions are always good ones.  I was five minutes into the presentation when I heard it:  “Did you kill anybody?”   

          Jennie covered her face and peered at me through the cracks of her fingers, no doubt recognizing this as a query outside of the aforementioned “appropriate question” category.  But I had prepped for it:  

          “Actually I killed a few people on the way over here.  Oh, you meant in the war.  Well, in that case, no.”  

          If you like freedom, thank a vet.  If you don’t mind being disappointed, ask him a question.  

Reintegration

          Before anyone leaves a war zone, the Army insists on providing that soldier with “reintegration” training. It’s related in the same manner you’d expect if you were learning how clear a weapons’ jam or change a tire. Only in the Army would people believe that integrating oneself into society is something that you could be trained on in a two-hour block of instruction.  If I had known in high school that successful integration required only a two-hour class, I may have avoided more of that taunting and harassment. 

          The phrase itself is odd: “Reintegration”. It assumes that we were well-integrated before we left…. we weren’t: look at our haircuts. 

          The training is mandatory, and aims to prevent unspeakable violence that may be committed by some of our more unstable compatriots.  This type of violence is real, it is tragic, and it is more frequent than most folks may be aware.  There is nothing funny about it, no matter how hard I try.   

But this is about me.   

          Do you realize that I am returning in the middle of the American Idol’s 7th season?  Do you have any idea how hard it is to catch up with something like that?  Who the hell is this new judge and what makes her important enough to sit between Paula and Randy?       

          Also, I have been made aware of some sort of auto industry meltdown…  It sounded pretty terrible until I realized what a great deal I could get on that Buick I always wanted.  As a thrifty consumer, I felt I should hold off on buying one until I really needed the extra space for my walker and colostomy bag.  But look out Bridge club! I might be rollin’ in a Lucerne next Monday! 

          While the Army could not prepare me for everything, they did warn me about the family stuff. Chaplains are the ones who give us the training and they say things like, “It will be different.  They’ve changed, you’ve changed.  Your kids will be on a schedule that you’re not familiar with.”  

          This is something that my friends with children always mention.  They feel like spectators in their homes.  While you’re gone, everyone figures it out without you.  I know men who have missed the births of all their children and, conversely, their wives have had the unique opportunity to drive themselves to the delivery room.  Sounds like fun, right?  Yet people still ask Melissa and I why we haven’t had children. 

          “The problems that you had when you left will still be there.” I’ve got one of those problems, it’s called a house and no one seems to want to buy those things anymore.  If anyone reading this would like a house: CALL ME.

          I wasn’t expecting them to cover physical intimacy, but they did. The chaplain displayed a slide with a picture of a hair dryer next to a slow cooker.  This was an attempt to highlight the differences in men and women’s approaches to sex.  Slow cookers require more foreplay apparently.  That’s all I will say about that, I’m still feeling uncomfortable. 

          “Just remember that things will be complicated and you need to be understanding of the new rhythm.  Don’t let little changes upset you, and don’t respond inappropriately to the big changes.” 

          What the chaplain was alluding to with that statement is the embarrassing track record that the Army has garnered concerning domestic violence following deployments.  “Letting the little changes upset you” probably refers to the open hand slap-method of conflict resolution.  As for the “big changes”… He’s talking about those deployment-induced bouts of infidelity.  They are rampant on either side of the ocean and the R-rated vault of racy stories that I possess concerning this phenomenon is best left off the Internet. 

          It’s the “big changes” that make people hurt themselves or someone else.  The Army is trending above the national averages on both suicides and violence in general.  They have responded with massive amounts of new training to confront the problem.  A new interactive video has been released to teach us how to deal with our stress and how to identify warning signs in others.  Of course, if we deployed a little less I imagine the numbers would improve.  But a video can’t hurt I guess. 

          I left Iraq well trained in reintegration techniques and procedures.  I was prepared to reintegrate with anyone I came across: friend, stranger or loved one.  I figured I wouldn’t know exactly how to react until I was forced into a real reintegration situation and then hopefully my training would just take over.    

