November 25, 2003

Re-experience

COLUMBIA, S.C. – A post came on the list to read 67 Days In Iraq by a fellow Knight Ridder photographer.

I did as suggested.

What I didn’t expect was to relive, through his words, some of the same experiences we’d both shared.

• Driving Highway 1 through the western desert
• Doubling over in pain because of the wonderful Iraqi bacterium
• Dealing with the daily threat of death due to random violence
• Seeing and having to deal with death on a daily basis

The list goes on, but there’s no need to elaborate. And as a typical American, I still use humor to diffuse mental crap that swims through my head on a daily basis. I appreciate the trivial problems I have living here in the States, being American.

It still affects me. Of all things, the odors of dirty auto exhaust and baby wipes prompt the most memories.

And I was drawn in by stories that are too strange, and that I’m too knowledgeable about. Stories about the drivers and translators I’d helped cultivate in Baghdad. People I’d grown to care about as family members, not just hired help and mouthpieces.

I sat at my desk drawn into his journals. Both my elbows were planted on either side of the PowerBook™, my head propped up on both fists at my temples, sometimes exclaiming, “That’s so like Muttaz!”

And, “I remember him!”

For me it happened in April and May, but the experience seems so long ago. Until, of course, I smell an odor, see desert camouflage or hear reports of the building, senseless violence.

- Rich