Roomates, Housemates, Friends, Colleagues

I have no doubt that I will miss a few people, but here is my best recollection of the personalities that populated my world in Baghdad, Iraq, from April 2003 to March 2004. These will be the subject of the next several blog posts.

My first two roommates in a room that could hold four people were Captain Beyers and British Corporal Dave Mulhatten. In fact, Beyers ordered me to bunk in with him. I was originally staying in a house on the river and next to the palace that served as our Command Headquarters. That lasted for about six days after arrival, then I moved down to the HOC (Humanitarian Operations Center) House. Beyers was of Korean extraction, adopted at birth from Korea by an American couple. He was a slight, short guy, very smart and keen analytical mind. The thing I liked best about him as a roommate is that he subscribed to the same anti-mosquito tactics that I did – freeze them out. We kept our a/c on 24/7 and down on the lowest setting. It was so cold in our room that you had to bundle up in your sleeping bag at night. But no mosquitoes. Iraq has 12 different kinds of mosquitoes, one species for each month of the year that can survive the weather of that particular month. The worst ones were in August. The bite would actually leave a large, red welt. In the winter months, there were little tiny ones (impervious to the cold of course) that took pleasure in devouring your fingers and hands while you slept. You would wake up in the morning scratching your hands which had ballooned up to twice their size. Dave was a reservist just like us, but from the British Army. He was a great scrounger, looter, and mechanic. Also fearless. But you couldn’t understand anything he said. He was from the north of England along the Scottish border. His people were known as “Jordies”. Even his mates couldn’t understand him. Lt. Colonel Wellington said that Jordies were used as slaves and cannon fodder for English armies centuries ago. So it was three of us for about two weeks. Also, we had a civilian who worked for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), whose name was Clark. He was only there for a few weeks, then was ordered to move to the Republican Palace. Then came in Major Hastings. He was an upper class Brit – like all their officers – also a reservist. He worked for an American Company and traveled to the US frequently. He was very American-centric in his outlook, intelligent, lots of common sense, a good guy to work for. The Brits all left on June 28, 2003. Deliberately before 4th of July. We gave the game away be telling them that we were going to dump 50 pounds of Iraqi tea in the pond, followed by them after we tarred and feathered them. So Lt. Col Wellington arranged transportation for their tour to end June 28. They went home. I still keep in touch with three or our four Brits, having lost sight of Major Hastings. As with all of our Coalition Brethren, would like to visit them some time.