A soldier's report from Iraq

Parks & Recreation, Nov, 2005 by Juliet Macur

After being in Iraq for nearly one month now, I have come to appreciate the toughness and resilience of American soldiers deployed here for an entire year. Being in a war zone is difficult enough, but little annoyances make it worse, and I'm amazed that the soldiers deal with it so well, considering how miserable their lives can be.

First off, when people say, 'It's not the heat, it's the humidity,' while rationalizing three-digit temperatures, they obviously have not been to Iraq. At FOB Warhorse a few weeks ago, I couldn't make it from my room to the dining hall--a 10-minute walk--without feeling spent and drenched. Such is life inside an oven.

Then there are the insects that the soldiers battle daily. Though I followed the lead of soldiers and dipped my clothes in a toxic bug spray before arrival, I've been attacked by sand fleas every night for the last week, even as I slept beneath my mosquito net. The marks don't fade for several weeks and one kind soldier warned me today that some of those fleas carry an incurable disease. (I plan a trip to the medical unit tomorrow.)

But the soldiers say the worst part about being here is the lack of communication with home. As a reporter, I use a satellite modem and satellite telephone for sending stories and talking to the office, but contact with family and friends is minimal. And the soldiers? If they are lucky, they have Internet connections in their rooms.

Otherwise they are stuck using the Internet at the base's morale, welfare and recreation center, which, more often than not, has a painfully slow connection, a time limit of 30 minutes and no privacy. (And when a soldier in a unit or on a base is seriously wounded of killed, the Internet is shut down on that base until the military can inform the family in person.)

The only time I used the MWR computers at a base, it took me 14 minutes to connect to my e-mail homepage, so I had only a few minutes left to write a few short e-mails, although I can't wait to get long ones in return. One soldier told me e-mails from friends and family are what get him through each day.

Some soldiers miss simple things the most. "All I want is to take a shower without wearing flip-flops, or go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without bringing a flashlight," said 1st Lt. David Suttles after being based at my last stop, Camp Normandy near the Iranian border, for seven months.

Another soldier said he yearned to eat a meal with metal utensils, not plastic. Yet another just wanted to have a phone conversation with his wife without sharing it with a dozen other guys in the phone center at the same time.

But a few things make you instantly forget those inconvieniences, like seeing the poverty here. Some Iraqis live in mud huts, or walk barefoot atop raw sewage on the street or sleep on their roof in the midsummer's heat, sharing one huge mattress with their spouse and several children.

And everything else in the world seems insignificant the moment you hear about soldier's death. Two unidentified soldiers from my first base, FOB Warhorse, were killed by an Improvised Explosive Device the other day, and, after getting to know so many people at the base, I felt kicked in the stomach.

I wondered if I knew them, if I had met them, if I'd know their faces if I saw them. I understood a little better how the soldiers here feel when they hear a fellow soldier has died.

Thinking about the deaths overwhelmed me and it is humbling to watch men and women summon enough strength to handle those emotions for months on end.