The September 11 flag

On September 11, 2001, I was working as the Deputy Press Secretary for U.S. Senator Phil Gramm in his Dallas office. I woke up that day and as if my instincts told me something would be different, changed my routine. Fixing some breakfast, I had turned on the television and had just started to eat. The anchor was seated in front of a vast backdrop of the New York skyline, in which one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center was engulfed in a wreath of smoke.

As I watched in fascination, the reporter said that there was no indication that the attack was related to terrorism. At that point the source of the explosion wasn't even certain, much less the instigation behind it.

But seconds later, all doubt was removed as a massive fireball appeared on the screen and the second of the twin towers was struck. Literally as I watched.

I immediately gave up my breakfast and hurried to my truck, and drove into work, listening to the radio reports and trying not to lose my composure. Arriving at the office ahead of my coworkers, I rushed to my office, and turned on the three televisions I normally used to track the Senator's media appearances. Turning them all on different channels, I then called the Washington D.C. office and talked strategy with our head press secretary. Nothing like this had happened in America since Pearl Harbor.

With three televisions, my office soon became the gathering ground for our staff. We were gathered and watching when the Pentagon was attacked, and when a plane disappeared over Pennsylvania. And we watched in horror as first one, then two, of the twin towers collapsed.

Franklin D. Roosevelt had said after Pearl Harbor that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." But fear itself is hard to fight, when the true scope and nature of the threat are nebulous, the origins undetermined. Not knowing who or what was targeted, the order was given by the Senate to evacuate all capitol offices in Washington, and shortly after, the district offices as well. Soon, the staffers - mostly young, 20-something kids - gathered in the state director's office. In subdued tones, we stood in a circle and prayed. I will remember to my dying day the image of one of the girls, wiping away tears. Just the day before, she had been a carefree youth with no fear in the world. That day, I saw fear written large across her face. Across the face of a fellow American. Someone who had never done anything to hurt or oppress anyone, but was a target nonetheless, as we all were.

And then they left, all of them. Except me. I had been asked - and agreed - to stay behind to man the phones. With the D.C. office mandatorily evacuated, I became the only office contact for the senator. Throughout the rest of the day, I answered press calls and drafted press releases for the Senator in consultation with the D.C. press secretary, who gave me guidance on the phone. As he read off the Senator's words and I typed them out, the gravity of the moment was impressed on me. After finishing up the press release and sending it out, I was suddenly confronted with an aweful silence in the room. My televisions were muted and with my work done, I felt both relieved...and drained.

It was then that I began to contemplate at last the new age we had entered, and to consider what my role in that age would be. Certainly, in my job, I was in a greater position to act and shape the world than I had been in even a couple of years before as a small-town journalist. But was this a real role? Was it enough to simply type out a press release calling for a war on terrorism and leave the fighting up to other people's sons, daughters, mothers and fathers?

I felt compelled at that moment to drop everthing and sign up for the military. It was a natural, emotional reaction. But there was a catch. In two months, I would turn 30 years old, and that was the cutoff for most military recruitments. It seemed that my destiny would be to watch from the sidelines, at a great drama unfolding without me. For many, this would have been a relief. For me, perpetually inspired by heroes of older generations, it was a torment.

September 11 was a Tuesday. That Friday, I walked with a friend to the Catholic Cathedral in Dallas for Mass. Passing through an indoor mall, we stopped at a booth for the American Red Cross. They were taking donations of anything and everything. I reached into my wallet and found only one piece of currency - a fresh, $100 bill. And nothing else. After a moment of hesitation, I handed it over. The woman who received it was stunned. I didn't look rich, and despite a great-sounding job title, government work doesn't make you rich either. But it was something, and I felt I had to give. As I passed over the bill, my sense of hesitation was relieved by a growing sense that I had done the right thing. It was silly, really, to worry about $100 when so many people had lost so much.

Almost as an afterthought, the woman stopped me before I could walk away, and gave me a small plastic American flag. "Thank you, and God bless you," she said. I took the flag and carried it with me to the prayer service.

