Sandbox Versus Shithole

I was told to write about two places and compare them. You decided how I did haha.

There are positive and negative aspects to any place that a person lives.  The aspects are dependent on your ability to realize the positives and negatives that affect your life, whether it is location, price of goods, neighbors, hazards, food sources, or sanitation in an area.  You have to weigh the pros and cons and how these impact your life in your current and future locations in order to pick the proper home.  Personally I have lived in Iraq and America.  Looking back at these two seemingly different areas to live in, I have found some similarities along with some interesting differences which enhance my reasoning for staying in America.  

               I was deployed to Iraq as a U.S. soldier during Operation Iraqi Freedom 2007-2008.  I lived in buildings that had been taken over by the American troops.  One building in particular was the Adil JSS (Joint Service Station.)  A JSS, is where the American soldiers live with Iraqi soldiers or Iraqi police.  In the Adil JSS we lived with an Iraqi infantry company.  The building itself was originally a four story mall which had been taken over by the Americans in 2003.  There were four “port ‘O’ potties” for both the Americans and Iraqis, and no showers.  Cleaning supplies where limited to a few brooms.  All of us slept on cots and ate in the main lobby with food consisting of water, instant freeze-dried meals, and canned goods.  I was taken on base to shower every three days for sanitary reasons.  Overall, it was a disgusting place to live.  Aside from being gross, the Adil JSS was very unsafe, more so for me because I was the only female.  I was to have a guard with me everywhere I went, and this included the bathroom.  If it was one thing the Iraqi men loved, apparently it was an American woman.  We are perceived as being w****s and s***s, not only by the Iraqis but to the American soldiers as well.  I felt safer around the American soldiers but I still was told to have a guard with me just in case someone were to try anything inappropriate.  As for the obvious unsafe conditions in Iraq, which included fire fights and mortars, most nights they were common.  It was easy to get used to falling asleep with a loud boom; sometimes I didn’t even wake up to the mortars.

One incident happened when we were taking small arms fire from a building across the street.  It was funny only because the hot shells from our rounds caught the dry grass on fire next to our building.  Basically, we set ourselves on fire.  The grass was dead and dry due to the 104 degrees Fahrenheit temperature during the summer.  The problem with dry heat is that when you sweat, it dries up and you are unable to feel that you are dehydrated.  Even though all of the American soldiers drank a lot of water, everyone was dehydrated by the end of the day.    Another big problem with the heat is that it emphasized the smell of burning trash, feces, dead animals, and body odor.  I could stand the heat, danger, smell, and lack of cleanliness, but not the loneliness.  Being the only female separates you from everyone else.  Although people wanted to speak to me, and get to know me, I couldn’t help but feel they only wanted to talk to me because they wanted to “get in my pants.”  I felt isolated and cut off from everything.  When I had some down time in between missions, I would stay in my sleeping quarters, work on reports, or work on planning the next mission.  I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be in Iraq, like no matter how good of a job I could do, I would always be isolated from everyone around me.

    For a female civil affairs soldier, there are only a few positive aspects to working in Iraq.  A civil affairs soldier helps people, tries to fix the selected area of operation’s economy, infrastructure, stabilization, and overall well-being of the community.   I loved my job, since a few American soldiers and I helped to rebuild schools, give supplies to hospitals, and give food to the less fortunate areas within our selected area of operations.  Civil Affairs is by far the most rewarding job I have ever had.  Another few very positive aspects to living in Iraq would be the free food, free board, and the tax-free money.
    My living conditions in Iraq have some similarities to the conditions I ended up in when returning to America; unfortunately the similar conditions were all negative.  Coming back to America, I lived with my boyfriend for a few weeks.  He lived on the outskirts of the city or Rochester.  It was a disgusting little apartment.  The basic similarities to Iraq where the smell and the lack of safety I felt while having to inhabit that apartment.  The smell of the apartment reminded me of Iraq due to its lack of air-conditioning ( or power at one point during the stay) creating an odor due to two dogs defecating within the apartment throughout the greater part of the day, only to be crudely cleaned at night.  I went over to the apartment when my boyfriend would come home from work every day. The fermenting feces were completely nauseating to the point where I would not go into the apartment until he cleaned up after his dogs.   The smell of the apartment was oddly familiar to the burning feces and trash in Iraq.  I had a similar, possibly even bigger fear of getting shot in and around my boyfriend’s apartment.  I was a young girl, driving alone through the ghetto with a very nice car.  I felt the fear I had in Iraq while walking around the JSS, except instead of a human, my body guard was now a tiny convertible.  
    The only major downside to living at my boyfriend’s apartment that had no similarity to Iraq was that I was jobless.  I had no income, and no way to pay for a better place for him and me to live. We could barely pay for food, let alone the apartment.  Luckily I had paid off my car and bills months in advance while I was still working in Iraq to prepare for the jobless transition back into civilian society from military life, thus creating a few less things to worry about while attempting to survive. Unfortunately, living without a stable job was still very difficult.  I was looking for a job at the time but nothing could compare to the rewarding job in Iraq.  I still have yet to find a career as rewarding as civil affairs, but for now a minimum wage job would have to do.
    Positive aspects to living back in America were easy to find.  In my boyfriend’s apartment, there where rambunctious yet lovable dogs to play with.  I couldn’t help but smile when I saw those creatures.  My family lived only a few minutes away from the apartment, which gave me the opportunity to finally feel like I had people around I could talk to.  The loneliness I felt in Iraq was now nonexistent.  I also had someone to live with that was able to show emotion toward me, someone I could hug, hiss, and feel safe with at all times.  The great weather in Rochester was also a positive spin on moving back into America.  I no longer felt dehydrated, I could cool off easily in my mother’s pool, I could shower every day, and most of all, I felt loved.
    Regardless of how much I loved my job in Iraq, everything else about Iraq was a horrible experience for me.  Although my boyfriend’s apartment was disgusting, everything else about America was wonderful.  Overall, if I had to pick between Iraq and America I would pick America any day.  My boyfriend and I have moved from the apartment written about above, and I am currently working  at Kodak along with going to college to hopefully , some day, have another very fulfilling job.