I found this post while doing some much needed maintenance. I wrote it during my 15 minutes behind a computer at Camp Anaconda, aka Balad while I was their for training a few months before I left country.

Original post date: 04/25/2007 06:47:32 am

--

I was in a theater.

The national anthem boomed as inspiring images flash across the screen. I saw past the images and instead of being inspired feel more disillusioned than before. Sugar coating my war no longer tastes sweet; it only tastes bitter.

Anthem complete, all took their seats.

Some chose to place their weapons on the deck. I kept mine slung and in my lap -like a teddy bear.

The speakers pushed energetic music that made me want to tap my foot. A giant cup of fountain Coke appeared, front and center. It fizzed and tiny, delicious bubbles of carbonated goodness jumped up from the overflowing cup. The Coke disappeaed and was replaced by white nothingness which was quickly dispelled by a waterfall of popcorn. I tasted the greasy, buttery popcorn from my memory as it flashed the concesionaire's message. Abruptly the music takes a hard right and begins pumping and a message appears on the screen. It read:


Please turn off cell phones.* Thank you!

Cell phones? Who the fuck has a cell phone in a war zone? Oh yes, but I forgot, this was Balad, aka Disneyland aka Candyland, where the Air Force boys walk around with gel in their styled hair like a bunch of pretty boys. These same boys sat all around me in the dim theater, coupled with their matching Air Force girls, doing all things nasty under the protection of the every popular woobie**.

To the side of the screen appeared an orange light. It flashed several times, then went dark. It is an FYI announcement. Just in case you were wondering, somewhere on this giagantic post at least one mortar landed. There was no impact and no siren, just a flashing light. Who gives a fuck.

The credits began rolling and the lights turned on. Soldiers, Airman, Sailors, Marines and even some civillians stood and began making their way to the exit. Couples walked protectively close to one another.

Couples.

A man and a woman. A couple. Blow my fucking mind. In the middle of a war zone, not far from Baghdad two Soldiers were on a date to the movies.



*Cell phones? I seem to remember having one in a former life.


** Woobie. The ever popular poncho liner that is never used to line a poncho. More often than not it is a blanket, or a bed sheet, or a spoo rag.

I was in my own world, thinking about how I should word a letter to the editor as I drove through downtown Bemidji. It pissed me off to no end that a group of war protestors would have the audacity to give Dathan the finger as he drove past their protest on the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war simply because he was in uniform. Dathan was with me in Iraq. He gave up his personal freedom along with the rest of us, doing what we were told by our country, living with death and enduring the suck that is Iraq. Dathan watched his own brother get blown up by an IED. He made sacrifices and to have someone trivialize…no, fuck that….to have someone vilify his sacrifice is unbelievable.

Dathan didn’t stop the car, get out and shit stomp the protestors. No. He kept on driving, visibly upset at the group’s actions –not because he was mad (although he was) but because their socially irresponsible action challenged Dathan’s ability to believe that what he had to endure was okay and that the sacrifices he, Greg Reiwer, Josh Hanson, Luke Schmidt, Marcus Kuboy, Ryan Putbrese and the rest of us made were not only unappreciated but also for naught.

I wondered what it was that drove these people to express such conviction and hostility against a man in uniform. What made them feel so righteous that they felt they could attack the one of the people they were supposedly protesting against the war for? Would I curb stomp the lot of those motherfuckers if they gave me the bird and called me a baby killer?

A horn honked to my right, pulling me out of my trance and focusing my attention on a dark gray dodge stratus abreast of my Xterra. An older man with a solemn face in the driver’s seat rendered a salute*, which I reflexively returned. I rush of mixed feelings welled up inside me and I suddenly found myself teary-eyed.

Ψ

* He must have notice my Iraq War Veteran plates

I’ve tried several times to sit down and write about my experiences since coming home from Iraq but have found my attempts so far inept, that is when I could actually get myself to sit in one place long enough to concentrate and put a few words to type. The subject is slippery. I can feel it, but I cannot think about it. Every time I try to think about life since this past July I hit a stone wall.

