Independence Day 2011

Vision of a future past

He was gripped by a sense of dizziness before the rocket even impacted. Before the flash or the shock of the shredded cell – before his final transformation into charred shard.  In the last blind beat before the cut fills with wet, at the final stroke of carnival innocence between the box-sprung lid and its shrieking clowny jack face – there settled upon him a shifting, accelerated instant in sickly pine sap trapped and congealed.    He perceived the vertiginous tilt of gravity toward the afterlife – death’s chilly breath as premonition to impending pounce – he heard the stretching reel of an audio track – a shrilly choir of helium voices.  Perhaps someone in the next room was watching the Wizard of Oz? 

Day of Rage

Play List Iraq?

A list of the music that I've downloaded (in chronological order): 


1. Air - Le soleil est près de moi (from Premiers symptômes)
2. Random Rab - aRose - (Album)
3. The Black Keys - Brothers (Album - Deluxe)
4. Band of Horses - various songs
5. Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer (Album - The Deluxe Edition)
6. Ween - Chocolate Town - Quebec
7. Peter Gabriel - Passion: Music the Last Temptation of Christ (Album)
8. David Guetta - Memories (feat. Kid Kudi)
9. Flying Lotus - Reset EP (Album)

Then my iTunes jammed up, I had to write support and then we continue:

10. My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (Whole Album)  

My son flying to visit my father

Claudia and Andres were walking through the airport in Atlanta, while I was here online in Iraq - a page opened on my computer to a map of the airport and another to a map of the MARTA transit with each route and stop expanded into its own map. I had a page open to the Georgia Aquarium all the while on Google chat guiding Claudia through the airport  

"Ok, what do you see?" 

"Duty Free shop."

Ok, then turn left, and go down the escalator, take the tram, go to Terminal D, get out, go up the escalator, turn right - what do you guys want to eat? 

Ok - there's a place that sells soup next to the MARTA station. You are going to need $5.25 round trip - get the pass, it says here that it's cheaper. Take the gold line 8 stops north to Peachtree Center Stop, turn on Baker St...the aquarium opens at 9:00 - says here it's the largest aquarium in the world and that it's also in the Guinness Book of World's Records. It opens today at 9 - 6 - Adult entrance - $24.95 Child (age 3-12) - $18.95...and meanwhile she's snapping pictures with her Blackberry and uploading them onto Facebook so I am actually seeing what the soup looks  - and the weather out the window of train on the MARTA and a snapshot of a hammer-head shark floating in the blue water overhead... 

There was an article I read where Egyptians were ordering pizza online to be delivered to people protesting in Wisconsin. 

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/02/someone_in_egypt_ordered_a_piz.html

and another where someone in Egypt named his daughter "facebook" -  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/21/baby-named-facebook-egypt_n_825934.html

and it dawns on me that we are in fact living in the future.     

Col Oleg

I'm just finishing the fist book in the Chalmers Johnson trilogy that you sent, and it is eye-opening for sure. Particularly considering my current position. I just now came back from a get-together with NATO and met COL Oleg, a Ukrainian officer who is out here doing combat training with the Iraqis. So I joked with him that I hope these guys don't turn on him and use his training against him (or me for that matter)... and he gives this look like (brother, you have NO IDEA) and then starts telling his story of how, as a Second Lt. in the Soviet army he was sent to fight in Afghanistan in 84? at the head of a battalion of soldiers against basically the (US funded) Afghani mujahadeen (Bin Laden). He couldn't even find the words in English to explain it. That basically his men were all but completely wiped out and then the Soviet Union collapses and fast-forward 20 years and he finds himself back in Afghanistan, this time on a NATO mission training some of the very same guys that he had been killing and who had slaughtered his men 20 years earlier - a complete mind-fuck. He was talking about the cycles of history and that was a double cycle - like how we were allies in WWII with Russia, then the cold war and now what the fuck are we all doing here at a party in Iraq? and then we extended that to the US - Iraqi situation which is a triple cycle where the US funds Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war (both sides in fact) - and you can Google an image of Donald Rumsfield shaking hands with Saddam back in those days, then we go to war with the guy, and now here we are funding and training these same people again. Total mind fuck. In the end we all agreed that in the future we should leave all this fighting to our politicians while the human beings that these assholes are supposed to represent are left alone to hang out together and drink beer and be friends.

A raise / Clearance / and grounded

email about teacher training course.
Im already doing that
I'm volunteered for the teacher training job
i decline it and in turn
i get a raise for the job im already doing and dont have to move at all

