Hm.

List of Iraq War Casualties, with photographs (cnn.com).

A new livejournal community started by a friend, devoted to understanding the human toll of the Iraq war, as viewed through the lists of casualties provided by the Department of Defense: Speaking the Dead.

We went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 with the visiting Norwegian cousins Andreas and Aleksander because they were interested in what my views on it would be. Both of them have served in Norway's military; I don't remember what Andreas, now 24, did, but I know Aleksander, now 22, was an M.P. and served in Germany with NATO.

The movie ended and we walked silently out of the theater, and stood in the lobby a moment. We joked briefly about something unrelated, walked out to the car, got into it, and drove home.
We then proceeded to drink four bottles of wine and talk about entirely unrelated things for the next eight hours or so.

I just couldn't bear to think about any of it anymore. None of it was a surprise to me. None of it was anything I hadn't heard before. It wasn't particularly well-made. It was just putting it all in one place and expressing the frustrations and suspicions of a lot of people-- I have many friends who have complained about these things, and I myself promised that if Bush were elected in 2000 I would leave the country. My excuse for not doing so is that he wasn't really elected. Also, it's hard to get a visa to move to Canada. (Dave got as far as the Canadian Embassy to pick up an information packet.)

So... We stayed up until 3:30 playing card games and drinking, and not talking about the movie or the war or current events at all, and then Fiona had to drive home (she'd been drinking only coffee for hours). I hugged her and cried for a few minutes before I let her go, though we had all been very cheerful up to then. I dried my tears, bade her farewell, and we all went to bed. Then I cried for another hour.
Not about anything in particular, but just... because. (Ah, I note that I wrote a post here before I went to sleep. Yes, I was a little overwrought and a little not-sober. I remember writing it now, but had sort of forgotten when I wrote this entry.)

Katy and Adam are going back to Iraq in January, both with the 3rd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army. (Currently stationed in Ft. Stewart, Georgia.)

For those who don't know, my sister Cap't Kathleen Smith is in the Ordnance branch of the Army. As she explains it, Ordnance is "bombs and trucks": in essence, her job generally entails managing the paperwork to ensure that supplies and personnel are put where they need to be. Her husband Cap't Adam Smith is an M.P. (Military Policeman), and as far as I can tell mostly drives around in Hum-Vees trying to keep people out of trouble. During their last tour of duty in Iraq (Adam was with the 1 Armored Division near Baghdad; Katy [who was then Cap't Kelly] was near the Baghdad Airport and I think was mostly doing work with personnel paperwork, including all the paperwork necessary when someone gets killed), Katy was shot at once (Adam was angry because he felt proper precautions weren't taken) and Adam came within three feet of triggering an Improvised Explosive Device. They were there from March to September of 2003, I think. But as with all of this information, there's a lot I wasn't really filled in on at the time, and my memory is hazy. I'm not sure what Katy does, and I'm not sure what Adam does, and I'm not positive where they were and what they've done. All I know is what I remember being told.

I picked them up at the airport when they came back to the States, and both of them were fine and healthy, but Adam expressed scorn when he saw a civilian H-2 on the highway ("Why would you want them? They're noisy and uncomfortable, and the only point to 'em is that they're armored, which the H-2s aren't!"), and both were exceedingly leery of driving near any debris in the road because in Iraq, road debris is almost always booby-trapped with IEDs, and Katy's done an awful lot of paperwork for those whose limbs have been blown off in IED explosions.

I just wish I could ask someone who's actually in charge of this war to assure me that this whole thing is really worth risking my sister's life.

I don't want to accuse anyone. I'm not angry. I'm too tired to be angry. But I love my sister, and my new brother-in-law though I haven't had a chance to get to know him (she loves him, anyway). I know what she is worth to me. And I want to feel that those sending her into harm's way understand what she is worth to me. Multiply that by the thousands of troops, and it's a lot of love and worry that I hope they realize this war has to be worth.
Because it has to be.

I didn't protest the war when it started because I was just too worried. There's too much to worry about. And protesting is futile, or has proven to be so far. My father served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969, and I know how much it hurt him that he was not supported by his own people; he was a volunteer and enlisted because he felt it was his duty as a patriot and a fortunate son of America, to give back to the country. He has never recovered from the cynicism the protest movement that called him a babykiller inspired in him. The protests of that era just don't resonate with me; I see the protestors and want to smack them for directing their hostility in ineffective ways. Throwing chunks of concrete with embedded nails at frightened national guardsmen is not a good way to change the world. Those who get hurt are never those who make the decisions.

And, at that point, I didn't want to get into anything awkward with Katy. I still don't. I get to speak to her seldom enough that I have better things to talk about. Sometimes you just have to assume it's worth it, and in the end it will all be justified.
God only knows whether it will.
I sure as hell don't know, and don't know what to do about it. I'm a writer, so I write. I'm a human, so I feel. I'm a sister, so I worry.

