from Jeff
Ah, yes. Here is the Army I know and love. Replacements are arriving. Equipment is moving. HMMWVs groan down the street, looking purposed and severe, loaded high with boxes and duffles. Sergeants walk briskly to and fro, and damnit, Johnson, I said the FAR storage quad, not the FIRST storage quad!! The commander is in his element, having finally things that will end the world if not for his intervention, and everyone else down the chain is shuffling check sheets and wistfully looking toward next week, the Week of Uncertain Dates, the military equivalent of the Second Advent. We're going home. It's redeployment time.
My replacement did, indeed, arrive, but since her company is woefully understaffed, they are intending to use her as both Platoon Leader and Brigade Collections Manager, which is like having your fry chef also double as your wait staff. You can do it in emergencies, but even then your service will be pretty greasy. What will probably happen is that they'll keep her permanently as Collections Manager and have her warrant officer (who is still back at Ft. Hood) act as de facto Platoon Leader. So, effectively, my replacement hasn't arrived yet. Ah well. But it's okay. Not like there's too much planning to do in the meantime, without their equipment. We can�t change the fact that they'll have barely enough people to run 24/7 operations, and will be doomed to fight their intelligence staff for a break, even just to send people home on leave, the poor beggars. The handoff of operations from one unit to another is always an exercise in pride and comparison. The old unit politely says good-bye and good luck, then rolls its eyes and shakes its head walking out the door. Oh, they're screwed. The new unit tips its hat at the advice and turns forward to the task, smiling in disbelief. Wow. If we did things the way THEY did, then God help us. Na�ve self-confidence runs deep in the Army, and that's probably a good thing. If we ever lost it, we'd probably never agree to accept any of the jobs we're told to do. Political reform in the Middle East? But of course. Maybe that's all heroism is- ignorance at one's own inability. But it looks deliberate when viewed from another continent, so I won't blow our cover.
Our Brigade wanted to do something of a documentary video of all the lessons learned and techniques we adopted while in Iraq, so on Monday I spent twenty minutes in front of a video camera talking about equipment and targeting. My, the things you learn in a year. Maybe the video will find its way into the Army archives somewhere, to show to future generations of academy cadets, the same way we were shown old grainy footage of nuclear bomb drops and World War II equipment tests. The Army of Yesterday. The future was right around the corner back then, when the age of nuclear war was going to forever Change the Way We Fight, or even make ground fighting completely unnecessary. In a few years, all fighting would be done by computers and missiles, and one A-bomb would end everything, if things got bad enough. Soon we would forever quit the need for sitting in bunkers or running house to house. That's always the Army of Tomorrow, I guess, using techniques we recommend in documentaries to future generations of young leaders who will build on our advice and snicker at our hairstyles. I wanted to say something deeper and more reflective, but talking to The Future while you are in the present always sounds corny. That's probably why so few people do it, even in documentaries.
Well, folks, this is probably my last Travel Log written from Iraq. But not the last one ever. I'll have to wrap it all up from Kuwait or Carson (no scheduling promise on that one), and try and hold on to my dying fame. Some of you have asked what the future of the Travel Log might be, and I'll probably keep writing and turn it into a blog that you can access online if you get lonely or bored and need to hear some random pep. That's probably what it will be: random pep. I like the sound of that. Reminds me of an old Onion article supposedly written in 1955 that was headlined, "SWELLNESS AT ALL-TIME HIGH" and sported a beaming, clean-shaven male figure giving the thumbs-up. I'll have to dig that picture up and use it as a banner. Whatever I decide, I'll keep you posted. You've all been great.
So what is there to say? The deployment is done. Our shallow dent on the massive twine ball of history has been made. That's what I love the most about being military, you know- making that dent. To necessitate the writing of an additional paragraph in a history book that high school students will get the cliff notes for. A question on a mid-term:
The U.S. Invasion of Iraq in 2003 was primarily which of the following?
