Surreal

I am watching war on live TV.  Some Iraqi infantrymen are returning small-arms fire on a coalition tank.  A stinking TANK.  It’s futile, but it does waste our troops’ time effectively.

Here’s the situation.  At Umm Qasr, there’s a handful of Iraqi soldiers in a building.  They fired on our troops with small arms, so we sent a few tanks down a road next to the building, the road maybe 50 or 100 meters from the building.  On the other side of the road, maybe 200 or 300 meters back, a dozen or so marines are laid out with their weapons trained on the building, some with binoculars.  This is where the cameraman is.  He’s talking to one of the marines to learn the situation, and he’s filming the whole thing.  We’re watching the tanks receive fire (and watching it bounce off), watching the tanks fire back, watching these marines lay patiently on the hot ground in the hot desert, and listening to one of them give the play-by-play on the situation.  This is so surreal and amazing.  It’s been going on for over 2 hours now and I’m riveted.  I can’t turn away.