Bible Story

I still have it. And it is still highlighted. Well, marked with pen. The same color pen throughout the whole thing, in fact. I never thought it was weird to use only black pens until I got out of the Army and I found that everyone else uses blue, purple, red, green. Every civilian I know doesn’t care what the color of pen they use. Some of them even use felt tip, the kind that bleed if you hold them down too long on the paper. Hell, they bleed even if the pen is near the paper. I never could figure that one out.
When I was in Iraq, I used to carry it around in a desert colored camouflaged pouch. It had a zipper on it and it clipped to my flak vest, no problem. It still stays in that pouch, in fact, when I am not reading it, or rather, reading it to others. The pouch also carries a small AAA mag-light, the kind that comes free with a purchase of a behemoth hunting knife, like the ones that were always on sale at the PX for 59.95. These things are huge, with shark’s teeth on one side and the other side like as sharp as, well, a knife. I didn’t get the flashlight that way; I got it when I reenlisted for two years, though they kept me for two years and nine months. I guess they figure that it makes up for the extra nine months I spent involuntarily killing in the desert. At least I got to keep the fucking flashlight.
The pouch has three lines on it. It has my name, my unit, and the word “CAMERA” written in pen. I had to put my camera in there and give it to some guys at battalion headquarters so that they could verify that there were no dirty pictures on it. I am pretty sure that the pictures I had of Iraqis and Americans who were killed would constitute that, because they erased some of my best work. After a while, the scenery got boring and we started to take pictures of the real war. I remember that I got some of those pictures after some guys in a red car tried to kill us. Body parts fucking everywhere. They were driving towards us and we tried to stop them. They slammed on the brakes and put the car into reverse while firing an AK-47 at us. I one-upped them with my AT-4. Turns out there were explosives in the car. Though we found most of one guy, we thought there was at least two in the car, so we kept searching and searching for the other guy. It took us a full hour to find an extra leg in a field.
I got my camera back and all it had on it was us all standing around with some kids. Made us look like some kind of humanitarians. The kids were dirty and they always wore the same exact clothes. It seems like somebody would realize that it might actually win their hearts and minds if we gave them some damn clothes. We always ended up doing combat missions, though, which is not nearly as heart-and-mind-winning.1

I remember this one time that we left the base camp to relieve a roving patrol out on the main road that ran in front of our base. We stopped to exchange weapons and coolers and stuff like that, and up walks this little girl, who may have been 10 or 11. She had a dirty face and her skin was old and wrinkly. But she was short, and she was clearly a little girl. Whenever we stopped at all, the kids came around looking for candy and money and whatever we would give them. This little kid came around and tried to sell us soccer t-shirts. I told her to come to me.
“Mistah, mistah! You want shirt?” she asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “How much for the Iraq team shirt?”
“10 dollar,” she said. “Because you are my friend.”
“10 dollar right,” I told her. “My ass, kid. I’ve been in Iraq longer than that. One dollar.” She turned up her wrinkly nose and correct my pronunciation before continuing the sale.
“EE,” she phonetically began, “Rock.”
“You trying to swallow your tongue, kid?”
She shook her head like she knew what the fuck I was telling her. “You get shirt and pant for ten dollar.”
“Sure, kid,” I said. What the hell, right? Not like we were going to see each other again. I pulled the ten from my pouch and offered it to her. Her grubby fingers, cut by sand maybe, snatched at the money, but I pulled it back. “Tell you what, kid. I’ll take the shirt, you bring me the pants and then I’ll give you ten dollars.” She looked at me in the same way that I look at her and her friends when I am sure that they are trying to rip me off. Hopefully she wouldn’t go tell her dad or someone about this and get me blown up.
She thrust the shirt at me and took off, running towards route Spears. I tossed the shirt in the back seat and got in the passenger seat. “Baker,” I said, “let’s go.2

