Apparently, Iraqis love New Year, or at least their AK-47s …
Cowboy fireworks or “celebratory fire” (to use the nomenclature of our US Troops) can be very distracting in a war zone. And in a city that threatens to erupt in violence at any moment, it's just plain dangerous.
Everyone gets a little jumpy in a war zone. Even Soldiers on their second or third tour are put on edge at the sound of an AK-47 “popping-off” a few meters away. This was certainly the case during this past New Year's Eve.
I am located on a small outpost situated just off of a main thoroughfare in North-Eastern Baghdad. Consisting of a building no larger than your neighborhood Safeway, and with a parking lot sized about comparable, there is very little separating the small contingent of US Forces from the city outside. Twelve-foot tall blast walls provide the base's only physical barrier, and offer no protection from the rooftops of the two-story houses that surround the parameter.
It is common for individuals in a war-zone to lose track of days and/or their significance, and this is exactly what had happened to our small group as we stood outside on New Year's Eve, admiring a bright crescent moon. I have found the admiration of life's beautiful moments to be especially important in Iraq, where apprehension and uncertainty threaten to take over the psyche, and, perhaps foolishly, we had made a habit of taking some time out of our evenings to recognize the night's sky.
Enjoying the cool night's air, we settled into light conversation and soaked-up the still peace that overtakes Baghdad after curfew. We could hear the sporadic “pops” of gunfire in the city around us, but it was far enough away that we saw no threat and shrugged it off. For a moment I almost forgot the war, transfixed by the beauty of green and red tracers flying through the black sky; they looked like shooting stars heading home. Then, very suddenly, from the rooftop of a house twenty-five meters to our front, a quick succession of “crack-pops” sent our group scurrying inside the building.
Once inside, one of the soldiers in our group grabbed his M-4 Rifle, and after dramatically chambering a round, rushed outside in his flip-flops and t-shit to “put a stop to this silliness.” He made it outside just in time to see a colorful ball of fire spew from the roof of the neighboring compound, quickly falling from its erratic flight path and impacting on the two-foot-thick concrete blast-wall with a flash, before fizzling out. “Its fireworks!” the Soldier exclaimed, dropping the muzzle of his rifle.
Disarmed by the humor of our overreaction, and feeling the adrenaline start to dissipate, we broke out into a heavy laughter. The thought of our massive concrete blast-wall shielding us from a child's toy was not just funny, but a little sad. It seemed as though there was a price to be paid for the necessary protection of the blast-wall, a cost to keeping your group of humanity completely isolated from another just a few meters away. But I was glad no one had to die that night.
As a cloud of pungent sulfur wafted over our laughing group, I was momentarily brought back to the News Years I have spent on the island of Oahu. Known for their hazardous worship of Chinese black-powder, the residents of Oahu, once yearly, engage in a similarly reckless disposition of fireworks (although with a significantly lower risk of being accidentally shot because of it) that had always got my heart racing as a child. It's amazing what can remind you of home.
