Ghosts of War: The True Story of a 19-Year-Old GI by Ryan Smithson

Author:Ryan Smithson [Smithson, Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Social Issues, Iraq War; 2003, Iraq War; 2003-, Iraq War (2003-), Personal narratives; American, Soldiers - United States, Juvenile Nonfiction, General, United States, Smithson; Ryan, Soldiers, Biography & Autobiography, Military, Military & Wars, Juvenile literature, Biography, History
ISBN: 9780061664717
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-04-07T23:00:00+00:00

SATAN’S CLOTHES DRYER

When I return, it’s the beginning of June. The Iraqi summer is in full swing. Coming back isn’t so bad. Getting on the plane in Albany was the hardest part. In Kuwait when I was given back my body armor, I almost welcomed the transition to something familiar.

I’m on a lumber hauling mission up to Bravo Company at Q-West. SFC Morrow is my assistant driver (A-driver) in an M916 tractor trailer. Hauling supplies and equipment, the army calls this logistics. When we convoy for a logistics mission, it’s called a Logistics Package, or LOGPAC.

A LOGPAC is one of the many single-day missions we conduct as Headquarters Company. Sometimes things go wrong and we don’t get out in one day. Sometimes we have to stay for a couple days. This is why we always pack extra socks and a toothbrush. This is why we’re so used to living out of our rucksacks.

The full name of Q-West is Qayyarah West. It’s a town outside of Mosul, near the border of Turkey. Soldiers call it Q-West because it sounds like Key West, the coastal paradise in Florida. It’s this sarcasm that really keeps us going. It’s the little things. Like zombie Whisler. Or sugar-free dentist candy for poker chips. It’s a two-week taste of home.

In Q-West there’s an army camp where B Company stays. It’s called FOB (Forward Operating Base) Endurance, and it usually takes five solid hours to get there. Five hours of bone-dry desert, no scenery whatsoever. The earth is monotonous brown. The sky is tinted tan. The buildings are few and far between, and even they are the crumbly brown of dried mud. Any plants, which are also few and far between, are the pathetic shade of a dead lawn after the spring thaw.

The road to Q-West is usually very long and very uninspiring. But not today. Today we’re witnessing a new variation of the only color in Iraq. It’s a living, breathing, translucent brown.

In Iraq, especially in the northern region during summer, dust devils are rampant. On a camp like Anaconda where there are buildings and mortar barriers that block the wind, the dust devils are tiny. The dirt gets caught in the corner of a building, and it turns into a little devil, dancing around like a child until the breeze stops blowing for a second. Then it fizzles out.

But today, out in the open desert, the dust devils resemble skyscrapers. They stand hundreds of feet in the air and are as wide as a city block.

Really, it’s funny how much there is to a country that you can’t see while standing right in it. I’ve never seen more than one of these giant dust devils at a time before. But today the sand gray horizon resembles the final scene in the movie Twister. The dust devils are enormous and everywhere. No less than four at any given time.

Even when they rise and fall, like a changeover between movie scenes, the dust devils are never gone.

The dust is in my boots and on my eyelashes.

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