A) An economic move to consolidate claims on energy reserves in the Middle East
B) A campaign in a religious war to eradicate Islamic influence in the Third World
C) A misguided attempt to bring democracy to a despotic and tribal region
D) A military campaign in a cultural war between the commercialized, atheistic West and traditional, fundamentalist Old World
Five points for that one. And you KNOW you remember studying it last night. Dang.
And what does Jeff think? Well, you know what Jeff thinks. There isn't enough emotion in a history book to do justice to any period of it. I'm sure if Napoleon and Winfield Scott and Charlemagne were all alive today, they would be appalled at the injustice done to their own shallow dents of time. That's not why it all happened! Everything about the past will eventually make sense in a documentary, but what can never be captured is that raw bit of feeling that makes men act on what they don't know, and what might happen. It's the stuff that makes Hiroshima somehow an object of regret 60 years in the future, when it is all abundantly elementary in the present. It's the stuff that makes Genghis Khan lovable and clever in the 20th century, someone whom Warner Brothers might use in a Bugs Bunny Cartoon. It makes us forget that Abraham Lincoln was regularly written off by the media as a hick and a dolt, and that our founding fathers were perturbed over the tax on whiskey (on principle, surely!). History and memories are odd in that way. They capture everything but emotion, which is possibly the best explanation for why things happen the way they do. They explain why a country with abundant oil reserves, fresh water supplies, a growing population, deep sea ports, the support of the strongest military power in the world, and billions of dollars in aid, instead dove headlong into a bloody sectarian war between two groups of people sharing identical lineage and a common branch of religion. They explain why the most powerful nation in the world spent every year of the endeavor engaging in self-flagellation and self-reflection, grimacing at every death and wondering what must be the matter with itself to cause it to have violent enemies in the world. They explain why the long history of Western Civilization, marked with countless victories over poverty, disease, ignorance and racism, will mature into a stagnant pool of guilt and surrender. It baffles me some, but not really. These things aren't found in history books, but you can understand them a little if you know where to look.
I leave Iraq without a great amount of love for this place. It isn�t my home, and that is okay. It is the same sentiment I expect from anyone who loves his own country. I wish the Iraqi people the best, and I hope that they realize their own dent in history can be more glorious and powerful than generations before them ever could have made. They have the power to overcome incredible forces: hopelessness, ignorance, hatred, and racism. They don't know it yet, but they can. They believe that things have to be as they always were, but they don't. The problem with vision is that it usually has to be revealed rather than conjured from within. My prayer for them is that their vision will be revealed, if they want it to be.
And, lastly, let me say this to my friends back in the States. Never be ashamed of your country. Never. You live in an amazing country. Patriotism is often a trite and uncreative pursuit, but let me indulge it just once. I have seen eleven months of death and hatred and frustrating idiocy, and a simple Tuesday afternoon in Denver will be like a walk in paradise, where people on the sidewalk take your good will for granted and wonder if their weight is unattractive and obsess about being on time for yoga. Our cares are beautiful to me because they are innocent, and exaggerated in their empty importance. We are like children at play, and we trust that everyone else has come to play as well. Our faults and vices are only forgivable because we don't allow anyone to call them out before we do, and no one can blame us louder than we blame ourselves. We watch CBS specials on how we're all too fat and too rushed and too greedy, and ponder over whether the Japanese are getting better at math than we are, and why we just can't be as smart and driven and hard working as everyone else, or at least as much as we used to. And when we do succeed, we feel guilt over our success, and view poverty in Asia and disease in Africa as evidence of our guilt, and problems that we must fix. We're flawed, but it is with the kind of vice that makes us tender.
To my Christian friends who believe that American has fallen down the path of evil and hedonism and is now teetering on the edge of destruction, I say that I have seen wickedness and nihilism here that would make Bertrand Russell cringe and cross himself. I have seen people kill without the slightest remorse, and break up families and threaten the innocent without a single thought. I grew up hearing a quote that I believe is attributed to Billy Graham's wife, Ruth Graham. She said, "If God doesn't destroy America, he owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology." I have to respectfully disagree. I've many times read the moral state of those two locales, and they don't quite yet capture Minneapolis on a Saturday night. (Maybe Vegas. Maybe.) I'm not convinced that if an angel stopped by to spend the night at my house in St. Louis, the townspeople would pound on my door to demand a token ravishing. I just can't picture it. As far as I know, in America, most sodomy is still consensual. The people of our country are a decent people, and our conscience is tenderer than we realize or admit. In many ways we have yet to see true evil among us.
