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    The Fog of Home

    « H E Lieutenant K :: email
    posted Sunday, 30 April 2006
    Originally published by the New York Times on March 12th, 2006

    The other morning I walked out of my hooch and saw antennae standing watch like silent sentinels, sticking their heads up out of the fog. The sun looked like a silver coin through the haze. You could stare right at it. The horizon was shrouded. I heard a large explosion, but the sound was compressed as if in a vacuum; it was hard to tell if it was an I.E.D. on a road just outside the F.O.B. or a mortar attack inside the wire. By mid-morning, the clouds served as a prism and there was a golden glare all over the world. It wasn’t the kind of gold you might imagine while reading a poem by Robert Frost. It was the fallow brown of a vast desert come to steal away the mirage of safety.

    My battalion is helping recruit local men into the Al Anbar Police Department. There are “stations” the men must go through, including a physical, a literacy test, and an interview. It’s much like a job fair, where some of the men of Ramadi wear business suits and others show up in sandals and their traditional local garb. Most of my battalion’s involvement is providing security for the recruitment sites and transportation of the recruits to Baghdad for training.

    Last time we did a recruiting drive there was a huge turnout, which is good for coalition forces, and even better for the locals in this province, because it demonstrates a desire to reclaim their streets. We used a local glass factory as a staging area. On the third day, as hundreds of men stood in line outside the factory gates, a suicide bomber blew himself up right in their midst, killing more than 30 of them in an instant.

    He never could have made it past Iraqi army and American military security, and he knew it, so he simply detonated his vest outside the factory in the midst of all these local men. It was a cowardly and murderous act.

    Still, after the attack, that same afternoon, over 200 local men were screened for the police force. This is a monumental achievement, and a testament to the determination of the people of Ramadi to help create a stable future for themselves and their children.

    I was working down at the factory the morning before the suicide bomber attacked, sitting at a table next to an Iraqi interpreter. We were in a dingy room with poor lighting that was being used as makeshift interviewing site. Through the interpreter, I was required to ask the men a series of questions regarding their employment history, nationality, military experience, and what kinds of weapon systems they were familiar with. One of the questions I asked was, “If you or your family is threatened, will you continue to be a police officer in Al Anbar?” They all said yes. Some pounded their hands on the table when they said it. It was very compelling work, and I’m glad I was asked to help out that morning.

    To date, my unit has provided security so that over 2,000 local Iraqis could be processed into the police force and transported to training in Baghdad. By this summer, approximately that same number of Iraqi police officers will be actively working in the cities of the Al Anbar province. This doesn’t even include the present and growing number of Iraqi Army forces working out here. If you imagine the collective efforts of all coalition forces throughout the country doing this kind of work, you’ll understand that progress, while sometimes arduous, is absolutely constant. The goal is to train as many Iraqi police, Iraqi army, and other security forces as possible, and then systematically turn over the “battle space” to them. There is no shortage of Iraqi men who want to participate.

    The haze that covered my little corner of Iraq that morning seems like a metaphor for my life these days. I’m in my 14th month of an 18-month deployment, and life back home is hard to see sometimes through the foggy windows of the mind. For the last 8 months, I’ve been working and living here in the Al Anbar province, an area once known as Babylon, and Mesopotamia. I remember my house, my car, my wife, my two incredible children, my family, my job, my dogs, but the images slowly fade like a watercolor painting left out in the sun.

    I have about four months before I return home to pick up the pieces of my life. One one hand, I feel strong and determined to put the mission first and to stay focused right until the end. And I will. But part of me, in these quiet moments of introspection, simply wants to be the person you saw but paid no attention to this morning at a red light on your way to the office, or a nameless face in the window of a plane speeding down a runway, or the man in the distance walking through the park with two kids running around him, not worried in the least about a suicide bomber, a mortar, or a sniper. The very idea of that unique kind of American anonymity, the relative safety of suburbia, is itself a sweet brand of inspiration.

