Home Again

I spent the past week away, some may have noticed. Not just away from this site, but away from home; off somewhere else at a conference with full days and late dinners and a slooow (but wireless) internet connection in billeting. (Yes, slower than Baghdad.) Such is life.

But I spent some of my spare time this past week reading and rereading Mike Yon's book, and writing and rewriting a review thereof. Hopefully you'll see that in finished form somewhere soon. In the meantime, here's a brief bit that was excised somewhere along the way. The "graveyards" I mention are near Baqubah, the city in which Mike's book begins. I'm struck by the difference between Mike's Baqubah of a few months ago and the one described here.

"If you're not there now, you're not current" was a statement I heard regarding Iraq at the conference. In a room full of people who had been there, no argument was offered.

I'd guess Mike was still writing his book up until the day before it went to press a few weeks ago. It's current. I spoke with him earlier this week. "Congratulations on the book. I saw you made the top 50 at Amazon." I told him. My news was old news. "We were in the top ten before they sold out." Mike replied. That's certainly good news and bad news - but if you're a reader here and hadn't already ordered your copy then you have no one to blame but yourself. There are more on the way.

And there may be an upside to that shortfall - the Amazon price is quite low now, perhaps reflecting the brief delay you'll experience in getting a copy. A good time to order one for a friend or Congressman, says I.

You might still be able to get an autographed copy. But he's only in the States for a couple weeks, and then he's back to Iraq. I'd recommend ordering quickly.

What tales we'll tell, I wrote from Baghdad on Christmas, 2004) when that time comes when tales can be told. Coincidentally, that month Mike Yon was stepping off a plane there for the first time to do just that.

It was good to spend time this past week sitting around dinner tables, well fed and downing a few beers and swapping some of those tales with the handful of people in the world who'd done what I'd done in Iraq, at different times but often in the same places as far back as March 2003. Such opportunities are rare, for me perhaps never to be repeated. But between us all we could compile a comprehensive first hand account. Perhaps some day I will.

And it was good to see old friends, folks I'd known from as long ago and far away as Korea in 1989. Guys I'd been to schools with who now actually looked like the fathers of those guys I'd been to school with. I'm kidding, of course, no one had changed a bit.

"What's new?" They'd ask. "Where are you now? Where are you going next?" That sort of thing. "I'll retire by the end of summer" I'd reply. After all, in certain lighting conditions my hair appears grey - so I might look like the father of the guy they knew all those years ago, too. And they were new then, and I was not quite as...

I could stay. I remain dangerous - I am fully capable both mentally and physically and haven't exceeded the federal expiration date, but I choose to go on my own terms. I actually have served with the sons of men I'd served with two decades ago.

Families. Military service is a family bond, and those who serve have families of their own, of the same sort most people do. Over at MilBlogs you will find lines written by soldiers on the front lines, and veterans of those lines. But you'll also find entries authored by mothers, fathers, and wives.

We write things in full knowledge that what we write will be read by members of the family. Sometimes that is revealed:

My daughter read this and was unable to respond and asked me to. Paul was her uncle, she was very small when he met her, so her only insight to him is me. Thank you from both of us in reference to this site.
Bless all of those still so far away from home,
we will never forget.
Posted by Dee at April 8, 2008

Thank you thank you for the tribute to my husband.
Let us all never forget Rick or what happened to our world on that day. It takes much courage to face evil. You are all heros.

Posted by susan rescorla at September 9, 2003 11:02 AM

I am Jonathan's brother and I'd like to thank the ones who left their inputs on this page. To the people who knew Jon always remember how down to earth he was. He was never scared, he always kept it real. He was hard and always lived his life to the fullest. Respect and family values was his way of life. God bless and see when I get there brother. I love you man. Uso pride remains in the blood always. You're my hero aka Bolrok. Your memory will always be kept alive. Peace my brother!

Posted by niko falaniko at April 13, 2004

I know just what he means. I won't be retiring from this effort any time soon.

Mike's book is more than a collection of his dispatches from Iraq, but it opens with one:

Thoughts flow on the eve of a great battle. By the time you read these words, we will be in combat. Few ears have heard even rumors of this battle, and fewer still are the eyes that will see its full scope. Even now - for the battle has already begun for some - little news of it reaches home. I have known of the plans for a month, but have remained silent.