As you can no doubt guess, I have kept this flag with me throughout the years. I kept it as I made the decision to join the Navy Reserves after finding a program that would take me and let me serve despite my age. I kept it as I was commissioned, as I went through my first year of training. I kept it through my second and third years as I served as a reserve officer, putting in weekends working on projects that relieved the strain on the folks on the front lines. Finally, my time came to go forward as well, and as I packed last July for my year in Iraq, I mused for a moment on the flag, hanging on my bookshelf. I pulled it down without a moment's hesitation and stuck it into my backpack.

My flag was with me through every part of my journey. It was displayed proudly in my foot locker at Fort McCoy. I carried it through Kuwait, and it was in my backpack as I boarded the C-130 to Iraq. Moving into my new trailer, I stuck it on my wall. It was there, and emerged unscathed as that same wall was riddled with shrapnel following a rocket explosion in November. Though the wall nearby was pierced, the flag was untouched.

Finally, as I left Iraq, it was with me. At my last stop in theater, at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, I unfurled my tattered September 11 flag and snapped a picture - something I had never gotten around to doing up to that point. It's only a small piece of plastic, but it's a reminder - a bind - which ties my service today to that moment so many years ago when we all felt small, unempowered and vulnerable. And yet it reminds me of all that I did throughout those years to change from a civilian who could do nothing, to a serviceman who could do something. My role may have been small - but like a voter on election day, one person, doing their small part, can make a big difference, when multiplied by thousands.

And across America in the last few years, thousands and thousands of Americans did just what I did. They all had some experiences which they look back to, which reminds them, just as my flag does. And like me, those thousands of Americans are doing their part. As I left Iraq, I knew it was in good hands, because so many of those people had come and so many would follow. Somewhere, deep down, we all have a little flag which inspires us - a small, insignificant token which represents something greater, something noble, and something to which we are willing to dedicate our lives. And that's what keeps us going.

Back in the USA

Well folks, I'm back. I plan a blog entry to tell you all about the redeployment experience, but well, now that I'm home, real life is too fun to sit around blogging. But I'll try to put something up in the next couple of days.

Random Pictures Part IV

One last batch of random photos from Iraq:

An old Iraqi T-72 tank. This tank and three others were left over from the initial invasion. They had been towed into a heap and left to rot. The "hill" that this picture was taken from is actually another tank, with only a section of its top turret hatch sticking up, like the entrance to a cave.

A mosque at Camp Slayer.

That same mosque, with a civilian jet landing at Baghdad International Airport behind it.

Me and my friend from the Tongan Marines, David. David and his fellow Tongans provided us with security for the 10 months of my deployment. To all the Tongans in the world, I simply say, "Malo!"

A last farewell at the palace. Myself along with Captain Miller, Sgt. Hernandez and Major Quinby.

"I'm leaving...And I'm taking the rat with me!"

Finally, at long last, the end came.

It took a while though. My last few days seemed to slow to a crawl. My work had been parcelled out to my colleagues and I was shifted from the night shift to days. My boss told me he only needed to see me once a day to prove I was alive, and outside of that, I was free.

Free? What does that word mean? At least in Iraq, it really means little. There are precious few things you can do to enjoy your freedom, and since all your friends are still tied to work, you're not really free to do anything but wander around the base alone and think. And with the weather topping off around 120 degrees, wandering around just isn't a good idea.

I did get a few things done - saw a few things I hadn't been able to see before. But in the end, I kept gravitating back to work. Some of the projects I had worked on needed to be updated, and I knew it would be too long before my coworkers could get to them. So I'd come in anyway. One project was being shut down, but I'd committed to updating it until the end of the month. That meant getting in extra work before I left, but I didn't want to go out on a whimper.

"Why are you still here?" one of the sergeants asked. "Don't you have to pack or something?"

"Already have packed," I said. I had packed and unpacked and then packed again. Then I unpacked, stuffed some of my personal things in a box and mailed it home. Then I packed again. I had traded in my guitar for a measly 4 DVDs and given away my fishing pole and tackle for free. The only other thing I could do was sit around my trailer reading a book on the Battle of Britain.

At work, I spent most of the time running around doing administrative stuff to prepare for my leave. One night a small going away ceremony was held for myself and an Army Major who was also leaving soon. After the Colonel spoke kind words about each of us, we were given a round of applause and everyone in the facility came down to shake our hands. About 80 people came by, each one trying their hardest to crush my hands with their grasp. About halfway through, I began to wish I had taken my college ring off, but it was too late, and each time a marine came up, he squeezed with a vice-like grip, grinding my ring against my fingers.

