Bumming Around Baghdad

Life in Baghdad is pretty, shall we say, restricted. At least it is for a guy like me when news of my visit hit the press back home. As my trip wore on, I ran into more and more folks who had prior news of my arrival. I had discovered what surely constitutes some “law of journalism” at any undergrad school these days – that law being, the more people suspect their quote or photo will be widespread, the less likely they are to let you use it. As I began seeing from internet postings and op-ed pages back home, that little interview I agreed to give to a local-beat city hall reporter had metastasized.

The consulate folks with whom I had direct contact were friendly enough. They asked me to come to the embassy for a visit. I thought, way cool, I’ve never been inside an embassy. Turns out, most non-military in Baghdad rarely ever get outside the embassy. It’s their whole world. As more than one put it, “We’re prisoners here.”

The prison itself was Saddam Hussein’s palace. Of course, as everyone has heard, he had many throughout Iraq. I wondered how he got away with building such lavish palaces (photo of Saddam's diving platform) when the rest of his people lived in dire poverty. Then I wondered how the U.S. Government got away with spending $250 Billion on a conjecture over some weapons of mass destruction, and it started to make a little more sense. It reminded me of that old Herman Goering quote. (http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm) Whatever the case, we’re here now, and we planted ourselves, quite amusingly, in Saddam Hussein’s living room. As I wandered through the marble halls, I often thought one of the best punishments for good ol’ Saddam would be to show him a gilded room (now the DFAC) in his former palace at lunchtime, with all the American service men and women sitting down to chow. I don’t know if that would constitute a war crime or not, but it certainly would be just.

Saddam, of course, like Goering and his ilk, incited paranoia and punished perceived disloyalty. His regime back-lit all the trappings of military success. It being a military state, he spent lavish amounts on these monuments (herein: the tomb of the unknown soldier and Saddam’s parade grounds). I had never seen firsthand evidence of such praise for military prowess. I remembered seeing televised parades of ICBMs in Red Square throughout the 80s, but seeing a war-state infrastructure like Iraq’s, even after occupation, was impressive. It made me constantly compare how we in America deal with our military reputation – in both a micro and macro sense. We buy poppies on Memorial Day, we have a beer at the legion or the VFW, we hang wreaths on the stone crosses of our forebears. In America, our military experience had always been one of citizens, not serfs.

We own our traditions. Often, our most poignant memories of living in a free state protected by a citizen military are not giant monuments bought with state bonding dollars or congressional budgets. They are our neighborhood seniors walking in a 4th of July parade, or they’re stories of service from our uncles, grandfathers and their spouses. Our traditions are situated in our parks and on our main streets. I am reminded of the artillery gun at the park in North St. Paul, or the tank I played on as a child by the lake in Litchfield. Everyone served in some way, and we appreciated the sacrifices of our citizens next door or at the dinner table. When that happened we were safer, not just abroad, but at home too.