Hillah, Iraq.

If it was possible to combine a graduation with Christmas, season with a dash of Spring Break, and top with zests of St. Patrick’s Day (the adult version, not the primary education pinching variety), you would have an approximation of what being pulled off line felt like. Our gear was packed, and we were going home.

Well, the first steps in the long road back home. The party cranked up after noon, with food courtesy of the El Salvadorans, and drink a plenty. We swam and joked, and generally enjoyed being alive. Staff
Sergeant and I have a recurring joke regarding his wounded finger:

Me: “How’s the finger?”
Staff Sergeant, holding the finger out: “Still numb.”

I can’t explain why it is funny, but it still is.
We set up a sound system, and took turns plugging in iPods, the 21st Century’s answer to mix tapes. The sun set and the party swung into high gear. I broke out the last of the cigars that my friend, Steve, sent, and the cigar smoke did little to displace the congenital Iraq smoke, or dim the projector that has been set up to show a Power Point slide show of photos from our combat tour, set to music. A lot of effort has been put into the show’s production. I resolve to get a copy to take home.

We find wood scraps to build a bonfire, and things go downhill from there. There is little sense in boarding our supplies, and booze is doled out with an almost reckless abandon. Someone cuts the top of a 1.5 liter water bottle, and generous portions of tequila are sent all around for toasts, observations, and general thanks.

I have a long and storied relationship with tequila, and one would think that I would have learned. Actually, I have learned a lot. Regrettably, I have learned the same lesson over and over again, apparently with little benefit. Why, yes, I wouldn’t mind another Corona. Too bad we don’t have limes.

The fire is spread around and I recall Marines jumping through the flames, and then some mortar fire, and then soon I am wrapped in the warm night air and the thoroughly satisfying belief that I might survive this war unwounded. Can I get a refill on this?

I have the sudden insight that this has really been my life, and not just some made up fiction, and that I have been in some dangerous places and done some incredible things, and this is REAL, man, and I am holding forth at length on the dangers of suddenly painting your life with the horrible colors of world events…and, while emphasizing my point with a cigar long burned out, I lose the thread of my Cuervo philosophy that is profound now but probably absurd in the sanity of daylight.

But I am happy to be alive and in the company of comrades in arms, and suddenly very, very sleepy, and I have had a bellyful of war and tequila, and I can’t imagine any harm in just closing my eyes for a bit…