Iraqi Soccer, cheerleaders and the Civil War

It's been very quiet in recent days. So quiet, in fact, that one would hardly think there's a war on. At least around these parts. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean the place has gotten entirely safe. Forget the insurgency, an entirely new danger faces us: Iraqi Soccer.

Last night, the Iraqi national Soccer team faced its biggest challenge yet. The team, whose dramatic rise to greatness despite the war and violence, faced a team that on paper should have destroyed them: China. And as they have done so often before, the Iraqi team rose to the challenge and defeated the Chinese in a stunning upset.

I was at work at the time this happened, and the first I knew was when an Army Sergeant came into the office.

"I nearly got shot this morning," he said.

"Really?" I asked. "Where were you."

I thought he'd been on a patrol in West Rashid or Karkh.

"In my trailer. Sleeping."

Yes folks, Iraqis know how to throw a party. In perfect East Houston fashion, their ubiquitous way of celebrating victory or weddings or just about anything is to raise their guns in the air and fire away. Thus, somewhere probably a mile beyond our wall, some excited Iraqi soccer fan stuck an AK-47 into the air and let loose a torrent of metallic exuberation. Miles away, the sergeant was sleeping in his room when a loud slapping sound echoed across the room. He woke up briefly, decided he imagined it, and went back to sleep.

Unfortunately, another soldier not far away was not so lucky, and got a bullet through his shoulder. Not a life-threatening wound this time, but stray rounds have been known to kill. There was one at the gym a few months back. A guy sleeping in a tent. One soldier was hit on a treadmill and another in the shower. Fortunately those two lived.

But, so far as I know, the minor wound in the shoulder was all we got courtesy of the Iraqi soccer team. Nonetheless, the MPs took precautions and went trailer to trailer to ask if there were any injuries. That was when they woke up the Sergeant in our story. He answered the door, said that they were fine, then turned on his lights. Little chunks of the ceiling were strewn across the room, and there, in perfect condition, a sharply-pointed brass 7.62 round lay on the floor. It was this he later showed to me at work.

It was rather bizzarre that the bullet was not deformed. Normally, when a bullet strikes something - anything - it changes shape from a point to a kind of mushroom-like shape. That's what happened to the bullet that Maj. Q, my boss found, earlier this week.

"I walk the exact same route home every day, without fail," he said. "And then, yesterday afternoon, as I walked home, I found this."

He produced another round - also a 7.62 AK-47 round. Although this was flat and mashed, with the brass jacket pealed away to expose the silvery lead beneath it. Maj. Q said he was going to try to get it home to show his kids.

"Not much of a war story," I said. "You need to spice it up. Tell them that you dodged it."

"That wouldn't be true," he said.

"Of course it's true," I replied. "You just dodged it by 6 hours."

He thought this was funny and put it into our growing quote book.

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Why do I always miss the cheerleaders?

This is becoming a major annoyance for me, and is seriously hurting my morale. I arrived in country about two days after the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders were here. I saw pictures, but it's not the same thing. And then, the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders arrived, and I was at work and couldn't get away. Leaving for lunch, I was barely out the door as they climbed aboard their bus and drove off.

Earlier this week, it was a new batch. I think it was the Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders. The guy who told me about it wasn't quite sure. He seemed to recall every detail but that. Anyway, they came to visit us at midnight, which was great because the night shift always gets short shrift. Unfortunately, I arrived at work 30 minutes past midnight, and well, they were gone.

Yesterday, however, I arrived at lunch to see several very nice looking young women in the dinining facility. Wearing matching black outfits, they were signing autographs. I stopped by the table on my way out and discovered that they were in fact the dance team for the Seattle Supersonics. They gave me an autographed picture, but their performance wasn't until 8 p.m. that night. When I'm sleeping of course. And on another base down the road.

Typical

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So, knowing I couldn't make the dancers' performance, I walked over to the MWR center to go use the Internet. Out of curiosity, I poked my head into the little movie theater we have here. The movie - which was just about halfway through - was "Gods and Generals." It's a very historically accurate - if slow developing Civil War drama, and I've seen it many times. I dropped onto a couch - it's been two months since I sat on a couch - and watched the last part of it.

The most intense part of the movie encompasses the Battle of Fredricksburg, which was fought between the Union and Confederate Armies from Dec. 11-15, 1862, and the Battle of Chancellorsville, which followed it.

