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

Then Anne e-mails me back with news I should have learned to expect by now.

“I am somewhat at my wit’s end. This is a great deal more complicated than we all anticipated . . .”

Those are the kind of words that make you think luck is tightening barbed wire around your balls just for shits and grins.

Apparently, Military Mascots usually receives animals from Iraq via a military convoy. When Bonnie realizes Lava will be coming with a private citizen in a private car, she writes Annie that the driver won’t be allowed to cross into Kuwait and Bonnie’s volunteer in Kuwait won’t be allowed to cross over into Iraq.

In other words, the plan sucks. It won’t work. Without a military escort, Lava can’t get across the border.

I sit there and stare at the computer.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

February 2005

The Syrian Border

Maybe this sounds selfish, but I don’t want to die. Wanting to live is just one of those quirks of human nature that gets in the way of being a really good Marine, and besides, what else is there to do?

I want to live for various reasons: because I don’t like pain, and getting killed will probably hurt; because I’m a little concerned that Hell might actually exist; and, at the risk of sounding like a complete martyr, because I’m worried about what will happen to Lava.

Once, back at Camp Fallujah, I went to see Lava at the Lava Dogs’ building and passed by the Mortuary Affairs tent, the one with the do not enter sign in front, and saw bodies being brought in and thought whoever was in that bag—they call them “human remains pouches”—was wearing the same uniform I had on. I wondered what they went through before they died and felt sorry they had to go through it but was glad it wasn’t me.

It’s not like they don’t treat you well once you’re dead or anything; you actually get quite a bit of respect and attention. They bring you in, put you on a concrete floor, and one guy checks for unexploded weapons and shrapnel with a metal detector, another guy sorts through your personal belongings, and two more look for identifying details—scars, tattoos, dog tags—and record things like how badly you were burned or how wide the puncture wound was or how well your bulletproof vest worked.

Meanwhile two other guys are writing it all down into a logbook. Then you’re given an “evacuation number,” put back into a human remains pouch, and sent to a camouflage refrigerator. It all takes about fifteen minutes.

The guys in the tent also process the remains of Iraqis—whether they’re our soldiers, civilians, or insurgents—the theory being that once they’re dead, they’re no longer an enemy.

So they get the same treatment with identification and personal belongings, only they also get their picture taken, because they’ll be sent back to the outskirts of Fallujah where they will be placed in one of the hundred-foot-long trenches we’ve dug with backhoes and bulldozers facing east toward Mecca. Each of these trenches is recorded with global positioning system coordinates, so family members know where to look for them later, after we’re gone I guess.

The guys in the tent respect your body whether you’re a Marine or an Iraqi. They never reach over it or lay anything on top of it, and they close your eyes and mouth if they’re still open, which makes me wonder, as I’m passing by the tent, what it’s like to die with your eyes open and, like, whether some computer engineer can come up with a way to read what’s on a dead person’s open eyeballs and play it back for the rest of us someday, because we all want to know what it’s like to die.

When I get to the Lava Dogs’ building, Lava rushes up to me and starts peeing, so I pick him up and take him outside and remind him that good Marines only pee outside. Only by that time he’s finished, dribbled all over my uniform on the way out the door, so he’s hopping up and down ready to play.

He’s like that. No matter what Lava does, he does it full throttle. When he eats, he inhales. When he’s lonely, he wails. When he’s tired, he drops and snores within seconds. When he wants to play, he hops up and down in front of you, bites at your bootlaces, doesn’t quit, doesn’t apologize, just throws everything he’s got into getting your attention.

Only I don’t feel like playing. I sit on the ground and pull him onto my lap, where he rolls upside down with his paws up in the air. It’s warm, right? And there’s a lot of sun and as I’m sitting there rubbing his little belly and his legs stretch up, I start thinking about what will happen to him if I die.

It’s kind of this noble thought wrapped up in selfishness, because I can’t imagine not being alive somewhere once I’m dead. Hopefully I’ll be up in Heaven looking down, only if I’m up there, and he’s down here getting shot or drowned or wandering around on his own trying to find food, it won’t matter that I’ve made it to Heaven and should be feeling eternally jubilant and healthy, because I’ll be feeling guilty as hell instead.

Iraq has these unbelievable clouds. When you sit in the middle of the desert and look up, you’re in a painting. It’s too cool to be real, so I turn Lava upright and point toward the sky. He follows my fingers toward the tubes of white and blue.

“Pick out your cloud, buddy. Pick out your cloud.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

February 2005

The Syrian Border

I feel pretty bad for John Van Zante right about now, because we’re starting to panic and look to him for any answers.

First I e-mail him and tell him about how the Iraqi drivers are not allowed