Editor's note: Scott Miller, who grew up in Byfield, is in the 972nd Military Police Company out of Reading, U.S. Army National Guard. He is stationed in Baghdad, Iraq.
Writing to you tonight from Baghdad. It's amazing how little has transpired for us since my last communication. Despite being in the middle of a war zone, in allegedly one of the most dangerous areas of the earth, it was devoid of anything for almost a month.
The one thing that was interesting of note was that I was able to see Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the American embassy. She gave a brief talk to the troops and State Department workers who came and took some photos. Naturally, given my luck, I wasn't able to get one with her. The thing that did impress me was that she didn't get flustered by the hundreds of flashbulbs that were going off in her face while she was talking. Everyone had a camera, it seemed.
Today, we got to witness an Ashoura celebration. Relatively small, probably about 200 people, it gave one a good idea of what the bigger celebrations might be like down in Karbala. Ashoura is the commemoration of the last stand of Imam Hussein, who was the grandson of the prophet Mohammed. When we got there, the translator explained to me that the holy men were telling the story of the battle over the loudspeakers. Shia typically feel regret because they weren't able to be there to help Hussein out during the battle. I guess a comparable Christian feeling might be that Jesus died on the cross for one's sins.
So, amongst the crowd, there were different levels of emotion shown. Some men wept. Some rhythmically beat their chest and listened to the "sermon." You've probably heard of the phenomenon of self-flagellation where hard-core believers will beat themselves with chains and cause quite a bloody mess. Well, there wasn't any of that except for a group of seven or eight boys who were 10 to 15 years old. They must've had the children's version because I don't think they were hurting themselves too badly. Other men subconsciously puffed on their cigarettes rhythmically while listening. I guess you could say that they were practicing self-flagellation of another sort.
After listening to the sermon finish, there was a processional of sorts out to the gate. The group picked up maybe 30 boys and young men who were dressed up in period garb and they surrounded them coming in. The re-enactment went on for a few minutes, with an imam rhythmically chanting the story of what happened.
After that broke up, out came the stew and rice. Considering that they were in the process of slaughtering (the animal) in the parking lot when we showed up, I'd say it was probably the freshest meat that I ever had. Realistically, I'm not sure that Larry the Cable Guy would've passed the place on health inspection, but it was OK. A couple of days later, we were out during our mealtime and got ahold of some meals that were simply the best: Piping hot bread with a sausage-like meat, mixed with tomatoes and onions, basically really good stuff.
We have interaction with two primary interpreters. I have a formalized conversation with a gentleman who is from a city that is an hour south of our location that I'll bring you in my next writing. He is an incredibly thoughtful man and appears to be an extremely pious Shia. I want to tell you a little bit about the other man. We'll call him Fred (not his real name). I share similar traits with Fred of having a large belly and wide chest ... thus I have earned the honor of being known as Fred II amongst the Iraqi security personnel. The teasing never stops.
Fred was born Kurdish but lived in Baghdad since he was 1 or 2 years old. He's 35 years old but looks to be quite a bit older. I haven't learned much about his early life, but when he was at a technical institute in Baghdad studying pre-medicine, he made a terrible mistake. He had the nerve to attend an opposition party meeting.
Somehow, Saddam's secret police got ahold of the information that this meeting was going down and raided it. For that, Fred spent the next eight years of his life in Abu Ghraib prison. That's one human rights abuse that doesn't get talked about much. Because of his mixed heritage, Fred can speak three different languages; when he gets excited about a point that he's trying to make, he slips away from the English and goes either Kurd or Arabic — I don't think that he realizes it. So, it's a constant battle to get him to slow down. Truly a fine man, though.
It goes on. I realize that because I am an American, people might be hesitant to tell me what they really feel. However, no Iraqi who I have met and talked to thinks that our departure will help. That's just fact.
My earlier impression that I had of most people not caring was gained from watching people on the street. I simply don't know if I was right or wrong.
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