The Marines from RCT2 do not have mixed feelings about leaving Iraq. They are going home after a job well done and they are happy to be done with Iraq, at least for the time being. Marine units are self contained. They take what they need with them and when they get back to North Carolina they will have most of the same duties, friendships & relationships. It is not like the FS, where we move as individuals, but as an individual left behind by the group I am in a melancholy mood despite the joyful noise all around me. My friends are leaving and I probably will never see them again.
We have been living close together. We sleep in the same can cities, eat at the same chow hall & fly on the same helicopters. You do not have any friends at home that you do not have at work and there is nobody you know that everybody else doesn’t also know. Work merges with personal life and there is no genuine privacy. While this has its costs, this situation creates a strong feeling of shared purpose and community, but as a civilian I am adjunct – someone in the community, not of it. I usually do not feel this very acutley; today I do.
I hear stories about retired military guys hanging around bases. They use to commissaries and PX not so much to save money as to maintain their affiliations. The military is a very encompassing culture. It is hard for anybody to just give it up.
The new guys from RCT5 seem great. I met some of them at PRT training courses in Washington in September. Everyone has been supportive and friendly. I am sure I will have equally productive relationships with the new team. The Marines design their system so that individual personalities will not affect the integrity of the unit and the mission, but people still matter. I know I will make new friends among the new Marines. I have already started, but I still can be sad that my old friends are leaving.
Even the oldest people around here cannot remember a winter so cold. It snowed in Baghdad for the first time in 83 years, according to the records. One of my contacts told me that it got down to -13 c in Al Qaim. The picture above is from Rawah, near the Euphrates. It never snows in Rawah … but it did, and some even stuck to the ground for a short while.
I am happy with this weather. It gets fairly warm in the afternoon. It could be a bit warmer, but not too much. As running weather, it is nearly perfect and our cans have heaters. I pity some of the poor Iraqis, who are unaccustomed to this kind of cold and whose houses are designed to withstand only heat. I remember my freezing time in Mudaysis.
Maybe this cold winter will mean a cooler than normal summer. I am not particularly excited about experiencing a colder winter, even if the icy blasts impress and chagrin the locals. For me, this doesn’t seem very cold. Our lows have been around 29 f degrees and it gets around 53 during the sunny times in the afternoons. If you wear dark clothes, the sunlight feels like liquid warmth on your back & the sensation of radiant heat is very pleasant in the cold, dry air. I would be content if this summer was the coldest in memory. I am not counting on such luck, but I would appreciate even a modest reduction. Of course, during the summer the highs and lows will be about the same as those I mentioned, only this time they will be in Celsius.
This entry is one of the late ones I mentioned. This is the last of my Egypt entries.
Saladin built the Citadel and it became the home of Egypt’s rulers for the next 800 years. You can see why it was built here. The high ground commands Cairo. All medieval fortresses have a similar feel and this one reminded me of those I have seen around Europe. Europeans learned the art of making stone fortifications from the Muslims during the Crusades, but Muslim inherited much of the knowledge from the Romans and stone walls are stone walls. Anyway, the feeling was familiar, except for the minarets.
Mohammed Ali, ruler of Egypt not the fighter, added a lot to the complex, including the big Mohammed Ali Mosque. He was an Albanian born in what is now Greece who evidently never spoke any language well other than Albanian. It gets even more complicated. He took power from the Mamluks, slave soldiers seized from the Balkans and Caucuses, among other places. The Turks ran one strange empire. Mohammed Ali invited the leaders of the Mamluks to a feast at the Citadel and then murdered them on the way out. That is a dish best served cold.
The Citadel features an interesting military museum with lots of weapons and uniforms. The big drawback is that it was restored with the help of the North Koreans, so many of the exhibits are comically propagandistic. Although the list of recent Egyptian war victories is short, they managed to imply some or at least a few heroic stands. The N. Koreans made a panorama of the Yom Kippur War that looks like the D-Day landings. They probably copied the D-Day pictures. They have a painting of the British in Egypt in the 19th Century showing a couple of guys who look like they came out of a 1990s GQ. I bet that is what the N. Koreans used as models. How dumb is it to ask the N. Koreans to help with something like this, but despite the propaganda veneer and the mislabeling of some exhibits, it is worth seeing. Alex especially liked it.
The Mohammed Ali Mosque is an interesting place. It is Turkish, not Egyptian style, and looks like those you might find in Istanbul. Mohammed Ali is an interesting and important historical figure. He rescued Egypt from chaos, helped modernize the place in the 19th Century and ruled for many years, yet we hear very little about him in our history classes. I think he suffers from being a non-European leader when most history was written in and about Europe. He also doesn’t get much support from nationalists or the new PC crowd, which venerates non-western leaders, because of his peculiar origins. He was essentially an imperialist and sort of an adventurer, who could capture the imaginations of Victorians but leaves modern readers cold.
