Curlicues of Iron and Smoke (Horn of Africa 2006)

Djibouti Ville is like Port au Prince with electricity. Port au Prince was like New Orleans before electricity was invented. Vientiane was like New Orleans when electricity was still magic. New Orleans is an neon Pigalle. All are flawed copies of each other. Covered walks, rough stucco, elegant doors and everywhere the wrought iron, balustrades, balconies and posts. It must have been one of the Regimes' biggest exports. Send us your precious pelts, sugar, rubber, opium and tawny women; we will give you wrought iron curlicues and Pissoirs. Finally when the colonies were decoratively inundated, Monsieur Eiffel said, "I'll take some, to build a tower, and of course we will need a few lights". 

I am, as I walk around looking up at the rusty filigree, back in all of those places, and my first one, another city on a shore that bore a Regime' name. Tourane (DaNang) Indochina. Remembering an oyster shell dawn decades ago. I did then stand on such a balcony and watch the city come awake. In the time it took to smoke a cigarette the streets went from still life to motion picture. 

When the light came up against the glass in the open doors I could see, the reflection of the room I came from, and the outline of a young woman sleeping. Venus resting having emerged full grown. The mosquito net, her caul, swaying, as the fan, which had, except for outages been turning since electricity came to this place, pushed the damp morning air across the bed, causing her to reach out for the comfort of the twisted sheets. 

I could have stayed on that small balcony drinking strong coffee, watching the sun color the flowers; But for the rifle propped against the bedside chair. It was as well; Natives do not want to see an unclad white man in the light of day. I gently pulled the sheet across her thinking, "bye, bye miss, I have to go shoot your cousin, or him me". The sound of my leaving was drowned in the beginning clatter of the day. 

I cannot remember her name, nor forget the sight of her. The French don't so much make history as create atmosphere, an atmosphere that lingers like regret, long after opportunity has passed. A sense of melancholy that in some odd way takes the edge off despair. All is remembered in curlicues of iron and smoke. 

Some of my time is spent dealing with many of the enlisted issues, training, discipline, and morale. At other times I have various tasks, which involve a bit of travel, overland, cross-country and across borders. When it is available, I go by air. None of it comfortable and as hardly any of the commercial vehicles or aircraft are mechanically sound; every trip is guaranteed exciting. Airports are recognizable as "international" if the wreckage of planes from at least two major aircraft producing nations litter the taxiway. The control towers are all sandbagged, you have to be apprehensive only if the sandbags are new. We have various sites throughout the region, some remote and others in the larger cities. 

I arrive unannounced, like a combative mother-in-law, to rifle through their dressers and cupboards, sleep on their couch and question their motivation. "If I didn't care about you halfwits, I'd sit on my ass in DJ and let you die from your own proven ineptitude and inherent stupidity; Unfortunately your early demise would generate more paperwork than any of you are worth" "Now get this dump cleaned up and let's, for at least the time I'm here, maintain the illusion we're in the Army: and I don't mean the fu**kin' Salvation Army" "We're glad to see you Sergeant Major" "Yeah? Well I'm going to fix that" The threat level is higher for disease or injury than actual combat. ("I take my pills and put my helmet on..." D. Bow..) 

Some nights I go with the security patrols through the club district. We wear civilian clothes, as do all Americans in town, but are identifiable by the rough bulges of phones and pistols, under loose shirts. We are looking for servicemen that might embarrass the US or anyone that might cause them harm.  

The Djiboutian's, at least the bar and brothel owners, wish it were otherwise. Drunkenness can get you sent back to the camp, sexual relations get you sent home in disgrace, with a stop in Germany for HIV testing, If the worst can be believed, and there is no reason not to, getting caught is the least of one's worries.