May is the month I’m on the verge of going home, but it sucks. It’s turning hot, the wind blew vigorously through yesterday, kicking up the dust and blowing everything over. At times you would have to brace yourself in it as it blew dust in your eyes. It spit rain, then the sun came with the wind persisting. It burned the skin. The oven became a frying pan. Everything back home is coming to life while here it dies in the heat. The weather sucks. I’ve been accused of being an optimist and a pessimist both, but that don’t shake me…I’m a realist. My year in Iraq has been, to this date, good, bad, fun, not fun, rewarding, thankless, hot, cold, dirty and nasty. It has been 120+ F with violent diarrhea. It’s been pigeon English with a Jundi at 0200 asking me if I can find him pornography. It’s been shouting matches, shutting up, biting my lip, and voicing my opinion. It’s been trying to keep Jundis calm and quiet after a tower was shot, it’s been trying to get them motivated to work. It’s been friends, enemies pats on the back and slaps in the face. It’s been praise, blandishment and ridicule. I’ve been laughed at, I know TE Lawrence’s ghost laughed at me, and I’ve laughed with them. I’ve loved Iraqis and then felt disgust for others. I’ve done things I regret and things I’d damn sure do again. It’s not been a rose garden, but it’s been a rewarding experience. I was paid handsomely, saved quite a bit up, Made friends, found old ones, found enemies. I’ve got friends in Sadr City. I’ve known people that became mutilated, killed and walked out of here smiling. I helped get a few things accomplished, I’ve seen allot go down the drain. I’ve both been a part of and watched history both. I’m just saying it as it is. It’s been a long year with a little more to go. I still don’t expect to see home for up to another month. I’ll probably talk about here more in retrospect than I have through out this time. It’s been a year of change…
A Small Weird World
The 104th Division from the west coast is relieving us. The other day I went to make contact with my replacement while he was going through some preliminary training and one friendly incoming NCO asked me where I was from. I relayed Western North Carolina. “Around Asheville?”, he asked. I replied Brevard (you know Buttholeville) and turns out he has a friend there. Small world. The next day I seen him and he tells me that when he went to his new site here on Taji, he met a girl from Brevard. I hadn’t heard tell of anyone else from Brevard being on Taji. Swore up and down the girl was from Brevard. Wow, that’s weird.
My replacement has arrived. Today me and the Lt. ( he will remain with them for a few months) sat in the chow hall and talked to them about what to expect from our experience. We didn’t paint them a rose garden. But I found myself looking back over the last year laughing and smiling.
Sua Sponte
The Appalachianist
19 Comments:
This was a difficult post. It will take time to sort it all out just on a personal level let alone in terms of the bigger picture, but in the meantime take care of number one and CYA always and get your hairy butt back to them mountains, baby. Out at the ROTC at Fort Lewis I instructed a young woman from Irmo near Columbia by way of Clemson ROTC. She had played soccer against my daughter. To beat Dreher you had to beat my daughter. She was that good, but Dreher din't have the horses that day. Irmo won, and I still remember the frustration of that loss all these years later and all I did was watch, but it was my daughter who played. She was a top thiry female soccer player her senior year. It is a small world sometimes. I hope that young woman is doing well both the one you are writing about and the one I remember. You have done well. Take care. Bill
a very nice post...just a year of..life..:)
Bill, it's huge and it's small. I know someone that knows someone I knew in 3rd Ranger Bn 18 years ago.
Kitten, I suppose. It's been a long year.
Goodness, A.I., that first bit reminds me of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 :-)
Hang in there, that Freedom Bird will be bringing you home soon.
Hey cutie! I didn't want you to think I had forgotten about you. I am slacking a bit with the blogging, but I still think about you.
I do hope your day to come home comes soon. You have an experience to remember that most of us don't.
America is proud of you.
Please stay safe cutie!
~xo
Leaving you a note from the Mts of North Carolina. Keep doing a great job out there. You guys are the Angels defending our country. Interesting post about the weather. Here in the Mts. the weather is cool at night and warm in the days.I live in some acres so we planted corn and potato recently. Its coming along.Hope you can come home soon to NC and see how pretty things are.Many blessings to you and your colleagues.
Alida
Gunner, I suppose it does.
Yeah, you know the feeling.
Lee Ann, that's real nice of you, but I ain't even noticed. I hope things are treating you well.
Alida, kind of you to say a word about home. I reckon this is the first time you been here? So, go ahead "dance around the camp fire, hang around a while". We ain't no angels though. We ain't nothing like that.
