Just Another Soldier

by Jason Christopher Hartley

  Originally we were told that our company was going to act as the division quick-reaction force and that we would be stationed in Tikrit, where the division headquarters would be. This changed, as things do in the military. We now live on an ammo bunker complex in a swamp near a smallish town. Accommodations are pretty spartan. But this is good in a way, because the experience seems a little more in keeping with the theme of what we are doing, which is combat. Not far from us is a very large base complete with a movie theater, chow hall, and lots of girls. One’s natural inclination is always to want the better setup, like to move to the base up the street, but we sort of like having our own little base. It’s quiet here, and we don’t get attacked that often. There are things that make living where we do cool, but overall we have it much harder than probably most of the servicemen and women in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

  Our platoon has recently made a few trips to Tikrit on various escort missions. I was on two of them. The first trip I went on was brief. We had a chance to grab some chow at the very respectable chow hall at the First Division’s headquarters, located at the palace complex, then it was back to our mosquito-infested bunkers in the swamp. The second trip afforded us the opportunity to spend the afternoon there. After chow, we headed over to the morale, welfare, and recreation (MWR) center, located in Uday Hussein’s old palace. This base is impressive. It pained us to think that this is where we were supposed to be stationed but then weren’t. You can’t help but envy the lucky bastards who get to do a tour at this place. It’s gorgeous. The view of the Tigris is incredible. There is so much cool stuff. I mean, it used to be a fucking palace complex, so there are swimming pools and ridiculously decadent living quarters and all that. When I wake up at my base, I stand on a dirty concrete floor where bombs used to be stacked. When the soldiers in Tikrit wake up, their bare feet kiss cool, smooth marble. You can’t help but want desperately to be stationed here. Conventional wisdom says that when you go into combat, you must live in a way that is substandard to the way you were previously used to living. Not true here. If I were stationed in Tikrit at this palace, I’d never leave Iraq.

  I think I would make a crappy dictator. I wouldn’t get anything done. I would totally squander my time fucking off all day at my ridiculous palace. Think of the parties you could throw! God, I have to stop thinking about this. The more I do, the more I lose all sense of Zen-like contentment about living in a swamp. I wanted to strangle all the undeserving pogues who lived here. And the girls. So many girls. The number of women in combat in Iraq has got to be unprecedented. Some graffiti on the wall in one of the shitters read, ALL ARMY GIRLS: HOW DOES IT FEEL KNOWING THAT WHEN YOU GO BACK HOME YOU’LL BE UGLY AGAIN? The cruelty of this remark made me feel better for all the rooms with marble floors upon which I’ll never tread barefoot, belonging to female soldiers I’ll never know.

  Like everything in the world of the buck-sergeant infantryman, you are poorly informed about anything beyond platoon-level operations. I wish I could tell you all the history and significance of Tikrit, and all that took place during the assault there, but I can’t even tell you definitively which palace belonged to which Hussein. I know very little about architecture and even less about Middle Eastern architecture. I don’t know the proper names for these structures or any of the style elements. I hated my art history professor in college more than I can express, and I’m one of these people who fail classes because they hate the teacher. Had she not been such a raging bitch, I would have paid more attention and been able to speak more intelligently regarding this sort of thing. But seriously, this lady fucking sucked. On one test you were supposed to match up certain terms. I was supposed to match the word “parallel” with another word. “Crosshatching” and “posts” were both options. Both things involved parallelism, so I thought I’d just pick one and hope for the best. I chose “posts” since posts were always standing straight up and were parallel with other posts, such as in stone doorways, e.g. posts and lintel. Crosshatching involved parallel lines, but only in little textured groups, so I figured she might get stupid and make an issue about that. I chose wrong. Apparently she thought the lines of crosshatching qualified better as parallel. When I met with her a few days later to contest her marking my test wrong, I figured it would be a trivial feat to present how posts were always parallel and therefore I deserved the points. But she refused. So I asked, “When are posts ever not parallel?” I study calculus, dammit, and even a fucking third-grader knows what it means. As long as two lines that go infinitely in both directions don’t ever intersect, they are parallel. And you know what her response was? “Look at Stonehenge. Those are posts and they’re in a circle; they’re not parallel.” I was dumbfounded. Circle, not parallel?! Either she was pulling my leg or she was trying to pull some novice-level apples-and-oranges Jedi mind trick or she was just actually that retarded. She kept a straight face. She was serious. Trying to not be condescending, I argued, “Fine, they are in a circle, but even so, the lines they represent still never intersect….” She wasn’t paying attention. I gave up. I sleptin through most of the final then showed up absurdly late. I failed the hell out of that class. I was such an idiot. I could have settled for a B-plus and never thought about that old maid ever again, but instead I failed the class as if to spite her. I have a bad habit of having to learn everything the hard way.

