Well, it was one of those mornings, or i thought it was! A morning before which i have made all the proper preperations to leave to the Northern city of Sulaimaniya for a 4-day trip.
My flight was supposed to go out of Baghdad Int'l Airport at noon on Sun. 13 Aug. and as usual one needs to go to the Airport as early in the day as possible because you never know what pops up in your way... Like today!
As my father (who was supposed to drive me to the Airport checkpoint and drop me there) and i drove around the 1st corner, we ran into many people from our area on foot, and they were all saying the same line... "You'd better return, the Americans are everywhere, they'd hit you if they saw you..." It was true that we saw 2 tanks in as many alleys, so i decided to stop the car, carry my passport in one hand, and put the other hand as a sun shield on my forehead, and walk towards the nearest tanks, and show my English language muscles!
I walked for about 200 yds/meters, and i reached the tank. There i stood, passport in one hand, other hand on my forehead, and went: "Excuse me!! Anybody there?!!"
A moment afterwards, a soldier appeared on top of the tank. I said: "Hi. I work with the _________, (left as blank for security reasons) and i have a flight to catch to the North today, i have a car and i need to be dropped at the airport and the car needs to return here, is that possible?!"
Soldier said: "Hold on!", then he spoke on the radio with his leaders, and then said: "No way!"... I just echoed that to him with a sarcastic smile. Then i said: "So when would you finish?!"... He said: "When we finish, we finish..."
I left the place where the tank stood, and clicked a quick picture for it, after i reached a safe distance. As i was walking, i heard a voice on one of the humvees loudspeakers. It was a feminine voice which read an announcement from the Iraqi Army and the friendly Coalition Forces, saying that the zone is a no-drive zone from dawn till dusk, and there is a full curfew from dusk till dawn.
To be honest, this was a needed operation, especially after all the mortars, and the dead bodies we started seeing in the alleys and driving by them, which was one f the most awful and terrible moments of my life.
We drove back home, and that was Day 1.
