Baghdad or Bust II
It turns out I hadn't seen anything yet. At Sully Compound, where people awaiting further transportation assemble, I checked my email, then met with my counterparts in their office, shot the breeze a bit, then went to dinner with this lady who was a Swedish embassy employee and another guy from Denmark. That Danish fella was sharp. You would think he'd been born in Virginia; his command of the language easily superseded that of so many natives. With time to kill after dinner, I returned to the Internet cafe, found my sunglasses I had left there without noticing it, then gathered body armor and travel orders to take the helicopter to the Embassy complex.
Once I was strapped in, I had to push in a pair of ear plugs to tune out the loud rotors of the Blackhawk and possibly the machine gun fire that might bark out at any moment's notice from the alert door gunner behind me.
Looking down at Baghdad lying there in the dark, I felt exhilarated. How peaceful it all looked, not unlike the picture of the tranquil desert sand as seen from the C-130 the day before. We crossed the Tigris river, landed to pick up a couple of troops, and were finally dropped off at LZ Washington near the Embassy compound. An Embassy officer, let's call her Betty for the sake of anonymity, was there to greet me and escort me to the Embassy compound.
Of course, we were stopped at the first opportunity. The Peruvian soldiers on guard did not recognize my Jordanian embassy badge, and I was ordered to apply for a temporary vistor's badge. The Peruvians frisked me, gave me the whole nine, and applied the full procedures as dictated by security protocol on me, annoyingly so.
There are so many layers of security around the Embassy that you have to wonder how any of our people get through, let alone the enemy. When Betty took me to the office to get a temporary badge, there was a guy who gave us a form to fill in and then left the room. Another employee returned minutes later, dialed his phone, Betty answered hers, and a short conversation ensued before they both realized that they were a couple of feet from each other. After this song and dance, Betty finally took me on a tour of the Presidential Palace.
The premier for me at the Palace is like visiting the San Diego Zoo for the first time as a kid. Big rooms here, bigger rooms there, possibly a room housing an entire shopping mall or golf course there. Did Saddam have shooting ranges here? Separate rooms for komodo dragons? I wonder. Did his two evil sons peer out from the rooms to the swimming pool and take potshots at the divers if they didn't land the perfect header? So this used to be Saddam's palace.
Give him credit, he spent his stolen money wisely. I have never seen anything like it. The Americans, of course, not somebody to rub it in, are still using this as their own digs until a bigger complex can be completed in the Green Zone. I bet not only is Saddam turning in his grave right now, but he must be doing summersaults, cartwheels and handstands.
After the initial tour, Betty bid me farewell and I strolled over to the Cafeteria, the DEFAC, as they call it here. With all of these abbreviations, the Department of State is making the kids and their LOL and IMO phone lingo look like Neanderthals painting stickmen in their caves. Inside the DEFAC, there is a buffet that would make the Four Seasons dinner and breakfast spreads look like c-rations (your billions of dollars of taxpayers' money at work). I had a few root beers , watched a bit of football, then turned in at my trailer at a little past midnight.
It was a peaceful night - a bit of small arms fire here, a muffled explosion there...all in a day's work in the Baghdad jungle, where the nocturnal creatures come out to hunt and play at night. Of course, my bed had neither sheets nor blankets, so I had to make another trip to the KBR Billeting office. Bush, I say. So billions and billions of dollars that help to add to our considerable national debt can't even get me a decent sleeping quarters? Ha!
I went to breakfast the next morning and ran into Megan, a former PCV I served in Morocco with. Small world. She said she would be in Jordan within a month and would finally get to see my little boy soon. He's going to charm her pants off like everybody else's, that's a given. I wonder how he is doing now, and whether he's had a nice reunion with his mother. Next I found Betty again at her office and she took me over to see other GSO officers, whom I recognized from former encounters in Jordan. Later I am to take the Rhino, some box-like bus that takes you through the entire IZ, the International Zone (RTA? Remember the abbreviations?).
Later, I met with Betty again and met a few others from the Embassy staff I recognized from Jordan. All of them (except for one stupid b---h who was adopted by pitbulls) were friendly, probably recalling what our office had done for them in Jordan. I had a chat with one veteran who described the past few months in Baghdad. Let's call him Ron. Compared to when he first arrived here, Ron claimed that mortar and rocket attacks within the Green Zone were now virtually non-existent. He chatted about the new Embassy complex, possible problems that might arise pertaining to its security, and other trouble spots in town. Very convincing, hearing this all from a non-politician with no agenda inundated with propaganda.
