IRAQ GOOD The small boy smiles, kicks roundhouses across the potholed road, says, Van Damme good? & I say, Yes, Van Damme good. The boy punches the warm air while we, on the street for hours, outside the Sadiyah police compound walled with Hescos higher than our gunners' heads, pace circles around the trucks. Two other boys, maybe nine or ten, chop each other, gently, with knife-hands, & one turns, says, No good Saddam, Saddam very no, & he points to his sandal's heel, Saddam no. & so it went: Bruce Lee good, Zamzam good, falafel good, even Michael Jackson good, even Bush good, even America very good. We stood, speaking on ground where written words were first made, where Enheduanna wrote her poems, blunt reed on wet clay, the clay that made the walls those children slept behind at night, that filled the Hescos behind our backs to protect from blasts & bullets. We leaned, a few feet from the boys, against Humvees--two-hundred grand apiece--made in Indiana. Insurgents were paid--we knew-- to blow one apart: five-hundred U.S. cash. Sometimes, as the boys spoke to each other, their Arabic muffled by passing traffic & muezzin calls, we'd talk amongst ourselves, asking, just steps from the boys, which one might, in five or ten years or less, fight us. Still, these silences, brief, would break when one of the boys might point to our rifles hanging over our vests, muzzles aimed at the road, the black red-dot scopes clipped to the carrying handles, & say, Laser...good, then point to our dark ballistic sunglasses, say, X-ray yes, good, &, although we'd agree, there was really no laser, no X-ray, but if we kept those boys there, talking, on that street as evening came, we'd be, for the moment, okay if only we kept it going: Ali Baba no good, chicken good, Sadiyah good, Iraq good, & good, & good. SERVICE Bright with light, the flag ripples on the Jumbotron as they ask those who've served to stand. Stand to be honored. Stand for us to show our appreciation. Please, stand. Come on, stand, my friend Sal says. So I stand with other men who stand in ball caps & button-up jerseys in the many sections & rows. Some, holding plastic trays of nachos & cardboard carriers with jumbo Cokes, move to their seats quickly, hunching, embarrassed, not wanting to take credit for serving from those who did, from those who stand. Some stand still & just salute the digitized wind-whipped flag. Some with hands in their pockets twist to see others in the park who also stand. In the service I always stood when officers entered a room. In the service I served more than thirty days in a combat zone which qualified me to wear the combat patch. After the service, they always asked where'd you serve. The Sandbox? The Stan? The Storm? In the service I often serviced my weapon. I served boiled carrots on Kitchen Patrol & some mornings I served by stirring shit to make it burn better. I served by closing my eyes during IED steel & smoke. I served by running through a marsh into a home through a doorway of blue linen hanging like a piece of laundry--inside I served by opening each drawer, each cabinet, looking for wires & weapons while women screamed in a room where we'd put them with the children away from the men we'd put in another room to be watched while we searched. I served by handing out Peppermint candies to children in villages as fathers & mothers stood in doorways not speaking, even though if they did we'd never know what they were saying. I served standing on dirt streets, pacing through alleys & avenues with thumb on the safety past furious dogs & children who'd wave or run even as I, sometimes, just stood doing nothing but waving with my left hand in a constant light, that same sunlight that makes this little blonde-haired girl glow as she holds a microphone with two hands at home plate while the entire stadium now stands then everyone, suddenly, goes silent to hear her sing. LETTER TO LIEUTENANT OWEN FROM THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY --9/3/13, New Concord, OH Still children ardent for some desperate glory, aiming guns at Baghdad before we're twenty. Midwest in America (you haven't been): the reds & yellows of leaves swarm the streets' curbs as the State talks of bombs they'll send to send a message. Simple, sir, to drop them where you're not. Damascus-- City of Jasmine--shelled with Sarin. What's changed since your World War, which still we call The Great? Today we name them Operations. Each speech ends God bless America. Through the panes of your mask that man still drowns. & still, the soldiers: not dead, just Fallen. One morning they gassed us, only once, in northern Kentucky where America keeps its bullion behind barbed wire. We danced-- we were made to--in a room where white steam crawled along the walls & then we slipped off our masks: it was like the needles of a pine brushing my iris. Burning skin. We yelled our Socials with snot-strings on our chins. As you said, sir, it is sweet & right to huff gas for one's country, to shave for one's country because, otherwise, the mask won't seal. Can you believe, sir, a death from stubble? & isn't that something: City of Jasmine. Can you imagine? Excerpted from In Country by Hugh Martin All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
