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Saturday, January 08, 2005
Passing the Time
During one day on guard duty, I help out guarding one of the main gates. There are some big heavy arm gates (two, then a huge cable) that’s sort of far out away from the entrance area, far enough out that bomber’s blast wouldn’t affect too much. But there is no actual gate, just a tank blocking the portcullis where a gate would be, which sends a pretty strong message to all the folks driving down the main road in front of the gate. Most of the guys here are, understandably, are all about sending such a message, constantly saying in word, deed, and body language, ‘Don’t mess with us. If you do so, we’ll come down hard on you, so just don’t mess with us.’ This is of course entirely understandable but not exactly winning regular Joe-Iraqi over with friendliness or anything.
So the other day I was sitting up on the tank, manning a big ole’ .50 caliber ‘heavy machine gun,’ when I just started waving to some of the passing traffic, just looking for cars that passed by with kids in them. Just about everyone stares as they go by, trying to see what the Americans are doing and whatnot. So I just start waving once in a while.
The adults don’t wave back but everyone once in a while, I’d see a little head of black hair suddenly bob up, a little hand would start waving franticly, and the face would turn back and forth, usually to the mom (women generally are made to sit in the back seat as the front is for men only), then back again, waving away. I could imagine the kids saying, ‘Mama, mama, the American waved at me!’ It happened about 10 times or so that I actually got a wave back from the kids (maybe twice from adults) and it made me crack up each time. Hey, it’s positive and definitely a way to pass the time!
When Specialist Wilson and I are on guard duty together, we make a game of it: one point for every kid who waves, two points for a woman, four points if we can get one of the usually very stoic men to wave back (without cursing us in the process).
So the other day I was sitting up on the tank, manning a big ole’ .50 caliber ‘heavy machine gun,’ when I just started waving to some of the passing traffic, just looking for cars that passed by with kids in them. Just about everyone stares as they go by, trying to see what the Americans are doing and whatnot. So I just start waving once in a while.
The adults don’t wave back but everyone once in a while, I’d see a little head of black hair suddenly bob up, a little hand would start waving franticly, and the face would turn back and forth, usually to the mom (women generally are made to sit in the back seat as the front is for men only), then back again, waving away. I could imagine the kids saying, ‘Mama, mama, the American waved at me!’ It happened about 10 times or so that I actually got a wave back from the kids (maybe twice from adults) and it made me crack up each time. Hey, it’s positive and definitely a way to pass the time!
When Specialist Wilson and I are on guard duty together, we make a game of it: one point for every kid who waves, two points for a woman, four points if we can get one of the usually very stoic men to wave back (without cursing us in the process).
Posted by: Unknown / 10:02 AM 