Some of the 1920s were about 300 meters down the road by now, and walking into the ambush that had apparently been set for us. BOOOOOMMMM! The detonation looked like it must have killed five or ten of them. What comes next is often shooting and more bombs, so I dove for cover while turning on the video camera, and since I have been practicing shooting both cameras at the same time, got some still shots.

I was told later we were in a real firefight. Hard to tell sometimes because the IAs and 1920s were firing the same kinds of weapons al Qaeda, JAM and all the rest fire. In any case, the one certain thing is that thousands of shots were fired and it was loud. Hot, too.

Some American Soldiers had rushed forward to help the 1920s, but I stayed back with an American platoon. If the lieutenant suddenly realizes he’s lost a reporter on the battlefield, he’s not going to be happy when we get back, so it’s very important that the man who brought you always knows where to find you. Our guys were firing 40mm grenades into the palm groves. The 25mm was booming away.

As the 1920s came streaming back, some had clothes tattered from the blast. They were dazed and agitated. The 1920s man with the clean ammunition belt was dragging it down the road and I walked up and pointed to it and he draped the belt back on his shoulder where it should be. The shooting continued.

I kept making eye contact and the Iraqis seemed reasonably okay. Amazingly, none were killed. The explosion was big enough that had they been walking in a cluster instead of keeping their intervals, there would be 1920s body parts scattered all over the road.

I'm not the only one feeling the boredom, on one of our patrols we paid 4 donkey cart drivers to race, the stipulation, one soldier on the back of each donkey cart. My donkey lost, it tried to kick its driver.

So is this what we've been waiting for in Iraq? Or is this silence just the prelude to more attacks and violence? In Baqouba I can say that I think this peace will last, at least while my unit is here.

"If you're not there now, you're not current".

I posted an excerpt from this entry over at Milblogs. I was pleased to see Grim comment on that:

I think that's a fair assessment. It's hard keeping current from back here, even with classified reports -- and if you're depending on the open sources (including military ones, for that matter), you're just not getting the real picture.

Knowing he's a man just reunited with his wife, I suspect that something in that experience might have led him to writing this post on chivalry. I think it makes a fine companion piece to Cassandra's, and I think both will give you some insight to the "military family".

I also find this review of Grim's post interesting: "This is the kind of bullshit that keeps me from reading most of the mainstream milblogs." (Seems he touched a feminist nerve, he did.) I find other people commenting on milblogs posts who are eager to assure anyone on that same point - "this item I read is the reason I never read this" - a wonderful argument, and one I won't join.

My other favorite complaint: "You're a Republican". (Or substitute Bushbot, Wingnut, or whatever phrase is the designated sophisticated witticism of the day.) No, I might reply, I'm a guy who's been to Iraq, who knows many other people who have - some of whom have been killed or wounded - and communicates routinely with them, and their friends and relatives.

Usually I'm then accused of claiming that only people who've been to Iraq have the right to talk about it. Nope. As a wise man recently said' "Senator, we fight for the right of people to have other opinions".

So we're driving home from the conference, eventually losing the signal from a fine radio station. My traveling companion begins scanning through the channels, as is often the case in the middle of nowhere, USA, the only signal is from an AM talk station. Tony Snow is on for Bill O'Reilly. I'm a bad Republican so I'm not paying much attention and instead reading a blog post from Baqubah on my handheld.

"At the bottom of the hour" Tony says, "we'll talk to Mike Yon about Iraq."

And he did. And we continued southward, then lost the signal just as Mike's segment ended. Hopefully somewhere someone was tuned in who learned something he (or she) hadn't known before. As static noise drowned out the signal we pulled off the freeway to fill the tank.

At the gas station, I saw the cover of USA Today. There, above the fold, was what millions of Americans learned about Iraq that day.

"Iraq Violence taking toll"

"50 Iraqis dead in Suicide bombing, 9a"

"Study: mental strain in US troops, 8a"

The tank was full, we returned to the freeway, and a few hours later I was home.