At first I found myself avoiding the subject completely. I didn’t want anything to do with the Army or Iraq. I left my bags packed and out of sight. I grew out as much facial hair as I could stand and I developed a mop on the top of my head. I did everything short of completely avoiding my old Platoon mates.

I didn’t want to be reminded of my military obligation.

But for as much as I didn't want to be reminded of the Army I found myself seeking out the few movies related the current conflicts and I spent more than one sleepless night and premature morning searching for news from the Middle East. It was odd that for as much as I didn’t want to think about my obligation to the Army I found myself seeking out stories from the Middle East.

It was as if I didn’t want to think about Iraq. But I wanted to feel Iraq.

Iraq was the suck, but I felt alive. Here I don’t feel much of anything. I’m often numb and confused, like television snow or some sort of automaton. I’m mechanical. Not all the time, but often enough to make me feel like a different person than the one I left home over two years ago.

I often joke about previews as being the best part of the cinematic experience. Sometimes it’s true -like when I went to see Star Wars Episode I and sometimes it isn’t –like tonight when I went to the movie theater.

I was wrapped up in a preview for the movie Wall∙E, enjoying the cleverness of a kid’s movie made for adults when another, not so pleasant preview rolled onto the screen: Stop Loss. Its images threw my transmission out of gear.

In the blink of an eye I went from content, if not happy to solemn and withdrawn. That familiar numb, slippery feeling of my mind being aware of something, but not wanting to face it was upon me –much like a child with his fingers in his ears, humming a tune to ignore the unpleasant reality around him. The withdrawn feeling crept over me, penetrating like a deep chill and sent a shiver up my spine. I was no longer in a theater full of people, I was now alone in an enormous room with ridiculously high ceilings and completely dark, save for a dim light radiating from a window no larger than a baseball through which I could watch normal people go about their lives, completely separate and ignorant of my personal hell.


It dawned on me as the Stop Loss preview ended and another took its place that more than likely nobody else in the theater was profoundly affected by the preview, nor would they understand the images on an intimate level, or have the remainder of their evening occupied by less than pleasant thoughts of a place thousands of miles away. At that moment I may as well have been a fucking space alien to anyone around me because they simply could not relate. It was a very lonely feeling.

I didn't go crazy and end up in a cozy state institution, wearing nothing but a robe, fuzzy bunny slippers and taking numerous medications with a variety of side effects, the most entertaining of which being hard, black stool and a permanent erection (which the robe does little to hide). Nor did I end up in prison getting my ass pounded by a big black guy named Bubba. I simply took my uniform off, packed it away in a dark, dark place and slid out of sight and out of mind.

I had intended on continuing to write a week or so after I was released from active duty, and thus ending my 22 month deployment. But one week turned into two and two weeks turned into a month. At one point in time I sat down in front of my computer, created a new word document, and stared at the blank document for a good five seconds before I closed it and walked away.

I had planned on writing about the final days of my servitude, but I found I was spent.

Utterly spent.

Like a used condom, only not as happy.

I did not want to think about Iraq nor did I want to be reminded of Iraq. Not in the least bit. And I still don’t want to think about that shithole even as I type this. But sooner or later I’m going to have to put my uniform back on. Sooner, actually.

I peered out the window as the aircraft descended for its final stop on our three-legged flight across half the globe. The uber green landscape below, dominated by billowy deciduous trees and gently rolling hills was distantly familiar, but mostly alien to me. Had it really been that long?

Someone joked about how it would be just our luck if the plane crashed now, at the end of 22 months of the suck. It would be one last kick in the shin for Able Company. It made perfect sense for the Army’s toilet paper. After all, we were consistently shit on.

I watched through the window as the ground drew near until the aircraft touched down. Scratch that. Until the aircraft touched down roughly. Scratch that. Until the aircraft came down in a controlled crash. I felt as if we bounced ten feet in the air after first contact. As the pilot seemed to regain control over the aircraft’s crash landing a cheer rolled through the fuselage. Thinking I was supposed to be excited, I cheered along with the others.

But I was not excited. I was numb, confused and tired.

