Goodbye Baghdad

November 19, 2008

I’m spending my last night here on FOB Shield contemplating the past year. Tomorrow I leave for my new post up north in a place called Sulaymaniya. (“Sooly”, from here on out.) I spent the evening playing cards with my regular group, of which I am, or was, the longest standing member. I said my goodbyes to the friends I have there and then wandered lazily back to my room. It was a beautiful fall night for a walk. As I did I looked around at what has been my home for the last year and was struck with a lot of different feelings about it. I never thought I would come to think of this place as my home, but in a way that I think must be common to soldiers and contractors alike, I have done just that. So now when leaving here enroute to a new home I feel a bit sad and anxious and excited, all at the same time. The feeling is very much like the one I had when I left home last December.

So much has happened since then that I almost don’t know where to begin to categorically place it all in my head. I have seen and done so many things, and have traveled 360 degrees of the emotional spectrum as a result. Can I even try to use words to describe it all? I’ve felt thrilled, sad, challenged, lonely, spooked, sickened, surprised, accepted, respected, loved, and proud as hell...to name just a few. Back when I was debating leaving my life behind and coming here I factored personal change into the deciding equation. I had hoped this experience would help me grow as an individual and a man. And on the eve of my second departure from “home” in the last year I have to admit that examining myself for signs of that change hasn’t been easy. The experience so far has been a roller coaster of sensations, some of them painful, some of them joyful, but all of them encouraging and progressive. Self awareness isn’t something I believe I have ever accomplished. But knowing today that the last year, despite needing an “E ticket” to have ridden it out, has had a constructive outcome on me personally is the single greatest accomplishment of the entire time.

I have made so many new friends here in Baghdad, and it is them that I will miss the most. I can admit that “personable” isn’t an adjective usually used to describe me. So I know that opening myself up to the relationships I have developed here makes them all the more special. Partners like Jeff from Washington, Two Guns from the great state of Texas, and of course my old pal Mike from the Snake has made working in Baghdad an enjoyable and fulfilling experience. I was also very surprised to have found comforting friendship in a real life Army Angel from Florida. And I was even more surprised that I could learn a lot about myself from an Iraqi man who is 20 years my junior. I will miss them all very much. Some of these people I will probably never see again and that is a truly sad fact of life as a contractor in Iraq. But that loss is tempered by the positive influence they've all had on my life, and I sincerely hope that I will develop many more relationships like these over the next year.

I’m told that where I’m going the war almost doesn’t seem to exist. That’s just fine by me. Although I will miss the excitement of Baghdad…the mortars and hellfires, the sights and sounds of IED’s and sporadic gun battles, and all the other constant reminders that Toto and I aren’t in Kansas anymore, I feel in my bones that it is time for the next chapter to begin. I am eager to get to work and contribute to the mission up in “Sooly”. But it’s my future and the endless possibilities that it holds for me as an individual that encourages and excites me the most. So goodbye Baghdad, all is very well.

-Jim Franks