* * *
My name is Sobhan. I was born in 1960 in Nasiriyah, and grew up to be just an average soldier in the Iraqi army. ‘Iraq’s Army of Heroes’ the media called it back then. I can’t tell you any more about my job or the military operations I served in. That’s because I was part of every heroic operation the army undertook since I enlisted, including the one where I laid down my life in Kut. I give you my word: everything I’m telling you is the honest truth. Fact, not fiction. The real truth, no deception. I can’t conceal the things I’ve seen. There was enough nonsense in the world I lived in a hundred years ago, I don’t need to add any more.
* * *
I joined the Iraqi army when I was eighteen. I was just a teenager back then. Tall as a ladder. Faint moustache, like a sparrow’s tail feathers. Nose that stuck out like a rod. On it, a few spots like dried droppings scattered along the side of a road. I served for twenty-two years and six months. From the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 until I was killed on duty in a little battle with the American army in 2003. A minor battle, far from the main action. The war had ended two days before the day I was killed. ‘Mission Accomplished.’ And we’d wanted to surrender, too; hadn’t wanted to enter combat in the first place. We were on that fated hilltop when their patrol took us by surprise, and when we sighted them the world turned upside down.
We heard a voice say Halt.
And we told them Friends.
But not one of them believed us. Me, I smiled at them. I turned, slightly, to reach into my pocket. My pocket, where I’d put a rose. But the American sniper sitting at the back raised his M24 rifle and fired a shot, just one shot. Boom. It hit me in the forehead. The idiot raised his weapon before I could say hi or give him the flower I’d been keeping in my pocket.
He raised his brand-new, well-oiled rifle; not like the scrap metal we had for weapons. He fired a shot. Boom. Hot blood poured down my forehead.
I didn’t believe it at first. Had he wounded me? I wasn’t sure. I felt something hot streaming across my face. A small smile on the face of the black soldier in front of me. He lowered his rifle from his right eye to check whether he’d aimed well and hit his mark. A wide smile sealed the scene. And that was it.
Son of a bitch, he was good … were the last words that passed my lips. And really, they were words of admiration for the U.S. army.
* * *
I started my life as an average soldier in the 3rd Commando Regiment, the one that wrought destruction dozens of times throughout Saddam’s endless wars. I didn’t sacrifice my life in any of his wars (Saddam’s, naturally), but I was injured seven times and promoted to the rank of corporal. I received a Medal of Bravery in the Kuwait War. I joined the Air Landing Assault Regiment in Hafar al-Batin when it was reformed, after most of its soldiers were lost in battle. I made it through all those battles alive. Once during a battle east of Basra, I got shot in the ear, and something fell into my pocket. Luckily, the Iranian soldier was a poor shot. He’d aimed at my forehead but missed. Instead, his bullet hit my ear and tore it clean off. I felt blood run down my neck. I asked the doctor for my ear so he could stitch it back in place, but he couldn’t find it. A few days later I felt something soft and cold in my pocket. I realised it was my ear, and shouted happily, ‘I found it!’
But the doctor said, ‘It’s no good. It came off days ago, and it’s useless now. Throw it away, bury it, or do whatever you want with it. It’s not coming back.’
‘What do you mean it’s not coming back?’
‘Mate, it’s an ear, not a tire on a car. If a couple days go by and it’s not stitched back on, the veins and arteries die. That’s it, what’s done is done.’
So I buried it on the battlefield, while the rest of the regiment stared at me, bug-eyed, adjusting to the sight of me with my one remaining ear.
* * *
I wasn’t ugly or repulsive with one ear; at least I didn’t think so and neither did my wife. The problem was the officers, who didn’t call me by my name anymore. No, they dubbed me ‘Corporal One-Ear’, and that’s what the whole unit started calling me from then on. They took the piss out of me for that little cadaver, even though they knew it was lost in service to the nation, and not to their arses. But my ear wasn’t my only casualty. There’s other things I could tell you about: a piece of shrapnel ripped through my shoulder, I got another piece in my arse, and there’s a third still stuck in my arm. Even with all that, I kept my sense of humor. When anyone told the littlest joke during bombings or attacks, I’d still keel over laughing.