It was interesting, as I sat there with the other soldiers, wondering who in the room would have been fighting on the opposite sides. One guy, based on his accent alone, would probably have been wearing a blue uniform. I myself, and a few others, would probably have been wearing grey. And we would have stood there in rows and loaded and fired muskets at each other. But that was the past, and today we wore the same uniform and serve in the same army.

The other thing that struck me, while watching this, was how vast a difference in the nature of war had occurred, and how little perspective Americans have about it. At Chancellorsville, the Union Army had in one battle in one small town in Virginia almost as many soldiers as the U.S. Army has today in the entire country of Iraq. The Confederates, whose forces were half as large, actually won both battles.

And the total casualties in those two battles (less than a week of fighting) were actually greater than all of the casualties in Iraq. After five years of fighting here, 4,000 Americans have died. In those two battles alone, 5,000 Americans died. And those were just two of dozens of brutal battles in that war.

It is true, as Robert E. Lee said at Fredricksburg, that "war is so terrible." But the scope and nature have changed dramatically. Back then, 2 out of every 100 Americans died in a war. Today, that number is barely 1 in 100,000.

An interesting, statistic. But in the interest of leaving on a happy, optimistic note, as good as that is, it's getting even better today. Whatever you're seeing reported in the news about the vast improvements of the surge, let me just add this: It's better than anybody is reporting. In fact, I've noticed about a month or two lag in media coverage. So if they're saying back home that things are getting better, let me just assure you that things are getting incredibly better. Not perfect, of course, but far better than I myself (an optimist, even) would have ever predicted nine months ago, when I arrived.

Even then, attacks were headed down, as the effects of the surge and some new counter-insurgency strategies began to take hold. But the drop in violence - as big in terms of qualitative, as much as quantitative, violence - has been stunning to behold. And there came that Eureka moment when the Iraqi Army actually realized that all that painstaking training their American counterparts had given them works. Suddenly, rather than going into battle hesitantly and fearful, they started going into battle ready to rock and roll.

The writing is on the wall, and though the terrorists will continue to attack, and continue to kill (mostly innocent Iraqis who get in their way), they no longer have the ability to control the outcome of the fight.

So, with my time here coming to a close in just over two weeks, I can look back with immense pride on what we've accomplished. The great majority of the credit, of course, goes to those hard warriors who load up, sector up and get out into the thick of it every day. If I've done something to help them do their job better - or give them the tools they need to do so - then that was my mission, and that's what I will wear with pride for the rest of my life.

27 days left!

Getting close...

Middle Eastern Night at the MWR

The MWR is where soldiers and others on base go to relax, sit on real, authentic couches, use computers, play pool and watch television. Although the television's almost always tuned into wrestling, so I don't think you could call it relaxing. MWR stands for Morale, Welfare and Recreation, and every base has one of these places that ostensibly gives us a chance to unwind and take our minds off the war.

Not that you really have much opportunity to use one when you're on a 12-hour shift like me. Generally, if I'm not working, I'm sleeping or working out. But I do get over there to do a few things on the Internet that I can't do at work - such as writing on this blog, for instance, or watching videos on Youtube.

They've also got a host of activities going on over here all the time. There are volleyball tournaments, for example - Woe be unto anyone who challenges the Tongans. There are horseshoe stakes too - I'd love to play, but who wants to put their hands on a steel horseshoe when the ambient air temperature is 115? They also have evening events, from Karaoke to dancing. There's a salsa night and a country and western night. But the other evening, when I came by to check for an email I was awaiting, I stumbled upon "Middle Eastern Night."

I've always been of the opinion that the more traditional, the more authentic a form of music is, the more vibrant, exciting and lively it is. It's a product of evolution, not marketing, and I think that there's something special about it. When I was living Southwest Texas just after college, I used to go to a lot of Tejano dances in little dance halls in places like Uvalde or Crystal City. Places where the only Anglo folks in the whole crowd were me, my date and the Sheriff. But the music was fun, and no one cared.

I'm also a big fan of the blues, and folks like Muddy Waters or Robert Johnson. Rock and Roll in its early days still had some of that buzz, that vibe, that energy. Jerry Lee Lewis was fun. Chuck Berry made you want to get up and dance. And it sounded real, uncontrived. Not like the crap they put out these days.

