Marine Corps News Room

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-10-30-iraq-essay_x.htm

By John Carlson, The Des Moines Register
TIKRIT, Iraq — The incoming rocket makes a nasty, whooshing sound as it passes over your head, a noise that tends to freeze you in place the first time you hear it.

"It's good if you hear it go over," a soldier told me after that first time. "If you hear it, you're not dead."

A friend back home told me he'd go berserk in that situation.

No, I told him. Soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen in Iraq realize they have three choices.

They can stay awake nights wondering if the next trip down the highway or into town will be the one that kills them. Or they can believe that nothing out there can get them, that they're big and bad and invincible.

Most, though, don't give it a lot of thought. They're careful, but they understand there's nothing they can do if the insurgent detonates a half-dozen artillery shells under the Humvee or the mortar hits them on that long walk to the mess hall.

It's how to live what amounts to a reasonably normal life in Iraq. You survive whatever craziness comes your way and, sometimes, laugh at the absurdity of it all.

It didn't take long to figure out that things had changed since I was in Iraq two years ago.

I'd been in the country less than an hour last month when a car bomb went off in Baghdad. I was having lunch in a room full of American soldiers in the Al Rashid hotel. The lights flickered. The soldiers went silent for a second, then continued their conversations.

That's the way it would be for the next month. Two years ago, in the summer of 2003, things were relatively quiet. Soldiers traveled the cities and countryside pretty much whenever they wanted. Now, convoys travel almost exclusively at night, when they're not such easy targets.

Improvised explosive devices were something to worry about but not obsess over two years ago. Now, they're the leading killers of Iraqi civilians and U.S. military. They're using TNT and buried propane tanks and the IEDs are getting bigger and nastier.

A nightmare? Sometimes. A 24-7 hell? Not necessarily. It's simply a part of day-to-day life.

That's what's important to remember about this trip. The living.

I'll remember:

• The young second lieutenant whose mother back home thought he worked in an office — until she read about him and the exploding IEDs in the Sunday paper.

• Looking through night vision goggles and seeing Marine snipers on rooftops, waiting to fire at anybody ambushing the Americans, then seeing the muzzle flashes when the attack comes.

• Seeing American and Iraqi soldiers sitting side-by-side, talking quietly in a half-Arabic, half-English conversation that somehow makes sense to both.

• Shaking hands with a smiling, elderly Iraqi with a purple index finger who moments earlier voted for the first time in his life.

• Watching barefoot kids run through the rubble of downtown Tikrit, waving at soldiers, then running for cover when gunfire breaks out a couple of blocks away.

• Realizing that the Iowa National Guard soldiers facing this will go back to their jobs at stores, schools, filling stations, factories and farms, spending time with families and co-workers who won't have the first clue what they've been through.

I come away with no sweeping conclusions about this war. You visit Iraq for a month, moving from place to place, seeing only what's in front of you and a little of what's going on in the general area.

People wonder if it's stable here. Depends upon where you are. In the south, mostly yes. Even in Sunni-dominated Tikrit. Same in the Kurdish north.

Baghdad, Ramadi and the western desert? No. Not even close.

But it's certainly not hopeless. The vast majority of Iraqis I met said they want stability and peace. It won't come easily. The insurgents are dedicated and well funded. Coalition troops are determined to beat them down. Iraqi Security Forces are under-equipped and won't be ready to operate without coalition help for years.

There are thousands of questions and no easy answers, so be wary of people who speak with certainty about the future of Iraq.

Just never doubt the sacrifices the soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors are making.