Back in Iraq, Unearthing Things Their Brethren Carried
Ayman Oghanna for The New York Times American military personnel, recently deployed to Iraq, found remnants of the previous United States military presence, mostly untouched since their comrades left Camp Taji three years earlier.
CAMP TAJI, Iraq The calendar on the wall reads November 2011.
On the ground is a half-filled tin of Copenhagen smokeless tobacco. Scattered here and there are bottles of Gatorade, cans of Rip It energy drinks, poker chips, Monopoly money and razor blades.
Stenciled on a wall is a punchy soldiers slogan: I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. Taped on another is a note of encouragement from a Boy Scout troop back home: You are our hero and your commitment to freedom is honorable.
There is even a jar of salsa still in the fridge.
When the American troops left Iraq three years ago, they left behind a fragile country that collapsed into civil war. They also left behind the detritus of soldiers lives that, in the ensuing years, was left untouched, frozen in time.
Now that American forces, in much smaller numbers, are returning to help the Iraqis confront the extremists of the Islamic State, they have found themselves reoccupying some of their old places. And they are excavating what feels like a slowly decaying time capsule as they discover the things they left behind.
When the Americans left, they turned over their bases to the Iraqis. But here at Taji, aside from some buildings that were clearly ransacked and probably looted of anything valuable, many of the spaces, now covered in a thick coat of dust, were left alone.
One soldier said he found pinups from Maxim, a mens magazine, still on the walls. And the last copies of Stars and Stripes, the armed forces newspaper, delivered just before the American departure, are still scattered about the floor of one of the bathrooms. The score from an NFL playoff game in 2011, now considered a classic upset, is painted across an awning: Saints 36, Seahawks 41.
At Taji, about 20 miles north of Baghdad and once home to a sprawling American air base, even the street signs the Americans posted are still up. Separating a patch of housing units from the cavernous aircraft hangars is the corner of Longhorn Avenue and 46th Street.
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Back in Iraq, Unearthing Things Their Brethren Carried