Poetry in War.
During my first deployment in the Army, I’d allow myself to send one email a month to friends and family to provide an update on the tour. I eventually leveraged it as a creative outlet.
A newly purchased whip reminded me of this particular email I had written to commemorate the halfway point of my Iraq deployment in 2009–2010. I may have to go back and challenge 25 year old Tina on a few statements made below. :)
10/28/2009
UNCLASSIFIED
My brain functions on varying bandwidths: some days I’m hopscotching across several different trains of thoughts, piddling around and picking at different ideas. On other days, I’ll hone in on a single topic and dismantle it down to the atomic level. Today’s weather has the effect of having me scattered all over the place and acting like a sensual sponge, oozing across the events of the day and videotaping everything in this hazy, soft, pastel shade of rose and marmalade. It’s kinda nice. No, it’s really, really nice.
Last night I came off of a long day of flying, ate dinner, had a bowl of ice cream, then another bowl of ice cream, then an ice cream cone, and then a chocolate chip muffin. I was tired.
After all it was the official apex of the deployment (or “hump day” but that just gives me perverted vibes) and I still have yet to take a day off. The flight was a little different and took us away from the monotony of the Baghdad shuffle. We flew out West and I got to see one of the few large bodies of waters in Iraq. Strangely enough, it closely resembled something like a mirage — brilliantly translucent, with soft tan shores caressing the sides of it. And with the low haze coming in from the storms, the water blurred in seamlessly with the smokey horizon. I felt like I was skirting the gateway to Heaven. Later that day we saw herds of buffalos bowling through the Tigris and we ended the flight doing a quick circle around where the recent bombings occurred, looking for the residual “death blossom”, as one of our crew chiefs called it, and left feeling shamefully domesticated when the mess was cleaned up. The day ended with an email that restores your faith in humanity: a CEO of a surf traveling agency personally replied to an email I sent asking for help in picking the perfect vacation for myself. He replied telling me his company was being sold but that he’d bring me in touch with his personal arsenal of surf connections. He directed me to a man in New Zealand who’d tailor the perfect package for me. I find out later that day that some very good friends will be in New Zealand at the same time.
I fell asleep and the night endured with some of the blackest, hateful, sideways (I lied awake wondering why I heard no rain on the roof top and only on my front door) rain I’ve experienced. I woke up feeling as if all the residual influences of Army frat boy culture wore off and the onerous fodder from the early onset of adulthood was swept off my shoulders.
A midnight of the night and of the soul serving as a silent, overnight purgatory.
I woke up, breathed moisture into my lungs, went to work and looked at a Blackhawk for a good minute. I’m not a gear head, nor did I ever imagine myself to ever become one, but I now understand how a hunk of metal can turn a person on. No car will ever be as sexy as it.
So that is how I spent the last day of my 6th month here. A bit of flying, a bit of ice cream, and a bit of rain. All things nutritious to any isolated soul in the land of pale colors and monotony. I think I’ll stop here and leave it with an excerpt from a Time’s article I read this morning:
The world’s first manned balloon flight took place on November 21st, 1783, in Paris. The balloon was blue and gold and 70 ft. (about 20 m) tall. It had no basket. You rode on a kind of circular balcony that hung around the balloon’s neck like a collar. This meant that there had to be two passengers, for balance, and they had to stay on opposite sides of the balloon at all times. The two men in question were Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier, a young doctor who was exactly as dashing as he sounds, and the Marquis d’Arlandes, an army major. Their dialogue could not have been scripted better by Judd Apatow.
They couldn’t see each other because the balloon was between them, so they had to yell back and forth. As the giant aircraft careened wildly over the roofs of Paris and the two men frantically shoveled straw into the fire that kept it flying, the marquis became more and more hysterical. “We must land now!” he yelled. “We must land NOW!” Pilatre stayed icy calm. “Look, d’Arlandes,” he said. “Here we are above Paris. There’s no possible danger for you. Are you taking this all in?” But the marquis couldn’t take it in. When a gust of wind jostled the balcony, he
screamed, “What are you doing! Stop dancing!”Eventually, after 27 minutes aloft, they landed safely. D’Arlandes-according to his own account-threw himself out onto the grass. Pilatre just stood there. “We had enough fuel to fly for an hour,” he said sadly. The crowd grabbed his green coat and tore it to pieces for souvenirs. He was an instant 18th century rock star.
What I would do to be in the 18th century right now.
- tina.
P.S. — This email was written under the influence of The National’s “Boxer”. If you can, listen, it’s good for you.
V/R,
Tina J. Chong
CPT, AV
NIPR: 834–3322
