Greetings everyone,

I've been pretty bad about throwing stuff up here. I have a few more little ditties that I wrote from the Kuwait that I need to put up there, but all in good time. Anyway, I'm back in Iraq with the military again. For those of you who are interested here are some of the things I've written thus far. I'm not wild about a lot of this stuff, but on the other hand I feel like I'm collecting some great material for a book I hope to write once I get up and out of here. Anyway, here are some of my articles:
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A contractor's view of Iraq
By Tom A. Peter

BAGHDAD: When you take a military flight into Baghdad you realize the randomness of the contractors who live and work in Iraq. With regular service between Kuwait and Jordan to Baghdad, the flights service soldiers, diplomats, embedded journalists, and contractors. Separate flights handle large troop movements, so contractors compose the majority of the passengers. Regardless of contractors' specific jobs, traveling in and out of the country brings together everyone involved with America's efforts in Iraq.

Waiting for a flight back to Iraq after two weeks of leave in Thailand, Robbie dreaded returning to work. A British security contractor--labeled by some as a mercenary--Robbie had spent just shy of three years in Iraq and was ready to get out of the security business. He planned to resign after he collected his quarterly bonus (in excess of $10,000) in two months and start his own teeth whitening business in Thailand. Robbie had no experience in dental hygiene. But he did have a Thai girlfriend, nearly half a million dollars in savings, and information that Thai people paid exorbitant sums of money to whiten their teeth.

Whatever happened, Robbie knew it was time for a change. He imagined people asking him what he'd done with his life, where he'd gone and what he'd built. The only response he could imagine was, "I'm 30-years-old and I've got a guitar but I don't know how to play it."

Despite the stereotype of Iraq contractors as war profiteers with dubious political pretenses, for most contractors working in Iraq is a logical transition to a well-paying job they're already trained to do. Politics has little to do with their decision and money is sometimes just an added benefit. Robbie, a former British Army officer, conducts marksmanship courses for Iraqi security forces and he said that before he burned out it was the best job he'd ever had. Work didn't feel like work.

Still, for many money is a driving force. Bob was another contractor returning from vacation on a military flight. Long before working in Iraq, Bob fell on hard times after a bad real estate investment. He bought an old house with plans to renovate and re-sell it for a profit. Several years and many loans later, he couldn't find a buyer and the growing debt began to put pressure on his family. His company offered international posts with large salaries. Predictably, one of the highest paying positions happened to be in Iraq.

After talking it over with his wife, he agreed to take a four-month Iraq post as a financial officer. The day he left for Baghdad someone made a bid on his second home and several weeks later Bob had sold the house he'd come to Iraq to finance. Nonetheless, the whole real estate debacle had left his family with other debts, so his four-month tour gave his family a clean slate. It also boosted his credibility at his company's home office back in the States. After he completes his time in Iraq, Bob's firm will offer him a posting of his choice at a higher pay grade than he's ever been eligible for.

Contractors like Robbie and Bob populate a sizable segment of Iraq. Though they all come and go from Iraq for their own reasons, the passenger manifest on military flights provide a small window into their world.
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Summer time at the DMC
By Tom A. Peter

BAQUBA, IRAQ: Four months ago soldiers in Stalker Platoon had enough enthusiasm left to complain. They'd just moved to a remote outpost called the Diyala Media Center (DMC) where living conditions were anything but comfortable. One weak air conditioner cooled the living quarters--an old maintenance bay--for ten of the low ranking soldiers. During the summer the bay consistently stayed around 100 F (40 C).

Sergeants, who lived in air-conditioned areas, often walked into the bay in search of a soldier, commented on the heat, and returned to their air-conditioned rooms. "I'm going to kill the next person who walks in here and says it's hot," said Specialist Matt Graham.

Some of the low-ranking soldiers had fans, but Staff Sergeant Raymond Quintana blew out power to the privates' area while trying to re-wire his room. Quintana already had a working air conditioner, but he wanted more power so it would run colder. For the next several weeks the ten low-ranking soldiers shared the one working power outlet.

Aside from problems with electricity and air conditioning, life at the DMC came with water shortages, bad food, and no functioning toilets. Unable to escape the DMC and all its problems many soldiers sunk into disgruntled madness.

"The DMC has kind of become everyone's personal hell," said Sergeant Jesse Trumpore. "It's kind of funny."

Midway through Stalker platoon's tour in Iraq, commanders decided to close Gabe, the middle-sized base where Stalker and their battalion had lived for the first half of the deployment. The move would consolidate troops on a large, nearby base. Some soldiers, annoyed by the move, saw it as a political maneuver designed to create the appearance of troop reductions. All the same, the several hundred soldiers stationed at Gabe moved to Warhorse, a large base less than 10 minutes away from Gabe.

Stalker platoon, however, got orders to relocate to the DMC. The DMC is home to one of the largest TV and radio broadcast antennas in the region and close to a number of volatile areas. Operating out of the DMC, Stalker platoon could both guard the antenna--which received substantial funding from the US--and conduct missions.

At first the move excited soldiers. On a large base like Warhorse, seemingly excessive rules governed soldiers' day-to-day life. Combat soldiers complained that the non-combat soldiers who run the base create ridiculous safety standards that make life miserable. Safety reminders hang throughout Warhorse. One reads, "If you can't do it safely, don't do it." Many wonder how it's possible to wage war under such guidelines. Stories circulated about "fobbit"--non-combat soldier--sergeants ordering privates fresh off mission out of the dining hall because they were too dirty.

At the DMC platoon commanders set the rules. For the first month soldiers reveled in their new freedom. They wore exercise clothes all day, grew out their hair, and some let their stubble grow out before shaving.

It only took a month for the novelty to wear off.

Reliant on city power and water, the soldiers became subject to Iraqi living conditions. The frequent power outages required constant switches between generator power and city power. The small interruptions drove people insane. Between guard shifts, Specialist Graham and Specialist Patrick O'Brien tried to watch the Lindsay Lohan movie "Mean Girls." Within a ten-minute period, the two had to restart the movie and fast-forward to where they left off four times. At first the power outages were amusing, but by the third power outage their teenybopper movie viewing experience had been ruined.

