potrero view

November 2009

Going to War

By David Matsuda

Herb is one of my best friends in Iraq.  He’s a contractor who has been in country three years running with time off for good behavior, otherwise know as vacations, every three or four months.  I was impressed by Herb’s long record of service until I met Pilar, also a contractor, who has been in Iraq for four years, and Tom who came in with the invasion six years ago.

Herb, Pilar and Tom sense the shift in American policy and associated resources, and are planning to leave Iraq for Afghanistan.  The three aren’t mercenaries; they’re part of the “have war, will follow” class of professionals who make their way through life by mastering intelligence gathering methods, sifting through collected data, and painting a picture of enemy activity.  They have friends and relatives back home, but every year those in the states become more of a distant memory, and their family becomes the people who share the same secrets, and sit in the cubicle across from them.

Antonia is a Filipina. The Philippine government opposes the war; though she was allowed to work in Iraq, the government will not let her return if she visits home.  Antonia helped set up some of the first permanent bases in Iraq, and has since been cleaning restrooms for six years without a vacation.  

Jugdish is a Bangladeshi KBR, Inc. employee who serves three meals a day in a military dining facility.  His wage is somewhere above poverty level in the United States, but if he saves his money Jugdish will return to Bangladesh a wealthy man.  Issac is a security guard from Uganda.  Each morning he teaches me Swahili words, some of which can’t be repeated in the View.  Several months ago he and the other guards went on strike because Uganda imposes an income tax of more than fifty percent.  The issue remains unresolved, but Issac stays in Iraq because his job enables him to send money home to support his father, who is a tribal chief.     

I climbed into the Mine Resistant Ambush Proof (MRAP) vehicle; the hydraulic winch closed the door behind me with a resounding clang.  I stared out the MRAP’s front window as the column of tactical vehicles in front of us moved through the streets of Baghdad.  I’d been invited back into the city by members of Human Terrain Team IZ3; the team on which I served during my previous deployment to Iraq.  

Our first stop was the Sadr City District Advisory Council Hall.  We received warm greetings from the council chairman and members.  As we exchanged customary pleasantries I looked around the hall.  The roughly plastered wall and new coat of paint did little to hide evidence of the explosion that had killed my replacement several months earlier.  Gone also was the once prevalent belief that the United States would make things right in Iraq before pulling out.  Some council members spoke of having risked their lives by siding with U.S. forces, only to be abandoned.  

My column of MRAPs travelled deeper into Sadr City, to the old Ministry of Defense.  Old MoD, as it’s affectionately known, was a death trap during my last deployment.  Old MoD is ringed by low walls and surrounded by high rise slums; a snipers paradise.  In previous years soldiers would toss smoke grenades, wait for a big enough cloud, and run between buildings as bullets nicked nearby pavement and walls.  Today, we exit the vehicles and move into the narrow streets of the Sadr City book market.  Past a newly refurbished coffee shop that was blown apart when a young mentally retarded woman strapped with explosives detonated herself.  We’re welcomed by pedestrians, who say they want the United States to stay in Iraq, because they don’t think the government and security forces are ready to handle the country by themselves.  

Back in the MRAPs – which take a different route to the base to thwart potential ambushes – one young soldier says he received a Dear John letter.  His wife couldn’t take a fourth deployment, and had found someone else with whom to raise a blended family.  I stayed up all night comforting him, pondering the toll this war has exacted on those it has touched.   

Potrero Hill resident Dave Matsuda is deployed in Iraq, and sends back monthly dispatches about his experiences.


                      
 

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