The rest of the day was spent touring the Embassy complex. Again, very impressive. I paid a visit to the PX, where I bought a couple of non-essential items like mouthwash, Gatorade, and the like. In all, there was really nothing I wanted there. I looked at a few of the DVD's. Ugh! Sequels! Can't stand them. I know what you did last Summer. I still know what you did last summer. I will always know what you did last summer. Guess what, I don't give a rat's ass what you did last summer, even if you gouge my eyes out with a spade.
For photos I wanted to shoot I needed to obtain a permit and was told to fill out a couple of forms and promise not to photograph certain items, like posters (propaganda the enemy wouldn't buy anyway) and vehicles (Ugh! why would you? Those things look so nasty that's like them asking me to photograph mating hippos). There was this one soldier who needed to escort me to the officer granting permission for such things, and I was surprised to see how young this kid was. In general, the Green Zone is teaming with soldiers (duh! I guess that's like saying the golf course is loaded with grass), many of them fresh out of High School. Meanwhile I shot photos at will around the Embassy. Nobody even asked to see my permission. They usually don't when you actually have one.
Later, I went to the gym. The gym in the Embassy complex makes some of these high tech fitness centers back home look like playgrounds with slides and swings and monkey bars.
The first thing I noticed was the long row of flags on display. There was one for Italy, one for the UK, then for Poland, then Guam, Denmark, etc. until it finally dawned on me that the Americans were honoring the coalition troops. Very important, considering that one hundred of our partners have provided us with a combined total of a quarter percent of all combat troops.
Okay, I am exaggerating here, but let's face it: does Morocco's flag really belong up there for supplying bomb-sniffing apes? Costa Rica? What did they do? Insert your coconut joke here, I won't. Is this how we honor countries, those who participate in our illegal, money-driven war, however minor the contribution? Sad. Anyway, at the gym I put in my minutes, then shot some hoops with this huge black soldier from the Army outside. Despite his size, he was a sharpshooter from beyond the arc, and had a pretty good stroke going. I told him literally I was glad he was shooting from three point range, because I sure as hell didn't want to guard his big ass in the paint (think white pancakes with plenty of blood, I mean syrup on them).
Dinner later on at the DEFAC again (I still don't know what that stands for; damn teens running the Embassy - you are so not cool). Again the works: A sandwich stand, where you create your own sandwich, the salad bar, a Chinese corner, general entrees. Repeat: not bad at all.
Let's face it: most of the facilities are extraordinary around here. The MWR center (Moral, Welfare, and Recreation - again those damn teens) is located next to a pool that looks like it was designed for a king (Well, it was designed for a dictator and his psycho kids, but that's close enough; wonder if Uday ever drowned any of his nannies in there). There are pool tables outside, posters with special events ranging from Country and Western Evening to Karaoke and dance classes.
There are 'water stops' in the middle of the road, places where you find pallets with a couple of thousand bottles of water, available for anybody who can lift his hand and grab one. People never get thirsty around here. There are big screen televisions everywhere, computers like the one I'm working on now, yoga classes, other martial arts, masses and services to ensure your spiritual fitness.
Not bad at all, I'd say. The trouble is, it's hard to enjoy these things in a jail, which is what the Green Zone essentially is, a complex of a couple of square miles that is more heavily guarded than Fort Knox. Once you're outside of it, though, you can put wagers on the time the first attempt on your life happens. I bet forty on the twenty-fifth. Pete puts down fifty on the twenty-seventh. Boom. You all lose. The house wins. Even with a family, I imagine it would suck, if indeed they were allowed to serve there.
Dad: Honey, let's go to Anbar Province this weekend.
Mom: Yeeeaah! Maybe little Johnnie will lose his other arm and our younger daughter can kick the bucket in style like her older sister last year.
Dad: I know. I kinda miss the cast I had when that shrapnel nearly severed an artery in my leg.
Mom: Never mind that. I will never go back to fireworks for New Year's Eve again. Not after car bombs.
