In any other place...

[azskyman]

In any other place, I might not have noticed them.

In any other place, I would have been out with friends, cleaning up my '67 Mustang, maybe watching The Monkees on TV....maybe practicing tenor sax with my friends in the band.

In any other place, I would not have had so many hours of darkness that seemed so very far from home.

Probably similar to those who spend nighttime in Iraq these days, I spent every 6th night on perimeter guard duty at my "home" in South Vietnam. Often I had a Korean soldier draped in ammo belts as a "ready to go Joe" working the duty with me.

But on those nights, I spent my time doing my job...watching for movement beyond the concertina wire and praying that I would not see any. I never did on my shift.

It was on those dark dark nights that I also learned about those three tiny stars so neatly in a row...and they became my connection back home. For I remember seeing them while in Illinois, too. A million years before it seemed.

In any other place, our American troops in Iraq may not notice the night sky. But they do now...and I hope that like me there is a comfort in seeing those stars above...the moon above...just as they did back in the states. Just as hundreds of thousands of us did back in the 60's and 70's.

Those stars helped take my mind back home. So did my favorite music. So did an occasional movie...the original "MASH" for example. And mail call.

I'm curious...if you were to head off to this war, besides photographs what item(s) would you want to take along to help you keep your connection to the states more alive?

A favorite CD? Your bible? A favorite deck of cards? Your car keys?

[streetsoldier]

I would probably take nothing with me; rather, I'd be searching for something I could take BACK...a Zenit-copy camera, a home-forged knife, some local basketwares; always interested in other cultures and how they solve mundane problems (cooking, clothing, multi-usage knives, etc.) differently than we do.