In November 2004, I took a job with a courier company in Iraq and moved to a patch of gravel next to the airport in Mosul. Two small, temporary buildings served as office and living quarters. I shared them with two homesick Nepalese Gurkhas and a retired British soldier. Our planes flew in from Bahrain, and the four of us worked with a team of five Iraqis to unload and deliver their cargo. U.S. soldiers received care packages from family and equipment from far-off bases. Iraqis came to collect diesel engines, X-ray machines for the local hospital, and crate upon crate of untaxed Jordanian cigarettes for resale. At night, the Gurkhas ran up massive bills calling Nepal on our satellite phone, and the Brit watched movies, drank whiskey, and cleaned his boots and his gun.
- From The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State by Graeme Wood
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