  So here I am, wanting to be able to intelligently describe for you some of the things I saw in Tikrit, but I can’t really because I refused to absorb anything from my Art History class at Utah State University eleven years ago. But hey, remember: If things don’t work out in your life, you can always just turn to drugs or join the Army.

  On our way to Tikrit, northbound on Iraq Highway 1, we drove under a magical arch that had been constructed over the highway that will stargate you to ancient Sumeria where you can witness the beginning of human civilization, a regional accomplishment the people of Iraq are very proud of. So proud, in fact, that they haven’t really done anything since then other than rest on their laurels. People of Iraq, it’s time to get a new schtick. We’re all very impressed by Hamurabbi and algebra and everything, but it’s time to do the next insanely great thing. A cure for cancer or usable cold fusion would be cool, but I’d settle for a fatwa denouncing jihadis’ beheading my countrymen and detonating car bombs. Or maybe the secret to those tires that are supposed to never wear out. And by the way, I don’t think the arch was working right. When we drove through it, I didn’t see any cradle of civilization, just a bunch of absurdly poor people juxtaposed with ridiculous despotic wealth.

  At the side of the road as you enter Tikrit, there’s a crumbling concrete monument with a painting of an oil decanter and a sign welcoming you to town. I’m curious what the oil-decanter thing symbolizes. Maybe wealth, or bounty? It brings to mind the Bible story about the miraculous oil vessel that never ran out of oil. Maybe that’s what we’re doing in Iraq—looking for something that will keep giving oil.

  The palace complex in Tikrit, relative to all other architecture I’ve seen in Iraq, is beautiful. The palace where the MWR is located was full of intricate woodwork, elaborate inlaid marble floors, enormous chandeliers, and an abundance of relief sculptures. But to be perfectly honest, your average cheesy Vegas casino has more class.

  One of the rooms in the MWR palace had been converted into a rec room and was full of computers, PlayStations, and TVs. While I was there, I decided I’d send an email to my mom:

  Hi Mom.

  In Uday’s palace. Have a nice view of the Tigris. Still looking for the bathroom with the solid gold toilet and silk toilet paper. Was going to pee in the pool, but was closed today. Made a joke to the girl behind the snack bar that I wanted to pee or poo in the palace, even if it meant doing it on the floor, but she told me this wasn’t Uday’s palace, that this palace belonged to the soldiers now. Why does no one get my sense of humor, Mom? Love you.

