Soldiers

I've met a lot of soldiers over the past several weeks, and I've realized that most of them are really, really good guys. Today I got to see a reenlistment ceremony, which I found more powerful than I expected. I was in a fairly dangerous area of Iraq, and these guys are voluntarily joining up for another several years knowing that the first part of that time will be spent in scary circumstances. Since I've never had any military connection and grew up in a fairly anti-military environment (oh Berkeley...), this probably surprised me more than it would an average American.

The other part of today that made an effect on my was a top general's interaction with a platoon leader. When generals visit combat outposts, they generally bring small commemorative coins to present to people doing an especially good job. In this case, Gen. Rick Lynch, who essentially commands everything south of Baghdad, was presenting coins to two specialists and their direct supervisor. While Lynch was giving the coins to the specialists, the platoon leader was just beaming. But then Lynch turned to give a coin to him, and he got extremely uncomfortable. He stammered something to the effect of "Oh, thank you sir, but I'd rather you just recognize my guys without me. They're the ones who carry the load." Of course, Lynch insisted on giving him one, and although he accepted it he was clearly uncomfortable with the recognition. He kept turning the coin over in his hands looking extremely distressed, torn between wanting to be respectful and being unhappy about being elevated in that way.

As the platoon leader was contemplating what to do with this coin, another one of his soldiers walked up just as Lynch was turning away. The platoon leader's eyes brightened, and he turned to the soldier. He handed him the coin, saying "Gen. Lynch wanted to give this to you, but I told him you were working too hard to come out." The soldier, who was probably 19 or 20, looked thrilled, and the platoon leader looked totally relieved that he had found a solution. It was refreshing to see someone who was so committed to recognizing the people below him rather than himself.

21st century barbarism

I never read editorials. I don't like that a group of people sitting in an office can shape the direction of the country by writing about places they've never been and people they've never spoken to. That said, I read today's Washington Post editorial about Iraq because it was the most-read story on the web site, and I felt compelled to link to it here.

I actually can't decide what I think about this piece on its merits. The only conclusion seems to be that the situation is bad in Baghdad, which anybody could have told you. But despite -- or maybe because of -- its lack of recommendations, I found it particularly powerful.

"ONE REASON the debate over Iraq can seem so perplexing at times is that the nature of the violence can be so horrendous as to be nearly unfathomable. The inexcusable killing of civilians by insurgents and militias is so common as to go almost unremarked upon. But four simultaneous truck-bomb explosions in one small community in northwestern Iraq on Tuesday night, all directed against defenseless civilians, provided a savage and jarring reminder."

Despite the fact that this writer has never been to Iraq, he managed to capture some pretty common sentiments among the people I interact with here. There's no difference other than scale between this attack and the ones that happen every day within a five-minute's drive of my office. But despite the fact that it's 250 miles away from here, this one feels particularly sobering.

In looking for the ways to solve Iraq, it always seems to be the people with the least information that have the loudest voices. My inbox is filling up again with e-mails from people saying everything from "that moron Bush needs to pull out right now!" to "stupid liberals need to stop supporting the enemy." And of course, those of us on the ground know that basically all of those people are wrong, because none of the answers here are simple. I'm glad an editorial acknowledged that for once.

The daily miracle

Journalists often refer to a published newspaper as "the daily miracle" -- meaning, of course, that it's a miracle the thing comes out every day. I got to see that concept epitomized last night at The Washington Post's office in Baghdad.

The Post had filed a story around 9:30 p.m. leading with a truck bomb attack on a bridge on the outskirts of Baghdad and also reporting four American soldiers killed in combat and the kidnapping of the country's deputy oil minister in Baghdad. At 11 p.m., they received an e-mail saying five additional troops had died in a helicopter crash in Anbar province. Nine soldiers dead in one day is pretty significant, so the reporter decided to update the story to lead with that information. Around the same time, a stringer up north called to say that 20 people had been killed in a series of car bomb attacks near the village of Sinjar, around the Syrian border. By Iraq standards, 20 is not that many, so the reporter chose to slip in two paragraphs near the middle of the article.

Then all hell broke loose. The first indication that more than 20 people had died in the car bombings came via a TV breaking news alert. Like I've said here before, Iraqi TV stations have a tendency to announce blatantly wrong information, so this wasn't necessarily true, but it was worth checking. But then the phone rang again: at least 175 dead. The reporters, totally unprepared for this, sprang into action.

The villages where these bombings took place, small enclaves of Yazidi people, do their best to be disconnected from the outside world. There is no internet access for 100 miles around and most of the people don't have phones. The nearest Post stringer was in Mosul, the closestlarge city, with no way of getting to the area. The reporters were starting to think they'd have to print a boring, "according to the Iraqi Army" story with no witness quotes. They were working on gathering context and updating death tolls, adrenaline pumping, holding out a glimmer of hope that the stringer might find someone to talk to.

I still don't totally understand how it happened, but around 3 a.m. the stringer called, saying he had gotten in touch with a man in his hospital bed in the nearest town. The man explained what had happened to him and said he didn't know where his family was. The stringer tracked down one other witness who added supporting details. The result was a string of heart-breaking quotes that created a dynamic front-page article. And although the lead byline (and thus most of the credit) went to the American reporter, it was the stringer and a translator who deserve it.

Making it even better, The New York Times, the Post's chief rival on Iraq stories (and everything else) managed to get only the official side of the story -- no witness quotes, no glimpse into what it was like to be there. The Post story is here; the Times' is here -- notice a difference? It prompted a Post editor to e-mail the reporters the following message:

"on a story of global importance you got the best story in the world... congrats. good feeling, huh?"

