Mortaritaville

[Editor’s note: This is my first update in a few days because I have been struggling to get across Iraq. Shockingly enough, travel is difficult in a war zone, especially one that has sandstorms.]

BALAD AIR BASE, IRAQ – The bunker-like terminal shuddered. The soldiers laughed.
It was the first of two mortar attacks that day at this base, nicknamed ‘Mortaritaville.’ The rumble got louder and louder, little plaster snowflakes floated down from the ceiling, and no one seemed overly concerned.

“They’re getting closer,” one GI said, chuckling.

I had been in transit for two days and in the same terminal for 24 hours with no shower, no sleep and so far no flight to where I needed to go. Delirium was setting in and the explosions were surreal. We were surrounded by concrete blast walls and sandbags but it was still unnerving.
Hours before the attack the base loudspeakers had fired up, “This is the command post, this is the command post, there has been a full detonation,” a woman said blandly. Apparently a bomb had gone off somewhere in or near the base.

After waiting three days to get a plane out of Taqaddam, in western Iraq, I had finally got to Balad, a hop skip and a jump from Baghdad, where I needed to get my media credentials. Unfortunately, a lot of other people needed to get to Baghdad and I ended up waiting a while. Don’t take your time in the bathroom when waiting for a helicopter at the Catfish terminal. You get about 30 seconds notice without warning and I saw people come back from the can only to realize they just missed their flights. I managed to snatch maybe an hour of sleep on the dingy cots set up in the terminal but I was worried I would sleep through my flight, so stayed awake most of the time I was there.

I eventually did get out of Balad and on to Baghdad by Blackhawk helicopter (a few hours before two Blackhawks crashed in Baghdad, as Lisa informed me later). By the time I got to the Combined Press Information Center in the Green Zone a luke-cold shower and a bed felt like the Ritz. I was treated very well there by ridiculously helpful soldiers .

I also got a quick tour of the Green Zone, the crossed swords, the tomb of the unknown soldier (Iran-Iraq War), which looks a bit like a spaceship ready to take flight, and the well-fortified Iraqi parliament building. Driving is frenzied, trash is strewn about the streets, and you get your ID checked no less than 15 times each mile.

Yesterday I finally hopped on the last leg of the journey, an hour and a half Blackhawk ride over mud huts, herds of goats, waving children and miles of sand and scrub that ended in the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, where I will be for the next two weeks.

After I got off the plane and young Airman cheerfully told me I had just barely missed a rocket attack.

“Nobody was killed, thank God,” he added somberly, adding that two soldiers were killed in a similar attack last week.

Right now I’m staying in relative luxury, with my own trailer room with AC, packed to the gills with sandbags outside with concrete blast walls beyond that. I should have lots to tell you about Kirkuk in the coming days as I head out with soldiers and civilian crews.