Generation Kill

by Evan Wright

A shoeless farmer approaches. His face is narrow and bony from what looks to be a lifetime of starvation. Shaking his fist, speaking in a raspy voice, he says through a translator that he’s been waiting for the Americans to come since the first Gulf War. He explains that he used to live in a Shia marshland south of here. Saddam drained the marshes and ruined the farmland to punish the people there for supporting the 1991 rebellion. “Saddam believes if he starves the people we will follow him like slaves. It’s terrorism by the system itself.” I ask the farmer why he welcomes Americans invading his country. “We are already living in hell,” he says. “If you let us pray and don’t interfere with our women, we accept you.” The farmer, with gray hair and his narrow face wrapped in wrinkles, looks to be about sixty, with a lot of those being hard years. I ask him when he was born. 1964. I tell him we’re the same age. He leans toward me, smiling and pointing to his face. “Compared to you, I look like an old man” he says. “This is because of my life under Saddam.” I find his self-awareness unsettling. One of the few comforts I have when looking at images of distant suffering is the hope that the starving child with flies on his face doesn’t know how pathetic he is. If all he knows is misery, maybe his suffering isn’t as bad. But this farmer has shattered that comforting illusion. He’s wretched, and he knows it. Before going off, he warns the translator that we are entering an area w...

self awareness