“Well, I appreciate that Mr Keely,” John says.
As Mr Keely hands the check to John, Heather Crosby sees her husband's truck pull into the driveway.
“Your father's home.”
“I'm gonna go practice.” Rising to accept the check, he says, “Thanks Mr Keely. I'll see you on Saturday.”
A moment later the kitchen door opens as Tom Crosby enters.
“Hello Tom.”
“Hi Mr Keely. How are you sir?”
“I'm doin’ okay. How are you?”
“Pretty good, had to go to the parts store to get some things for my truck.”
“Well, I need to get back home. Rusty'll be waitin’ for me.”
“How's he doin’ Ben?”
“I took him to the vet yesterday. They said he checked out okay, so —”
“That's good.”
“He's getting’ old like me. What can you do?”
“How old is he now?”
“He's sixteen. That's old for a retriever. Anyway, it's good to see ya both.”
“Good to see you Ben,” Tom says.
As the door closes behind Mr Keely, Tom Crosby pours himself a cup of coffee and sits at the table across from his wife.
“Where are the kids?”
“Sara's in her room and John's in the basement.”
“Piano practice again?”
“That's what he said.”
“A waste of time.”
“He doesn't think so.”
“I do. ... When do they start back to school?”
“September third.”
“It's his last year of high school.”
“That's right.”
“What's he gonna do after that, play piano in the basement?”
“He'll be okay.”
“I told him last week he should enlist in the Marines. He wouldn't even consider it.”
“It's not for him.”
“Well, what is? If he's not goin’ to college, what's he gonna do?”
“He wants to be a musician.”
“Oh come on. That's not practical. He needs discipline, not tinkling at the piano.”
“He has discipline. I've seen him sit and practice for hours at a time, every day. He never misses.”
“So what? So he can play fluttery notes some composer wrote down?”
“He writes his own music.”
“Seems like a huge waste of time and energy to me.”
“Have you ever heard him play? He's good, a lot better than you give him credit for.”
“So we have a piano player and a ballet dancer in the house now.”
“I guess we do. What's wrong with that? I encouraged Sara to take dance lessons and besides it's not that expensive.”
“It's not the money.”
“Then what is it?”
“People who go to watch ballet are snobs. It's for intellectuals and the elite.”
“That's not true.”
“Sure it is. If you took a poll of these people, they'd mostly all be liberal.”
“So what if they are? If you polled the people at the VFW, they'd be mostly conservative.”
“There's a big difference. Conservatives love their country and liberals don't.”
“Do you honestly believe that?”
“It's true.”
“You're so dogmatic. It's too early in the day for this, but since we're on the subject, I wish you wouldn't get into these heated discussions with my father. He has a heart condition. His blood pressure gets too high.”
“I'm just tryin’ to set him straight. Someone has to challenge all this liberal propaganda he's gettin’ from newspapers and TV.”
“I have another bone to pick with you. Why do you wake me up so early? That's three days in a row now.”
“It's always good to get an early start.”
“Six thirty is early enough for me.”
“I'm used to gettin’ up a five every day.”
“You might be used to it, but I'm not. What time is your interview today?”
“One o'clock this afternoon.”
“What kinda job are you being interviewed for?”
“I don't know, some kinda civil service work. They'll let me know what's available.”
“Well, good luck.”
“Thanks, ... well I'm gonna change the oil in my truck before headin’ to Richmond. What are you gonna do?”
“Take a nap, a nice long nap.”
Without responding, Tom stands, puts his coffee cup in the sink and without looking at his wife, exits throught the kitchen door. His mind is focused on his interview today. Despite his artful prevarication in answering his wife's questions, Tom Crosby has no intention of applying for any civil service job or any other work he's unaccustomed to; his sole aim is to be hired as an overseas security contractor and return as quickly as possible to the only world he's known for the past nine years, a world of armed conflict and insurgency.
The prospect of moving from that world to the placid normalcy of nondescript family life is increasingly unappealing for Tom Crosby. He's thought about this question for some time and once believed he could transition to civilian life with little difficulty, but since his return home he feels increasingly out of place. Years of living in a war zone with its prolonged exposure to the chaos and violence of battle have changed him. What he once looked on as abnormal and incomprehensible, he's come to accept as commonplace. Like so many others, war has changed Tom Crosby's personality. After adapting to its callous disregard for life, the capacity to live and thrive in a world of peace and community is for some men not attainable or even desirable. Tom Crosby is one of them.
Meanwhile, seven time zones and a world away from Amherst,Virginia, an Iraqi man is coping with another day of survival in the capital city of Bagdad. Omar al Shaliki has watched his country descend into chaos and complete anarchy since the American invasion in 2003. He was there when ‘Shock and Awe’ lit up the night skies of Bagdad in March of that year. He watched as Saddam's statue was toppled in Firidos Square and he lived through the terror of death squads and militia rule that surged in 2006.
