I met “T” at the Green Zone testosterone enclave in Baghdad, Iraq. I looked at him and knew immediately that he wasn’t interested. It wasn’t just his general vibe, imposing size, or visible tattoos. He was that guy. They were all over the Green Zone; big, muscular, flirty, tattooed, Under Armor shirts, Oakley sunglasses, and larger-than-life egos. They were ex-military and Special Forces walking around with weapons and attitudes. He was a former Navy SEAL. Not for me. No, thanks.
“T” was interested in me and made it clear from the start. I wasn’t and I made it clear. My lack of enthusiasm and lack of response to his advances was interpreted as an invitation, a challenge to a harder search. He would spend the next few months doing just that.
As predictable as most of these stories; I would be amused by the attention, I would get used to it, I would start to like and depend on it. This didn’t necessarily mean I liked him at first, but he was a constant and reliable source of praise, attention, and support in an otherwise turbulent and unpredictable place. And as I got to know him better, his sensitive, intelligent, vibrant and complicated personality emerged replacing the limited initial impressions. A relationship in spite of itself grew out of what never should have been. If we weren’t in Iraq and the Green Zone, our paths would never have crossed and I would never have entertained the idea of meeting, let alone ending up with, someone like him.
He was nothing like me or the men I had previously met. I was a former New York investment banker driven by work, a constant need for self-improvement, and a spectrum of ethics that grew out of my Arab and Muslim family background and strong ties. I was in Iraq trying to help save whatever part of my homeland I could; it was not only important, but personal. I was born in Iraq and left for the United States when I was ten years old. My family had suffered a great tragedy there: my father, who was a nationalist and not a Baathist, was attacked by Saddam for his opposing views and would lose his life for it. He is buried in Iraq.
I came back to Iraq because I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else: I was there for my country, my people, my mission. It had to be. Most of my relatives were still living in Iraq and this effort had a lot to do with them.
“T” was a former Navy SEAL, a trained assassin and fighter who hid that part of him behind a sweet smile and gentle demeanor. He was there too because he had to be; he had just left the Navy after ten years of service and this is what he could and wanted to do. His mission was very different from mine and he had no idea of his world, his background or his capabilities.
To add to our differences, our lives in the US were at odds. He was from the West Coast, from a divorced family with an Indian father and California mother, and a father himself. He was the quiet type, he wasn’t comfortable sharing his feelings, inclined and trained to be reserved. I was from the east coast, had my heart on my sleeve, and was prone to show and talk about my feelings. It is still inexplicable how we find solace and solace in each other.
The man I would later fall in love with would turn out to be nothing like the man who was chasing me. He was idiosyncratic: cuddly in the morning; his more aggressive personality took over as the day wore on. He was an exquisite and witty photographer, but also a deadly accurate spear fisherman.
We came and went from the Green Zone and always found ourselves in it again. And because we were in an environment that forced us to live in the terrifying present, we clung to each other. We were together in our strange new space where the real world waited outside.
It was a common belief that relationships born in the Green Zone died in the Green Zone. They could not bear the realities outside of this strange bubble. Our relationship could have died in the Green Zone, but it didn’t. Instead, it developed roots that gave way to love, dependency, and understanding; became the only thing that was real once unreal wise. We believed we beat the high odds.
A few years after we met, we both left Iraq. Then we went to Afghanistan. First him, then I followed him. There we were in a similar environment but with even more restrictions. By then we had become a good couple; both working abroad and saying goodbye together. We had love, money, and a lifestyle that we shared and could understand.
We got married in Las Vegas between assignments because free time was always short and precious. We had a small ceremony and a perfect reception with our close family and friends present. When I saw him dance with the belly dancer he had hired for entertainment and she smiled back at me, I felt like I had found the perfect happiness.
People marveled that we could get married and not live together, while we thought it was exactly the right thing to do. We would not live together as husband and wife until we moved to California a year later.
After two years in Afghanistan, I decided to take a break from work and stay home in the US while he continued to come and go. With domesticity, the distance surfaced between us.
He had experienced war and death from a closer distance, but never as close as “T” did. He wouldn’t talk about what he saw or did, but as the years passed and more of his compatriots and friends died in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and at home, a disappointment, hardness and evil in him took hold and came to life. He maybe he was there the whole time, but now he was visible, strong and forceful. He saw and experienced the worst of what terrorists portrayed under the banner of Islam and began to turn those devastations onto me as he was often in favor of moderate Muslims like myself and my family who detest fundamentalists who use the religion for their own benefit. disturbed purposes. He objected to the generalizations and harsh distinctions he suddenly liked and we started arguing. He saw things differently or more simplistic; You were either with him in his opinions and hates or against him, and during some of these fights, he saw me as being against him.
Our relationship became a battlefield and a representative of what was happening far away and in places where we had served and fought. The fight had come home even though I thought we had left it behind.
This same pattern would also play out with his family and friends and mine. Seemingly ordinary meetings would go from lively and entertaining to uncomfortably quiet and overly serious for those used to hearing and reading media news rather than real life experiences. The truth, particularly his version, was not for barbecues and dinner parties.
As different as we were before we met, our shared experience had made us a dazzling mirror of each other. We needed the same things but we were locked in a battle of wills. We were imprisoned in our private war zone, on opposite sides.
Our fights were numerous, loud and consistent. We would go through periods of talking, not talking, and then talking again. Our bond held, but it was beginning to unravel in our tug of war.
He would never admit that he had PTSD or that his years abroad had affected him. Instead, he developed and clung to more extreme views and opinions shared by his Navy SEAL fraternity and other Special Forces. After a while, our interactions went in circles; the same fights, the same complaints and the same problems.
I recently worked abroad again, this time for the Syrian cause but outside of Turkey, which meant a departure from the details of life and security in the compound. He was injured and supported my decision until he was injured in a work related incident in Afghanistan and had to stay home in the US for reconstructive knee surgery and recovery.
This was his first time home in over a decade, and the experience unleashed a hunger in him to live as long as possible while he was back. He wanted to share it with me, but if I wasn’t going to be there, he was going to do it without me. He had just accepted the new assignment and he couldn’t leave her so soon, so the roles were reversed.
The dynamic of these relationships in war zones, or as far as ours are concerned, is that they worked while we were living and working abroad. When one of us was home the desire to live as a ‘normal couple’ would kick in and then resentments would take over having to do it alone.
This last time, we couldn’t save him. We cannot refute that true relationships that are born in chaos can only thrive in it. Outside of the war zone, we couldn’t find peace.
