At the Waters of Diyala

Abstract

Much of my upbringing took place during the aftermath of 9/11, and the subsequent “War on Terror” that resulted from it, which cascaded into nearly a decade of conflict and birthed the largest American war since Vietnam. These were inescapable aspects of my childhood, and how I came to understand myself as an American, and my country’s place in the world, is bound to these geopolitical conflicts. This novella examines personal relationships, as well as psychological effects, regarding participation in and reflection on the Iraq War from the perspective of a United States Army soldier, both during and after deployment. Written in first-person POV, this novella attempts to engage with the combined feelings of uncertainty, camaraderie, vulnerability, and alienation that emerge for the narrator through a specific friendship formed with an Iraqi interpreter in a high pressure combat environment. His experience of this friendship, as well as his experience of combat, is also placed in the larger context of both his relationship with his grandfather, along with his understanding of his life choices made up to that point. For the narrator, as with all fictional characters, he exists at any given time at the intersection of a multitude of internal and external forces, feelings, ideas, and beliefs including, but not limited to: his family situation, his socioeconomic background, his status as an American in contrast to his Iraqi surroundings, larger political forces such as America in the aftermath of 9/11 and, crucially, the late-adolescent and early adulthood age at which he is enduring all of this. This novella seeks to explore how the age at which we experience something affects us both during and after the fact, how arbitrary identity markers such as race, religion, and nationality shape the formation of human relations and connections, and how those connections emerge, change, and are molded by the experience of the largest arena of war, and the defining American conflict, of the 21st century thus far.