That, my friends, is the daily miracle. I could get into this whole journalism thing.

This American Life

This post has nothing to do in Iraq, except that this is a discovery I made when we were trapped in the house for four days last week because of a total vehicle curfew for a Shiite pilgrimage. I think I may be the last person I know to discover This American Life, and JFR/IVK/MHG/SEK/CPR have certainly done their fair share of telling me to start listening to it, but it took me until last week. Now, of course, I'm totally obsessed.

For the other people out there who live under a rock like me, This American Life is a public radio program that is produced in Chicago* every week. The basic structure is that they take a theme and record a series of "acts" about that theme. These are usually people talking about life experiences, but occasionally there's fiction involved (in my opinion, the non-fiction parts are so much better). All of the past episodes are available for free on their web site. It's a totally addicting way to spend an hour.

If you've never heard the show or just aren't a regular listener, here's a list of my favorites to start with. Most of them are about seemingly mundane themes, but they're fantastic. I've probably only heard about 15 episodes, so if you're a junkie too, tell me your favorites!

Notes on Camp: Stories about the kinds of camps that become a huge part of kids' identities. I went to a couple of different camps as a kid but never had the classic experience of going back year after year (and now I get jealous when OFH tells stories!), so I lived vicariously through this program.

Somewhere in the Arabian Sea: All about life in a war zone... sort of. Stories about people living on an aircraft carrier during the War on Terror. The first act is about the woman who stocks the ship's vending machines, who has only seen the outside world once in the several months she's been onboard. Plus, there's a totally hilarious interview with a guy who joined the military instead of going to jail.

Classifieds: Stories culled from one day's classified ads. Ever wondered about why somebody is selling their brand-new Mercedes or what that crazy personal ad means? Me too. Listen.

Recordings for Someone: A must-hear if you went to CU, it's the story about the most famous ROLM phone message ever! Totally hilarious, with some more serious but no less valuable stuff toward the end.

The Ten Commandments: A sometimes funny, often poignant look at the 10 Commandments, with a different story for each one. Everything from an examination of "Thou shall not kill" in a war zone to a tale of a 10-year-old boy who can't take his own name in vain.

*Update! IVK's mommy informs me that This American Life has moved to New York, which is tremendously sad because I have never been to Chicago and liked learning things about it from Ira. And let's be honest, as much as I love New York, it has a bratty tendency to hog all the good stuff. But I'm confused, because the TAL homepage still says "Chicago Public Radio Presents" in big blue letters at the top. Chicago people and Ira loyalists, explain please.

p.s. Is the tv show any good?

Halfway there

It's hard to believe, but my time in Iraq is slightly more than halfway over (I return to the States on Sept. 11). The frustrating part of that, of course, is that I feel like it's taken me this long to get comfortable here. It's not just that I know the difference between Mansour and Saydiya or that I can recite the entire family history of Moqtada al-Sadr, it's that I have Iraqi friends, that I have finally gotten used to the food at home, that I have a username and password for the internal al-Qaeda in Iraq web site. Although I don't plan to call Iraq home any time soon, I feel nearly as comfortable here as I do in Washington.

Of course, the biggest thing I miss about the U.S. is the people. The worst part of this experience is that it can feel a bit isolating at times because the people I'm closest to aren't here. And as much as I've tried to communicate the experience through this blog, I'm not nearly a good enough writer to express Iraq. It doesn't mean I'll stop trying, though.

Gen. Petraeus

I met David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, for the first time today. Actually, I spent a very long, very hot, very dusty day following him around Taji and the surrounding area. The already brutal day was made more so by a couple of particularly hellish helicopter landings. Most notably, our pilot noticed an IED on the road we were about to touch own onto, so we hit the ground for a split second and shot straight back up. It was especially unpleasant for those of us with weak stomachs.

I attended a briefing with Petraeus, who has pulled off the unbelievable feat of being wildly popular while being in charge of a wildly unpopular war. I have to admit, I see the appeal. He's relatively young and very charismatic -- the kind of guy who manages to convince everyone that he is their best friend. He's clearly pretty brilliant, too -- 10th in his class at West Point and a master's and Ph.D from Princeton, and it shows.

I watched Petraeus take questions from a handful of reporters, which was an interesting experience. Most military officials (or politicians, or CEOs) will assure reporters immediately that everything is rosy and any tiny little problems are far overshadowed by the successes. But like I say, Petraeus is brilliant, so he realizes cynical reporter types will see right through that. So instead, he starts with the problems. He says things like "I'm not going to tell you everything is perfect, because it's not. We've got problems x, y and z." By the end of his spiel today, he had still talked far more about the successes than the problems, but the reporters were less inclined to totally dismiss everything he said because he lured them in with a tiny bit of what they wanted to hear. Smart move.

All in all, a totally fascinating guy I would like to know more about. I can highly recommend this article about him, by a guy who ended up writing his biography.

Food, redux

I am pleased to say that the food has gotten considerably better, mainly because our night cook is on vacation and the woman filling in has less of a fondness for mystery meat. The hummus is back in full force, plus some real vegetables, chicken, etc. Not bad.

That being said, I plan to go on an eating tour of the Bay Area and New York when I get back. I am craving several things:

In the Bay Area
Gordo's burrito (perhaps I can convince them to open a location in DC to make up for the abysmal lack of good burritos)
Cheeseboard pizza
Yank Sing dim sum (Mom, plan for a trip...)
My mother's crab (are you taking notes?)
In 'n Out burger
some good beer

In New York
Max Soha pasta
Corner Bistro burger
EJ's grits
Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory vanilla
Pam Real Thai
more good beer


Yep, that should pretty much take care of it. Yum.