| Show Veterans' Veterans voices on Iraq The war in their words The Washington Post The heat which is like living under a fry french lamp like standing in front of the worlds world's biggest hair dryer like sitting in ina a sealed car on the hottest summer summer summer sum sum- mer day in Washington with the heater blasting and someone throwing sand in your face The mud which follows the hot season cold slimy sticky mud that makes you wish it would turn hot again The green that erupts after a spring rain and astounds you the first fast time you see it The blue of the timeless sky above and beyond all the troubles The black of the ink inky desert night thickly dusted with stars and galaxies The eyes of the children These are some of the things they remember from their service service ser ser- vice in Iraq Over the past year The Washington Post conducted in- in depth interviews with of the themore themore themore more than veterans of the war They included men and women officers and enlisted duty active-duty and reserves combat and support troops The questions questions questions ques ques- were open The intent was to hear from them in their own words what the experience experience experience was like They remembered the camel spiders big fast and scary look ing The sand flies scorpions mosquitoes and flying crickets The long hard days hour 12 shifts that easily turn into 20 hour shifts when they dont don't turn rum into the round-the-clock marathons They remembered the roaring metal of System of a Down and Adema the throbbing rap of Public Enemy and 50 Cent the soldier-celebrating soldier anthems of of Toby Keith And I cant can't call in sick on Mondays When the weekends weekend's been too strong I just work straight through the holidays And sometimes all night long Stringing cables from bunk to bunk to play Madden football or Tony Hawk skateboarding skateboarding skateboarding skate skate- boarding games in the two-man two residential trailers known as cans Visiting the hadji marts clusters of enterprising Iraqis who sell everything from bootleg to rotgut alcohol on the roadside just beyond the wire of nearly every camp Watching an entire season of The Simpsons or or Saved by the Bell on your lap lap- top Watching your baby grow up via mail e-mail and Wondering how honest to be with the folks back home You dont don't want them to worry So you try to sound cheerfully vague and remind them to send gummy candies which dont don't melt rather than chocolates which do But all that loving deception ends in a whoosh if a mortar hits during a telephone call to Mom Iraq was bad nearly all of them agreed Not knowing day dayto to day what was going to happen hap hap- pen Hard to figure out who the enemy was Never being able to relax The rules arc that there are no rules But it was not bad in the ways they see covered in the media the majority also agreed on this What they experienced was more complex than the war they saw on television and in print It was dangerous and confused yes but most of the vets also recalled enemies routed buildings build- build ins ings built and children befriend befriend- n n n 0 ed against long odds in a poor and demoralized country We feel like were we're doing something and then we look at the news and you feel like youre you're getting bashed It seems to me the media had a predetermined script The vibe of the coverage is just so so so negative No two sets of memories were identical This almost goes without without without with with- out saying but not quite because it underscores a point point made by many of the veterans Some of the deepest impressions left over from Iraq were not the externals the sights sounds smells scenes but the internal marks In Iraq they saw did and PS f sin 7 T J Ir A 0 lb Ii I II I I wAw tC v 1 o Do P r C o rc C c c L cc c N 1 3 c QI An elated Lance Brian Gottschall with Lance Zachary Rhodes is photographed photographed photographed pho pho- a week before the two returned home in September 2004 endured things they hadn't seen done or imagined before and this affected each one uniquely Each individual over there has his own little war he is fighting fighting fighting fight fight- ing Army medic Joe Drennan explained No two p people ople are going to have the same experiences These personal wars add up to the war they share A lot depended on when they were over there ITh The e invasion t three I nee years ago agoS S Sunday was a blur pulsing with excitement and wired on Invasion vets remembered remembered remembered villages village of faced blank-faced Iraqis lining the roads as the armor annor sped past and ranks of empty Iraqi tanks bombed out in inthe inthe inthe the desert and busloads of men in civilian clothes suddenly opening fire and a sandstorm so thick they could hardly see their hands in front of their faces Arriving in Baghdad I had hadan hadan hadan an Iraqi citizen come up to me said Lance Daniel Finn a aMarine aMarine aMarine Marine infantryman She was a female She opened her mouth and she she- she had had no tongue She was I pointing at the statue of Hussein There were people with no fingers waving at the statue of telling us he tortured them People were showing us the scars on their backs After the initial victory came lean months when the war had too much death and not enough infrastructure Troops slept in their armored trucks if their trucks were armored They ate cold chow and drank hot water and dug pit toilets where they suffered revenge They scraped the grime from 1 1 their skin with baby wipes J i mailed from home No one had 1 j planned for so many Americans to live in Iraq for so long Little by little the cans i I arrived with their cushioned bunks and air conditioning Showers and restrooms were built Apart from the improvised explosive devices the ambushes the suicide bombers and and the the I I J mortar attacks life became sort of bearable Rec centers opened opened I with screen large-screen TVs and air- air hockey tables Dining halls i began serving hot food and icy j 1 sodas I week Once-a-week phone calls home gave way to broadband Internet connections Movie theaters theaters theaters the the- and coffee bars aters opened i Gyms were built on most bases The great stress reliever was exercise veterans reported this again and again Opportunities s for sex apparently varied from 4 one part of the country to another i ier er and drinking was forbidden A few veterans admitted that t 5 they had a swig or more of j bootlegged or smuggled booze But the most common way to vent the tension was to pump iron and work the cardio machines for an hour or two at atthe H the end of a long day With a few exceptions the veterans described a highly professional professional professional pro- pro almost spartan force r characterized by resilient f I morale and good discipline I didn't touch a girl or alcohol for seven months and that was tough said Christopher Johnson of the Marine Reserve Many said they were ready to I return to Iraq fj In some ways they talked tJI about a war much like all wars j for all troops in all times It was wasa a test personal and elemental To understand it it you must go through it no words could entirely convey the experience to those who were not there I Many veterans described a I moment different for each person person per per- son when the test boiled down downto to a single yes-or-no yes question again slightly different for each person Would you fight or flee j Would you crack under pressure pressure pressure pres pres- sure Would you shoot or freeze Was it better to know that you hit your target or not to bo know Army Staff Christopher Day spoke of wondering what I 9 would do when I start getting a ashot shot at Will I fire back or curl in ina r ra a ball And sure enough I fired 1 back S right away 4 The reason he fired back was also timeless It was not so much for myself but for the guys beside me Day said I Iwas Iwas Iwas was shooting and trying to kill the people that were trying to kill my friends f. f |
