Day 3: Good news is no news
We were billeted together in a sand-bagged, cinder-block, 50-caliber-pockmarked fleapit. It turned out to be a riotous farce, with me playing the part of Rear Admiral Farting, Inman as Private Nothing, and Harmon as General Idiot. I peered out from under my blanket that morning to see Inman standing in the middle of the room like a mule staring at a new gate. "What's up?" I asked. He looked at me sheepishly. "I needed to pee so badly, I went to the Port- O-Let and got lost. I peed myself before I found the toilet." I thought, Why would he tell me this? Doesn't he know I'm writing a story? Then Harmon stumbled in from the next room, rubbing his eyes, and in a moment of weakness said, "Yeah, I did the same thing!" This was too good. Now, along with the Desert Sofa, we had the Desert Sprinklers.
I wasn't exactly innocent myself. Even a casual glance at any pair of my shorts would show that my talented-yet-noisy digestive system, fueled by mint-chocolate-chip ice cream and the vast amount of sand I'd swallowed, had turned me into "The Desert Fertilizer."
I soon hit the showers, where a G.I. was toweling off. I'm not one to strike up a conversation with a man with a visible willy, but it was cold, and I thought I'd seize the chance to see if I could get a negative reaction from someone about being stuck here, about how we're losing the war. This soldier had no idea who I was, so, as we stood side-by-side shaving, I said, "God, but this sucks, doesn't it?" "Maybe," he said. "But can you imagine how bad it would be if we weren't winning?" I told him who I was and asked why I hadn't seen another journalist. His answer: "You know that saying, 'No news is good news'? Well, it should be, 'Good news is no news.' " Then he pointed at my groin and laughed. Like I said — it was cold.
Day 4: Call me Florence of Arabia
In route to the former hellhole of Ramadi, nearer Baghdad, there was evidence that the trip was growing dangerous. Captain Garrett looked increasingly more alert as we lifted off in the Ospreys, and two Cobra gunships rose menacingly alongside us, with Marines manning 120-mm machine guns jutting out each side. Even I, Florence of Arabia, felt safe surrounded by men packing this kind of heat. We'd gotten a close look at the Cobras minutes earlier, as each of us signed one of its missiles — just a polite message to our friendly neighborhood insurgents. I wrote "You're welcome" on mine. But Butch, who saw and lost the most in Vietnam, was less polite.
At the Ramadi base, we met Command Sergeant Major (CSM) Clarence Stanley, a bull of a man with a bristling military mustache. He was overjoyed to see us. While politicians and generals move their little chess pieces, it's the sergeants major who run and win wars, who get things done, who feel the sting when young people die. "I'm more like a parent," CSM Stanley told us. "My job is to ensure that my children get home safely to their families."
He gave us a tour of the intel center, which was too intelligent for everyone except Watson. Between satellite images, stratospheric spy planes, human intelligence (squealers) and other top-secret sensors, if Bin Burpin lets out as much as a goat-falafel burp in the desert, coalition forces can have a laser-guided surprise up his man-dress within minutes, provided the trajectory of same surprise is uninhibited by the presence of anything innocent or friendly.
So if the Bearded One wants to launch a rocket at the base, he'd better do it from the hood — though the hood is now against him too. In February of 2007, the Ramadi base saw about 30 attacks daily. As of November, they'd had only one in the previous four months. Recently, the townsfolk even held a 5-K run and a parade with fire trucks to celebrate their freedom from Saddam and Al Qaeda.
Two more stops, the Ospreys replaced by a CH-46 Sea Knight tandem-rotor assault helicopter, with gunship outriggers. In the services, where everything has a code name, we were now "Watson's Wussies" (hey, Hogan had his heroes) and were headed for Fallujah, some 40 miles west of Baghdad, on the Euphrates. Just a year ago, Fallujah made '80s-era Beirut look like Miami Beach. We met a general who reported that violence is down and the troops are being welcomed. Politicians and TV talking heads arrive, see the difference, and forget it on their way home, he explained. The closer we get to Baghdad, the more I suspect that the smartest Americans are in Iraq, and they get progressively dumber the closer you get to Washington.
