ID

It appears I have been over zealous, yapping about my freedom and plastic and the cultural enlightment of my 15 minutes in Baghdad.

Today I went to chow by myself.

I smiled cheerfully to myself, relishing in the moment as I confidently pull the plastic ID from my pocket after greeting the Ugandan guard, an attractive and intimidating female who has in the past regarded me with a weary eye. She looks at my ID and back to me. "I thought you were getting your ID," she says her eyes narrowed. My smile has vanished, "This is the ID I have been telling you about." No, is her response as about a dozen soldiers line up behind me eager to eat breakfast. Another guard approaches and asks if I may step out of line. He is as serious as a police officer can get when you say, looks like I left my license and registration at home, but I am not apologetic, I am hungry and I have done nothing wrong.

"This is the ID issued to me, I don't work for the government. I’m not a contractor or a soldier, this is the only ID I can get," I say trying to keep my voice from carrying into the chow hall so that my many fans will not have to chuckle and then choke on their morning grits. Twenty minutes later I am still explaining myself.

"Whom do you work for?" the other guard asks.

"I'm a freelancer, but I work for a broadcast station, but I work for the internet so I don't get paid, but I can work for other companies," I say.

"So how do you eat?" he asks innocently.

Is this guy kidding?

"Well I eat at the chow hall, well I am supposed to be allowed to eat at the chow hall," I say.

"Yes, but you need to get the right ID," says the guard who lives in the black and white world.

For the next forty-eight hours I visit six different offices meet with dozens of personnel, captains, majors, colonels who either send me elsewhere or flat out admit they have no idea how to help.

"What I'm the only journalist in Iraq?" I ask as they shrug helplessly.

Finally with the help of a major, who I met by chance, we find a solution. A captain at the ID office sends a copy of my ID to every checkpoint in this base with the words approved stamped on top.

Has this solved the problem? Not quite.

The other day a guard informed me that he was confiscating my ID because of its expiration.

"Oh yeah," I say. "It expires the fourth of June 2010 not the tenth of June 2004." This is the third of fourth time someone has misread these numbers. "This is how the military writes their dates," I say snatching it out of his hands. For a month I've been nice and that has gotten me nowhere and now I'm just tired. The soldiers in my unit just laugh and for the hundredth time say, "Welcome to the Army."