When the city cut water off to the DMC and surrounding areas, soldiers could no longer shower or use toilets. They dug holes or defecated in plastic bags. Water sometimes went out for weeks at a time.

Pigeons infested the two maintenance bays that housed the low ranking soldiers. Birds nested in pipes that ran along the ceiling and defecated on cots and people's personal belongings. Specialist Daniel Schafer and Specialist Stearns tried to combat the problem by killing pigeons before they can get inside. Stearns would scared pigeons out of their roost on the roof while Schafer waited for the birds with a shovel and batted down them as they flew out.

When the Chaplin visited to check in on the soldiers, at a platoon meeting he asked everyone to share their candid thoughts about the living conditions at the DMC. Everyone looked at each other and smiled nervously, wondering whether or not to speak freely. A few soldiers mumbled approval of life at the DMC and the meeting disbanded. Sergeant John Hughes shook his head as he looked over everyone who'd remained silent. "You're all going to Hell for lying," he said and walked out.
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Waiting out the war
By Tom A. Peter

BAQUBA, IRAQ: Piles of spare vehicle parts, weapons mounts, radio equipment, axes, shovels, and other odds and ends surrounded Stalker platoon's storage bin. None of the items had been used during the platoon's yearlong tour of duty in Iraq. The platoon had to repack the extra equipment to make room for the gear they'd used but were now ready to ship home.

Specialist Matt Graham looked at the stacks of spare supplies. "The sad thing is all this stuff is probably worth millions," he said. Specialist Ryan O'Connor handed Graham several radio parts and asked him to place them in the pile with other radio equipment. Graham took the parts and lobed them into the nearby pile. They bounced off and landed on the concrete next to the pile. O'Connor shook his head, Graham defended his "gentle toss" and O'Connor set the rest of the radio equipment on the pile himself.

After a year in Iraq few soldiers have enough energy left to care. Though Stalker platoon still lives at the Diyala Media Center (DMC), a small base with limited amenities, few people bother to complain any more. They've accepted a dull life in Iraq and are just trying to wait out their remaining month in Iraq without suffering any more injuries.

Since the death of their platoon mate Corporal Luis Santos in June, Stalker Platoon has adopted a slower pace of life. Though they've conducted weekly missions since Santos' death, most of the soldiers describe the missions as "bull shit." The "bull shit missions" sent soldiers to monitor mosques during Friday prayer, conduct temporary checkpoints, and other unglamorous missions. They did foil a kidnapping, but that was a matter of luck rather than planning.

With a slower mission pace, soldiers find themselves confined largely to the DMC where they conduct guard shifts, play video games, watch movies, work out and go on a daily mission to a nearby base to get food and supplies. The DMC now offers regular power and water--Stalker platoon didn't have consistent electricity and running water for their first several months at the DMC--but soldiers have had it long enough that it's no longer a novelty.

It's a numbing boredom. Someone managed to procure a satellite for the television in the common area, but it only picked up German stations. Though no on in the platoon spoke German, soldiers would sit and watch German MTV. The station played some American music videos and the occasional English language program with German subtitles, but the majority of the programming was in German. Specialist Russo admitted, "It must have looked pretty weird to see a bunch of guys who don't speak German watching German television."

As the soldiers learned to settle on German television, they've learned to settle on life in Iraq. In the past, people got angry or frustrated about life in Iraq, but with less than a month left in country, those in Stalker platoon have quietly accepted it.

"I'm just ready to go home," said Stalker platoon leader Captain John Hintz, repeating what may well be the unofficial platoon mantra.
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Soldiers see changing role in Iraq
By Tom A. Peter

BAQUBA, IRAQ: Lieutenant Colonel Tom Fisher tried to create a detente between rival factions in Iraq's Diyala Province. Aside from maintaining open communication with the Iraqi Army and Police, he also established relationships with influential political leaders suspected of condoning criminal activities.

The plan seemed to create relative harmony in the Diyala Province. For two months the number of roadside bombs--the preferred weapon of insurgents--dropped considerably. Despite several incidents, Fisher's strategy seemed to work.

During the first week of Ramadan though the plan crumbled. Prominent members of the Iraqi Army invited a controversial sheikh to iftar. At the end of the meal, the Iraqi Army arrested the sheikh and transported him to a jail in another region of Iraq. The Iraqi Army had acted completely independently, without the knowledge of the Americans.

Those in support of the sheikh called off the unofficial truce and the following day over ten roadside bombs detonated in Diyala. The bombs targeted Iraqi Army vehicles and several civilians. Even American soldiers who believed the sheikh was corrupt acknowledged that arresting him with a fake iftar invitation was the wrong way to handle the situation.

Angry that the Iraqi Army and the sheikh's supporters had undone a year's worth of his work, Fisher ordered his troops to stand down and focus on going home rather than running missions. The soldiers who serve under Fisher now wonder if his decision is indicative a major American policy shift in Iraq.

Sergeant Jesse Trumpore sees Iraq becoming a Bosnia-like peacekeeping for American troops. Finishing his second tour in Iraq, he says that the Iraqi Army has improved substantially, which he believes will force Americans even further to the sidelines.

Outside extremely volatile areas like Ramadi, the Iraqi Army has already taken control of considerable segments of Iraq. On many joint American-Iraqi missions, the Iraqi Army leads the mission and American troops act as backup and support troops. In Diyala, the Iraqi Army plans and conducts unilateral missions--usually less controversial than arresting sheikhs during iftar gatherings.

Captain John Hintz, commander of Stalker platoon, imagines that Iraq will be completely different when he returns for another tour of duty. It will most likely be at least another three years before Hintz re-deploys to Iraq. As a newly appointed captain, when he returns to the States in a month he'll attend a five-month Army captain leadership course. Almost immediately after that, he'll relocate to Hawaii where he'll spend 18 months working on his master's degree via a special Army program. By the time he's completed all his schooling, he too imagines America will have become more of an observer in Iraq than an active participant.

