Diaz drives us because Diaz always drives us. He doesn’t drink, never drinks, and even though I’m not going to drink, either, why break routine?
The downtown Margarita Bar is one of the few places in town to dance. They have a small, square dance floor, the outside of the square crammed with off-duty soldiers. The Army is the lifeblood of this small town. We clog the clubs and bars. The club is hot, lights flaring to the Reggaeton beat. Locke and I strip off our coats immediately, releasing bare skin, exhibitionists in our own way. I’m aware of the gazes on me, on the way I turn to hang my coat, on my legs as I stride away from the coatroom. I saunter like I like it because I do. I like being the center of attention, feeling wanted from a safe distance. I like it when it’s in the periphery, held at arm’s length. I am an actor, conscious of my every move, from the turn of the wrist to the sway of hips, but actors don’t interact with the audience and I prefer it that way.
Andres stands to the side of me, not my boyfriend but I can lean on his male presence at will, like a beautiful, dark dog keeping the others at bay. He scowls at the crowd. He hates this shit and I brush my hand against his shoulder possessively, reassuringly. Andres has all the broad shoulders and solid frame of a man who can fight, even if I’ve never seen him do it.
There’s a small bar set up near the door, just outside the coatroom, and the bartender behind it waves at me. “Free shots for the ladies,” he grins at Locke and me, holding up a small, plastic cup.
“Free? Like as in free?” Locke is already there, collecting the cup and downing its contents in one fluid motion. If she’s an actor, too, then she’s just as determined to be the star of the show.
The bartender holds out another cup to me, arching his dark brow suggestively. “Free,” he reiterates.
I groan to myself. I’ve barely made it in through the door. I take the cup instinctively, just so he’s not sitting there holding it out to me. Locke takes a second.
“I can probably have one, right?” I ask. It smells like cinnamon. Locke has already moved on, slipping through the dense crowd toward the light of the dance floor. Andres and Diaz follow her.
Though I haven’t been drinking that long, I’ve learned a lot about my tolerance that others find impressive in a woman my size. I know how many shots it takes for me to get tipsy. Eight. I know how many it takes for me to be drunk. Twelve. I know my numbers. One can’t be that bad, right? I place my lips at the edge of the plastic rim, breathe in the hot cinnamon, hesitating for only a moment more before downing the glass. What’s one or two going to do, really? I can handle my alcohol.
And really, what’s the worst that can happen from just one night of drinking?
Invasion
Entrenching
The road to Iraq is bland. The landscape bleeds into the sky, one interconnected flat plane of yellow that scrolls on and on, endless as the cracked pavement and dirt roads we drive on. The heat is violent, singeing the lungs with each breath. I dangle one foot out of the side of the vehicle—the flimsy canvas doors have been removed, it wasn’t like they were bulletproof anyway. I let my foot hang there, the sand road rushing inches beneath the sole, despite the stories of soldiers’ feet becoming ensnared on debris and the entire leg being ripped off. I’m too desperate for a breeze. Billows of sand clog the air, settling over uniform, skin, mouth, and eyelashes like dry mist. I cough, spitting up dirt. Holding the wheel with one hand, I take a swig from my bottle, forgetting how hot the water has become. It scorches the inside of my mouth and my throat, settling like a hot stone at the base of my stomach. I angrily toss the bottle back onto the center console.
“No wonder these people are so pissed off,” Sergeant Holt complains from the passenger seat, yanking at his flak vest collar. “It’s so fucking hot!” Columns of sweat decorate the sides of his face and darken his hair.
I grunt in response. My eyelids are heavy from the lack of sleep, and the constant rumble of the Humvee is a dangerous lullaby. Heat continues to roll off the engine and fills the cab. My nose runs black liquid; my throat is raw from coughing up sand. I don’t feel like partaking in small talk. I wiggle in the seat, my undershirt so wet with sweat that it makes a watery hiccup as it plasters against my skin. I’m in desperate need of a latrine and I roll my head back, silently begging for the convoy to stop. Sergeant Holt has the luxury of a bottle and a penis, both of which make for easy in-vehicle bathroom breaks. He tosses his urine out the window and I squeeze my thighs together.
