The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq by John Crawford

Author:John Crawford [Crawford, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography, Biography, History, Non-Fiction, Politics, War & Military
ISBN: 9781101217399
Amazon: B000PDYW1K
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Published: 2006-04-03T23:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

SHARKS IN THE TIGRIS

SPECIALIST GLEASON yawned loudly, sucking in much of the cool night air. He stretched his arms out above his head and we all heard the sound of Velcro ripping open.

“Fucking body armor is too small,” he moaned, struggling to readjust it.

“They don’t have any bigger ones?”

“Nope, fucking Sergeant Swain says this is the biggest they got.”

“Sucks, man.” Washington had heard it all too many times before. Gleason was big, almost too big for his uniform top to even fit, let alone any vest. Before he had left for Iraq, he bench-pressed over five hundred pounds, and although undoubtedly some of that muscle had turned into fat, he was still more than an imposing figure.

“Man, this is some boring shit. What time is it?” Washington asked, trying to suppress the yawn he had just caught from Gleason.

“Around two-thirty. Two hours left.”

Pulling duty on the observation posts was universally boring, and any excitement at all was the rarity. Occasionally, some hajji would drink too much Turkish whiskey and get up the nerve to shoot at the positions. There was never any real danger of getting hit from the drunken snipers. “Fuck you, America!” they would yell up at us with whiskey voices.

Sometimes they would be original and mix things up. “Go home, America!”

We all thought that was a great idea and that it was heart-warming that we could agree with the locals on something. But we didn’t go home, not for a while. We just sat there and looked over the Tigris River into the old city.

We were close enough to throw rocks into the murky water and watch dirty kids swim against its swift current. People said if you went north, past Baghdad, it was clear like spring-water, but I never saw it. Where we were it was the hue of day-old coffee and debris floated so thick you could skip across it without getting your feet wet.

“You know there used to be bull sharks this far north in the Tigris?” Sellers told me once. He had just read a book about man-eaters. “It got too polluted for them to live here. Too bad there aren’t any now. Wouldn’t that be some shit? Fucking hajji getting eaten up.”

“Yeah, I’d pay a dollar to see that.”

“Fuck, man, probably spit out the nasty little bastard.” There was no love lost between us and the Iraqis who crowded the riverbanks. Beer and liquor stands would open as nightfall approached. Lanterns and headlights cast an eerie pallor on the makeshift carts. The men would drink openly and profusely, clapping, dancing, and eyeing us with disdain. Their curses could be heard late into the evening, when one by one they would climb into dilapidated clown cars and speed away. The ones who couldn’t make it that far simply slept on the riverbank among the trash and homeless kids.

We kept a close and wary watch on them. We had ruled it illegal to drink so close to our compound, but even when it was enforced they never stopped.

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