The same is true of older country - the kind of Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb, Lefty Frizzell type of stuff - which is so much more fun and full of soul than "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy." Bottom line, if you need to do a poll or ask a focus group to tell you what good is, then you're not playing good music. And the music doesn't have to be old or dated, to have this energy. It just has to be true.

So as I came into the MWR the other night, I was greeted with the fun, exciting beat of the latest - but authentic - hits of the Arab music scene. Mostly the work of Egyptian pop stars - I watch them on MTV Arabia at the barber shop - it's got that unique beat, pulse and rhythmic singing that just makes you think of the Middle East, the desert, caravans and that kind of thing.

So I found myself typing away at the computer, matching time with my keystrokes t0 the beat of the songs. After a while, I finished what I was doing and came out into the main room to watch. There on the dance floor was an odd mix of people. Two obviously Middle Eastern women - probably translators - were the center of attention. One, wearing a short sun dress and high heels, was probably the best-looking woman I've seen in Iraq, or at least the best one outside of the Australian Air Force. The other wore tight jeans and a white blouse. Dancing to the beat, they raised their arms, lifted their heels and swayed around. You could almost imagine them in belly dancer outfits like some scene out of Lawrence of Arabia. Gathered around these women were an odd assortment of U.S. soldiers wearing their Army PT shirts and shorts, male translators wearing 1970s-looking button down shirts and Iraqi soldiers, who kind of hung off at the side of the room watching, not sure if they wanted to go into such debauchery as actually dancing within 10 feet of a woman.

The Egyptians and Lebanese men, of course, didn't care, and they were out on the dance floor in all their uncoordinated glory, having a good time. The dancing, of course, was tame by modern Western standards, and most of the time, the men and women didn't even touch. The one exception was when they gathered together in a line and danced together, kicking their feet out and yelling. Kind of like an Arabic version of the Cotton-Eyed Joe. My Arabic is limited, but I think I heard something like "Bull Shit!"

It was a fun time, and everyone was happy. These are good times. Our base hasn't been hit by a rocket in nearly two months (they used to hit us twice a week) and everyone here seems to have a bit more of a spring in their steps. Of course, there's still work going on outside the wire, and all these people had long hours ahead of them - pouring over captured enemy documents and translating their contents for the Americans and their allies - but tonight they could relax, let their hair down, and do what people all over the world all like to do - have a good time.

DUMBO MUST DIE!

The whole palace compound here is full of some pretty strange art. There are these life-sized stone chickens over by one of the buildings, but there's a photography ban over there, and I can't show them. Over in another palace, with a similar ban, there's a large bas relief of a kind of sylized Iraqi eagle and a battle scene.

But the weirdest piece of art is on a small side building along the lake. I call the piece "Dumbo Must Die!" Picturing an idealized Arab hunting scene, it shows several brave, courageous, tough Iraqi warriors taking down what is obviously merely a baby elephant. Worse than that, the elephant's already on the ground, his legs crumpled. Not only have they clearly exhibited manly prowess by taking down the most helpless and cuddly of pachyderms, but one of the hunters - with evident glee - is in the process of stabbing poor little Dumbo in the eye with a spear.

To give you perspective, this building has two large reliefs. The first is the ancient hunting scene, which one must assume was to tout traditional Arab fighting skill of the past. The second, is a modern counterpoint, which features the brave Iraqi soldier of the 1980s, charging into war against the Iranians. Led by a soldier who has just fired off a Rocket-Propelled Grenade, and exhorted by another who is wielding an AK-47 in one hand and shaking his fist, they charge off against the modern equivalent of dumbo.

It all looks kind of silly and hokey, and becomes a parody of the great virtues it's trying to portray, kind of like really bad art deco of farm and factory scenes in an old post office.

Today, after my shift was over at work, I went fishing in the lake with a buddy of mine, a Marine Captain from Montana named Chris. We stopped by the Dumbo palace and took a few photos.


Chris and I posing with the life-sized Iraqi soldiers. Just above the first, kneeling soldier, you can barely see the depiction of a Mi-17 helicopter. Ironically, about 20 minutes before we took this photo, we were buzzed by just such a helicopter - part of the new Iraqi Air Force.


Strangely enough, almost all of these soldiers bear a strong resemblance to Saddam Hussein.

DUMBO MUST DIE!

