I spent the summer after high school in India, getting some breathing space before having to go to the in-state university that my parents would pay for.
Since I had spent the entire summer out of the country, I missed the June freshman orientation– which as it turns out was when I needed to sign up for classes. By the time August freshman orientation rolled around pretty much all of the classes had been taken. I managed to find a hodge podge of classes that still had some room in them. These included ball-room dance, an ecology class, and a genetics course with an almost retired professor who kept forgetting to come to class. The best by far was a Literature of the Vietnam War class.
My only recollection of the war was seeing a friend’s dad come back after his tour. I don’t remember seeing news reports, although I must have. We had never really covered the Vietnam War in any of my history classes either– we usually ran out of time before we got around to modern events (my European History class got bogged down in the renaissance for 3 months.)
The professor John C. Pratt, did a good job of taking us through the war using literature from all sides of the conflict. Being an retired military man himself, he was also able to give us some idea of what things were like on the ground, both in the civilian and military worlds. It helped that we had a handful of Vietnam Vets in the class, including at least one who was on the verge of insanity.
So– when I decided to come to Iraq, I thought that there must be similarities.
A few weeks ago I had to go to the embassy in Baghdad. It was not what I thought it was going to be.
Before I got there others said that the new embassy is a combination of a college campus and a minimum security prison. Those living and working at the embassy have all of their basic needs met. Lots of food– and good food too. Not the slop that they always showed on M*A*S*H. There is a large lap pool, a big gym and state of the air fitness equipment. There are a variety of places to sit outside if it is not too dusty or hot. The apartments are homey and come wired for free Internet access.
There is also a convenience store (a PX.)
It was in the store that I realized how different this war was.
All the books and movies, documentaries and magazine articles on the Vietnam War show legions of young soldiers.
But Iraq is different. Front line negotiations are happening through the work of the 500 or so positions at the Embassy. But the State Department can’t staff all of those positions with regular Foreign Service Officers– in reality there just aren’t enough of us to do so. So the State Department has been hiring individuals with experience in certain areas to come and work at the Embassy on year long “agreements.” They are like contractors, but we can’t call them contractors because of the way that they are paid.
So what demographic has experience in a certain area, has some freedom to leave their career for a year or so at a time, and could use some extra money????
Lets just say that in the store:
There were as many golf magazines as there were girly ones.
That the wine selection rivaled the beer section.
That there were three different types of at-home colon cleaners.
That there was a bigger variety of denture cleaners and adhesives than deodorant.
And lots of vitamins for healthy joints.
At 40 I was one of the youngest ones around.
I have to say, that the embassy WOULD make a nice assisted living facility.
Warm weather. Lots of sun. No noisy kids.
So watch out for ads in your local paper:
Tigris Tempo Assisted Living
Dessert Wind Retirement
Dust to Dust Solutions