Within a month, a new unit will replace Lt. Col. Fisher and his battalion. Whether or not US soldiers in the Diyala Province continue to remain on the sidelines will depend largely on the new commander. Like most things in Iraq, no one's quite certain what to expect.
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(There's a story behind the correction at the bottom of this article. I'll try to post that in the next couple of days for those of you who are interested.)

Battle establishes Iraqi soldiers' reputation
By Tom A. Peter

BAQUBA, IRAQ: American Army Captain Nick Sheldon took cover behind his humvee as a group of insurgents fired on his position. Already his humvee had been shot through the radiator and had little life left. This was Captain Sheldon's first major gun battle. It was also the first time he'd seen the Iraqi soldiers he trains tested under fire. Unlike training exercises though, Sheldon and his two American partners' lives now depended on the Iraqi soldiers.

A group of Iraqi soldiers near Sheldon plotted their next move as the occasional bullet whizzed past. "I think they have a plan, but sometimes it's hard for us to actually understand through the translator," said Sheldon. He paused before adding, "But sometimes they don't (have a plan)."

As local and international confidence waivers about the Iraqi Army, the American training teams working with Iraqi soldiers--called Military Transition Teams (MiTT)--are trying dispel the negative image through hard and fast results. The MiTT working with the 3-2-5 Iraqi Army, less than 10 miles north of Baghdad, trusts their Iraqi unit and hopes to pass this trust on to the local population.

The night before Captain Sheldon's first gun battle, he and one of his partners, Major David Gilkeson, talked strategy with Iraqi Lieutenant Colonel Ra'ad. Gilkeson believed that in order to win the support of the local community, the unit needed to engage the enemy successfully.

Though the Iraqi unit--previously stationed in Fallujah--had survived serious fighting, when they took contact they seldom engaged the target long enough to kill or apprehend the shooters. They simply returned fire and continued on with their mission or returned to base. Failing to finish fights increased the confidence of insurgents and lost the support of the community. "We have to get to the point where the insurgents fear the Iraqi Army, not just Coalition Forces," said Gilkeson.

The opportunity Gilkeson hoped for arrived the next morning. An Iraqi patrol came under heavy fire when it was sent out to investigate reports of fighting between two rival villages. Insurgents shot out the tires of several Iraqi humvees and the patrol returned to base immediately--the exact pattern Gilkeson wanted to break.

Pointing to the recently returned Iraqi patrol leader, Gilkeson told an Iraqi commander, "This lady over here needs to be a man and get back in the fight!" The Iraqi patrol regrouped and this time the MiTT accompanied them into the fight along with a small American unit stationed in the area.

Immediately upon returning to the warring village, the militants opened fire on the vehicles again. The MiTT humvee and the small American unit moved through the village engaging the militants, and the Iraqi humvees disappeared. Bullets ricocheted off the MiTT humvee as Sunny, the interpreter radioed the Iraqis only to discover that they were "providing security" on the outskirts of town far from all the fighting.

Concerned that the middle of a firefight might not be the best time for a lesson, Captain Sheldon suggested that they finish the fight without the Iraqis, but Gilkeson was determined to bring them into the fight.

His humvee circled back and drove within sight of the Iraqis. While insurgents moved into a nearby building and took pot shots at his truck, Gilkeson ordered the Iraqis to link up with him so they could continue fighting. Whether there were problems with the translator, the radios or the Iraqi Army was nervous, none of the Iraqi humvees moved. Only when Gilkeson drove to their position intent on reprimanding the Iraqi commander did the Iraqi unit follow the MiTT humvee into the battle.

The push from the MiTT seemed to be all the Iraqis needed. With the small American unit operating in another part of the village, the Iraqi unit operated alone with the MiTT. Once in the fight the Iraqi soldiers managed to coordinate their actions, kill six of the attackers and wound another without losing any of their own men. The only serious causality came when one Iraqi soldier accidentally shot himself in the leg. Three other Iraqi soldiers suffered minor injuries during the fight.

No one was certain who the fighters were, but several speculated that they were militants from elsewhere in Iraq, possibly Baghdad. Whoever they were, the locals responded positively to the Iraqi Army's response. After the firefight, locals just outside the village cheered the Iraqi unit as it drove back to base. At least five local sheikhs called the Iraqi commander commending his unit's work.

Speaking about the supportive crowds, Major Gilkeson was both excited and surprised, "I have never seen what we saw today."

Despite the initial frustrations, Gilkeson believed that the engagement was exactly what the unit needed to establish itself with the local residents as a fair, capable force. Now the Iraqi unit just needs to maintain the forward momentum, said Gilkeson, and stop itself from falling back on bad habits.

CORRECTION: Lt. Col. Tom Fisher did not order his troops to stand down and focus on going home as indicated in the article titled "Soldiers see changing role in Iraq." All units under his command in the 1-68 Combined Arms Battalion will continue to conduct regular patrols and missions until they have handed over authority to their replacements. Fisher believes that the arrest of the local sheikh was merely a bump in the road and will not allow the event to deter him from moving forward.

Here's the other op-ed I wrote about covering wars. Somehow this also kind of became the dead body series. Go figure.
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I could see the shape of two bodies lying in the shrubs about twenty meters ahead of me. I didn't have to look at them, but I wanted to. Walking towards the bodies, I wondered if seeing the remains of execution victims would change my outlook on life. I was 23 years old and working as an embedded reporter with the US Army in Iraq. This would be the first time I ever saw a dead person.

They'd been dead long enough that rigor mortis had started to set in, but not long enough for stray dogs to find them. One man had a small bullet hole in his neck and the other had been shot in the eye. I took more notes than usual and got involved in a conversation between an officer and the shepherd who'd led us to the site, anything to keep my mind off the dead bodies. We visited another execution site that day that was much more graphic than the first.