We were billeted together in a sand-bagged, cinder-block, 50-caliber-pockmarked fleapit. It turned out to be a riotous farce, with me playing the part of Rear Admiral Farting, Inman as Private Nothing, and Harmon as General Idiot. I peered out from under my blanket that morning to see Inman standing in the middle of the room like a mule staring at a new gate. "What's up?" I asked. He looked at me sheepishly. "I needed to pee so badly, I went to the Port- O-Let and got lost. I peed myself before I found the toilet." I thought, Why would he tell me this? Doesn't he know I'm writing a story? Then Harmon stumbled in from the next room, rubbing his eyes, and in a moment of weakness said, "Yeah, I did the same thing!" This was too good. Now, along with the Desert Sofa, we had the Desert Sprinklers.
I wasn't exactly innocent myself. Even a casual glance at any pair of my shorts would show that my talented-yet-noisy digestive system, fueled by mint-chocolate-chip ice cream and the vast amount of sand I'd swallowed, had turned me into "The Desert Fertilizer."
I soon hit the showers, where a G.I. was toweling off. I'm not one to strike up a conversation with a man with a visible willy, but it was cold, and I thought I'd seize the chance to see if I could get a negative reaction from someone about being stuck here, about how we're losing the war. This soldier had no idea who I was, so, as we stood side-by-side shaving, I said, "God, but this sucks, doesn't it?" "Maybe," he said. "But can you imagine how bad it would be if we weren't winning?" I told him who I was and asked why I hadn't seen another journalist. His answer: "You know that saying, 'No news is good news'? Well, it should be, 'Good news is no news.' " Then he pointed at my groin and laughed. Like I said — it was cold.
Day 4: Call me Florence of Arabia
In route to the former hellhole of Ramadi, nearer Baghdad, there was evidence that the trip was growing dangerous. Captain Garrett looked increasingly more alert as we lifted off in the Ospreys, and two Cobra gunships rose menacingly alongside us, with Marines manning 120-mm machine guns jutting out each side. Even I, Florence of Arabia, felt safe surrounded by men packing this kind of heat. We'd gotten a close look at the Cobras minutes earlier, as each of us signed one of its missiles — just a polite message to our friendly neighborhood insurgents. I wrote "You're welcome" on mine. But Butch, who saw and lost the most in Vietnam, was less polite.
At the Ramadi base, we met Command Sergeant Major (CSM) Clarence Stanley, a bull of a man with a bristling military mustache. He was overjoyed to see us. While politicians and generals move their little chess pieces, it's the sergeants major who run and win wars, who get things done, who feel the sting when young people die. "I'm more like a parent," CSM Stanley told us. "My job is to ensure that my children get home safely to their families."
He gave us a tour of the intel center, which was too intelligent for everyone except Watson. Between satellite images, stratospheric spy planes, human intelligence (squealers) and other top-secret sensors, if Bin Burpin lets out as much as a goat-falafel burp in the desert, coalition forces can have a laser-guided surprise up his man-dress within minutes, provided the trajectory of same surprise is uninhibited by the presence of anything innocent or friendly.
So if the Bearded One wants to launch a rocket at the base, he'd better do it from the hood — though the hood is now against him too. In February of 2007, the Ramadi base saw about 30 attacks daily. As of November, they'd had only one in the previous four months. Recently, the townsfolk even held a 5-K run and a parade with fire trucks to celebrate their freedom from Saddam and Al Qaeda.
Two more stops, the Ospreys replaced by a CH-46 Sea Knight tandem-rotor assault helicopter, with gunship outriggers. In the services, where everything has a code name, we were now "Watson's Wussies" (hey, Hogan had his heroes) and were headed for Fallujah, some 40 miles west of Baghdad, on the Euphrates. Just a year ago, Fallujah made '80s-era Beirut look like Miami Beach. We met a general who reported that violence is down and the troops are being welcomed. Politicians and TV talking heads arrive, see the difference, and forget it on their way home, he explained. The closer we get to Baghdad, the more I suspect that the smartest Americans are in Iraq, and they get progressively dumber the closer you get to Washington.
