Heat stroke

Strasburg, Va. gets fairly hot in late June. This can have negative effects on one's body. Today, I learned this the hard way.

We were in the early stages of an obstacle course when I first developed a headache. After a few more times diving to the ground because of incoming rifle shots or grenades, I was feeling completely dizzy. The course leader radioed for one of the other teachers to come pick me up in the SUV, which he did within a few minutes. I don't like giving up, and I was not pleased to come off the course, especially before the mortar bombs went off, but I went.

For the next couple of hours, I was feeling dizzy and nauseous, but after half a dozen bottles of water and some Advil, I seem to have recovered nicely. Several of the course leaders asked me if I had been drinking heavily last night (um, no.), but they eventually concluded that sometimes these things just happen. If it happens in Baghdad I'm not going to be happy.

On deck tomorrow: handling mass casualties, dealing with checkpoints and dressing chest wounds. My goal is to stay in the shade.

If I only had a s'more...

Hazardous duty training feels like some warped summer camp. We eat terrible food at a long picnic table in a big room, we walk sweatily from one activity to another, we use outhouses and wear hiking boots. The rhythm of life feels very similar as well. The main difference, of course, is that instead of shuttling from the arts and crafts tent to canoeing to the campfire, we go from first aid to land mine spotting and back to first aid.

Today I learned more than I ever wanted to know about land mines and IEDs. The main lesson? Almost any household item can be fashioned into some sort of explosive device with a bit of gunpowder and a basic understanding of electrics. The point of teaching us about specifics seems to be giving us an understanding of potential risks, not giving us the tools to do anything about them. There are some tricks that might help someone recognize a potential minefield, but if someone is sitting 500 yards away with a remote control ready to activate a buried IED, there's not much to do. It's all about avoidance.

On a brighter note, we also learned how to fashion stretchers out of almost anything, how to stop arterial bleeding and how to administer CPR. Tomorrow is all about broken bones--and guns. In 24 hours I will be able to distinguish an AK-47 from an M14, but I still won't have a cool lanyard to show off to Mom and Dad.

Baptism by fire

Today I reported to Strasburg, Virginia for my first day of Hostile Environments and Emergency First Aid Training. The five-day course is run by former British Royal Marines who have retired after 20-plus years of special forces service. The lessons include "hostage abduction and enduring captivity, personal security, mines and booby traps, post-traumatic stress disorder, weapons and ballistics awareness, civil disturbances, vehicle checkpoints and natural disasters."

It was the first one that got me this morning.

Colleagues who have been through the training program warned me that a simulated kidnapping would occur at some point during the week. One very wise female co-worker told me to always wear my hair in a ponytail, because when a bag was thrown over her head her shoulder-length hair flew in her face and nearly suffocated her. Ponytail in place, I thought I was ready. Turns out I was wrong.

We were driving from our hotel to the training site, part of a working farm about 20 minutes away, when our teacher told us he would just jump out and open the gate separating the property from the main road. As soon as he stepped out of the car, I heard gunfire--lots of gunfire. I turned to the right to see the source, when all of a sudden there were men with masks and camoflauge jackets on the left side of the car. They were screaming at us to get out of the car, then throwing us to the ground when we stumbled out. The guns--including at least one AK-47--kept firing. As I had never heard gunfire before, this was all a bit overwhelming.

Within a few seconds a dark-colored bag had been pulled over my head and cinched tight with a drawstring. We were forced to walk a short distance away, then pushed back to the ground, where we were patted down. I couldn't tell where any of my classmates were. After a few minutes I was pulled up to my knees with my hands behind my head.

In retrospect I feel a bit ridiculous for being as scared as I was. I was in shock, yes, but I was also very rationally telling myself that nothing would happen to me, that this was a lesson taught by people wanting to help me. But as much as I tried, I couldn't calm myself down, couldn't shake the fear that a rifle butt would soon be slammed into the back of my head. In short, I panicked.

Over lunch, one of the instructors convinced me that my reaction was exactly the desired effect; the belief being that it's never going to be as bad as the first time. They had videotaped the whole 15-minute exercise, so we all watched me cringe when the bag was finally removed from my head. Predictably, the exercise was followed by an extended discussion of what to do if you really are kidnapped. While I obviously hope I will never have to use the information I learned, going through an incredibly realistic simulation was certainly the best way to deal with the reality that this actually could happen and learn how to handle it. Next step: how to avoid it altogether.

Reading list

When I first heard that I would be going to Iraq, I was told to read as much as possible about the region. Other people with experience in Baghdad have told me that the books recommended by my supervisor aren't particularly useful, but I'll reserve judgment. At the moment, I'm trying to read as much as possible, more because I'm fascinated than because I think it's required. This is a list of what I've read and what I'm working on--some are definitely better than others, but I'm figuring the more the better.

History of Iraq
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace

Fromkin's book is packed with information but an incredibly dry read, so although I'm glad I slogged through it I wouldn't recommend it to people without a very deep interest in the subject--600 pages of the details of Ottoman and British occupation is not everybody's cup of tea. It is a useful point of reference, though; I've gone back several times since finishing it to check something in the index.

