The BALL REPORTS

If it weren't for the.., Words From Iraq

July 30, 2006

“If it weren't for the Army uniforms and the constant noise of helicopters taking off and landing, and the Russian 747-like jets screaming overhead every hour of the day, and the F-16s screeching around looking for something to kill, and the rockets exploding and the controlled blasts shaking the windows and the 'thump, thump, thump' sound of the Apache gun ships shooting their 30 mm guns in the middle of the night, and the heat and the cold, and the hero missions and the body bags and the stress, and the soldiers fraught with personal problems – child custody battles fought from 3,000 miles away, surgeries on ovaries, hearts, breasts, brains, cancers, transplants and the scorpions and the spiders who hide under the toilet seats, and the freakish bee-sized flies humming around like miniature blimps, and the worst: the constant pang of home, the longing for family, the knowledge that life is rolling past you like an unstoppable freight train, an inevitable force, reinforcing the desire for something familiar, the longing for something beautiful, for something safe, with love and laughter and poetry and cold lemonade and clean sheets, if it weren't for all that, Iraq would be just like home. Almost.”

Capt. Ryan Kelly, a Black Hawk helicopter pilot

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