12/3/06

I was sitting outside this morning in the very cold air, hours before sunrise, looking at a full moon. Just digesting my days here, thinking about the soldiers and civilians I've met, soldiers that have died here, just the state of things I suppose.

I looked over the barren landscape lit by that moon, to the twinkling lights of Mosul. Thinking about how some people there, that it seems I can almost see, would like nothing more than to kill me.

Thinking about what a soldier told me. While on patrol, and coming under fire, a ricocheting bullet came so close to another soldiers head in the hatch of a Humvee, that it knocked his goggles off the back of his helmet today.

And how he couldn't get the ping, ping, ping, ping, ping sound of the enemy fire hitting his Humvee, out of his head.

Many soldiers take me aside, just to talk. I welcome it and they know it.

I search them out too all the time, by way of their body language, or the way they answer my greeting when I first see them.

They talk and vent to me about a variety of subjects. Some just plain seem to want to talk to someone. I realize I have seen loneliness in many, maybe not as obvious with some as others, but nevertheless there. With their eyes, and with some of the things they tell me, I can see it.

As I look around the tent I see some sitting together talking, laughing occasionally, leaning on each other emotionally to get through this sh**.

The Band of Brothers.

Someone's son, brother, husband, boyfriend...someone's gotta do it.

Some I see sitting by themselves with blank looks on their faces just staring at the ground for minutes on end.

Even in this tent full of people, there is loneliness.

Not a day goes by without someone saying how long they have left in this purgatory.

Days left before their loneliness ends.

Loneliness for the closeness of family.

Loneliness for a relationship of a love still alive.

Or worse loneliness for the relationship of love...a love that is all but extinguished in the separation because of this damn war.

I remember reading somewhere that life a constant struggle. The only happiness you can expect to receive in this life, comes in occasional, small doses...a delicious meal, holding someone you love, a dog licking your face, the shared laughter of a friend.

It is oh, so very true.

If there is anything anyone learns here in Iraq, and it doesn't take long before it slaps you right in the pie-hole, is what is really important in this life we share.

The people in your life.

And how you will never let the hustle and bustle of a regular life let you take that for granted ever again.

It is the only way to get your occasional dose of happiness.

I need one of those doses bad right now, so I put a smile back on my face, and walk back into the tent. To eagerly search for, or to become, one of those doses.