These were a group of apartments, some 12 or 13 floors high, brown and stark against the dusty Baghdad skyline. Their balconies were always empty, and no figures were ever seen against the windows. Their only signs of inhabitation were an occasional mat thrown over a railing or a satellite dish clinging to a wall. There were people there, Iraqi civilians who had lived in the area before the war and were cut off now from the rest of Baghdad in the Green Zone. Most of them worked for us as laborers, or owned small restaurants and shops in the area. Some went through the checkpoints every day to work in the larger city. I think around 1,000 people were there.
Someone came up with a great idea. These people appeared so isolated and their existence was so cheerless. And there were families there with children; in fact, with many small children. What about a playground? The ground was bare, broken concrete, weeds and an occasional dusty palm tree. Wouldn’t a playground provide a beautiful community center for the Iraqis and fill the air with the laughter of children (something we Americans sorely missed, having left behind our children and spouses for the year we were in Iraq)?
So funding applications were made for a grant for community development and dollars were spent, and some companies even donated playground equipment, and it was constructed by American contractors and engineers. Only the best equipment and materials were used, to the best safety standards; the slides, jungle gyms and equipment safely anchored in concrete. It was dedicated with great ceremony by American officers and contractors and Iraqi officials. And the night came, and the entire playground that had been dedicated that very morning was destroyed, broken down, carried away, sold for scrap by the Iraqis.
The next morning we were thunderstruck. What had happened? More importantly, why had it happened? How could they have treated our generosity so cavalierly? Our first impulse was to cry, “It’s just that crappy Iraqi attitude; they don’t care about their surroundings; they don’t care about anything we’ve ever done for them!”
So the question was put to the leadership of the 215 towers; why had this destruction, this vandalism, occurred? What did they mean by allowing it to happen?
“You Americans!” the Iraqis replied, “We didn’t ask for this playground — why would we want it? Snipers and rockets and mortars fire into the Green Zone. If our children use it, they will be killed. This is a dangerous place and we must keep our children safe!”
And thus, in one small incident, was our American pride and inability to communicate with anyone who doesn’t speak English or share our values and customs exposed. In all the work, all the thought, all the planning, it hadn’t even entered anyone’s mind to simply ask the Iraqis what they wanted and how they would like us to help their children. What use is a playground in the midst of a battlefield?
JAN W. KOCZERA is a retired U.S. Army chaplain (LTC) and associate pastor of Hamilton Square Church, Hamilton Square, N.J. He wrote this while serving in the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq.
