Raining

Iraq beat Vietnam yesterday in soccer, putting them into the semi-finals of the Asia Cup.  This meant every machine gun owning Iraqi (and almost everyone here is) took their weapon outside to spray the sky in “celebratory fire”.  Now I’m not sure if it was a strong upper wind condition or if it was just the chance way they were orienting the barrel of their rifles, but it just so happen that the IZ was pelted with falling lead for a good half hour after the game.  By the way, we also got an email message telling us not to go outside for a little while, just in case you didn’t hear the barrage of gunfire and the smashing of rounds hitting the metal sun shades.  

 

I don’t understand this concept of blasting at the sky when you are excited about something.  Through all the events in my life that I was happy about, none of them compelled me to grab a gun, run outside and show the world how giddy I was by shooting at the clouds.  Despite my confusion about it, I am not a stranger to this phenomenon.  Growing up in Detroit, my brother and I use to bring in the New Year by standing on the porch and banging pots and pans together.  And if you listened carefully over the racket we were making, you could hear the gun fire in the distance.  I don’t think that the shooters understand that those rounds have to come down somewhere.  Granted, most of them are small enough that they won’t kill you if you are unlucky enough to be in the intended drop zone, but they sure will hurt like hell.  

 

 If Korea beats Japan today, then it will be Korea facing off with Iraq.  We’ll see if my Asian brothers can hold their own against a pretty good Iraqi futbol team.  If Korea wins, I think I’ll go outside and empty a magazine or two of my own.