          

          Melissa probably dry-cleans more clothing than any other American.  Each week, great mountains of clothing avoid our hamper in order to take that special trip down the street to the place where they can receive the essential combination of heat, chemicals and big plastic baggies.  As her errand-runner, I have a surprisingly close relationship to the staff at our dry-cleaner of choice. Fresh from the war, she probably noticed my heightened sensitivity and broke the news to me gently, “we’re using a different dry cleaner.” 

          The words hit me like a ton of bricks, “What happened?”  I assumed it was a matter of damaged buttons or maybe they switched to those really flimsy hangers that just seem to fold in half when you’ve got a really heavy coat. 

          “They laid off that nice little Irish lady that worked there.” 

          “Linda?  Those bastards, why?”  Linda had been like family.  Not so much like my family but probably to someone else at the very least.  She had the sweetest disposition and an Irish accent that made the whole dry cleaning experience seem effortless and refreshing like a stroll among the moors on a foggy day, or like cutting open my soap and taking a satisfying whiff before showering.  You know, Irish stuff.   

          Melissa, sensing my anger and aware of the fact that I had just left a war zone assured me that Linda would be okay.  She was now a sandwich artist at the Subway next door to the cleaners.  Her former employers hired someone as a replacement and were clearly paying him much less, given his tendency to not understand English.  “We’ve started going to the Korean people in the place next to the new Starbucks.”             

          I wasn’t sure how to react to all of this.  “Have you at least been to the new Subway?"

          Melissa frowned and I remembered that she developed a fear of lunch meat sometime in 2007 and rarely eats it anymore.  She’s sworn off Subway completely.  Its clinical name is “subaphobia” but may also be referred to as hero- grinder- or hoagie- phobia depending on your preferred regionalism associated with long sandwiches.             

          I took off with my mind full of questions and a back seat full of blouses. I couldn’t help eyeing the old Korean woman suspiciously as she sorted my enormous pile of garments.  As I left I decided that I’d stop by the Subway myself and maybe say hello.  I didn’t want to eat anything, I had just purchased a delicious muffin from the Starbucks next to the cleaners.  It was pretty convenient.             

           I looked for Linda but she must not have been working, and that left me just standing there staring at the kid behind the register.  He asked if I needed help and I told him I was just looking, as if window-shopping for cold cuts was a perfectly normal activity.

          The little bell rang behind me as I left, it’s lilting sound betraying the dark cloud of confusion and melancholy settling over me as I headed back to my car.  I gripped the steering wheel and tried to make sense of the world that had changed without me.  Muffin crumbs bounced down my shirtfront as I tried to make sense of it all.              

          Can that new lady really add something to my beloved panel of judges?  Am I ever going to feel good about my dry-cleaning again?  Is there a Buick in this world that’s right for me?  Did I remember to turn on the slow-cooker?              

          This is reintegration.  It’s not easy, but I’ll get through it.  I’ve been trained for this.     

The "War" is over

          We are no longer fighting the Global War on Terrorism. Before anyone gets too excited about such an announcement, they need to understand that it is purely a matter of semantics. Wouldn’t want anyone surrendering his or her position in Iraq based solely on verbiage. In an attempt to change people’s perception of the military’s ongoing foray into world policing, we have altered it’s title, softened the language, and proven once again that there is no problem or controversy too great that it cannot be solved with a thesaurus. According to our commander in chief, we should now refer to our “stuff” in Southwest Asia as Overseas Contingency Operations. Whatever. Does it mean I can come home yet? Turning a euphemism into another euphemism is one of those things that they should have a word for: euphomorphosis maybe. Either way, I think it’s pretty stupid.

