JimSpiri ”THE LAST LAP #13”
The latest journey called, "The Last Lap" - IRAQ, 2015
© Jim Spiri 2015
July 27, 2015
It is Monday morning in Baghdad. In less than 24-hours I should be on a plane headed out of
Iraq as the last lap of this journey comes into view. For the past 36-hours I’ve been in an
apartment provided for me by my host along with others who use this place as a kind of
“transit hotel” while working in Baghdad. I was afforded all hospitality while preparing my
final entries about this journey. I have spent
these past two days catching up on my
writings while at the same time thinking about
all the things I forgot to do or just ran out of
time to do. Sometimes, I feel like a failure. I
had wanted to get into some specific combat
areas yet it was not possible given the
constraints of travel restrictions that would
endanger my hosts. I just could not do it all
this time. Who knows if there will ever be a
“next time”. Perhaps I will leave that for
someone else who is much younger than me to
follow in some of the footsteps I have blazed a
trail for. I feel a little like Brett Farve, the
former American football player who just
didn’t know when to retire. I’ve done what I
could with the minimal resources I had
available to me over the years. If one is going
to “fly by the seat of his pants” then one has to
accept that going it alone on one’s own dime
does in fact have logistical restrictions. I
remember nearly 30-years ago having this
same feeling. It is like a fisherman who never
catches that one fish he continually seeks.
He’s left to talk about the one that got away.
I am content with what I’ve done in the realm I was forced to operate in and among. Some
would say “it’s not enough” while others would say, “kaafe” which translates to, “enough”.
Like in Italian, they say, “basta”. I am forced to mentally agree that “enough is enough”. I
believe that no matter what I do in the places I go, I will always feel that I could have done
better. I am at peace however in my being that I did for the most part the best I could with
what I had available to me at any given time. There is no memoir to write. There is no legacy
to promote. There is no “Brian Williams type story” to fabricate. I was and remain an
independent freelance war historian-photographer-type of journalist who pulled off the
impossible without any big budget from a major news organization to fund my passion for
having wanted to go to the “other side of the hill” just to see what there was to see. I just
went. I saw. I left. And now, like the
people of Dholoyia, I just move on.
Period.
Before I left Dholoyia, one of the last
things I did was to visit a distribution of
materials to those that became homeless
that lost everything due to the battle for
Dholoyia. My hosts’ youngest brother,
Nektal, who is also an IP (Iraqi Policeman)
came to get me and told me to come with
him. Through some hand signs and very
limited English words and my very limited
Arabic words, I figured out to just go with
him and see where we would end up.
We drove into town at a quick clip, but I have come to know that all younger folks around the
world do indeed have a heavy foot on the gas pedal. We stopped to pick up a friend named,
Waleed, who speaks fairly sufficient English and volunteered to tag along for my benefit. We
arrived at a place that looked like a large enclosed tennis court area that was fenced well over
20-feet high. There was a massive amount of people cramming to gain entrance inside where
the items for distribution were held. By this time in the morning it was well over 100-degrees.
The humidity has been on the rise this time of year so all of this took place in what felt like a
roasting oven.
There was basically chaos all over the
place. They had a system in place that had
the names of those who would receive the
supplies. But the lists did not have
everyone’s name on it of course. It became
apparent that not all would receive what
they had come for. Remember, they have
nothing left, they are living in abandoned
dwellings in the area but are not allowed to
return to their own homes just across the
river. That is controlled by the Popular
Mobilization Forces, (Shia militias) and the
squeeze play of sorts making life hell for
those Sunnis who are at the bottom rung of
the ladder suffer the most and are the ones once again before my eyes as I watch them through
the viewfinder of my camera.
The scene became even more chaotic when the gate would open and let someone in, such as
me and the two guys with me. We got in because Nektal is one of the policemen and knows
the crew working this event. It was Nektal’s day off but he forfeited it for my benefit so I
could have the opportunity to see this. The
late morning sun was now totally intense
and the light was not what I like to shoot
in. However, I changed the ISO setting
and adjusted for the light intensity so as to
try to get better image results.
