The Endless Summer

Bruce Brown's 1966 film Endless Summer famously documenting a global surf trip may have had more of an effect on me than I realized. The film, about two surfers on "surfari" around the world visit Africa, Australia, and elsewhere with voice over narration in the footage. As well, surfing and reading surf magazines growing up, with adventure trip reports, and then the words of Jack Kerouac in college, I've come to generate my own story lines to what I see. But often my photographs speak for themselves or are best left without any sort of suggestion at all.

We, my unit and I, have been here over a year, and although it did get cold half way through, it's hard to imagine winter now. It feels like one long summer. I imagine different things I want to do when I get back. I'll visit family in Florida, and get to the beach fer sure. I wanna be in the water, surfing, swimming, or kayaking. It's the only thing that makes summer heat fun or bearable - and there is no water of any kind here.

My leave dates will be similar to the ones I had for my mid-tour leave last year, only a year later. In conversations, while back home, my job and the war would come up and the question most asked from friends and strangers was, "what's it like over there?" It always sounded a little silly and I couldn't ever give an answer that felt sufficient. I think maybe this blog has become my one big packaged answer to the question. So now, when I get back home, I can get some cards made with the web address and when someone asks I'll just give 'em one and say, go see for yourself...just kidding.

Sometimes I wonder what Rick Steves would say about traveling here? Or maybe Alby Mangles would be better suited to travelogue this country. He'd have to put on a shirt though. Rick Steves is the nerdy but kind and squeeky voiced Mr. Rogers type character you see on PBS on weekends suggesting a hidden money belt as you leave the beaten path for "less touristy" spots of various European cities.

Alby Mangles was the Australian adventure man that preceded Crocodile Dundee and Steve Erwin. He wasn't satisfied with the Aussie outback and was typically found on the tube Saturday mornings topless riding an elephant in Africa or traversing a barren dunescape in Egypt with his beautiful girlfriend/wife eye-candy sidekick in a roofless Range Rover meeting up with local guides and going where no white man has gone before! ...or at least since the last time.

This has not been anything like that kind of adventure. Iraq has been a matter of going from one safety zone to the next and taking pictures of people who never even knew I was there. Most never even knew they were photographed. Being deployed in a military unit means being part of the unit, so the mission and the unit take precedence in everything. Getting home safe and with the mission accomplished is the ungiven and desired end state. There's no singular GI Joe or lead character in the show.
The Army used to have the slogan, "Army of One." It meant two things: You are an army of one, to appeal to the yet-to-join, and the whole of the army is one to the already enlisted and commissioned who were a part of this one whole. "One" had two meanings. The slogan is long gone now. It faded away somewhere during this war and was replaced with velcro name tags, digi-cam, and "Army Strong." But hell, my point must be that the adventures of summer are still elsewhere for now. Someday perhaps an Alby, Indiana, Erwin or Rick Steves will be able to go out to the Temple of Enlil, Ziggurat of Ur, Tower of Babil, or elsewhere in Iraq and document his adventure safely without the threat of violence and play with the snakes and spiders safely for the word's enjoyment. Till then, on with the mission.