thedrifter
04-30-06, 09:44 AM
Trip rekindles memories of wartime Iraq
By: HAYNE PALMOUR IV - Staff Writer
TWENTYNINE PALMS -- I didn't expect to take a trip back to Iraq when I drove to the Twentynine Palms Marine base last week on an assignment for the North County Times.
But I did.
Just being around Marines is enough to make me think back on the three trips that reporter Darrin Mortenson and I took to Iraq as embedded journalists. But what the Marines created in the high desert almost was enough to make me feel like I was actually back there.
The trip back started in the morning, when I strapped on a Kevlar helmet and wrapped a flak jacket around my torso. We shipped out to the live-fire range with a group of civilian defense-industry workers, who were there to get ideas on how to detect and diffuse improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.
A side effect of wearing a flak jacket and being a photographer is the camera straps slide off your shoulders. That means you're constantly having to readjust the straps, or trying to catch your equipment before it hits the dirt. I tried to remedy this problem during our trip to Fallujah in 2004 by taking small Styrofoam blocks, used for packing military equipment, and taping them down on the shoulders of my flak jacket, which prevented the straps from sliding off. It looked weird, but it worked, and last week I was wishing I had them.
Crawling in the back of a Marine 7-ton truck was another very familiar act. This was the main mode of transportation for us and the Marines while in Iraq. Again, because I'm a photographer, I'm handicapped when getting on and off the truck because of the burden of lugging cameras, lenses and the all-important water bottle. Marines would always jump to my aid by offering to hold my equipment as I scaled up or down. It was no different on Tuesday.
What was different was that there was an actual stepladder to use, probably because there were civilians riding that day. Also different was the absence of the usual items that I'd normally see on the truck bed -- ammo cans, water bottles, MREs (meals ready to eat), parts of MREs, spent shell casings -- all of it completely coated with dust.
Dust. That was another big reminder of Iraq. As we bounced down the unpaved desert road on our way to see a demonstration, I watched helplessly as a cloud of dust coated my cameras and lenses, not to mention me. You try to cover your equipment with your hands as best as you can, but it's like trying to use your hands to keep out the fog; you just can't do it. What did help in Iraq was putting my cameras in a trash bag when traveling, and using a lens cloth and a shaving brush to clean the dust off. The shaving brush was also invaluable for knocking the dust off our laptop computers.
Gunfire and explosions, the next added ingredient for a trip back to Iraq. The shooting range was nearby and that sound of a popcorn popper reaching its peak during a volley of gunfire reminded me of the firefights between Marines and insurgents.
But what really brought me back was the mock Iraqi town the Marines had built out there in the California desert. Every Marine going to Iraq gets to know that town, and it's obviously designed by those who have already been there. Of course, cargo containers painted tan and placed to look like flat one- and two-story buildings are not exactly what your basic Iraqi town looks like, but it makes a simple structure that one's mind can build images of Iraq around. At least that's the way it worked for me.
As we broke into small groups to tour the town with a Marine guide, a mock mosque with a blue dome started to crackle loudly with the haunting, yet sometimes beautiful sounds of prayer, just as it did several times a day when I was in Iraqi towns or cities. That's what did it. That's what took me back. The sound coming from the mosque combined with the body armor, the heat, the sweat, the all-important water bottle jammed in my pants pocket, the cameras hanging off me, the dust, the Marines.
It wasn't hard to let my mind overlay the suddenly vivid memories onto the simple, yet fairly accurate backdrop the Marines had created. The trash and debris began to appear. The people, some smiling and waving, others just coldly staring. I could hear Iraqi children, who had an insatiable curiosity about cameras, start to surround me, tugging on clothes saying, "Mista, mista." And that uneasy feeling, because of a possible ambush, when no children were around.
It took me back to Fallujah two years ago on March 26, 2004, when Darrin, myself, and a squad of Marines from Fox Company patrolled the streets of Fallujah for 14 straight hours. I remembered making the decision that day, while we were being shot at by an unseen insurgent, to make a dash from the wall I had my body pressed against to the squad of Marines on the other side of the road. As I started to run, I fully expected to see puffs of dirt from the bullets hitting around my feet. The insurgent didn't shoot. I got lucky.
Later, at sunset, as the squad of Marines was trying to run to a safe haven, I remember hearing the sounds of someone on a loudspeaker riling up a large crowd of Iraqi men, who were all chanting and yelling as if angered, at a mosque two blocks away from us. "I don't think they're talking about Friday night's potluck dinner," I remember commenting to Darrin as we all took refuge in an abandoned Iraqi house. The hornet's nest had been stirred up.
Leaving Twentynine Palms on Tuesday afternoon, reporter Mark Walker and I drove through the town of Yucca Valley. We drove past various strip malls, the Yucca Bowl, the Hairs Johnny barber shop. And coming up on the right, the Yucca Valley Wal-Mart. OK, that makes it official. My little flashback trip to Iraq is over.
