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Stryker Offices Comments on Iraq Drawdown

Jun- 6-2010 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

Drawdown in Iraq: The Lights Are Going Out - At War Blog - NYTimes.com

There’s an eerie silence settling over our Forward Operating Base. The generators are shutting down one by one, and every night there are fewer lights.

The hundreds of people that made the base a cozy, bustling, American outpost have left, taking their equipment with them, leaving only abandoned buildings. Our unit is the last out, manning the guard towers, defending a quiet shell. In a few days, we’ll turn the lights out at our command post, our battalion commander will make a short speech and shake hands with an Iraqi general, and we’ll get in our waiting trucks and drive away.

Until that time, we have the place to ourselves. Or we would, if it weren’t for the imagined presences that haunt any place that was once alive, but is now deserted and quiet.


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