The aircraft taxied for a few minutes before coming to a halt near the same hanger I had been briefed in on my return from Bosnia three years prior. A handful of the guys stood up from their seats in anticipation of the door’s opening.

“Gentlemen, it’ll be just a few minutes before we begin deplaning. On behalf of the crew and bla bla bla bla…” The Captain droned over the com.

The complaining began, cutting off the Captain’s speech. Complaining in the infantry is a group effort. If you complain by yourself, you are a whiner. But complaining en mass is acceptable, if not expected.

“What kind of Bullshit is this?”

“Booo!”

“Somebody open the damn door.”

“What the fuck? Are they trying to build up the suspense or something?”

After what seemed like an eternity the Flight Attendant finally slid the door open. I imagined the view from the outside of the aircraft as the putrid, man-stanked air escaped from the airplane, clearly visible with its greenish tinge.

“What’s so funny?” Moscho asked.

“Oh, nothing.” I hadn’t even realized I was laughing.

Two hundred exhausted, stanky Joes stood up in unison as the Captain said something unintelligible over the com, an obvious cue for us to get the hell off the plane in a hurry. The troop compartment became a flurry of elbows and rifle butts as everyone went for their gear. A line quickly formed towards the door, and immediately started inching forward.

The source of the dramatic wait on the tarmac between the moment the plane came to a halt and the moment we were allowed to deplane become obvious as I poked my head from the aluminum can. A line of grey uniforms, with smiling, well-rested faces had formed to greet us at the bottom of the stairs and streamed back to the nearby hanger.

I stepped out of the threshold and onto the stairs to descend onto the tarmac when the answer to my question hit me. The thick, humid, Wisconsin air smelled so sweet I could almost taste it. After months of inhaling the dusty, dead, bone-dry desert air I was breathing pure ambrosia.

Had it really been that long? Yes, it had.

I filed past a score of greeters, shaking hands as I went, evaluating rank, names and decorations as I went. I was quickly ushered to a table inside the hanger to turn in my weapon.

“079062” I spouted off my weapon’s serial number as I handed it over to a female Sergeant.

“079065” she read.

“079062” I corrected her. “And she is going to need a new buffer spring soon.”

I stood motionless for a moment, watching as the Sergeant turned and placed my weapon in a container filled with others much like it. We were going home, but my weapon was going to go to someone else who would be leaving for Iraq within a few months. Feeling strangely wrong and almost empty, I abruptly turned and walked away.

“I don’t feel like a person, I feel like a vehicle. They buy you real cheap and ride the shit out of you until you blow up.” -Berberich

--


It’s 0004. I am tired, but am too restless sleep. My mind wanders in the dark.

I know that soon I will be home. It has been so long since that all I know is that home is supposed to be a place I want to be. But a part of me is afraid to go home.

My life here is simple. There are few things I have to worry about. I don’t have to do my own laundry or cook for myself. I don’t worry about paying bills, what I’m going to wear or catching the next episode of Lost. But most of all I don’t have to worry about what I should do with myself, my time and my education –that decision has already been made for me.

Sometime in the last fifteen months I’ve lost sight of where I was going and what I wanted to do. I am going home uncertain of which path to take. That is what keeps me from sleeping this night.

A few Soldiers move about, fussing with their gear in the small space they have claimed for themselves. A hanger clangs softly against another of its kind. Mattress springs strain as someone shifts their weight in bed and I sit in front of my laptop.

Two weeks ago we moved from the cans to temporary billeting to make room for our replacements. For fifteen months my can was home, but when I left it I did not look back. Moving was just another thing that had to be done.

The move signaled an end, as did the slow arrival of our replacements The new Marines were easily identified by their crispy new uniforms, the smiles on their faces, the bullshit 'hoorah' gear they carry around post and the stupid shit that comes out of their mouths, most notably their ignorant, enthusiastic comments about ‘getting in the shit’.

The door creeks as someone steps into the hut. I hear the soft sound of desert boots treading across the plywood floor as someone tries to move quietly about. My bunk rises and falls with each footstep. Damn Seabees sure were in a hurry to build this hut.

