Thanksgiving
Cyrus and I just finished Thanksgiving dinner at KBR. They run the food service across the street at the Al-Rashid Hotel. The Pakistanis put on a good show, complete with a very phallic ice sculpture that I overlooked in favor of canned eggnog. We had carved turkey, dressing, and some kind of weird strawberry juice. On the way out I lit a cigarette; I’m what we refer to as a ‘deployment smoker’. The cigarette helps with the strawberry after lunch. I go back to the office with Cyrus and we work till 3 PM. I leave in my humvee and drive past the Army Reserve soldiers getting ready for a mission; I don’t know which or where. I ask them if they had Thanksgiving dinner. They had chicken, somewhere else, and the stupid part is that these guys are doing our dirty work for us and somebody in their chain of command didn’t get them into the Al-Rashid, which they were guarding that day. It sucks to be them.
I go back to CPA and into the chapel where I share an intimate nighttime existence with about four hundred of my closest friends; men, women, cell phones, snoring, farting, and nothing but bunk beds in the huge room that we were told used to be Saddam’s bedroom. We call it the chapel because that’s where the coalition had services until they moved us all into it after the rocket attacks.
My nap lasts about an hour. I wake up and get dressed (no clean clothes) and the phone in my pocket rings. It’s my seven year old son, Tommy. Vanessa showed him how to dial the number. He sounds different. I forgot that it was Thanksgiving and he was calling because he is sad that I’m not around. I always do the whole thing; it’s my favorite holiday. We invite everyone and basically eat all day. Tommy tells me about Tae-Kwon-Do and school. I can hear the brave little boy struggling to not cry; I have to choose between hard and soft; I choose hard. Be strong, Tommy, help your Mom get the car ready for the trip to Aunt Laurie’s house for dinner. I am crying but don’t let him know. He is braver than I. My Mom and Dad never left until my Dad left for good four years ago. It killed me when he died and I wonder if Tommy feels like that since I’m gone.
The leadership training kicks in on top of the emotion. I have gotten really mechanical since I’ve been here. Tommy misses me so I redirect his sadness onto something else and away from me being gone. He doesn’t know the risks we run just driving to work; he doesn’t have any idea that the rocket landed in our parking lot fifteen minutes before I was supposed to be at the point of impact (it took out about twenty vehicles). He doesn’t have to worry about any of that but in his world his daddy is gone and I wonder if he remembers what I look like. He talks about me at show and tell (“My daddy carries a big gun!”) and wears the desert boonie hat I sent him with his name on it. He asks me if I will come home for his birthday in March. I redirect him again, feeling like a complete shithead for doing it. This whole thing has forced me to manipulate him and I hate it. I tell him I love him and he says the magic words, “I love you, too, Daddy”. I can’t take these phone calls anymore.
I go back to CPA and into the chapel where I share an intimate nighttime existence with about four hundred of my closest friends; men, women, cell phones, snoring, farting, and nothing but bunk beds in the huge room that we were told used to be Saddam’s bedroom. We call it the chapel because that’s where the coalition had services until they moved us all into it after the rocket attacks.
My nap lasts about an hour. I wake up and get dressed (no clean clothes) and the phone in my pocket rings. It’s my seven year old son, Tommy. Vanessa showed him how to dial the number. He sounds different. I forgot that it was Thanksgiving and he was calling because he is sad that I’m not around. I always do the whole thing; it’s my favorite holiday. We invite everyone and basically eat all day. Tommy tells me about Tae-Kwon-Do and school. I can hear the brave little boy struggling to not cry; I have to choose between hard and soft; I choose hard. Be strong, Tommy, help your Mom get the car ready for the trip to Aunt Laurie’s house for dinner. I am crying but don’t let him know. He is braver than I. My Mom and Dad never left until my Dad left for good four years ago. It killed me when he died and I wonder if Tommy feels like that since I’m gone.
The leadership training kicks in on top of the emotion. I have gotten really mechanical since I’ve been here. Tommy misses me so I redirect his sadness onto something else and away from me being gone. He doesn’t know the risks we run just driving to work; he doesn’t have any idea that the rocket landed in our parking lot fifteen minutes before I was supposed to be at the point of impact (it took out about twenty vehicles). He doesn’t have to worry about any of that but in his world his daddy is gone and I wonder if he remembers what I look like. He talks about me at show and tell (“My daddy carries a big gun!”) and wears the desert boonie hat I sent him with his name on it. He asks me if I will come home for his birthday in March. I redirect him again, feeling like a complete shithead for doing it. This whole thing has forced me to manipulate him and I hate it. I tell him I love him and he says the magic words, “I love you, too, Daddy”. I can’t take these phone calls anymore.
-30-
Copyright, 2003. Tom Kinton, Baghdad, Iraq.
posted by tomk at 8:24 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home