Finding hope day-to-day in Iraq
Hello Family and Friends,
Some moments here I’m lulled into a sense of security, thinking that peace is gaining a foothold and swords are being beaten into plow shares. That secure sense is swiftly shattered, though, when a mortar falls a few hundred meters down the road. A few nights ago I was on the balcony as dusk dimmed to night when a mortar explosion rocked the area. The mortar had fallen two blocks away on a busy market street, killing several Iraqis. An angry call that now is no time to slumber.
The very next night I was writing a report in the team room, which is on the second floor with a window overlooking a busy highway. There came the close popcorn popping sound of small arms fire from the street. A sergeant and I ducked quickly down, not knowing who was shooting at what and supposing it to be a drive-by shooting. I grabbed my pistol just in case it turned into a Wild West shoot-out. After the excitement ended, we learned it was the police shooting at someone right by the building. A little too close if you ask me.
I’ve been able to go on some area recon missions and play the role of an agent. We go to a village or a city section and ask who the leaders are and where they live. It’s like we’re the Pied Piper and children stream out of alleys and doors and crowd the vehicles, making it difficult to do much of anything. We then go find the leaders house and ask him all about the area and the bad guys. Funny thing is – in Shifta village the leaders are the bad guys. We had been getting reports of weapons caches and Fedayeen fighters in the Shifta village and went to meet the leader. A sour-faced man met us at the door and said the leader was at prayers. We returned an hour later with no better results. We found out later the leader was hiding in the house, and right after we left the first time he moved a cache of weapons from his house to a date palm grove. I guess we should have sent in the calvary to round him up.
After a week or two of cooler temperatures (remember that’s relative to 130 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer weather returned for one last gasp. Hopefully it will be short lived and the North winds will shepherd the cool air down from the Northern mountains. I did see geese flying south on lofty wing- a good omen.
Have you ever had one of those days where you feel it doesn’t matter anymore? Day after day after day you give your best, you try to make a difference, you go the extra mile – only to find you haven’t done enough and what you’re doing doesn’t seem to make a difference anyway. I had one of those days. No support from higher headquarters, improper resources to do the job, no real authority to do anything, no answers to the questions, etc. I felt empty, tired, frustrated – like giving up. My buddy put it in perspective when saying, “Keeley, you’re not here to make a difference. You’re just here.”
Luckily a good night’s sleep (as good as it can get on an army cot!) changed my purposelessness back around to the Boy Scout adage, “Do your best.” Maybe my role is small in the unfolding drama of Iraq, but I can become a better actor on the stage of life by the way I play the role given to me today.
I read the following by Tom Shealey in the February 2002 Backpacker magazine that I found beautiful and powerful and stirred such longing in my soul: “The Gift of Quiet- Poet Emily Dickinson once described herself as having an ‘appetite for silence.’ To me, incessant societal noise is a disease that can be cured only by visiting quiet places buried deep within the wilds, places of stillness. I’ve heard shadows bumping across the land as the sun slid toward the horizon. I’ve watched the land rise and fall in front of me, and heard the earth the earth exhale with every step. I’ve listened as shooting stars scratched the night sky. I need such places because there, the stillness descends and wraps itself around me like an old friend come to comfort me. Right now with the word “terrorist” a part of our daily diet and our collective nerves rubbed raw by dread and apprehension, I need to go ostrich and bury my head in the quietude wilderness offers me. I want to hide, if just temporarily, where the air is heavy with silence and heal so I come back whole again.” That’s the kind of medication I need a little of!
Take care,
Chris