Salam Pax hung out with a GI (DC) who'd served in Iraq in late October

[stellanoir]

Mods. . .this is kind of old but I hadn't seen both posts woven together before. It's also kind of long but since it comes from two different sites I thought it was far more poignant to post together. I hope you'll kindly allow me to violate the 4 paragraph rule. Thanks for your consideration.

http://turningtables.blogspot.com/

This is from a now hopefully retired soldier's blog.

...10.15.2004...

"out of the blue i get random emails...but isn't that how it always works...because if you expected them they wouldn't be so random...a few days ago i received one of these emails from a person who has meant a lot to me in the last few years...a guy i came to know deeply...who put things in a profound sense and helped me understand so much...he was actually the reason i started this blog so long ago...but he didn't know that until i told him last night...we had dinner in georgetown after i got off of work...(i'm working for one of the two major satellite radio companies now and it is an amazing thing to love your job)...there wasn't much of drive to meet him...the hotel that the guardian put him up in was very easy to find and the people at the front desk were helpful...even if he didn't give me his real name only a room number...face to face anonymity is a strange thing...

i sat waiting by the elevator for someone i've never met in person but whom i knew i would know once i saw...watching each door open with luggage totting visitors shuffle in and out...three separate doors all working in some strange 3 card monty...distracting my attention until a man whom i've known for over a year and half...who shared the difficulties of life with me...who helped to open up my eyes to the bigger picture...who i once read resembled a cherub stepped out of the elevator directly in front of me and also knew me instantly...the world is a strange place...he was what i expected and yet he was more...it felt as though we were catching up on old times that were shared even if neither of us could really understand the others experience...we went to my truck to stick a parking pass on the rear view mirror and to my surprise he climbed up into the passenger seat...so i got in too because he must've wanted to go someplace...

as we drove down the cramped streets of georgetown we talked about the last year and where things have ended up...we talked about the cryptic hand signals used by american soldiers at iraqi check points...we talked about house music and military cultural awareness training...we talked about riverbend...we realized that we had no idea where we were going so we parked my massive F150 and set out on foot...i found out that he is here as a reporter for the guardian...he's been lined up with amazing interviews that scare him...although i think he will do just fine because he is excellent in the fine art of conversation...he is aware of the many sides of such a difficult time...

he had questions for me...things he hasn't had the chance to ask a former soldier...he needed clarifications and explanations...i watched his eyes go big at some of my answers...i smiled at his amazement that a guy like me could have ever been in the military he is all to familiar with...i assured him there are more of the me's out there...we talked about book deals and movie rights...film festivals and action figures...we talked politics and then we talked more politics...his perspective put my own under a new light and i thank him for that...we drank beers...i had a Guinness while he had a miller light...miller light? of all the beers in that pub...we sat for something like 3 hours and brought the world into focus...things are the way they are...but he has put his mark in this world forever...he opened up more eyes then my own and i think that is why i am so honored that he would wish to meet with me while he visited our country...i can only hope that you have continued success in your life and you keep getting paid for something you would do for free...you are amazing...
be safe salam..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1332826,00.html

This is the encounter from Salam's perspective.

Friday October 22, 2004

"In August last year I got an email suggesting I took a look at a weblog being written by an American soldier in Iraq: "I hope we uncover all the banned weapons that we said were here," it said. "I hope we find it all, every last bit: then all of this will have served a glorious purpose that no one can argue with." "I need to know that I helped unplug a dangerous beast before it struck. I need to know that for all those that have died, their deaths were not in vain. I need to know that we have prevented horrendous events from transpiring . . . and I want all of this to go down in history as 'the right thing to do'."

Sergeant Sean was writing his blog, Turningtables, from Baghdad. It was funny, it had a very distinctive voice, and somehow it did not fit with the Terminator image of American soldiers in Baghdad. A couple of days ago, I emailed Sean to ask whether he could hook me up with a soldier who was in Baghdad and is now in the DC area. I wanted to sit down with an American soldier over beers and talk about Iraq. Since there is no chance of this happening in Baghdad any time soon, this trip to the US would be my opportunity.

And guess who lives and works in the DC area after finishing his six-year enlistment? Sean - Mr Turningtables - is here himself, and he said he would be glad to meet me. We had dinner together and talked about a million things. You have no idea how strange it feels that we share so much in common. When I told him I would never actually approach an American soldier on the street in Baghdad, he told me that if we were in Baghdad he would probably be talking to me with his gun pointing at me because he would be scared shitless. Yet there we sat, drinking beers together. We exchange stories about how badly both of us are dealing with sounds of things popping. He tells me he will never again go to a July 4 celebration because of the fireworks, and I tell him how I got laughed at when I ducked and ran after a car backfired near me in London. Sean is only 26 years old. Six of those years have been spent in the US army as part of the signals corps. We have similar taste in music and we talk about good remixes of Jamiroquai songs.

He tells me how scared he was when he had to drive through Baghdad. On one of those drives, from one base to another, he had his gun pointing out of the window of his Humvee when he noticed that he was pointing it at a little girl who sitting in the car beside them. She looked him straight in the eye. He tells me about how frightening it was to be in a badly armoured Humvee and have to be the decoy that attracts fire away from the bigger fish in armoured civilian vehicles. I sit here bonding with an American soldier. He tells me about a couple of good clubs to go to on Saturday and tells me to give him a call if I want to "get down and get crazy". When it is time for him to go back to his new home and wife - he got married in Las Vegas weeks after he came back from Baghdad - we shake hands and hug. I tell him I don't really understand what he was doing in the military; he tells me he went into it to get out of a dead-end life. And about being in Baghdad? "I was there because I was ordered to be there. That is my reason, my sole reason. My personal feelings mean nothing. I was not asked and I will not be asked. I'm cool with that ... because I don't work in a democracy - I work for one.""

Not a single word has been on the web from Salam Pax on his sites or in the Guardian since his DC visit. Does anyone have a clue what's happened? Hope to God he hasn't been "disappeared" or ghosted. I just was deeply moved by their different though shared takes on their visit and felt it was really and truly moving. Perhaps we all could be ever mindful of the fact that the things that we share with the rest of humanity are far greater that the things which divide us. . .despite all the pervasively divisive rhetoric.

[stellanoir]

1. .

for those guys.