I will have to get ready to move out of here and back to Sully Compound. Got my body armor (Damn! that thing is still so heavy! Makes those vests you used to wear at the dentist's office feel like silk) and helmet ready. I will have to take the Rhino (that boxy vehicle that looks like an RV - when you're drunk enough, I guess; otherwise, it's just plain ugly.) tonight, so that will be another experience.
Once I was strapped in, I had to push in a pair of ear plugs to tune out the loud rotors of the Blackhawk and possibly the machine gun fire that might bark out at any moment's notice from the alert door gunner behind me.
Looking down at Baghdad lying there in the dark, I felt exhilarated. How peaceful it all looked, not unlike the picture of the tranquil desert sand as seen from the C-130 the day before. We crossed the Tigris river, landed to pick up a couple of troops, and were finally dropped off at LZ Washington near the Embassy compound. An Embassy officer, let's call her Betty for the sake of anonymity, was there to greet me and escort me to the Embassy compound.
Of course, we were stopped at the first opportunity. The Peruvian soldiers on guard did not recognize my Jordanian embassy badge, and I was ordered to apply for a temporary vistor's badge. The Peruvians frisked me, gave me the whole nine, and applied the full procedures as dictated by security protocol on me, annoyingly so.
There are so many layers of security around the Embassy that you have to wonder how any of our people get through, let alone the enemy. When Betty took me to the office to get a temporary badge, there was a guy who gave us a form to fill in and then left the room. Another employee returned minutes later, dialed his phone, Betty answered hers, and a short conversation ensued before they both realized that they were a couple of feet from each other. After this song and dance, Betty finally took me on a tour of the Presidential Palace.
The premier for me at the Palace is like visiting the San Diego Zoo for the first time as a kid. Big rooms here, bigger rooms there, possibly a room housing an entire shopping mall or golf course there. Did Saddam have shooting ranges here? Separate rooms for komodo dragons? I wonder. Did his two evil sons peer out from the rooms to the swimming pool and take potshots at the divers if they didn't land the perfect header? So this used to be Saddam's palace.
Give him credit, he spent his stolen money wisely. I have never seen anything like it. The Americans, of course, not somebody to rub it in, are still using this as their own digs until a bigger complex can be completed in the Green Zone. I bet not only is Saddam turning in his grave right now, but he must be doing summersaults, cartwheels and handstands.
After the initial tour, Betty bid me farewell and I strolled over to the Cafeteria, the DEFAC, as they call it here. With all of these abbreviations, the Department of State is making the kids and their LOL and IMO phone lingo look like Neanderthals painting stickmen in their caves. Inside the DEFAC, there is a buffet that would make the Four Seasons dinner and breakfast spreads look like c-rations (your billions of dollars of taxpayers' money at work). I had a few root beers , watched a bit of football, then turned in at my trailer at a little past midnight.
It was a peaceful night - a bit of small arms fire here, a muffled explosion there...all in a day's work in the Baghdad jungle, where the nocturnal creatures come out to hunt and play at night. Of course, my bed had neither sheets nor blankets, so I had to make another trip to the KBR Billeting office. Bush, I say. So billions and billions of dollars that help to add to our considerable national debt can't even get me a decent sleeping quarters? Ha!
I went to breakfast the next morning and ran into Megan, a former PCV I served in Morocco with. Small world. She said she would be in Jordan within a month and would finally get to see my little boy soon. He's going to charm her pants off like everybody else's, that's a given. I wonder how he is doing now, and whether he's had a nice reunion with his mother. Next I found Betty again at her office and she took me over to see other GSO officers, whom I recognized from former encounters in Jordan. Later I am to take the Rhino, some box-like bus that takes you through the entire IZ, the International Zone (RTA? Remember the abbreviations?).
Later, I met with Betty again and met a few others from the Embassy staff I recognized from Jordan. All of them (except for one stupid b---h who was adopted by pitbulls) were friendly, probably recalling what our office had done for them in Jordan. I had a chat with one veteran who described the past few months in Baghdad. Let's call him Ron. Compared to when he first arrived here, Ron claimed that mortar and rocket attacks within the Green Zone were now virtually non-existent. He chatted about the new Embassy complex, possible problems that might arise pertaining to its security, and other trouble spots in town. Very convincing, hearing this all from a non-politician with no agenda inundated with propaganda.