I came in for a couple of days after that, feeling like a lame duck president. But finally, my project finished and my flight time set, there was no work left to be done. The crew that I worked with - who had all come in as green novices four months ago - were now just as expert in their work as I had become before they arrived. In those days, I feared that they'd never get it right, and that things would really fall apart when the "old hands" left. But I have no such worries now.

I worked in a facility called the Joint Operations Center - which is laid out like a NASA control room. Over the last 10 months, it had become my home, and its personalities and peculiarities had shaped my experience in Iraq. Now, it was time to say goodbye.

"Alright, Sir, it's time," I said to my boss, offering my hand, which he shook. "I'm leaving...And I'm taking the rat with me!"

Shortly after the previous corps had departed in February and the new corps took over, they had banished the proliferation of personal items that had decorated desks and computers. The most devastating blow was the removal - and likely disposal - of the "JOC security rat" - a small rubber toy who had guarded the stairs to prevent unauthorized access.

It had been a stunning blow to morale, but by an odd coincidence, someone had placed a small brown beanie-baby rat on the WalMart table outside just that very day. I don't know what kind of person thinks: "How can I help support the troops in Iraq? I know. I'll send them this rat!" Nonetheless, their anonymous gift was greatly appreciated. Smuggling the rat into the facility, I placed it in a position of high importance - and low visibility - where it could stand watch, and guide us through our work. With the addition of a small wizzard hat, it became the mascot of the Intel department. When one person complained that the wizzard hat looked more like a sombrero, the rat got the nickname "Speedy" after the Looney Tunes mouse.

So, stuffing Speedy into my cargo pocket safe from the eyes of the Sgt. Major - the enforcer of the Draconian anti-fun rules - I grabbed my weapon and my hat and headed out the door. The traditional farewell in the JOC is a departing salute. My boss came up on the intercom and announced, "Attention in the JOC! Now departing for the very last time, LTJG Bernsen."

Five hours later, I was back at Baghdad International Airport, once again sleeping on the hard concrete, waiting for the morning to come, and with it, liberation from Iraq. But the airport had changed. The first two times, I'd had to sleep on gravel. The third time, I got to sleep on concrete. This time, I slept on concrete inside a tent. An airconditioned tent. That concrete was like paradise.

With unusual efficiency, I was aboard a C-130 by 9 a.m. As the back hatch slowly closed with a high-pitched whine, the little line of bright sunlight pinched and then vanished. Turning to the little round window next to my head, I gave a last look at Iraq. As the plane began to rumble down the runway, I turned back around and breathed a sigh of relief. In just over an hour, I would be in Kuwait, and Iraq would be behind me. Forever.

Flintstone Village

Saddam Hussein was a sick, evil bastard, but there's no reason that sick, evil bastards can't love their grandkids too. Hitler loved children, or at least that's what the propaganda photos always showed - Hitler shaking hands with little German girls in dirndls and starting a "youth club" for the little boys. How charming.

Hitler's bizzarre mountaintop retreat at Obersaltzburg was kind of an adult fantasyland, complete with strange pagan and medival imagery and castle-like construction. Perhaps the builders took an idea from the not too distant Neuschwanstein Castle, where the Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria had built his astounding fairy-tale fortress which became the inspiration for Disneyland.

It finally occurred to me that that's what this whole palace complex where I live is: a fantasy get-away place for the old Iraqi elites. And like Hitler's cronies, who built a mountaintop dreamland (for a guy who was notoriously afraid of heights), Saddam's cronies built palace after palace to glorify their leader and his triumphs, real or imaginary.


But Saddam didn't want to live the big life all by himself, and built palaces for his sons and friends. He had grandchildren too: precocious little tykes who liked cartoons, sports and games.

He must have thought them charming, suspended in that little naive world of youth - you know that time before they grow up to run rape rooms and torture cells just like daddy and grandpa.

And one thing that these kids really, really liked was "The Flintstones." That's right, the 1990s spinoff movie of the old classic 1960s cartoon. These kids must have devoured the show, because one year, for their birthday or something - it probably wasn't Christmas - Grandpa Saddam told his architects to take time off from building some of his numerous palaces and had them build something entirely different - a perfect replica Flintstone Village.

