Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Sometimes the Joke Does Translate

I can't believe I missed this. Apparently back in June the leader of the Communist Party in As Sadiyah was assassinated by gunmen. As Sadiyah, if you do not recall, was the town to the south of our combat outpost turned forward operating base during my deployment in '09/'10.

The reason I care and bring it up here is because it reminds me of a funny story during that deployment. While this may seem cold...a guy died afterall...sometimes you just need to find the dark humor in a situation such as this. War is hell afterall.

On the the (quick) story.

During the '09/'10 deployment we got a report that someone in As Sadiyah was attacked by an IED. The report was scant on details since it came from the local security forces and the troop that operated in the area hadn't had the time to go check up on the attack and find out all the information. A day or two later we were hosting all the leaders of the Iraqi Army, Iraqi police, and Peshmerga on the COP and we brought up the attack. Naturally we asked if anyone knew who had been the target. One of the Iraqi officers stated that the victim was a leader of the Communist Party (probably the same guy from the link).

Our next question was, "what is the name of the leader of the Communist Party in As Sadiyah?"

The response: "they're communists, they don't have a leader!"

All the Iraqis and Kurds laughed and as soon as the response was translated we all chuckled as well. It's good when a joke translates language and culture like that.

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