To my progressive friends who believe that America is regressing backwards into a state of blind fundamentalism and narrow-minded ignorance, I say that I have seen racism and bigotry here that exists as standard dinner conversation, to such an extreme that the speaker doesn't even question that you might not agree. I spoke with a Kuwaiti on the way back from leave, and he told me that most of our problems in Iraq stemmed from the work of Jews and Persians. Okay, I said. Persians I can see, maybe, but Jews? Sure, he said. They only care about money, and they've been working with Iran for years now to try and sabotage Iraq, and after all the Jews were also behind 9/11. Um, okay. The very fact that this conversation in any public area in the States would make everyone in the room uncomfortable speaks to a marked difference in culture. That is a huge triumph of Western Civilization- racism is not cool, back where we're from. We're possibly the only culture in historical existence that has achieved the marginalization of bigotry. Jesse Jackson may get up every year and harp about how long the road is and how frustratingly far away equality is, but I don't agree. Bigotry and ignorance in our country exists, but at least it does not exist without extensive ridicule. Even in the midst of what is obviously a war with ethnic influences, we feel guilty about ethnic profiling. We just can�t DO that sort of thing�can we? Can we? If anything, the fact that we regularly ask these questions speaks to me of a triumph of the liberal mind, not a triumph of narrow-mindedness.
To my libertarian friends who fear that freedoms and rights have been forever sacrificed to the god of a totalitarian security, I must say that we have no idea what it is like to live under an oppressive government. We have never SEEN fascism, my friends. An American who lives in fear of his government is one who must think that he is somehow programmed differently than the men and women who populate the FBI, CIA, and military. He must view his government as one made up of mindless drones who exist for the Glory of the Mother State , who don't also appreciate the freedom to live and work and love the same way everyone else does. I have seen a country where the government does not trust its people, and where the people fear their police and military. It is a frightening sight, and it isn't America. Such societies are built upon sects and division and corrupt loyalties. Our embattled party system doesn�t even approach the warfare I've seen between countrymen here. We are far more respectful of other men's freedoms than we give ourselves credit for.
To my peace-loving friends who would sooner emigrate than tolerate another war waged by their own country, I must say that I can't think of another culture that jumps to justify a war where we lose money, human life, and world prestige, all for ethereal concepts like "freedom" and "democracy." The great bulk of modern states just don't DO that sort of thing, and no one will ever protest on their capital lawns with red faces and picket signs. No one will ever express outrage at Switzerland for remaining neutral in war, or blame Finland for leaving the oppressed peoples of the world under tyranny. They will keep all their cool points, and the blame will flow instead to the high and mighty countries that think they can actually do some good by using force. You may bemoan the great price of the war and the loss of reputation because of it, but remember also the great prices borne by those who have no one to fight for them, whose causes can't be won by talk and diplomacy. The war may fail, and Iraq may fail as well, but I will forever be proud of us for doing it, because it gave these people something they haven't had in decades- a chance. Military force cannot usually bestow function or good will or even necessarily peace, but it can give the people who make such things a chance to succeed in doing it. They may fail in doing so, but the point at which they fail is beyond our ability, and we will only be able to return from the endeavor saying, "This was where our work ended, and theirs began." You care much about that work, but not at all for the destructive and forceful work that sometimes makes it possible. War is a blunt instrument, but there has been much more gained in this war than we realize. There is hope here, too. Don�t forget that.
So that about wears this whole deployment thing out. I will be back in the States around October 30th assuming we don�t get delayed in any of the four places we're stopping at on the way out. The chilly Colorado fall will never feel so good. Can't wait to see all of you. Coming home is in many ways like waking up- it's all still there, and you are happy to be alive. Thank you for making it worth showing up for.
