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Steve Mumford entered Iraq on April 9, 2003, the day the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled in Baghdad, and he has periodically returned to the region to document the daily lives of both Iraqi citizens and American soldiers.
Baghdad Journal Excerpt:
At Checkpoint One, a short distance from the tarmac, I’m the last person left waiting for a ride. The flights famous corkscrew landing wasn’t scary so much as spectacular. I was seated on the side with the views: Baghdad in all its grimy glory straight below me, shining in the hazy morning sun, helicopters circling beneath our landing path. At last I make out Esam’s massive figure in bright white shirtsleeves, striding past the security guards down the road. He’s here with a taxi. I first met Esam Pasha back in September, when he was translating for a Florida National Guard company, where I was embedded.
He’s a self taught artist, who also works as a translator and fixer for journalists, an occupation he loves both for the excitement and the closeness it brings with Americans. Yet to me, he’s a curious mass of contradictions. A devout Sunni, he prays five times a day, facing Mecca. He takes the Quran and Bible quite literally and doesn’t believe in evolution, yet knows as much about American technology and popular culture as any mall-rat, privileging in Friends and Garfield.
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