From Baghdad with Love by Jay Kopelman (a court of thorns and roses ebook free .TXT) 📕

You’ve Been in Iraq Too Long If . . .

You start to think, It’s not so bad here.

You don’t jump when a door slams or someone drops something.

A Glock or 9mm on a lady’s hip is considered sexy.

Mortars and rocket sounds are okay compared with vehicle bombs.

You can measure distances based on explosive sounds.

You know the difference between “incoming” and “outgoing.”

Sitting around with your co-workers talking about different ways to be killed is considered “watercooler talk.”

Bullet holes in cars are no longer alarming.

Driving on the sidewalk is normal.

Driving on the wrong side of a divided four-lane street is considered normal.

Hit-and-run fender benders are treated as mere warnings.

You have your own roll of toilet paper stashed in your car.

You think the bullet holes in the roof of your trailer are just another form of ventilation.

So whether the paperwork in David Mack’s hands was legitimate or not was really a matter of interpretation. Only there were lots of different interpreters around these days, and this one worried him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

January 2005

Balad

Balad isn’t like a super-secret mission or anything, but the group I work with—Task Force 6-26—is a special operations unit that pursues high-value individuals like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. We also work with Iraqi prisoners whom we suspect know the most important stuff, stuff that could help break the back of the insurgency, but who don’t want to tell us what they know.

I have great accommodations, including a trailer with my own room, a real bed, a refrigerator, a closet, and a wall locker. There is a bathroom with a real sit-down, flushable toilet, a sink, and a shower. We have a gym that back home would have cost a five-hundred-dollar initiation fee and fifty bucks a month to join, plasma TVs in our command center, and a full PX complete with a Burger King.

It might have been a great mission except this one thing that keeps pecking away at me, this thing I have to do that I don’t want to do.

From the minute I get to Balad, I keep hoping that something will just happen magically behind my back to solve everything concerning Lava. He’s still safe with the Lava Dogs back at Camp Fallujah, but when I see John Van Zante’s e-mail, which looks like a note of encouragement but smells suspiciously like a note of condolence, I remember that nothing magical has occurred in Iraq since God took one of Adam’s ribs.

Iams will help in any way they can. If there are any supplies that you need, please let me know. If you would like puppy food, please tell us where it can be shipped. I will mention that Iams attempted a large shipment to an Iraqi port last year. I was told that it was returned because Iams and Eukanuba dog food contains real animal products which are great for your puppy, but I was told there was an objection on the part of the Iraqi workers who were assigned to unload the food.

But we’re standing by to get your puppy home to Rancho Santa Fe once he reaches the USA.

After reading between the lines, I do what I dread doing. I write to Anne Garrels. She’s been back in the States for less than thirty days but is scheduled to return to Baghdad for the elections later this month. I hate writing to her, because she was fried when she left Fallujah, but I do it anyway and ask her if she can keep Lava in Baghdad with her when she returns, just until I figure something out.

“Just for a little while,” I promise.

In the meantime, I finally receive an e-mail from Dr. Murrani after several weeks of waiting.

Dear Sir, I’m so sorry but I only got to see you msg. today, I was so busy that I haven’t checked my box. I don’t know if this is still helpful or not . . .

Dr. Murrani says that if I can get Lava to Baghdad, the people running the ISAW can give him vaccinations. The problem is, the clinic isn’t in the protected Green Zone, which means I’ll have a hell of a time finding someone to take him there, and even if I can, she informs me that Lava has to be at least four months old to get his rabies shot, and I figure him to be two months or less.

“Do you know anyone in Baghdad who might watch him for a little while?” I write back. “I’m at a real loss because it would be terrible if we have to put him out of the base on his own. He’s really too young—and now too dependent—to survive on his own.”

Dr. Murrani says she’ll contact some friends living in the Green Zone and see if they’ll take Lava in. “I can’t really guarantee anything,” she writes, “but I will try.”

Then I hear from Anne, who promises to try to keep Lava in Baghdad for a few weeks until after the elections, when she’ll leave for Cairo. Lava has a few more weeks of borrowed time.

I hear that traps have been set at Camp Fallujah to catch stray dogs and that the Lava Dogs’ executive officer has found out about Lava and started honking about GO 1-A in a very loud way.

I learn that the guys sneak him over to the personal security detachment, which provides security for the commanding general at Camp Fallujah. I hiss at the computer screen when I read that message.

The commanding general’s personal security detachment? They’re the guys who follow all the rules, because they’re protecting the most important person on campus whose job it is to make the rules in the first place. What in the hell are they thinking?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

January 2005

Camp Fallujah

Turns out, the Lava Dogs are thinking hard to find the last place on camp anyone would look for contraband and about the last person anyone