SIX MONTHS BACK FROM BAGHDAD

It was in May that I flew to Iraq on the first humanitarian aid mission to land at the Baghdad Airport. It is a landing I won’t easily forget. After all, I was crouched in the bombardier’s window that hung beneath the nose of a giant Russian cargo plane—an Ilyusian-76, it was called.

People have asked me how I felt being in Baghdad: "Was I afraid? Was it exciting? What was it like?" It’s strange, but I’ve found myself answering them by saying something like, "I enjoy being in war zones—I was more excited than afraid."

The truth is, there was never a moment where I felt afraid in Baghdad. Strange as it might seem, I actually like being in places like Baghdad because of the exzcitement. I’ve heard it said that once you’ve experienced a war—I was in Vietnam for a year in 1968 and ‘69—there’s no feeling quite like it!

That means, subconsciously, we old warriors are looking for an adrenaline rush to equal what we’d once experienced. Being in Baghdad in May wasn’t exactly like being in a war. After all, the war had recently been declared over. It’s true there was shooting going on—mostly at night, small arms fire, somewhere in the distance. Also, there were tanks rumbling through the city streets. Every twenty minutes or so at night, two Abrams Tanks sped along the street right below my hotel balcony to remind me where I was. It was hot and there was no electricity for air conditioning so the sliding doors were always wide open.

Driving through the chaos in the streets during the day, passing the endless cars being pushed by angry men in mile long gas lines, being bombarded by all the strange sights and sounds of a city in confusion, all these sorts of things were part of experiencing an occupied city rather than one under siege.

Seeing the buildings charred by bomb blasts, the over turned cars and trucks on the road side, the dazed and confused looks on the faces of the people—the sorts of things you see after the act of war has happened—is what I witnessed.

There was still looting going on. Our driver wanted to show us Saddam’s Secret Police Headquarters and when we were there, in the heavily fortified compound, there were a half-dozen or so men, pulling off the last of the aluminum window frames. The Iraqi who traveled with us as our translator Dr. Badhri, yelled something up at the men in the windows, something that angered them. One of the men came running towards our car. With his fists raised, he argued back at Dr. Badhri about his right to take something back from the building where he’d been held captive.

Lifting his shirt, he revealed a ladder of scars across his stomach. "Saddam, Saddam!" he yelled to make us understand.

This is another vision that sticks in my mind, six months later. The man posed no danger to us really; he was only eager for us to understand why he was looting.

For some reason, maybe because six months has passed, these images are returning to me. Now is the time for me to start to understand the significance of it all. It is time for me to attempt to fold these images—kind of like when I used to watch my grandmother folding different ingredients into the dough of the bread she was making.

All the ingredients somehow, of war, must be combined into the whole of the man I am. I really don’t understand why it is that God has given me the blessing to witness these sorts of scenes, but He has and I’m sure it is for a reason.

Posted by Tony at December 5, 2003 01:08 PM