Living the heat

Walking outside in 106 degree heat is like walking through a dream. Everything feels distant, and it's hard to keep my eyes open. I wonder if I could ever handle donning my IBA in the desert. Even the sand reflects the heat back at my face. When I walk into a cool building, I can feel my uniform radiating what it absorbed from the sun.

The good thing is you don't sweat in it-- it's too dry. But I feel drained by the sun in just a five minute walk. I wan't to crawl into my bunk and take a nap after every lunch. The hardest part is that I have no desire for drinking coffee, though I need something to wake me up.

Yesterday felt like I passed my entire day through a haze. It's hard to concentrate on writing and copy editing. It's a struggle just making it past the lead. Sometimes it all becomes just a jumble of letters and clustered words.

Yesterday, though, we received the first killed in action press release since I've been here. It was a strange feeling. The page was mainly blank. The release stretched only four lines long. The phrasing of it was so vague and general. "The name of the deceased is being withheld until next of kin are notified." It could have been anybody anywhere, and yet this dealt with a real Army Soldier killed by an explosion. That's all the page would tell me, no matter how many times I scanned it for more information.

I tried asking Renanah, the current editor training me, about the release, if any media would do a story on the Soldier, if we would do a follow up. She seemed so unfazed-- to her, this might have been just one of hundreds. The only thing changed was the date and mode of death. It felt so weightless... insignificant... and yet someobody home would spill heavy tears over this. Would they find out in person? By phone call? By letter? Nothing would make the death feel any lighter.

And yet, here it was, in front of my own eyes-- the statement of death-- only as heavy as a piece of paper. There seemed something unjustified about it. I fooled myself into believing that I deserved to know more... but I didn't. Likely, I would have never recognized the name even if it had been printed. Any more explanation or details on his death wouldn't have changed the outcome.

And yet, I felt I responsible for his news at my fingertips. I expected any moment the Soldiers family calling me to know all about it. I feared my vulnerability to not knowing. I feared my own vulnerability of sitting inside an office building surrounded by concrete walls, a long, long shot away from mortar attacks.

I think of the heat now, and I wonder how we're not flooded by death press releases every day. I wonder how anyone can survive in this heat outside of air-conditioned offices.