Abandoned by Saddam's old Stadiums...

Okay, first off, I plan to start commenting on all of your blogs, as I love that you all have taken an interest in mine, and I need to reciprocate. It's a delight to come on here and see that the words I've typed are not merely practice, but hold some relevance as there are people out there who read them. Thanks, y'all.

Second, today I ventured out with my boss/supervisor/only person I work with regularly Dave to go to the post office. He was dropping me off while he went to the PX for supplies. He refuses to eat at the DFAC and gets basic groceries weekly at our large PX, which is like a small grocery/convenience store. It's what I imagine general stores were to developing towns out west in the 1800's. This gave me my first realized look at the landscape surrounding us. I caught glimpses on my way from the airfield my second day, but I was in such a misery-haze, nothing really registered. What's out there you ask? A whole lotta nothing. I mean, we stayed on base (which is huge), so I wasn't expecting a middle-eastern market or a mosque, but maybe some vegetation or hills. Nope, just flat, barren brownness. What's sad is that I'm pretty sure this was a lively area before the days of the Iran/Iraq war. But most of it got destroyed in that struggle, and abandoned until U.S. occupation. We took one look around and said, "yep, it's depressing and barren enough for us to build the second largest military base in Iraq."

Continuing on, the drive was fascinating, if not aesthetically pleasing. Dave went to drop me off at what he thought was the post office. I went up and it looked awfully sketchy. I managed to stall him while i took another look around. While he waited, I went into this building that had clearly been abandoned and ransacked. By whom, I'll never know. It was eerie walking through the halls, looking for a sign of a post office. In hindsight, clearly nothing of value was in here and I was wasting my time, but I like to exhaust all my options before dismissing them, so I followed the hallway down. There were discarded mattresses in all the rooms, a lot of broken glass, broken wooden furniture. It reminded me of a dorm. It made me think of that place in the movie "Children of Men" where Clive Owen helps the last pregnant woman on Earth give birth, but without the people. Very desolate. I went back out and told Dave he was completely wrong, and we managed to find the real post office.

Once there, I got my work done rather quickly and went outside to wait for Dave. I was literally 100 yards away from one of Saddam Hussein's old stadiums where they originally had sporting events, then soldier marches, and finally, mass Iraqi-civilian deaths. It was pretty destroyed from the war, but enough of a structure remained to get an impression. When I go back, I will take a picture so you can see it. It's just so fascinating and humbling to be amongst all this history, (mostly tragic), but not really understand what you are surrounded by because its been turned into an American army base. I feel like we are missing out. I mean, they don't even name the streets anything remotely related to Iraq. They are all military based names. It just makes you wonder how hard we are trying as Americans, to understand the true nature and plight of the Iraqi people. It's like all these military bases are Little America in Iraq. For some, that's a comfort, but for me it would be nice to see a blending of cultures while we are staying in their country.

On another note, each time I see a truck drive by with the medical cross on it, I start whistling the theme to M.A.S.H. I really think they should air re-runs of that on their Army Television Network. It just makes sense.