…is the title of an essay published in the Village Voice this week, by the undisputed greatest living playwright, David Mamet. If you, like me, have alternately enjoyed and been sickened by the Hillary/Obama circus of 2008, you need to read this essay, in which an entrenched, lifelong lefty reveals how he came upon the light-bulb realization that he had converted over to the right side (pun intended), while listening to NPR (the “National Palestinian Radio”). He is not the first.

I have mostly stayed away from politics in this blog, especially where Iraq is concerned, as it is impossible for me to currently have a fair view of that topic. But when an icon of the left explains with clarity, cogency, and depth the silliness that inevitably led him away from the histrionics of modern liberalism (”dark forces arrayed to thwart the delivery of benevolence to fragile masses”), I had to take note. Warning: there is a single bad word in this column (the mother of all bad words, so to speak, but one which, I am obliged to confess, may have passed somewhere around the vicinity of my brain in the exact situation Mamet describes).

By the way: there is a new Iraq entry below.

Noon (still): In the DFAC, we have a pretty wide choice of foods, ranging from the “Main” line, where the entree of the day is served, to a short order line (with hamburgers that taste like they are made of meatloaf), a sandwich line, even a stir-fry line. The servers are Third Country Nationals (TCNs), from varying places including Pakistan, India, Lebanon, and Iraq. They are very humble and very sweet, and will always give an extra helping if asked. One of our SGTs has gotten to know them fairly well despite a significant language barrier. We often see them in our clinic, where they are always very grateful for any assistance we give them.

On Tuesday, on a whim, I tried the IFC, a.k.a. “Iraqi Fried Chicken.” This turned out to be a bad idea, as it seems that IFC is just like KFC, except that it is left in the fryer much, much too long. Sort of extra extra extra crispy. But most of what they serve us is pretty good. We also have a dessert bar, with ice cream and pastries, but I have yet to partake of those—I am not huge on the sweets.

12:30ish: After we finish eating, we each grab our allowed two “to-go” items. For me, this is usually a Diet Coke plus a Gatorade bottle, or else a bag of Saudi Doritos or a Saudi potato chip called “Tiffany.” The slogan, which doesn’t quite translate to English, but is there on the front anyway: “Taste The Natural.” You’ll be happy to learn, as I did from the “Nutrition Facts” on the back page, that one bag of Tiffany “Chilli” chips gives one 2183.0 kilojoules of energy. I can feel those kilojoules in me now, bouncing around like Smilin’ Joe Fission.

The fact that we are allowed only two items to take home with us is a point of contention here on our otherwise happy base. Other DFACs (i.e., on Army-run rather than Navy-run bases) allow essentially an unlimited number of to-go items, though they’d probably flag you if you were being ridiculous about it. Also, we are not allowed to carry out any non-packaged food, which means that the person watching our clinic during the lunch hour goes without any lunch, and has to survive on the 2183.0 kilojoules of energy which a bag of Tiffanys offers. This, again, is different from any of the Kuwaiti posts, and from the Army bases in the states. The reality is that no one can make it to DFAC three times a day (I average about 1.5) and most of us have fridges, so if we could take something home other than chips and soda, we’d avoid having to eat peanut butter and crackers for dinner on those nights that our clinic runs late. But this is a Marine base, and the motto is “The Marines are looking for a few good men, preferably those who enjoy being miserable.” (By the way, to any Navy or Marines personnel who are reading this and shaking their heads, I have one thing to say: “You can’t handle the truth!” Oh, and one more: “Of course I ordered the Code Red [Mountain Dew]!”)

The result of this silly “to-go” rule is that people end up stuffing food into the many pockets of their Army Combat Uniform, like starving hamsters. During the walk back to the buses, on careful glance one can notice a few who are walking in a sort of wobbly, duck-like manner, presumably because of the load they are lugging around in their side pockets. Occasionally, a marine standing at the exit will see a particularly egregious offender, and their pockets will be searched, their apples, chocolate milk boxes, chips, drinks, and even the occasional main course enclosed in a ziploc, all will be confiscated. The medics tell me about one doctor from prior days who seemed to be a constant target of these searches, upon whom contraband was regularly discovered. Kind of embarrassing, but hey, we’re talking about bags of nacho cheese Doritos (or generic equivalent)! To gain a lot, you’ve gotta be willing to risk a lot. Ask a Bear-Stearns guy; he’ll explain it to you.