The rest of the day was spent touring the Embassy complex. Again, very impressive. I paid a visit to the PX, where I bought a couple of non-essential items like mouthwash, Gatorade, and the like. In all, there was really nothing I wanted there. I looked at a few of the DVD's. Ugh! Sequels! Can't stand them. I know what you did last Summer. I still know what you did last summer. I will always know what you did last summer. Guess what, I don't give a rat's ass what you did last summer, even if you gouge my eyes out with a spade.
For photos I wanted to shoot I needed to obtain a permit and was told to fill out a couple of forms and promise not to photograph certain items, like posters (propaganda the enemy wouldn't buy anyway) and vehicles (Ugh! why would you? Those things look so nasty that's like them asking me to photograph mating hippos). There was this one soldier who needed to escort me to the officer granting permission for such things, and I was surprised to see how young this kid was. In general, the Green Zone is teaming with soldiers (duh! I guess that's like saying the golf course is loaded with grass), many of them fresh out of High School. Meanwhile I shot photos at will around the Embassy. Nobody even asked to see my permission. They usually don't when you actually have one.
Later, I went to the gym. The gym in the Embassy complex makes some of these high tech fitness centers back home look like playgrounds with slides and swings and monkey bars.
The first thing I noticed was the long row of flags on display. There was one for Italy, one for the UK, then for Poland, then Guam, Denmark, etc. until it finally dawned on me that the Americans were honoring the coalition troops. Very important, considering that one hundred of our partners have provided us with a combined total of a quarter percent of all combat troops.
Okay, I am exaggerating here, but let's face it: does Morocco's flag really belong up there for supplying bomb-sniffing apes? Costa Rica? What did they do? Insert your coconut joke here, I won't. Is this how we honor countries, those who participate in our illegal, money-driven war, however minor the contribution? Sad. Anyway, at the gym I put in my minutes, then shot some hoops with this huge black soldier from the Army outside. Despite his size, he was a sharpshooter from beyond the arc, and had a pretty good stroke going. I told him literally I was glad he was shooting from three point range, because I sure as hell didn't want to guard his big ass in the paint (think white pancakes with plenty of blood, I mean syrup on them).
Dinner later on at the DEFAC again (I still don't know what that stands for; damn teens running the Embassy - you are so not cool). Again the works: A sandwich stand, where you create your own sandwich, the salad bar, a Chinese corner, general entrees. Repeat: not bad at all.
Let's face it: most of the facilities are extraordinary around here. The MWR center (Moral, Welfare, and Recreation - again those damn teens) is located next to a pool that looks like it was designed for a king (Well, it was designed for a dictator and his psycho kids, but that's close enough; wonder if Uday ever drowned any of his nannies in there). There are pool tables outside, posters with special events ranging from Country and Western Evening to Karaoke and dance classes.
There are 'water stops' in the middle of the road, places where you find pallets with a couple of thousand bottles of water, available for anybody who can lift his hand and grab one. People never get thirsty around here. There are big screen televisions everywhere, computers like the one I'm working on now, yoga classes, other martial arts, masses and services to ensure your spiritual fitness.
Not bad at all, I'd say. The trouble is, it's hard to enjoy these things in a jail, which is what the Green Zone essentially is, a complex of a couple of square miles that is more heavily guarded than Fort Knox. Once you're outside of it, though, you can put wagers on the time the first attempt on your life happens. I bet forty on the twenty-fifth. Pete puts down fifty on the twenty-seventh. Boom. You all lose. The house wins. Even with a family, I imagine it would suck, if indeed they were allowed to serve there.
Dad: Honey, let's go to Anbar Province this weekend.
Mom: Yeeeaah! Maybe little Johnnie will lose his other arm and our younger daughter can kick the bucket in style like her older sister last year.
Dad: I know. I kinda miss the cast I had when that shrapnel nearly severed an artery in my leg.
Mom: Never mind that. I will never go back to fireworks for New Year's Eve again. Not after car bombs.
I will have to get ready to move out of here and back to Sully Compound. Got my body armor (Damn! that thing is still so heavy! Makes those vests you used to wear at the dentist's office feel like silk) and helmet ready. I will have to take the Rhino (that boxy vehicle that looks like an RV - when you're drunk enough, I guess; otherwise, it's just plain ugly.) tonight, so that will be another experience.
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