Hayne Palmour IV is a staff photographer at the North County Times. Contact him at (760) 901-4081 or hpalmour@nctimes.com
Ellie
By: HAYNE PALMOUR IV - Staff Writer
TWENTYNINE PALMS -- I didn't expect to take a trip back to Iraq when I drove to the Twentynine Palms Marine base last week on an assignment for the North County Times.
But I did.
Just being around Marines is enough to make me think back on the three trips that reporter Darrin Mortenson and I took to Iraq as embedded journalists. But what the Marines created in the high desert almost was enough to make me feel like I was actually back there.
The trip back started in the morning, when I strapped on a Kevlar helmet and wrapped a flak jacket around my torso. We shipped out to the live-fire range with a group of civilian defense-industry workers, who were there to get ideas on how to detect and diffuse improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.
A side effect of wearing a flak jacket and being a photographer is the camera straps slide off your shoulders. That means you're constantly having to readjust the straps, or trying to catch your equipment before it hits the dirt. I tried to remedy this problem during our trip to Fallujah in 2004 by taking small Styrofoam blocks, used for packing military equipment, and taping them down on the shoulders of my flak jacket, which prevented the straps from sliding off. It looked weird, but it worked, and last week I was wishing I had them.
Crawling in the back of a Marine 7-ton truck was another very familiar act. This was the main mode of transportation for us and the Marines while in Iraq. Again, because I'm a photographer, I'm handicapped when getting on and off the truck because of the burden of lugging cameras, lenses and the all-important water bottle. Marines would always jump to my aid by offering to hold my equipment as I scaled up or down. It was no different on Tuesday.
What was different was that there was an actual stepladder to use, probably because there were civilians riding that day. Also different was the absence of the usual items that I'd normally see on the truck bed -- ammo cans, water bottles, MREs (meals ready to eat), parts of MREs, spent shell casings -- all of it completely coated with dust.
Dust. That was another big reminder of Iraq. As we bounced down the unpaved desert road on our way to see a demonstration, I watched helplessly as a cloud of dust coated my cameras and lenses, not to mention me. You try to cover your equipment with your hands as best as you can, but it's like trying to use your hands to keep out the fog; you just can't do it. What did help in Iraq was putting my cameras in a trash bag when traveling, and using a lens cloth and a shaving brush to clean the dust off. The shaving brush was also invaluable for knocking the dust off our laptop computers.
Gunfire and explosions, the next added ingredient for a trip back to Iraq. The shooting range was nearby and that sound of a popcorn popper reaching its peak during a volley of gunfire reminded me of the firefights between Marines and insurgents.
But what really brought me back was the mock Iraqi town the Marines had built out there in the California desert. Every Marine going to Iraq gets to know that town, and it's obviously designed by those who have already been there. Of course, cargo containers painted tan and placed to look like flat one- and two-story buildings are not exactly what your basic Iraqi town looks like, but it makes a simple structure that one's mind can build images of Iraq around. At least that's the way it worked for me.
As we broke into small groups to tour the town with a Marine guide, a mock mosque with a blue dome started to crackle loudly with the haunting, yet sometimes beautiful sounds of prayer, just as it did several times a day when I was in Iraqi towns or cities. That's what did it. That's what took me back. The sound coming from the mosque combined with the body armor, the heat, the sweat, the all-important water bottle jammed in my pants pocket, the cameras hanging off me, the dust, the Marines.
It wasn't hard to let my mind overlay the suddenly vivid memories onto the simple, yet fairly accurate backdrop the Marines had created. The trash and debris began to appear. The people, some smiling and waving, others just coldly staring. I could hear Iraqi children, who had an insatiable curiosity about cameras, start to surround me, tugging on clothes saying, "Mista, mista." And that uneasy feeling, because of a possible ambush, when no children were around.
It took me back to Fallujah two years ago on March 26, 2004, when Darrin, myself, and a squad of Marines from Fox Company patrolled the streets of Fallujah for 14 straight hours. I remembered making the decision that day, while we were being shot at by an unseen insurgent, to make a dash from the wall I had my body pressed against to the squad of Marines on the other side of the road. As I started to run, I fully expected to see puffs of dirt from the bullets hitting around my feet. The insurgent didn't shoot. I got lucky.
Later, at sunset, as the squad of Marines was trying to run to a safe haven, I remember hearing the sounds of someone on a loudspeaker riling up a large crowd of Iraqi men, who were all chanting and yelling as if angered, at a mosque two blocks away from us. "I don't think they're talking about Friday night's potluck dinner," I remember commenting to Darrin as we all took refuge in an abandoned Iraqi house. The hornet's nest had been stirred up.
Leaving Twentynine Palms on Tuesday afternoon, reporter Mark Walker and I drove through the town of Yucca Valley. We drove past various strip malls, the Yucca Bowl, the Hairs Johnny barber shop. And coming up on the right, the Yucca Valley Wal-Mart. OK, that makes it official. My little flashback trip to Iraq is over.
Hayne Palmour IV is a staff photographer at the North County Times. Contact him at (760) 901-4081 or hpalmour@nctimes.com
Ellie