I’m in the public affairs office at Forward Operating Base Warhorse outside Baqubah, trying to finish up an article about soldiers finding weapons caches. As has become standard, I’m getting frustrated feeling like nothing sounds right. Rather than space out, listen to music and stare at my screen saver until I felt guilty enough to continue working, I thought I’d meditate on some of the aspects of covering Iraq that have frustrated me.

I feel like none of my articles really describe what’s unique about the Iraq War. At its core all war literature is pretty much all the same. It inverts traditional moral codes by placing individuals in an environment that establishes an amoral code that venerates killing and honors death. The same human emotions exist in this world, but they’re applied in unexpected, and usually unorthodox manners.

To create distinctive war literature you have to get at the essence about what makes each war unique and how this specific war contorts the moral universe. I hoped I could do that with this project, but it’s just not happening.

What makes Iraq a unique place for US soldiers is the paranoia. Chances are most people who come here will go home alive. Certainly 2,300 + dead US soldiers is quite a big number, but that’s around 1% of soldiers who come here. The problem is that enough people get seriously injured or die that most combat soldiers (the majority of soldiers here seem to be in rear supply or advising jobs, so they don’t see much action) know of someone who got hurt in an IED or other combat action. But statistics like those are cold comfort to combat soldiers.

That might sound like a trite observation, but the whole military culture in Iraq takes that paranoia to another level. Virtually every combat soldier wants this to be a warrior’s war, complete with firefights, air strikes on enemy positions, ambushes and counter-ambushes, but it’s not. It’s a war most combats soldiers spend driving around in armored humvees until an IED explodes nearby, they fire weapons at nothing, and go back to base with a war story. War is supposed to be more dangerous than that. Soldiers feel inferior because they’re fighting a small-scale war with a timid opponent that they can’t find or engage.

Soldiers overcompensate for what one private called a “chill war,” in a variety of ways. Some beat or rough up detainees that didn’t engage the soldiers and no one might know the exact reason of why they’re holding the detainee in the first place. But in order to believe that he’s “in the shit” a soldier should manhandle a few terrorist motherfuckers who tried to kill him and other innocent people. Others express a need to “rough it” and live on cut off bases with limited amenities, yet all of these soldiers have TVs and game systems in their two-man trailers. More than anything, they over-emphasis the threat levels that they deal with and complain that they can’t talk to family members about what they’re doing or seeing for fear that it will be “too much” for those back home.

The reality of Iraq for soldiers is a lot of dead bodies, vague threats, muddy winters and atomic summers that frustrate, bore, and worry soldiers. This isn’t Vietnam and it’s not Bosnia-Kosovo peacekeeping mission. It’s a war about insecurity and inexplicable violence that’s usually not targeted at you. It’s a question of a humanitarian mission or misled good Samaritanism. It’s about politics and PR and working with locals who don’t want you there. It’s really a fascinating engagement that deserves proper coverage, but even as I try to explain it I feel like I’m not doing it justice.

There’s just so much to cram into little 850-word articles that I write in little trailers between missions. Add to that the constant pressure of writing about people you live with and depend on, some of whom you’re starting to consider your friends. You want to be honest to the story but fair to good people who you sometimes watch make very bad decisions.

On top of all that I’ve never had any formal or informal training as a journalist. I never worked for my college newspaper or took a class from Northwestern’s journalism program (who knows why). What I write is based on vague ideas I have about what makes a news article and things I’ve overheard “real” journalists talking about.

When I sit down to write an article my head gets clouded with vague suppositions I have about what I should and should not be doing. Stupid things distract me. Reading over cryptic notes I’ve taken, I wonder “Would I have learned a better way to take notes if I’d officially studied journalism or does everyone make up their owns system?” I get anxious and wish that I could do things Tim O’Brien style and change the facts with a few fictional details that better reflect the truth.

After all this I end up with 850 words that I’m not entirely certain are being used or published. After sending in five dispatches, the editor of the Kuwait Times responded to my e-mails to let me know she’s running my articles as a weekly series, but she’s waiting to see what kind of response she gets from her readers. Maybe my articles are still running, maybe they’re not. I don’t even know which articles have run so far.

After sending a lot of failed pitches to the Christian Science Monitor, I actually got an unsolicited request from them to write an article about how the US military was adapting its mission to deal with sectarian violence. I stayed up all night working on the article to get in on time and sent it to the editor. A couple days later I got a two-line e-mail from the editor saying he’d send me some comments and suggestions the next day, but now a week has gone by. Chances are they’re not running it. This editor is particularly friendly, so I’m assuming he was just going to give me some general pointers and a “better luck next time.”

I love what I’m doing, but I can’t tell if I’m failing or succeeding anymore. I guess I’m just going to keep on doing what I’m doing until someone stops me.