First Night In Ramadi

We arrived after dark this evening after traveling for two days from Warhorse. We were up the past two nights, moving under the cover of darkness, riding in our Bradley which rode atop a HETT. By this time the Bradley is a radiating oven, drenching my clothes with sweat which now cling to my skin and attract every dust and dirt particle in the air. We got off the Brad and were welcomed by the guys that have been here for a couple of days. They made the trip in Blackhawks, and reuniting with them after just a few days felt good for some reason, like we were home because all of us were together again. Immediately the horror stories begin, the tales growing taller now that we’ve actually arrived. They were the same ones we’ve heard before, only now they take on a reality that our prior location didn’t allow.

Dark, unable to see the outpost clearly, I could only make out the shapes of dark buildings. Outside the outpost there are two and three story houses with lights glowing mockingly from within, welcome home. Gunfire can be heard in the distance, another nameless faceless fight between us and them. When the gunfire ceased, another sound, more haunting than the staccato sound of the guns, filled my ears. It was the eerie wailing of prayer songs emanating from the numerous mosques in the area. It almost sounded like a taunt, the mournful, unintelligible muttering of thousands of forsaken souls forever held captive in hell, calling out to us for help and seeking our presence with them. It’s an awful sound, made worse by the quiet stillness of night.

We parked our Bradley’s in front of the building that we’ll be living in temporarily. All bags and equipment were unloaded, taken silently inside the concertina wire and sat in the stone courtyard. A few of the guys came up and greeted us as if we had been separated for more than the few days it took to make the trip, most of them offering a sarcastic comment about our wonderful new home.

Stories abound, about the Marines in our area, the terrorist cells, their tactics, the casualties, how we’re at the end of the line, the last point, the bridge in Apocalypse Now. I can see people losing their mind in this place. Death and carnage were on grand display just a few feet from our building in the form of a burned out, half its original size, hull of a Bradley. The turret has collapsed in upon itself, only the barrel distinguishable in the dark. It was used by the unit we’ve come here to replace and had been burned and destroyed by an IED. The crew escaped, but some of the dismounts were cut down by a machine gun while trying to escape the inferno.

IEDs, VBIEDs, more foot patrols, anti-personnel mines, incoming mortar rounds, actually hearing them fired from close by but having time to find cover. There was even one rumor that some enterprising assholes use ice to set off the mortars, the melting ice giving them time to get away unnoticed. Marines apparently receiving more contact than army, and the army receives contact on a regular basis. All of these rumors and stories spread quickly from the unit we’re replacing to us, infecting us whether they’re true or not. I noticed some people are already a little on edge.

I entered one of the rooms of the temporary building that may become our permanent home, and the first thing I noticed is the hundreds of pages of magazines covering the wall. The pictures are all of women in varying states of undress but no nudity. Same in another room in which I’m staying but not as many. I found a little space for a cot in the room I’m sharing with fourteen or fifteen other guys, at least until the other unit leaves and we can spread out. I’m unfortunate enough to be sleeping inches from one of the most disagreeable guys in all the army. He talks incessantly about nothing of interest to anyone while rubbing his fingers in between his dirty toes. I can smell his feet, as well as the MRE he’s eating with fingers that were just recently between his toes.

Earlier, while I was standing in our little courtyard and looking toward the back of the building, I noticed the familiar white tubes sticking up out of the ground. In the dark they look like mortar tubes, but then I’m reminded of the piss tubes we used in the Kuwaiti desert before the start of the war. Who knows how much of the tube is buried or how deep they descend into the earth below, a conduit of filth leading to a river of urine flowing through hell. While standing over them and relieving yourself, you can actually hear a faint echo from below. The wailing music may as well be coming from these tubes.

From this position I can look to my left and see the plywood outhouse that houses three stalls in which we dispose of our other waste. Trap doors behind the stalls can be opened to remove the receptacles of our last meal. One of these receptacles now sits alone in an area behind the outhouse, the flames providing a bright glowing light that enables me to see the tube over which I now stand. Diesel, and the sickly sweet smell of burning shit, took me back more than two years ago when I stood over one just like it in Kuwait, stirring the witches brew with a forever tainted shovel. That smell, mixed with diesel, will always be etched in my olfactory memory. There is no other smell quite like it, nor should there be.

After situating my cot and sitting down to write, the lights were turned off, the glow of laptop screens and portable DVD players illuminating only the faces of those captivated by their contents, creating the illusion of bodyless faces staring into the dark void. We’ve been here just a few days and already there are tv’s set up with Playstations attached. What would today’s soldiers do in their off time without laptops, tv’s, DVD players, and video games? A couple of screens are turned so that I can see them from my cot. Each movie is recognizable, both by the actors and their pathetic performance, and by the ridiculous content of the movies themselves. GI Jane and Natural Born Killers, two wholesome, well made movies if you think Demi Moore doing one armed pushups is attractive, or you’re a psycho who enjoys watching the “creative genius” of Oliver Stone and the poor acting of Woody Harrelson. Extreme violence and pseudo military action are apparently the order of the day. I wonder which of the two main characters would triumph if engaged in a duel, Demi, the SEAL wannabe, or Woody, the maniacal murdering psycho. Then I remembered they were married in another movie, leaving me hoping for a draw in which both participants die.

My cot is situated in one of the back corners of the room. I deliberately sought out this space so that I would only have to sleep inches away from one person and not two. The tiled wall my cot is pressed against offers me more company in the form of pictures cut out of magazines. One is of Pamela Anderson in underwear and boots. The other three are of a girl scrubbing the floor in her underwear, a guy flying through the air on his snowboard, and another girl holding her breasts. The glowing light from the laptops and DVD players brightens and darkens as the images move across the screen, alternately lighting and darkening different areas of the images on the wall beside me, having the same effect of the flames I saw earlier dancing on top of a bucket of shit.

On the wall at the other end of the room, opposite of where I now sit, there are six names written on the wall with RIP above them.