Excerpt from A Bridge in Babylon

The Chaplain’s Day: Twenty-Four Seven

Iraq was hot. It was unbelievable. The sweat never stopped. I never truly acclimated to it. It created this perpetual film of dirt, sun screen, and perspiration, which left a residue on every surface I touched. There was no break from the heat. The humidity from the river kept the hot air trapped. Even in the middle of the night, I dripped beads of moisture. The Army tried to ease the situation a bit. In each CHU, or containerized housing unit, there was a small  window unit. Our little air conditioner, like most of the AC units in all of Iraq, had not been able to keep up lately. Technology can only do so much when it is 120 degrees outside. I even considered sleeping in my office a few nights because the AC was cooler there for some reason.  

One night, I woke up in a kiddie pool of sweat. It was the sec ond time I had awakened to use the restroom. As I peeled myself off the bed, I chuckled at all this perspiration, because in my mind it made the nightly frequent trips to the bathroom seem absurd.  How did I even have fluid left in my bladder right now?  

Muscle memory was a blessing. I could make the fifty-yard walk to the latrine in my shower shoes while dodging rocks and concrete barriers with one eye fully closed and the other barely open. I wouldn’t even say I had to wake up fully anymore, which  was perfect, because it was easier to fall back asleep. As I walked  past the rows of CHUs, I cursed all the nineteen- and twenty-year olds. They had no idea how fortunate they were to be able to sleep  through the whole night. The old man curse would hit them one  day too. These were the thoughts running through my mind as I  made my way to the facility. 

As a point of orientation on the FOB, the restrooms and showers were located in a converted single-wide trailer outside of the protected CHUs. There were three large silos on the outside that housed the grey wastewater, the potable water, and the sewage. There were huge signs warning people to refrain from drinking, touching, or even thinking about the sewage. In the military world, when I saw that level of signage, I could bet it meant that someone had done one of these things.

As I walked, I prayed the same prayer I did most nights: I pleaded with God that I might find favor and that my favorite stall would be available. Between the stickiness and the artwork, most of the stalls were disgusting. I preferred the one where the troop graffiti wasn’t as graphic. This time of night, I didn’t need any reminders about all the sex I wasn’t having; nor did I need to lament our soldiers’ inability to understand basic rules of grammar.  

As I finally neared the door to the latrine, my mind processed the pending deep satisfaction of a promised relief. I opened the door. Wading through the thickened heat of the shower steam and bodily fluids, I made the turn to the last stall on the right. And then I heard it:  

“Hey! Chaplain!” 

I knew the husky voice, but my mind was still sleeping. Looking at my watch, it was barely after 0200. Damn. I just needed to pee. I pried my eye open a bit more to see the familiar face of a sergeant from another task force. He was a good dude, but he was way too awake for me. I acted out a comical salute and kept my path true. I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t stop.  

“I was just thinking that I wanted to run into you, but I got switched to nights. I just stopped by here before I picked up my lunch at the DFAC. You busy?” 

I slowed my march a bit. I put on my best attempt at a sincere smile as I continued to pace toward the last stall. “Of course I’ll make room for you. You still got my number? I’ll rearrange my schedule. Give me a call and we’ll figure out the time.” Boom! Situation handled. 

The pressure on my bladder threatened to fully wake up my other eye. As I strode past him, he said in a lowered voice, “Roger,  that sir.” I looked back.  

Even with only one eye open, I could see that this guy was hurting. His eyes were red. He was about to cry. The moisture on his face wasn’t sweat. On this deployment, I learned that there was something about the latrine that freed a man’s vulnerability. I had shed a few tears in these stalls myself. His pain moved me—reluctantly, but it moved me. 

And so, I stopped beside him. He needed me…