Nirodha

Sometimes the demons are really angels, come to strip away the remnants of your life to make you free.

-A rough paraphrase from the movie Jacob's Ladder.

The last 48 hours have been pretty difficult for me to bear for a few simple personal reasons. Indifference is the starvation of the soul. I had to change scenery to try to work through it all, so I went for a walk around base. The quad that I live on is pretty small and uninteresting. The only place to walk is outside the quad on a 2.5 mile pill shaped loop of a road in the center of base. Off I went by myself and into a surreal little experience.

Taking consideration of my personal life and personal experiences since I've been deployed, I know I have a tremendous sadness that consumes me. I began to walk. Lately it has been dusty and inhospitable by most westerners' standards, visibilty is low and everything tends to be beige. That is when I realized how much harder life is in this environment; how many comforts I have given up, things that I had taken for granted now not even a part of my life. I began to feel stripped away but free. The sadness separated from me and I felt as though it didn't have to define me anymore.

Then came some Iraqi soldiers driving by in their LWTs (Little White Trucks) with the machine guns mounted on back. They waved and beeped in a friendly, brotherhood-of-soldiers kinda way. There's always that moment of mistrust when you see a foriegn army with weapons coming at you. That's when things started to get surreal for me. I realized that I am more apprehensive about living with the sadness and its cause than of facing armed Iraqis and death. Death is easy, takes no real effort.

I kept walking around the loop and past some Iraqi guards. They waved as I passed. That's when I started thinking about how friendly these Iraqi soldiers are despite their situation. Walking a bit father, I started to notice that evening prayers had begun and from the mosque a voice droned over the loudspeakers. By this time I was so drowned in my surroundings that I left thoughts of myself behind. Passed by armed troops in HMMWVs and LWTs, I could see in the dimming distance groups of people milling around. I came upon dozens of Iraqis gathered around a soccer field (really a flat piece of dusty land with homemade nets at either end). As I approached, many of them stared at me until I waved and sat down. They smiled and went back to watching the game. I couldn't at first describe how amazing it was to me that this seemingly simple situation was happening. Amazing because I was the only American sitting with a large group of Iraqis playing soccer in some rural outstretch of an anarchic Iraq. Amazing too when you remember back to when Saddam was in power, his sons would summarily execute the soccer teams if they lost.

These particular Iraqis are on base because their sense of patriotism dwarfs mine. They have volunteered to be soldiers in the IA (Iraqi Army). They are not the best trained, most fit, most disciplined group of soldiers. But they have heart and some deep seated desire to see Iraq heal. Despite dozens of casualties in April, they still train with an eagerness. They know it is an uphill battle for them to form an army and take back control of their country. They had the courage to volunteer to make that difference. They put their lives on the line frequently taking high risk assignments at check points and guard posts. Last year 50 soldiers fresh from Basic training, received here at Caldwell, were mass-executed on their way home on leave. Each time we convoy from here and travel through the front gates, there are lines of volunteers gathered for in-processing. This is the spirit and determination that really can make changes. I was recently sent a wonderful article written by Ben Stein in which he praises American soldiers for being the true heroes and role models for our nation. I turn and salute the soldiers of the IA for possessing the same values and selfless service in the face of deadly adversity.

I soon got up and continued my walk back to my little haven amidst this surreality. For a few moments, I was not burdened by my sadness. I found escape in the idea that these particular Iraqis had set aside their lives, material possessions, attachments, to find hope in an uncertain future. ...and still they played soccer.