Oct Iraq Tour: DAY FOUR
October 20, 2008
DAY FOUR: Monday, October 20, 2008
Lucky us! We are getting a private tour of those F16′s we heard buzzing overhead last night.
An Air Force pilot shows us some of the crazy systems the F16 is equipped with, including an infrared “eye in the sky” which allows them to track a person walking on the ground from 15,000 feet in the air. Pilots wear helmets that have 360 degree situational awareness, with Minority Report-style displays showing them pertinent details at all times. There is no air combat here in Iraq. The Air Force purely help the ground troops work out locations.
It’s time to fly to Baghdad. Back at the airport hanger, we’ve got another hurry up and wait situation. Our flight is delayed, then moved up, then delayed again. In the meantime we sample one of the MRE’s given to soldiers: Meal Ready to Eat. It’s a plastic bag packed with 3,000 calories, where you add water to the many options including “chicken and pasta” or “vegetarian rice,” causing a chemical reaction that heats up your food. I suppose a hot meal out in the lonely desert is comforting, but it’s pretty gross and I opt out of my bag. We’ve been warned to wash our hands at every opportunity to avoid the “Baghdad Bubbles,” a term for the gastrointestinal disfunction many Westerners encounter. Apparently MRE’s are the perfect cure. It’s not a selling point for me.
We fly to Baghdad in another C130 plane. This time I ride steerage in the back with the boys, and I’m immediately drenched with sweat under my body armor. Between the dust storms and heat, cleanliness is now becoming a relative term.
We land, and are driven to the Joint Visitors Bureau to stow our gear before tonight’s show at Camp Victory. Colonel Scott looks at us with a glint in his eye, and asks us if we’d like a private tour of Saddam Hussein’s palace. Hello!
We pass a series of man-made lakes on the way to the palace, and a giant bat house to help contain the population of mosquitoes. At the palace gates we show our passports and military orders to the Ugandan guards. Almost all of the gate security guards on American bases in Iraq are from Uganda. In one month of working here they make more than they would in a year back home. The attractiveness of the job insures they are serious about checking every person that passes through, not letting anyone slip through the cracks.
In the moat surrounding the palace are hundreds of giant carp and “Saddam” bass, swarming fish the size of a human two-year-old child, hungrily eyeing us as we pass by. Dozens of armored SUV’s are parked nearby, each car door weighing up to 500 pounds. The palace looks impressive from the outside, but once we get inside we realize how shoddily built it actually is. Cheap and Tacky — best way to describe it. Saddam wanted his palace built in a hurry as a show of strength, and he executed his first three architects it was finally completed. Tiles are falling off the “stone” facade. Every tenth or so tile is inscribed with Saddam’s initials, because he wanted to metaphorically show, “You can kill me, but you can’t take me out of Iraq unless you take every block down.”
None of the interior marble is real but is instead two-inch thick applique hung on a framework of hollow walls. The crystal chandeliers are actually plastic beads, and look incredibly gaudy. We walk into the room where media photos were taken in the lead-up to the war of Saddam and his moustached henchmen meeting at long conference tables. It is equally tacky. The tables are painted in swirling baby blues and fake gold, looking more like a grandmother’s bedside table than an executive desk. None of the palace stairs are evenly built, and you have to carefully watch your step to avoid tripping. Saddam was apparently a germophobe, and built a room filled with 40 sinks to insist on regular hand washing. One of the few redeemable aspects of the palace are the ceilings, which are hand-painted colorful plaster made to look like Moroccan tiles, “commissioned” from Moroccan slave labor (the whole, “you can leave as soon as you finish painting” trick).
Around the palace, high-ranking officials from the multi-national corps buzz about. The palace is now used as the headquarters for the 4-star general commander of the coalition. It’s where General Petraeus based himself when he came to implement his new counter-insurgency strategy.
The view from the terraces is the best thing about the palace. American
officers sit around quietly smoking cigarettes and cigars. Many of the windows of the buildings surrounding the palace around the lake are piled high with sandbags, blocking out all light to protect from mortar attacks. Across the way is the Australian coalition headquarters, throwing a pool party. In contrast, the pool on the American side is empty with dust, covered in signs that read “Caution! Empty Pool.”
To our left is the reconstruction headquarters, responsible for rebuilding the schools, hospitals, power and water treatment plants that insurgents had targeted. Far off, we see the “Perfume Palace,” which was the old whore house of Baghdad (mostly filled with kidnapped 13 year old virgins).
On the terrace overlooking the lake, Scott presents each of us with a gold coin for excellence. We watch the sun set over Baghdad. The light is a surreal orange color from the dust storms blowing in, and visibility is dropping rapidly.
Back at the Joint Visitors Bureau, I shower and change. Our show tonight is at an outdoor stage at Camp Victory in Baghdad. After sound check bomb sniffing dogs make the rounds over the stage.
By downbeat time, the band and I are ready: after staying up late to
talk about arrangements, song endings and breaks, we feel more confident about our set list. It ends up being our first great show together. We finally settle into a rhythmic pocket. In the back a circle of Ugandans dance enthusiastically. Upfront, soldiers yell out friendly and
flirtatious cheers of encouragement.
The sound feels great on stage. Ellis is boosting the band’s dynamic, riding the volume gains on the mixing board. He’s recording the performance, and the potential to remember this night forever is not lost on me as I sing out to the troops standing in the side shadows.
It’s moving to see people slowly get more and more animated, and Bryan our drummer and Mark our bassist push them along. Eric takes off on a couple of ripping guitar solos. Predictably all the guys in the audience go nuts. It’s awesome. Even the subtler songs get across, like “Helen’s Requiem,” about a women caught in Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. It’s not a perfect show, but I’m starting to trust the band more, and they are feeling me out the way I interact with the crowd.
Mitch, one of our Armed Forces Entertainment contacts, joins us for Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone.” Mitch is a huge black Native American who walks with a limp because of his pro-football days (he used to play for San Diego). He had pulled out his Native American flute earlier in the day while we were driving to Saddam’s palace, and I invited him to join us onstage tonight. “Tuesday’s Gone” was one of his favorite songs.
After the show, we hold our meet-and-greet in the green room tent behind the stage. Jason, the sweet boy from Pensacola Florida, surprises me by showing up again. He sends regards from Ron who unfortunately couldn’t make it because he’s on shift. I meet a very cool Japanese soldier who asks me to sign his gun holster, and I tell him my seventeen year old brother speaks fluent Japanese. A sweet young Army reporter and I chat about his favorite Bright Eyes album. An Air Force band we met earlier outside the palace also drop by to say hello.
Finally, grabbing more cookies than I should have, I say goodbye to the last few people so we can make our helicopter flight on time. We travel to the Forward Operating Bases (or FOB’s) only at night in large Chinook helicopters which can easily carry our heavy stage equipment. Our next show is at a smaller FOB named Kalsu.
The flight leaves at 3 am. At the airport hanger, I take off my makeup and pry out my dust-ridden contact lenses. We suit up in our body armor and helmets, and fall in line with about 20 other soldiers. On both sides and in the back, Air Force guys perch themselves in open windows mounted with machine guns. They scan the ground the entire flight for
any incoming hostile fire. I’m acutely aware of the fact that I’m flying over a war zone.
We land in Kalsu at 3:45 am, and it’s at least 4 in the morning before our luggage is unstrapped from the pallet. In the dark I get lost in the maze of T-Walls on the way to the ladies bathroom trailer. All of us have our own rooms, though, and the guys in the band are thrilled. It’s the little things.
