Formation by Ryan Leigh Dostie

Author:Ryan Leigh Dostie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: None
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2019-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

One day a different Iraqi translator visits my guard tower. He’s not a regular at our camp, but he’s on loan from the First Armored Division, clearly higher ranking in whatever system they use for national linguists. He is simply making his way around the towers out of curiosity. Tall, with a barrel chest and broad shoulders, he has the bearing of a football player two years out of the game, with a hard beer gut, though maybe that’s just the bulletproof vest. He speaks English smoothly, with almost no accent, and there is something very American about him, from his large, stocky build to the ease of his stance, legs spread apart, arms crossed over the swell of his chest. He’s handsome in a familiar way. Maybe it’s the cocksureness, that edge of arrogance, that’s both familiar and appealing.

When he arrives I’m gnawing at the edge of a hard stick of classic pepperoni, sent in from home. “May I?” he asks, pointing to the unfamiliar food.

“Sure,” I say, and slice off a chunk with my knife.

He rolls the meat in his palm. “Does it have pork in it?”

I cock my head and try to think what’s actually in pepperoni. I was born in the Pizza Belt—New Haven, home to the greatest thin-crust pizza in all the world—but I have never stopped to consider what pepperoni actually is. “It’s beef,” I say, fairly certain, and the other soldier on guard doesn’t correct me so that seems about right.

The linguist takes a bite, his dark brow rising in delight. “This is freaking delicious.”

“Right?” I grin, breaking off another chunk with my teeth. “Best stuff on earth.”

We end up talking about democracy, somehow, although perhaps the conversation is always destined to come around to that when you’re occupying another country. He seems excited about the future, and pleased with his own involvement. Then he says something that surprises me. “We don’t want to be too Western,” he says, chewing on his second slice of pepperoni, as if being too Western is a bad thing.

“What do you mean? What’s ‘too Western’?”

“I mean, we want everyone to have freedom, that’s important, but we can’t have women walking down the street in short skirts or anything. For example, I mean.”

My brow crumples. “But shouldn’t they have the freedom to choose to wear short skirts or not?”

“No, no.” He shakes his head and leans back against the tower wall. “Too much freedom is a bad thing, you see.”

“There’s no such thing as too much freedom.”

“No, but think about it. When given too much choice, man will choose wrong, he will choose poorly. Society must have rules to protect ourselves from our own nature.” He points to his chest as he speaks, animated. “From us doing wrong.”

“But a woman wearing a short skirt isn’t hurting anyone.”

“She is hurting herself. She is hurting the men around her. She disrespects herself and those who see her. It is our job, our responsibility, to protect the morality of our society.”

My head hurts.

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