Voices

Letters from Iraq

By the

November 4, 2004


A few weeks ago I received two postcards from Iraq. The first was emblazoned with the words “Operation Iraqi Freedom” in yellow block letters and featured a collage of sunny photographs. It seemed to be the essence of propaganda. The six pictures showed small Iraqi children gratefully clutching bags of candy and toothbrushes, walking arm-in-arm or sitting beside their liberators, gun-toting American soldiers.

The second postcard was a five-by-12-inch piece of cardboard with lime green Arabic script and a barcode on one side. It had been torn off a box. “Now this postcard is more realistic,” the first line read. The tan cardboard had some words scratched out, which had apparently been deemed inappropriate by military censors.

I had never anticipated receiving postcards from a war zone, especially from my 10th grade chem lab partner. We have kept in touch as we successfully navigated ourselves out of Texas. He ended up at Penn State and I at Georgetown. Today I am still at Georgetown, while he is stationed on a U.S. military base near Iraq’s border with Syria.

Mark decided to join the Marine Corps after Sept. 11. Last March, the Marines told him to withdraw from school. He was being called up for a seven-month tour. Mark spent the summer training in the California desert before heading to Iraq this August. Activation was not a surprise.

“I had a pretty honest recruiter,” he said in an e-mail. “He said that everyone joining the reserves would get activated during their first enlistment, and everyone joining the infantry will see combat. He was right.”

Mark has around 30 minutes of Internet access daily and regularly contacts me via Yahoo Messenger, even if just to ask how I am doing.

“I hope you didn’t send your package yet—the mail truck was blown up,” he wrote one day.

Mark’s unit is stationed in Camp Korean Village-dubbed Camp KV-near the city of Ar-Rutbah. His unit often patrols the town, roads and undeveloped areas near the border. It also guards structures and attempts to facilitate the rebuilding process.

Mark said that a lot of his time is spent checking to see whether people stopped on the side of the road are not insurgents.

“People stop on the side of the road all the time,” he said. “Usually it’s because their vehicle isn’t working right, or sometimes they stop to eat a nice warm meal … we just try to make sure no one is planting a bomb. Usually people are really cooperative about letting us search their vehicles. You would be surprised how happy people are to let you look into their car.”

Since he has spent three months in the country, Mark is sent on off-base missions more and more often. While he was unable to discuss the purpose of these missions, he did describe the experience. The outside camps lack the amenities of the base, and nights in the desert are cold and not conducive to sleeping. The soldiers must rotate a night watch every few hours to ensure no one is ambushing their makeshift camp.

The situation back in Ar-Rutbah lately has been very troubled. Just recently, the first suicide bombings in the area began after the insurgency gained a greater hold.

“Just before Ramadan, some insurgents took all the weapons from the police, executed the corrupt police chief, took the weapons from the local Iraqi National Guard and shut them down,” he said. “They didn’t stop there, however. They roughed up the mayor, went around to high schools and made the girls cover their faces, and beheaded a guy in public.”

“We’ve shot up at least two vehicles that were accelerating towards us,” he added. “We found that they were packed full of artillery rounds, grenades and anti-tank mines.”

When I asked him what his hardest day was so far, he responded with a question.

“Do you mean my hardest day or the day when I was in the most danger? Believe it or not, those were two completely different days.”

He went on the describe one of his most dangerous days.

“The one time we did get attacked was at night,” he said. “I was on a street corner making sure no one passed me … I was just standing there watching an empty street and watching the windows and rooftops for people who might want to shoot us, when all of the lights went out. It was pitch black. About 10 minutes later I heard a loud pop and saw a flash; some kind of IED (Improvised Explosive Device) blew up in front of my machinegun buddies about a block away. Everyone was fine, though.”

Despite the realities of combat, Mark does not have any regrets about joining. He values his experience.

“It’s a completely different environment from my quiet, upper-middle class suburb, but I love it.”

When I asked him about his thoughts on the current administration, he expressed mixed feelings.

“If it wasn’t for Bush’s foreign policy, I would never have seen the Middle East. Then again, I would still be at Penn State, eating warm food, making my own hours, working on my degree … This is just part of the job, though.”

Though I cannot fathom what it must be like dealing with the realities of war, I value the insight my friend has given me. With the disheartening election results in mind, we all should think about what will happen in Iraq during a second Bush administration that enjoys a popular mandate.



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