Joseph Grim Feinberg

A soldier was walking down an empty street in Iraq. A gust of wind blew up a cloud of dust, and suddenly the soldier could see nothing. He grew nervous, wondering whether the cloud of dust wasn't the work of terrorists. He gripped his gun and pointed it around, his fingers shaking on the trigger. When the dust cleared, he saw a man sitting on the side of the road, thinking.

"What are you doing?" the soldier asked. "You scared the shit out of me! What the hell are you doing?"

As it happened, the man spoke English. He said, "I'm thinking about what the American soldiers are doing in Iraq."

"Go on, get out of here. It's our job to think about what we're doing here."

The man asked, "Are you doing it?"

And the soldier started thinking.

* * *

A soldier was sent out to look for insurgents. He had an Iraqi interpreter with him. Before entering a suspicious-looking house, the soldier noticed some words painted on the outer wall. "What does that say?" asked the soldier.

The interpreter answered, "It says, 'American solders, go home!'"

"Hell," said the soldier, "you bet I want to go home! Do they think we want to be in this place?" "Then why are you here?" asked the interpreter.

The soldier thought for a moment. Then he said, "I guess there must be somebody else who wants us here."

The soldier kept looking at the piece of graffiti. Then he asked, "Why didn't they write it in English, so my commanding officer could read it?"

The interpreter said, "I don't know. Maybe there are some people in Iraq who don't want to speak English."

* * *

A soldier broke open the door of a run-down house. Inside, two men and a woman sat around a table. "That's the one," said the soldier to his interpreter, pointing at one of the men. "We got a tip about him. Ask him his name."

The interpreter asked the man for his name. The man did not answer.

"Ask him where he's from," said the soldier.

The interpreter asked. The man answered, and the interpreter translated: "He says he's from Palestine."

"That's the one," said the soldier. "Ask him what he's doing here. Ask him if he came to join the insurgency."

The interpreter asked and translated the reply: "He says he is a refugee. He came because he was sent away from his home." The soldier stopped to think. "That's the same as me," he said. And he left the house.

* * *

A group of soldiers was watching television at a military base. The President was on TV, speaking of patriotism. One of the men who were watching clenched his fists and said, "We'll get those terrorists. We'll show 'em."

Another soldier said, "You think you're real patriotic, don't you. You looked patriotic when you pissed your pants last time they shot at you."

"Shut up," said another soldier. "You think you're so tough. You think our country cares about someone pissing his pants? We're all out here showing the world we care about democracy, and that's what the country cares about."

Then another soldier spoke. "Well," he said, "I'm more patriotic than all of you. Because I'd rather be home right now in my beautiful country than here killing Iraqis."

The other soldiers looked at him, and one of them turned off the TV.

* * *

"Shoot anyone who looks suspicious!" shouted the drill sergeant during a training drill.

One soldier decided to shout back, "You don't really mean that, do you sergeant?"

"Yes I do, Private Peterson!" said the sergeant. "And if you say another word you'll have to clean the sand out of all our uniforms tonight!"

But the soldier was stubborn and insubordinate. He went on: "You can't really mean that, sergeant! Because if I followed your orders, you'd be the first one I'd shoot!" He saluted the sergeant and stood at attention.

The sergeant walked to the soldier and grabbed him by the collar. He asked, "Did I just hear you say what I think I did?" The soldier said, "I have a right to speak, don't I, sergeant?"

The sergeant said, "You have no rights here! This is not a democracy, Private Peterson! This is the army!"

"With all due respect, sergeant," said the soldier, "then how are we supposed to bring democracy to Iraq?"

The soldier cleaned his comrades' uniforms for several days to come, until an urgent assignment sent him on a dangerous mission to another part of the country.

* * *

A soldier was assigned to protect a special unit that was searching for hidden chemical weapons. It was made up of soldiers from another country.

When they were taking a break, the soldier from the U.S. asked one of the others, "So what are you guys doing here?" "We're looking for chemical weapons," said the other soldier.

"No," said the first, "I mean, what are you doing here? You know."

The other soldier seemed to understand. He said, "We're helping you bring democracy to the world."

"Bring democracy to the world?" said the first soldier. "Is that what we're doing? Then they've been fooling us again. I thought we were trying to take their oil."

"If that were what you were doing, then why would we be helping you?" "That's what I was trying to ask."

At that moment they heard gunshots, and they ran to take cover. It was an ambush.

* * *

Two soldiers lay in adjacent beds in the sickbay, having had pieces of shrapnel lodged in their legs. One of them said to the other, "All right, I've got an idea. When the nurse comes, we both make believe we've got a raging fever. We probably got each other infected."

"Not bad," said the other soldier. "That'll keep us out of combat for a while."