Palace Wildlife I

I work at the Al Faw Palace in the middle of what was once a gigantic hunting preserve/resort complex for the Ba'ath Party bigwigs in the Saddam Era. Virtually all the "wildlife" that was here is now gone, but there are a few notable exceptions.

The palace itself sits in the middle of a man-made lake, which is full year-round even in this dry, desert climate. Originally filled with water diverted from the Tigris River and it's many canals, it was used for boating, fishing and recreation by the elitists of the old regime.

It's most obvious residents are two flocks of geese which live in a kind of goose paradise on the lake. Although surrounded by thousands of armed Americans, the geese are not hunted, and certainly don't lack for food. That's because, like street urchins anywhere in the world, the geese have learned to beg.

Above: Iraqi geese eye my breakfast, hoping for a meal.

Every morning, as soldiers make the trip back from the chow hall after their breakfast, the geese know the game. They swim to the mainland from their small goose island and climb ashore. Ambling over to the gate, they set up watch. Inevitably, a soldier walks by, holding a small container of Cocoa Puffs or Fruit Loops and rattles them around. The geese squawk, dip their heads and waddle over.

They're persistant too, and woe be unto the soldier who passes by them and doesn't pay tribute. One in particular - who must be a female because she never stops talking - is very aggressive, and will snap at other geese or come up behind you and tug on your pants leg with her bill. Fortunately, however, there are usually plenty of folks willing to feed them, so they quickly get their full. Many soldiers - including myself - have gotten such a great rapport with the geese that they literally eat out of our hands. Only occasionally do they bite - inadvertently - but their mud-covered bills often leave your hands dirty once you're done.

My predecessor, LT Miller, used to feed them religiously every day. One day, the geese had strayed over by the Iraqi compound. With an Iraqi soldier eyeing us inquisitively, LT Miller tore up bits of a pancake and threw it to the geese. Who knows what the Iraqi guard thought. Probably that we crazy Americans were feeding the geese better than many Iraqis are eating.

The geese, of course, devoured the pancakes for a good two or three minutes. Then, almost in perfect unison, they stopped, turned, and dashed across the parking lot. There, where a small puddle of water had formed, they quickly began drinking large amounts of water. The pancakes, it seemed, had dried them out completely.

The geese are divided into two camps - which hate each other to an amazing degree. Often they will form up outside the gate and have great squawk fights, occasionally charging and driving off members of their rival group. We've taken to referring to the two clans as the Shi'a geese and the Sunni geese.


Every now and then, of course, the goose population gets a little boost, with the addition of a few new members. About a month or so ago, several new chicks hatched out. Here is one of them. He started out completely yellow and has slowly darkened, then lightened, to become more and more goose-like.

A mother goose and chick.

Two chicks at slightly different ages.

R&R in Qatar

I haven't had enough rest, or so my boss, an Army major, said. Forget the fact that I went on leave just 2 months ago, and that I even had a whole day off once this month. Nope, he said, I needed to take some time off to rest and relax in the civilized land of Qatar.

I was reluctant to go, not because Qatar wasn't an exotic, fun-sounding place. The people are friendly, and think of Americans less as infidels, but more like good oil-guzzling maniacs whose driving habits have transformed the Qataris' squalid scrap of desert into one of the richest countries on Earth.

No, it wasn't that. I just didn't want to go through Kuwait. Nothing wrong with Kuwaitis either, but as any servicemember who's gone through the transit experience at a certain facility there can say, it's just about the worst thing ever.

But, as my boss informed me, the flight to Qatar was a direct one.

So the paperwork was filled out and before long, I was on my way to Qatar. The prospect of a direct flight was welcoming, as was the last-minute revelation that I would be flying on a C-17 (left), not a C-130, a smaller, older and uncomfortable aircraft.

Of course, as with all military aircraft, you're basically nothing more than cargo. But at least a C-17 has a bathroom.

In a C-130, you're so close to the folks across from you that your knees touch. Not so on a C-17 (above). Sometimes they pack you in on airline-style seats that are 8 or more to a row with no center aisle. That's really not fun if you need to get up. But if you're seated sideways like we were here, you have lots of room. This is the way to fly.

Of course, I could always hitch a ride on an old Soviet-era cargo plane like this, but that wouldn't be allowed, and frankly, I prefer those good-old fashioned American ideas like safety inspections, airworthiness certificates and sober pilots.