William R. Polk, Understanding Iraq

At around 200 pages, Polk's book is perfect for anyone who is curious for some background but who lacks the attention span for Fromkin. Purists would say it's a simplified version of the history, but it is much more digestable and feels less like homework.

The War

Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco

Ricks is a brilliant Washington Post reporter, and his book will likely be remembered as the definitive history of the U.S. invasion. He is tremendously critical of the Bush administration's handling of the war, but he comes from the perspective of a journalist, not a liberal.

Michael Isikoff, Hubris

I haven't read Isikoff's book yet, and I will confess it's not at the top of my list. Although highly acclaimed, Hubris is primarily about the selling of the war in the United States, not activities in Iraq.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City

This is without question the best and most interesting book I've read about Iraq, and not only because Chandrasekaran is one of my favorite working journalists. He takes readers through the "Little America" military officials and diplomats created in Baghdad's Green Zone, where expertise was scarce. My understanding is that conditions in the Green Zone are very different now than they were when Chandrasekaran was there in 2003 and 2004, but his story is still incredibly important. If you're going to read one book about the war, it should probably be this one.

George Packer, The Assassin's Gate

Packer's book is next on my list, despite the fact that my supervisor refers to it as "fatally flawed." This is the one book on my list that is infused with a political agenda (liberal, in this case), and although I'm trying to stay away from political arguments this one is probably too important to ignore. Like Ricks, Packer is heavy on policy discussions and light on scenes from Baghdad.

Jackie Spinner, Tell Them I Didn't Cry

Spinner's book is very light reading, and something that wouldn't typically make it onto my must-read list. The story of Spinner's 18 months in Iraq, the books descriptions of hanging out with fellow journalists and befriending Iraqis are colorful but lacking any depth or broader point. That said, I found myself hanging onto every word trying to glean some advice of how to work as a female in Baghdad.
James Baker III and Lee Hamilton, The Iraq Study Group Report
The book form of the report from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group is more digestible than I thought it would be, and a good crash course on how we got to this point. One question I'm interested in exploring while in Iraq is how many of the recommendations are being followed.
None of these books deal explicitly with religion, despite the fact that understanding Islam is crucial to thinking about the war. The main reason books like The Shia Revival, The Crisis of Islam and others about Islam and Islamic-American relations are not on my current list is because I took several courses in those subjects during college. Religion is probably my primary area of interest in thinking about Iraq, but I chose to focus my crash course reading on aspects I had a weaker understanding of.

About the title

The title of this blog is a reference to a 1921 book by a British artist named Donald Maxwell. Maxwell was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum in London shortly after World War I to represent Iraq through sketches and paintings. The result was A Dweller in Mesopotamia: Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden, which is available online in original form through the University of Georgia library.

Although I can find very little information about Maxwell and his travels, my understanding is that he spent most of the time for A Dweller in Mesopotamia in Baghdad, although the title suggests he traveled to other places in the Middle East as well. "Mesopotamia" is generally assumed to refer to the area between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers (literally "between rivers"), of which Baghdad was the major city. Although historians generally agree that the location of the Biblical Garden of Eden, Maxwell, like many in the early 20th century, believed it to have been in Mesopotamia. Since the British had assumed control of Iraq at the end of the Great War, Maxwell was charged with showing people back in London what the historically significant land looked like.

Much of Maxwell's writing is dated and somewhat impenetrable, but his brief introduction speaks passionately about the importance of Baghdad.

To have travelled in the land where Sennacherib held sway, to have walked upon the Sacred Way in Babylon, to have stood in the great banquet hall of Belshazzar's palace when the twilight is raising ghosts ... to wander in the moonlight into narrow streets in Old Baghdad, with its recollections of the Arabian Nights: these things are to make enduring pictures in the Palace of Memory, that ideal collection where only the good ones are hung and all are on the line.

In thinking and writing about Iraq, this history is tremendously important but all too often ignored. Through reading several works of history and taking inspiration from Maxwell, I hope to always remain conscious of it.

The pseudonym I chose has nothing to do with Maxwell or Iraq. Rather, it is the name of a favorite character from a favorite novel: Ian McEwan's Atonement.

Opening thoughts

My goal for this blog is to chronicle the eight weeks I will spend in Baghdad, Iraq during July and August 2007. The content that appears here will not be about the war per se, but rather about my experience living and working in a war-torn country. I am neither a soldier nor a political operative, and for a variety of reasons I do not plan to discuss politics in this forum. Instead, I will write about people I meet, things I see and the impressions such experiences have made on me personally. I don't claim to represent anyone but myself, which is why I will write under an assumed name.

Essentially, this is the most effective way I can come up with of telling people who are interested about my life in Iraq. I will have regular internet access while I am abroad, so I expect to update regularly. I would love to hear from all of you through comments posted here or via e-mail.

p.s. This site cannot be found through a Google search, and I do not intend for it to reach anyone other than my own family and friends. If I have sent you the link, I ask that you be judicious in deciding who to forward it to. I don't expect to be revealing state secrets on this page, but I would prefer not to see my words quoted elsewhere. I don't think anything I will say here will be of any interest to people who don't know me, anyway.