The Green Mosque

It's been eight years since my deployment to Iraq and I've been revisiting some of the "letters home" I sent at that time.  They are all quite melancholy and have an undercurrent of homesickness.  They, along with my photos, were a lifeline for me and a connection to the wider world.  The thought occurred to me that I should start posting some of them on my blog as a kind of historical record.

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At the northern end of FOB Diamondback in Mosul where three roads intersect one can find "The Green Mosque".  It was the airport mosque here in Mosul prior to the Army taking control of this area and separating it from the rest of the city almost four years ago now.  It has not functioned as a mosque since that time.

It is a melancholy place.  The grounds are surrounded by a short wall with a spacious courtyard in front full of various kinds of trees, shrubs, and bushes that have grown out of control.  Lamp posts dot the area inside the walls, rusty, glassless, with light bulbs that lean at odd angles and no longer function.  The only visitors these days are the birds that like to perch on its ledges and in the trees.

I imagine one day when we are gone it will once again become a place of worship.  But for now it sits isolated inside its walls with paint peeling and the greenery growing unchecked.  I think it will be better when we are not here.  This is not our home.

February 14th, 2007

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