12:45 PM: On this day, we make it to the bus without any further issues, then off to laundry. On Iraqi bases there are no laundromats, only laundry services. The idea is that you bring in your dirties, all wrapped in a mesh or cloth bag, fill out a slip, and they throw the entire bag into a massive, olympic-sized washer. 72 hours later, you get the whole bag back, but with the clothing folded for you. Surprisingly, this approach actually works, and the clothes get pretty clean. As you can imagine, this one-color-fits-all method results in the whites becoming very off- after a while, but to me, it beats the heck out of doing it myself. There is something very satisfying about replacing a dusty ACU coat with a fresh one.

1PM: Back to the clinic, where we see the afternoon patients. Back pain, shoulder pain, upper respiratory symptoms, a couple of fakers looking for paperwork that will get them out of unpleasant duties (”profiles”), more back pain, strep throat, a weird-looking skin thing which is probably a spider bite, burst tympanic membrane in a TCN, and yet more back pain. Oh, and a couple of STDs also, one male, one female. (We give out a lot of condoms here, to men and women.)

4PM: The medics start mopping the clinic. Unfortunately, they usually don’t sweep first, and we have no vacuum, so mopping just serves to push the dust around. I usually sneeze a lot during this hour, and sometimes put on my very sharp-looking wrap-around goggles. Somewhere between 4-5 someone makes a run to the post office, and on this particular day, I am the big winner, with two large packages from Lorri (woo-hoo!). More on those in a later entry. There are usually a couple of general care packages from nice people in America, and the medics fight over the Snickers bars and beef jerky. This time of year, Peeps are big.

5PM: I finish signing my notes, and head home. Sometimes I walk, sometimes the medics are headed also, and I ride with them. After getting home, I sync my ipod with the podcasts that have been downloading all day long (Bill Simmons, ESPN Fantasy Baseball, Jim Lehrer, a few others) and then I grab the ‘pod and head to the gym. 30-60 minutes on the elliptical, then some upper body stuff (gotta start somewhere!) and I walk back home. The air is cool, and it is dark outside, so I have to wear my Al Asad-mandated reflective belt, and I am not allowed to listen to my ipod while in the PT uniform, so I have to jerk it out of my ear every time someone walks by me. The air is cool, and actually pretty sweet, with the faint taste of dust and diesel being the only thing dragging down my endorphin high (but not much). I stop by the clinic to call home, but this time, Lorri is not there.

7:30PM: It takes me about 5 minutes to walk back to Can City (I pass Tent City on the way, poor suckers!), and then I walk into my vinyl cave, grab a towel, and right back out, to the showers. There are about 5 Marines in there at any given time, and this night is no exception. The non-potable water washes the dust off of my body, and in a few minutes I am back in my canister.

8PM: This is sacred Jon Stewart time (the Armed Forces Network plays the show from the night before; tonight on “You’re Not Helping”: Geraldine Ferraro and The Reverend Jeremiah Wright).

8:30: I call home on Skype and talk with Lorri a bit, with the call dropping every 5 minutes or so. Regardless, it is good and right talking with her, as you have already heard.

Somewhere around 9-10, I dust off and clean up my canister, get laundry ready for drop-off, clothes ready for the next day, carefully arrange my myriad nightly eye-drops, read scriptures, surf the net a bit (very slowly), maybe write a blog post if I haven’t already. Then I head out to the bathroom for one last time, and finally off to bed.

Life ain’t so bad.

Battered buses jammed up to the roof
Dust and diesel the prevailing themes
Farmer sleeping on the truck in front
Feet trailing over like he’s trolling for dreams
Smiling girl directing traffic flow
.45 strapped over cotton print dress
Marimba-brown and graceful limbs
Give me a moment of loneliness

Dust and diesel
Rise like incense from the road
Smoke of offering
For the revolution morning

Bruce Cockburn, “Dust and Diesel,” 1982, written in Nicaragua