I found out that a pouch can be a valuable thing. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine gave me a Bible. That’s the one I still have, still highlighted and worn out. It has a desert cover too, just like the pouch. Often I sat in the humvee while we were on patrol. I kept trying to pull the jungle camouflage flak vest from my chest to let in some cool air while I read the desert camouflage Bible. My chest was olive green, a nice contrast to the desert around me, but at least my Bible was desert colored. It sure is something to have a New Testament from the Gideons that looks like it came from a war zone. My favorite is to open the passage to the part where Jesus talks about loving your enemies. In fact, I was reading that part to our interpreter this morning.
“Yes, and our Qur’an says this as well.” His sweat was dripping off of his black eyebrows and falling onto his dark chunky cheeks.
“So where does it say that?” Baker was looking at me like I should stop, but this interpreter was pissing me off. “Tell me,” I said.
“You know something,” Baker said, “That’s not cool, Sergeant Neely.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Why would it say to love your enemies in the Qur’an? If it did, we probably wouldn’t be here.”
“Right,” Baker said. “Because we didn’t invade their fucking country.”
I put my Bible in my pouch. “Just get going,” I said.
He started the truck and we left, going towards the marketplace. He made a u-turn and we headed down route Jones. I love the names of the streets. Maybe they named them that way to make us feel more at home. Route Alba, Jessica; route Spears, Britney; and so on.
We drove that way for a while. When we couldn’t get around a huge semi in front of us, I cursed at the truck and Baker stared at me.
“Baker,” I said. “Go to the right a little bit so I can see in front of Hajji.”
He looked at me again. “You really are an ass,” he said.
“What?” I looked back at him. “Seriously, man, why would you say that?”
“Do you even know what a ‘Hajji’ is?” he said.
“Ya,” I said. “It’s one of those guys in front of us. Hajji. Raghead. Insurgent.” I spat these last words at him.”
“You are such an ass.”
“So are you going to tell me what it is,” I said, “or are you going to drive?”
He jerked the truck almost onto the median to look past the semi in front of us. I could see a little figure crossing the street far in front of me. It was carrying a package. I knew who it was. I turned to the interpreter.
“Hey, Joker,” I said. “You know that little girl? The one I was talking to this morning?”
“Yes.” He said. “She always comes to the American. She always asks for money to feed family.”
“What’s her name?” I asked. I couldn’t believe this. He was trying to get me to give her money. Jeez.
“Her name is Cantara,” he said. “This means ‘bridge’.”
“She a good kid?” I asked.
“Yes, I see her all of the time,” the interpreter said. “She only wants to meet American. She loves them and she always take you pant.” I looked back at him.
“What?”
He was smiling at me. “I see you this morning. Don’t worry,” he said. “She honest.”
“See, Sergeant Neely?” Baker said.
“See what?” I said.
“Iraqis aren’t so bad,” he said. He stared at me again.
“Maybe not,” I said. I turned back to Joker in the back seat. “so can you tell me what Hajji means?”
His eyes turned from narrow smiles to wide berths. “Look out!” he yelled.
I looked forward. The truck in front of me had stopped and we were going to hit it. My foot hit the floor mimicking the brakes and the gunner popped out. His body flipped head first onto the hood. My own head hit the windshield and I heard it crack. A second later I looked at my Baker, who sighed and reached for the radio. From outside the truck, the gunner slid off of the hood and opened Baker’s door.
“Fucker,” he said.
Baker looked at me. “Oh God,” he said, “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I was looking at you and trying to hear Joker and I just didn’t pay attention to the truck.”
“Don’t sweat it. Glad I was wearing a helmet.” I put my hand on Baker’s shoulder. “Are you okay? At least no more patrolling today, right?” He looked at me and smiled.
“Ya. Sorry, Sergeant. Stupid fucking move.”
“Don’t worry about it, Baker. Shit happens. Besides, no one got hurt.”
“Sure. Wait till the Commander finds out. He’s going to have my ass,” he said. I felt in my pouch for a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Baker. I took out my lighter and I held it up to the cigarette. A tiny shadow came in front of my view. It was holding out a package and smiling. I reached in to my pouch again to get out a twenty.
“Here you go, kid,” I said.
“I get you more, mistah.” She turned on a calloused heel and started to leave.
“No it’s really fine.” I said.
She turned around and yelled to me. “You good American,” she said. “You good Bush!”
“Alright, kid. Go for it.” She turned again and ran down route Jones. I took a puff of my smoke and blew it at the interpreter.
“So,” Baker said, “you want to know?”
“Hajji?” I said. “Sure. Go for it.”
The interpreter interrupted him. “The Hajj,” he said, “Is pilgrimage to Mecca. A Hajji is one who has done this.”
I took another drag and blew it out. “Well, shit,” I said. “Don’t I feel like an ass.”
“Yes,” Baker said, “You do. Maybe as much as I do.”
I turned back towards Joker. “I’m glad she’s a good girl,” I said.
“Love those kids,” he said, looking after her running back towards the market.
I squinted up at him. “Is that a comment or a question?”
He smiled at me and handed me a copy of the Qur’an in translated English. I put it in my pouch.
“Yes,” he said.