Norwegian

The cousins have gone-- put them on a train yesterday back to my folks in Albany.

It was great to see them. It was great to have them here. Each of them is an interesting person. I stayed up very late one night with Andreas talking about a wide variety of topics, and each of us was so interested in what the other had to say because while the viewpoints and experiences each of us had were quite different from the other's, we had often drawn the same conclusions and believed the same things. So that was cool.

With Aleksander, I sat for a long time discussing linguistic things. He is studying linguistics at the university in Trondheim (I think it's the Norwegian University of Technology and Science, which is an amusing acronym but translated into Norwegian it's like NTNU or something-- much less funny).

I was attempting to begin a translation of Soga om Gunnlaug Ormstunge because Andreas told me I'd really like the poem, but it's in Norwegian. Aleksander was amused by how many of the cognates I had spotted, and how much I remembered from my one two-week visit to Norway at Christmas 1997. I do find that I remember a damn lot-- from stupid phrases they taught me to amuse themselves (Vi har underbuksene dine som gissel!-- "We are holding your underpants hostage!") to random things I picked up from subtitled films (overlede: survivor) to common words people used and I learned (Tussen takk!: Thanks very much!).

He explained the two dialects of Norwegian to me. In a nation of 4.5 million people, there are not one but two official languages. The reason? Norway was a part of Denmark for centuries. In 1814 or so, they were given to Sweden by Denmark, and were adopted by Sweden as a sort of independent annex. So Norway first had its own language and constitution then.

In the 1850s, a linguist became disgusted at the fact that Norwegian, as spoken by those in the cities and those who were concerned with "culture", was simply Danish. He went around the countryside and collected the language spoken by the farmers, which was more traditional. From these collections, he assembled a new language, called New Norwegian (Nynorsk). As Aleksander explained, it's not that anyone really speaks pure Nynorsk. It's not a real, organic language of its own. I did recall this from my last visit-- those I spoke to expressing disdain and disgust for this annoying second dialect that they were required to learn in school.

But this time Aleksander was more tolerant, and explained to me that actually, Nynorsk is quite pleasant when sort of used as a flavoring for the other language, Bokmal ("Book-Language"). Nynorsk contains a lot of very earthy, very colorful language, which is on the one hand irritatingly rustic, but on the other hand is full of very vivid ways of expressing oneself.
Apparently one of his classmates is from a part of Norway that has given her a mixed accent, so that she uses a lot of Nynorsk words in a largely Bokmal style. He confessed that he thought it was just a beautiful way of speaking.

He gets made fun of at school for his accent. He is from Bergen and their manner of speaking is decidedly un-posh. Their language, in contrast with the almost-Swedish-Chef-sounding Nynorsk influence, is very flat, very thoroughly Bokmal. They also use guttural rather than rolled Rs, and it sounds like someone's run a steamroller over their vowels. They also tend to be rather nasal, and to elide syllables. (For example, when reading the sign on "Linens 'N Things", Aleksander pronounced it "Linns".)

It's fascinating to consider how different accents within a language sound, when you yourself can't even properly pronounce "Happy New Year" in that language (to my credit, it contains a number of vowels that do not appear in English, and is probably among the most challenging of phrases in Norwegian for English-speakers: Gødt Nått Ar! is my best guess at its spelling).

But anyway. I need to go start looking for a job. Bleah.

concrete

So Mrs. K (Dave's mom) is getting an extension put on her driveway, and a patio poured while she's at it.
This guy Jim is doing it. She called him up because her friend MaryAnn had a driveway done by him four years ago that still looks brand new. MaryAnn called this guy up because a friend of hers had a driveway done by him four years before that, that still looks brand new now. So this Jim, he knows what he's doing.

He's sixty-two and has... fewer teeth than many. He's retired. He does this kinda thing on the side. He started working with concrete when he was 14.

He's been around, on and off, setting things up, for a couple of weeks. This week he did all the prep work, with his brother Richie, also retired, and their brother Angelo (or was it George?), who has some free time.

Today they're pouring, so he called in some extra help-- all younger guys, who still work. But they do concrete work, for other people, and usually work of that type is done earlier in the day. So they all got out around three, and then came over with the concrete truck around four.

There are six or seven guys here. It's Jimmy's two brothers, his godson, his son, his nephew, and his son-in-law. All Italian-Americans. The brothers call one another "Brother". Mrs. K. is "the little lady" and Jim gave her a rosary just to be friendly. He's very amusing.

So I guess this is all kind of a typical Buffalo experience. For some reason, concrete guys are almost always Italian. (Though Mr. K. did some concrete work when he was young, and he wasn't.) And you know, you can trust family better than anybody else.

Anyway. They're doing a fabulous job. If any of you are in Buffalo and need some concrete poured, I know a guy who'll do it for you, and he's good, and not expensive.