Reunion

So I was just asked by my high school to summarize the last 20 years of my life. (reunion coming up). Here's my shot:

Let's see, we graduated in 1988. What have I done since then? Went to college, dropped out of college, got married, got divorced, started working in journalism, lived in Boston, moved to New York, moved to LA, launched a bunch of NPR shows, got married again, moved back to D.C., covered three wars, 9/11, London, never learned another language, did learn how to fortify a house, made many friends, and stayed close to some I had in high school.

I am no longer surprised at how inventive and eager people are when engaged in slaughtering each other. Saddened, but not really surprised anymore. Wars are terribly frightening, incredibly loud and absolutely exhilirating. Militaries are inherently duplicitous, and soldiers are pretty cool, on the whole, often shockingly brilliant. Everybody lies, especially to themselves. And while there are some true bastards out there, on the whole, people are fairly decent.

I've tried to become a good man, and a good husband, and a good friend. Depending what day it is I sometimes think I've been successful. I've done things I am ashamed of, and tried over and over to do things that I'm proud of, again with mixed success. I haven't written that novel I always told myself I would, and that kinda bugs me. But I can bake bread from scratch, and I make a mean paella. I still smoke, which sucks, and I still want to learn to fly an airplane. I have weaknesses for video games, science fiction, and movies where things blow up. I also still write bad poetry on occasion, and it's just as much fun as it was in high school.

I am married to the most incredible woman I have ever met, who is really completely out of my league in so many ways it is sometimes intimidating. But I love her in a way that as a somewhat obnoxious adolescent convinced I knew all the ways of the human heart I couldn't even conceive. I argue with myself constantly about whether I believe in God. I think I do. The fact that I am with her I can only attribute to providence.

I have a very cool job. Basically I can do stories on whatever catches my interest, if I can sell it to someone. I am constantly learning how to be better at what I do. I am one of the best in the world at certain odd tasks, and I work with people who are better than I am. NPR is a stunning, magical place that reminds me of Commonwealth at times. And the company has encouraged and enabled me to do things I only dreamed of in high school. And I have the journalist's escape at boring parties, you just start interviewing people. Everyone has a couple good nuggets.

I remember clearly one note I got in Mrs. Kaplan's Modern European History class. "Jeff needs to learn that "What happened next?" is not an historical question." That is probably true, but it is most definitely a journalistc one and I've been fortunate enough to have spent my professional life getting paid to answer it.

No kids yet, though they'll probably be in the picture soon. I'm basically happy, have meaningful work, and people who love me. I get frustrated with myself with enough regularity that I don't coast too often. Not too bad.

I'm sitting in Baghdad as I write this. The sky for the past few days has been a sinister and surreal orange due to sandstorms. When I breathe I can taste the talcum fine dust of this place. I am trying not to think about the percentage of human waste contained within it. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it to the reunion, I hope so, but if I don't, I can, in all honesty, blame this fucking war.

The Motorcycle and the Duck

Seeing Baghdad from the air is a reinforcement, for me, of just how ugly this city is. It is flat, it is grayish brown, the architecture is abhorrent, and the scars of war are everywhere, from blast holes, to the ever present concrete walls…walling off houses and streets and whole neighborhoods.

Okay, so I’m here. The place is not as much of a nightmare as it used to be. Actually, that’s not even fair, the place has radically changed. The daily hide the drill bit in people’s heads seems to have, again I’m not being fair, really has calmed down. Today we have sporadic (for now) fighting between various groups, but nothing all that bad. Mind you, I’m comparing that to a hundred bodies a day or so, as I wrote last year, today, we’re talking 3-5 bodies a day at the morgue with bullet holes in the head, and 10-15 who have been killed in the fighting. Both American and Iraqi (and as important as it is, I’m not going to begin to explain the numerous Iraqi factions in this email, if you really want an explanation I’ll provide one. But to be honest it’s fairly esoteric and not that interesting, unless of course you’re a normal family being held hostage by that sort of conflict, as most Iraqi families are…..sorry, drifting, but if you want the players you need a scorecard, which is far too complex, even for this paragraph long aside) and I know one is supposed to pick up seamlessly from some parentheses, but we all have our limits.

So, groundwork laid, sort of. And there’s a curfew the other day. No vehicles allowed on the streets. Cool, fine. But then there is the journalistic immunity and the need for ice cream. And we head out. Let me put this in a tiny bit of context here: I show up a few days after (insert deep explanation of the Mehdi Army here) has been shelling the the Green Zone, well, a lot. Not so much since I’ve been here, couple times a day. But I and someone I work with finds a deep need for ice cream in our souls, and of course a basic journalistic desire to find out what the heck is going on outside our walled environs.

So, we head out. We’ve been told that there is a vehicle ban, but people are out on the streets of Baghdad, on foot, in force. That is true in other areas of the city, but not the one we venture into, unbeknownst to us. Here there are not only no cars, there are no people. Well, besides the folk with machine guns at every corner.

But here’s the weird bit. We wave and smile and flash badges of one sort or another and we’re fine. No issue. So I go into an Iraqi store for the first (and let’s be honest here, the only) time in years. Basically beyond the not that exciting local stuff, I’m walking into any second world super market. Lots of Crest (not a big Colgate country), nuts, ice cream and canned beans of various types, but heavy on the garbanzo.

The scary part was leaving. We’re stopped by people pointing rifles at us. People who scare me more than anyone else. Yes, the Americans. And after dealing with Iraqi security forces, I felt like I got pulled over by the staties. I had to tell everyone in the car to make their hands visible. The American woman I was with had to call out to them, “Hey, we’re Americans, can I step out of the car.?” And they never smiled. I could have sworn I was in Connecticut, but they let us go with a warning, which is a sure sign I wasn’t.

So today I’m in a small town south of the city called (and you can’t make stuff like this up) Garf al Sucker. It’s a good news story, used to be an insurgent stronghold, now they’re opening the new city hall. Which is a really small building with a few rooms and an office. And like the city of Baghdad, Iraqi taste in office décor is well, a bit different. There are ugly faux Chinese prints on the wall, picked out in gold. Massive over stuffed furniture, and the kicker is that they’ve laid blinking Christmas lights all around the place. Hearts and daisies for the most part, red and blue and green and yellow, blinking in synchrony as a general from the US meets with local leaders and a big deal tribal sheikh. I couldn’t get over the juxtaposition and kept wanting to chuckle.

These kind of gatherings follow a pretty standard pattern, lots of speeches, everyone telling each other how great they are. But I have to admit, this one was pretty cool. During the usual endless speeches they would break out into chanting and dancing every few minutes it seemed. Men in traditional headdress, folk in business suits, policemen, random guys with guns. I got the chant translated and it’s something like: Praising the tribe leaders and their rule in the stability and the security, and promising the terrorists death if they dare to touch their lands again. But it was cool, and it seemed that every coupe of minutes they felt the need to go into it again.

But the best part of the speechifying was when one tribal sheikh got up and started listing his demands. It’s all in Arabic and I don’t have any idea what is being said at the time (I got it translated when I got back to the bureau). But he is very serious, talking about food prices, and the security forces and so on…and then, the most important demand of all: The US has got to get rid of the motorcycle and the duck.

Now, I’ve had a few waterfowl problems of my own, and understand the frustration, but to being it up to a US division commander?

Turns out though that it is nickname for a car. The Iraqis do this a lot, I’ve heard different makes called a swan or a dolphin. But this is a certain type of Toyota. Apparently a fave of the Shi’ite militia known as the Mehdi Army. That can fit five bodies in the trunk. This is a feature.

Your man in Baghdad,

jj