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    Leave comments for Captain K here: (8)


    1. Janet left...
    Sunday, 30 April 2006 8:19 am

    This is so beautifully and so eloquently written. I recall the circumstances of the Glass Factory (Fallen Warrior, 14 January 2006) as it was one of the first of two very sad events you were writing about when first I came upon your blog. As I recall that previous story, the Iraqi applicants and the American processors were back later in the day to continue to process the police recruits. It speaks volumes about our troops, yourself included and the Iraqis that you were both back attending to the business of rebuilding Iraq on that or subsequent occasions when such a terrible event had occurred at that location.

    When the enemy feels compelled to stamp his foot and say as he did this past week, “We are too winning” you know that despite all the destruction the corner has been turned in the rebuilding of Iraq. We can all get waylaid if we look at the flotsam at the side of the road of today. Americans at home must see through the haze that you so movingly describe and into the more distant horizon at the road straight ahead and just keep coming back to the job at hand and moving forward. That is were victory lies as our progress in Iraq indicates so demonstrably.

    I came upon an internet site the other day which paid tribute to a young man lost at the Glass Factory and realized, as I had not on my first visit, that this was the event you had written about in January told from the sad and personal perspective of another loss. We pay a bitter price, yet what is being built and created will be the ultimate monument to the lives lost and to the lives that have suffered disruption and change.

    May God bless the memory of those who have paid the ultimate price. To those who have made lesser but very real sacrifices to build rather than destroy, may you see your way through the fog and recover home at the end of this time of challenge. God grant that life then will be both fulfilling and sweet.


    2. Gypsy left...
    Sunday, 30 April 2006 6:02 pm

    LT K, it's really wonderful to read about the progress being made, and the brave Iraqis that are stepping up to defend their own country, be it Military or Police. You and our Military are doing such important work...my prayer is the citizens of Iraq remember all this and the sacrifices made on their behalf.

    Stay safe and God bless.


    3. Carole left...
    Monday, 1 May 2006 4:06 pm

    Wow! Well said.


    4. Mys Anon left...
    Wednesday, 3 May 2006 7:17 pm

    Dear Francoise, you are just way too much!


    5. kbug left...
    Wednesday, 3 May 2006 9:06 pm

    You paint the picture of what you've left behind and how it seems so far away and unreal now so poignantly. I believe that as these last 4 months go by and you get closer to redeployment, the picture's colors will sharpen once again and become vivid in your memory. God bless you and may these last 4 months fly by...


    6. Brittany Montgomery left...
    Saturday, 26 January 2008 11:41 pm

    Wow! How can I describe this story or article. I can describe it in many ways. It's just that good. Well to start of this article sparked my attention. I just wanted to read more and more. Which I did then I get to a special part that particularly jumped out to me. It said "I remember my house, my car, my wife, my two incredible children, my family, my job, my dogs, but the images slowly fade like a watercolor painting left out in the sun." When I read this so many things raced through my mined. How could that happen? What’s going to happen to him? Will he live his life again? And so on. And I thought no he has to go back to all those good things doesn’t he? And that is still a question in my mind. But I would just like to take the time to say thank you for sharing that with everyone. And kudos to your article-story


    7. Selena Pardo left...
    Sunday, 27 January 2008 2:50 pm

    This article/story moved me greatly. The way the experiences are descrbed in such detail really gives a vivid picture in one's mind while reading this. The occurences that happen in war really do change someone, especially mentally. They make you forget about home as described when this was said, "I remember my house, my car, my wife, my two incredible children, my family, my job, my dogs, but the images slowly fade like a watercolor painting left out in the sun." Brilliant! Just Brlliant!


    8. Christopher S. left...
    Sunday, 27 January 2008 3:55 pm

    This blog was very descriptive. It was almost as if I was there, but I could never actually experience it just by reading. But this blog was vivid enough for me to get a 'taste' of what it is like. As I was reading, everything in the blog got my eye or it caught my attention. It made me want to read more and more. There were many vivid things that I could imagine or see. There were many things about this blog that made me wonder or question. Overall, this was an excellent blog. Great job!