War taught me all about laughter and levity. Even though I’ve got three busted ribs, none of the guts in my belly work right, and most of my teeth are about to fall out, when we were attacked we’d work through it, oil our weapons, squad attention, stand at ease, squad turn to the right in file, right turn, and on and on.
I’m telling you, my performance in combat was excellent, just as my military title suggests. Not like the other soldiers, who were no better than sheep shit. It was my job, my profession, and by choice or by force I loved it. The next unit I joined was the Republican Guard. We were known as Saddam’s Guards, the Golden Division, Men of Death, Lions of the Desert, and other names that would make our enemies shit their pants if they heard we were coming for them.
I never considered killing people in war to be a crime. It was just a job, and a job that paid. A respectable one, just like any government job. It wasn’t a great job, but it was an honourable thing to do for the country, for sure. I wasn’t a hired killer, burglar, or thief; I was a soldier. A corporal, in fact. Part of the Iraqi army. I was just like all the other soldiers. We weren’t allowed to question our orders for a mission, not allowed to ask anything, retreat, flee, oppose, or grow weak. We were there under orders: the military commanders’ orders, the section officers’ orders, the party’s orders. And there was no discussion when it came to that, none at all. We were assigned to units, we killed, we attacked, we occupied, we earned medals, and we boasted that we were part of the Iraqi national army. That was it. I don’t think the soldier who fired the shot, hit me in the forehead, and smiled, was any different to me when it came to that. He wasn’t allowed to ask questions, retreat, flee, oppose, or debate either. Just like me, he was assigned to a unit. He trained, he defended, he occupied, he attacked, he fired a well-aimed shot at the enemy. That’s exactly what he did to me. When he hit me, he lowered his binoculars a bit and smiled, gazing at my forehead and what felt like bird droppings behind me, sprayed in the wind. He smiled when he saw he was right on the mark. When he realised he’d planted his bullet smack dab in my forehead. Son of a bitch, I said, when I realised he’d stuck it right in the centre. I was impressed with him, with how skilled he was. Not an idiot like the Iranian soldier who’d hit my ear instead and ripped it clean off. The American was well trained. I must have been carrying around assumptions about how skilled some of the American soldiers would be, but he was clearly very talented--a sniper who’d probably graduated from one of America's top military academies.
* * *
Even though the state news didn’t talk about the war in the early days, we knew the Americans were coming. We were ready for a battle we didn’t understand. We didn’t have the guts to wonder or talk about it. They didn’t tell us anything. But everyone knew they were coming: me, the officers, sergeants, platoon intelligence, grenadiers, artillery battery drivers, all the soldiers in the corps, the unit baker. Even though it was something we couldn’t say on the news or make public. We didn’t openly discuss it, but we whispered and found ways to talk about it covertly; we’d say something vague that each man could interpret however he liked.
In those days, the only thing we could really talk about was orders: military commanders’ orders, unit orders, party celebrations and the leader’s birthday! We talked about our military capability, and how we could defeat every imperialist platoon, even if their weapons were top notch and ours just pieces of junk.
The man responsible for propa
ganda was an officer from the countryside who barely knew how to put his trousers on straight. ‘We can defeat the biggest army in the world, just by believing in our homeland and our leader,’ he told us.
For this guy, whose trousers were so puffy they looked like a parachute, it meant that we, with our junk for weapons, junk for planes, junk for tanks, junk for rifles, junk for guns, that we could beat the biggest army in the world.
‘See, we want you all to talk,’ said the party official who coordinated Iraqi propaganda and combated Western propaganda.
And as the fleets advanced across the oceans, it was our job to look the other way, to refrain from acknowledging that what was there was there. After all, we were disciplined soldiers: the leader’s soldiers, Republican Guard soldiers, heroes, defenders of the nation.