I had four days of leave originally, but after a few delays with aircraft and other issues, it ended up being six days. Heck. I wasn't complaining. I stayed at a U.S. base while I was in country, but we got to go out and see some of the sites. The highlight of the trip for me was a drive through downtown Doha (the capitol) and a cruise on a traditional wooden Dhow.

Qatar is basically a penninsula awkwardly jutting from the side of Saudi Arabia, kind of like the fruit on a prickly-pear cactus. It sticks out into the Persian Gulf, and except for a highly-urbanized area in the North, is pretty much entirely desert.

The Qatari national flag. My rule on flags is that if a third-grader can't draw it, it's too complicated. That's why I'm such a big fan of the Texas flag and hate the Maryland flag, which practically takes half a box of crayolas to depict. With the Qatari flag, you just need one maroon crayon and the knowledge of how to make zig-zags. Consequently, I'm sure Qatari third-graders are very patriotic.

Qatar is a relatively rich country, which I'm sure you can appreciate every time you fill up your car with gas, because Qatar, like Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Bahrain, is built on oil. Although the vast sprawl outside of Doha is industrial, dusty and impoverished, the city itself is wallowing in money, and is very opulent:

In fact, if you squint and ignore the Arabic script on the license plates, it kind of reminds you of the nicer parts of Tampa.

They even have public art. Anybody who makes a 25-foot tall statue of a clam with a pearl in it is not too bad. Or random artistic pillars in the middle of traffic circles:

Of course, Tampa doesn't have a mosque on every corner:

Qatar also has some nice neighborhoods that look like they belong in Beverly Hills.

In fact, Doha is so cosmopolitan, it is in the running for the chance to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Tie your burkas at the ankles gals, it's time for the pole vault!


The height of my trip was the chance to go out on a traditional Arab Dhow. These famous wooden ships were the standard sailing ships of the Persian and Red Seas back in the day. Most have lost their sails, but not their charms. A big fan of sailing and the sea myself, I was excited to get on one of these, but I would have rather been hauling on the tack lines, sheets and other sailing ropes than puttering along on an engine. But at least we made good time.

This dhow still has its rigging on it. Most do not.

Dhows in port.

This is more like what our boat looked like. No sails, but (thankfully) a large tarp to ward off the sun.

Doha is growing so fast, an entire new downtown, filled with skyscrapers, has sprung up on a nearby penninsula within the last decade. Most of the buildings are of modest height, probably fewer than 30 stories, but I'd be hesitant to recommend building much higher on an island made of sand. (There's a Jimi Hendrix song in here somewhere).

I really like the buildings on the right. They have open-air domes at the top, which look both modern and Islamic at the same time. Lots of billboards downtown spread the message of modernized, moderate Islam to any skeptical members of the public. "Progress, not change," they proclaim. The Qataris think you can still pray 5 times a day to Mecca, go on the Hajj and be a good Muslim without blowing up car bombs in the process. Like Turks, but with a better sewer system.

Fellow soldiers enjoying the cruise.

Swimming in the Persian Gulf.

Below: me swimming in the gulf. It's a lot more salty than the Gulf of Mexico.

Downtown Doha, reflected in the window of the Dhow.

Outside the wire

Note: The following was not a sight-seeing trip, so none of the photos below are actually mine, but are taken from unclassified sites on the Internet.

On a mild Spring morning a while back, I climbed into an armored vehicle and took up my seat. With my body armor wrapped tightly around me and my Kevlar helmet firm about my head, I took my seat inside what is known as a Rhino - a fortified bus. But this was no ordinary morning commute. At a final stop before passing through our gates, we were told to load our weapons.

There are many people who come over here and never once leave the confines of a fortified military base. In fact, the number of such people would be astounding to most un-initiated. Many jobs simply don't require it. A vehicle maintenance crew doesn't need to go "outside the wire" - as it is called. The vehicles damaged by Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are towed back to base and worked on there. Helicopter ground crews, similarly, have no need to leave the base either.

That isn't to say that life isn't dangerous on base. When you're in a base inside a major city like Baghdad, you can be attacked with indirect fire - mortars or rockets - at any time, day and night, and there's not much you can do to prepare. It's not like when you hop into a Hummvee and go out locked and loaded, keyed up to a pitch and ready for anything. When you're on base, an attack can come at any time - when you're at breakfast, reading a book, sleeping, working, or in the shower. Those are some of the places I've been when the alarms went off and everyone got down and hugged the ground for a few tense moments as booms shattered the air around us.

