WarShooter™

After three days in Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, it is finally
time to leave for Baghdad. It is 5:45 in the morning and I am sitting
in a large hanger waiting for news on the flight. I sneak off now and
then to shoot a bit more of the latrine graffiti, as people found it
suspicious when I would just stand in the bathroom with my cameras out
waiting for stalls to open up.

Finally it is confirmed that we are leaving and after three more
hours of waiting and formalities, we are shuttled out to a landing zone
and led onto a large military airplane.
We are herded on like cattle and cramped into hanging mesh seats.
There is no air-conditioning and the thermometer on my watch reads
121f/49.4c. I look at the faces of the people on the plane with me as
the last remaining light is cut off by the closing doors.
After a little over an hour, we arrive at Baghdad International
Airport, known here is BIAP. Although the actual airport can be seen
in the distance, the military flights land on the opposite end of the
complex and drop us off near a series of hangers where incoming troops
are processed and transferred to other locations. I will end up stuck
in the hanger for the next half day, waiting for a helicopter to the
Green Zone.

After forty-seven hours of travel time, I have arrived in Kuwait. Originating in Denver and stopping in Washington DC, New York City, Amsterdam and finally Kuwait. The journey was made virtually unbearable by toothache which made tears stream down my cheeks for a good part of those forty-seven hours. I was able to access my checked luggage in New York City and took out a bottle of pain killers but the Vikodin, Percoset and Tylenol with codeine did little to numb the pain…they just made my stomach upset and made it hard to walk. Kuwait is the main point of transfer or US soldiers and contract workers entering Iraq. It is not much to look at, a massive sea of beige sand, beige buildings and an often beige sky thanks to the numerous sand storms. The military base, Ali Al Salem, is even worse, hundreds of beige tents and camo-netting surrounded by airstrips and compounds. We arrive at the base late and I beg whoever I can find to help me with my tooth. I am taken to an Army Colonel who, after about forty-five minutes of fierce tugging is able to pull the tooth out. Now I have a huge hole in my mouth, but the pain is gone so it seems to be a fair trade. Now it is time to play the waiting game, showing up several times a day at ungodly hours for info on flights into Iraq. Plans get changed often due to sandstorms and other reasons, one of which, I believe, is to remain inconsistent to avoid rocket attacks on the planes. It looks like we will be leaving for Baghdad at 5:45 tomorrow morning, only a few hours away. Photography in Ali Al Salem is strictly forbidden, but I spent most of today shooting pictures without causing damage to America’s security. Some graffiti on the wall in the latrines caught my eye, so I went from stall to stall and photographed more than 60 toilette stalls. Ranging from profane and racist to funny, poetic philosophical, it was an interesting glimpse into the minds of the soldiers heading into, and out of Iraq. I cant sleep and am sitting in my cot trying to get some work done. I now have an infection in my left and look like I have been beaten (the missing tooth probably fills in the image perfectly.) I went to the shower trailer and put some antibiotic ointment on my eye but then got caught in a sandstorm on the way back to my tent. Now I have an infected eye covered with sandy ointment. None of this is unusual.