Mail from Baghdad

[marmar]

By Diane Chiddister

It is dusk, one of the few times of the day that Iraq approaches a reality other than that of the fifth level of Hell. The sky above is a pale cocktail blue, brightening to a washed-out yellow before sinking into a dust, brown shading of smog and sand just above the horizon. The air is cool, refreshing, now that the demon sun has dropped below the horizon and the temperature is a balmy 100 degrees. A light breeze teases a half-hearted whirlpool of sand to life in front of me, and it dances across the road for a second, before wandering off in search of another partner.

The moon is out already and almost full — a pale skull above the camp, the man in the moon’s phantom mouth silently agape in a voiceless scream. The locals have lit yet another trash fire just outside the perimeter wall — the thick black smoke, laced with the smell of burning rubber and human feces, curls and writhes in a thick, slow-motion band directly overhead, sliding greasily across the moon like a dusty veil over the face of a corpse.

In the distance, I can hear the faint crack-crack of gunfire, competing with a cheap loudspeaker wailing an iman’s call to prayer. The sounds are utterly alien, inherently unfriendly, and yet instantly sum up being in Iraq — along with the choking punch of the acrid smoke in the back of my throat, the irritating rasp of sand in my boots, and the swarmy embrace of sweat-greased body armor. I turn to my friend and say, only half jokingly, “Tell me again why we are in this country?” Phil just looks at me and grins thinly in his quiet way, and says nothing.

* * *

In recent months, the United States has dispatched 7,000 additional troops into Iraq in an attempt to quell the rising sectarian violence, according to the New York Times. Among those 7,000 is Owen Powell, the author of the preceding e-mail, which he sent to friends and family on Aug. 11. Powell, 39, is a former Yellow Springs resident and the son of Liz Visick, a longtime village community member, who offered the e-mails to the News. An Army sergeant and military policeman, Powell was dispatched last month to Sadr City, one of the most violent sections in the increasingly chaotic city of Baghdad.

According to Visick, her son’s unit provides support for the Iraqi Army. In one of the group’s first missions, they acted as nighttime security guards for civil engineers who needed to repair a bridge:

Night missions are loved by Army types, because no matter how complicated a mission is during the day, it becomes exponentially more difficult at night. This was to be no exception.

The complete piece is at: http://www.ysnews.com/stories/2006/09/090706_visick.html