Through my eyes – Vision with Character if not color…

War… where to begin? I suppose this will be a train of consciousness type of rambling, since that is the only way to do this subject any justice, and the only way to bring the reader to anything even resembling comprehension of the reality or surrealistic aspects of the subject.

Every day is Tuesday. Since there is no weekend, that means it cant be Saturday or Sunday. Since Monday is the first day after the weekend, it cant be Monday. Since Wednesday marks the midpoint of the workweek, it cant be Wednesday. Since Thursday is the day before Friday, it cant be Thursday. Since Friday is the last workday before the weekend, it cant be Friday. Every day is Tuesday. Every day is exactly the same, and every day is Tuesday.

Every Tuesday, when you wake up, you know exactly what to expect from your day: surprises. They will be the same surprises, day after day, but to expect them would be to anticipate them, and you cant anticipate them, so your expectations are worthless in the extreme. Your hopes and your fears from day to day get confused. Some days you wonder if you are hoping you will or wont be mortared. Some days you are not sure if you already have been mortared and are only reliving the last few days of your life in memory as your synapses in your body expire in death. Most days it doesn’t matter anyway. You will go on, you will continue to be a soldier. You will watch the things and people you love the most go on with life in your absence and wonder if you were ever really PRESENT there to begin with, or if your memories are false. Are you only hanging on to what you wish things were like? Have you convinced yourself that things were that way because that is the way they were or only because that it the only way that the sacrifices you are making day by day make sense for you? Does it matter, in the end?

When you step out of your 10 foot by 10 foot trailer with no running water that you share with another soldier, you see the same things. Sandbags filled with grit, a sun that rises and sets in the same places every day, repeating its predictable path through the sky and never seeming to be directly overhead where it is not glaring in your eyes, causing you to squint, dust and dirt covering everything until you are sure that you see the world in the same way that everyone else does for the first time, devoid of any color other than “dirt.” You see the same ugly vehicles whose sole purpose is to take the fight wherever it needs to be. You walk the same paths, you pass the same people, you might even be lucky and take up physical training, which will offer the only difference in your daily life: which muscle group you are working that day, but even that becomes routine as you make the same cycle week after week, doing the same exercises and the same motions countless times through the months. You see the same squat buildings, built mostly of stone with sandbags piled where the windows once were. You see the same guard towers, overlooking the same farmers fields. You see the local Iraqi’s and wonder if they are farmers or insurgents, and cant for the life of you tell the difference.

Oh, and the people. So many different people from so many walks of life, so many cultures, so many backgrounds. The local nationals with their cautious looks of hope, mixed with the tinge of fear. A people who seems to say “SAVE ME! LEAVE ME ALONE!” as if the two were one and the same. Not knowing for sure whether they are one and the same, not knowing at all whether you will be allowed to do either, much less both. People who’s customs are both endearing and strange, familiar and foreign.

You will see a few thousand of your brothers and sisters in arms on any given day. They all look the same, though some of them have a few identifying traits that set them apart. Everyone of them putting on a brave face, everyone of them dedicated to the mission, dedicated to getting home alive and well. Everyone of them wondering if they will have someone or something to come home to, wondering, hoping, fearing that the changes that are made in their absence will leave them behind, if the changes they make here will do the same to those at home. Everyone has a smile and a kind or motivating word for you, and next to none of them believe what they are telling you, but each of them fervently hopes to come to believe it if they can just repeat it often enough to someone else. Thousands of people around you every day, each and every one of them alone, utterly, completely. Everyone feigns interest, asking the obligatory questions: How is your wife/family/children? How are you doing? Are you ok? Are you holding up? How are you today? You can see their brains disengage from their bodies as you begin your answer, they are already thinking about the next step in their own day, their own problems, their own hopes and fears. You can literally see their own doubts about the answers they might give to their own questions before you even begin your own answers.