We didn’t want to end up like Sayeed, the dumb arse with the thick glasses. He worked it out himself and told us, ‘The American army’s coming, it’s inevitable! When the whole army’s on our borders, it’ll all be over for sure. They’re going to attack … and if not, well then why are they here? The swarms of military battleships and planes crossing through the region, do you think they’re there for a picnic?’
‘But we’re gonna beat them, right?’ the baker asked him.
The baker was unshakable and followed the propaganda officer around like a dog. He couldn’t hold his tongue. He was always asking, ‘What’s this? What’s that?’
Sayeed shook his head in frustration.
‘Maybe.’ But there was doubt in his answer. He added, ‘Basically, our weapons are different.’
The baker, with his pockmarked face, wasn’t pleased with the response. Without pressing the matter he asked, ‘What do you say we get real close to them, so our tanks and armoured vehicles face off with their tanks and armoured vehicles, and when we come into range, we get ‘em with our bullets and grenades and handguns.’
‘There’s no way we’ll get near them,’ said thick-glasses Sayeed. ‘American tank shells have a longer range than Iraqi tank shells, and that means they’ll pick us off before we get near them.’
Thick-glasses Sayeed was an idiot, there’s no doubt about that. But he didn’t say they would pick us off like flies. He didn’t say they’d scatter us across the ground like dog shit. Not at all.
‘But we’re gonna beat them, right?’ The baker asked.
Sayeed shook his head wryly. He shook his head and slunk back to the platoon break room.
The baker wasn’t happy with any of this. He informed the party propaganda officer about Sayeed. He didn’t do it that morning, but by nighttime he’d gone into the officer’s cabin and told him what happened with Sayeed, the thick idiot with the thick glasses.
The party propaganda officer didn’t like men with glasses, and it wasn’t just him: most platoon officers felt that way. Men with thick glasses were cowards: they didn’t like war, they didn’t have their hearts in it, and they weren’t ready to lay down their lives, said the baker to the platoon driver.
A few days later, they hung thick-glasses Sayeed up on the wall across from the bunk hall, and then they shot him. Tata, tata, tata. Tshck, tshck, tshck. His glasses flew up into the air, and then hit the ground, flecked with blood. They shot him full of holes because he’d been spreading counter-propaganda to demoralise the soldiers.
The baker was one of the riflemen. He wiped his mouth with a rag. Stood towards the left of the execution squad. Blew his nose and took good aim. He brought Sayeed with the glasses to the ground like a rag riddled with bullet holes.
* * *
I wasn’t hiding anything from them. Not one of us thought we would beat the Americans, or that we’d even win a battle. Not even the party propaganda officer himself. But we were forbidden from saying it, even the half of it. We were forbidden from thinking about it, too. So that’s what happened in the first days of the war, even when the Americans started mobilising their platoons and warships, and closed in on our borders. We looked into each other’s eyes like complete idiots. We were supposed to pretend we didn’t know what was going on around us. We were supposed to be silent. Feign ignorance, stupidity, indifference. Even though just one look around exposed everything we couldn’t say as a farce. No one had the guts to say a single word, even in jest. Exchanging that kind of news—the kind that everyone knew, but that no one spoke about—was enough to bring you down to the ground like a rag flecked with blood too, it was enough to make your brains explode in the air like bird shit in the wind.
But then suddenly everything changed. We received orders, bit by bit. They didn’t say it straight out at first, but they started to be more realistic. It was clear we were preparing for war. We prepared around the clock, and soon it was time to mobilise. In the beginning we’d talked about war as a possibility, or the war ‘at our gates.’ Then we started talking about certain war, decisive war. It would have been stupid to think that all those preparations were just a drill, or for just the officers’ fun, or because the general in command got a kick out of it.
Little by little, we started talking about the war at hand, war but not all-out war. A decisive war, no doubt. A war we needed to prepare for, a war we needed to win. Then the officers started insisting: there will be war. And we’d repeat after them: ‘Yes, there will be war.’
Even the party propaganda officer, who’d denied it all from the beginning, started saying, ‘Yes, there will be war.’ Despite hundreds of people having been killed for saying as much just a couple days earlier! But we weren’t just saying: Yes, there will be war. We had to follow that with another, obligatory sentence: We’re going to win, by God we’re going to beat them!