The execution sites made the war personal for me. For the first time, I saw the consequences of what could happen if things went wrong. I also felt a responsibility to report what I'd seen to ensure that these dead men wouldn't become nameless victims in the Iraq conflict. I lost sleep writing an article and submitted it to my editor. I waited for her feedback, hoping I'd done the topic and the dead men justice. A week later she responded without mentioning the article I'd just written and asked if I could please find a "humorous angle" for my next story.

Among war correspondents, editors have a reputation as being dangerously detached from reality. Every correspondent has a story of editors making absurd requests. They don't understand the risks involved in covering a war and what it's like to live and work in a hostile environment. I've reported on a war from the field and worked in a newsroom during the outbreak of another war. From what I've experienced, editors' perceptions of a war sometimes dictate the coverage more than the actual "facts on the ground."

After five months in Iraq, I took a job copyediting for an English-language paper in the Middle East in July 2006. A week after I started, the war between Hezbollah and Israel erupted. The paper didn't have a correspondent in Lebanon, so all the material came from the newswires. Even so, the war was still the main focus of the paper, sometimes getting two or three complete pages to itself.

While page editors searched the wires for stories and photos of Lebanon, the editor would often run around the newsroom chanting things like, "I want pictures of people fighting!" Or "This is a war, I want action shots!" Listening to her I felt pity for every photographer covering Lebanon.

In the early phases of the war "action shots" like she wanted-soldiers in the heat of combat, crying over their dead comrade and returning fire-didn't exist. Israel's air campaign and Hezbollah's rocket attacks composed the majority of the fighting, not gun battles. Additionally, the Israeli Army isn't exactly open with the media and "embedding" with Hezbollah guerillas would probably be a fatal decision for any journalist. The kind of shots my editor wanted were virtually impossible to take. A photojournalist would have to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time and being there would depend entirely on luck.

Listening to my editor's demands, I reflected on my expectations the first time I visited a war. In 2004, nine months after the US led invasion of Iraq, I hired a driver to take me from Amman, Jordan to Baghdad, Iraq. Most of the 14-hour drive was through vast expanses of empty desert, so I had plenty of time to worry and imagine. I expected to drive into gun battles as soon as we entered a major town and see pick-up trucks moving heavily armed insurgents and supplies. When we arrived in Baghdad the first thing I remember seeing was a man selling tissues and bananas at a stoplight. During that first trip to Iraq I never once found the war I'd imagined, nor have I ever during any of my other travels to dangerous places.

Everyone has an idea of what war is like. They've read books, watched movies, and maybe even talked to some veterans. War is hell, war is boring, war is fun, war is terrible, war is meaningful, war is senseless. Everyone takes these clichés and reshapes them with their imagination. They constantly amend their idea of what war is like, adding new images from all forms of media-books, movies, news, etc.-until they have a clear picture of war. When a war breaks out they can see it in their mind. Perhaps imagining a war is the responsibility of an informed citizen; a way of trying to understand what's happening.

The problem is that newspaper editors do the same thing. They want correspondents in the field to supply them with images and stories that support their imagined war. If a correspondent wants to keep his job that's exactly what he does. Editors sell the public war as they imagine it. Because their imagination builds on popular images of war, their product is believable to those who've never been in a war zone. Yet that process may also be the reason why so many people complain that the media only sells half-truths.

This is one of two op-eds I wrote about the particulars of covering war. I sent it off to a few places, but who knows what will come of it.
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Now that the Israel-Hezbollah conflict has come to an end, people are trying to correct their hindsight to 20/20. As an American journalist in the Middle East, I wonder how the media helped people interpret the conflict. The Arab daily newspaper where I work featured at least one photograph of a dead body everyday during the conflict. Having worked as a reporter in war zones and seen first hand the remains of people who died violent deaths, I question the ability of graphic photos to help people understand a conflict.

Editors who run these types of photos generally do so with a bit of morose pride. Having the "courage" to print these photos means that, as a news outlet, you're not afraid to show people the consequences of war. This is true. War kills people in horrible ways. Yet this strikes me as an incomplete message that's easily misunderstood.

When I was an embedded reporter with the US military in Iraq, I once saw three Iraqis with their hands bound behind their backs. Someone had shot each of them in the face at point blank range with an automatic assault rifle. The executioners then dumped the bodies on the side of the road.

The platoon medic had to search the bodies for IDs, which we all hoped might make sense of the killings. The twenty-year-old medic approached the bodies that most of the soldiers agreed were the most gruesome they'd seen yet. One man's lips had moved to where his ear should have been. Not sure what to do but wanting to help, another soldier picked up pieces of the men's skull that lay scattered around the bodies and dropped them in an evidence bag.

Rigor mortis had set in, so when the medic rolled over the first body to check the dead man's pockets, it was like rolling over a manikin. The burst of automatic rifle fire had made the man's face almost gelatinous. It had oozed out on the ground and apparently congealed when rigor mortis set in, so it looked like a cartoon character after getting hit in the face with a frying pan. It was so horrible that it was almost funny. The whole time the medic searched the bodies he had a reserved grin on his face like he was trying to keep from laughing in church.

I suppose any part of that scene would have made a great photograph for an editor who wanted to show readers the "horrors of war." But what if we saw a photo of the smirking medic handling a deformed body in a newspaper? What would we think about him?
Could an outsider understand everything that picture had to say?

Looking at pictures of dead people gives outsiders an artificial moral authority. They look at the picture from the comfort of their homes, or maybe casually on the commuter train. No matter how good a picture or how sensitive the viewer, it's still a relatively impersonal experience. Yet for most people the images are disturbing and hard to look at, which makes the viewer feel connected, like he's sacrificed a piece of his mental health to understand the conflict. He then feels that this "sacrifice" somehow entitles him to make a definitive judgment about the situation, forgetting that his credibility comes from looking at a graphic picture over breakfast or en route to work.