Each soldier out here has a rough and hard look to them. We all give the appearance of having the determination to see our duty through to the end, and we all ask ourselves each day whether we will be able to meet the challenges, perform the actions, answer the call that our country will make of us that day. We are all determined to do so, no matter the cost to self, and we are all hopeful that we will do so, though none of us knows if we will or if we can.

There is a lot of strife here, both in the indigenous population and in the military population as well. You see medivacs carrying “casualties” to the hospitals from the field of battles and skirmishes or sites of IED’s. You see fighter jets screaming into the sky, contrails blue behind them, off to provide air support to one mission or another. You see STRYKER’s, HWMMV’s, tanks, APC’s and the meanest looking sonsabitches you can imagine riding them off post, outside the wire, out to track down the insurgents and try not to kill or maim any civilians in the process.

There are many questions and few answers. There are many rotes and roles, but few meaningful motives. There is much confusion despite the dogma that the Armed Forces presents you.

You hold on, day by day, to the idea that you are doing something honorable, that you are assisting those unable or unwilling to assist themselves, and you don’t stop to question why it is that you are the one who has to do it, you just make the commitment and see it through. This is what you signed up for.

Personally, I know the reasons I am here. I am here so that those I know and love will never have to be. I am here in the hopes that my children never are, in the hopes that my friends will NEVER know the sacrifices, the loneliness, the uncertainty that I am living through. Most of all, I am here because I love children, and I want to help secure a better life for them. Whether they are crack addicts babies or Wall Street Exec’s spawn, I want them to know the same freedoms I enjoyed as a child thanks to the countless Americans who have sacrificed their lives and their livelihoods for us all since the founding of this country. Whether they are children of the USA or not, especially if not.

I don’t know what else to say, Joy. After reading this, I haven’t begun to bring the hopelessness that this place brings to a person in any kind of light that it could be comprehensible, and perhaps that is a blessing to both of us. I make it through each day through sheer force of will alone, through whatever lies or half truths I have to tell myself to keep going, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to keep as much of my attention and concentration here as I can so that I can go home to nothing when I am done, in the hopes that I will be able to rebuild, that I will be able to provide the life that my innocent, sweet, loving children so deserve, and I try to bury my doubts as to my ability to accomplish that mission.

I truly wish I could have painted a better picture for you of life here in the desert, or at least an honest account that didn’t include so much negativity. I wish that I could make you see the palm trees that are so beautiful near the Tigress, even though that is where nearly every mortar attack comes from. I wish I could paint for you the smoke that constantly rolls by, choking you while you try to run in the morning for PT, smelling so bad you are almost sure someone set a bag of burning dogshit on your doorstep when you window unit AC/heater kicks on. I wish I could describe the blinding glare of the sun, but perhaps the wrinkles around my eyes will do that for me when next we have occasion to meet. I should have told you about the volleyball courts that are all over post, since sand is the one thing we have in inexhaustible supply around here, and the fun we occasionally have talking shit back and forth through the net as we play, many times having to postpone the game for a half hour or more because of a mortar attack. You should know that with all the challenges we face, we are not defeated physically, mentally or spiritually, even if we are disillusioned with life and cantankerous in the extreme because of the situations and places we find ourselves. I will show you pictures of the areas in Baghdad where I have been, and when you contrast them to the other places, it will appear gorgeous, and it really is, if you can get the photos from the sides of the buildings that are not ripped apart by mortars and bombs or riddled with 50-cal rounds.

I would love to share with you the joy and fierce pride that I have in my kids. I would love to share a positive outlook of life and the beauty that I know exists, the purity and cleanliness that I know is there for the taking, once I figure out how to integrate that back into my life again. I know I can do it, and I know I will do it, I just don’t know WHEN I will do it.

I am sorry this wound up so long, I don’t even know if you are still reading, but I guess it’s a case of being careful what you wish for. Give me a chance to write and I generally take it and run. I look forward to continuing our correspondence.

Lost in a crowd,
Adam