Roy Scranton - War Porn

“You like America?” I asked.

“Al-Ameriki?” the younger one said.

“Yeah. America good?”

“Yes, al-Ameriki good,” he beamed.

“Michael Jackson good?”

“Yes yes, Michael Jackson. Ee-hee. Very good.”

“You like Bush? Bush good?”

“Boosh good yes.”

“How ’bout Saddam? You like Saddam?”

“Saddam no good. Saddam Ali Baba,” the older one said, stamping his foot and spitting.

“You Shi’a?”

“Sunni.”

“Ayatollah Sistani good?”

He shrugged.

“Moqtada al-Sadr good?”

“Al-Sadr very good,” the young one said.

“Shi’a?” I pointed at the young one.

“Naam. Shi’a.” He pointed at himself.

“Bush good, no Saddam?”

“Saddam no good.”

“Bush no good,” I said, shaking my head. “Bush Ali Baba.”

“No!” the older one said, aghast.

“Saddam, Bush, same-same,” I said. “Ali Baba, Ali Baba.”

“No, Boosh good,” the young one said.

“Ali Baba,” I said.

The older one pointed at me. “You Christ-ian?”

“La. No god.”

He seemed cross: “Yes God.”

“La.”

He shook his head. “No good.”

There was a bang at the door. I pointed at the young one and pointed at the door, got up and grabbed my rifle, and followed him to it. “F’tal bob,” I said, and he unlatched the gate and put his shoulder to and slid it open.

A middle-aged hadji stood outside in a dishdasha. A couple more stood behind him.

“Salaam a-leykum,” I said.

“Leykum-a-salaam,” he said back, bowing slightly.

“What’s up?”

He started talking Arabic, then “Boom, boom, koom-ballah. Ali Baba.” He gestured back for one of his friends to come up.

“We have information,” the guy said. “Bomb and bad yes.”

“Okay, hold on.” I turned back to Reading. “Fucker,” I shouted. He looked up from his game.

“What?”

“Get on the radio and see if you can get a translator.”

“For what?”

“This guy says he has information.”

“About what?”

“About your mom. Fucking call somebody.”

Reading picked up the walkie-talkie and called Staff Sergeant Reynolds. They talked back and forth for a minute then Reading shouted, “Sergeant Reynolds gonna go see if he can get one.”

“Call up Red Steel Main and see what they say.”

“What I tell ’em?”

“Tell them we have an Iraqi who says he has information on a bomb.”

“He got a bomb?”

“He has information on a bomb.”

“Information.”

“Yeah.”

“So what?”

“So call Red Steel Main.”

He picked up the other walkie-talkie and called Red Steel Main. He talked to them for a few minutes, then shouted at me: “They say he gotta go to Foxtrot Gate.”

“That’s the one on the south side, right?”

“Fuck if I know.”

Staff Sergeant Reynolds called Reading back so I waited, and when they were done Reading shouted, “He said he can’t find a translator, and I told him Red Steel Main said send him to Foxtrot Gate and he said that’s fine.”

I turned back to the hadjis.

“You go around, go to Foxtrot Gate,” I gestured around, pointing toward the southwest edge of the FOB.

“We have in-formation,” the one said again.

“Yeah, I know. You have to go around.”

“Go round?”

“Yeah, Foxtrot gate. The other bob.”

“You help? Ali Baba?”

“No, go around. You gotta go to the other bob.”

“We have in-formation. Koom-ballah.”

“Yeah, I understand, but you gotta go around. Salaam,” I said, grabbing the gate and yanking on it. “Sit’l bob,” I shouted at the ICDC.

The hadjis started shouting in Arabic, but we closed the gate and latched it and went back and sat down.

We got off shift. Daytime, nighttime. I slept about five hours. When I got up, I worked out, cleaned my rifle and watched Malcolm in the Middle. Reading slept.

We lost track of the other guys, the daily patrols, what the fuck was happening. We started talking all the time in pidgin English. The big news was that one patrol got attacked by a retarded kid throwing rocks. He threw a rock and hit Bullwinkle in the face, knocking out one of his teeth. The patrol stopped and Lieutenant Krauss and Nash covered the kid.

The kid picked up another rock.

“Put the rock down,” Nash shouted, but the kid lifted it up like he was gonna throw, so Nash shot him in the chest.

Healds was with them, so he patched the kid up, then they drove him to the hospital in the Green Zone.

A week or so later they got me and Reading up in the middle of the day, when we were trying to sleep, and made us go down to formation. They had a little ceremony and awarded Nash a Bronze Star for valor. Captain Yarrow talked about what a great job he’d done defending the patrol.

“The only thing Nash did wrong was forget his training,” the captain said. “We trained and trained, two rounds center mass! Maybe next time you’ll get it right!” Yarrow chuckled.

Nash stared straight ahead.

Reading sat watching Friends. I read Chomsky’s For Reasons of State. Headlights flashed at us from down the road and I shouted at Reading to hide his DVD player. I put on my Kevlar and stood and grabbed my rifle. A big black SUV rolled up and a sergeant got out.

“At ease,” he said. “You on guard here?”

“Roger.”

“Listen, there’s a suspected VBIED attack tonight. We’ve got jammers in here but you gotta shut down your radios while they work.”

“Uh, alright. Let me call up higher and let them know.”

I called up Red Steel and Staff Sergeant Gooley and let them know we were gonna be out of radio contact. Red Steel verified the jammers had priority. I shut off the radios and the sergeant said thanks then climbed back in his truck.

Reading went back to Friends. I went back to my book. They stayed there for about two hours, then the sergeant opened his window and told us we could turn our radios back on. After that they left.

Ali Dudeki came by and asked for ficky-ficky magazine. I offered him the Michael Jackson Vanity Fair but he didn’t want it.

“You bring ne ficky-ficky tomorrow, any o’clock?” he asked. “Tomorrow and tomorrow?”

“No ficky,” I told him. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.”

i can’t tell you if the use of force

in iraq today will last five days,

five weeks, or five months,

but it won’t last any longer than that

Seven days and a wake-up, then I’m on the first chalk out, with Sergeant Chandler, the newly promoted Sergeant Nash, and Bullwinkle. The rest of the battery would stage at BIAP, then drive to Kuwait, where they’d fly out as Chalks 2 and 3, leaving behind a small rear-detachment to port-load the equipment. Seven days, then freedom.

We got up and went to the gym, then Sergeant Chandler, Sergeant Nash, Bullwinkle, and I went to breakfast, then to the internet café. We checked our email. I read the news. Four American contractors had been killed in Fallujah and lit on fire, their burned bodies strung up over a bridge.

We went back to the tents we’d moved into and relaxed until lunch. At around three we went to the gym again and lifted. Then dinner, then we came back and showered, then we went to the hadji coffee shop for cappuccinos and ice cream. Then we came back to the tents and played volleyball till the sun set.

That night there was a mortar attack, three rounds. We sat in the dark in our battle rattle, waiting.

Slept in and after a late start, Sergant Chandler, Sergeant Nash, Bullwinkle, and I went to breakfast, then to the internet café. We checked our email. I read the news. There were protests and riots in Sadr City. Baghdad was in flames. I googled airline tickets from Frankfurt to Athens. Since Sunday was our rest day, me and Sergeant Chandler skipped the gym but Sergeant Nash went anyway, and around 1630 we met him at the chow hall for dinner.