Read Online Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival by Anderson Cooper - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Anderson Cooper
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on the lookout for IEDs, which are becoming ever more sophisticated and deadly. U.S. soldiers have found them hidden in abandoned cars, in garbage, even in the carcasses of dead dogs placed on the side of the road.
“We build it, they blow it up,” Pugsley says, checking off in his head the list of recent attacks. “Our neighborhood advisory council building got blown up twice, our Iraqi police station got blown up on the same corner, and the youth center that the Iraqi government was building for the kids—someone blew that up too. We’re rebuilding them all again.”
“There’s time it seems to get better, and then it just falls apart again,” Specialist Maxfield tells me later, “and then you start over again, rebuilding, doing projects; then it goes back to the way it was before. I personally don’t care. All I care about is going home.”
Maxfield is twenty-four. He has only one more month to go; then he plans to get out of the army and go to college.
On patrols some officers try to sell you the story, upbeat West Pointers who’ve drunk the Kool-Aid and taken the class: Dealing with the Media 101. They focus on the big picture. Ask an enlisted guy how it’s working with the Iraqis and he’ll likely tell you, “They aren’t worth a pile of shit.” Ask an officer, it’s usually a different story: “We’re working well together with our Iraqi partners,” they’ll say. The truth is probably somewhere in between.
When we get to the polling spot, the Iraqi troops are freaked. They didn’t think they’d have to stay out overnight, with no supplies. “I know it sucks,” Captain Puglsey tells them. “We’ll try to get some cots out to you and some flashlights.”
A few blocks away, Pugsley notices one Iraqi soldier dancing. “Hey, get to work!” he yells. “You’ve got a job to do!”
“Anything that represents progress is a potential target,” First Lieutenant Adam Jacobs tells me. He worries not just about the insurgents and the Iraqi forces, but also about keeping his young soldiers focused. “It’s hard to keep them motivated,” he says. “I just try to remind them that what they’re doing—though it seems mundane at the time—is for a greater good. Just to sort of gain the bigger picture when they’re on a rooftop staring at a road that there’s not much traffic going down.”
Riding along in the pitch black Humvee, you really have to admire these guys. Reporters can leave, fly home when they’re done, but these young men and women are stuck for the long haul. They work around the clock. Countless patrols. No end in sight.
Outside another polling station, an Iraqi National Guard soldier, masked and alone, stares out into the darkness. The whites of his eyes dart about nervously; they are the only part of him visible beneath his black balaclava. Gunshots echo in the street.
Back at base, a camp called Victory, there’s row after row of trailers, a Burger King, and a giant PX. You can buy TVs, stereos, and T-shirts that ask WHO’SE YOUR BAGHDADDY ? You can also just stand in the aisles, close your eyes, and listen to the Muzak. For a moment it feels like America. It doesn’t last long, but it sure does feel good.
By the Burger King, soldiers from all around the country lie about in a fast-food funk. A squad of reservists from Washington State sits in the shade of a trailer licking the last of the cheeseburgers off their fingers. They are dusty and dirty, their skin burned from days in the sun.
“This place sucks shit through a straw,” one soldier tells me. I don’t ask him when he’s going home. He has no idea, so why rub it in?
When I first arrived in Sarajevo in 1993 I wore my Kevlar vest all the time. I even slept with it near my pillow. After a couple of trips, however, I’d hardly ever put it on. I’d keep it with me in my vehicle, but I wouldn’t bring it into people’s homes. Surrounded by Bosnians who didn’t have protection, I felt that it was
“We build it, they blow it up,” Pugsley says, checking off in his head the list of recent attacks. “Our neighborhood advisory council building got blown up twice, our Iraqi police station got blown up on the same corner, and the youth center that the Iraqi government was building for the kids—someone blew that up too. We’re rebuilding them all again.”
“There’s time it seems to get better, and then it just falls apart again,” Specialist Maxfield tells me later, “and then you start over again, rebuilding, doing projects; then it goes back to the way it was before. I personally don’t care. All I care about is going home.”
Maxfield is twenty-four. He has only one more month to go; then he plans to get out of the army and go to college.
On patrols some officers try to sell you the story, upbeat West Pointers who’ve drunk the Kool-Aid and taken the class: Dealing with the Media 101. They focus on the big picture. Ask an enlisted guy how it’s working with the Iraqis and he’ll likely tell you, “They aren’t worth a pile of shit.” Ask an officer, it’s usually a different story: “We’re working well together with our Iraqi partners,” they’ll say. The truth is probably somewhere in between.
When we get to the polling spot, the Iraqi troops are freaked. They didn’t think they’d have to stay out overnight, with no supplies. “I know it sucks,” Captain Puglsey tells them. “We’ll try to get some cots out to you and some flashlights.”
A few blocks away, Pugsley notices one Iraqi soldier dancing. “Hey, get to work!” he yells. “You’ve got a job to do!”
“Anything that represents progress is a potential target,” First Lieutenant Adam Jacobs tells me. He worries not just about the insurgents and the Iraqi forces, but also about keeping his young soldiers focused. “It’s hard to keep them motivated,” he says. “I just try to remind them that what they’re doing—though it seems mundane at the time—is for a greater good. Just to sort of gain the bigger picture when they’re on a rooftop staring at a road that there’s not much traffic going down.”
Riding along in the pitch black Humvee, you really have to admire these guys. Reporters can leave, fly home when they’re done, but these young men and women are stuck for the long haul. They work around the clock. Countless patrols. No end in sight.
Outside another polling station, an Iraqi National Guard soldier, masked and alone, stares out into the darkness. The whites of his eyes dart about nervously; they are the only part of him visible beneath his black balaclava. Gunshots echo in the street.
Back at base, a camp called Victory, there’s row after row of trailers, a Burger King, and a giant PX. You can buy TVs, stereos, and T-shirts that ask WHO’SE YOUR BAGHDADDY ? You can also just stand in the aisles, close your eyes, and listen to the Muzak. For a moment it feels like America. It doesn’t last long, but it sure does feel good.
By the Burger King, soldiers from all around the country lie about in a fast-food funk. A squad of reservists from Washington State sits in the shade of a trailer licking the last of the cheeseburgers off their fingers. They are dusty and dirty, their skin burned from days in the sun.
“This place sucks shit through a straw,” one soldier tells me. I don’t ask him when he’s going home. He has no idea, so why rub it in?
When I first arrived in Sarajevo in 1993 I wore my Kevlar vest all the time. I even slept with it near my pillow. After a couple of trips, however, I’d hardly ever put it on. I’d keep it with me in my vehicle, but I wouldn’t bring it into people’s homes. Surrounded by Bosnians who didn’t have protection, I felt that it was
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