You may have noticed that my blog entries are sometimes out of sequence. There are two reasons for this. The first one is a good one. Revealing some of my travel plans in real time would violate operational security and even though I write innocuously and in general terms, I might accidentally reveal something important. So if you are an ordinary reader, I apologize for any confusion. If you are a bad guy looking for information, I expect the Marines are coming for you and you should probably just give up.
The other reason is more practical. Sometimes I do not have access to computers or internet. The time I write the most is when I am stuck someplace waiting for a flight. I take notes in my little green books and I do not get around to transcribing them for awhile. In any case, I have a notebook full of notes and not so much time to transcribe, so the order may suffer.
Speaking of out of order, here is a good picture from the pyramids.
Check-in was “passenger only” so I couldn’t go in with Alex. Instead, I watched through the glass for an agonizing forty-five minutes while he waded through a disorganized gaggle that passes for a line around here. He has grown into a man, stronger than I am, and it is silly of me to fret about him. Still, I see the little boy even as I look at the man. I am profoundly sad to see him off. Separation from family is easy to contemplate but harder to live.
I had a good time with him in Egypt and it is hard to go back to Iraq. I traveled again through Kuwait. Ali Al Salem is not a nice place. The chow hall in not as good as Al Asad and tent living is intrinsically difficult. This time was worse. I got in late so they put me in a big barracks tent with bunk beds. All the beds were full except one top bunk. I took it. It was drafty and uncomfortable. I was worried that I would fall out, not that I usually fall out of bed, but it is like standing near a cliff w/o a guard rail. You can walk close to the edge of sidewalk w/o a thought, but when there is a drop off, you just feel less secure.
From Kuwait, I flew on a C17. It is a flying warehouse. We were packed in like sardines, but the flight to Al Asad lasted only an hour. I had my gear on my lap and pressed against the seat in front of me, so I could not take a deep breath, but as long as I did not try to move around, it wasn’t so bad. I slept most of the way. The funny thing was that when I got back to my can at Al Asad, it felt like home. You can get used to anything.
I was interested in seeing Heliopolis because I am interested in planned communities from the “garden city” era in the early 20th Century an era and concept that produced some of the most livable cities. Many of the places where people want to live today, but usually cannot afford – Beverly Hills, Grosse Point, Chestnut Hill & Coral Gables – started out as garden cities. Unfortunately, the idea fell out of favor with planners and architects by mid-century and we were building some of the ugliest and most dysfunctional communities in human history. The hideousness was worldwide. It is hard to believe that someone created places like Nowa Huta, Cabrini Green or Brasilia on purpose. I think we can learn from successes and failures.
Heliopolis is still relatively more livable than the rest of Cairo, but the population and squalor of the larger city have overwhelmed it. In theory you can walk around, but the Cairo driving habits make that dangerous. The inhabitants and authorities are making efforts to clean up some of the squalor, but a prerequisite for a livable city is control of traffic & overcrowding. Unless you do that, it is like cleaning the birdcage w/o feeding the bird.
The most interesting book I read on this sort of topic was “A Pattern Language”. The authors went around the world to compile the factors that people want in their cities. Galleries or porches are one of the important factors they found. Heliopolis has them. Another factor was access to shops. These are also present. I think if they got the traffic problem under control, this place would be just fine. From the guidebook I thought this would be a more pleasant place. I guess in a city with nearly 20 million people packed so tightly together, that is something you just do not get.
Some of the shopkeepers & taxi drivers we met alluded to this. They complained that their upscale customers were disappearing, drawn out of Cairo to the controlled and agreeable resorts. At first, people went to the resorts when they visited Egypt. More and more, however, they are just going to resorts that happen to be in Egypt w/o regard to the rest of the country. The Red Sea resorts are where they are because the sun shines every day not because they are in Egypt. They could be anywhere in the world.
The take away lesson from this is that if you do not provide people with the pleasant amenities they want, they will find them someplace else, and the most influential people will leave first.
Above is part of my once and future path to work. I get off at Smithsonian and walk around 15 minutes. Not bad. The gravel part is like Al Asad. Otherwise, there are few similarities.
What you do is a truer reflection of your values than what you say or even what you truly think you believe. My pattern of choices always brings me back to the same core skills and keeps me in the FS, where my idiosyncrasies are not merely tolerated but occasionally rewarded.
When I volunteered to go to Iraq, I figured this would be my last FS assignment. After that I could retire honorably and do it happily. The FS has an up or out system and I thought I would be out next year. They screwed up my plans by promoting me and leading me into more career temptation than I could resist. My pattern of choices once again reveals my true preferences and I will be back where I began, chaining my bike to the same parking meter, running on the same Mall path and lifting weights at the same Gold’s Gym, but doing different work. I accepted the position of director of the policy group at International Information Programs. I will move to a new office in the same building – from director of IIP/S (speakers) to director of IIP/P (policy). I will just make the move via a sojourn in Iraq and I am content with both the journey and the destination. I have lots of friends there.”We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
TS Elliott stopped too soon. We only know the place until we set off again. Someday I will be finished, but not today.