The photo hasn't taught the viewer anything that will help him better understand the conflict. More than anything, he probably feels confused and a little disturbed, but not enough to stop him from taking another sip of coffee and skipping directly to the arts and leisure section.

After repeated use, photos of the dead become almost like impersonal statistics. Most papers use them to humanize an article about a body count, but in an odd way these photos just become a dry extension of a sad statistic. When I saw the photo of a faceless body—quite similar to the three men I saw in Iraq—being pulled from the ruins of a bombed out building in Lebanon, I thought, "Another Lebanon story." I wasn't in the mood, so I found another article that interested me.

Newspapers are designed to give serious and casual readers a general understanding of world events. In any war, it's important to understand the human cost, but pictures of dead people may not always be the most effective means of doing so.

A photo of a dead person cannot begin to explain the depth of emotions that surround the violent ending of a human life. It's an opaque window into a world that doesn't make much sense.

Oh man, I've really let this blog fall to pieces in Kuwait. I'm really ashamed of myself. I managed to update it while I was in Palestine and Iraq, but somehow it's too big a chore while I'm in Kuwait... I give up on myself.

Anyway, I'm still in Kuwait (unfortunately). Kuwait is kind of like living in the suburbs in America. There's really nothing all that exciting to do. A few restaurants, some cafes, a lot of shopping malls, but no real "culture." I feel pretty comfortable saying that this is the worst country I've ever visited on quite a few different levels.

1) It's alarmingly dull. Imagine just picking up and moving to a new suburb completely on your own (some of you have probably done that). You don't have any friends or family there. Just a job that you mildly dislike in a fairly asocial office. It's difficult to meet new people, it's not exactly clear what kind of recreational outlets are available, or even what you should be doing with yourself when you're home alone.

2) Kuwaitis, they are, they are the.... motherfuckers. That's what my Iraqi friend told me before I came here, and I feel more or less comfortable saying that I've confirmed his assertion. They really are a bunch of self centered, vile motherfuckers. For example, this is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but they to make sure that they'd have servants they imported a lower class from all over Southeast Asia. Now Kuwaitis make up less than a third of the population here but they have most of the money and work the least demanding jobs. I watched this movie about ancient Rome once and I remember a scene where a servant accidentally bumped into his Roman master. Like any good master, he didn't even break sentence as he back handed her servant and continued talking to his friend. That's exactly how the Kuwaitis are. They treat everyone who's not Kuwaiti like they're part of an inferior race that exists to provide services to make Kuwaitis lives comfortable. Most Arabs are generally pretty inviting, almost to the point where it's overwhelming and irritating, Kuwaitis are closed off. I once tried to talk with a Kuwaiti in a coffee shop, a very normal thing to do in the Arab world. And this Kuwait told me that he "didn't talk to outsiders." Right now I don't consider myself in the Arab world so much as I do the Gulf. There's a huge difference.

3) Their oil money is completely squandered. In Iraq they have petrol AND agricultural resources, but they're completely lost because of the war and corruption. In Kuwait all of their oil money is wasted on building large malls, buying people nice cars, and taking trips to Europe. They only thing anyone bothers to develop here is the consumer economy, which is of course dependent on a large group of people with disposable income. Whether it's in 20 years or 100 years, eventually the oil money is going to dry up, people won't have disposable income and the entire economy will crash.

I could go on for days listing the specific reasons why Kuwait is a shithole, but I'll stop there for now. I will say that it's not a bad place to be once you develop a group of friends and find yourself a somewhat well paying job. The salaries are pretty good out there and if you know what you're doing the cost of living is pretty cheap. So, it's easy to save up a large sum of money in a relatively short period of time. In addition to working at the Kuwait Times, I'm in the process of trying to pick up a second job teaching English. If I do that I'll easily save up several thousand dollars in a couple months, which is pretty rare in the Arab world.

Anyway, hopefully I'll start updating this thing more regularly, but in the meantime here are some of the articles I've written for the Kuwait Times. Nothing I'm terribly excited about, but if you're curious about what I'm doing out here these ought to give you a pretty good idea. I posted them as pdf files, so you can actually see what they looked like in the newspaper. (I have to use British English, which is why some of the spellings will look a little off.)

http://www.geocities.com/tomapeter/P5.pdf

http://www.geocities.com/tomapeter/p3L.pdf

http://www.geocities.com/tomapeter/p5-local.pdf

http://www.geocities.com/tomapeter/p4.pdf

Also, here are a few photos from around Kuwait:

"Souq Sharq," one of Kuwait's most popular malls. Many malls in Kuwait have small marinas like this one. They ensure that Kuwaitis can purchase the most up-to-date fashions or grab a Big Mac before they leave on a pleasure cruise.
Inside Souq Sharq it's like a little piece of America. You've got McDonald's, Burger King and Pizza Hut just in this picture. I took it standing in front of a Hardee's. The mall also offers a Chili's, Cinnabon, Starbucks, Haagen-Dazs, and all of the outlet stores are American chains with the occasional European store. I only saw one Kuwaiti store in the whole place.
Another shot of Souq Sharq. Notice the big fountain. It's still running even though there are many places in Kuwait without water right now, due to a water shortage (Kuwait desalinizes sea water to get drinking water and several of the plants broke down due to improper maintenance).
"Pure? Natural innocent complete absolute untainted genuine clean...but so damn filthy," reads a shirt in Souq Sharq. Every woman in this shope was wearing traditional Muslim clothing (burqa and veil)...
A normal street in Kuwait City. You can see that they selectively beautify areas of Kuwait. Not many Kuwaitis come to this part of town, so consequently it's a bit run down.

Howdy Everyone,

It's been a couple of weeks since I threw something up here, and I like to flatter myself by pretending that people might frantically check this thing for updates. Anyway, I just thought I'd post a quick note up here to let everyone know that I'm on R&R in Kuwait right now, working in the Kuwait Times main office. I have two posts from Iraq that I have yet to put up. My computer went down during my last week in Iraq and I wasn't able to get it up and running again until yesterday, so once I get those posts edited I'll throw them up here. In the meantime I'll be posting stories I write about Kuwait, and probably some of my thoughts about Kuwait.