The word around the campfire is that our replacements were told to ‘give us a wide birth’ because we are ‘angry’. I don’t know if this rumor is true, but I know that at this point I don’t have the energy to be angry.

The new Marines are the same guys that were supposed to relieve us four months ago. I can think of several people that would be much better off if they had, but it was not up to our replacements. That decision was made by fat men in white suits.

I step outside to visit the latrine. The night air is warm, about 100 degrees and it feels good on my skin.

I’ve heard that some of the new guys believe we are shit bags because we are relaxed. We don’t sweat the little shit and many of us are on a first name basis. We seldom use rank when addressing each other anymore. In the Marine’s eyes that makes us poor Soldiers, but I don't give a fuck. They don't know anything past six months of the suck at a time. We have survived 22 months on deployment because we have learned to relax.

In the latrine I run into Vickmark, who asks me a question about pyro and kleptomaniacs to which I have no answer.

“Are you getting excited yet?” I ask Vickmark.

“Not yet” was his response.

I’ve turned in all of my body armor except for my flak and helmet. I’ve turned in my ammunition, trained in my replacements and attending briefings. I have nothing left to do but to lift weights, eat chow and clog up the cybercafé. Turning my ammunition over to the new guys was satisfying (one less thing to carry around) as was turning in all the various bits of armor we were required to attach to our flaks, but none of these signals of the end have excited me a great deal.

I’m going home soon. Shouldn’t I be excited?

Perhaps I’m not getting excited because I’m tired or burnt out. Or maybe I’m not letting myself get excited because I don’t want to be disappointed. Over the course of this deployment (and my last deployment) I’ve learned not to count on anything until five minutes after it has happened. Minimizing expectations is a great way to minimize disappointment.

The pins and needles in my leg prompt me to shift positions. I will never take a nice chair or sofa for granted again.

Despite our laid back approach the deployment has taken a toll on everyone. Looking back at pictures I took nearly two years ago I see huge differences. Everyone looks much older than they should by all rights. Many of the guys sprouted gray hair and not a face goes unmarked by wrinkles –mostly crow’s feet from squinting in the sunlight. One of the guys we replaced over fifteen months ago told me Iraq would age me five years physically. He was right about that. But he didn’t tell me I would age 20 mentally. I feel tired. I feel old.

The scent of shit drifts to my area –an obvious indicator that someone ripped ass. It smells so bad I consider breathing through a dirty sock to cut the scent. Ah, fuck it.

I stood at the urinal and let out a sigh as I aimed for the drain. I had discovered that pissing directly down the drain of the oddly shaped European urinals significantly reduced backsplash. Not being a fan of wearing my urine I found this to be a good practice.

The latrine door opened and a Marine walked in. He positioned himself at the urinal directly to my right. Had the urinal on the end not already been in use this would have been a violation of guy code. Taking into the consideration the poor design of the urinals one could even say it would be a serious violation of guy code. Knowing what was coming next I scooted to the left as far as was manageable while still letting loose of my night’s water with some degree of accuracy.

The Marine let out a sigh as my bladder neared empty. Fuck, I’m not going to finish in time.

I felt his piss splash on my right calf as I shook off. I hastily sorted myself out, made my way past the overflowing garbage to the sink and started brushing my teeth.

I spat a load of foam in the sink and looked in the mirror, inspecting the ring of toothpaste foam around my mouth. A line of foam drooled out of my mouth and made its way down my chin. I gave myself a big shit eating grin, enjoying the silliness of the likeness I saw in the mirror before wiping my mouth with the backside of my hand. There I was, a 29 year old University educated Army Staff Sergeant and I still couldn’t brush my teeth without making a mess of my face.

The door opened again and in walked a TCN (Third Country National). He looked Indian (that is, from the country of India) although I couldn’t be certain. In his left hand he carried a bottle of water.

Don’t tell me he’s going to…

The TCN glanced at me and walked past, choosing a centrally located stall.

He is going to…*

The TCN’s anal eruption was violent. He must have eaten on the economy the day prior.

The door on the center stall opened and out came the TCN with an empty bottle in his left hand. He tossed the bottle on top of the overflowing heap of trash and stationed himself at the sink to my right. The smell of shit, strangely absent until the TCN stood next to me, was very strong.

