You Can’t Eat A Soccer Ball

In the Autumn of 2004 in Baquabah, Iraq we made a lot of effort after the razing of Fallujah to win back some support of the Iraqi people.

A general distrust grew among the local nationals and it was important to not lead into the elections with negative backlash. There was a surge of insurgent recruiting due to the injustice of destroying Fallujah and we wanted to take the wind out of it.

One of the officer think tanks perched high above real action in Iraq, and high above any common sense, decided it would be a great idea to hand out free soccer balls to the towns in the area.

I thought it was a strange idea from the start.

When we arrived in Iraq we were never greeted with flower baring women and showered with thanks. What we encountered when we confronted the Iraqi people were beggers and peddlers. The kids would approach us with offers on knives, old Iraqi money, whiskey, hashish, bootleg porn, and even prostitution.

Most would beg. First for money. They could buy anything they wanted with an American dollar. Then they would beg for food. It was obvious they were starving for something more nutritious than what their diet allowed.

Then they would beg for clothes, shoes, and school supplies.

I even asked to look in one childs backpack to cure a curiosity on what the school supplies he owned and what the schools were teaching him.

He explained that his father burned the books because it was getting cold outside. Coal is expensive and the Iraqi desert is not in abundance with wood.

After these questions were exhausted they would settle for anything they could see and ask for. All day it was "Mhister, mhister, gimmie mhister" and "for you one dollar mhister". Never once was I begged for a soccer ball.

Alas here we were with an entire train car full of soccer balls, however the one missing ingredient was a pump to inflate them.

Thousands of deflated soccer balls.

You would think that someone would raise a stink about it and get some way to inflate the balls, but not in this army.

This army is commanded by fear.

No one was willing to explain to higher that shit was all fucked up. That would mean it was either their fault or the person they are complaining to. And since the person they complain to is of higher rank, it means that the person complaining is responsible.

But an order is an order and "You will hand out those fucking balls!"

So here we are, a group of sixteen soldiers with deflated soccer balls piled up so high in the humvees we couldnt get to our ammunition.

We drove through the canal crossed Iraqi villages handing out useless sagging plastic to a bunch of hungry children. At first they were grateful. Then some confusion set in. Some tried to play with them by kicking them around and into the sky. They threw them like frisbees and wore them like hats. We shrugged and moved on to the next town away from the pleas "Mhister, fooood mhister"

As we completed our trip and ran out of balls we had to drive through the same towns on the way back.

Deflated soccer balls littered the ground, some were thrown onto houses and in palm trees.

The children at first were not to be seen. But around one corner we were welcomed by the grateful Iraqi children with a rain of rocks.

Many of the soldiers get upset and angry at the kids. They point weapons at them and some even fire off warning shots to scare them.

I just shrink into my turret and let the stones fall about my helmet and weapon shield.

I never blamed them.

Maybe we will be greeted with flowers when we stop handing out destruction, death, fear and deflated waste.

Soldier X

http://www.militaryproject.org/article.asp?id=543