          My personal politics are not a well-kept secret, but the only thing I enjoy more than picking on conservatives is poking fun at anyone who’s in charge. Because people in charge are ALWAYS clueless (ask anyone that works for you). In this case, the Obama administration has failed to adhere to a fundamental tenet of leadership: coming up with new names for shit doesn’t change anything. When John Cougar Mellencamp became just John Mellencamp, it didn’t make “Hurt So Good” suck any less.

          My problem is: I really liked The Global War on Terrorism (as a title, of course, not an endeavor). Being a soldier, I swim in a verbal cesspool of acronyms and I’ve learned that good ones are hard to come by. The abrupt, manly sound of GWOT (pronounced “gwaught”) made my life here in Iraq seem exciting and important. The military gave us a special GWOT medal for simply serving during this war and I was expecting another as soon as we had it won. Should I expect some sort of “Contingency” medal? It sounds like a parting gift.

          There was a lot of stuff you could do with the term GWOT. Add a suffix and you get a career: GWOTer. Add a prefix and you can describe someone’s lack of dedication to the mission: “That was very unGWOT of you, Jim.” You could hyphenate it, thereby adding a second syllable and an all-around badass flavor: “G-WOT”. Drop the G and you have just a “War on Terror” and, ironically, the answer to all the world’s problem disguised as a question word: WOT? I don’t even know. It has been said (mostly by me) that Petraeus’s surge would have been even more successful had they stuck with the original name: “GWOT thrust”.

          What am I supposed to do with OCO? Pronounced as its own word it sounds like some sort of healthy organic cereal. It’s probably one of those with all the bark and twigs in it that you’d find at Whole Foods next to the flax seed oil. My colon might be excited about it but the rest of me is just worried about explosive diarrhea.

          The only legitimate problem that I had with the old title was the fact that it didn’t make any sense whatsoever. We’ve all heard the complaints: How can we possibly fight all terrorism everywhere all at once? Terrorism is a tactic not a country, etc… But at least it was a war. This new thing doesn’t sound like a war at all. And how are we supposed to get away with all the shooting and money-spending if we’re not in a war anymore?

          Our battalion hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a quarter million dollar tree nursery in downtown Nasiriyah this week. This place was paid for by American tax dollars and all of the classy, gold-trimmed furniture in the main office was proof that it wasn’t wasted. It would have been nice for someone to maybe make a little speech and let everyone there understand what a bold step we just made in the WAR against terror. “See these trees, Osama? Yeah that’s right, suck it!” Instead, it’s like we just built a big tree nursery in the middle of the desert for no reason at all.

          A humble message to those publicly elected officials back home: Nobody cares what you people call it! Just fix this crap, assholes!

Six Years Ago

          I celebrated my 21st Birthday in March of 2003.  

          I’ve been told it was a pretty good time.I managed to make it until 11:30, I think, before blacking out.  One of the last people to buy me a drink that night was Melissa Fostyk.  I remember her showing up with some of our mutual friends and joining me at the bar.  I stood there leaning against a stool and begged her not to make me do another shot of tequila.  I was in pretty rough shape at this point and was just trying to keep from looking like an idiot (or vomiting on her).  She was so pretty and smart; I had an enormous crush.  This was not the night where I would win her over.  That’s another story (a good one).  She disappeared along with the rest of the evening.  My buddy Peterman ended up carrying me 5 blocks back to my apartment like a sack of potatoes.  Classy! 

          On the other side of the world, men my age were consumed with more serious work.  Combat engineers pushed down the berms separating Kuwait and Iraq and tanks swept across the desert en route to Baghdad to liberate the oppressed and find those elusive weapons we’d heard so much about.  I work with lots of folks who took part in the invasion / liberation.  It was a different war back then.  Iraq could never expect to stop us.  We never expected to be swallowed.  The world’s most expensive weapons cut swiftly and easily through the desert and Saddam’s army.  They passed the Ziggurat of Ur and headed north to Babylon.  This cradle had never seen such civilization.

