memorial service and shaky knees

Yesterday I went to a memorial service for a local Iraqi girl who died in a car accident on the 17th.  She worked at the PCO Annex as a translator and had wanted to learn how to drive.  Unfortunately whoever was teaching her didn’t give much supervision.  She mistakenly put the car into the Tigris and drowned.  Specificially she got trapped in the concertina wire we have run under the water.  I can’t imagine a more horrible way to die.
            Little hand outs were printed up and laying in each of the white plastic lawn chairs.  The service was held in the basement of the white palace, right on the river.  Su. Was 22 years old and had a radiant smile.  Photo after photo showed her with the warmest smile and that is what most of the speakers remembered and talked about.
            The preacher, wearing a white robe and stole over desert camoflauge chanted a passage about death from the Qaran and then translated it in English.  Afterwards a Major stood up and recited a passage from Corintheans.  There were a handful of personal memorials.  The one that stands out is Su.’s goal of helping her family rebuild their home which had been destroyed by the war.  To this end she attended Baghdad Unv. In the evening studying mechanical engineering after working as a translator in the mornings. Then we all sang Amazing Grace.  I was surprised because Su. Wore a hajib and was definitely Muslim.   At the end we all walked by and shook her families hands.
            After the service C. and her friend L. and I drove over to the Saddam swords so I could take my own pictures.  The best one I got was one of the Iraqi security guards, the same one who tried to sell me one of the helmets from the memorial.  He held up his Veterans For Kerry bumper sticker and I got a good shot of it.  The Iraqis know what best for them and it ain’t more gun slinging from a Republican White House.
            Then he took me down into a dark hole in the ground and we began to climb little ladders and then steel cross beams until I stuck my head out the top of one of the fists.  My knees where shaking because I’m afraid of heights or at least am not used to them.  C. snapped a picture of me waving but its way, way up and hard to see.
I spent the rest of the day into the evening filling out hand receipts for computers, refrigerators and anything else I have to get people to sign for today.