And thank you for your prayers and gifts and encouragement. They meant more to me than you know. A year is a long time, but not so long to lose touch with what is important. I owe that you.
And finally: Well, you know what I'm going to say by now.
But it's true. You all do. You all do. Thanks. I�ll see you on the other side.
Jeff
My replacement did, indeed, arrive, but since her company is woefully understaffed, they are intending to use her as both Platoon Leader and Brigade Collections Manager, which is like having your fry chef also double as your wait staff. You can do it in emergencies, but even then your service will be pretty greasy. What will probably happen is that they'll keep her permanently as Collections Manager and have her warrant officer (who is still back at Ft. Hood) act as de facto Platoon Leader. So, effectively, my replacement hasn't arrived yet. Ah well. But it's okay. Not like there's too much planning to do in the meantime, without their equipment. We can�t change the fact that they'll have barely enough people to run 24/7 operations, and will be doomed to fight their intelligence staff for a break, even just to send people home on leave, the poor beggars. The handoff of operations from one unit to another is always an exercise in pride and comparison. The old unit politely says good-bye and good luck, then rolls its eyes and shakes its head walking out the door. Oh, they're screwed. The new unit tips its hat at the advice and turns forward to the task, smiling in disbelief. Wow. If we did things the way THEY did, then God help us. Na�ve self-confidence runs deep in the Army, and that's probably a good thing. If we ever lost it, we'd probably never agree to accept any of the jobs we're told to do. Political reform in the Middle East? But of course. Maybe that's all heroism is- ignorance at one's own inability. But it looks deliberate when viewed from another continent, so I won't blow our cover.
Our Brigade wanted to do something of a documentary video of all the lessons learned and techniques we adopted while in Iraq, so on Monday I spent twenty minutes in front of a video camera talking about equipment and targeting. My, the things you learn in a year. Maybe the video will find its way into the Army archives somewhere, to show to future generations of academy cadets, the same way we were shown old grainy footage of nuclear bomb drops and World War II equipment tests. The Army of Yesterday. The future was right around the corner back then, when the age of nuclear war was going to forever Change the Way We Fight, or even make ground fighting completely unnecessary. In a few years, all fighting would be done by computers and missiles, and one A-bomb would end everything, if things got bad enough. Soon we would forever quit the need for sitting in bunkers or running house to house. That's always the Army of Tomorrow, I guess, using techniques we recommend in documentaries to future generations of young leaders who will build on our advice and snicker at our hairstyles. I wanted to say something deeper and more reflective, but talking to The Future while you are in the present always sounds corny. That's probably why so few people do it, even in documentaries.
Well, folks, this is probably my last Travel Log written from Iraq. But not the last one ever. I'll have to wrap it all up from Kuwait or Carson (no scheduling promise on that one), and try and hold on to my dying fame. Some of you have asked what the future of the Travel Log might be, and I'll probably keep writing and turn it into a blog that you can access online if you get lonely or bored and need to hear some random pep. That's probably what it will be: random pep. I like the sound of that. Reminds me of an old Onion article supposedly written in 1955 that was headlined, "SWELLNESS AT ALL-TIME HIGH" and sported a beaming, clean-shaven male figure giving the thumbs-up. I'll have to dig that picture up and use it as a banner. Whatever I decide, I'll keep you posted. You've all been great.
So what is there to say? The deployment is done. Our shallow dent on the massive twine ball of history has been made. That's what I love the most about being military, you know- making that dent. To necessitate the writing of an additional paragraph in a history book that high school students will get the cliff notes for. A question on a mid-term:
The U.S. Invasion of Iraq in 2003 was primarily which of the following?
A) An economic move to consolidate claims on energy reserves in the Middle East
B) A campaign in a religious war to eradicate Islamic influence in the Third World
C) A misguided attempt to bring democracy to a despotic and tribal region
D) A military campaign in a cultural war between the commercialized, atheistic West and traditional, fundamentalist Old World
Five points for that one. And you KNOW you remember studying it last night. Dang.