That being said, for Camp Rats, Bobs on the FOBs, REMFs and others, nothing we do quite compares to the dangers faced by those outside of the wire. The soldiers who go out every day on patrols put their lives on the line far more than the rest of us ever will. And the dangers are wildly disproportionate. The vast majority of patrols never even see an IED, never get attacked with small arms fire, and never face a suicide vehicle. We literally send out thousands of vehicles each day, and recently, only about 15 a day have been hit by any kind of attack.

Some roads have very little activity, and are considered relatively safe. But even on these roads, the occasional IED can still be encountered. Other roads are known hotspots. The route names with the most danger are as familiar to soldiers as the staunchly-defended cities of Germany were to Allied Airmen in WWII. When a soldier finds he is to travel down one of these roads, he says an extra prayer, or writes an extra letter back home.

So it was that as I pulled my pistol from my hip holster and slapped a magazine home, I looked with aprehension on the trip ahead. I was traveling on one of the most notorious of Baghdad Roads - Route Irish.

Route Irish - named, like many other routes, for a sports team - is a terrorist's dream. Between the Baghdad International Airport and the International Zone, it's a short, narrow lifeline between the two most important outposts of American and coalition forces in the entire country. This 2005 article declared it "The Most Dangerous Road in the World":

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/The-worlds-most-dangerous-road/2005/06/07/1118123840061.html

That article was before the height of the violence in 2006-07, when the route became a key focal point of anti-Iraqi forces. Both Sunni and Shi'a insurgent groups had strongholds nearby, and both groups hit it daily, hoping to score a high-profile propaganda victory.

By the time I was ready for my ride across Irish, things had improved dramatically. First of all, attacks had dropped by over 60 percent in Baghdad. Sure, there had been a recent flare-up about a week before, but that was in Sadr City, across town. The last major spurt of activity on Irish itself had been over two months before.

The Rhino, from Wikipedia.

I sat on the bus with an odd assortment of passengers, a kind of surreal greyhound. There were a mix of Army, Air Force and Navy personnel, along with a number of contractors. All wore body armor. One of the contractors was a bearded guy with all black body armor and an all black Kevlar helmet. His armor had a big yellow Batman logo across the front, and that apparently, was his nickname. We all chatted as we had waited in the assembly area for the bus to arrive, but as we got on and neared the gate, all chatting stopped.

I sat on the left side of the bus, which in theory would be the safest, since the right shoulder is closer to the vehicle and most IEDs are buried or concealed in trash along the side of the road. But insurgents have learned to vary their attacks, and we've learned to drive in the middle or even on the left side of the road, and the upshot is there is no safe place to be. The turret gunner on all the vehicles is in the most danger, and the first and last vehicles get hit the most. Other than that, all bets are off.

Beneath my window there was a small hole, with a steel plate covering it. You could slide the steel back like a vent. A little sticker was placed above this. It was like those stickers for airbag safety, only this one said something to the effect of, "In case of direct fire, open this and shoot back." I had a little laugh imagining myself sticking the short nose of my 9mm pistol out of this hole and plunking away as I tried to aim from behind the bullet proof window. I figured if it really came to that, I'd let one of the enlisted guys with an M-16 slide up to the window and take his chances.


After a series of checkpoints I won't describe here, we finally faced open road. With a pair of Humvees in front and a pair behind, our driver gave it some gas and the Rhino - the aerodynamic equivalent of a brick - surged forward. Topping out around 40 mph, we began the 12-mile run to the International Zone.

Keeping a sharp eye out for threats in my sector, I cautiously eyed everything that went by. Irish at this point is a divided highway, with a large sand median between the lanes, big enough to fit a soccer field into. Weeds, reeds, trash and palm trees were scattered throughout. Old abandoned billboards - mostly painted with new propaganda messages calling for Iraqis to unite against violence - stood, wind-battered and silt-covered. A few abandoned cars were there too, and I wondered if they could possibly be Vehicle-Borne IEDs (VBIEDs), but then this road was cleared every day by route clearance teams, and any IED that had been placed between then and now was likely small: a 155mm artillery shell wired to a cell phone or a disgarded milk jug or two - harmless trash at first sight - that was filled with homemade explosive and rigged to a wire strung across the road. The worst, of course, are EFPs - Explosively-formed Projectiles - which are designed specifically to target up-armored vehicles like the one I was riding in.

