Currently Chasing: Body Armor

Yesterday I went on a convoy. I put on 80 pounds of gear, loaded my weapon and rode in the back of a huge tactical vehicle known as an MRAP. It was uncomfortable, cramped, bumpy and totally awesome. You see, I hate the process of going outside the wire, but once I’m outside that vehicle, walking around and taking pictures (while trying not to accidentally step on an IED) it’s incredible.

On the way I managed to catch glimpses out of the small dusty windows. Most of what you see is horrible. Everyone seems like they want to hurt you, even though most are just there to live like anyone else. Animal meat is hung and placed for sale. It looks dirty and diseased. People are outside at all times of the day and night, even in 20 degree weather, with just flip flops and thin clothes. I would probably stay outside as well, especially if I didn’t really have anything to go home to. We pay attention to every single bit of their nothing, waiting for something, while they barely even notice our huge military vehicles kicking up dust down their poorly constructed road. It’s crazy, they cross the street in the middle of our convoy, like we would cross the street on a deserted back road. Except that on the top of our trucks are these huge weapon systems that could take out most of the neighborhood, but they don’t bat an eye as they cross.

What is more incredible is the way the children just stand two feet away from you smiling while you hold a fully loaded M-4 at the ready. Not threatened by your weapon in the least. They say whatever English word they know, which is usually them asking for something. Everything is a question. Water? Candy? Pen? Yep, they want your pens. I saw an entire fight break out over a tube of toothpaste. They just … want. And they will settle for simply getting your attention. I take their photos and they smile and wave and stare right through you. It’s eerie and haunting and incredibly rewarding. I’m the one ‘getting’ something out of these exchanges - a renewed sense of purpose for why we are out here. And I’m getting tiny glimpses of their soul, and it’s not all bad.

I got back in the vehicle, looked through the pictures and knew that the day meant something. The 80 pounds of gear felt a little lighter, the MRAP felt a little less cramped and the bumps…well they were still a sonofabitch … especially when a girls got to pee. The one thing I will never be able to ‘get over’ is the lack of restroom facilities and the shrugitoff nature everyone seems to have about going to the bathroom in a bag and then burning it. Nope, war = holding that shit for 12 hours. But the children, well, they are a beautiful thing.

Although there was that one who pointed his cliff bar at me as if it was a weapon. My brothers used to play with fake guns that looked quite real. They would sometimes point them at me…they were never as scary as that little boy with the cliff bar.