          I remember sitting in my apartment watching this unfold on T.V. as a host of brilliant war reporters clapped and cheered.  21, single, and completely jealous of those guys on the screen, I remained trapped in my third year of ROTC, desperate to do something outside the classrooms and training sites.  With any luck, there would still be some war left for me when I finally graduated.  

          On the television, night vision cameras and kick-ass explosions kept me excited to get out of college and shoot things.  In my head, Alex the soldier kept telling Alex the politician to shut up and stop thinking.  The latter was skeptically eyeing the television and remarking, “I don’t know about all this.”  Yeah, that’s right, I knew invading Iraq was stupid back when such talk made you a communist. Ask anyone who had to listen; they’ll corroborate.  I guess I just wasn’t convinced by anything I heard our leaders saying no matter how serious they’re faces got.  It’s not that I thought they were lying, I’ve just always been wary of believing what cowboys tell me.  You know, that Marlboro Man was full of shit.  None of these thoughts squashed my boyish excitement to blow things up, and my disagreement should be taken in context: this was the same period when I considered neon beer signs essential to any respectable sitting room.

          Regardless of how I felt or continue to feel about it, we’re here.  And since we’re here, we have no choice but to do things.  So I work as an advisor and do as good a job as I can.  The invasion is something that I don’t bring up to my Iraqi friends.  Although curious, I don’t believe I’d get an honest answer if I questioned their whereabouts during the fighting.  I can only assume that they were in a bunker somewhere or maybe they tried to get rid of their uniforms and blend in with the populace.  Some probably just surrendered.  I don’t know and, for reasons that are difficult to describe, I’m afraid to ask.

          This week marks six years since those first exciting days.  I don’t think any of us would have guessed where we’d be today.  COL Latiff (the Iraqi commander I advise) coincidentally attended our battalion’s daily meeting on the anniversary date itself.  No one mentioned it.  He sat in a place of honor and was given complete access to our intelligence, our equipment status reports, and our current operational focus.  He was served tea as the slides were displayed for him.  I stood in the back of the room and hoped that he would take some ideas from this meeting and perhaps implement them in his own unit.  SFC Betz stood beside me and mostly complained about the fact that I insisted he be the one who served the tea.  He was one of the first to cross those berms six years ago.  The irony is not lost on him.

          This month I turned 27.  I’m headed home sometime next week and I hope to never return to this place.  Two years of my life feels like it should be enough, and I don’t have much left in common with the young man who longed to be here all those years ago.  If I could, I’d like to tell that semi-conscious cadet to have another and enjoy his college years while he still had them.  I’d also recommend he apply to law school, but he probably wouldn’t listen. 

          Instead, I am simply another cog in the war machine and I’ve voluntarily extended my obligation to the Army (it’s complicated).  I wouldn’t dare trade any of the worthwhile moments but I’d gladly forget the crummy ones and I wish my wife didn’t have to go to so many weddings by herself.

          Six years ago that beautiful blonde girl showed mercy and bought me something fruity instead of the tequila.  Two weeks later, COL Latiff and the boys would be staring at the unfriendly end of a thousand Bradley Fighting Vehicles.  2 and a half years after that I’d marry Melissa and we’d find out together how are lives would forever be tied to the decision that forced us over those berms.  We are the men and women left paying for this war.  There are a million others like us, and next March we’ll still be here.    

