18 articles
After the winter rains, the Shia south unfurled like a green flag—desert lakes flashing in the morning sun, children in new clothes racing our convoys, vendors offering kabobs, and every smile saying the same thing: Saddam is gone.
The war of terror is not fought with bombs or bullets, but in the human heart, where fear seeks to claim ground that only we can choose to surrender.
Years of envy and humiliation had hardened into a poverty of consciousness, where cruelty was mistaken for devotion and crime disguised itself as holy war.
In the desert’s crucible, where ego burned away, I discovered that truth itself could be the strongest shield a man might carry.
Grief moved at fast forward as young Soldiers bore loss with dignity, proving war’s pain can unite hearts in love and resilience.
We idled through Al Dujahl’s midnight arteries, numb and hollow, while men in the shadows watched us like witnesses at the thin border between heaven and hell.
Refreshed by a fleeting journey of the soul across time and space, I found strength in the shared silence between stars, and returned to the desert ready to march again.
In a dusty courtyard outside Taji, surrounded by curious children and cautious sheiks, we built fragile bridges with bottled water, schoolbooks, and the stubborn hope that kindness could hold back the war.
I didn’t end up in that desert by accident—every hardship, every hard lesson, every quiet moment of doubt had been sharpening me for that exact stretch of sand, steel, and responsibility.
In the stillness between IED craters and ambush points, barefoot children in sunlit fields reminded us—without knowing—that peace still dared to exist.
Beneath the corrugated shadows of the Taji Market, where farmers and fanatics shared the same dust, we moved—alert, measured, and unwilling to let the chaos define us.
Under Saddam, theft wasn’t a crime—it was the national business model, sanctified by fear, filmed for posterity, and sold back to the people like a bad memory on repeat.