The Courtesy of War
Written April 6th
Oh, the things we take for granted here in America. Or any other place that’s not a war zone.
I was just chilling out outside, its beautiful weather, a tad chilly, and decide its time to take my little Civic out for a drive. I pull out onto Lake Michigan drive and decide to head West, away from the city. Everyone is driving really nicely, letting me pass them in a lazy sort of way, and even one of them decided to race me on a long stretch of open road. I laughed as I beat him, and decided it was time to turn around and head home, this time, driving a bit more slowly. 10 minutes and 2 fire trucks later, I was home.
“A ridiculous traffic jam gums up the works, and we’re having none of it. Can’t let these crazy revolutionaries, extremists, and commuters get too close. Standard procedure, stay the fuck away. I’m on the 240 (that beautiful belt fed fully automatic bastard of all bastards), so my friend takes advantage of the situation and sticks his rifle out the back.”*
I can’t even imagine being in a war zone. These kids (no offense Suspect, but you are still in your 20’s) are dropped off in the middle of a foreign country and are expected to know the rules and regulations about everything. Not only that, but they are fighting, so everyone could be a possible enemy.
When I am on the road, I consider myself courteous to others. I don’t tailgate, I let people merge, and I generally take things nice and easy. I expect people to do the same for me, and if they don’t I consider they very very rude and usually have some not so courteous things to say about them under my breath.
“You drive, completely cognizant of the fact that you are driving in IED Central, and looking this way and that for anything suspicious. Intel, for instance, tells us to look out for a Toyota Corolla in black, white, red, blue…. Heck that is about EVERY car out there! They also say to look for particular trucks… SUV’s… and even an Afghan National Army vehicle that was stolen…. Ugh! So you get the picture, you basically can’t trust ANY vehicle out there because they are potential VBIED’s. Then you’ve got to navigate through a city that has no traffic laws, with people crossing the street everywhere … we have only one rule to driving here in Afghanistan: “Drive it like you stole it”, and TRY not to hurt anyone in the process. Ha! …. For instance, we don’t stop at most stop signs… we drive WAY faster than the rest of traffic, weaving in and out of lanes, nearly missing the corner of every vehicle we pass. We honk like we own the road, we have to swerve into oncoming one-way traffic to get around a slow vehicle that could make us vulnerable to attack; we’ve played “chicken” with oncoming cars, trucks, busses, and large jingle trucks more times that I can count. We’re not exactly winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people here with our highway habits!”**
Now I am not and expert on people, and I don’t pretend to be, but doesn’t that kind of inconsiderateness piss everyone off? I understand that our soldiers have to watch out for everyone, and be on the lookout, but does that mean that they can be rude to everyone in their host country?
If I lived in Afghanistan, and I saw a huge American truck barreling down at me, I would automatically not like them, and think they were a bunch of stuck-up jerks that didn’t belong in my country.
We watched a movie in class a couple weeks ago, called “Born on the Fourth of July”, about a kid who goes to Vietnam, and has to cope with what happened after he returns home. The main scene in the movie that sticks out in my mind is when they shoot up an entire village of innocent civilians, thinking that there were hidden Vietcong hiding in the houses. I keep trying to put myself in the shoes of someone from that country hearing about the news of that happening. That would infuriate me, even though I know they are supposedly helping, mistakes like that shouldn’t happen!.
That’s an extreme example, and I am just trying to get my point across. Perhaps we need to focus on the little things to make the countries we are supposed to be “helping” appreciate us a little more. Whether that be driving more considerately, doing more missions to bring fresh water and medical supplies to the outlying villages, or even just being friendly to as many locals as you can be without letting your guard down.
Maybe its not possible in a time of war, but I think it might be worth an effort. Who knows, perhaps more cooperation would come from it.
I’m just spitballin’ here………
April 16th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I agree, I would also be furious if I heard about my hometown being blown to smithereens by some other country who is supposedly here to help. I hope that would never happen here in US, but ya never know. I’ve been thinking about that same scene in Born on the 4th of July probably almost every day since we watched it, and I can’t get over when they just left them there. It is unfortunate that we have been helping so many countries and different people for hundreds of years, and yet we still don’t completely treat them like our own.
I agree with you, if they just took a second to slow down things might improve, and the people we are trying to help might like us just a little bit more.
April 16th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
So are you suggesting books for bombs? Basically instead of running and gunning our way through Iraq and Afghanistan we should actually acting more like a construction crew. I like that idea, but I do not think it (the war in Iraq and Afghanistan) has reached a point at which our army can start doing those types of things. What we need to do is get the Iraq army in some type of workable unites so they can do the security while our good old boys build those schools and roads. I often times wonder if we will ever get the point in which we will be able to actually build something there without someone there trying to knock it down.
I do identify with the troops though. I know if I was in Iraq right now, every time I was in a car outside the base, I would drive that thing like there was no tomorrow and the reality is, if I do not drive that car like that it just means it is more likely that there will be no tomorrow. Watching out for everything at all times would be very exhausting and mistakes are bound to happen, how are we going to win this war if mistakes cost so much?