Nervous Tics

Several days ago we were on another mission out through the farmland surrounding Falluja. It's the middle of the night, and my truck is out in front again, swapping places periodically with the mine sweeping truck. The road is ugly- it's narrow, muddy, sloped slightly towards the deep canal on the right, and elevated between six and ten feet above the field to the left. It's the kind of road that would make you nervous to drive on at home, and here there are people trying to blast you off of it into the canal. It makes me very nervous.

Usually, I tend to avoid thinking about things that make me nervous. There's too many of them. That night, however, I started to compile a list in my mind. It's quite a list, and as anyone who has been to Iraq or even seen a few pictures knows, the items on the list are everywhere.


Potholes.
Blast holes.
Man holes.
Cut-out holes.
Concrete patches in holes.
Dug up and/or disturbed earth.
Broken concrete.
Bumps in the road.
Geometric arrangements of rocks, sticks, or scrap.
Dirt roads.
Canal roads.
Paved roads.
Narrow roads.
Elevated roads.
Muddy roads.
Moving traffic.
Stopped traffic.
Twisted hulks of vehicles.
Abandoned vehicles.
Especially fuel tankers.
Absence of people.
Wires.
Cables.
Strings that look like either.
Cassette tape.
Tall reeds.
Undergrowth.
Pipes.
Culverts.
Ditches.

There's a sampling. I'll edit later with more entries and some pictures.