Mortaritaville

To say that arriving at an airport which nicknames itself Mortaritaville is disconcerting is an understatement. It is in no way reassuring.

You get off the plane in Iraq, and your first thought is, “Wow, they have trees here. Maybe I should have looked at a map, or some type of fact sheet about this country.” You are shuffled into a small bus which takes you across the tarmac, full body armor on, and the question only then begins to nag at you, “Why are we the only ones in armor?” The bus driver, the baggage clerks, even the pilots are wearing uniforms, but a soft cap is the only protection from bombs and bullets. And beans, to reference an old saying.

The flight out of Kuwait is in some giant belly of a plane, the way a normal commercial aircraft might look if every single expense budget was cut, the floor was ripped out, the cargo was stacked towering above you ahead of time by your own hands, and the seats had been stolen from a real plane. Windows? They traded those for green paint. Everything smelled of gun lubricate and sweat. Everything smelled of an aircraft hangar.

Climbing to some strange unknown altitude and having no view of the outside it’s easy to forget you are actually flying, perhaps this is some giant submarine to transverse the sand and rock and burrow into Iraq; a transnational digging machine. Vaguely reminiscent of the late 1990s mall rides in which you sit down, movie screen in front of you, doors closed, vehicle rocking, and experience some sad journey into some body part of cavern that no one in their right mind would go to anyway. The only pleasant variation I’ve seen is in the Heineken brewing factory, where you journey as a bottle into someone’s mouth. Ahh, consumption.

But you arrive, and are ferried to a waiting room where a video plays for you. It goes as such…
“Welcome to Balad”, the voice-over says, as you see a sign mocking Margaritaville with Mortaritaville instead. “Last year we had over 900 mortars.” Quick math in my head suggests over 3 a days, and wonders when they will start. “In case of the alarm [alarm sounds] do the following…”

At this point I’d stopped paying attention and thought, wow these are bad actors. And who the hell is going to hear an incoming alarm and lay down in the road for 2 minutes? Or worse, as the actors were portrayed, who will sit and play cards outside ignoring it? Why is this airman picking up unexploded ordinance? Who the hell decided to name the loudspeaker the “Giant Voice in the Sky”?

The whole video confused me at first; making me wonder what the procedure to react to mortars was when you were driving, which wasn’t covered. Or what to do if you didn’t have your body armor and helmet readily available? Where to go if you don’t see a bunker after your 2 minute nap?

Let’s just say I had a lot of doubt regarding not only the proper techniques to handling an attack, but also the ability to act and direct on behalf of the Air Force. I’m not sure which vexed me more.

It wasn’t until a few days later that mortar #1 arrived. The alarm sounded, and of all the places to go, Tyrone went to the portable bathroom to pee. The rest of us walked into a building, where we were yelled at for being inside until the sergeant yelling was informed that we had gone in to escape the eminent death surrounding us. Thirty seconds later we were cleared to exit, and found zero chaos. Zero mortar dust, lingering. Zero anything really.

But we did find Tyrone, using hand sanitizer and feeling relieved.