We saw the pyramids. They are magical and more impressive than you would think from pictures. The sphinx is smaller, however. We rode up on camels to see these wonders. It cost more, but it was a good experience and now that I have done it I will never have to do it again. The camel is a horse designed by a committee. They are truly odd looking and unpleasant animals. They burp, spit and stink.
We had a good guide who had relationships (i.e. gave money) with the guards to let us “park” near some of the pyramids and we had the pleasure of being almost alone in the quiet near some of the smaller pyramids. It makes a big difference. We could see the thousands of people in the distance touring the macro sites. When we went down to see the sphinx we had the crowd crush experience. There is always somebody around who wants money. It detracts.
Below I am sitting with our guide. He spoke good English and claimed to have spent his whole life near the pyramids, at first as a child selling little tokens.
Memphis was the capital of Egypt for hundreds of years. Today there is nothing but palms trees and a big monument area in the nearby desert. This is Saqqara. In some ways it is more interesting than the pyramids at Giza. The first pyramids are here. At first they are just a pile of rubble, but then you get a step pyramid (pyramid of Djoser) that is the precursor of the pyramids we all know.
We got to Saqqara early enough to avoid the crowds. In fact, we were just about a half hour ahead of a bus caravan of Germans. They were hot on our heels throughout the area. Going in tour groups has some advantages. You get some lecture by the guide and the numbers help dilute the effect of the ubiquitous pseudo guides who show you how to get into a monument or point you to the clearly marked path and then want money.
I do not believe that the average guide furnishes accurate information. Just listening to those around me I heard all sorts of conflicting stories. The guides’ main goal is to make the listeners happy so that he will get a bigger tip, so he tailors history to suite what he thinks the audiences wants to hear or a narrative that is easier to tell. I am not sure it really matters very much anyway. I cannot believe I just wrote that. Those who know me know that I am very particular about historical accuracy, but in this case the person is going to remember only that he saw something very old. The details will be buried in the sands of time, shrouded in the mist of antiquity or lost like a drunk’s car keys on a dark night, depending on the metaphor you like best. This is tourism, not scholarship.
After Saqqara we went to the probable site of Memphis. Layers of mud had covered the place, but they still sometimes dig out interesting things. There was a giant stature of Ramesses laying on the ground and they built a viewing area around it Ramesses was evidently the vainest man in world history. He wrote his name on everything, including the statues of previous pharaohs, but this was supposedly really him. We got to Memphis a few minutes ahead of the Germans, but that is about all the time it took to see the place.
Our driver took us to a carpet “museum”, i.e. a place where they show you an exhibit of carpet making for a minute and then try to sell you carpets for the next hour. Drivers get a kickback and I don’t begrudge them this. We went to a papyrus museum yesterday, same thing. And they tried to draw us into a perfume factory. We were immune to these enticements, however, having already been already fleeced at papyrus and perfume museums near the Egyptian museum.
For me the most interesting part of the day was a visit to the Coptic area. Copts still make up about 10% of the population. The churches are reminiscent of the Romans & Byzantines. I like that history. According to the narrative at the museums, Egypt has more relics of early Christianity than anyplace else because the climate preserves them. Besides, Egypt was a center of early Christianity. It is interesting to see how Islam so obliterated Christianity in all but a few pockets in what really was its homeland in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor and of course the Holy Land itself.
We wanted to go to a nearby restaurant, but the driver told us that we would get food poisoning if we even walked in. He took us to an authentic tourist buffet restaurant. Those Germans who, had been just behind us all day, were now in front and already sitting at the restaurant. We had the Egyptian meal auf deutsch.
It was a busy day. Back at the Marriott we went to the restaurant that called itself Egyptians and called ourselves content. Then a strange thing happened. It rained. People are accustomed to water flowing in the river and are a little surprised to see it falling from the sky. The waiters were all exercised & talking about it. After living in Al Anbar for a couple of months, I understand.I will post pictures of all the things above when I get back to Al Asad.
This is the end of the day on one of our patrols. You cannot see much, but I think the picture is iconic. The big truck is an MRAP – horrible thing. You cannot really drive it offroad because it bounces so much. They are not very durable either. There was a lot of politics behind getting them here so quick. I expect most of them will become part of that ever growing junk heap in Iraq.
I asked my team to dress like civilians around camp. We are issued military uniforms, but some of us just cannot wear them right. Our slovenly uniform appearance offends the Marines, so it is best to avoid the situation entirely by wearing civilian garb except when we are forward deployed.
I also took away the guns. A couple guys liked to strut strapped like the Cisco Kid. We are a civilian team. Wherever we go, Marines are there with lots of guns to protect us. If the bad guys get past them, past the 50 calibers and through the armor, my guess is that an old guy with a pistol is not going to turn the tide. The Marines have the added advantage of knowing how to use their weapons. An untrained civilians (or one whose training dates from the Johnson Administration) is more likely to shoot himself, his friends or some nearby kids than the enemy.
The real warriors don’t need some drugstore cowboys playing war. We should, all of us, do the jobs we do best. Our team is diplomatic and it is our time. “For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” Or as Clint Eastwood put it more succinctly, “A man’s gotta know his limitations.”
