 |
RED ZONE, GREEN ZONE: Four
square miles of Baghdad are barricaded as a haven
for officials, contractors and aid workers like
Stalla.
AFP/Getty Images |
Flying into baghdad reminded
me of the way an osprey hovers high over our bay in
Maine, then drops suddenly to snatch its prey from the
water. The two-prop plane circles at more than 5,000
feet, then turns on its wings and makes a tight, twisting
plunge toward earth. Called a “corkscrew landing,”
this maneuver seeks to avoid missiles launched by the
insurgents who roam the airport perimeter. For a few
minutes, the increased gravitational pull presses the
brain against the top of the skull, and a book on one’s
lap becomes almost too heavy to lift. With little time
to spare, the pilot levels the plane and bounces down
hard on the runway. Unexpected and disorienting, the
corkscrew landing makes a fine metaphor for life in
the Green Zone of occupied Iraq.
Working on a six-month contract with the Coalition Provisional
Authority, my focus was its $3 billion “food pipeline”
to ensure that 27 million Iraqis do not suffer major
food shortages. During the orientation in Washington,
D.C., officials assured me that humanitarian aid workers
had not been shot. “Just keep your head down and
stay safe,” they instructed.
Sweating under the weight of two Army duffels and a
backpack, I waited at the Baghdad airport for transport.
A bus with windows covered in black curtains pulled
up, and the driver called out, “Toss your gear
in the bin below and get on quick.” Initially
embarrassed to board a bus while wearing the “battle
rattle” of flak vest and helmet, I saw instead
that I would fit right in.
The bus entered the Red Zone and began a dash toward
safety. All at once there was congestion: soldiers on
foot along the roadside, three lanes of traffic ballooning
into five. “Could be an IED up ahead,” the
driver called out. This was my first new word of many.
Insurgents assembled IEDs—improvised explosive
devices—by night and detonated them by day when
Coalition forces passed. IEDs had killed three civilians
and wounded two soldiers the previous day. Minutes later,
we entered the Green Zone: the 4-square-mile haven bounded
on one side by the Tigris River, but otherwise walled
off from Baghdad by checkpoints, barricades and bunkers.
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Stanley Stalla
Tanya Mitchell/The Republican
Journal |
Lying in bed that night, my battle rattle within reach,
I listened to my first evening’s concert. The
Sounds of War started with the syncopated “bumf-bumf
... bumf” of incoming mortars, soon answered overhead
by the timpani of attack helicopters. Variations on
this theme repeated almost every night and gave me hours
to contemplate how I’d come to be in Iraq. For
23 years, my wife, Maureen (O’Keefe, ’74),
and our four children and I had zigzagged through foreign
aid assignments, including time in Jordan, Oman, Sri
Lanka and Peru. Ostensibly, I was in Baghdad because
of an impressive résumé of humanitarian
work. But an inner voice reminded me that the lure of
adventure had played a major role.
After expropriating the presidential palace from Saddam
Hussein’s Republican Guard, the Coalition Provisional
Authority converted it into an office unlike any I had
ever experienced. Chandeliers illuminated floors and
walls of Italian marble in shades of cream, salmon,
charcoal and beige. Soldiers outnumbered civilians,
and I got used to seeing an M-16 pushed under a chair
in the chapel, or set against a table as the owner poured
blue cheese dressing on her salad. The palace was a
great equalizer. Man or woman, Iraqi or foreigner, American
or European, in helmet or in hijab (headscarf):
we all shared the same frustrations and fears.
I worked with Iraqis who had grown up imprisoned in
their own country. I learned of executed brothers, of
sons reunited with widowed mothers after 20 years of
self-imposed exile. Saddam had worked his brutality
in the same dining hall where the more than 500 Coalition
Provisional Authority workers ate. Iraqi friends described
how Saddam would invite dozens of guests to dine with
him and then, halfway through the meal, point out whose
plates had been poisoned for being “enemies of
the revolution.”
In a country where telephones seldom worked, where travel
a few miles to meet colleagues risked injury, the simplest
conversations affirmed people’s dedication and
bravery. When anyone donned battle rattle to attend
a meeting in the Red Zone, we all knew how precarious
the next two hours could be. A simple “Come back
safely” was tinged with an apprehension and affection
that beggared those earlier warnings about keeping your
head down.
Late one evening, an explosion sent us scurrying to
the palace basement. Seeking solitude from the noisy
corridors, I ducked into a dimly lit room where low
ceilings were laced with water pipes. Following a bend
in the room, I stopped short, surprised by a wall covered
with calligraphy. The flowing Arabic letters had been
painted years before, perhaps while Saddam was scheming
in the rooms above. The artist probably assumed his
brushstrokes would never be seen except by an occasional
janitor.
I began intoning the words I could decipher, when behind
me I heard a lilting voice: “b’ism Allah
ar-Rahman ar-Rahim—In the Name of God, the
Compassionate, the Merciful.” I turned to face
a lovely young woman in her hijab. Hers was
one of dozens of faces I passed day after day, smiling
as our lives intersected fleetingly. She worked across
the hall as an interpreter in the Ministry of Sports
and Youth. She helped me pronounce lines from the Koran,
explaining that the wall’s verse spoke of peace
and harmony.
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AFP/Getty Images |
A day to epitomize life in Baghdad occurred not long
afterward. Talking to a consultant in a part of the
palace far from my office, I spotted a small bowl of
paper clips. “Could I take five of these? They’re
the first paper clips I’ve seen in Baghdad.”
She laughed and told me to help myself to 10. Triumphant
with my bounty, I then headed to the cafeteria for lunch,
where I heard people talking about an incident that
morning. The minister for sports and youth had been
waiting to enter the Green Zone, when gunmen appeared
from the crowd, sprayed the minister’s car with
bullets and fled in a waiting vehicle. Three people
had been injured, and the minister’s interpreter
had been killed on the spot. That day is forever etched
in my mind: my delight in finding paper clips, and my
sadness at hearing about the death of a gentle Iraqi
woman who had read the Koran to me. B’ism
Allah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim . . .
Inevitably, we endured other violent incidents. My Iraqi
office mate was in the third vehicle behind a suicide
car bomber. The palace hairdresser was shot in the face
by assailants who killed her parents, probably as a
reprisal for their daughter’s collaboration with
the Coalition. A colleague mentioned that someone killed
by an IED had worked down the hall with the Ministry
of Oil. His description matched that of a man with whom
I had exchanged smiles for several months, as we passed
each other in the corridor. I had always intended to
meet this man, whose face I found kind and compelling.
With only a few weeks left in my Baghdad assignment,
one evening I was rushing through the corridor with
a plastic plate of macaroni and cheese, a bottle of
water sticking out of my pocket, and a cellular phone
to my ear, listening to an Iraqi colleague’s ideas
about how to get more rice distributed to remote villages.
Rounding the corner near my office, I almost dropped
my plate. Coming toward me was the man I thought had
been killed. Not wanting to embarrass him or myself,
I simply set down my plate and phone, stuck out my hand,
and said, “Hi, I’m Stan. I think you must
work down the hall, at the Ministry of Oil. I’ve
wanted to meet you.”
“I’m Joel,” he responded. “Shall
we have lunch one day this week?” With our handshake,
some of the despair in my heart recoiled into a successful
corkscrew landing.
What they say about living in a war zone is true: colors
are brighter, sounds are more glorious, life is more
intense. Walking back to my trailer at night, the moon
that shone through the palms was bigger and whiter than
the one that shines in Maine. Thinking of home, I remembered
how the osprey hovers and dives, then soars to new heights,
ever vigilant of the life below. |