“Another town,” Holt comments, though he uses the term liberally. Mud-clay huts, primal in their simplicity, decorate the side of the road up ahead. They’re spread far apart, though, so I never understand where the people come from—they materialize from the sand and stand alongside the otherwise empty highway. So many people for so few huts. From a distance I see a small boy galloping across the sand, a plume of dust stretching out behind him. He wears nothing but a dirtied shirt, one that wraps around his knees and brushes his ankles. He runs as fast as his tiny legs will carry him, waving one thin arm overhead. And when he reaches the edge of the road, he stares with dark eyes, a wide grin stretched across his small face. He waves enthusiastically then, eagerly watching as our rumbling convoy rushes by.
Others are not so easy to pass. They flood the road, causing us to slow to a crawl. They rush to the vehicles yet somehow always stop at an unwritten, invisible line. The barrels of our .50-cals swing their way, facing the crowd. Sergeant Holt grips his M16, shifting nervously in his seat. “Don’t let them get so close!” he snaps when an Iraqi reaches out and brushes a palm over my knee. As if I can do anything—my M16 sits to my right but I can’t wield it and drive. I wish I had been given an M9 handgun like some of the officers, but there aren’t enough to go around. I’m lucky I even got ceramic SAPI plates in the back of my ballistic Kevlar flak vest—some have to do without the small arms protective insert.
But these Iraqis are friendly enough. Most smile, more curious than afraid. Many wave, more still ask for water, calling out the word in English. I grab an extra bottle and toss it to a little girl with fluffy black hair and massive eyes. She immediately scoops it up, rewarding me with a brilliant grin. The boy next to her raps his knuckles on her skull, snatching the bottle out of her hands as she raises her little fists over her head, cowering away.
“Give it back!” I yell, gesturing angrily at the boy, but he darts away and it’s not like I can follow him.
Sergeant Holt lets out a startled bellow and I snap my head around, adrenaline soaring.
He clutches the side of his face, doubled over, and for a moment I see a flash of red in his hand. “What happened?” I yell. I grab at my M16, ignoring the sharp pain where the hot metal burns my fingers.
Sergeant Holt looks up, angry red welts slashed across his eye and cheek. “That fucker stole my sunglasses!”
I blink in surprise and almost laugh. “Wow, he really got you.”
Holt angrily touches the welts with his fingertips, seeing the blood. He curses again, glaring at the crowd. “Go faster,” he growls, and I don’t blame him. The bodies are pressing too close to the vehicle. We’re left vulnerable here. “They’ll get out of the way.” Which is true enough. They shift to the side when it becomes obvious I’m not going to stop.
There are no walls or guards or territories here. It’s the grand wide-open and we’re among the first to occupy in late April 2003. We have no armored vehicles; such things weren’t readily available to us then. Maybe some of the infantry were gifted the very rare armored Humvees, but the Army certainly wasn’t handing them out to Military Intelligence units. We don’t matter that much.
There is that nagging, constant fear of attack; a little voice whispers behind my ear that in every dust storm crouches an insurgent with AK-47. But fear stretched too long simply becomes boredom, and the reality of the situation is surreal. It’s the instinctual complex duality of a soldier’s life—fully acknowledging that any second can be your last, yet never believing
you can die—mortality blended with invincibility. I can die. But I won’t.
* * *
We arrive in Baghdad in the muggy heat of early spring. We are not yet accustomed to the city enough to feel the monotony that fills the hours of war. I wake for the third night in a row, drenched in sweat, heart pounding as another round of AK-47 fire startles me from my sleep. I lie there, wide-eyed, listening to the shots tear through the night. I wait for someone to rush into the room, demand we don our armor and ready our rifles. This is it; this is a firefight. When no one comes, my eyelids grow heavy. I doze, and then another round jerks me awake to suffer the whole cycle again.
I groan in frustration, rolling onto my side. A layer of sweat sits on my skin, making it glisten in the low light. Baghdad, cradled by the Euphrates and Tigris, is far more humid than Kuwait. The air is wet and mosquitoes are everywhere. I won’t use a mosquito net—the thin fabric cuts off whatever small breeze might exist. I lather up with military-grade DEET instead, turning my skin white with each application. My lips tingle; I lick them and my tongue goes numb.
