War Zone Fitness
March 2007
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Before my most recent trip to Baghdad, I asked my wife what on earth she thinks when I pack my bags to speed off with nothing but cameras and body armor to a war zone. Surprisingly, she replied without hesitation, "If I were a photographer, I would be living in Baghdad. Just take some great pictures." Those are reassuring words for a photographer but as a husband it doesn't make it any easier to be away from her and our safe little apartment in Istanbul nor does it make it any easier on the rest of my family back in the U.S. who wonder if by chance I was one of the latest casualties showboated on Fox News. For me, as long as I keep busy, it's much easier to be away.
Fresh out of basic training, my brother went to Iraq back in 1991 so I know firsthand the effect war has both on families and separated soldiers. I made a choice to be here; my brother did not. At times it seems a bit of a paradigm shift for me that I choose to enter that very same country where six helicopters have been shot out of the sky in just three short weeks and daily casualties mount with the predictability of a second hand sweeping a clock. Nonetheless, my brief jaunts to Iraq do not even register in comparison to the over 120,000 American soldiers that have no choice but to be there.
A large number of soldiers searching for a distraction kill time and pad their emotions by channeling some of those feelings into a regular workout regimen. In stark, desolate places like Forward Operating Base Falcon south of Baghdad, soldiers from the 40th Cavalry color their days pumping iron in a gym converted from an old hangar. FOB Falcon was the target of a massive assault back in October when mortars and rocket fire hit a munitions depot. If you watched it live on CNN, you were very likely awed by the skyscraper-sized plumes from the blast and wondered how anything could have survived. When I asked around, "They blew up our gym," was the only detail I could squeeze out of the soldiers.
What seems like a world away in the more secure fortress known as the Green Zone, soldiers jog on the concrete path between the two pairs of 140-foot-long crossed swords that, in Saddam's heyday served as a gateway for military parades. Hoards of Iraqi tanks once rolled across the Iranian helmets that Saddam had instructed to be laboriously planted in the cement while the former dictator blasted a shotgun in the air: all in a staged performance to show his military prowess. Now, hundred-dollar Nikes wrapped around the feet of American soldiers are all that touch them save for the occasional four tires of an air-conditioned coalition SUV.
SFC Stephen Sanders of the 1st Cavalry Division is in charge of "Freedom Rest" inside the Green Zone. Formerly known as the Iraqi Republican Guard Officers Club, Freedom Rest offers workout, swimming, and R&R activities for soldiers fresh from the battlefield. Sanders, a trained Army tanker, takes great pride in offering solace and a brief amount comfort to incoming troops. Army tankers are born and bred to fight and shoot things up, but helping a steady stream of troops through tougher times momentarily satiates Sanders.
© David Honl
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