Here's the next dispatch. I've got one more I'll probably tack up tomorrow. There might be another one shortly thereafter. I got commissioned to write a story for a big paper, but it looks like they're not going to take it after all. If the story does indeed get sacked, than I'll throw it up here. In the meantime here's some more junk. I'm feeling less and less suited for this kind of writing. It's just kind of mess of what I think a newspaper article should be and some other junk I throw in. I really have no idea what I'm doing, which probably explains the rejection from the big American paper. Anyway, here's the next one.
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Two years ago I mentioned to an American soldier in Baghdad that I’d almost enlisted in the Marine Corps. I was starting an embed, so I joked that “Now I can see what I’m missing.”

The soldier glared at me, “A whole lot of fucking boredom.” After multiple twenty-four hour “terrain denial” missions with Stalker and White Platoon, I understand what the soldier told me two years ago.

Terrain denial is a military practice that involves placing troops in such a way that enemy forces can’t use an area without engaging waiting troops. Generally insurgents avoid direct contact with US forces, so terrain denial missions mostly involve sitting in the desert for hours at observation posts or check points, searching some cars, and watching empty strips of road and desert. Terrain denial missions keep boredom in abundant supply for US soldiers.

Sitting in a humvee along a road commonly targeted by insurgent IEDs, Sgt. Nicodemus ponders suing Disneyland. Sgt. Nicodemus, or just Sgt. Nic, is well known among the men in his humvee for these shared inner monologues.

Shortly before coming to Iraq he took his eight-year-old daughter to Disneyland. Like any kid she enjoyed Disneyland, but was far more enthused over a trip to Thermopolis, Wyoming to visit a dinosaur dig and prehistoric museum. Sgt. Nic takes pride in his daughter’s preference towards the educational attraction, but wonders how Thermopolis could make his daughter happier than the “happiest place on earth.” This inconsistency irks Sgt. Nic. He considers challenging Disney’s claim in court, “I feel like would have a pretty good law suit on my hands.”

Boredom sparks a variety of conversation topics, ranging from soldiers views on abortion and the death penalty to relationship worries and dirty jokes. In a sense, the boredom builds a sense of camaraderie. Hours crammed together in a humvee strip away social inhibitions. Childhood problems and personal anxieties often surface on these types of missions.

Under other circumstances tension might build discussing such personal issues, but soldiers like Sgt. Nic help to retain a constant element of levity. A discussion of death in Iraq leads Sgt. Nic wondering what it would be like to be a serial killer. He breaks down the flaws of famous murders and decides he could do better.

“Most serial killers keep a journal, but I don’t like to write all that much,” he says explaining one key reason he’d never get caught. Nic would call his shadow, alternate killer identity Clay Rubenthall, a fictional CIA assassin, and leave teddy bears as his calling card.

As soldiers want to establish a presence on most terrain denial missions, throughout the night soldiers fire illumination flares over IED holes or the desert. M-16s, M-4s, SAW machine guns, A-47s, and grenades are test fired into the surrounding desert. Soldiers shot at nothing in particular or target rusted cans, but sometimes birds and stray dogs become targets.

American soldiers have standing orders permitting them to kill stray dogs, as they often carry diseases transmittable to humans. When barking dogs surround White platoon, SSG Bracha radios to the SFC Mike Greer that he’s “zeroing his weapon,” adjusting the sights for accuracy. “Zeroing a weapon” has become the soldiers’ slang for shooting dogs. Bracha is unable to zero his weapon when the dog moves in front of a house. Two dogs by SFC Greer’s humvees aren’t so lucky. Greer and several others zero a .203 grenade launcher on the dogs.

Soldiers have created their own rules of engagement for dogs. Dogs with collars or other signs of domestication are off limits. Some soldiers refuse to kill dogs if the shot is too easy, saying that it’s not very sportsman like.

While searching a field Greer shots a stray dog that rushes him and several soldiers. The shot only wounds the dog. PFC Roberts, the medic, is dispatched to deliver a mercy killing. It takes Roberts all six rounds in his shotgun to hit and kill the dog. Later the incident bothers Roberts. As the medic, he feels a constant need to prove himself to the soldiers in the platoon and now his poor shooting makes him the butt of several jokes.

Still, soldiers often try to bond with friendly strays during slow missions. Platoons take turns guarding the Diyala Media Center (DMC), home to one of the largest radio and television antennas in the region, an unusually boring assignment. At the DMC, soldiers adopted a group of stray puppies and their mother. The puppies became the unofficial mascots of the DMC. Pfc. Sterns contacted several animal rights groups in America hoping to find American homes for the dogs. Greer agreed to transport the dogs to a larger base near Baghdad where they could be sent to America.

Unfortunately several dogs contracted rabies and a high-ranking sergeant ordered soldiers to kill all the dogs. White and Stalker Platoon were away on other missions when this happened. The incident sours the them.

“What kind of sadistic bastard shots puppies? That’s the kind of person that becomes a serial killer!” Shouts SSG Moroge. Thankfully none of the puppy killers appear to be avid diary keepers.