I jerk again at the rapid fire of an AK-47, but it is the slow, steady fire of the M16 that spreads cold dread through my stomach. I hear its familiar rhythm and shiver, knowing it means a military guard or patrol is engaging fire. Over the months I will learn to block out the AK-47, but I can’t shake the fear of the M16’s cadence.
Sleep is impossible. I share a room with four other women from my company, Sergeants Forst and King and Specialists Brooks and Lovett, the last two new Spanish linguist additions from another post. At night we strip down to underwear and sports bras. At dawn Sergeant Daniels or some other Sergeant will quietly pad into the room for a weapons count, but we don’t care. I want to be ashamed of the fat that jiggles around my stomach, the widened span of my hips, or the thick thighs that slap together as I move. I don’t want Sergeant Daniels to see this embarrassment, but it’s too hot for modesty. My cot is drenched; a pool of sweat sloshes from side to side as I turn. In the morning it will become a white stain on the green fibers.
On the third night I break, gritting my teeth against hot tears. I spread my arms out, legs wide, waiting, begging, praying for the slightest breeze. Waiting, begging, praying for the gunfire to stop. For even a moment of sleep. I get none. The burning, clawing frustration gets the best of me. I cry. I hate myself for it, biting my lips to stifle the sound. I feel like less of a soldier. Tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll be stronger. Tomorrow I’ll be fearless and brave. But tonight I’m exhausted, terrified, and struggling for air in the wet heat. Tonight, I want to go home. Tonight, I cry.
* * *
Our unit comes to Iraq and is promptly split up. Some are sent to Camp Marlboro, a cigarette factory once run by one of Saddam’s cousins, now reclaimed and renamed by US forces. From our platoon, Locke, Sergeant Baum, female Brennan, and a few others are sent there, while the rest of us are planted in Camp Dragoon, the former headquarters of the Directorate of General Security, and more affectionately known to the locals as Saddam’s one-way prison. The DGS was akin to our CIA and, as locals told it, home to hundreds of thousands of files on Iraqi citizens. Upset the regime and your file was pulled, a member of your family murdered. No one seems to mind that the headquarters took heavy US fire during Shock and Awe and is now mostly rubble. Our “rooms” are half-blown-up buildings; our first task is to clean out the broken glass and smash clear the twisted metal of the former window frames. Electricity is the luxury of civilians. Or officers. Our food is MREs and local lake water “cleansed” with heavy doses of bleach. Powdered drink mixes are bartered and haggled over, traded for something as small as reading material or as large as getting out of extra duty. Anything to mask the taste of bleach, which sits at the back of your throat for hours.
I get dysentery. A time-honored tradition; it’s not really a war until someone gets dysentery.
“How positively medieval,” I grumble, clutching my tight and aching stomach. Dysentery doesn’t get me out of work, though maybe it would have had I properly reported it. But I can’t risk the medics taking me off duty, especially not for something as pathetic as explosive diarrhea. Imagine what they’d all have to say about that. Instead I just take extra bathroom breaks. I eye the “latrine” warily. It’s a wooden shack with a rickety door, put together recently by the engineers. When I pull the thin door open, I’m attacked by the swarm of blackflies that live on the stewing piles of feces and urine inside the half-iron barrels. The smell assaults me. Apparently, I’m not the only one with dysentery.
I could snub my nose at the bathrooms and head over to the bushes, which I’ve been doing a lot of lately. Just recently, I ran into another female soldier, possibly a cook, and we took turns peeing in the foliage, making small talk with our uniforms around our ankles, one playing the lookout for the other because neither of us wanted to use those wobbly latrines and I’d rather pee with a stranger than with a storm of flies. Public urination is hardly a thing anymore anyway—I’ve become desensitized, having bared my ass on the sides of roads in Kuwait and Iraq: first trying to be discreet, first covering myself with a woobie, fumbling with the extra material and only getting piss on my boots. Then less so, when there was nowhere to go but a wide-open expanse of sand and silt. Even when I hide behind a Humvee tire, thinking myself finally safe between two vehicles, another unit’s convoy blazes by, hoots shouted with each passing of a vehicle, like one continuous holler that grows louder and weaker then louder again as the line of trucks thunders by. Their uproarious attention is undoubtedly scornful. No one wants to see the fat girl peeing. I take it because I have to. I stand, boots firmly planted in the dirt, chin angled up. I’ll pretend to be brazen and piss in the open. I’ll be a mockery of what they really want to see—not the pretty girl caught in a vulnerable position but the thing that disgusts them. And if I really must care, at least I don’t have to let them know.