It seemed impossible that anyone could spot anything in all that mess, but the truth is, more than half of the IEDs that coalition forces encounter are spotted and cleared by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Teams without exploding. Iraqi tips, vigilance and continual pressure on the insurgents which prevents them from spending the time necessary to elaborately conceal their bombs all contribute to this astounding level of success.

When an IED is spotted, of course, movement comes to a halt, and this is perhaps even more dangerous. An obvious IED or a hoax - a dead dog with wires stuffed into his mouth, for example - can be placed to stop a convoy at a precise spot in order to get the vehicles into a "kill box" where hidden secondary IEDs can be placed to maximum effect, often "daisy-chained" off the same detonation wire. Or an IED could halt a convoy in a pre-determined ambush spot for insurgents armed with heavy machine guns or RPGs. Or it could be a combination of both.

But neither we nor our escort vehicles spotted anything and we continued on our way. We passed depressing appartment complexes with cracked-plaster walls the color of sand, their laundry flapping in the morning sun, narrow alleys filed with filth that reminded me of Matamoros, Mexico when I was a kid. Cars minus their wheels, propped up on cinder blocks. The same, but without the cinder blocks.

There were overpasses which rose up in front of us. In some cases, a kid will stand on one side of the overpass, waving cheerfully, while subtly timing the vehicles and giving a signal to another child on the other end, who will drop a grenade, hoping to make it into the exposed hatch of a gun turret. The kids, if they're successful, are paid a pittance by their brutal terrorist handlers, and if our troops fired back and killed the kids, the terrorists win double - they make us look brutal and they don't have to pay the kids. But these particular overpasses had their sides lined with a wire fence to discourage such attacks. We scanned the bottom of the overpass - a difficult spot to emplace an IED, but it was known to happen. Nothing. We continued on.

We passed across an overpass ourselves, with torn and twisted guardrails and on the other side, huge holes in the ground where previous IEDs had exploded. As we drove onward, we were leaving the suburbs behind and entering the heart of Baghdad. More appartment buildings, but now some shops and actual pedestrians, just off the road, behind a metal wire fence. Some odd, smelly smoke seemed to come out of some holes in the ground. Burning trash, perhaps, or a fire in part of the sewer.

Finally, we entered a stretch of the road surrounded by massive concrete blast walls, 12 feet high. A line of cars waited ahead - Iraqis working in the area waiting to have their cars searched. Off to the side, a similar group of pedestrians. Just before this checkpoint there were a few clever hawkers, running the Iraqi equivalent of roadside Taco stands to sell breakfast to these Iraqis, who were taking their lives into their own hands to come and work for the Americans or the Iraqi government in the IZ.

Finally, after an agonizing wait as we passed the cars - and wondered whether any were filled with hidden explosives waiting just for our vehicles to pass by, we entered the safety of the International Zone. As we drove into the massive area of Baghdad, we saw old bombed out Iraqi palaces, the famous crossed swords at the Iraqi Army parade grounds (below) and - to my utter surprise - more neighborhoods where Iraqis lived and raised families inside a secured U.S. base.

The return trip the next day similarly went without incident. If I didn't know what I know about Route Irish, I could almost think that it was an ordinary drive across an ordinary third-world country, not the 20 minutes of adrenaline-filled suspense. But within a few days, I heard of another attack on the road. Still a vast improvement from the heyday when it was attacked two or three times a day, but not a Sunday drive either.

Driving across Baghdad is not the everyday life for me, because like those mechanics, that's just not my job. And if I made it sound overly dramatic, that underscores just how much in awe I hold those soldiers who go out, day after day, and put their lives on the line on these roads. 30 percent of the soldiers in Iraq probably face about 90 percent of the danger. For them, the soliders who daily face danger on Route Irish, Route Pluto, MSR Tampa, or the many dangerous roads of Iraq, we should all be in their debt. They're paving the way for a different kind of Iraq. Their sacrifices have made the surge work and have made major strides in this country.

For them, every day is a drive out on the highway of hell, and every day brings new risks and new rewards outside the wire.