Condoms, Latex, 20 EA

I posted this in a FOX News Forum after I arrived here.  I thought I would run it on my own blog.  Enjoy.

Recently my team met and had dinner with COL M., his commanders and his staff. In typical Iraqi fashion, COL M. put out a delicious spread of chicken, pita bread, fruit and vegetables topped off with a small glass of hot chai tea.
As Iraqi custom would have it, we stood around several tables end to end, covered in white table clothes. Along the tables were seven or eight circular platters stacked with baked chicken halves piled on torn pieces of pita bread covered in chicken broth. Next to each platter were bowls of chopped cucumbers, onions and tomatoes bottles of water and cans of “Bebsi”. (In some parts of the US soda pop in general is called Coke. Here they call it Pepsi, but since there isn’t really a “Puh” sound in Arabic, they say Bebsi.)
This type of dinner is typically eaten with your right hand while standing. There wasn’t a fork, knife or spoon to be found. COL M. escorted me to the head of the table where we both announced separately how we were excited to forge our new relationships, how we would be brothers in arms and work toward the goal of a better Iraq. COL M. gave the order and we began to eat. It was delicious.
Through our interpreters the discussions livened. We told jokes, talked of family, how our careers began. Some of the staff talked about the old Iraqi regime and how they quit the Army just before the 2003 invasion. They said, “We knew you weren’t coming for us, you were coming for Saddam”.
There were laughs when they watched us struggling to tear apart a half chicken with one hand and pick up the meat with sopping wet pita bread. One of the Captains on my team, without the assistance of an interpreter made a gesture toward his stomach in an attempt at discussing how much he and an Iraqi Captain had eaten. Another Iraqi Captain saw this, and said, “fat”. As he repeated the word for fat in Arabic, laughs from down the table from other Iraqi Officers began to grow louder as they said the word for fat in Arabic. The American Captains attempt to explain himself were futile.

First Iraqi Dinner

As the dinner continued inside, COL M. and I headed outside for a more private conversation. We talked about the great weather, how clear the sky was and how delicious the meal had been. We went inside his office and began to learn about each other on a more personal level.
I had decided to take a risk and show him pictures of my family. In Iraq, showing pictures to people is not typical, particularly if their wife or daughter is in the photograph. I also printed for him the picture he and I took together the first time we met. With a heavy Arabic accent he exclaimed, “This is my friend!” and point to the picture. I felt like the risk paid off and the trust of sharing something personal had gotten me a step forward.
Just as quickly as I felt good, I felt embarrassed. He reminded me that in Iraqi culture they didn’t show pictures of their families to people. I began to shrink in my seat. He may have seen that I started to feel uncomfortable so he politely finished with, “but this is your culture, you are proud of your family. So many kids, this is not normal in America. One I day will show you pictures you have never seen before.”
I felt a little uneasy and decided to change the subject. We talked some more about past experiences and drank some more chai tea. People came in and out of the office, his cell phone rang many times and the television was blaring in the background. All of this is normal for an Iraqi office. So normal, that as part of our training, we were provided with the exact scenario. It amazed me!
Soon it was 2230 hours and I decided to call it a night. COL M. bragged about how late he could stay up, how he only needed two hours of sleep, but he was rubbing his salt and pepper colored hair, stroking his thick black moustache and leaning back in his chair. I could have stayed all night talking but, when a few more people came into the office, the interpreter leaned over to me and told me he looked tired. That was my cue to leave.
I stood and told him I had an early morning. COL M would have never conceded to sleep. He would have stayed all night talking, not only because he doesn’t give up anything he does, but because it is the Iraqi culture. I was a guest and he would never tell me that I had to leave. But before I left, he told me how his four sons were named after the followers of the Prophet Mohammed.
In late 2002, COL M retired from the Iraqi Army. Seeing the impending invasion, he knew he was out gunned, out manned, and out trained. He told me that he knew we weren’t coming for him, but for Saddam Hussein, a sentiment echoed by other officers not four hours prior. He went home with his family to begin his new life. After the invasion, the AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq) attempted to recruit him as their trainer to fight the Americans, build bombs, and lead portions of the AQI but he refused. Because of his connections, religion and his refusal to fight against the United States, his uncle, brother, and several other family members were killed, to include his 4 year old son that was killed during violence in the street. After that he moved his family as far from his home as possible and started his new life as a shop owner.
One day, while he and his oldest son worked his shop, three armed men came in and kidnapped them. For three days COL M. was beaten and tortured and when he wasn’t being tortured, he listened to the screams of his teenage son in the next room receiving the same treatment.
I told him I was sorry for the loss of his family members and hoped that this was not the future of Iraq. I said good night and left. As we walked to the Humvee, I felt a little uneasy about showing him my family pictures. Had I made that cultural flaw that would ruin our relationship? In the back ground, an Iraqi Jundi called to us. My interpreter ran back inside the building. When he returned, he handed me a plastic bag with some photographs, “the Colonel wants you to see these and bring them back tomorrow.”

COL M's Back Whipped and Beaten

We drove the bumpy ride home and by midnight I was looking at my secret plastic bag with the white label in English on the outside. It was about a dozen photographs of him and his son whipped across their backs, arms, legs and heads; facial expressions of broken men. His wounds had the consistency of being whipped by a piece of cane, the skin exploding with each strike swelling from the inside as the blood rushed to the surface. COL Ms upper left arm severely bruised and bloodied from different techniques of punching, pulling, twisting and whipping. The left side of his back split open and bruised as well from three days worth of continued beatings. He and his son tortured over a name and religion, beaten because his son was named after the follower of a Prophet.
As I stared at the pictures late into the evening, it occurred to me, that these pictures were given to me on the eve of our first black president and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Martin Luther King Jr. killed because of his beliefs and his race, COL M and his family tortured and killed because of his beliefs and his religion.
The next morning I brought the pictures back and thanked him for extending me the trust to show the pictures. I could take days questioning him about the kidnapping, but we are still not at the point in our relationship where it would be polite to ask. It is baby steps when developing friendships in Iraq.
As I left, I decided to lighten the mood. I asked him if he knew what was written on the white label on the bag with which the photographs were protected. He said no.
Condoms, Latex 20 EA. Issued by the US Army.

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