War in Iraq, a Soldier's View

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17-Jun-03 12:50 PM

Well, still here. It’s starting to seem like we’ll never leave like the whole story of us going home was a lie. It’s not that far fetched it, happened to us once before, at this very base in fact.

Recent news is that we got Army Commendation Medals for being out here; in the Colonels speech he made it sound like we’re on our way out but it’s obvious that the process will take a long time. We’ve been getting called away to do more idiotic details now that we’ve been here awhile. They want us to set up the coming USO show, and to escort Kuwaiti trucks from Cedar 1. When we got here we were told that we were in transit status so we didn’t have to do this stuff but now that we’ve been here nearly two weeks transit status doesn’t mean much I guess. At first they told us the details we’re voluntary now they’re voluntary but we NEED to do them. I’m starting to think the reason that they’re keeping us is so we can do these details for them.

So to stay “out of sight, out of mind” I’m sitting in one of the buildings that we’re camped next to. They’re actually the same buildings that we used when we were here before; some people of the base fire department are in our old sleeping quarters but the others are free and they’re a bit cooler than the tent so some of us sit in here in the afternoon heat.

I was just sitting here thinking about the people I have met on this deployment. There are the Army people I’ve met; most of them bring my opinion of the Army down quite a bit. SSG Adams that has been bothering us since Scandia is one of the worst, he’s one of the typical Army Pricks that hates anything not American or “their” version of America, and not only that he hates anything that doesn’t have to do with the active Army. The Reserves piss him off because they lack discipline so he gets mad when he comes by and we’re all in our PT uniform even though we don’t have anything to do. He also told us that he thinks that having women in the Army brings us down. He said this right in front of Rebecca; he justified what he said with “No offense but...” like that makes it so that it’s ok for him to say things like that in front of her.

Not all the Army personnel I’ve met are jerks, most of the officers are pretty cool, Colonel Larson is really nice and lets us use his phone and computer whenever we want (but we don’t like bothering him so we try to keep it to a minimum). And Major Byrd will even joke with us like were just another one of the guys like rank doesn’t matter. But it seems like for every 1 person like that there’s 10 that will use their rank to make others lives worse; I definitely think that I’m going to get out of the Military as soon as I get home.

The biggest surprise was the Iraqis I’ve met; they’re nothing like America portrays them to be. Even when the American media tries to portray them in a favorable light they still do them a disservice. I remember the guy I met in Babylon at the market. I was buying some souvenirs and had some questions about some of the meanings on the stuff I was buying and they called this guy over to translate what the Arabic writing meant. He told me and I bought a few things and kept looking. As I was about to leave he asked me if I could answer a question for him. He didn’t speak great English but he wanted to know what religion I was; he mentioned Islam, Jew, or something else (I knew it meant Christian from talking to Raheed before). My religious preference isn’t an easy thing to get across, I’m not religious but I don’t deny the possibility or a god existing so I’m not Atheist. The closest I could come is Agnostic, but that’s not exactly it either. To really get what my religious preference was I would have to have a big discussion with him using words that I’m sure he wouldn’t know the meaning of. I tried to tell them that I believed the values of all the religions he mentioned but he didn’t understand that I just have my own set of Values that are very similar to most religions.

To sort things out he pulled out an Arabic-to-English English-to-Arabic dictionary and asked me to find my religion so he could understand. I thought of choosing Agnostic but that didn’t fit quite right, so I found “Undecided” and gave that to him. But as I was looking it up he was called away to translate for another soldier a few vendors down, we were trying to have this discussion in the middle of a bustling market. As soon as he was done I gave him the book and pointed out the word. He was very interested and looked at the Arabic meaning paused a few minutes and laughed saying, “I don’t believe you! You must have (a) Religion!” It tired to tell him that I believed things from all religions just not the spiritual parts. He just laughed and shook his head and told me, “Thank you for your time!” I told him thank you and left.

The thing is that he was really interested in knowing what religion I was so he could understand soldiers more as a people. I wish I could have told him more of what I believed and asked him what he believed. I really wonder how people in a place with such strong religious ties would think about such a diverse group of people in their homeland. I know a lot of animosity can come from very religious areas when you’re not religious, after all I’m a non-Mormon from Utah, if these people are anything like Utah Mormons then they definitely look at us in a different light because we’re not the same religion as them. In Utah if you’re not Mormon then some people won’t trust you any further then they could throw you, where as other will still treat you just like they would trust anybody else that they meet. If people here are the same way then that would definitely account for a lot of the looks we get when passing through cites. And I wonder if the traditional Arab/Jewish animosity is directed to us because they know that there are Jewish soldiers in the ranks. Or do they look at us just like we’re all one religion or a bunch of different religions?

I wish I could go back and talk to that guy again except with an interpreter so we could understand each other more. I’d like to tell him that it doesn’t matter to me what religion you are as long as you believe in helping others and doing what you can to make the lives of your fellow mad better. I’d like to know if that’s the way him and the majority of Arabs are or if they have the “us vs. them” attitude that the American Media seems to be eager to pin on any Arab. I’d bet that it’s the former and not the latter, if there’s one thing that I’ve learned about people here it’s that they’re just like us in every way, if the majority of Americans have the best interests of the world in mind then the majority of the people of Iraq have the best interests of the world in mind too.

I hope that someday he reads this entry on the internet (if he has access) to answer his question or if somebody has the same question about Americans reads this so they can understand us a bit better. It seems to me that a lot of this Terrorism problem comes from the fact that people don’t know enough about each other. One side thinks that the other is evil because of something they heard or read but that in no way reflects how all of those people think. I bet there’d be a lot of Americans that would be surprised to know that most Arabs don’t bear them any ill will or harm. And I bet a lot of Arabs would be surprised to know that most Americans are against America smothering other cultures with its own.