The Walk

[unhappycamper]

The Walk
by Justin C. Cliburn | Thu, 08/09/2007 - 8:27pm


It was a May day like any other as we pulled into the poorly fortified Traffic Police Headquarters compound. We parked in our usual spots and the squad leader rallied us around him. He had a BOLO (Be on the lookout) list in his hand, and we were to check license plates in the adjacent parking lot against it. He needed about half the squad; I was one of them.

It was about a 100 meter walk between the parking lot and our location in north Baghdad. In our way was a small market, but a crowded small market, and we made our way towards it. As we fanned out, I saw all the blustering and posturing my comrades were doing; they looked ridiculous. You're wearing body armor, a helmet, sunglasses, a pistol, and a semi-automatic assault rifle; you don't need to intimidate anyone with your behavior. As we approached the market, I saw the Iraqis' faces; they looked apprehensive. What was going on? What was going to happen? Why do they look so angry?

"Sergeant Jackson, can I fuck with somebody? Please, let me fuck with somebody!" one of our junior NCOs asked our squad leader.

The squad leader said that it might not be a good idea to piss anyone off, especially when we were outnumbered and had to come here practically everyday for the next nine months, never mind that it was just plain wrong. Wrong was not something that the young sergeant would have responded to though, so I don't fault the man for omitting the most obvious argument against the request.

We continued walking towards the market and now I could make eye contact with the people there: the passers by; the shop keepers; the shoppers; the old men drinking chi under a canopy . . . all of them. They looked frightened. They looked angry. They looked hopeless. I made eye contact; I smiled. "Salaam a'alaikum," I said. Some smiled back and replied "Alaikum a'salaam" in the same nervous manner that I had greeted them; others continued to stare. Activity slowed all around us; we were the center of attention.

~snip~

As I looked out over the vast parking lot, the sheer lunacy of this mission hit me. Here we were, looking for ten cars in a city of five million people. It was unlikely that we'd find one of them, but it was highly likely that we had just alienated just a few more Iraqis. At that moment, I empathized with the Iraqis still staring at me from the market. I felt hopeless, saddened, disappointed, just a tad angry, and resigned to my fate: I would spend the next eight to nine months doing counter-productive missions like this one. At the end of everyday, I would make a few more enemies than I killed or brought to our side. I was embarrassed and humiliated that I ever thought differently; I wanted to tell the people behind me that I was sorry for what my country had done. I was sorry we had interrupted their commerce.


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