The second sentence had to answer for the first sentence’s sins, or at least lighten the burden of such heavy words. And there were other things we knew in our hearts. No one could say anything about our ancient weapons that looked like they belonged to a bunch of bandits. About our faces, which looked like those of primates. About our morale, which was as low as a dog whose owner just died. Or about the men coming for us with their high-tech tanks and warships and aircraft carriers to defeat us. No, not once. The propaganda officer with his parachute trousers, with his country face that looked like a piece of dough that had fallen in the oven, he believed that if we just puffed out our chests we could make their bullets tremble and fall mid-air. That our black moustaches alone, if twisted well, were enough to scatter their high-tech jets like dust in a storm.
* * *
The Americans will come, and they’ll bring democracy. Baghdad will be like New York, Amarah will be like Chicago, Sadr City will be like Las Vegas. Ramadi will be the city of dreams, our dusty folk clothes will be no more, and our sombre faces will be replaced with clean ones, brimming with health. That’s what I hoped for with all my heart, that’s what I hoped for, silently, without saying a word to anyone. Without a single word that might hint at it, not to a soul on Earth, not even people I was closest to. Even that idiot baker started to have doubts. He asked me about it once when we were waiting in the truck yard to get our shiny, new bayonets. (The officers were as stupid as mules, no doubt about that. They thought we could face the Americans in battle with light artillery alone, so naturally we’d need bayonets.)
‘Hey Corporal, d’you think the Americans will beat us?’ he whispered nastily in my ear.
He had no more brains than a dead buffalo. He thought I was an idiot like Sayeed. He thought I was stupid enough to say yes, and then he’d stand in line and take aim at me with his rifle, blow his nose and then blow me to the ground like a rag to wipe the floor.
‘No!’ I told him.
But in my heart, I said Yes! And I know how to get revenge, you son of a bitch. I’ll make you lick a lamb’s arse for two days and then drink camel piss, you pig.
* * *
I said I wouldn’t hide anything from any of you. I’m telling the truth today just like I did a hundred years ago. I say it without batting an eye, without a crisis of conscience. There’
s not much left of my honour, what with the number of insults I’ve had to swallow in my life, speaking to cocky men in the army, and serving fools who didn’t come up to my knee. I engaged in frivolous wars that blew half my body away. That was enough to convince me that my country’s problem wasn’t occupation: it was that it hadn’t been occupied long enough.
Right from the start, I believed we were better off with them than without them. We were talking about America, guys. Oh who do you suppose is more advanced, Baghdad or New York? Sadr City or Las Vegas? Kut or Chicago? Amarah or California, Ramadi or Miami? Oh come on, you’d be an idiot, a right idiot if you thought we were better off without America.
I wasn’t the only one saying it, lots of Iraqis believed we’d be better off with them. Everything they’d bring us would be wrapped in cellophane. Everything would be new, still in its box, and wrapped in cellophane. It’d be like flowers on your birthday. Everything they’d bring us would be delightful, they’d bring us happiness itself. American soldiers weren’t angels, sure, but it wasn’t their job to be. I firmly believed that if they said they’d do something, they would. I believed them. I was as sure of this as I was sure of myself, my salary, my ear that fell into my pocket, my shattered ribs, and my stomach ruined by gunpowder, hunger, and beatings.
I’m telling you, I didn’t have the slightest doubt about any of it. The Americans would bring everything great to our crummy country. They’d come to our streets choked with dust and flies, and everything they’d bring would be brilliant white like a young girl’s tits. The Americans would give me back the ear that fell into my pocket. They’d fix my ribs and intestines, they’d remove the shrapnel still lodged in my body, and they’d tell me, ‘You’re just great, Mister Sobhan.’
I just love the idea of the word ‘mister’ leaving their lips. I’m not kidding, I swear. ‘Mister’ is the greatest word any man on Earth can say. You think I’m making too big a deal? Guys, these are Americans, after all, not Saddam’s party members. And whoever doubted it was the biggest idiot on the face of the earth.
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