Women's History Month

      “Prevention of Sexual Harrassment” (POSH) is a quarterly training requirement in the Army. Statistically, this makes it twice as important as marksmanship. This is understandable given the infrequent opportunities I have to shoot anyone. Every three months, we gather and listen to someone read the same slide show that we saw three months prior. I say read because Army briefings rarely break from a single format. Slide goes up; long pause; briefer reads the slide verbatim; briefer turns to the audience and tells us what he thinks the slide is trying to say; short pause; questions? Ok next slide. This goes on for an hour or so and is typically punctuated by random, embarrassing, and frequently uncomfortable vignettes about something he witnessed years ago that may demonstrate the type of sexual harassment described on one slide or the other.
      It’s torture, but at least I was reminded for another three months that I shouldn’t refer to my co-workers as jiggles, toots, or honeybun… Mission Accomplished. I was also reminded about the “awareness” that I should be spreading this month. “What awareness is that?” you ask. Well, did you know that March is Women’s History month? Bet you didn’t. It is and I have decided to celebrate it by reading Cullen Murphy’s “The Word According to Eve: Women and the Bible in Ancient Times and our Own”. Ok, I’m half joking. The realization that this was Women’s History month and the fact that this book is on my nightstand are coincidental but I have enjoyed bragging about it to my wife. I take every opportunity I can to remind her how cultured and sensitive I am. One day she might believe me.
     The book is remarkable; I recommend it regardless of sex. Basically, Murphy travels through time documenting all the innovative ways that men have leveraged 1st Corinthians in an effort to trick women into making us turkey sandwiches.
     Women’s history month, Murphy’s book, the quarterly training and my impending return to my beautiful wife all seem to coalesce for me as the “news” back home continues to swirl around the latest celebrity beating and its fall out. In case you live in a cave, I’ll sum it up: Chris Brown, a boy whose dance moves far outclass his chivalry, tried to solve a lover’s quarrel by beating his girlfriend until she was too unconscious to argue with him anymore. Shocking? It shouldn’t be. 1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime. The second-greatest health threat to pregnant women behind only car accidents is murder. That’s right: murder. Use protection kids! If you get pregnant someone might decide to kill you (not kidding).
     As long as there is testosterone, there will be idiot’s incapable of using their words during an argument and some of these jackasses will break the cardinal playground rule and hit a girl. What I am more concerned about is the reaction of our young people across the country and their insistence on the fact that Rihanna may have provoked (and therefore deserved?) such an assault. In an informal Boston survey, 46% of youths questioned thought Rihanna was asking for it.
     Although I may have punched the steering wheel during Umbrella’s stuttering rise to the top of the Billboard charts, I learned a long time ago that hitting a woman was wrong. This shouldn’t make me some sort of hero. In fact, I’ve often rolled my eyes at the overtly macho emphasis that many men place on this type of “revolutionary” thinking. I’ve often felt it was such a basic principle that hearing someone pontificate, “I would never hit a girl” seemed obvious and a little dopey. Of course you wouldn’t hit a girl you dimwit; you shouldn’t hit anybody.
     Perhaps it’s not so obvious to everyone. Old Chris couldn’t seem to stop himself and now I have to hear the future of my country make excuses for him. Oprah practically had to teach a class on why such behavior shouldn’t be tolerated. Do you know how to identify a problem beyond repair? Wait around for Oprah to do a special on it!
     Deputy commanding officer of the 10th Field Engineer Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Saaduq, a deeply religious, virulently political, and oft misguided and inappropriate Iraqi friend of mine weighed in on women’s issues for me the other day. “Women in your Army are a good thing, Captain Dorko.”
     “Why’s that, my friend?”
     “They can cook and clean, you must have great food.”
     I paused for a moment and let this register as I crafted a diplomatic and thoughtful response, taking into account the cultural differences, my counterpart’s lack of education, and his status as a pious and devout Shiite.
     Sergeant First Class Roger Betz, senior non-commissioned officer and advisor to the 10th Field Engineer Regiment was seated there with me. He broke it down immediately for Abdul Saaduq: “No, sir. In the sixties, our women burned their bras and got out of the kitchen. Since then they aren’t required to do the cooking and cleaning for us, anymore.” SFC Betz has an abrupt and pointed way of explaining everything. He’s a father of three and rarely puts up with anyone’s ignorance. He made it pretty simple and I was glad he was there. My book spent 300 pages explaining a similar concept.
     A month ago I would have chalked Saaduq’s remark up as the ramblings of an ignorant Iraqi with a backwards worldview. I would have smiled inwardly knowing I represented a country where such ridiculous sentiments are no longer expressed. But this latest celebrity drama and the inexcusable reactions of so many young Americans across our great country has made me pay attention to what I may have been taking for granted.
     If I’ve learned something here in the cradle of civilization, it’s that our communities are only as healthy as the health of their women. Maybe it’s not so ridiculous that the federal government feels it necessary to remind me how to behave like a descent human being each quarter. More people may need to read Cullen Murphy’s book and realize how far we’ve come in dealing with this truly ancient topic. Maybe the rest of us just need the abbreviated version and a dose of reality from SFC Betz.

