Unsettling reactions

February 11, 2005

I just sat down in my almost-empty Taji trailer and cracked open a warm “Coke Light” — Coca Cola’s Arabic version of Diet Coke.

No, it doesn’t taste the same.

Anyway, as I snapped the pull tab off the can and tossed it into the trash, I thought about what an odd day it’s been.

Warm sodas don’t bother me anymore. I drink ’em just the same as cold ones. I guess you just get used to that.

I never really noticed it until now.

You get used to a lot of things over here.

We hardly notice the rumble of helicopters flying low over our trailers, literally rattling the tin roof.

Somehow, our minds can tell the difference between our artillery and other things that go boom, such as incoming rockets or mortar rounds.

A good example happened about 11:30 a.m. today.

I was talking with Lt. Col. John Edwards, the brigade’s staff judge advocate, when something exploded outside.

“That was close,” he said.

And we continued talking.

Neither one of us jumped or even moved.

Then gunfire erupted.

Both of us turned an ear toward the open window at the back of Edwards’ office and listened for a moment. Then we went on with our discussion.

The noise was from a roadside bomb outside Camp Taji’s gate.

A big one.

The gunfire followed the explosion. Some of it was ours, some not.

No one died.

A little later I was chatting with Brig. Gen. Ron Chastain, brigade commander, and brought up the boom.

His reaction had been similar to ours.

How weird is that?

How bizarre is it to not be fazed by explosions so close you can feel the concussion move through the building and your body?

Lt. Col. Kendall Penn, commander of the brigade’s 1st Battalion, calls Iraq the land of not quite right.

It’s an odd place and I guess we’ve gotten used to it.

This is our normal.

This is every day.

What will happen when we get back to normal America, I wonder?

Will we miss the booms and helicopters? Will things seem out of whack?

I hear soldiers ask these questions out loud every single day.

My answer? Definitely.

After a year of living in a place like Baghdad, where death is an everyday occurrence, normal is no longer what it had been.

See, there are no helicopters flying right now, no rumbling in the sky.

That’s rare here. So I notice the silence instead of the noise.

Noise is normal, silence is not.

Some soldiers say the silence makes them nervous. I can understand that.

I wonder how long it will take for the new normal of home to grab hold.

We’ll know in a month or two.

Posted by Amy at February 11, 2005 04:50 AM