Hope all is well with all of you guys. If you haven't heard from me in a while, drop me an e-mail. I'd love to hear from you. I'm can be bad about initiating contact, but if you e-mail me I'll write you back within a couple days of receiving your note.

"This is the part of my job I thought I'd never have to do," said Sergeant Joseph Garcia as he prepared to call the parents of Corporal Luis Santos. Santos was killed by an IED [improvised explosive device]. As Santos' friend and sergeant, Garcia prepared to call and comfort the parents about the loss of their son. Though Garcia and many others in the platoon had served prior tours of duty in Iraq, the death of Santos was the first time most of them had lost someone in their unit to the fighting.

Six months into their present tour in Iraq, already over a quarter Stalker's forty-odd-man platoon has been awarded the Purple Heart for injuries received from enemy contact. IEDs have destroyed six humvees and of those wounded four returned to the United States for medical treatment and recovery. Santos has been the only fatality.

Returning to their base after Santos' memorial service, Sergeant First Class Michael Greer's humvee struck an IED that destroyed the front end of his vehicle. Greer suffered a massive bruise on his leg, and his gunner, Private First Class Chad Munn took a blow to the head when the blast threw him into his machine gun. Both men returned to duty the next day. Aside from those minor injuries and some shaken nerves, everyone was fine.

"Man, this has been an ugly tour," said Staff Sergeant Eric Moroge currently serving his second tour. Joking that he'll suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder he adds, "I'm going to be like one of those (crazy) Vietnam veterans."

The loss of a comrade combined with other serious casualties brought home to many in the platoon for the first time the gravity of what they're doing and raised new questions about the direction of the war.

While the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, made front-page news, those in Stalker platoon doubt his death will change anything for the better. Within four days of Zarqawi's death Stalker platoon lost three humvees and Corporal Santos to IEDs. It was the most effective and consistent resistance that the platoon experienced since their arrival.

As part of the unit credited with killing Zarqawi, some believe the increased violence represents the insurgents' response. "We're being punished for Zarqawi's death," said Sergeant Ken Fahr.

Before taking such serious casualties, some soldiers talked about going home on leave and exaggerating Iraq to strangers who asked about their experiences. "People would ask me if it's as bad as the news makes it out to be over here," chuckled Private First Class Matt Graham. "I'd say, 'It's worse. The news only shows the good stuff.'"

Now with the human cost of the war and its possible consequences made all too clear, soldiers engage in more sober reflection. Private First Class Matt Gundy and Specialist Tony "Chico" Chicoine both agree that Iraq is nothing like World War II or Vietnam in terms of intensity, but says Chico, "We're America's next generation of war veterans."

Chico and Gundy wonder how they'll deal this new label. Before losing a friend, Chico wasn't certain how to respond to people who approached him and said they appreciated what he was doing or thought he was a "hero." He and Gundy refuse the label of hero, but Chico says after losing his friend he can understand why some people want to thank him for volunteering for something so difficult. Still the two worry what to tell people at home in America who don't understand what it's like serving a tour of duty in Iraq.

In the past six months, Stalker platoon has only engaged in three firefights. In one they never even saw the enemy, though they could hear them talking and reloading. When an IED detonates, the streets are usually empty. There's nothing to shoot at but empty buildings. The night Santos died soldiers didn't have to worry about taking enemy fire or advancing on an enemy position. While a few soldiers searched for a possible IED trigger man and fired at potential hiding spots, everyone else was free to administer first aid and comfort the wounded.

Battling a seemingly invisible enemy intensifies the violence, many soldiers begin to feel real fear. Before going out on a mission Private First Class Zach Lindsley says he gets the shakes. Sitting down to dinner after a wave of IEDs, a soldier told Specialist Tom Carpenter to enjoy his meal. "Who knows," responded Carpenter. "It might be my last."

As Stalker platoon continues to take an unusually high amount of casualties some soldiers begin to wonder if their commanders are involved in a secret conspiracy to kill their own soldiers. "The Lieutenant Colonel [Tom Fisher] isn't going to be happy until we're all dead or we're all dead," said Private First Class Graham.

"It's going to get worse before it gets better," said Specialist Robbie Mathis.

Despite feeling discouraged, soldiers try to remind themselves that they volunteered to do a risky job. "No matter what we do they'll find a way to beat it," said Sergeant Ken Fahr. "More people might die, but this is our job."

Corporal Luis "Toast" Santos

Corporal Luis Santos had an inside joke with everyone who got to know him. After he was killed by an IED, soldiers throughout Stalker platoon couldn't help but break into fits of laughter telling stories about him. The last time Sergeant Jesse Trumpore saw Luis alive, he quoted a line from comic Dave Chapelle, Trumpore laughed out loud, Luis smiled, loaded into a humvee and died shortly thereafter.

When Luis died, members of Stalker platoon were conducting routine, three-day observation posts in the Naquib area outside Baquba. Few good things happen in Naquib, so the platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class Michael Greer hoped his platoon might catch the "bad guys" in the act.

A day into the operation Greer received intelligence that a group of insurgents had planned an attack on a nearby village. Hoping to intercept the attackers, Greer decided to shift locations.

Driving to the new position, Staff Sergeant Nicodemus' humvee hit the first IED. An orange flash and smoke filled the vehicle. Objects from the trunk warped and blew into the cab. As the humvee settled, Nicodemus momentarily lost composure and panicked trying to take stock of the situation and inquire about the safety of his crew. Medic Tom Siqueros moved in to calm him.

Miraculously everyone in Nicodemus' humvee survived the blast virtually unharmed—Nicodemus suffered a minor burn on his back. Though the IED completely destroyed the humvee, it had detonated under the only empty seat. Once a support convoy arrived to recover the damaged humvee, the rest of Stalker continued with the mission.