TGIF

People are disgusting.

          I live in a containerized housing unit (we call them CHUs).  It’s anoth

er word for a trailer.  It’s perfectly comfortable.  I've got A/C.  I have to share it with a roommate, but I get about 60 square feet of

 space for my bed and wall locker.  Only because I find it interesting, (I’m not complaining) federal penitentiaries offer a lavish 96 square feet for their “guests”. 

          What the prisoners don’t get to enjoy is a 150 meter stroll to reach the toielt in the middle of the night.  I get to do just that in flip-flops over gravel.  Until last Friday, I was under the impression that all my fellow CHU-dwellers did this.  Turns out: not everyone. 

          Grown men, when faced with a long walk to the restroom, will instead urinate in a plastic bottle.  They throw the bottles away in the morning (presumably on a daily basis, but maybe they pile up).  Sometimes the bottles make it into the dumpster, sometimes they get thrown into a drainage ditch.  Nice!  I assume it’s only men doing this; women would have to be pretty talented.  And I’d like to say that this was something that only silly American soldiers were up to.  I don’t want to assume that they are immune from demonstrating this behavior, however we have random room inspections and such activities would be frowned upon, not to mention embarrassing.  

          So if it’s not soldiers filling the bottles, who could it be?  Well, I live amidst a large block of CHUs housing many of the clever, efficient, and well-compensated individuals known as military contractors.  Without them, this war would be much less comfortable.  And who would do all the laundry?  I could spend a lot of time discussing my deep-seated acrimony for these people and the companies they represent, but when I leave this government position that I’m currently filling, I’d hate to wind up in some job for which there was documented proof of my own self-loathing. 

          And this story isn’t about contractors anyway, it’s about piss, and my morning spent collecting it in a garbage bag. 

          For every piece of trash on any military installation, there is a Sergeant Major somewhere who is unhappy about it.  Here on my FOB, a group of them got together recently and decided to each take responsibility of one of the living areas in order to police up all the refuse therein.  Our battalion’s living area was further divided between the companies and this Friday, my company had a mass gathering of all its members and then combed its section with every last soldier wearing blue surgical gloves and carrying a trash bag. 

          The Marines boast about the fact that each of them is an infantryman first.  This is special I guess because no matter what skill they have been specifically trained in, they are all capable of running around and killing people if the need arises.  I’ve always been a little envious of my Neanderthal brothers-in-arms because of this principal.  I like the fact that the Corps has a unifying set of skills that ties them together as Jarheads.  It’s sweet.  In the same spirit, the Army should declare that each soldier is a janitor first.  I wouldn’t put it on a recruiting poster but it’s the truth.  I’ve learned more about the custodial arts as a soldier than I ever would have on the outside. 

          I’m a captain.  It’s not a real big deal but the list of people who can boss me around is relatively small.  However, if this past Friday was any indication, I am still just as much a janitor as any other soldier in this fine outfit.  And with gloves on and trash bag at the ready, I shuffled passed the rows of CHUs at 0600 this morning as my contractor friends lay sleeping sweetly, no doubt dreaming of all their wonderful money and legal immunity.  I found a syringe, the first of the day!  At the bottom of a 10 meter drainage ditch, I squatted in ankle deep sludge and gently placed bottle after bottle of human waste into my bag.  I studied each one and noticed varying degrees of hydration. I actually felt bad for one guy, he might need to see someone about a possible kidney problem.  One bottle had a cigarette in it; I don’t even want to imagine what the story was there. 

