near the Sahwa headquarters and had also been firing south, both at the IA and at us. He stressed that any bullets sent our way came from these menânot from the Sons of Iraq. No one knew where these armed, masked men had dematerialized to now.
Had the Sahwa intentionally been firing at us, hoping to kill an American in the midst of the chaos? Did the unknown masked men armed with AK- 47s actually exist? Had the IA used a sledgehammer to swat a fly? Questions, questions, questions, and no amount of talking would yield anything resembling a coherent answer in the hours and days and weeks to come. To be blunt, though, my platoon didnât really give a fuck about the whos, the whys, or the hows of what had just happened. They were content with being able to go back to the combat outpost to squeeze in a few hours of sleep before our night patrol.
Personally, I had a hard time sleeping. My left leg kept twitching like it used to do the night before a big test. So I bought some cigarettes from Mojo
and went out to the back porch. Staff Sergeant Bulldog was already there smoking. We nodded at one another but didnât say anything. Then I took a long drag, listened to the austere Islam prayer chants being broadcast over loudspeakers from a nearby mosque, and waited for the next frago.
II:
EMBRACE THE SUCK
(OR NARRATIVE OF A COUNTERINSURGENT)
Â
Â
SPRING 2008
COIN [the military acronym for counterinsurgency] presents a complex and often unfamiliar set of missions and considerations. In many ways, the conduct of COIN is counterintuitive to the traditional U.S. view of warâalthough COIN operations have actually formed a substantial part of the U.S. military experience.
âU.S. ARMY FIELD MANUAL NO. 3-24 (2007),
COUNTERINSURGENCY FIELD MANUAL, 1-148
A COLD SPRING
The pale curtains of the desert sun opened softly every dawn. Spring arrived, bringing with it a heat eager to oppress.
Everywhere we went, it was always the same. The same tired mixture of anger, sadness, and hope. The same matching black pools of the browbeaten. The same bottled mistrust of a foreign people to whom the concept of trust was foreign. A people caged by their prisons of origin but hell-bent on survival, nonetheless. It wasnât like back home, where the homeless glared at shadows and backs and ideas. Over here, the poor cast their antipathy openly, in the light and at faces and ideals. I found it less jaded but more vacant and more hostile in intentâmore like a junkie just realizing he already has injected his last life-fix.
With nothing to lose, it was easy for them to be honest with us. The eyes told all.
The stare: historyâs chronic shame. To the victor goes this eternal barb, the unblinking eye of the masses.
Telling them we knew what was best and that they needed to start relying on their own government and police so we could leave, that everyone would win that way and any help we could and did provide in the meantime at least offered a new spring in a land of endless, destitute winters, often didnât have the effect I thought it would. Or should.
Whether I thought we were there for something other than oil didnât matter when they thought we were. Open up the freedom present and treasure it, Iraqis! Thatâs a bow of independence. . . . Pretty, isnât it? Give us back the wrapping paper; weâre trying to recycle our democracy exports.
Thanks for the . . . gift? mistah. Leave a blank check and go home and try to eat us away or drink us away or life us away.
If looks killed, there would be far more than 4,000 American ghosts trapped in Babylonâs sand spunk.
I had heard it beforeâthe Hawaiians have a term for this visual hate. Da stinkeye, bruddah-man, bettah stay in Waikiki, haole, ya dig? I had seen it beforeâdrunk college-boys in pastel Polo shirts with fat wallets should be more careful where they venture in the slums of the dirty South. And I
had felt it
Had the Sahwa intentionally been firing at us, hoping to kill an American in the midst of the chaos? Did the unknown masked men armed with AK- 47s actually exist? Had the IA used a sledgehammer to swat a fly? Questions, questions, questions, and no amount of talking would yield anything resembling a coherent answer in the hours and days and weeks to come. To be blunt, though, my platoon didnât really give a fuck about the whos, the whys, or the hows of what had just happened. They were content with being able to go back to the combat outpost to squeeze in a few hours of sleep before our night patrol.
Personally, I had a hard time sleeping. My left leg kept twitching like it used to do the night before a big test. So I bought some cigarettes from Mojo
and went out to the back porch. Staff Sergeant Bulldog was already there smoking. We nodded at one another but didnât say anything. Then I took a long drag, listened to the austere Islam prayer chants being broadcast over loudspeakers from a nearby mosque, and waited for the next frago.
II:
EMBRACE THE SUCK
(OR NARRATIVE OF A COUNTERINSURGENT)
Â
Â
SPRING 2008
COIN [the military acronym for counterinsurgency] presents a complex and often unfamiliar set of missions and considerations. In many ways, the conduct of COIN is counterintuitive to the traditional U.S. view of warâalthough COIN operations have actually formed a substantial part of the U.S. military experience.
âU.S. ARMY FIELD MANUAL NO. 3-24 (2007),
COUNTERINSURGENCY FIELD MANUAL, 1-148
A COLD SPRING
The pale curtains of the desert sun opened softly every dawn. Spring arrived, bringing with it a heat eager to oppress.
Everywhere we went, it was always the same. The same tired mixture of anger, sadness, and hope. The same matching black pools of the browbeaten. The same bottled mistrust of a foreign people to whom the concept of trust was foreign. A people caged by their prisons of origin but hell-bent on survival, nonetheless. It wasnât like back home, where the homeless glared at shadows and backs and ideas. Over here, the poor cast their antipathy openly, in the light and at faces and ideals. I found it less jaded but more vacant and more hostile in intentâmore like a junkie just realizing he already has injected his last life-fix.
With nothing to lose, it was easy for them to be honest with us. The eyes told all.
The stare: historyâs chronic shame. To the victor goes this eternal barb, the unblinking eye of the masses.
Telling them we knew what was best and that they needed to start relying on their own government and police so we could leave, that everyone would win that way and any help we could and did provide in the meantime at least offered a new spring in a land of endless, destitute winters, often didnât have the effect I thought it would. Or should.
Whether I thought we were there for something other than oil didnât matter when they thought we were. Open up the freedom present and treasure it, Iraqis! Thatâs a bow of independence. . . . Pretty, isnât it? Give us back the wrapping paper; weâre trying to recycle our democracy exports.
Thanks for the . . . gift? mistah. Leave a blank check and go home and try to eat us away or drink us away or life us away.
If looks killed, there would be far more than 4,000 American ghosts trapped in Babylonâs sand spunk.
I had heard it beforeâthe Hawaiians have a term for this visual hate. Da stinkeye, bruddah-man, bettah stay in Waikiki, haole, ya dig? I had seen it beforeâdrunk college-boys in pastel Polo shirts with fat wallets should be more careful where they venture in the slums of the dirty South. And I
had felt it
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