  The relief sculptures that covered the exterior of the palace told the hist
ory and tradition of the area. The thought that kept going through my mind as I looked at them was about the person who did all this carving: did he do it out of love for the Husseins, or because he had an unfortunate talent and did it to spare his family from being slain and/or raped by Uday? One particular piece was military in flavor, depicting soldiers holding AK-47s, and it made me think about how many times this part of the world has been overthrown. If you figure how the Sumerian civilization was here, through to the Ottomans, and all the warring peoples in between, this is a place that has pretty much never known peace. Would this palace survive over the centuries? It’s made from sandstone and sits by a riverbed. Not likely is my guess. I was in a place that was once the domain of the dictator du jour, and now I was the arm of the new sheriff in town. Of course my cause is righteous, so I guess I’m supposed to see the overthrow of Iraq—for what, the twenty-fourth time in less than a century?—as a good thing. The relief sculpture depicted soldiers we just trounced. I felt sad when I thought of these guys trying to find pride in being soldiers, the way I’m of proud of being a soldier, but who, really, were being betrayed by a despotic ruler who cared more about his cheesy palaces and fantasy art-filled bachelor-pad apartments in Baghdad than his own people. And now here I was, part of the most recent conquering army, an army whose commander-in-chief isn’t exactly William Wallace. Oh well.

  The motto “Professionalism, Vigilance, Pride, Lethality” had been painted across the threshold you drive through as you leave the walls of the palace complex. I liked the message, but I’m not a big fan of painting messages directly onto what would otherwise have been a nice building. Oh well. That’s all I can think to say for almost everything I see in Iraq. Oh well.

  Thus ends our tour. Thank you. Come again. Watch your step.

  June 19, 2004

  A VERY SPECIAL MESSAGE

  A few days ago we held a ceremony at our forward operating base to award a Purple Heart to a soldier in one of our companies who had been wounded. A few soldiers from each platoon were sent to the ceremony to stand in formation while the award was being presented. Somehow I was chosen to represent my platoon along with a few other guys, a duty I frankly could have done without. Not that I don’t want to show my respect to the guy who was getting the award, it’s just that it kind of sucks to stand at attention in ungodly Iraqi heat in full battle rattle listening to our battalion commander speak.

  I was driving my company commander to the ceremony—we were late—and out of the blue he asks me, “So how’s the writing coming?” He asked me this once before, when I ran into him in our shower trailer a month or so ago. Back in February, he demanded that I “dismantle” my blog when he discovered it on the internet. It was a bit of a fiasco, so I took down my website but continued to send my writings to friends via email.

  I have a penchant for openness and honesty, so I immediately responded with, “It’s going well.” I paused for a moment, then added, “Actually sir, I haven’t written in a while because there hasn’t been that much to write about lately.” “That’ll change soon,” he said matter-offactly. We have a lot of missions planned over the next few weeks to—how shall I put it?—to “celebrate” the turnover of power on the thirtieth. It’s been mostly quiet around here, other than the damn lucky shot of a rocket that killed two soldiers and wounded dozens of others at a nearby base.

  By the way, the ceremony was good. This is soldier-speak for it was short. The guy got his award for getting wounded, a distinction for an award that has always seemed a little odd to me. When I was a kid, my dad once gave me a prize for having the most number of bones in the piece of fish my mother served us for dinner that night. The bullet is still lodged in this soldier’s shoulder. Apparently it entered the Humvee through an open window on the passenger side, shot the night-vision goggles off the helmet of a soldier in the backseat, ricocheted off the vehicle’s radio, then struck him in the shoulder. The battalion commander didn’t mention any of this aside from the night-vision goggles part, something he seemed to find hilarious and macho. I got the rest of this information from Ray, on the drive back to our bunkers. At the end of the ceremony, everyone sang the Army song and the First Infantry Division song. Oh my god, what an abortion that was. “Blah blah blah and the Army keeps blah blah along!” “Blah blah blah blah the Big Red One! Blah blah blah blah!” It was embarrassing. Not one person in my company knew one word of either song. The chaplain, however, sang with gusto.

