Brenda & Tom

Note: sorry for the delay in posts. My BGAN terminal has been on the fritz. That, combined with the incovenient timing of moving about, has made it difficult to get online.

The American soldiers I met while in Baghdad were a different breed. Some of them were tired of being there. Some of them weren't. But to a person, they all kept their cynicism cultured with a healthy sense of humor. Some members of another unit were good enough to give me the lowdown on the bombed-out Sheraton. The locals wont even go in here, one Sargent told me. All the local legends have it that Uday and Qusay threw women off the top of the hotel. They all say it's haunted.

I met members of coalition forces everywhere. The Al Rasheed Hotel had its share of them, and even hosted a contractor-run DFAC (dining facility), which was convenient for soldiers. It was there in the “hotel yard” of the Al Rasheed where I set up my BGAN terminal every day. I would plant myself on the rise of a wide sidewalk which cut between the decaying tennis courts and what must have once been some of the most beautiful gardens in Baghdad. Now, as with most scenes in wartime Baghdad, everything was brown, dead, cracked and neglected. From time to time, the Peruvian troops would wander through, tossing a friendly, “Hola.” Other people would wander as well. While there was no longer much to look at in the once splendid hotel yard, it was still a refuge of solace for those who were tired of staring at the t-walls, razor wire and sand bags in the rest of the Green Zone.

Some of the people who wandered through were United Nations officials and foreign press. Many were curious as to what I was doing. In order to get the BGAN working, precise satellite reception was paramount. Once, I found myself planted directly in the middle of the sidewalk and propped the satellite receiver up on my backpack to aim it at the southern sky. It was early in the morning, so the yard was empty, except for two people who were wandering through in subdued conversation.

“What in the world is that?” the woman asked as they approached casually. “It’s for my internet connection,” I said. “Really,” she stated, “You press?” “No,” I replied. On prior occasions I had given a simple, “yeah” response to the question, if only to avoid the 20 questions that would inevitably follow if I denied or demurred. To her credit, Brenda (not her real name) didn’t follow up – at least directly. “So, then, is Uncle Sam monitoring your usage?” she queried. She had assumed I was a government employee. Many at the Al Rasheed were. “Probably,” I stated with a smile. It was a weak dodge, and she saw through it. I explained I was an independent who was gathering research, but not for immediate print publication. “Well, just so you know, they don’t like any information coming out of this place that they can’t control. That’s no big surprise, there’s a war going on. But even the line reporters have to answer to the editors, who answer to their publishers, so no real new information has gotten through in two years – unless it bleeds, explodes, or the recent elections…so, you’re a loose cannon are you?” She said it with a smile. I told her I wasn’t, that I was there without an agenda or preconceived bias.

Brenda and Tom (not his real name either) sat down on the now empty concrete planter next to the sidewalk. We spoke for a long time. Brenda said she worked at the embassy, which could have meant anything from Military to State Dept. to KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root; i.e. Halliburton) or any of a half dozen other paymasters. Tom was American military. They both were eager to get out of Baghdad. They had hoped to leave together, but Brenda was scheduled for departure in three weeks, and Tom had another 3 months “in theater.”

Over the course of our conversation, Brenda and Tom asked me about my experiences and what I had learned. They asked me why I came if I didn’t have to.

“So,” Tom said, “You don’t think it’s adequate just to slap a ribbon magnet on your car and call it a day?” It was a rhetorical question, but not aimed at me. Tom went on to explain how sick he was of Baghdad – how he never thought he would end up here. Unlike many of the other soldiers I had talked to, he was not as careful about choosing his words. “I’ll be out soon,” he mused, “And at this point I couldn’t really care less what they do. I just want to go home.” Following the lead of his unusually candid offerings, I asked him if he thought everyone should go home. “Well we can’t now, for Christ’s sake!” he spat. “Pull out now and the whole goddamn country goes down the shitter!” Brenda shot him a glance and he clammed up. But Tom wasn’t the first soldier (or Iraqi) from whom I had heard some variation of that same theme. “All this ‘we can’t cut and run’ rhetoric is a lot of boys hopped-up on testosterone,” she offered, “but it is rooted in some accuracy. It’s just too bad they weren’t smarter about it in the beginning. Boys will be boys, I suppose.”

Brenda and Tom asked if I was going to use what they said. I assured them that I would mask their identities so as not to get them in any trouble. Of course, they were unwilling to have their photo taken. “No one even knows we’re together,” Brenda offered.

I found it extraordinarily difficult to get anyone in Baghdad to have their photo taken with me. Everyone was paranoid beyond anything I had seen. I suppose I should have expected that, to some extent. It was a war zone, a battlefield. Everyone was on edge, paranoid, cautious. It was not just for their personal physical safety that they were cautious. History was unfolding before the very eyes of everyone in that theater, and the powers that be took a keen interest in controlling what “truths” were bandied about on their watch. The conventional military wisdom is that Vietnam was lost not in the jungles, but in the press. The old G.I. adage, “Loose lips sink ships,” had taken on a whole new meaning, and evolved to a whole new level, for the PR machine in Baghdad. As to whether that’s good or bad, the jury is still out.