Since your getting retrospective, here's a snippet from you that I quoted on my blog from June of last year, after you had just arrived...
"It hasn’t rained in months, yet there are puddles of blue water, pretty like an ocean, sitting in open spaces."
Don't know why I like that sentence, but I do...
That Lt. has a tough job. You're irreplaceable.
I'll be in Western NC from June 4-11, if you're going to be back home by then I'll email you my cell phone number (if I can find your email). A neighboring town here just lost a kid (19) who was with the 10th Mt. Division over there. Take care of yourself.
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I messed that spelling up so bad, I'll just rewrite it.
It came a storm here last night. The wind blew, thunder, lightening, rained mud. The sky, the atmosphere here today is yellow. I know about red sky night, red sky morning, but not yellow. Well, I do, it means your in Iraq.
I don't know if I'm poetic or irreplaceable. I don't know what going home is going to be lie, I just want to go there.
Sage, I'd like that.
Now if I could just hit all the keys right,I'd say what I have to say.
I did it again, like...not lie...
Don't sweat the small stuff. All of us hit the keys wrong more than we would like. The men's group of our church are going down the Ocoee in early August. Wow! Comin' home is going to be peace lookin' up at Carolina stars and fresh breezes from the mountains and maybe the cicada will be out. I am not going to wax on about what it is. You know better than I do, but it is precious. You can just sit on the porch and look at it. It is still here, but you told us about that already. You'll be all right just get home and in the meantime CYA always. Spellin' is the least of it.
A friend of mine, MEW with From Us To You, just turned me to your blog. Dude, you write well with humor and pathos, sort of like the adopted son of a twisted tryst between Ernie Pyle and Mark Twain.
Mmm, Don't want to think about that too hard.
Thanks for doing what you're doing and for writing about it. I'll be going back in time through the blog and enjoying the posts. I'm a newspaper blogger (www.dailyprogress.com) in Charlottesville Va. and a columnist in the regular paper and a former writer with the Fayetteville Times (now defunct) in scenic Fayetteville, N.C.. You've probably heard of it.
Anyway, I love the blog, keep it up.
I'll let you roll with a little advice a friend of mine in the 82nd gave regarding Iraq. He said it was a lot like a golf course sandtrap in Hell and to get to the green you've got to know when to keep your head down, your wood in the bag and how and when to use your iron.
Rock On.
Bill, you make it sound romantic and peaceful, but the truth is, it ain't. Like I've said, people look at those mountains and think of heaven, but there's a touch of hell there. Otherwise, going home is adjustment...
Bryan, thank you, I'm flattered. MEW is a sweet heart and a nut rolled into one. I don't know what to make of what people say of my writing.
That is everywhere. You don't need the mountains for that to be true. It comes with being human, and you said something to the effect that the mountains will have long forgotten us or outlasted us, but Ernnie Pyle and Mark Twain? Hey, it is insightful. You write with feeling, and it irritates me no end for you to put yourself down. You are almost as bad as I am to myself about that. Keep writin' and as much as you can CYA and come home and face the good and the bad of it. It is all of the above and then some. God bless you and take care. I ain't prayin' and writin' for the heck of it. I'm prayin' for me too and sometimes for your posse cause we are all standin' in the need of prayer. I heard that somewhere before. The posse seem like good folks and they want you safe as you can get in this world the way you are helping or tryin' to keep us safe in your own way. I wrote too much. Thanks, Bill
I posted today (finally) and mentioned Jason andthe Scorchers. While online I stopped by your blog and saw an earlier post mentioning... Jason and the Scorchers.
The reason you can't remember their song is because they, like The Georgia Satellites, The Black Crowes and a few other garage rocker bands are energetic and fun to listen to, but the songs aren't real memorable. I'm not knocking them, I'm just saying....
Hey App,
I have two nicknames...Jello and Chainsaw...I leave it up to folks which side they prefer to see of me. If they are sweet to me they get the Jello, if they are less than then they get the chainsaw...I have no worries...I am me...what you see is what you get based on what I get in return. Also it has been said they don't know whether I am insane or a genius....some no doubt would say I belong in that nervous hospital! But I will take I am a sweetheart and a nut rolled into one...a nutty sweetheart, yup, that's me! You have it tagged.
I know we all will miss your blog, please keep us posted from time to time because I will be checking and let us know when the Eagle has landed. We will be thinking of you.
God Speed and Big Hugs to our Hill Billy Soldier that we love!
Mew
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