Musings from the Desert

Emails from Iraq

Photography by Jayel Aheram.

I am not really sure what the date is today. I think it is the 4^th of October and Wednesday, but I could be wrong.

You might have ques­tions what is it I am cur­rently doing in Iraq. Well, my unit is in charge of this base’s secu­rity. We man the defen­sive posi­tions around the base’s perime­ter as well as go on fre­quent patrols to make sure that the enemy is not set­ting up posi­tions amid the many sand dunes and hills that sur­round this minis­cule base. Dangers to this base is lim­ited, but of course not exclu­sive, to infre­quent mor­tar and RPG attacks. Infrequent, because patrols done by pre­vi­ous units in charge of secu­rity have done a suc­cess­ful job of neu­tral­iz­ing enemy posi­tions that do crop up around the base. It is now up to my unit to keep that up.

Now, for the area itself. The base is located a few miles south of a city of 30,000 peo­ple near the Euphrates river. This is a true desert if I ever seen one. I thought the Mojave Desert is a desert, but they are noth­ing com­pared to this. The Mojave Desert at least is teem­ing with life. Joshua trees, bushes, cac­tuses, and wildlife of all kinds. This desert seems to be a bar­ren waste­land, devoid of life. Just sand and bare rock as far as the eyes can see…

But I was wrong. While it is not as bla­tantly obvi­ous as it is in the Mojave Desert, life does sur­vive in spite of the harsh­ness of this clime. When we went on patrol yes­ter­day, we were to famil­iar­ize our­selves to the ter­rain. That means I have to observe every­thing, to take in the details, to learn what is “nor­mal” in this ter­rain. That is when I dis­cov­ered that this desert was not in fact a bar­ren waste­land that I thought and heard it was, but rather the oppo­site of that. Everywhere I looked where signs of life suc­ceed­ing amid the shift­ing sands. The most inspir­ing of which was a bird with a plume of shock­ing red feath­ers. I will admit, it was a bit unnerv­ing to see such a defi­ant dis­play of color in the mid­dle of this appar­ent waste­land. It was the oppo­site of what I was doing. Me, in my desert dig­i­tal, my tac­ti­cal tan gear. I was try­ing to be part of the desert, to blend, to dis­ap­pear into the end­less desert back­ground. But here is a native to this land, who instead of going with its life qui­etly, invis­i­bly, chose to shat­ter the eerie silence of the desert with its song and with its bright red plume, defy the over­whelm­ing con­for­mity the desert seems to demand (and got from me).

I do not yet hate this place. The con­di­tions we are liv­ing under, while not des­per­ate (we do have three meals a day, a place to sleep under, a cot to sleep on, things to enter­tain us, show­ers, Internet, free laun­dry ser­vice, 80-dollar Army whore…), have made a great many to despise the desert and every­thing and every­one in it. I do not know if it is pos­si­ble for me to hate a place where the stars are allowed to shine.