A Giant Mess-O-Potamia

Daily Non-Sequitor: The NCOIC of the dining facility, with whom I am on friendly terms from my stint as officer-in-charge of the DFAC guard, gave me quite a compliment at breakfast this morning. I was standing at the fruit bar, loading up my environmentally-unfriendly styrofoam to-go plate (as it happens, Iraq has a far different take on conservation than Americans -- their country is littered with unexploded minefields and their rivers are clogged with refuse and human waste -- the entire place smells like an overturned porta-potty. The non-biodegradable contents of their local landfills are probably the least of their worries) with melon and steadfastly ignoring the chocolate muffins, who were not so much calling my name as setting it to music and flashy choreography -- when in the middle of the muffins' Broadway-style dance number, this young man came up to me. "Ma'am, I don't want to scare you or weird you out," he began...and let's face it, ladies. When a man starts a conversation in this manner, are we not automatically weirded out? No matter, he plowed gamely on -- "Ma'am, I just wanted to say that I think you are extremely pretty...and you know how some people just brighten your day? It's very stressful here but I see you, and you brighten my day. I'm always happy to see you." Then he walked away. I shall take this in the spirit in which I hope it was meant and be flattered...but if some anonymous person starts nailing camel spiders to my door, it'll be game on.

I got my leave date yesterday afternoon -- for you interested parties, I leave here the 27th of August, so give or take a few days of travel time, I'll be back in the States sometime in the neighborhood of September 1st. Those of you interested in basking in the glow of my company, let me know, and plan on being in the DC area the first two weeks of September.

I thought I would take this opportunity to upload some pictures, as I find myself lacking a blogspot topic (other than a discussion of the new Supreme Court nominee...that is forthcoming. My suspicions that W has 666 tattooed somewhere on his person are deepening.) and certain people have been asking me, with increasing lack of patience, for pics. Hopefully this will satisfy even my most ardent stalk -- uhm, readers.

This one is obviously me. On second thought, it might not be so obvious. Dressed just like this with my uber-hard-core-ness in full display, I am often mistaken for a boy. I'm at the Transload site, in full-battle-rattle, as we army types like to call kevlar + flak vest + goggles + earplugs + MOLLE pouches. Getting used to the Army as a female really wasn't that difficult -- just the accessories are a bit different.

These are tanks. I don't get to drive tanks. According to the Army, you need a penis for that. (I assume it must act as a rudder.) Actually I'm not so jealous of my tank-platoon-leader friends anymore. Since this Army is kinder and gentler, and we technically aren't fighting a "war" out here so much as conducting rather ineffective damage control, tankers are not allowed to shoot their main guns. Apparently the collateral damage would be too great and commanders live in horror of getting their pictures on CNN for killing an assload of Iraqi children...nobody wants to get on CNN for ordering a modern-day Mai Lai. In any case, since tanks are swiftly outliving their usefulness at least in the Baghdad AO, most of the tank platoons out here have turned in their tanks for armored hummers.

This is a quite lovely picture of Camp Liberty in the evening. Honestly, it can be pretty out here -- there's a certain desert oasis charm to Baghdad. After all, it was once the cradle of civilization, sitting smack between the Tigris and the Euphrates, which should be ringing some bells for all of you who were forced to sit through World Civ in high school. This is modern day Mesopotamia, the home of Babylon and one of those so-ancient-it's-been-turned-into-a-parking-lot Wonders of the World, the Hanging Gardens. Apparently the Garden of Eden used to be here. You'd think the Tourism Bureau would put up a sign or something. Apparently the Tigris and the Euphrates used to overflow their banks and flood the river valleys with silt in the manner of the Nile, but unlike the Nile they didn't do this on any kind of predictable schedule. If I recall correctly from AP Humanities, this made the people of ancient Mesopotamia a bit skittish, and the Gods they worshipped were as persnickity and capricious as the rivers themselves. Imagine you're some ancient Babylonian...you've been doing your thing, going to your temple regularly, sacrificing your best goats to Enlil or Enki or whatever it was devout Babylonians did, and BAM...the river overflows and destroys your house, your dog drowns, your kids are eaten by crocodiles and your wife runs off with the carpet salesman. If that's the sort of cultural heritage that modern day Iraqis rise from (as opposed to Americans, whose culture is deeply rooted in both Grecian independence and Roman ruthlessness) Saddam Hussein must've seemed rather unimaginative. The man eats doritos in his underwear, for crying out loud. One loses a certain sense of menace in such circumstances.

Until next time...