Saying goodbye to a different culture

February 20, 2005

Everyone crowded around the plastic table and dove into the plates of lamb and peppers and breads with bare hands.

The food was brought by 3rd Battalion interpreters. It was a day of celebration and sorrow melded into one.

It was a day to say goodbye.

Capt. Mike Robbins of Junction City and Staff Sgt. Paul Bunn of Bradford will leave Gunslinger tomorrow and never come back.

Robbins and Bunn are headed to Kuwait where they will help coordinate the movement of soldiers through a camp there over the next month and then on to Fort Sill, Okla.

Robbins and Bunn started out this deployment with 3rd Battalion’s Delta Company. Robbins was company commander.

Robbins became the battalion’s governmental affairs officer a few months ago, supervising civil affairs projects, and brought Bunn with him to oversee the battalion’s interpreters.

Bunn, the unbelievably colorful mayor of Bradford, took care of the interpreters, listened to their worries and problems and grieved their deaths. The battalion has lost several interpreters to assassination.

And tonight they said goodbye.

There was dancing to Iraqi music and eating in Iraqi style — everyone eating with hands from shared plates.

“This is exactly what it was like at my house growing up,” Bunn said as he reached for some lamb.

He turned to me and whispered, “Boy, I can’t wait for that good ol’ American Wendy’s hamburger.”

One of the interpreter’s boys — he’s about 3 — was running around with a toy AK-47 rifle. When soldiers see kids with those on the street, they smash the toys. They look just like a real AK and could easily get a child killed if he pointed it at a soldier.

Anyway, this boy was running around the room with his toy AK, pointing it at people and shooting them.

Not cool.

He ran in front of me, shouldered the weapon and “pop!”

If it was real, it would have hit me dead center. It took everything I had not to dive to the floor when I saw him point it at me. And I knew it was a toy!

No, it didn’t last long. Someone finally took it away from him to save their nerves.

The interpreters didn’t fully understand why it made us so nervous. We were all friends there, there was no threat. But AKs — real or fake — make us nervous. There have been too many pointed toward us over the last year.

As we talked and laughed and avoided the shooting toddler, the interpreters prepared to say goodbye, too. They will go to other units when the rest of the 39th leaves and will not likely work together again.

Some are likely to be killed if they continue to work with American forces, too. One interpreter who used to work with the battalion but was sent to a unit down south a few months ago was killed yesterday.

It’s a reality of their job, just like it’s a reality of a soldier’s job that he or she may die.

But as we prepare to part, memories are made. Pictures are snapped. Laughter is shared.

We all signed one of the interpreter’s flags. Sadr is Kurdish and had everyone sign an Iraqi flag and his beloved Kurdish flag as a keepsake.

I was signing the Kurdish flag when I saw Robbins run across the room holding a broom.

Within five minutes, the soldiers were teaching the Iraqi interpreters how to do the limbo.

I totally predict that this nation will have a limbo craze within the next year that will be tracked back to this party.

Earlier, the interpreters had tried to teach some of us Iraqi dances. No, it didn’t go well.

And one came forward to proudly show the stitches on his head where he had whacked himself with scissors during the Ashoura holiday last week.

Ashoura is the holiest of religious holidays for Shiite Muslims. They celebrate the death of a religious leader by making a pilgrimage to a mosque in the Kadhamiya District while scourging themselves with whips or knives to shed blood as a symbol of their devotion.

Ouch.

It’s a whole different world.

Posted by Amy at February 20, 2005 06:01 PM