--

*I understand that some countries don’t have an excess of wood to use for toilet paper, but I’ll never stop thinking that mucking out a person’s ass with a bare hand and a bottle of water is strange. Whatever happened to the sponge on a stick? It worked for the Romans.

“Wow.”

“What?”

“Orange shirt at nine O’clock.”

I not-so-covertly whipped my head to the nine O’clock position as did several Joes from Bravo Company who sat nearby. We no longer cared about being caught gauking.

It was the new girl that worked for KBR. I had heard there was a new girl floating around. In the past fifteen months we had always had one girl that was so gorgeous everyone knew who she was. She was always a celebrity, but was always none the wiser.

There had been several sightings of the new girl but this was the first time I had seen her. There she was not more than 15 meters away wearing blue jeans and an orange long sleeve shirt that fit blissfully tight. She seemed so out of place standing there in a sea of Army grey and Marine Corps tan. I was dumbstruck.

“Wow, she’s…”

“Yeah, I know.”

“That’s a nice orange shirt.”

The girl in the orange shirt was patiently waiting in line to drop off her tray. Standing within an arm’s reach of her was a rather tall, bulbous and balding man sporting blue jeans and a t-shirt –obviously another KBR employee. I had seen his type before, always hovering protectively close to a female to ward off any Joe or Marine that may wish to have a word with her.

But it didn’t matter.

I only wanted to watch from a distance like a voyeur. She was a flower in a sea of weeds and as I stared in wonder the girl in the orange shirt slowly slipped out of sight.

The empty space where the girl in the orange shirt was moments before held my gaze for a minute before I slowly turned my head and dropped my eyes on my tray with the half eaten sandwich. I picked up my fork and poked at a rubbery carrot stick.

“Hey Greg.”

“Yeah Jonny?”

“There are girls like that all over back home.”

“Really?”

“Soldiers are like batteries.” -D

--

It took three days of trying before my buddy BJ and I finally caught a flight to a U.S. base in a small, relatively westernized Middle Eastern Country* for a four day R&R pass. After 21 months of deployment I was in a shit state and needed to get away from everyone and everything military for a recharge.

Getting away from everything military was not realistic, but pass did exceed my expectations. For four days I carried no weapon, wore civilian clothing, answered to no one and was responsible for nobody other than myself. For four days I did not have to listen to helicopters idling on the helipad or flying overhead, outgoing artillery fire missions, IEDs, car bombs, random gunfire or annoyingly familiar voices –voices that, after 21 months of listening to them, sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. For four days I almost felt normal.

By day I lounged at the pool with BJ and a handful of other grunts from my Battalion (whom I had just met) as well as Solo, a Hawaiian-born Marine I met while conducting a joint U.S.-Iraqi Army patrol. We had also managed to meet several women who attached themselves to our group and, in doing so, made us the coolest cats on post. Between our female friends from Kuwait, Steve-O’s girl, the girl known as ‘The Harpy’, Kasey’s object of disinfatuation and Solo’s stalker we racked up an impressive cadre of females and were inadvertently the envy of all.

We weren’t the coolest guys around. We weren’t the best looking or have the worst suck stories. But being on the ass end of our deployment none of us cared about trying to hook up, while every other Joe around us was busy trying to do just that. We were content just being away. We were content being somewhere other than Iraq -somewhere with a few patches of green grass, a pool, and some decent chow. We were happy seeing a female face, hearing a female voice and the different perspective that came with it. Anything else was bonus.

In a place where the male to female ratio is twenty to one there are more losers than winners for those trying to hook up. The end result is a bunch of frustrated Joes trying to intimidate each other while trying to impress the two marginally attractive girls, both of which are sucking up the attention even though they have no intention of sleeping with anyone. At the end of the night the Joes walk away stressed out and pissed off.

