The Rain

It's January in central Iraq, and the rainy season is upon us.

The downpour has been cold and hard; coming down in bulbous, icy droplets. The wind has varied on occasion, but never in the past two days has the sky grown lighter; not once has the sun or a hint of blue shown itself. Our motor pool is flooded. Up the road from our trailers, the camo nets hanging from the guard towers blow and shake violently.

Our motor pool is right under a major traffic lane for the local airfield, and so this morning, I was able to watch an Air Force C-5 come in for landing. The C-5 Galaxy is a cargo jet longer than a football field, but even as impressive as such a sight can normally be, I had to take special pause this time, as I watched the slate-gray giant shake and yaw in the wind. I could almost see the pilots wrestling the old beast to maintain control. The rain poured over the massive wings in mighty sheets, steaming off as it hit the backwash from the engines. My ears rang as the plane passed overhead on its approach, and as the noise died away I shivered inside my camouflage parka. I willed myself to ignore the cold penetrating my extremities. My gloves and boots were soaked.

Around 1315 this afternoon, a tower near our company area erupted in gunshots. A firefight was breaking out, and the noise continued, mingled with heavy machine-gun fire, for some 15 minutes. Outside the wire, we heard explosions, and before we knew it the Alert Red sirens were wailing. My squadmates and I at the smoke shack ran for the bunkers, and about ten minutes later a voice blared out over the loudspeakers that we were at U3--mandatory wear of body armor. We stayed there, even going back to the motor pool, for about the next half-an-hour, until a call came down from Ops, giving us the all-clear to downgrade. Just as well. With full ammunition load and armor plating inserts, my IBA weighs close to 60 pounds--just under half of my normal weight of 145. There's a certain comfort in the the heft of body armor, but it goes both ways. Pulling a 23-hour workday in the stuff while on mission can be a truly miserable experience.

It's the second Monday in January. It's nighttime now, and when I go out to smoke I find that the rain has lulled for the moment. The only sound is the ever-present roar of the generators. In the distance, the smell of the burn pits, normally rank and metallic, makes me think for a moment of sweet woodsmoke. It evokes long snowy evenings spent at the home of our old family friends, the Kelleys. Taking a draw from my pipe, I think of winter nights transformed into black daylight by so many stars, but when I look skyward I see only the faint haze of cloud cover. The rains will be back, and they will not depart for some time.

I got my date today for R&R leave. Two months.