I wrote this over the past couple of days, and like all jumbled thoughts, it probably creaks around the edges. Still, I thought I'd send it while fresh.

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There is something different about spending Christmas overseas in a foreign land, with your mind and body out of your normal routine, away from the problems and concerns of everyday life. On Christmas eve there were a variety of services, and since Will had volunteered for the choir, I went along to the Church of England midnight mass – better than being alone that evening (most of my friends having redeployed and the new ones too new). They also boosted attendance by opening a new coffee bar in the foyer of the HQ building, and allowing the Brits to purchase two glasses of wine or beer. [I should say the coffee bar has one of those German push-button automatic cappuccino machines, which makes an amazingly good cup of coffee – finally we have brought civilization to the desert! (I’d say I cried, but the moisture in my eyes was rain… I’m sure.)] And they had little mince pies from Harrod’s or some place like that, which were very good with the refreshments.

For about an hour the choir and a pair of Scottish pipers alternated singing/playing carols for the crowd – which had a surprising number of santa hats (I think the UK government supplied official holiday box every British soldier received had one in it) – before the Force Chaplain called us all to sit.

Like Thanksgiving, the Chaplain began with the hardships of being away from home and our families ever aware of the empty spot at the table. This is bearable partly because you must bear it (I continue to appreciate military and civilians who work overseas without their families, the latter sometimes for multiple years at a time) and because it is shared – hard to feel pity for yourself when everyone is in the same boat. He also asked us to think of our comrades, out in Basrah city that very night (though it is a friendly darkness when one has night vision gear and the other fellow doesn’t) – which made us appreciate our present situation even more (at least we were warm and in good company).

After a moment for us to ponder that in the candle lit gloom of the hall, he switched topics to the light and the darkness. Of the fitful flame we held in our hands, and the night outside, always ready to extinguish the light. And that light is not just symbolic of the day, of the sun and life, but it represents the light of hope and justice – of the schools built, the water projects finished, the roads cleared, the palm industry reborn, the oil pipelines repaired and (the hardest one) attempts at good governance (which means justice for ordinary people). All of which makes you realize, to use the hackneyed phrase, that we are on the side of the angels, trying to hold back the darkness.

And that darkness is not just the chaos and ignorance offered by the worst of our enemies, or the tyrannical boot of oppression and group identity offered by the rest of our enemies, but we carry it inside as well, revealed in our anger and fear and selfishness. Those are the parts of me that want to carpet bomb the suburbs of Basrah City for the militia who fire rockets at us, or who set off IEDs, to strike back for the sheer animal joy of it regardless of the results. Again a pause, as you pondered some of the darker frustrations and impulses of your soul – some of which I’ve probably written about in these pages.

But when compared to the enemies of ordinary people, we are angels, or at least ordinary men and women, as those killers are on the side of devils – or as the Iraqi’s say “they are Brothers of Satan.” The worst of them kill indiscriminately, shelling markets for no reason but to terrorize, singing chants of death and destruction, of war of all against all. A murderous ideology that grows both from ignorance and a careful, nuanced propaganda that treats its’ enemies as sub-human, encouraging the universal view that all of us are the Other, to be killed and disposed of as trash. There is no such thing as “human rights”, “live and let live” or “the right to choose” among such adherents – they fight a ruthless, barbaric style of war that provokes atavistic responses from their victims, one that makes brutality a self-fulfilling prophecy. No wonder they prefer capture by Coalition forces than by their local enemies, for the latter have no mercy, and return each drop of pain in kind (thus the rise of the Shi’ia militias this past year).

Then there are the corrupt and power hungry who I’ve talked about before, content to try and seize power in the tried and true zero-sum fashion of African potentates, Third World dictators and tribalism the world over – total, uncompromising victory to the strongest with exile or death to all opponents. These fellows can be defeated by the hard work of reform and security development – both of which the Coalition is constantly trying to do every day in Iraq. Indeed, we found out later Christmas Day that a battle group had fought its’ way into a “red” neighborhood of Basrah City as we sat at mass (killing at least nine gunmen who shot at them), stormed a death-squad infiltrated command unit police station in the morning, freed 120+ prisoners – most of whom had signs of torture (cigarette burns, smashed hands and feet, broken teeth, drill holes, etc.) – before dynamiting the building as a message to the rest of the corrupt police. A Christmas present from the British to the al Jameat neighborhood of Basrah.

That sort of thing – punishing the wicked – provides a certain amount of satisfaction. It makes one thankful to be from a culture that appreciates that sort of thing, one where the demons of religious and ethnic hatred have been more or less exorcised – (hey, don’t get pissy, I mean this in a relative sense – you may think Baptists are dopey or liberal churches are foolish – but they’re not going to cut your head off, right? Be honest!) – and whose many Western religions, like the first two so many thousands of years ago in the Levant, celebrate life not death.

I’ll close with the thought that our Christmas, with its lighting of the flame against the darkness, the pine trees, the marking of the solstice, the adopted rituals of all those cold, shivering northern Europeans barely surviving the depths of winter, is a celebration of the coming spring and the rebirth of life, especially new life. And I wonder if that is why the story of the manger still resonates, a celebration of the cycle of birth and life and death, of the continued existence of ourselves and our culture and civilization. Despite all the troubles in the world, and inside our country, that is one of the many well-springs of our strength that keeps me feeling optimistic. That it will work out in the end, because light – as long as it burns fiercely and brightly – will always drive back the darkness.

I end on that note, in part, because there was a manger at the midnight mass, whose “thatched” roof was made from camouflage webbing, so this way I can include a picture. (smile)

P.S. Last night I helped unload the mail truck in the rain (please, don’t ever take the postal service in vain – compared to the UK our postal system is wonderful) and received boxes from Terre and Nancy – thanks for all the good stuff, in particular the Emergen-Cs, as I have this sneaking suspicion that I got this cold because I ran out of vitamin C *and* garlic pills at precisely the same time! [imagine the look on my face – shock, horror, followed by furtive glances at the encroaching viruses and bacteria creeping toward me from all around… ack!]