Daily living in Iraq

I have been serving as a chaplain in the Army reserves for the last 17 years. There was some concern about the possibility of being deployed and indeed I was called up December 7th. I have been in Iraq about six months. Now that I have started writing I thought I would endeavor to do some informal chronicling of life here. I have a few ground rules. It would not be appropriate to share my political opinions and I obviously cannot talk about operations and locations.

I would like to give a first hand account of daily life as I see it, which is a very small piece of the whole picture. I should point out that I play a very different role as a chaplain verses your normal soldier. One, I don’t carry a weapon so you will not hear stories about my heroic exploits on the battlefield or raiding insurgent hide outs, or making important command decisions. If you want high drama you will have to go to Hollywood.

What you will find is the daily living stuff. The kind of things the press runs stark raving mad from to avoid. My job is more about the mundane side of helping people pick up the pieces when life has thrown them a curve. It is my job to offer an encouraging word. I am you sure won’t be reading about them in the news. I am also the moral and ethical voice of the commander. I try to help the staff and leaders see the bigger picture and act accordingly. One of the unique elements the role of chaplain provides is the indirect effect on people to entertain the possibility of some spiritual reality. For example, when you become aware that someone you are talking to or mingling with is a doctor, don’t you become conscious of your health? How many times have you asked a doctor a medical question or had to make yourself refrain for asking one? The role of doctor conjures in our imagination things medical or health related. I don’t ask the doctor about legal issues, unless I was talking to them on personal level. The same is true concerning a religious figure. The presence of the chaplain leads people to conjure thoughts related to the spiritual dimensions of life. The difficulty with religion is that it is so personal there is no one objective opinion. So you never know what kind of reaction you will get from people. I like that bit of uncertainty. It makes the religious dialogue more interesting.

I have just described a little bit about my role and what I do. I want to move to one of the daily life functions. I will just pick one, like laundry, since I will be doing that today. Laundry! I have plunged into the very depths of mundane, but where in the press would you find an article on laundry.

I have a green cotton bag. It is about three feet by two feet. At the opening of the bag there is a white drawstring which you use to open and close the bag. In this bag I can put 19 articles of clothing of my own choosing to have washed. I say 19. You’re actually allowed twenty articles but one of them has to be the bag itself. So you can put up to nineteen. You can put less than 19 but not more. It is nineteen, not 21, 19. This is important because if you put more than 19 you will find yourself caring dirty laundry back to your room or to the chow hall if you were dropping it off on the way. Depending on which piece of dirty laundry you had to withdraw from the bag that could make for some discomfort if not down right embarrassment. The workers at the laundry center are religious in their convictions about the rightness of 19. There is no mercy for those who transgress the holy number. I have no idea why they picked nineteen. I suppose it has something to do with the fact there are a lot of people here. If a significant number were the type who like to hoard their dirty laundry and turned in their entire wardrobe it might overwhelm the system. That is the only reason I could come up with.

After I have meticulously counted and recounted my nineteen articles of clothing of my own choosing, I tie the bag closed and walk to the laundry center. There was a policy that only three people were allowed into the room at a time. Why only three, I don’t know! That rule has loosened up some. The other day I was one of a rather large crowd of six. It may not seem important whether three or six can be in the room, but when it is 120 degrees outside and there is air conditioning inside, it is better to be in than out.

I wait my turn for the next available laundry representative. He signals that he is available and I step forward to the counter. There are three forms I have to fill out; that is easy enough. As a soldier I am well trained in the art of filling out unnecessary forms. The stressful feature of the center is the moment when I am asked to empty my bag to count the items. Remember, it can only be 19 and the bag. They don’t take your word for such an important matter. I empty the articles of clothing and count them out by piece. It can be embarrassing. Exposing my own intimate clothing articles is bad enough. Still worse, the fear I might see someone else’s. One time I was counting at the same time a woman started counting her panties. She was holding them up and counting. There were panties of various colors and shapes and conditions. I was mortified. “My god put those things down. I don’t want to see that stuff.” There is no telling what details I might discover about this person and her panties.
I quickly finish counting my own clothing and move out smartly. I tuck my pink claim ticket in to my wallet. In three days I will pick up my nice, clean, 19 clothing articles of my own choosing.