I have been in Iraq for nearly eight months. I have heard small arms firm, machines guns, car bombs, mortars, and rockets go off in and around the Green Zone. I have also gone out into the oh-so dangerous Red Zone. Despite all of that, my two closest brushes with real danger happened while interacting with American soldiers. The first one happened near the al Rasheed Hotel inside the Green zone. (I'll save that story for another day.) The second one happened near the Baghdad International Airport a few weeks ago.

I had arrived at the airport around noon and had to kill some time before making a fruitless attempt to take a helicopter ride into the Green Zone rather than take the late night Rhino run. One of my coworkers who was out at the airport with me knew a State Department employee would agreed to lend us a van for a few hours so we didn’t have to sit around the military air terminal all day waiting for a helicopter. My buddy had spent a lot of time at the airport and knew how to get around the network of roads and Americans bases near the airport to reach the large PX at the far corner of the airport. I jumped into the van without giving it a second thought.

As we approached a checkpoint on the way to the PX, my buddy was slightly confused about where he should stop. He assumed that he should come to a stop next to the checkpoint. He was wrong. He was supposed to stop about 200 feet away from the checkpoint. As we approached the designated stopping point and it was clear that the van wasn't going to come to halt, the soldier raised his rifle to his shoulder and pointed the barrel at my van. The soldier thought we were a suicide bomber. Thankfully, my buddy brought the van to a prompt halt.

When we finally received permission to approach the checkpoint, the soldier gently scolded us, and directed us to a small parking lot where someone searched our van to make sure we weren't carrying bomb. Unfortunately, the owner had packed it full of boxes that I never gave a second thought until someone started searching the van. I am still shocked that no one asked us to open all those boxes.