  We’re attached to the First Infantry Division and, hell, we’re even wearing their patch on our right shoulders now to signify that we’ve been to combat with the Big Red One, or the “bro,” as we like to call them, a unit patch I’ve never worn a day in my life. The First Infantry Division is cool and they have an incredible history—but what active-duty unit doesn’t have an incredible history?—and I’m proud to wear the patch, but some guys think it would be more correct to wear our own unit patch as our combat patch, the patch of the Twenty-seventh Infantry Brigade. But here’s the thing: with all the restructuring and shit that the National Guard is going through, there is no Twenty-seventh Brigade anymore, or at least not for us. Why wear the patch of a unit that doesn’t really exist anymore? All the guys who got left back home from our unit have now been absorbed into the Forty-second Infantry Division (another unit with an incredible history). A lot of guys are not excited about this because the unit patch for the Forty-second is a rainbow. The very same patch the guy in the Village People had on his uniform, incidentally, only he wore his improperly. A rainbow was used for the patch since the entire unit was originally an all-Irish militia once upon a time, and later the patch became half a rainbow to signify how half the soldiers got wiped out in a single battle. The Forty-second has fought in every major conflict since the American Revolution. Their history is awesome. But this is all lost on today’s soldiers. Guys will literally leave the Army because of a patch. “I’m not gonna wear that fag patch!” was a common response to the news that we’d be folding into the Forty-second. There was a time when our New York National Guard unit wore the patch of the Tenth Mountain Division—a cool patch with crossed swords and the word “Mountain” across the top. The irony is that the Tenth Mountain is located at Fort Drum, New York, nowhere near a single fucking mountain. Anyway, retention rates were astronomical, and unit strengths were well over 100 percent back then, something that could be attributed to the simple fact that guys got to wear a cool patch.

  Unquestionably the coolest unit patch in the Army is the Special Forces patch: it’s in the shape of an arrowhead, to symbolize the Native Americans and their guerilla fighting style. There are lightning bolts to symbolize swiftness and power, and a sword to symbolize whatever swords symbolize—who really cares what swords symbolize; swords are cool!. Now that’s a patch! For most of my career, I was in the Nineteenth Special Forces Group, in Utah. I loved wearing that patch.

  When I moved to New York, I had to start wearing the Twenty-seventh Brigade patch. It isn’t a very cool patch. The brigade isn’t that old and it was named after Major General O’Ryan. When they were designing the patch, I think one of the patch-planner guys said, “Okay, they want us to make a patch for the brigade and it has to be in honor of O’Ryan. Hmm…Hey, we’re from New York and we’re all Yankee fans, let’s just wear their symbol!” I’m sure this got presented to the patch-approver guys, who said, “Um, that’s the stupidest fucking idea anyone has ever come to us with. We’re not going to let you wear a baseball team patch. Try again, you assholes.” So the patch-planner guys went back to the bar for another think-’n’-drink session. After a few months of brainstorming they came up with a patch that was the Yankees symbol with some stars. An extra line was put in the NY of the Yankees symbol to make it NYD, meant to mean “New York Division.” For those of you who listened to punk in the eighties, it looks reminiscent of the Dead Kennedys symbol. And some stars were added to symbolize the constellation Orion. Never mind the fact that O’Ryan, an Irish-American soldier
, and Orion, a Greek mythological hunter, don’t have shit in common other than the fact that their names are homophones. Just as I was warming up to it, I learned about the whole O’Ryan-Orion nonconnection thing, which totally ruined it all for me. And now I am wearing the Orion patch in combat. Whatever. It’s a dicked-up patch, but it’s my patch, so I’m proud of it.

  When my battalion moved into our forward operating base here in Iraq, our battalion commander decided to change the name of the base from “Lion,” the name that it had for a year, to “Orion.” So it got changed. But here’s the thing: no one was sure how to spell “Orion.” Throughout the tactical operations center, every possible spelling could be found, including on official documents. So this sorta forced the issue to clear up what exactly the spelling was. It was recently decided (after a few months of waffling) that the official spelling would be “O’Ryan.” Um, but isn’t our brigade named “Orion,” like the stars on our patch? And isn’t our battalion call sign “Hunter” in honor of Orion the hunter, a moniker our battalion commander adores to no end? And if anyone dies from our base, it will undoubtedly be renamed again, and knowing our luck, the new name will be something like “Rodion Romanivich Raskalnikov.”