One day in the spring of 2003, a few days after the American-led invasion of Iraq and the symbolic toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein, I came back to my room in the Hotel Palestine, a concrete tower block that looks out over the broad green-brown sweep of the Tigris River and the crashing teeming life of the crowded city beyond. An American arms dump had just exploded in a residential suburb. Nearby houses that had withstood weeks of allied bombardment were obliterated. Families were wiped out. But what was striking was how quickly public anger was channelled. Within an hour there was a spontaneous demonstration of Iraqis - hundreds, perhaps thousands, strong - already with printed placards and leaflets blaming the Americans for deliberately endangering the lives of Iraqis. I went along. I marched with them, interviewed them for television. One man told me, in fluent English, that the United States of America is the enemy of Islam, it is written so in the Holy Koran. I said in my report for that nights news on BBC One: The explosion has ignited an anti-American fury. Within hours that fury was organised. It hasnt taken long for this to turn into a demonstration of rage against the Americans. Today, nothing the Americans can say will be heard amid the din - the organised and carefully marshalled chorus - of anti-American sentiment. And in the middle of this tumult, I came back to the relative calm of my hotel room in the Hotel Palestine. There was no electricity. Sunlight slanted horizontally into the dusty, dim corridors and I saw at the end of the passage, outside my room, two figures silhouetted against the white glare of the sun. As I approached I saw that they were soldiers, their uniforms stained with the mud of the Tigris valley, Americans, for they were cradling US Army assault rifles in their arms. They were an intimidating presence. Until they spoke. Sir, one of them said, and there was a quiet, shy deference in his voice. I saw that they were young, achingly young, perhaps 19 years old, lettuce-fresh faces above long, lean, loose-limbed frames - no more than boys in the grown-up garb of desert camouflage. Sir, he went on, we heard that there was a satellite phone in this room. We havent been able to call home in four months. They were the first in a little trickle of young US servicemen who would come to my room for this purpose in the weeks that lay ahead. What struck me with great poignancy was this - that almost always they phoned their mothers. From the other side of the room you would hear the phone sound in some far place in Kentucky or Idaho. The boy would say Hi Mom! and then you would hear the excited, disbelieving scream of delight echoing down the line. This vast military machine that we had watched assemble itself in Kuwait with its hardware and its discipline and its resolution and unshakeable belief in the virtue of its mission. It was composed, in part at least, of boys who - more than anything - missed their mothers. I think of those two young men whose names I never learned when I look at Nevinsons Paths of Glory. Its title is taken from Thomas Grays Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of powr, / And all that beauty, all that wealth eer gave / Awaits alike thinevitable hour. / The paths of glory lead but to the grave.-By Allan Little BBC News bbc/news/magazine-27903827
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 04:02:19 +0000
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