And what does Jeff think? Well, you know what Jeff thinks. There isn't enough emotion in a history book to do justice to any period of it. I'm sure if Napoleon and Winfield Scott and Charlemagne were all alive today, they would be appalled at the injustice done to their own shallow dents of time. That's not why it all happened! Everything about the past will eventually make sense in a documentary, but what can never be captured is that raw bit of feeling that makes men act on what they don't know, and what might happen. It's the stuff that makes Hiroshima somehow an object of regret 60 years in the future, when it is all abundantly elementary in the present. It's the stuff that makes Genghis Khan lovable and clever in the 20th century, someone whom Warner Brothers might use in a Bugs Bunny Cartoon. It makes us forget that Abraham Lincoln was regularly written off by the media as a hick and a dolt, and that our founding fathers were perturbed over the tax on whiskey (on principle, surely!). History and memories are odd in that way. They capture everything but emotion, which is possibly the best explanation for why things happen the way they do. They explain why a country with abundant oil reserves, fresh water supplies, a growing population, deep sea ports, the support of the strongest military power in the world, and billions of dollars in aid, instead dove headlong into a bloody sectarian war between two groups of people sharing identical lineage and a common branch of religion. They explain why the most powerful nation in the world spent every year of the endeavor engaging in self-flagellation and self-reflection, grimacing at every death and wondering what must be the matter with itself to cause it to have violent enemies in the world. They explain why the long history of Western Civilization, marked with countless victories over poverty, disease, ignorance and racism, will mature into a stagnant pool of guilt and surrender. It baffles me some, but not really. These things aren't found in history books, but you can understand them a little if you know where to look.
I leave Iraq without a great amount of love for this place. It isn�t my home, and that is okay. It is the same sentiment I expect from anyone who loves his own country. I wish the Iraqi people the best, and I hope that they realize their own dent in history can be more glorious and powerful than generations before them ever could have made. They have the power to overcome incredible forces: hopelessness, ignorance, hatred, and racism. They don't know it yet, but they can. They believe that things have to be as they always were, but they don't. The problem with vision is that it usually has to be revealed rather than conjured from within. My prayer for them is that their vision will be revealed, if they want it to be.
And, lastly, let me say this to my friends back in the States. Never be ashamed of your country. Never. You live in an amazing country. Patriotism is often a trite and uncreative pursuit, but let me indulge it just once. I have seen eleven months of death and hatred and frustrating idiocy, and a simple Tuesday afternoon in Denver will be like a walk in paradise, where people on the sidewalk take your good will for granted and wonder if their weight is unattractive and obsess about being on time for yoga. Our cares are beautiful to me because they are innocent, and exaggerated in their empty importance. We are like children at play, and we trust that everyone else has come to play as well. Our faults and vices are only forgivable because we don't allow anyone to call them out before we do, and no one can blame us louder than we blame ourselves. We watch CBS specials on how we're all too fat and too rushed and too greedy, and ponder over whether the Japanese are getting better at math than we are, and why we just can't be as smart and driven and hard working as everyone else, or at least as much as we used to. And when we do succeed, we feel guilt over our success, and view poverty in Asia and disease in Africa as evidence of our guilt, and problems that we must fix. We're flawed, but it is with the kind of vice that makes us tender.
To my Christian friends who believe that American has fallen down the path of evil and hedonism and is now teetering on the edge of destruction, I say that I have seen wickedness and nihilism here that would make Bertrand Russell cringe and cross himself. I have seen people kill without the slightest remorse, and break up families and threaten the innocent without a single thought. I grew up hearing a quote that I believe is attributed to Billy Graham's wife, Ruth Graham. She said, "If God doesn't destroy America, he owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology." I have to respectfully disagree. I've many times read the moral state of those two locales, and they don't quite yet capture Minneapolis on a Saturday night. (Maybe Vegas. Maybe.) I'm not convinced that if an angel stopped by to spend the night at my house in St. Louis, the townspeople would pound on my door to demand a token ravishing. I just can't picture it. As far as I know, in America, most sodomy is still consensual. The people of our country are a decent people, and our conscience is tenderer than we realize or admit. In many ways we have yet to see true evil among us.