          I have a college degree and I fill a middle-management position in the Army similar to what you might find any other educated 27-year old doing in corporate America (probably fewer requirements for Arabic proficiency and trigger-pulling in the corporate gig).  I don’t pretend to know much about the real world anymore, but I would like to see what might happen if a fortune-500 company asked all its employees to come in a little early each Friday and just wander around the campus collecting the garbage.  I’m positive that there would be varying degrees of irritation - depending on the garbage.  What if hospitals started making the doctors and nurses clean up biohazard on some beach in between shifts?  I guarantee you’d at least have a lot of unhappy doctors... and patients. 

          It’s hard for me to decide what part of my story I should be upset about.  I’m not too good to pick up garbage. It’s not the contractors’ fault that the bathrooms are so far away and they can’t hold it.  Maybe I'm just frustrated because we're pulling the piss-bottles out of one ditch, in order to truck them a mile away to another ditch labeled “land-fill”.  Perhaps this is all just another indication that we've been here far too long.  I won’t try to draw a single, over-arching conclusion.  I can say this for certain: only in the Army and in this war would I ever get the chance to be a part of such an absurd and humbling endeavor.  We'll be out there again this Friday.   

          We few.  We happy few.  We band of Janitors.

Tafteesh

           Our Iraqi partners have their annual inspection this week by order of the Ministry of Defense.  As their advisor, it’s nice to see them actually care about something for a change.  The Saddam years really took a toll on the entire concept of initiative at the middle management levels.  No surprises there.  Innovation was often the fast track to execution.  Equally unsurprising is their preoccupation with inspections, reviews and judgment.  So our friends are busy cleaning up anything that moves, and painting white everything that doesn’t.

          In what is fast becoming a weekly tradition, my advisor team has a new favorite Arabic word: tafteesh.  It means inspection; also search, check, etc.  It can be a verb and a noun.  Arabic lacks the variety we’re used to hearing in English (although they do have 4 words for tomorrow, because that’s when the Iraqi Army usually plans on getting around to anything).

          We were discussing the term today.  “Tafteesh, it sounds like some sort of delicious breakfast pastry.”            

          I mentioned, “You know, that’s a pretty important word.  It’s probably in my top ten Arabic military survival phrases.”

With this I transition into my vignette:          

          Believe it or not, I was a pretty arrogant Second Lieutenant at one point in my career.  This is not surprising to anyone who knows me today as an arrogant Captain.  Anyway, I took over a platoon of thirty guys a month into my first deployment.  We spent every day on the road.  There were some intense moments, and some really dull ones.  Our mission was looking for roadside bombs but we stopped a lot of traffic as well.  When I first began conducting missions, I really enjoyed every chance I got to get out of my truck and do something or talk to someone.  First of all, I was really bored just driving around and staring out the window, but I also enjoyed the feeling of being on the ground and giving orders, making decisions, and “actively engaging the populace”.               

          I stopped an old man in his car once.  He was with his whole family and had been acting suspiciously in some way or another; I honestly can’t remember what I was upset about at the time.  It likely had something to do with explosions or bullets.  My driver cut his vehicle off and I had a security element box him in on the other side.  We backed up our rear end to the hood of his vehicle.  I chambered a round and descended out the back door of my RG31.  This vehicle looks like a Range Rover on steroids and it dwarfed the little four-door this guy was driving.  It didn’t matter what was going on, setting foot onto an Iraqi street always sent a shot of adrenaline through me.          

           Now, I don’t want to dramatize my appearance; I’m a goofball.  My head falls in between helmet sizes and the big Kevlar dome rests a little uneasy making my face seem to bounce around like a dash ornament on top of my unnecessarily long neck.  My pants always ride a little low due to my complete lack of an ass, and I drag my feet when I walk.  So it wasn’t John Wayne approaching this car full of people.  But I was carrying a loaded weapon. I was wearing dark sunglasses on my face as well as an expression unique to cocky, motivated young Second Lieutenants.           

