The Iraq rainy season isn’t best defined by rainfall inches; it’s unofficially measured by how long the mud ponds last.
“We’re right in the middle of the rainy season,” Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Greg Rosenmerkel explained in a January 2007 email to his friends after only a few weeks into his six-month deployment. “From what I’ve seen so far, that statement may be a bit misleading. While it has rained four to five days this month, up to 1.5 inches in a day, it’s the lingering ponds that keep one thinking it’s a ‘season.’”
Rosenmerkel commanded an Air Force team whose mission was to oversee a number of engineering projects at the Logistics Support Area Anaconda, collocated with Balad Air Base, about thirty miles from Baghdad. Rosenmerkel’s team provided capabilities the Army needed but couldn’t provide from within.
“The base is flat. Storm sewer inlets are few and far between. The soil is impermeable silt clay, and the Iraqi irrigation canals surrounding us are higher elevation. Even in wartime, we can’t make water flow uphill. Mud is everywhere,” Rosenmerkel observed.
“All the mud really just adds to the inconvenience. We’re obviously in uniform all the time, so when you gotta go in the middle of the night, you get dressed, schlep through the mud to the porta-potty, and try to get back in bed without bringing the mud with you,” he explained.
Mud clings to everything. It’s consistency is not normal mud either it’s slippery. It could be described as somewhere between a McDonald’s chocolate shake and baby poop. It’s got a remarkable ability to track one hundred feet down a hallway, then when it dries it just turns to dust and finds its way into your coffee cup.
Boot scrapers dot all doorsteps. These boot brushes are everywhere, but they really just serve to remove the big rocks and fling mud higher on your pant leg or your buddy’s.
The mud in Iraq is hard to get off because it’s fine and silt-like. Understanding Middle East mud sheds new light on the Biblical phrase “shaking the dust off your feet” a response to an insult or inhospitable gesture. Rosenmerkel’s observation literally shows how hard it can be to “shake the dust from your feet.”
Just as it’s sometimes necessary to clean mud off your feet, so it’s also important to let go of life’s insults. Like mud, it’s better to view them an inconvenience.
God, enable me to let go of the insults that sometimes come my way. Keep them from becoming grudges. Instead, help me to have the persistence to wash them off as mud from my feet.
“If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town.” (Matthew 10:14)