"There's just one thing," said the first soldier. "I might need to borrow some money. I can't afford the sickbay fees much longer." "I'd love to, buddy, but I'm almost out, too. What genius had the idea to make soldiers pay for their own healthcare?"

"I don't know, but he must've been smart. How else would they get us back out in the war zone?"

The nurse soon came. After watching their performance, she said, "It seems like everybody here's coming down with a fever. It's only the thermometers that don't notice." She wrote "fit for duty" in her notebook.

* * *

A soldier was driving a shipment of weapons from one base to the next. When the convoy stopped at a safe location for lunch, the soldier chatted with one of the men who were guarding the convoy. "Where're you from?" asked the soldier.

"Nicaragua," said the guard. "Central America."

"Nicaragua?" asked the soldier. "That doesn't look like a Nicaraguan uniform."

"I am not in the Nicaraguan army," said the guard. "I am in private security."

"Ah!" said the soldier. "Mercenaries, then. There're a lot of you guys around here, aren't there? It's just like in history books, with the Brits in the American revolution."

"Yes, there are many of us, but it is not like in the old days. We are highly trained and experienced professionals."

"Oh, yeah? How do you get trained to be a mercenary?"

"Your government and army trained us, and we gained experience fighting Communists in Latin America. You have not heard about this?"

"I guess not. Seems like our government gets around pretty well, doesn't it?"

Then the soldier asked, "So why aren't we fighting Communists here in Iraq?"

The mercenary answered, "Didn't you know? You are."

* * *

"We demand rights for workers living under this occupation!" cried a man at a demonstration, which looked something like a strike. "We want wages paid! We want food! We want to organize and fight! And we want the American soldiers to leave!"

A soldier had been assigned to control the demonstration, and he had been told not to let anyone say words like this. He had been taught some words in Arabic, and he understood enough to know he should intervene. For it was likely that anyone who said such things was a terrorist. But the army did not have enough soldiers in the city, and so this soldier had to control the demonstration with only the help of the Iraqi police, which was not much help.

The soldier walked up to the speaker, trying to appear tough. "Come here," he said.

"The American soldiers don't want us to speak!" shouted the speaker. "They want to give our industry and our wealth and our cheap labor to American businesses. But we will not be silent!"

The soldier grabbed the speaker. "Look," he said, "I've done my share of cheap labor, and I've never seen any of that wealth our businesses are supposed to be stealing. But you can't say that here. You can't say it here. Go somewhere else, not here."

"Are you going to shoot me?" asked the speaker. "They told me to shoot anyone who looks suspicious."

"Then you must ask for reinforcements, because you would have to shoot us all."

The soldier let go of the speaker. He called his commanding officer to say he was in too much danger to take action alone, and he walked slowly and carefully back to his base. By the time any reinforcements could come, the demonstration was over.

* * *

A group of soldiers was on its way home for a short period of leave. It was a "domestic" flight. Before they took off, after giving safety instructions, a flight attendant announced, "We also want to thank our servicemen and women aboard the plane. We want them to know we support what they're doing for all of us."

When the same flight attendant came back to the cabin later on, a soldier got her attention. "I wanted to ask you," he said, "just what is it about what we do that you support? Is it the torture, or the random arrests, or the firing on peaceful demonstrators? We also destroy poor people's homes and crack down on union organizing, if you prefer that. Or is it just the fact that we keep getting wounded and killed that you like?"

The stewardess was angry. "I know the army can make mistakes. But I support our troops, whatever they do."

The soldier asked, "Would you support me if I slapped you right now in the face?" The stewardess looked even angrier. Then the soldier asked, "Would you support me if my commanding officer ordered me to slap you?"

The stewardess said, "I'd support you, and I'd tell your officer to go to hell."

* * *

On his way back to Iraq, a soldier was in an airport restroom. A young man saw his uniform and asked, "Where're you headed?" The soldier said, "Over there," and tilted his head, pointing in a direction that must have been east.

"Come back soon," said the young man.

The soldier nodded in partial salute.

As he walked out of the restroom, he had an idea. * * *

"Jones,"

"Here!"

"Sanchez."

"Here!"

"Trudeau."

"Here!"

"Peterson."

Silence.

"Peterson!"

Silence.

"Where's Private Peterson?"

One of the soldiers said, "He wasn't on the plane, sir!"

"Where is he?" demanded the officer. "Where did he go?"

"We haven't seen him sir! He isn't here!"

"All right," said the officer. "We'll turn this over to Homeland Security. About face! March!"

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This story first appeared at at this website in Slovak translation. Joseph Grim Feinberg studies folklore and social theory in the department of anthropology at the University of Chicago. He would rather just be a writer, an activist, and a collective participant in folklore than a student caught in the right hooks of academic life. He is active in a Chicago-based anti-capitalist group called the 49Underground.org.