And so, the architects of the tyrant turned away from their marble columns, monumental arches and intricate mosaics and turned to something totally new. How strange was this building? It was like no government-built building in the entire country - it did not feature either the image or the wise sayings of Saddam Hussein. What? A building in Iraq without Hussein's face or name stamped all over it? What blasphemy!

And so they set about designing the replica building, complete with fanciful cave-like dwellings, odd-shaped windows and terrifying precipices that any normal parent would never conceive of incorporating into what was to become a child's playground.

One can almost imagine the wonder and joy of the children when they first saw their new fantasy land. I could just hear them shrieking and yelling as they bounded up the stairs.


The building is not just eccentric on the outside, it features tons of little caves and maze-like walkways, as well as funny little playrooms:




It must have been quite the playground back in the day, but after four years of neglect, it's now a shell of its former glory. Years of soldiers, contractors and others passing through have left their marks, in ubiquitous graffiti. A touch of Disneyland meets a touch of the Berlin Wall.

















The graffiti shows the wide diversity of people who have passed through. Americans from just about every state. Texans, Californians, and some very proud patriotic Hawaiian who took the time to sketch their unique flag. Certainly a few proud Marylanders must have come through, but they didn't bother trying to do their complex, gaudy flag.



Australians are well-represented, as are troops from El Salvador and other coalition countries. Indians, Pakastanis, Fillipinos and other contractors have all come by to tag this place.


As someone who is averse to graffiti on principle, I nonetheless make exception for symbols of oppression, be they in Baghdad or Berlin. Seeing good ol' American obscenities painted all over this place actually warms me up inside.



It is impressive on its face, but like many places around here, the construction is rather shoddy. In the palace where I work, the beautiful marble is a fake facade. Once the marble panels - about half an inch thick - are removed, the concrete beneath is appallingly-poorly made. In fact, it's not really concrete, but more like adobe. While I'm sure the structural beams are stoutly-built with rebar, elsewhere the only support in this cheap concrete is some kind of chicken wire.



The Flintstone Village is no different. Walking along the walkways here, you see dozens of places where the fake walls have simply caved in, leaving gaping holes that you could easily step into and fall through.


And when I say fall through, we're not talking a little drop to Pebbles' playroom below. How about a 40 foot drop through iron girders and concrete supports to the rancid lake muck? Perhaps we could have disposed of Saddam quicker by simply exporting to him our legal system and then unleashing the tort attorneys.




In other places, whole sections of the wall have fallen through, as if the Flintstones' pet tyrannosaur had come through here smashing and stomping in full Godzilla roid-rage style.


Perhaps this is what happens when Fred doesn't give you your Dino crack.

One only wonders how much damage is a result of the Occupation or perhaps soldiers knocking a chunk of the plaster off for souvernirs. But the advanced deterioration of this less-than-a-decade-old structure is really just par for the course for Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Everywhere I turn, I see this ostensibly oppulent facade is really just rotten through beneath. A kind of Costco version of Versailles.


Right across the lake from this faux attempt at Americana is, ironically, Saddam Hussein's unfinished meglomaniacal masterpiece, the "Victory over America" Palace. Like the builder of Versailles, Saddam Hussein lived in a dream world of his own overblown importance. "L'Etat est moi," he seemed to be saying, and he figured that if you can't beat 'em, build a palace and claim you did anyway.


In the end, Saddam's dementia offered nothing to his country but disaster and gaudy monuments to ego. And years on, that's all that's left. He thought he was a new sun king, but ended up little more than a half-baked Ozymandias.

Perhaps the final statement on Saddam Hussein's Iraq can be summed up with this image. Standing and surveying the wrecked America palace is Staff Sgt. Billy, an Oklahoman on his third tour in Iraq. Sgt. Billy's a simple guy - a hard-working American Indian who does his job and never complains. Humble and good-hearted, he's the antithesis of the egoism reflected in the design of the palace before him. Saddam Hussein thought of himself as one of the greatest conquerors and historic figures of all time, but in the end, he was toppled not by generals or presidents or even high technology.

Saddam Hussein was toppled by an army of Sgt. Billys.

