I awoke early this morning, donned my running shoes and headed out for a little jog across the desert. The sky was still dark, the air cool and the traffic very light on the FOB. My mind wandered as I made my way over the flat, dusty land where arose the dawn of human recorded history, as the sun peaked above the horizon in front of me. I was very aware that my feet were pounding upon ancient land, beneath Anu, the Sumerian god of sky. A sky now busy with helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and cargo planes as they take part in making history in a place already rich in history.
I thought about the patrol I had been on the other day and wondered how the early days of civilization in this place, Mesopotamia, compared to today’s Iraq. How did the children of then spend there days? Certainly not chasing and waving to up-armored humvees driving past what one might term a village. Yet the children of Mesopotamia also knew war.
While dust filled my nostrils and sweat started flowing from my pores under the ever warming Iraqi sun, I recalled yesterday’s marathon visit I was party to with a handful of local sheiks all professing their sincere commitment to ending the violence against coalition forces in their areas. The very areas our patrol passed through earlier in the day, the children waving as we did.
My little jog came to an end at about the 6k mark and I wondered what the future held for the people of this ancient land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.Sgt Hook out.
Posted by Hook @ 1644 zulu | | Permalink
This post is filed under: History & Iraq
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