Fish Out of Water

How one of many events in war taught me a lesson.

             I didn’t realize how the barrel of a gun could manage to still feel cold against the side of my head while standing in a 130 degree desert. I was raised with what I like to think was a pretty good value system and set of morals, not to mention the values and ethics the Army taught me while I was in training to ultimately end up in this desert, with this gun, pointed hard in to my temple.

              In America and in the Army I was raised around people of all ethnicities and backgrounds. Never would I have ever imagined myself having fear towards a race or culture, moreover battling racism towards it. When my Army unit formed to deploy to Baghdad, Iraq, we were given an interpreter for translation from the Arabic language to the English language. This man’s name was Rajmir Singh, and he was Indian. He was also my neighbor, and my friend. With having a friend that was of the Middle Eastern culture, I felt rather well versed in the culture and had no qualms or apprehensions in dealing with the locals once I began my operations in Baghdad. I began my deployment to the Middle East during a time of heightened violence and submerged myself among the residents in Sadr City, Iraq,

              Moving through the city in the middle of the day, weighted down with roughly 40 lbs of bullet proof vest materials and weaponry, I, along with 37 other soldiers maneuvered through the cities grid layout in an ordered fashion. Traversing the streets that are peppered with Islamic militant extremist groups and terrorists, it becomes difficult to separate the sharks from the guppies. The people in this town sit outside in the depths of sweltering heat and have tea in their long nightgown looking attire. Looking at me and fellow U.S. forces you can see the trepidation, fear, and slivers of hope in their eyes. Coming around a corner to a house in which my squad is to help a family establish a plan for the plumbing problems they’re having…the man of the house takes a pistol and places it against the bottom part of my helmet, telling me in Arabic to not move or else he’ll shoot me dead.

              At that moment, the trust that was built up between two cultures of people was immediately shattered. The entire scenario lasted for less than probably 13 seconds, however it felt like an eternity until fellow soldiers apprehended the man. Following the incident, I still conducted missions with fellow U.S. forces. The men and women that you felt you could trust, all of a sudden appeared to be like a rabid animal, unable to control itself of when it may bite or not. The anger that fueled these people, I had to remind myself that it came from their own lives being threatened by Taliban forces and other radicals that were against U.S. forces. Given time, this fear of the people, manifested itself to anger. The feelings of anger turned in to resentment, then hatred, and before I knew it…I fit the mold for racism. For the first time in my life I felt like a fish out of water. I had hatred towards a sect of people because of one thing that happened to me, just one thing.

              I knew this behavior was not conducive to the way I was raised, but I had no idea how to rid this feeling from my heart and mind. I began trying to find similarities between myself and the Arab people, to no avail. In retrospect I think I may have been blinded by the still ever present fears. This lasted for the better part of eight months during a fifteen month stint while I was there. Then came the morning that would remind me of why I was there, and what would ultimately make me realize the error in my thought.

              I had been given a task along with a number of other soldiers to go to a designated residence and arrest a man that was believed to be a major key in a terrorist cell that was trying to be broken apart by U.S. forces. Mounting gear on to the armored humvee and entering in to the vehicle that would take us to the house, we began preparing ourselves mentally for the scene of fighting and killing that we most likely would encounter upon our arrival to the residence. Pulling our vehicles into a staggered fashion down the road at roughly three in the afternoon, we dismounted from the vehicles and began our cautious trek in to the enemy’s area of operations. Looking down at the map of where the guy we were supposed to apprehend, we located ourselves outside the door and set ourselves up to break in the door and begin room clearing procedures and apprehending of our suspect. When the door flew open, thanks to a ramming device, no one was prepared for what were about to see.

              Lying in panic on the couch with legs spread was a woman who was about to give birth, as the man of the house was frantically asking us for help. Our intelligence was wrong…we had the wrong house. Reacting immediately, we dispatched another team to apprehend our suspect from farther down the street, and we began medical operations on the young woman. At the age of twenty-three at the time, I had never delivered a child, and was definitely not prepared to do it at that time. The look of despair in the eyes of the family solidified the fact that I and the rest of the soldiers in that room were the only way this child was going to be able to come out alive and safely. The only medic on the scene began monitoring body vitals on the woman as others provided security. I began to hold the woman’s hand and told her to push during the contractions. Within roughly five minutes, a crown of a child appeared, and then the entire child came out, and into my arms.

                            At that moment, looking in to the eyes of an innocent child, I changed. I knew that this child would grow up in a culture vastly different than mine, would pray to a different God perhaps, and live its life much differently than I did growing up. But I knew that was okay, because at that moment, in that room, with those people, that child was innocent and worthy of everything this world had to give it. I understood that the problems and fears that I, along with everyone in that country had at that time were either fueled by fear or love. Every action could be deaggregated down in to one of those two feelings. And because of that, I understood that everyone had those two basic feelings. If everyone had the capacity for fear and love no matter the situation, that made us all equal, and if we were all equal, I had no right to harbor racist thoughts toward anyone.

              I’ve been taught by a number of teachers and leaders about all sorts of things but never would I have thought that during one of my most trying times in my life, the best teacher I could have had for helping me get through a difficult and unfamiliar situation was a child, and its unwavering innocence.