The second IED of the night that killed Santos detonated only several miles down the road from Nicodemus' damaged truck. The blast rocked the middle of the Stalker convoy, hitting Staff Sergeant Andy Overgard's humvee. Alone the IED might not have been lethal, but it triggered explosives soldiers were carrying inside the vehicle. After the blast, the remains of the humvee lay upside down and flaming.

The blast threw everyone, but Overgard from the vehicle. Trapped momentarily in the burning humvee, he suffered severe burns on his arm and head. His injuries required that he return to the United States for further treatment and recovery.

Badly shaken, Staff Sergeant Eric Moroge initially thought he'd lost his legs, but ultimately he and the driver walked away with minor injuries. The medics feared the worst for Specialist Robbie Mathis, who couldn't feel below his waist; however, after hospital treatment doctors discovered he'd suffered serious internal bruises. With a week of rest Mathis could return to duty.

Sergeant Joseph Garcia, a friend and a mentor to Luis Santos, found him face down outside the burning humvee. He rolled Santos over and saw shrapnel had gone through his face. He'd died instantly. There was nothing anyone could do, but treat the wounded and remember their fallen friend and comrade.

Luis, or "Toast," had a way of making bad situations good. When Sergeant Joseph Garcia punished him for writing "hungry" instead of "Hunsuck" all over Private First Class Brian Hunsuck's equipment—Hunsuck was Toast's pudgy friend and humvee crew member—Toast spent ten minutes doing push-ups, sit ups, squat thrusts, and lunges. Throughout the punishment session Toast couldn't stop smiling. When he tried to tell Private First Class Matt Graham what happened, Toast was laughing so hard it took him several minutes and multiple tries to get the story out.

Iraq and the Army had worn down Toast. "I just want to get out of the Army and go to college," said Toast one afternoon on guard duty. Recently having been promoted from private first class to specialist, he complained that the sergeants restricted him from taking a more proactive role around base. Simple chores, like taking out trash or cleaning up common areas never bothered Santos. It made him feel uncomfortable and lazy when the sergeants forced him to dole out these tasks to privates.

Despite his complaints about the Army, Toast was just a guy who liked his job. When he joined the Army, he told the recruiter that he wanted to be a James Bond-like spy. If he decided not to go to college he would have tried out for special forces. Santos loved adventure.

Less than a month before the IED, Toast turned twenty. Sergeant Jordan Savor, a close friend of Santos, remembers a time back in the States when he left Toast alone in the car for nearly twenty minutes while he ran an errand. As soon as Savor returned, Toast—who'd clearly been thinking about this for the last twenty minutes—asked if the president was commander and chief of the entire military, could he just wear whatever uniform he wanted? Could he wake up one day and put on an Air Force uniform and the next day maybe a Navy uniform?

When Luis got drunk, he spent most of the night apologizing to everyone for being so drunk. Speaking at Toast's memorial service, Specialist Tony Chicoine said he was certain that if Santos could see everyone, he'd be apologizing for making everyone feel so sad.

Corporal Luis Santos died in an IED blast a few days ago. He had just turned 20 in May, and was going to get married in about three weeks during his midtour leave. He was a good listener, a friend to everyone, and an all around good guy.

My next two posts will explain what happened and tell more about who he was as an individual.

After finding a potential IED (improvised explosive device), an American unit patrolling with the Iraqi Army calls out Stalker platoon to further investigate and possibly remove the IED. Upon arriving Stalker's engineer, Staff Sergeant Andy Overgard immediately discovers that the IED emplacer only laid out the detonator switch with no explosives. The joint American-Iraqi Army patrol leaves Stalker to search the area for any further traces of IED activity.

One of the soldiers sights a suspicious can and Private First Class Ben Merkel uses his humvee's .50 caliber machine gun to fire at the can, which would be enough to trigger an explosion if the can was indeed an IED. However, Sergeant First Class Mike Greer decides to fire at the can with his Bradley's 25mm cannon and ignites something of a firing orgy as all the soldiers on the ground open up into the can with their personal weapons. Even the medic, Private First Class Matt Graham shoots at the can with his 9mm pistol. At a distance of over one hundred meters it would be nearly impossible for Graham to hit the target with his pistol.

Everyone chuckles as they either watch or participate in the shooting spree. Later Staff Sergeant Eric Moroge laughs, "We're just big kids with toys."

Sergeant Jesse Trumpore agrees, "It's like fucked up Boy Scouts at summer camp."

Even in a war zone, soldiers still retain a certain amount of youthful playfulness. In a war where boredom is often the most abundant commodity, soldiers eager to use their equipment and lacerate the monotony often find odd outlets for entertainment.

Though Captain John Hintz prides himself in his soldiers' professionalism, he still considers most of them kids. The majority of people in the platoon are under the age of twenty-five, with several soldiers still under twenty.

Hintz's former driver, Specialist Ryan O'Connor recently turned nineteen. Specialist Luis Santos became mildly depressed when he turned twenty in Iraq and realized that his teens were over. At twenty-nine years old, soldiers often joke that Private First Class Merkel, who joined the Army later in life, is an old man. Hintz and Greer, the most senior ranking soldiers in the platoon are both thirty-five.

Given the age difference between Hintz and most of his soldiers, he says, "Sometimes I can't believe the conversations I have out here."

While their sergeants run errands at Warhorse, a large base, Private First Class Brian Hunsuck and Private First Class Graham, twenty and twenty-one respectively, sit inside their humvees monitoring the radios.

Graham radios to Hunsuck, "Stalker 1 Delta, Stalker 3 Delta."

"This is Stalker 3 Delta," replies Hunsuck using the official radio jargon.

"Would you like to come to a party?"

"Roger. Could I get a vicinity location for the party?" Inquires Hunsuck.

"Roger that," responds Graham. "It's in my pants."

