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was brutal. It was modern Iraq, permanently soaked in a blood-red-sea past it would never be able to part, let alone escape.

    The combat outpost in Saba al-Bor, located in the northwestern fringe of Baghdad Province. Home to over seventy American soldiers, it also served as an Iraqi police station and as a local governance center.
    Although my unit didn’t know it when we arrived, this place was to become our very own reality show, just without the camera crews. Or the adoring public. MTV probably wouldn’t have been interested. Not enough inanity.
    Back in Kuwait, I had begun writing an online journal—a blog, really, although I detested that description—about the platoon’s experiences. For operational security (OPSEC) reasons, I came up with the pseudonym “Anu al-Verona” to describe Saba al-Bor, purloining a bit from Shakespeare and sprinkling on some local spice. Our new home was no Anu al-Verona though, and I’d learn such in time. There were ancient grudges and new mutinies to be found, sure, but civil blood and civil hands were severely lacking in this forgotten slice of the crescent moon. Perhaps most obviously, there was nothing
fair about Saba al-Bor, no matter what literary nickname I gave it. No romanticism abided here. Reality endured.
    In the village center lay the imposing American castle known as the combat outpost. As part of the refined focus on counterinsurgency operations, the Gravediggers and their brother platoons in Bravo Troop resided there permanently, living with the war rather than commuting to it. This vast two-story complex, originally built as a retirement mansion for one of Saddam Hussein’s favored generals, stood in stark contrast to the slums surrounding it. On the first floor of the outpost dwelled the remnants of Saba al-Bor’s governance center, where one lone mayor worked tirelessly to install a civil government in a tribal society; dirty, hungry, and tired soldiers lived on the second floor and prowled the roof above that, waiting, some hoping, for an attack on the premises. Even here, in the flat Arab desert and attempting to blend in, the American outpost couldn’t help but be the City on the Hill. Too much electricity. Too much security. Too much activity.
    Next to this compound stood proof that, at least four years after the statement was first uttered, the Coalition of the Willing was more than just an uncomfortably titled punch line. A platoon of Estonians, a battalion of IA, and a company of IP operated out of their own rustic structures, and all, albeit in very different ways, displayed a dark cynicism and fearlessness that sprouted from growing up in the Third World—the Stones having been trapped behind the Iron Curtain, and the Iraqis, locked in Saddam’s Baathist basement. Coordinating all of these assets for the betterment of the Republic of Iraq proved a challenging task, one that too often degenerated into a walking monster of mental anguish for me and my men. Breaking up drunken fistfights between the armed IP and equally armed IA only amused the first time.
    Helping bridge the gap between languages and cultures were the terps, who lived side by side with us upstairs. Referenced more by their American nicknames than their given Arabic names, these men simultaneously provided a vital asset for communicating with the local populace and served as instant comedy. Between Suge (pronounced “Shoog,” like the hip-hop entrepreneur) Knight, Super Mario, Phoenix, and Snoop Dogg, our terps went out with us on every mission and gave us the occasional reminder of home, due to the pop-culture-related origin of their nicknames. Although the money they made was surely a primary reason for their chosen vocation and their English could at best be described as rudimentary, it was easy to forget how many of our enemies would’ve gladly killed our terps for working with us.

    Swarming the combat outpost from the town and