1st Lt Prifogle’s Blog

Let me tell you about the sky. It is perhaps my favorite part about being here. You have to picture yourself at home. Just sitting and drinking a cup of coffee – early, long before anyone else is awake. Now, imagine someone putting a giant bowl over you and everything you can see. Now, flatten out everything around you. Take down the tall buildings or mountains. Fill in any lake or ocean with sand. Look around you. There is nothing but endless sky. The color can vary. It can change as you look from one side of the bowl to the other.

Right now in Al Asad, Iraq it is 6:30 in the morning. The sun has been up for at least half an hour. In the morning light to the east the sky is a pale, dirty- white color. There is some light, but it looks like a dirty kitchen counter. Right above me it looks like the sand just picked up and filled the sky. It is a grey-brown color. I can feel the moister and tension in the air as the precipitation delicately decides where to go. It’s as if the band is warming up at a ballroom and the rain doesn’t know whom it wants to ask to dance – this piece of land or that? I see its decision on my computer screen and move into the doorway. I look to the west and instead of seeing a rainbow, which I might be able to see in San Diego or Indiana, I see a ribbon of blue sky rising up from the ground. You can feel the triumph and defeat as the rain fights to land on the ground in front of me before it gets pushed away. Immediately after landing, the dark specks on the ground start to disappear and the sky above me turns a cotton candy shade of blue. Birds start to come down from the trees and look for food. The threat of rain has passed. The smell of wet dirt lingers in the air for a few minutes; the wind picks up and takes the scent with it. All evidence of the morning sprinkle fades as buses start to drive down the road in the distance. There are a few bikers and trucks on their way to work now as the day begins just like every other day.

The aroma of fresh brewed coffee drifts out towards where I am sitting. I don’t move. I take a few minutes to take it all in. I woke up over two hours ago from a pleasant dream. It wasn’t until I walked outside in the dark and looked up to the sky and saw every single star in the galaxy that I remembered, “I’m in Iraq.” It wasn’t until I felt the rain on my hands as I typed that I remembered, “I’m in a desert.” It wasn’t until just now, writing this that I remembered how beautiful the sky is.

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