As of late, Radar Magazine has been engaged in a series of media pie-fights, particularly with Gawker, over who is the snarkiest publication of them all. But, Bartle Breese Bull's feature story, "Being There," offers up real hardcore journalism with a truly gritty and mind-bogglingly raw expose of what it's like to be a solider on the frontlines in Iraq. Focusing on the 506th Infantry, the piece chronicles fighting life in Iraq's bloodiest sector, the Sunni Triangle between Fallujah and Ramadi. There, the soldiers run Mad Max missions--that is, when they're not smoking pot, playing video games, and cruising for online porn. Most poignantly, "Being There" shows who these men are, when they're not dodging bullets and bombs, and what in their lives brought them to this place.

Im not going to reenlist. Ive had a great time, but I cant wait to be out of the army. I grew up on my own, and I never had no rules or people telling me what to do. My mom left me when I was 10. She was a crack addict. My dad would go to work at 5 a.m. and then hang out with his friends. I was all alone the whole time, the only white kid in the projects in our part of Louisville.

My dad grew up on a farm, but the government took it away to build a highway. When my mom abandoned me the first time she brought me a videogame one day and said she was going out. She didnt come back for two and a half years.

When I was 12 or 13 I shot one of my buddies. I killed him. The news said I shot him over a Sega game. My lawyer told me I didnt have to plead guilty, but I was devastated and I didnt want a trial. I knew what had happened. I pleaded guilty.

It brought my mom and dad back together. My mom was a runaway crack addict, and now she has a garden and works for an online shoe store. All because I killed my best friend. Her and my dad moved out from the projects to the country, and they go shopping together and get me High Times and Barely Legal.

My dad taught me how to shoot a .22 when I was four. He took me out to the creek where his familys farm used to be. They had been there for generations. My grandfather was in World War II. He was captured by the Nazis and escaped. The army was different then. I dont know if we could do what those guys did, all that Band of Brothers stuff, Normandy and all. But we look after each other like brothers, so I guess its all the same. You fight for your buddies.

After I killed my friend I didnt shoot a gun again until I was 18 or 19. When I smelled the gunpowder I got all shaky-like. I saw him again, looking the way he was after I shot him, this crazy look on his face and a big-ass hole in his chest.

That gunpowder smell. That and burning metal. The smell of welding like, once we had to fix the lights on top of the Humvee just that smell makes me nauseous. Or the antitank mine that blew up our vehicle when my ears got fucked up. That was the same smell of burning metal.

BrooklynBabe

Brooklyn, NY

April 2005

JUN 17, 2005 11:20 PM

Wow I didn't know soldiers are over there smoking pot....and I thought sending Smirnoff and Courvoisier over there for my SO was bad.

xmoonpiex

Glendale, CA

November 2002

JUN 17, 2005 11:41 PM

BrooklynBabe said:
Wow I didn't know soldiers are over there smoking pot....and I thought sending Smirnoff and Courvoisier over there for my SO was bad.

They are in the region of the world that invented hookas, while tobacco was still only available on this continent...

But fuck it. If I had to worry about getting blasted to shit by some asshole who put a bomb in a paper bag(or strapped to him/herself) I would smoke out as soon as I got home to a decent, halfway safe place.

Shit, the Band of Brothers storming the Normandy beach probably included a shit ton of alcoholics and morphine addicts, just like your normal everyday bus drivers, police officers, student teachers, and stock brokers....I mean, people do fucking drugs.

It's probably just really easy to get weed(or hash) or fucking opium, because it's all over the place and even Uncle Sam hating Al Quaida members will take hard American cash. Bite that shit, It don't bend.

And btw, send Grey Goose next time. It's the best, and the French sure as hell won't volunteer their help to the war effort. You gotta force em...

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NEWS: Being There in Iraq

susannah_breslin

I'm lost

June 2005

JUN 17, 2005 12:08 PM