Omar al Shaliki was an engineering student at Bagdad University in the late 1990s, when Iraq was living under austere international sanctions imposed for its invasion of Kuwait. As a result, a downward spiral in the national economy meant having a degree in engineering was relatively useless. Omar lived with his parents and two sisters when the war started but within two years his mother and father were killed and when militias ruled the city a year later, tragedy returned when one of his sisters was murdered. Now, only he and his remaining sister are left. The grim struggle of surviving over a decade of war has deepened the bond that Omar al Shaliki has with his sister Adara. They are the only members of their original family of five that are still alive. Omar and his sister often talk about reuniting with their departed family in the next life. The cumulative trauma of living so long and so close to the intimate chaos of war's indiscriminate brutality has fostered in both an almost carefree indifference to the serious danger that still remains for them and the people of Bagdad.
Bomb blasts are a daily occurrence for the seven million residents trying to put the pieces of their lives back together after so much conflict. The horrific aftermath of the war's upheaval is a nation whose civil institutions have been ripped from the center of public life. While residents of Bagdad struggle to reestablish some familiar patterns of association that once flourished in Iraqi society, the perilous uncertainties of the time make only the most immediate needs important.
The worst day of the war for Omar al Shaliki came in August of 2005 when he learned that his parents were killed at a military checkpoint just outside the city. To find out how and why they lost their lives, he went to the place where they were both
shot to death by U.S. Marines. After hearing an effusive apology, he was told through an interpreter that the car they were riding in was traveling at high speed and the driver failed to stop or slow down when warning shots were fired. He was then offered a claim card and told to fill it out and was informed that he might be eligible for a ‘condolence payment’ if it was approved by a third party.
The policy was well known by Iraqis who were sometimes paid an average of two thousand five hundred dollars for the wrongful death of a family member but only if military officials authorized the payment. This meant that Omar al Shaliki might receive in compensation for the death of his mother and father the rough equivalent cash value of a cheap second hand car, but if and only if the claim was approved. When he was told this, he looked back at the interpreter and the Marine captain who was holding the offered claim card in his hand, and after a moment of icy silence, he asked the Marine captain in broken English, “Did you kill my parents?”
Hearing the question asked in English surprised the American military officer and instantly locked him into silence. At that moment, Omar al Shaliki intuitively knew he was looking at the man who killed his parents. No answer was given to his question on that terrible day in 2005, so he took the claim card, tore it in pieces and walked away but he made it a point to remember the name of the Marine captain who ignored his question. It was Crosby, the same Tom Crosby who years later would return to his family and their safe, secure home in Amherst, Virginia.
For Omar al Shaliki, this horrific event was far more painful than anything else that occurred over a decade of war and civil bloodshed. That mayhem was general; the death of his parents was, and still is, bitterly private and personal. From that day on, the life of Omar al Shaliki was permanently shattered.
When one of his two sisters was murdered fourteen months later, the news didn't seem to evoke the sorrow it should have. It was as if his human capacity to experience emotional anguish had already reached its limit. Looking back now at that awful day, he vividly remembers the long walk home from the place that took the lives of his mother and father. As he walked over the Old Diyala Bridge, he paused halfway across to look below at the slow moving water, thinking it might calm his distracted mind.
It reminded him of happier times when he would go with his parents and sisters for a picnic by the river but the recollections of a happy memory were short lived. As he stood there watching the river that day, he saw something floating downstream moving in his direction. Moments later, the object revealed itself to be a severed human head. The floating decapitated skull slowly made its way downstream, and it soon became clear what exactly he was seeing.
Someone had mounted a human skull facing upwards, tying it in place on a square piece of wood to float it securely downstream and beneath its black and rotting flesh wrote the words: “Death to the Infidel, God is Great.” The murdered man's skull had no eyes. Birds had already pecked out and consumed the soft tissue. As the hideous object got closer, Omar al Shaliki found it impossible to look away. He remembers how the eyeless head passed directly beneath him on that day. It seemed to him as if that skull was a perfect symbol for the life and death struggle of his country to survive. A nation, or what use to be a nation, marred by war and pointless death, severed from its history and identity seems to be drifting blindly into its own future like the sightless, pathetic object that floated beneath him.
Since that painful day in 2005, only one thing motivates Omar to keep struggling, and that’s his younger sister, Adara. He sees it as his personal duty to take care of her in every way possible. Despite all the personal anguish the war has brought him, Omar al Shaliki sometimes thinks if things get better, just maybe he'll be able to use his engineering degree to find work, provide for his sister and help rebuild his war torn country. But for now, because of the shattered economy he can only stand on a public street corner every morning and hope to be chosen for an occasional menial job.
Today, Omar and his sister are going to Monsour Mall, and though they don't have enough money to buy anything, the meager sum they have is sufficient to buy lunch, and for them, that's enough. But there's a deeper hunger that draws them out into the public spaces of their capital. It's a hunger for normalcy, a hunger for civil order and peace, a hunger for healing and renewal. By visiting and spending time in public places, Iraqis can show each other they're not afraid and ready for a better future. Omar and his sister believe they must play their part in helping to make this a reality. Hope, faith and little else animates their lives and gives them the strength to face another day.