A Visit to Camp Slayer

I took a trip recently over to Camp Slayer, another massive base on the same complex as Victory. Like Victory, Slayer is built on a former Ba'ath Party playground - a resort that looks more like a water park than the home of an oppressive regime.

There are palm groves everywhere here. They're really quite beautiful, except that beneath the trees and the reeds is just more and more of that almost sickly Baghdad sand. I seriously think we should import several tons of Astroturf to Iraq so that they can put it down and pretend they have grass. I think there's a direct relationship to the amount of grass a country has to how violent and repressive they are. I mean, look at England. They've got tons of grass, and they haven't launched a war in a century.

The lake, like that at Camp Victory proper, is surrounded by Palaces and offices of the Ba'ath Party. When Gen. Tommy Franks referred to the "Oil for Food" program as "Oil for Palaces," he wasn't kidding. Saddam built them with a manic obsession, even as his people were starving.

This palace appears to have a little bay where a large boat could be brought in. On the other side of the lake, half sunk, there's a large houseboat which looks like it would have fit perfectly in this bay. The left section of the palace in this picture must have had some significance - it was probably one of Saddam's many bedrooms - because we sent a cruise missile into it.

This massive palace was never finished, and sits abandoned. It is a testament to Saddam's meglomaniacal powers of self-delusion called the "Victory over America" Palace. Yes. In addition to the Victory over the Persians palace, he had to build a monument to his collossal 1991 Gulf War victory, in which he lost a mere 20,000 soldiers to our 100 or so. He also valliantly sacrificed thousands of tanks (as opposed to the clearly vanquished Americans, who lost fewer than a dozen) and the entire Iraqi Air Force was blown to oblivion or - in a show of tremendous courage - flew to Iran and hid. Yet, the one thing that was important to Saddam Hussein - his own skin - was preserved. Therefore, for him, it was a victory.

There are at least two others on base that were in the middle of construction when the war kicked off. We're just letting them rot. The Iraqis can figure out what to do with them when we give them back.

The lake here is dotted with a lot of small islands. Some have houses and long bridges out to them. Some just appear to be there for looks.

A small villa on one of the islands. Saddam's friends and relatives all had their own little batchelor pads here. His evil sons Uday and Qusay also had houses, which supposedly have some very disturbing mosaics on the walls.

Another Villa.

And another.

A drawbridge on one of the roads, for passage of some of the large boats that once plied these waters.

The most impressive palace at this complex is what's known as the Perfume Palace, which was a favorite hangout of Uday and Qusay, who maintained a brothel here. It is said that the smell of the perfume of the...employees...was so strong that it could be smelled for years after they had gone. On my one trip inside this palace, I saw some amazing art, including a fascinating bas relief depicting scenes from the Iran/Iraq war and an astounding chandellier...but no perfume.

But perhaps the most strange thing on this base is something not even I would have ever expected to find. I'll save that for my next post.

Two days and a Wake-up

That's the unique expression folks use around here to keep track of their time. The "wake-up", of course, being the day of your flight out.

This place reminds everybody of a prison. One in which the inmates are armed. When I arrived, I had 300 days, give or take, and a wake-up. Now, that time has dwindled down to less than 1 percent, and it's hard to imagine that I'll soon be going home. In a lot of ways, I've become accustomed to this place. Never enjoyed it, just used to it. Kind of like the old baseball glove you've had since little-league, which doesn't fit, was never comfortable, but you just kept using it and can't imagine ever throwing it away.

Only there won't be any nostalgia to hold me back from my flight. That's why I've taken so many pictures and written so many stories. If one day, deep in the future, I look back and naively imagine that this place was all fun, I have the stories and the pictures to remind what it was really like. Sure, there were lots of fun moments, and there were even times that I thought about extending here for a few more months. But in the end, what this place is and what it has represented for me is something I can never put into a photo, but perhaps can someday put into words: exhausting, hot and confining. Only now, with two days and a wake-up to go do I realize that I've had - other than leave - only two days off in the last 300. How I managed to get around and take so many photos, I can't even figure out myself. But when I could steal away time to do that, it certainly has helped me get through this process.

There's so much more I could do or see if I had more time, but right now, it's two days and a wake-up. That's all the time left and that's all the time I want.