Part Ten

Wednesday, November 3
The complete stranger I met coming out of the coffee shop this morning as I was going in said, "Good morning! How are you?" I answered, "Fine, thank you. How are you?" and he responded "Wonderful!" When he’d gone, Mama and I looked at each other and said in unison, "Republican!" The entire world seems to be wandering around in a fog today, either of bliss or of disbelief. I feel as if a 100-pound rucksack has been taken off my shoulders.

Dan called today. He’s on a naval base in Kuwait, serving as medic for a group of soldiers from his batallion who went down to prepare vehicles they’re not using for shipment back to the U. S. What that means is that, unless someone hurts themselves, he’s washing trucks all day. In spite of that, he says it’s almost like a vacation. The day-time temperatures have cooled down to a pleasant 100 degrees, he’s gotten to walk on the beach of the Persian Gulf (and go fishing in it!) and, most importantly, there are no mortars and no small arms fire. A bunch of people were sitting around shooting the breeze last night, and a soldier stationed in Kuwait was complaining about the almost constant chanting from the Mosque on base (because of Ramadan). One of the people from Dan's batallion said, "At least they’re not mortaring you." That was the end of the complaining.

Friday, November 12
The battle to retake Fallujah began Monday—it seems longer ago than that. My specific links to the men in Fallujah are tenuous—a friend of a friend is there, most of the medics from Dan's batallion are there. Nonetheless, I have spent most of the week tense, with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I find myself praying whenever I am not mentally occupied with other things, often no more coherently than "Please, God. Please help them."

Dan’s back in Iraq—I heard from him today, briefly, after a week of no contact. The computers and phones were shut down—a black out—because someone from Bravo Company was killed on a convoy. They’ve shut down the non-essential convoys in and out of Anaconda. All their medics have gone to Fallujah, and the T. S. H. (Theater Support Hospital) is receiving large numbers of casualties from Fallujah. Dan’s working more to fill the gaps; he’s also on standby to go to Camp Fallujah, a few miles outside the city, as a medic, but he doesn’t think it’s going to happen. DFAC One (the dining facility Dan eats at) was directly hit by mortars yesterday, and the cooks went to the hospital with shrapnel wounds—he says of the insurgents, "Their aim is getting better." So now I’m trying not to worry because the phone abruptly disconnected after nine minutes and he didn’t call back.

Sunday, November 14
I went to Staff Sergeant DR’s funeral today, and to the graveside service. The funeral procession drove down to the cemetery in eerie solitude—the entire southbound freeway was closed to let us pass. It was a cold, gray fall day, and the flags, flying at half-staff, snapped in the wind. The white stone of the amphitheater, the brilliant red and orange of the trees, and the Marines in their dress blues stand out in my mind. We all jumped when the first shot of a twenty-one-gun salute was fired, and the man standing in front of me started to cry.

On my way home from the service, I got a call from Dan’s mom—Had I heard from Dan? She talked to S’s mom at church today, and S is going to Fallujah. My first thought was, Oh, M. And my second thought was, If S’s going, Dan’s going, and then I couldn’t get my hands to stop shaking. After a few moments of incoherent thought, I called M, who said S had called again and he wasn’t going after all, which probably meant Dan wasn’t going either. So now I feel foolish for getting so upset, and slightly annoyed, like you get annoyed when someone jumps out from behind a door and scares you, and still a little worried, because he still hasn’t called or emailed.

Monday, November 15
Dan called tonight, so tired that he was slurring his speech and falling asleep mid-sentence. He was loading his last bag onto the truck to head to Fallujah Sunday when the mission was called off, and instead they hurriedly reassembled Area 51 (where EPWs—enemy prisoners of war—are kept). He worked twenty-six hours Sunday, slept for a bit, then went over to the hospital to receive incoming injured EPWs—the U. S. military has a standing policy of "We shoot ‘em, we fix ‘em." So Dan’s now working twelve-hour shifts as a medic in Area 51, treating, as he said, "People who were shooting at our Marine friends and our soldiers."

Tuesday, November 23
The attitude of the news media toward our military frustrates me, and their treatment of the Marine who shot the injured insurgent in the Fallujah mosque still makes me so blindingly angry I can’t talk about it without yelling. Our soldiers—my friends—are making split-second life and death decisions, in the face of an enemy that kidnaps, tortures, and disembowels noncombatants, and they fully realize that no matter what they do, the consequences are heartbreaking. Can’t the media give them a break?