Iraqi Table Encounters: Captain Carpet Loves His Tea

General News Jan 1, 1970By Emily Carter 0 views

In the later stages of the Iraq War on Terror, Captain Stephen was deployed to Baghdad.

He swore to himself: "Who gives a damn about this godforsaken idiot war? My job is to bring my men there safely and bring them back safely, that's all."

When he led his team out to scout for the enemy, they were really just finding cover to kill a few hours, moving to a different spot to smoke and sleep, and burning through ammunition so they could report back and be done with it. Naturally, his men were happy to take it easy too, and none of them breathed a word of this secret.

One corporal had his doubts, and Captain Stephen shot back: "If we make enemies far faster than we kill them, then even if we catch every terrorist hiding in a cave, a tent, or a street corner building bombs, so what?"

Those Iraqi youths, worn down by injustice and poverty, would only come one after another. As they were blasted to pieces and turned to dust, they recited a poem in their hearts: "The minaret is our bayonet, the dome is our steel helmet, the mosque is our barracks, the faithful are our army."

When Captain Stephen put on his sunglasses and pretended to sleep, he heard his soldiers lazily chatting as they cut their ration biscuits into small pieces with a knife and popped them into their mouths.

"What are you most afraid of?"
"I'm afraid of dying here and never seeing my fiancee again."
"Then what do you love most?"
"My fiancee."
"No kidding, who would have guessed?" Everyone rolled their eyes at him.

"Do you know why the Crusades failed back then? Why didn't Christianity conquer Islam?"
"No idea."
"Because sex and death are humanity's greatest drives. Muslims treat sex as death's gift."
"What the hell are you talking about?"

The speaker took a punch to the head. Holding his head, he went on: "It's true! They believe that a man who dies on the battlefield goes straight to heaven, where seventy-two dark-eyed virgins wait on them obediently……" (Note 1)

"Seventy-two……. tsk tsk……"
"Sounds like a Playboy Mansion party……"
A bunch of grown men actually got envious.

"No wonder this region is at war all day long…….. What man past puberty isn't driven by hormones…..?"
"So their sex life is too miserable, they want to let off some steam, and that's why none of them want to live."
"I wonder if heaven will run out of virgins……"
The whole group burst out laughing.

The Iraqi women were delighted that they finally didn't have to wipe dirty shoe prints off the floor. The mothers and grandmothers even started using their last bit of gas to boil water for tea, handing hot tea to him and his brothers to drink. The British have always been tea lovers, so Captain Stephen thought nothing of it and drank cup after cup.

In the world of tea, Iraq and Britain are actually not as far apart as one might imagine; what they sip is black tea from India or Sri Lanka. But this tea had a lot of tea dust and stems, and was a bit astringent. No worries, it's fine, just add a few more lumps of sugar.

The price of tea and sugar fluctuated wildly, and even when it was frighteningly expensive they steeled themselves and bought it. A guest is a guest, and a guest must have tea to drink.

Before long, the locals gave him the nickname "Captain Carpet." He was very easy to spot: if any of the soldiers was carrying several rolls of carpet, it was Captain Stephen's team.

The American garrison laughed uproariously and teased: "What on earth are you carrying your own carpets for? Walking the Hollywood Walk of Fame? Where's your little golden statue?"

Captain Stephen joked back with them: "I've been obsessed with One Thousand and One Nights since I was a kid. Now that I'm in Baghdad, of course I have to buy a few carpets and see if I can fly up into the sky."

"Isn't that just a fairy tale to fool children?" The laughter grew louder.
"Maybe…….. just like weapons of mass destruction."

One day he received an urgent order to assemble somewhere.

But his whole group came down with severe diarrhea and vomiting, utterly falling apart. Captain Stephen sat on the toilet, wondering suspiciously: could it be that the tea brewed by those two head-covered old women earlier was the problem?

When they were dizzy and weak in the legs, and finally managed to form up and set out, news of a huge explosion came from up ahead at once. Several terrorists launched suicide attacks and blew many foreign soldiers to death on the spot. The casualties were severe, and the wounded packed the field hospital to an unprecedented degree.

The smell of blood in the air was so thick you could chew it.

Captain Stephen applied for discharge. A few years later, as he poured me tea, he said: "Never underestimate the efforts women make to protect their homes. When they know you respect their hard work, they cherish you like their own children and grandchildren."

I sat in his kitchen, which was "so clean it looked licked," and deliberately teased him with ill intent: a strapping man over seven feet tall, yet so meticulous that he worried about such a trivial thing as dirtying someone else's floor.

"Well……. actually………. back then it was because my mom yelled at me, warning me not to step carelessly on the shiny floor she had just wiped clean. I thought she was nagging, talked back and got into a big fight, and in a fit of anger I ran away from home, dropped out of school, and joined the army."

Note 1. In fact, judging from the original text of the Quran, one school of interpretation argues that the so-called "fair companions with dark eyes" is actually a gender-neutral term, applying to both men and women, and that the brothers and sisters of the faith who glorify Allah will not be left alone after entering paradise.

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Iraqi Table Encounters: Captain Carpet Loves His Tea

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