To my progressive friends who believe that America is regressing backwards into a state of blind fundamentalism and narrow-minded ignorance, I say that I have seen racism and bigotry here that exists as standard dinner conversation, to such an extreme that the speaker doesn't even question that you might not agree. I spoke with a Kuwaiti on the way back from leave, and he told me that most of our problems in Iraq stemmed from the work of Jews and Persians. Okay, I said. Persians I can see, maybe, but Jews? Sure, he said. They only care about money, and they've been working with Iran for years now to try and sabotage Iraq, and after all the Jews were also behind 9/11. Um, okay. The very fact that this conversation in any public area in the States would make everyone in the room uncomfortable speaks to a marked difference in culture. That is a huge triumph of Western Civilization- racism is not cool, back where we're from. We're possibly the only culture in historical existence that has achieved the marginalization of bigotry. Jesse Jackson may get up every year and harp about how long the road is and how frustratingly far away equality is, but I don't agree. Bigotry and ignorance in our country exists, but at least it does not exist without extensive ridicule. Even in the midst of what is obviously a war with ethnic influences, we feel guilty about ethnic profiling. We just can�t DO that sort of thing�can we? Can we? If anything, the fact that we regularly ask these questions speaks to me of a triumph of the liberal mind, not a triumph of narrow-mindedness.
To my libertarian friends who fear that freedoms and rights have been forever sacrificed to the god of a totalitarian security, I must say that we have no idea what it is like to live under an oppressive government. We have never SEEN fascism, my friends. An American who lives in fear of his government is one who must think that he is somehow programmed differently than the men and women who populate the FBI, CIA, and military. He must view his government as one made up of mindless drones who exist for the Glory of the Mother State , who don't also appreciate the freedom to live and work and love the same way everyone else does. I have seen a country where the government does not trust its people, and where the people fear their police and military. It is a frightening sight, and it isn't America. Such societies are built upon sects and division and corrupt loyalties. Our embattled party system doesn�t even approach the warfare I've seen between countrymen here. We are far more respectful of other men's freedoms than we give ourselves credit for.
To my peace-loving friends who would sooner emigrate than tolerate another war waged by their own country, I must say that I can't think of another culture that jumps to justify a war where we lose money, human life, and world prestige, all for ethereal concepts like "freedom" and "democracy." The great bulk of modern states just don't DO that sort of thing, and no one will ever protest on their capital lawns with red faces and picket signs. No one will ever express outrage at Switzerland for remaining neutral in war, or blame Finland for leaving the oppressed peoples of the world under tyranny. They will keep all their cool points, and the blame will flow instead to the high and mighty countries that think they can actually do some good by using force. You may bemoan the great price of the war and the loss of reputation because of it, but remember also the great prices borne by those who have no one to fight for them, whose causes can't be won by talk and diplomacy. The war may fail, and Iraq may fail as well, but I will forever be proud of us for doing it, because it gave these people something they haven't had in decades- a chance. Military force cannot usually bestow function or good will or even necessarily peace, but it can give the people who make such things a chance to succeed in doing it. They may fail in doing so, but the point at which they fail is beyond our ability, and we will only be able to return from the endeavor saying, "This was where our work ended, and theirs began." You care much about that work, but not at all for the destructive and forceful work that sometimes makes it possible. War is a blunt instrument, but there has been much more gained in this war than we realize. There is hope here, too. Don�t forget that.
So that about wears this whole deployment thing out. I will be back in the States around October 30th assuming we don�t get delayed in any of the four places we're stopping at on the way out. The chilly Colorado fall will never feel so good. Can't wait to see all of you. Coming home is in many ways like waking up- it's all still there, and you are happy to be alive. Thank you for making it worth showing up for.
And thank you for your prayers and gifts and encouragement. They meant more to me than you know. A year is a long time, but not so long to lose touch with what is important. I owe that you.
And finally: Well, you know what I'm going to say by now.
But it's true. You all do. You all do. Thanks. I�ll see you on the other side.
Jeff
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