But too many people have been choosing sparse bushes over the latrines and now new rules have been implemented—getting caught is punishable by an Article 15. So I barely suppress a horrified shudder and slide into the narrow shack, trying to push out the majority of flies. Like a pillar of smoke they swarm upward when I lift the toilet lid.
“Oh, I so don’t want you anywhere near my vagina,” I tell the flies, but it’s inevitable. Even worse, it’s become fairly obvious that the toilets were made with only men in mind. The seats sit too far back on the wooden shelf, and if a woman sits to pee, her legs at an awkward angle, the urine pools on her thighs. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I hiss, and do an acrobatic trick with one leg pressed up against the shack wall. Nice to know the engineers remember us women.
But as with everything in Iraq, we adapt. I learn that crouching over the toilet hole is much more effective than sitting on the seat. Instead of washing with wet wipes, we create a shower, scavenging the blown-up buildings for doors and stacking them side by side against a cement wall, creating four walls. We learn that holding five-gallon jugs overhead is tiresome, so we drag metal bookshelves into the shower room, and haul jugs onto the shelves, where we can tip the nozzle down and create a makeshift shower. We learn that it’s easier to have a plastic bin to wash hair, the women sometimes taking turns pouring water over each other’s heads, a shared task that becomes somewhat enjoyable as we amass at dusk or twilight to bathe, when the air is cooler. We then use the bins to wash our uniforms, water black with daily sand and sweat. Desperation is the greatest of innovators; every soldier becomes an engineer.
And there is a sort of rhythm we fall into, a repetitive flow of the days. The sun rises and falls with the azan, the call to prayer that heralds out over Baghdad with a rich, resonating voice. I learn to anticipate the crackle of the microphone, the silence before that first long, deep note, a haunting invocation that cries out over the city. It’s so alien at first, frightening, this startling blare that floods the air, a strange mix of notes that feels foreign. And yet it unfurls itself into a lyrical
certainty, a comforting inevitability that marks the day, marching forward, onward despite bomb or mortar, unyielding to war or peace. I curl around my pillow at fajr, eat lunch at dhuhr, pause for asr, watch the sun sink at maghrib, and stare out into the darkness at isha. The worship marks the moving of hours, the sectioning of days that otherwise blend seamlessly together.
At dusk there’s the shit-burning detail, where unlucky soldiers drag out the barrels from beneath the wooden latrines, pour fuel into the waste, and light it ablaze. The shit and piss burn to a blackened tar, stirred with one long metal pole, a scarf over our mouths as we’re pelted and splattered with burning feces, turning the front of our uniforms black. Later we’ll learn that burn pits can wreck soldiers’ hearts and lungs, leading to reduced lung function, asthma, and cardiopulmonary diseases, and the government will evade responsibility, because of course they do.
Tonight I stand back by our company’s door with Andres, leaning against the balcony railing and watching the fire pits burn against the backdrop of maghrib and the rose-pink sun. Andres is an analyst and works in the tactical operations center (TOC), which he hates because it surrounds him with all upper brass. I only see him in the evenings before or after my twelve-hour shifts, and even then finding privacy is difficult and time is scant. I just barely rest my hip against Andres’s side, a discreet caress, because there’s no touching in uniform and most of the time this is all we get.
“If you squint, it’s almost like a bonfire,” I say, my brain clamoring for normalcy. Andres snorts at me. He finds it intolerable when I look for silver linings. The chaplain stands beside him, leaning back against the wall. He’s paid a visit to our company, though I’m not sure why.
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