A Drive in the Country

It was weird. For the first time since I’ve been here it’s seemed peaceful. I don’t know why that was. We went pretty far today too. We went all the way to Balad, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. But for some reason, I started to feel at home. What I mean by that is that there wasn’t a worry on my mind. Maybe this is the complacency they talk about. But it did seem like things were relatively calm everywhere we went.

Another thing that got my mind was that most businesses were closed today. I know it’s not their holy day. The Muslim holy day is usually on Fridays. But today seemed like Christmas Day back home. Hardly anyone was out and those that were seemed pretty content. I could just sense it. I got more waves than fingers today. In fact the only finger we got was from some other unit that was flipping us off. I think it was because we took up so much of that narrow road. I thought it was funny. Fobbit and The Colonel didn’t see the guy flip us off as the patrol passed us.

The reason I titled this post ‘A Drive In The Country’ is because that’s what the Colonel said as we were leaving Balad. I think he was right. It was quiet and even though it was hot, it seemed nice. The drive was peaceful.