Me

In case you'd care to send anything my way, here is my mailing address. I don't really need much unless its an old Xbox game you don't care for, something interesting to read (sports or foreign policy related) or your delicious baked goods. It's always fun, though, to help out the local Iraqi schools with supplies, kids with sporting goods (soccer balls), or people in general with food, so send them my way!

2LT Feehan, Daniel
E Co, 1-66 AR 1BCT 4ID
Unit # 50003
APO, AE 09378-003

"I prefer Thin Mints!"

A small anecdote:


While on patrol in the slums of north Baghdad the other day, my convoy came across a small boy on the roadside waving excitedly. This was nothing out of the ordinary, for most children come running at the cacophony of American power. But this child, no more than 2 and a half feet tall, would prove to be different.

My company recently received over a thousand Girl Scout cookies, far more than we could even imgaine consuming at a healthy rate. I decided to share this great American Icon with the Iraqi people and have my gunners toss the boxes out to the locals as we passed by.

The small boy at the roadside would be our first recipient. The vehicle in front of mine let fly a box of "Lemon Bursts", a tasty treat in its own right, in the general direction of the boy as we rolled past. The child snatched up the box in an instant with a look of sheer joy on his face. Then, I witnessed his mother harshly rebuke his acceptance of our gift. In a flash, the boys face turned from joy to nothing short of anger. His little arm hucked the Lemon Bursts right back at my vehicle, striking the armored side and letting us Americans know with finality where we could stick our cookies. It was quite a heave, for the box was at least the size of his torso. My astonishment, however, was not at his impressive throw. It was that he rejected Girl Scout Cookies. Everyone loves Girl Scout cookies!

I could pontificate on the international political ramifications of this incident: that the boy was probably Sunni and no cookie would win his heart or mind, that his mother was angry he had accepted an American gift, that he probably didn't know it was a box of cookies, but that would be all too easy. I realized later what really happened.

Simply put, the boy told me and the world that "I prefer Thin Mints!"

Scorpion vs. Camel Spider!

Wellp! Here I am, typing in my "pod" in Camp Taji, I-rock. A Pod is one of three rooms to a trailer you might see at a construction site. It has a nice bed and airconditioning, the latter of which being extremely important. It appears that the world is starting to melt outside, or at least I believe it should be any second now. I pride myself at being able to deal with cold temperatures quite well, but this guy is not a fan of the heat.

I've struggled with what I should write about, and have put this blog off deliberately. I don't want to trivialize this experience or my work here in any way like I am some third party critic of US foreign policy. I AM US foreign policy! Nor do I wish to violate "OPSEC", or operational security, which is like Geraldo Rivera drawing a map in the dirt on live television. I hope, though, that I can find some happy medium to merely convey to those I love the incredible experience I am having.

I don't know where I could possibly begin, mostly because aesthetically and in terms of "new" experiences, my time here in armed conflict is like a study abroad on steroids. Everything I see and do is new, even if I've done it before, simply because it's under the auspices of this war.

I will say that watching this thing for three years on television in no way prepares you for the real thing. TV never really shows you everything, I suppose, and is just a glimpse, but I still can't believe just how different everything is in real life. Especially the poverty.

I saw some nasty shit while I was in South America, especially in Peru. The poverty there was especially made poignant because the impoverished realized their plight. Because they understood, they begged, and their begging made their poverty absolutely tragic to me. Being here has made me forget Peru. The poverty is that dramatic.

Now I have no doubt that countries in Africa have it worse, especially in conventional measures of poverty like health care and starvation. But there is something different about poverty when it exists when you have a feeling it shouldn't. When everyone you see carries or demonstrates some amenity of the modern world like a cell phone or satellite dish or beauty product. When that is what you see, and it seems that the children aren't starving, you don't expect human beings to be living and standing in their own waste, in their own shit. You don't expect to see a complete lack of basic social services. The contrast between expectation and reality is just shocking.

The children's faces stay in your head long after your Humvee has rolled by, or after you've apologized for not having anything for them as you walk to a local sheikh's plush accommodations. They are all beautiful young children, and are fascinated by American troops. Some even enjoy hucking rocks at our convoys, not out of anger, but as a game.

I don't know what it all means yet. I can't pretend to know this country because it is so complex, so complicated. I might never know it or understand it. The poverty is just the first thing I don't know or understand.

It's also a wild country. One soldier recently gathered two wildlife heavyweights for a bout of epic proportions. SCORPION VS CAMEL-SPIDER was born. They were placed inside a Gatorade bottle and asked to duke it out. Apparently, though, both gladiators were paid to throw the fight, and neither would make the first strike. The fight was thereafter cancelled due to lack of interest.

Regardless, I learned to pray to God that neither a scorpion nor a camel-spider make it into my Pod.