Meanwhile at an office park in a suburb of Richmond, Virginia, a man is parking his truck as he arrives for his scheduled interview. It's Tom Crosby. As he walks toward the front entrance to the four-story building, he sees a window cleaning crew working on a scaffold at the fourth floor nearly forty feet above. With painting and landscaping crews also working, it's evident the building is undergoing a serious renovation. After passing a crew working on the front of the building, Tom Crosby makes his way to to the elevator. His appointment is on the fourth floor. When the elevator door opens, he sees five or six people removing dozens of folders from filing cabinets and packing them into cardboard boxes. A cursory look around the room reveals this office with all its contents is being moved to another location.
Despite the activity, the neatly dressed receptionist offers a welcoming smile as Tom Crosby approaches.
“Yes sir, can I help you?”
“My name is Tom Crosby. I have an appointment to see Adam Fischer.”
“I'll let him know you're here.”
“Thank you.”
“Mr Fischer, Tom Crosby is here to see you. ... Yes sir, I will. Mr Crosby, you can go right in. It's the second door on your right.”
“Thank you.”
Within seconds, Tom Crosby is inside a spacious, elegantly furnished office. Behind the large mahogany desk near the window, a middle-aged man who's looking through the contents of a folder places it aside and rises to welcome his guest.
“Mr Crosby, I'm Adam Fischer. It's good to meet you finally. Please have a seat.”
“Thanks, I'm glad to be here.”
“Sorry for the mess out there. We're in the process of moving to another building.”
“Yeah, I see that.”
“Well, that last time we spoke , you were still the property of the U.S. Marines. How do you like civilian life?”
“To be honest with you, Mr Fischer, I can’t say that I like it much at all.”
“Call me Adam. Yeah, I know what you're talkin’ about. It's called ‘culture shock'.”
“People in the states don't have a clue about the rest o’ the world. All they know is their little bubble.”
“That's all they wanna know.”
“They're never asked to sacrifice anything. That's why. My family's a case in point. I have a son who spends hours every day tinkling at the piano and a daughter who takes ballet lessons. They have no idea that the freedoms they take for granted are threatened.”
“Most Americans don't think twice about it,” Mr Fischer says.
“Yeah, that's somethin’ I learned since comin’ back home. My son is seventeen. I told him the other day that we're at war, that this nation, right now is at war. He looked at me like I was crazy, started spoutin’ off some nonsense about the ‘War Powers Act'.”
“Wait'll these terrorists start settin’ off bombs every day in this country. You'll see a lot o’ people changin’ their tune.”
“Yeah, I hate to say it but it'll have to come to that.”
“Anyway, so the last time we talked you were not completely sure you wanted to go back overseas. Have you made a decision?”
“Yes, I have. I'm ready to go back.”
“You wanna go back?”
“That's right.”
“Well, we can sure use you. Global Sec
urity Solutions is a great company to work for. We're in seventeen countries. Most of our personnel are in the middle east.”
“That's where I'd prefer to be placed.”
“I was looking at your military record. You did two tours of Iraq.”
“Yeah, I got there in 2004 and stayed until October of 2007.”
“I see you had an E.O.I., escalation of incident, in 2005. What happened?”
“That happened in August 2005 at a checkpoint east of Bagdad. We set up a security checkpoint lookin’ for weapons, explosives, you know the routine.”
“Sure.”
“Around two in the afternoon, this car starts comin’ toward us. We signaled for it to stop but it just kept comin', so we did what we had to do.”
“Sounds like you didn't have a choice.”
“Turned out it was a man and his wife. We had no idea it was two civilians. The next day their son came to see what happened. I told him. He wasn't too happy. I offered him a claim card. He tore it up and walked away. So —”
“You did the best you could in the circumstances.”
“Three days before that, two guys were killed by an I.E.D. about four miles from where we were. I wasn't takin’ any chances.”
“You did the right thing, coulda been a car bomb,” Mr Fischer says.
“I'm mean, I'm sorry it happened but what are you gonna do?”
“You were cleared of any wrong doing by your commanding officer. That's all that counts. I wouldn't worry about it.”
“I don't. I made a judgment call. When somethin’ like that happens you have to let it go and move on,” Tom Crosby says.
“That's all you can do.”
“Okay, so let me ask you, if GSS hires me how soon can I go back overseas?”
“As soon as you want, certainly within two or three weeks. It's really up to you. Some guys wanna leave immediately. Others need more time.”
“A couple o’ days is all I need.”
“Well, lookin’ at your military record, I can tell you right now that we can use you. I'll have to run it by my supervisor but I'm sure he'll okay it. So it's up to you when you wanna start.”
A Journey of Souls Page 21
