Soldier’s Stories

Friday 24 October 2008
1700

I’ve been deployed in the AOR as a part of OIF and OEF since October 2006, but I have always been “in the rear with the gear”. As a result, I have often felt disconnected and remote from the people who are on the front lines doing the actual fighting as well as the challenging and rewarding work of helping the Iraqi and Afghan people reclaim their countries from repressive regimes and start to build peaceful lives.

I know that just by being in theater I am much closer to the wars than most people, and that for many Americans the difference between one country and another in this region is essentially academic. I’m “over there” (as they said in WWI), and that’s enough. It’s certainly true that the entire region is full of bad actors who are hostile to American interests and that we are consequently targets for them. That’s at least part of the reason that this is still considered part of the combat zone and an “imminent danger area”. But it doesn’t keep me from feeling the distance between what I do and experience on a day to day basis and what is experienced by those who are stationed in Kabul, Kandahar, Bagram, Balad, Mosul, Baghdad, Al Asad, and all the other places that I’ve heard of but never been.

In Kuwait I was surrounded by the materiel, apparatus, and activities of war - vast stockpiles of equipment and supplies, convoys moving in and out, daily briefings on the situation up north, etc. I was even occasionally able to overhear conversations between people who were involved firsthand in the operations up north. But I still felt somewhat insulated from the reality of what they did, as they were just not part of my world.

This place is different. Although in many ways it is even further removed from field operations than Kuwait, in one important respect I have found it to be closer to the action. Because the R&R program is here, there is a constant influx and perpetual presence of soldiers fresh from the battlefields, taking a few days away from combat operations to get a dose of normalcy, or at least as close to it as the staff here is able to provide.

Because I do not have an internet connection in my room, I spend a lot of my free time at the USO/MWR building where I can get a connection. Most everybody there is in civilian clothes, and participating in the activities provided by the center that I have previously described. But as I sit there reading email, checking out Facebook, or playing WoW, I will frequently look up and see new soldiers arriving off a flight from up north.

They come in after several days of travel, wearing their ACU’s and IBA, and carrying their helmets and one or more rucksacks and duffel bags. They look tired. They pass me by and go on to their in-briefing and billeting assignments, and then reappear later, blending into the crowd wearing civilian clothes.

They are young. Although there are certainly plenty of people in their thirties, forties, and fifties like I am, the overwhelming majority are very young. When I look at them I see my own kids. I sometimes stop what I’m doing and watch them, and wonder about their lives. Where did they come from? What are their lives like at home, and how do they feel about being over here? What job do they do up north? When I see them in the USO, they are just a bunch of kids having fun. Although there is a sprinkling of tattoos and t-shirts with hard-charging military images and slogans on them, mostly they just look like I would expect any other group of young people to look.

When I look at their faces, though, I sometimes wonder. Especially when I see someone off by themselves. I have mostly noticed this outside, where there is a collection of picnic tables where people go to sit around, listen to music, talk, drink their beer, and smoke. Last night one person in particular struck me for some reason, as I saw him sitting alone, smoking a cigarette, gazing off into space at nothing in particular. I wondered what was going through his mind.

I have had an opportunity to find out a little bit about a few of these young people, and now that I’ve thought about it I plan to make it a point to pay more attention. What got me started was the fact that I’ve picked a number of them up in my vehicle and given them a lift.

CAS is only about a mile long, but some facilities are at opposite ends of the base. Anybody who wants to get around and can’t drive either has to walk or wait for a shuttle bus. It’s no fun to walk or sit in the heat, so as I drive around on post going about my business, I will usually stop when I see people walking or waiting at a bus stop and ask if they need a lift. Usually the answer is a surprised and enthusiastic “yes”.

It’s kind of remarkable to me how grateful some of them are to be picked up. It seems natural to me, as I drive around alone in a government vehicle, that I should pick up people walking. But I guess it is unusual, or at least unexpected. I figure that they only have a few days, so why waste time sitting at a bus stop if they don’t have to? In any case, that’s how I started to hear snippets of their stories.

