Between Iraq And A Hard Place

Ever have that situation? That one where you know you're totally screwed, yet you somehow manage to put on an idiotic grin and somehow make it through, proving that God does indeed love a fool?

So here's mine...

We were in the local mayor's office for the largest city in our sector. The commanding officer wanted to do a 'meet-and-greet', along with several other officers and other self-important apparatichix. My duty was to make sure they didn't wander off and get lost, or get themselves shot. It's a full-time job.

So, the 'space ants' (plus yours truely) went into the mayor's building, and those wonderful officers went t the mayor's office to shoot the shit. My job was to guard outside a thick metal door that locked on the inside.

Alone.

Now I know what your thinking... "Army of One, and that rigamole, right?" I'm a big boy, I can handle myself.

Well, in this room were nine (I say again, 9!) armed Iraqi Police Officers, with pistols and AK-47's (all loaded, I might add), and me. When they closed that thick ass metal door, I was fucked.

Repeat: F-U-C-K-E-D

Every one of the faces of those Iraqi Police (IP's) was open hostility. 9-to-1 odds, with no other American in sight, was also not a plus in my book. I could smell them thinking, "They'd never know who did it. Even if he gets one or two of us, it's a scott-free kill." They knew it. I knew it. I was dead man walking.

Repeat: F-U-C-K-E-D

So what do you do? It's not like "worse case senario" comes up with hw to survive 9 armed pissed-off Iraqis all thinking the same thought (ie, kill the American.) Basic didn't exactally train us n what to do in cases of monumental failures where your ass will soon be grass. Reader, no shit, there I was...

...and then something happened. Right after that nauseating feeling of doom, before the fecal matter forces its way out of your rectum with alarming force, something happened. WWJD? Nope. WWCHD? (Chuck Norris) I'm not that good at karate, and I'm also wearing 20 kilos of armor and bullets. No, this time it was WWJerseyD?

Jersey opened his big goddamn mouth, like only he can (inherited from his father) and started telling bad jokes.

Within minutes, speaking crappy arabic, french, and farsi, I had nine armed men laughing their asses off. Nothing was taboo as I used my wits to fight for my life. Not my high-speed M-4, not my multiple knives (an attempt tp use any of these would have resulted in me being splattered), my goddamn bad humor. Next thing I know, I'm telling them I'm Canadian citizen who got lost on his way to college and somehow ended up joining the Army. After explaining to them what a Mormon was, I also told them I had 7 wives, 13 kids, and a third leg that dragged the ground. Oh, and I was a huge fan of Manchester United. It went on. I joked, I lied, I used everything I've heard in movies, TV, comedians, and whatnot. It was a craps game and I was rolling for my life.

When two other American soldiers showed up, it was twenty minutes later, and I'm convincing them that Iran really isn't as bad a place as Al-Jazerra says. They looked at me like I had gone insane.

Eventually, the IP's left, and it was us three Americans. My SGT asked me WTF, and I told him that in a million years, he'd never understand. He still doesn't. I told him to be grateful.