We spent about two hours there and by the
time we left I can say I truly had enough of
the place. It was not easy to be there. It
was sad and ugly at the same time. It is
what war leaves behind. And the heat
intensified the scene the more so. I was
glad I went, but I was also glad I could
leave and return to my hosts abode. Nektal
took us on a little drive out in the country
and we stopped in to see one of the officers in charge of a check point and had good
conversation with him. We drank cold water and talked for a while. He had been a media
officer in the Army while stationed in Mosul but had been transferred back to his hometown
area of Dholoyia. He was not able to do the job anymore that he was trained for and it
bothered him. We left after about 45-minutes and returned home. This would be the last event
I would report on in Dholoyia. Later that evening, as I have written about prior, I went to
dinner and then returned home.
To Baghdad
On the evening I left Dholoyia it was arranged that we would go in a two car
convoy leaving at about 8:00 pm. We would cross the way I came into Dholoyia
over a wooden bridge that is used to get across the Tigris River because the main
bridge had been blown up last year by ISiS and still remains closed. The concern
among my hosts was the check points. Travel is restricted and limited. Especially
for Sunnis. We passed through without too much of a hitch. There were times that
it was questionable whether we would be granted passage or not, but the lead
vehicle in our two vehicle convoy made sure we got through. The driver of that
vehicle said all the right things.
As we left the area we passed in close proximity to where I was stationed for two
years at Camp Anaconda. I thought back to my time a decade prior and now was
experiencing things on the other side of the looking glass, again. I was leaving this
area, again. I seem to go and come from here and there if one looks back over the
years. After a couple of hours, we ended up in Baghdad. It is not that far distance
wise, but there are scores of checkpoints all along the way and the traffic volume
becomes increasingly noticeable to where things just come to a halt.
Eventually we got to the outskirts of Baghdad and before long the traffic was jam
packed. Bumper to bumper. We headed for a place that is a main gathering site in
the very heart of the central part of Baghdad. It was now late at night but the place
was lit up and had wall to wall people everywhere. We found a particular parking
spot and we all exited our vehicles. We were now in the center of the center of the
big city, Iraqi style. We were at a place that was brimming with customers. It
translates to, “Penguin” in English. The lights are bright and it seems like
everyone in Iraq is here. This place serves the most phenomenal ice cream I have
ever had. One of the folks with us is a good, good friend of the owner, who
happens to have three of these locations in Baghdad. We were all given ice cream
at no cost and frozen fruit drinks if we so desired.
The moment I tasted the ice cream, I was hooked. The folks around were all doing
the same thing I was doing. Enjoying their night out in the middle of summer in
downtown Baghdad while eating the best ice cream I’ve ever seen or tasted. The
crowd was a city crowd. I changed settings on my camera and was able to shoot under
the available light and get a few clear shots of things. The people were all dressed in
western attire which kind of took me back a bit, having been out in the country so to speak
for the past couple of weeks. There were families all around with both husbands and wives
and children all enjoying the night. I was amazed at how many people were taking cell phone
photos of the night. I just could not get over how everyone kept doing this. It made me laugh.
It was hard to imagine that just 25-miles away is Fallujah, a place I have been to where
currently hell fire and brimstone is raining down upon the land at this very moment. It struck
me as bizarre. Once again I just don’t get it. I know it is a disaster just down the road so to
speak that all the world hears about daily. The region is consumed by the turmoil that is only a
hop, skip and a jump away from where I am indulging myself with excellent ice cream here in
central Baghdad. These kind of things weigh heavily on me and it makes me want to go there
and see. But, that was not to be the case this journey. I’ve been there before. I can only
imagine what this night has in store for the residents down the road a piece in Fallujah.
I kept eating my ice cream. It was really good !
We stayed there a while until after midnight.
Then we drove through all kinds of back
streets for quite some time and ended up near
the IZ (international zone) across the street
from the MOF (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). I
am now in the heart of the political world in
Iraq, staying in an apartment that looks like
any other place in the area that serves its’
purpose functionally well. I am surrounded by
scores of apartment buildings that all are
occupied. I am in a room that the folks I am
among use as a “transit hotel” while they work
their jobs in Baghdad. Many from Dholoyia
have jobs here in Baghdad and they have made
a way of surviving “Jubur style” in the big
city.