Then a couple of nights ago I went ahead and sponsored a couple of R&R soldiers to go downtown. I was headed to the mall anyway, and since I’d been meaning to do this I decided it was a good time to start. I went to the R&R desk and signed up, and within about half an hour they had a couple of soldiers who wanted to go along. We got the paperwork done, got in the vehicle, and headed off post. I almost immediately started to regret it.

One of the guys was quiet and reserved, but the other guy was a real character. He talked almost non-stop the entire way, and almost nothing he said gave me anything like a “warm and fuzzy”. It didn’t help that he was from New York and spoke with an extremely strong accent (“Hey, ah youse guys from Nuhyoahk?”). It gave his talk an almost cartoonish quality that made it hard to take him seriously. This effect was amplified by the things he was talking about (e.g., “Do youse guys know wheah deah's any ‘big boy’ ent-uh-tain-munt in dis town?”). Then he pulled out his phone and showed us a video of himself taken earlier in the week, wearing a white robe and Arab headdress and doing some kind of “Borat”-like dance routine in the market downtown. So - he’s a great big uncultured uninhibited clown who’s looking to cut loose, while I’m responsible for him….great! I had visions of being called by the MP’s and told he’d been thrown in jail by the Qatari police for some sort of lewd, lascivious, or disruptive behavior.

Fortunately we were going to a mall where no alcohol is sold and there are no illicit businesses. But it is a family mall, so I was still a bit concerned that he might offend someone. I laid out the ground rules, showed them where they could find me at the internet café, established a time to meet, and hoped for the best as they wandered off.

As it turned out I had nothing to worry about. We met without incident and left to return to CAS. On the way home, he once again talked almost non-stop, but this time his talk had a different quality. He spoke a lot about Afghanistan and combat operations there, his experiences on convoys, in firefights, and interacting with the locals, as well as his contempt for out-of-touch officers who put out directives and guidance that are at odds with the reality of conditions on the ground. Again, because of his outrageously exaggerated accent and extreme mode of expression, it was a bit hard to take him seriously and for most of the time I just listened with a sort of amused tolerance, thinking “it takes all kinds” and even occasionally “boy, is he full of shit”. I dropped them off at the R&R center with good wishes, and they went on their way.

As I thought about it afterwards, though, I began to take a different view. It struck me that talking about things like that was very likely a way for him to blow off steam and get things out of his system. I have no idea whether or how he talks about things when on duty, but in this context here, where people are expected to relax and unwind, it seems possible that he might have been venting frustrations and feelings that he may normally just keep to himself. Given what I saw of his personality it seems unlikely that he’d keep his thoughts to himself, but in any case he clearly felt the need to talk and I’m glad I was there to listen.

Then yesterday I picked up a soldier at the DFAC and drove him to the USO. I asked him what he did for a job and he said “I’m trained as a mechanic, but up there they have me cleaning up the pieces of TCN’s after they get blown up”. A TCN is a Third Country National, i.e. a person. So this young mechanic is basically performing mortuary affairs duties, picking up and packaging pieces of people to send home to their families in India or Pakistan or wherever they are from. I didn’t know what to say to him other than “That’s messed up”. He agreed with me. But that’s the job they gave him, so what can he do? As I watched him walk away after I dropped him off I was glad I’d made at least a small contribution to making his stay here more smooth and pleasant.

Thinking about these people and some of the others I’ve run into has given me the idea to pay a bit more attention to them. I plan to talk less and ask more questions, and to remember what they say. And then I’ll try to record some of what they tell me here.

Two of the most moving books about men in war that I’ve ever read were Ernie Pyle’s “Here is Your War” and “Brave Men”, which were compilations of his columns from the front during WWII. He had a gift for capturing the essence of ordinary people who had been thrust into extraordinary circumstances. I’m no Ernie Pyle, but perhaps I can capture just a small taste of what these young people have on their minds when they come here to unwind and relax.

Mood: Humble
Music: Pietro Antonio Locatelli: Concert Grosso No. 4