To make a Joe’s odds at getting laid even worse the Army, as usual, did its best to prevent Soldiers from bumping uglies. In the unlikely event that one should manage to lure in one of the two females on post there were few options for quiet places to conduct business. Females were not allowed in the male barracks and vice versa. This is just as well, since the male barracks were nothing more than large tents erected inside of a warehouse and filled to capacity with bunks. While the female barracks were slightly more private one was no better off there. MPs made occasional rounds to the bunkers with working dogs to ensure they were not being ‘used’ and unless you knew someone stationed on post there was no motel 6. About the only quiet place available was a five ton cargo truck.

The Army is so prudish. Whatever happened to the days of camp followers? Haven’t they read about the stress-relieving qualities of a good lay? Hell, the girls weren’t even allowed to wear two piece swim suits at the pool. They had to wear one piece suits straight out of the sixties (apparently they still make them) or a t-shirt over their two piece.

But I digress.

Trips off post were offered on a daily basis. BJ and I managed to make it into the nearby city where we were not allowed to take pictures (punishment depended on what you were taking a picture of), give anyone the bird (six months confinement) or look American (yeah, that was hard to get away with). I’d show you the pictures I took and tell you what I did downtown but I’ll have to save that for when I’m out of the Middle East and out of the Army.

One day BJ and I went cruising through the desert in SUVs. Our driver was from Sri Lanka and joked about how safe we Americans had to be, as if we were precious little jewels. We joked right along with him –after all the Army had a stupid way of shutting things down the moment one person gets hurt. Our desert cruise took us to the shores of the Persian Gulf, where we went swimming until we ran into a school of Jellyfish and got stung, at which time we decided the pleasantly piss-warm waters of the Gulf were not for us.

Then there was the beer.

Let me tell you about beer. It wasn’t plentiful. It wasn’t even that good. And the strongest of beers (Tuborg, a Danish beer), being the most desirable because of the three beer limit, gave most everyone the shits. But give my buddy BJ (or my buddy Kevy) a beer and he is a happy man. Give him three beers and he is happier. Give him three then tell him that is all he is allowed for the night and he is not happy. “What a fucking dick-tease” is how BJ described it. But, alas, Joes are clever and there are ways of getting around a three beer limit as well, but I wouldn’t know anything about that…

In all reality the best thing about being allowed beer was not the wicked buzz you could catch if you didn’t eat all day and slammed your limit as fast as possible. And it wasn’t the unauthorized extra beers some people managed to get. It was the option of being able to drink that was so appealing; so normal.

It was a slice of temporary freedom.

Four days goes quickly when you’re not suffering. As the end of pass came near the dread creeped in. The dread of going back to the suck. The dread of going back to the suffering life of summer in Iraq where nothing is easy.

*For obvious reasons I cannot name neither the post nor the country

I am a mass of confusion, with no energy to sort through the myriad of emotions surging through me on a daily basis.

My strength waxes and wains.

Anger and frustration simmer dangerously close to the surface and with them there is something else -something unpleasant that I’ve been keeping in check because I’m not ready to deal with it yet. I push it down and kick dirt over it, but every time the artillery fires the concussion kicks up the dirt and I see it clearly again until the dust settles.

I have questions, but I have no answers. And I am not certain I want the answers. Not now.

All I know is going home is supposed to be a good thing. But after being gone for nearly two years home isn’t home anymore. I am home. And in my home people try to kill me.

Everything seems for naught. I am an automaton. I function out of programming; out of habit.

Ψ

In March of 2006 a group of volunteers came to Camp Shelby, Mississippi to treat our Brigade to a steak dinner. They had planned on doing the same for us here in Iraq, but the logistics were too great to work out. So, instead of coming over themselves they managed to ship thousands of steaks directly to us. At first we feared that the ‘Lost Battalion’ would be conveniently forgotten by the rest of the Brigade due to our geographical separation and perceived bastardness, but it turns out our [conditioned] pessimism was for naught –cases of steaks donated by Mancini’s arrived a week after Brigade’s steak gorge-fest.

So one afternoon late last month all of us from Able Co. that weren’t on duty got together to grill up some Mancini’s steaks. It was the best meal we had in months and the occasion afforded us the opportunity for a group photo with a Patriot Guard flag that we had flown over the company TOC –a modest gesture of appreciation for the guys that have taken care of our bros that were sent home early.