          I got the driver out of the car and left its occupants huddled together inside, the women working hard to remain covered and to watch the situation without having to make eye contact with any of the soldiers.  The old man moved slowly and was a little confused by all the attention.  I can’t remember what I was saying or what my goals were in this session of tactical questioning.  I remember a lot of agitation on my part and a lot of staring on his.          

          As I mentioned, the circumstances were forgettable, but the look this man gave me is as clear today as it was at that moment three years ago.  His face was worn like so many I’ve seen in this country.  His eyes looked out from behind their sunken, wrinkled sockets.  He refused to answer my interpreter’s questions and instead, chose to look at me with the type of patient intensity only old men are capable of.  There was no need for him to speak through the linguist.  His message was clear. I had failed to greet him formally, I was showing none of the respect he was due simply by being my elder, and I was embarrassing him in front of his family.  I was acting like a complete asshole.          

          As the message registered, my mind retreated briefly and I stood motionless for an uncomfortable second.  I thought of how ridiculous I must look.  I thought of my own grandfather and the anger I would have felt watching him be treated in this fashion.  One of my squad leaders snapped me out of my temporary contemplative trance.  I remember hearing his gentle inquiry, “What the fuck are we doing, LT?  Are we gonna search this shit or what?

          I came back to earth and words from my college Arabic classes jumped into the front of my brain: the first I ever uttered to anyone outside a classroom, “Ekhtaj tafteesh hatha. (I need to search this).”  I tapped the hood of the car as I said it, and then added, “min fadlek (the most formal way I know to ask permission).”          

          To say that everything changed from that moment on is probably not an overstatement.  The man replied “ahlan wa sahlan (you are welcome)” and my fellow soldiers checked his trunk and glove box, found nothing, and headed back to their trucks.  I left the man and his family to their day and the rest of their lives in a country where life is nothing to take for granted.  I changed that day.  I got over my war hero fantasies.  I just went back to being a goofball.  And I decided that I would devote the rest of my time in Iraq to truly communicating with the people of this country whenever I was given the chance.    

          

          I’ve had a lot of chances since then.           

     

          To think how far this war and this country and this Army have come is really amazing in a lot of ways.  It’s amazing it got as bad as it did.  It’s amazing it ever got any better.  I’m amazed that I’ve been involved so intimately in it and that it has shaped so much of my life and the life of my family.             

          Today, I’m finishing my second tour of service and I know I’m not the same. Three years ago I felt the excitement of combat and civil conflict and the adventure interested me more than my task.  It took some hard lessons to change me from just another motivated lieutenant into the jaded, sarcastic and hypercritical staff officer that I’ve become.  But those lessons and similar ones shared by thousands of soldiers all over this country have given us the group of warriors that the Army is lucky to have and struggles to keep.            

          To be concerned about the opinion of random locals in 2006 made me unique.  I took some flak for being a starry-eyed cherry LT from those who claimed to know better than me and probably did.  Three years later, I’m proud to sit in a room full of combat veterans discussing the Tafteesh.  We’ll smile about the silly rituals of our counterparts but we’ll approach them with respect and receive nothing less in return.  It’s second nature to us because we know better than to try any other method.           

          Colonel Latiff was waiting for me this morning as I made my final rounds before the big visit from the Ministry of Defense.  “Tafteesh Sayeeda!” I said.  It means: Happy Inspection!  He gave me his usual look of complete confusion and obvious disapproval at my decision to treat this unwelcome event as some sort of holiday.           

          “This inspection makes me tired.  Too much going on, too much work!  I do not like inspections.”           

          I grew serious and touched the palm of my hand to my heart,  “I am only joking, sir.  No one likes a tafteesh.  Trust me.”