Nonfiction Memoir, M/F First Person
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General) North American (US General American - GenAM) North American (US South)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
Chapter one, March 2008 Kuwait and Iraq. Why write draw naked chicks graffiti from the war? I met a woman on my way to Iraq just before I stepped onto the midnight playing the Baghdad, She asked me what should have been a simple question. Who do you work for? Her name was Moni Basu. She was a journalist. She had thick dark hair plus an intense demeanor and she wore a helmet labeled evil media chick. We're drinking coffee at a picnic table behind a beverage kiosk at the back of the Ali al sellin base in kuwait her traveling companion, a photographer named Curtis Compton had caught shrapnel from an I. E. D. During a previous embed a moment before money had given me a rookie journalist, an important Arabic term that are safe. It means lies, ******** or summering a thing that just didn't happen in the desert. I told her I worked for a magazine called C Q GQ no CQ. You write for congressional quarterly? The questions never stopped with money. She could smell the ******** convergence quarterly. I said, it's a new magazine. This will be our first issue. We're sponsored by north Carolina A and T. You work at north Carolina A and T. I nodded nervously. I'm white A and T is a historically black college in Greensboro north Carolina. Many people argue that the student protest movement of the 60s began at A&T. When four courageous young men conducted a sit in at a Woolworth's lunch counter on February 1, 1960. This was the part of our history that we advertised to the world. Do you know who graduated from their money? Asked jesse Jackson, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed! She said it like that. Like a question. Like, She couldn't believe that I was here with her and didn't know this crucial fact. It was early March 2008, the 5th anniversary of the Iraq invasion. I've been working at A and T as a lecturer and interdisciplinary writing for the past three years, but didn't know a thing about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This is the guy who masterminded the attacks on 9-11 money said, you don't know who Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is monty, glanced at Curtis, who was applying a cloth to a lens with calm circular strokes. It's just beginning to dawn on me that I might be in way over my head, like maybe I was the man my father was afraid I was a rude destined to die a ridiculous death in the coming days. My charred body hung from a bridge in some war torn Hamlet men and loose fitting garments, cheering as my ashy corpse twisted in the wind. Or they put me in one of those orange jumpsuits and cut off my head, whoever they were. I took a long sip of my coffee, Surely whatever crush I had on money would not be reciprocated, given my astounding ignorance about the war on terror there. I was about to embed with navy seals and Haditha one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq and I had no idea about the man who had started the very war I was trying to cover for a magazine that hadn't even released its first issue. I was 24 years old on 9:11. I did not question most of the official stories I heard emerging out of the early years of the war and I certainly didn't think little Greensboro North Carolina had anything to do with this grand geopolitical narrative. Yes, I was the guy who had traveled 7000 miles to learn that the mastermind of 9-11 had been educated in my own backyard. Excuse me, I said, rather than behave like a good journalist and question money relentlessly about KSM. I retreated to the bathroom to attend a suddenly struggling bowels. I stared at the graffiti left by the troops chuck. Norris's tears cured cancer too bad. He never cries here. I sit cheeks of flex and ready to unleash another Texan. Here I sit upon the crapper ready to produce another rapper. Can't wait to go home. Have a nice war. They called my bus. I put on my army surplus helmet and bulletproof vest, jotted down a few notes about the jokes in the toilet. I sat close to money as the bus filled up. I didn't want to lose her. I felt like I needed her and I wasn't used to that feeling, that fear. I was the guy who loved to live alone. The last of my friends to marry, but I didn't want to be left alone in Iraq.