A chaptered story told on many blogs starts here and continues here:
Chapter Three: Lunch with Friends
Today saw a special treat for lunch. One of the Iraqi Army (IA) officers that we routinely work with is very fond of our commander and rightfully so. My commander is a pleasure to work for and I really appreciate the way he approaches everything with common sense and motivation. Anyway, the IA officer brought lunch from home, a meal that his wife specially prepared. The top three officers of my team and I were invited over to the IA side (versus the CF side -Coalition Forces side) for lunch and we sat down with a few IA officers and the IA command sergeant major, all good guys who I consider friends.
I don't remember all the names of the dishes but they were good. And plentiful. Wow there was a lot of chow! Apparently, it is good manners to share many different dishes with your guests. We all made a point of complimenting the IA officer's wife's cooking. I was stuffed.
Great conversation as well. We really like our interpreters and they do a great job supporting us. They make it possible for us to share information with the IA, Iraqi Police and civilians in our area. You can tell when you work with them that these guys not only take their job seriously, but they are proud of how their work helps their country. Sure they appreciate getting a paycheck, but more than that, they want to contribute to their new democracy and freedom. These guys spend their free time practicing their English and at least one of them is taking literacy classes in Arabic as well. One of my favorites was once in the new Iraqi Army and learned English from the American Soldiers that were partnered with his fledgling unit.
Moving on, like I said, great conversation about various topics: the IA unit and upcoming operations, improvements in our area, politics - Iraqi and international, families, Hawaii , and there was no way we couldn't talk about Texas . Why? Because the "chai guy" was wearing a Texas Longhorns t-shirt given to him by one of the US Army officers. Of course someone chimed in with the "two types of Texans" joke, my retort being that there are two types of Americans: Texans and those that wish they were Texans. I'm not sure the Iraqis understood the envy that the American officers present held towards me, being the only Texan in the room, but I did. Heh.
After seven months, I feel like I've known this particular group of Iraqis for years. We spend so much time together and these guys go out of their way to be hospitable that only a cold-hearted bastard could resist getting close to these Iraqi patriots. Truly, I will miss them when we leave.
Continue to Chapter 4
Previous Chapter here:
No comments:
Post a Comment