The nights at the apartment are alive with
folks all carrying on discussions about things
going on in Iraq nationwide while sipping chi
and smoking cigarettes. I have been brought
into their fold and have become a part of their
daily lives which includes Baghdad from afar.
It is like going on the road to work and coming
home at the end of the work week in the US. This is what a lot of people, especially those
with good education, do in Iraq. Yet I still kept thinking about the war the whole world hears
about at the moment just a little “over the hill and not that far away”!
So that brings me to right now, finally. I’ve done the journey and yet there is still a ways to go
before I get home. Anything can happen. But, it looks like I’m on my way home now. At
least that is the plan in the next 18-hours. I remember coming to Baghdad with my wife in
2005 as honored guests of the United States Marine Corps for a birthday celebration that
November 10th. We both were working at Camp Anaconda and a Marine public affairs officer
took note of the work my wife was doing and contacted me eventually. He had heard about
our story and that we had lost a son who was a Marine. It took all kinds of string pulling to get
our employers at the time, KBR, to agree to let the Marines fly us to the palace in Baghdad as
honored guests. Somehow, we pulled it off. So as I look over the brown hazy sky today in
Baghdad, Iraq I think back to a time when my wife and I visited via helicopter as guests of the
USMC during a time when war was raging all around us. It was a lot of yesterdays ago. I am
thankful we got to do that.
Over a decade later, I am once again in Baghdad. At this very moment, there are “friends” of
mine who are from New Mexico in helicopters somewhere nearby where I am. Before I left
home on this journey I inquired with those “above my pay grade” as to the possibility of
“hooking up” with these “friends” of mine. I even inquired as to the possibility of tagging
along with the group and doing what I do for the audience back home. A decade later, after
having been flown from Camp Anaconda to Baghdad via helicopter ten years earlier at the
behest of the USMC, this time I was shown the door by an Air Force General from New
Mexico and told, “You’re on your own Mr. Spiri. We are not going to help you on your
journey”.
That is the same thing Air Force generals in New Mexico told me fourteen years earlier when
they refused treatment for my son Jesse, the Marine whose life was fading before my very
eyes. I have a lot of experience in “going it alone” compliments of people “way above my
pay grade”. The funny thing is I pay these guys to treat me and my family like this. Recently
a man in Utah who is aware of things I’ve done in my life asked me this question: “Jim, if they
(the folks that closed doors on me) had made it easier for you, do you think you would have
had such profound experiences in the journeys you’ve gone on”?
That question is the one thing I ponder all
the time as I come to the end of this
journey. I have suffered a lot in life and
complained most of the time through the
hard times. Yet as I discovered among the
people of Dholoyia who have suffered
more than most all I’ve ever met, and have
suffered more than me, I can honestly
answer my friend’s question from Utah
now. I say, “Maybe”.
The truth be known, I have been blessed by
my Lord in all things and in all
circumstances, no matter what obstacles
were placed in my path. I always had a
thought that would make things logistically easier for me to accomplish the vision I have as I
go here and there to do this or that. In the end, I always end up re-learning what “keeping the
faith” really means.
This I learned from my son Jesse. “Sempre Fi”
Jim Spiri, July 2015, Iraq
The Last Lap #13
This is what I do, July 2015, Iraq
Delivery of supplies
Items for distribution
It was very hot
In line
All ages in the crowd
From old to young wait in line
The pressing crowd
Young ones waiting for items of distribution.
Waiting
Women waiting for supplies
It was hot and she was thirsty
The Lt. and me.
Three men from the old regime who are
brothers and are all wise military men.They
have become honored friends.
Playing football with the neighborhood kids
At the neighborhood field
Central Baghdad at night
The selfie phenomenon
More selfies
The view from where I stay in Baghdad
Baghdad from my window
In the end, it is about a
unified Iraq under one
flag. This is what I see
as a solution for the
war ravaged nation.
In memory of my son, 2nd Lt. Jesse James Spiri, USMC. A warrior-man who kept the faith.