It's been raiing like hell and my free internet went down
im hesitant to go and rat myself out - thinking it may come back
I go into the MWR - now I remember why I stopped going in there
I'm at the computer terminal and overhear the publicized indecencies
There have been so many classic moments in that internet cafe - there's no way that I could make this up
it's really unbelievable.the conversations that go on right out in front of god and everyone there - absolutely shameless...I open a new email just to document some of the unbelievable interaction...
at the next terminal I hear someone snickering - and I can't tell whether it's a man or woman
at first it;s in the background - and I focus on some other cadet trying to outwit some unloving soon-to-be-another-ex-girlfriend on the other side of the world - but the giggling gradually gets louder and more silly
I look up and see Lt. Col Willy sitting there in front of a computer monitor- giggling at some panty dancing perversion on Skype He is busted but unflustered and casually disconnects from his skype buddy that he has to go goes on duct-taping twinkies between her tits
Rutland.. Lt. Col seems slowly reminded of something important and comes back to an unaffected reality
Sir?
I'm glad I caught you. All English classes are cancelled - you may not go to work tomorrow...
why? -
Do you have your clearance yet?
no
Administrative issues.
The entire country is having an "Administrative issue?"
Yes - I sent you an email.
My internet is out in my CHU - I minimize the eavesdropping email open on the desktop and notice for the first time that I have several unread emails. Willy...willy...yes...I open the email.
ALL English classes are cancelled until further notice for all sites.
The mail is addressed to all Site Leads...CTS has no site lead - I rather, I'm the site lead
there's no one else. Did I mention I just got a raise?
I scan down the letter...
It says here that Tikrit is having classes as usual
Lt. Col Willie has started shutting down his station.
They've resolved their administrative issues.
I close the email. I notice the next one from the DynCorps office.
INTERIM CLEARANCE APPROVED.
Sir...look, my clearance is approved. So tell me, what's the real deal with these classes?
Is there some threat against English teachers or what?
You can't even ask me that question.
willy leans in and squints at the email....and no you don't have clearance
What? It says right here that it's approved.
Not until you sign the CR791 Form
Where do I get that form
No idea.
Wait - look - one is attached to the email
Then I guess you should print it.
I print it and sign it.
immediately upon signing it
ok - now you have clearance
So what's the deal with the classes?

Iraqi Fruit Bowl

And then my cellphone vibrates. As a general rule, I don't check text messages in class. Sets a bad example for the students. Out here in Baghdad though, text messages are not casually sent or serve in most cases as the predecessor to a real (or otherwise imagined - but in either case unpleasant) urgency. Either that or a coveted invite to infamous pizza party at the Italian embassy.

"OK class. You have five minutes to finish this activity. If you are already finished, please check your answers with a partner." Group work offers teacher adequate subterfuge for a quick check of the cell phone. A message from Valentina. Signs point to pizza party. Let's see..

---------------------------

Hello Wells! I'm 

looking for a 

volunteer to

come this 

evening to ili

and help install

the language

lab. Let me

know. 

---------------------------

Dammit. Not a pizza party. And I'm not terribly interested in volunteering for anything at the moment - particularly for language or lab or installation. My entire life stinks of NGO, except, of course that I'm getting paid around $10K by a certain Federal GO.  The ili bit is short-hand for Iraqi language institute, that much I know, but where ili is exactly, I'm not sure. .could this mean a road trip?.

"Class, please continue working on the next activity! Gentlemen! No Arabic in the classroom, please!" I still haven't figured out this Nokia yet. I respond.  

----------------------------------------

"Ok... When?"

----------------------------------------

The reply is instantaneous. There is no attempt to conceal the phone at this point. 

----------------------------------------

"Meet at dfac

with install 

team at 1900.

Will be taking ice cream 

truck, so bring vest."

----------------------------------------

Ice cream truck is an armored transport service for travel throughout the IZ and beyond. And true to name it resembles an ice cream truck. Vest means kevlar and kevlar means one thing...road trip!    

        

Babylon

In the cradle of

Mesopotamia Babylon to Baghdad

Ancient ruins between rivers
flows the Tigris and Euphrates
all you've heard

your whole life stirred by Hades

but to see it here now

with your own eyes

for the first time

at the banks of
a distant history
filling the footsteps
of an ancient future

authoring by my own hand
passages of a living encyclopedia.

Home on the Range

In honor of today's repeal of the don't ask, don't tell law, Special Forces scheduled some trigger time at the gun range. Here is the picture - a dozen US Special Forces soldier, Green Berets - trained in non-conventional warfare, survival techniques,  interrogation, and four Iraqi Generals - one of them a 3-star who served previously under the regime of Saddam Hussein and then there's me wearing a suit and tie - all standing in a line firing automatic M-16s, M-4s, MP-6 sub-machine guns, Beretas Glok-9s, 12-gauges, all united by the universal urge to do some "man shit".... 

So lunch time comes and I have to get back to class - so we left together - 3 of us in an armored Suburban and head out...and on the way there was this unusual checkpoint - and so we pull up - and this Iraqi military orders us to stop - so we stop - then he tells us to open the doors - the driver (SF Sargent - the lowest man on the totem pole) says NO - there are maybe 100 Iraqi guys all over the place - some with automatic weapons - several humvees mounted with machine guns...the guy motions again for us to open the door and be searched...the driver says NO - the Iraqi calls over more guys - the guys come over and they start ordering us out of the car...the driver refuses...they grab onto the outside door handle and try to open it...the drivers presses the gas and advances forward. The Iraqi guys come jumping in the way and draw their weapons so the driver stops...and picks up his cell phone...just then another SUV pulls up behind us and stops. There is some commotion and then everyone lowers their weapons. The SUV pulls up beside us and there sits the 3-star general riding shot-gun. We salute him, he salutes us back, he motions for us to move forward, the soldiers move to the side, and we continue on our way. 

just another day in Baghdad....         

LT COL ABBAS

Lt. Colonel Abbas unfolds his wire-framed glasses from their tiny case and sets them lightly upon the bridge of his nose. With the addition of this simple accessory he feels himself quite suddenly transformed into a college lecturer. He is a large, monolithic man, and patrols the classroom with broad, heavy paces. As if one of the pillars of Stonehenge had sprouted mighty legs and simply walked off. He keeps his hands clasped behind him, locked at the fingers and with each step his towering torso catapults forward into an exaggerated bow, hips hinged, head dipping forward,  like a mechanical bobbing bird. With each step the torso bobs forward dragged by the ballast of a mighty forehead. He pauses, reflects, adjusts his glasses, and looking down his nose he pauses over a savory bit of knowledge which none in his classroom could ever hope to divine. He was all capital letters.