Given the nature of Iraq's insurgency, soldiers seldom have the opportunity to use their weapons or equipment in actual combat scenarios. Sergeant Jesse Trumpore used his own money to purchase a high-power scope for his M-16 rifle not because he thought he'd need of pick off enemies at long range, he just want it so he could use it mostly as something of a telescope. While he enjoys testing how far he can accurately fire his rifle at the range, he doubts he'll ever use it on the battlefield.

With a seeming excess of high-tech equipment and limited opportunities to use it all, soldiers often have impromptu shooting sessions on patrols in the rural areas of Iraq. Sergeant First Class Greer and his platoon are especially notorious seeking out any possible opportunity to test their weapons and equipment on mission. Walking along a canal with his interpreter, AT4, Greer shouts, "There's a fish! Shoot it, AT4!" AT4 pops several rounds into the water and the group heads back to the truck.

Searching for a possible weapons cache along the Diyala River, Staff Sergeant Eric Moroge jokingly asks Greer if he can throw a fragmentation grenade into the river. Greer shrugs his shoulders. "Go ahead," he says. "Just be careful."

Moroge tosses the grenade, the ground vibrates, the water bubbles and several small fish float to the surface, some dead, some stunned. Sergeant Jordan Savor and Private First Class Zach Lindsley join in the fun and throw their fragmentation grenades in the river too. More fish float to the surface.

"What we're doing here is feeding the crabs," says Greer.

Watching birds swoop in to eat the fish, Moroge suggests an alternative use for insurgents' roadside bombs. "Haji should use IEDs [improvised explosive devices] to go fishing," says Moroge. "Throw a 155 artillery round in the water."

After capturing several men mortaring an Iraqi Army checkpoint, several soldiers from Stalker platoon had to wait and guard the men while others searched for any accomplices. The mortar team had fled in their personal car, so while the soldiers waited for the search to end they created a small racetrack around the village, and took turns speeding through their mini racetrack. The fun abruptly stopped when the older, high-ranking officers from headquarters stopped to check in.

At nine in the evening AT4, Stalker Platoon's interpreter, sprawled out on the common area couch. Though he denied that been drinking, the smell of cheap vodka radiated within a five meter radius of him and eyes struggled to focus as he stared at nothing in particular.

"Before I started working for the Coalition Forces, my friend told me that when the Coalition Forces leave Iraq they'll kill all the translators," said AT4 to anyone willing to listen. He'd always assumed his friend's warning constituted one of Iraq's numerous rumors, but now he wonders.

Immediately following the 2003 invasion, AT4 began working for the Coalition Forces as a laundry room attendant. A year later, he'd improved his English enough that the Army selected him to work as an interpreter. Now, nineteen years old, AT4 has little to show for his work except a substantial savings from the money he made translating.

When he started working with the Americans, AT4 used to send his family the majority of his salary. However, insurgents began to threaten his family and AT4 refused to quit his job, creating tension within the family. Soon other personal disagreements intensified and AT4 cut all ties with his family. He no longer knows where his family lives.

AT4 has met and worked with at least four separate groups of soldiers. Especially when he became an interpreter and began working closely with the troops, he forged personal relationships with many of them.

According to AT4, soldiers from every group offered to help him come to America, but three and a half years later he's still in Iraq. No one has even helped him fill out a visa application. Unable to read or write English, AT4 is unable to do the application alone.

Moose, AT4's friend and fellow interpreter, forged a relationship with a lieutenant from the last unit that cycled through Iraq. Though he started the paper work and claimed to be on verge of getting Moose a visa, the lieutenant no longer returns Moose's calls or e-mails.

"Fuck the Coalition Forces," said AT4 as he stared drunkenly at the ceiling. "They always promise, but never help you." Again he remembers his friend's warning.

Since working with the Coalition Forces, AT4 has never had a real vacation. He couldn't visit his family after the threats started and had no other place to go.

Recently, one of the main mosques in Baquba broadcast AT4 real and complete name, declaring that they would kill him unless he started supplying insurgents with information about Coalition Forces. Several Iraqis painted his name around town, identifying him as a traitor.

Hoping to give AT4 a break and a chance to clear his head, Sergeant First Class Michael Greer agreed to let him take two weeks off. AT4 wouldn't go anywhere during that time, just hang around the main base with friends who worked there. One day into the vacation, however, AT4 had to return to work. A new restriction forbad him from moving around base without an escort. With his platoon operating out of a different, smaller base and unable to provide an escort AT4 was sent back to work.

The canceled vacation seemed to break AT4. He wanted to quit, but with the new contract on his head it would be impossible for him to live safely in Iraq. Emigration appeared the only imaginable option, but once again AT4 recalled everyone's empty promises.

Inebriated, AT4 told Staff Sergeant Quintana and Specialist Pearce that he planned to kill himself if nothing worked out.

While no one thought AT4 would actually kill himself, everyone worried. Quintana considered writing an editorial letter to Stars and Stripes, the official military newspaper about AT4's situation hoping to get the attention of someone who might help. Before he was transferred to another platoon, Staff Sergeant Chris Edwards said he planned to write a letter to his congressman.

Soldiers like Sergeant Ken Fahr, Greer, and numerous others have told AT4 he's always welcome to live at their houses if he comes to America.

Despite soldiers' good intentions, the problem remains that no one takes steps towards a concrete solution. Many soldiers don't understand the logistics required for an American citizen to travel internationally, let alone how the visa process works for foreign nationals wishing to immigrate to America. No one's quite sure how to help.

Additionally, AT4's apparent apathy fails to motivate people to help. On several occasions, with no excuses or apologies, AT4 missed meetings with people who'd offered to discuss ways to leave Iraq. Remembering that AT4 is only nineteen Sergeant First Class Greer says, "He needs to figure out what he wants to do first."

The night after his drinking binge, AT4 was still frustrated, but quiet. He went on a mission, interpreted for the Army, and returned to base. After the mission soldiers took care of several maintenance chores, some went on guard, and the rest returned to their rooms to watch movies, play video games, or socialize. AT4 called several Iraqi friends on his mobile, then sat outside in silence before playing a video game and going to sleep.