Shriek in the night

So I’m watching a movie in my room recently. The scene involved a helicopter and a megaphone. Because the walls of my living quarters are thin, I often hear sounds from outside.
No exception this time. I heard a couple of booms followed by a shrieking whistle. I quickly determined that the whistle wasn’t coming from my TV speakers. That’s never a good sign because it means we have incoming.

Pop goes my head out the door of my trailer. Another whistling shriek and oh hey look there’s a rocket of some sort zipping by overhead. Other heads have popped out of their respective trailer doors. We quickly form a group and discuss.

How many? Where are they coming from? Where did they land? Did they explode? Should we be headed for the duck and cover bunkers?

The big giant voice comes on with a whooping siren sound. Then the announcer announces, unintelligibly. The duck and cover bunkers are crowded – filled with half-dressed people in various states of combat readiness. No sense adding to the crowd.
Helicopters zip around our perimeter seeking targets they can punish. Muttered comments of "damn insurgents" and other more colorful phrases can be heard. Some people joke and smoke. Some people just stay in bed, sleeping or awake.

I had been nearly asleep but I finish my movie before drifting off into slumberland. Unwelcome sounds wake me a second time a few hours later. This time the sounds are not rockets but electric shavers and a suitemate banging around in the bathroom located just on the other side of the paper thin wall that seperates us.

Another day has started. Life goes on in Baghdad. The insurgency continues to have nothing to offer the people of Iraq except senseless death delivered at any hour by cowards and fools who trap themselves and this country in a cycle of sadness and stupidity. Climbing out of the pit of despair they have nurtured and into better days is critical. And so we fight on.