It’s a room with a view -- of war

For nearly a month now, I’ve been living in another man’s space.

He’s an Iraqi and a family man, but other than that I know almost nothing about him. Even after sleeping on his couch, using his bathroom and utilizing his tiny south-facing balcony to aim my satellite phone at the Indian Ocean satellite, he remains a mystery.

Maybe there’s a metaphor here for the American experience with Iraqis. We’re here in their space -- again -- but we don’t know much about them.

I know that my involuntary host is a devout Muslim. Pictures of the Prophet Muhammad and contemporary Islamic religious leaders adorn the walls. Lots of Muhammad knickknacks are on the shelves.

I know he likes modern entertainment devices: a Hitachi TV, Super Sunny videocassette recorder and a Gosonic radio. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, he joined a large number of his countrymen in getting a satellite television package.

He also has a grumpy looking Mr. Potato Head sitting on his television. I’m not sure of the cross-cultural significance of that.

Judging by the clothes and shoes, he appears to have several small children, but I don’t sense the presence of a wife. I’m not even sure of his name. I’ve seen no documents with his name in his tiny rooms: a living room, bathroom, kitchen and bedroom.

Soon after fighting broke out on April 6, residents of the six multistory apartment buildings on the northwest edge of the city were told to evacuate by the Marines of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Regiment, 1st Marine Division. Each family was given $200 to flee. The Marines moved in several days later and established their command post.

The apartments are a public housing project that long ago fell into disrepair, filth and squalor. Iraqi translators insisted the place was rundown even by Iraqi standards. But they provided an extraordinary vantage spot for the unfolding battle.

Several hundred meters to the south, closer to the heart of Fallouja, is where Echo and Fox companies were hunkered down for a time in a row of devastated homes. Insurgents were based not far away, looking for opportunities to unleash their rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. Fighting was daily; combat was beneath my window.

From my/his bathroom, through a grimy, bullet-riddled window, I could see the tall minaret of the neighborhood mosque, made more prominent by its placement on a tall hill. From the minaret, insurgent gunmen had a perfect line of sight at Echo Company’s position.

Finally, during one pitched battle, the Marines ordered a tank to take down the minaret to stop insurgent machine-gunners. When the minaret tumbled, Marines and Navy corpsmen cheered.

“It opens the view up rather nicely, don’t you think?” said Sgt. Casey Olson, 26, of Fargo, N.D.

In the distance to the west, visible from my balcony, is the green bridge across the Euphrates River where insurgents hanged the burned and mutilated bodies of four Americans killed while trying to drive through Fallouja.

Golf Company held down the western edge of the bridge; insurgents, 400 yards away, held down the eastern edge in the city center. The two stared at each other night and day.

Daytime at the apartments brings a mix of sounds: howling dogs, the calls to prayer from the several mosques to the south, the buzz of the unmanned surveillance plane aloft and the rumble of military vehicles. The tanks are particularly loud.

Nighttime brings the U.S. Air Force AC-130s, the Spectre gunships, able to see everything with their special optics and to put down precise fire with their cannons and howitzers.

Slow and ponderous, the gunships make a distinctive sound that the heavily armed insurgents soon learned meant they could venture into the open only at the risk of immediate death. The same sound allowed Marines to sleep in safety.

From the roof, two floors above my place, I could hear the Marine officer acting as liaison between the warplanes and the Marine spotters inside the city. The spotters were code named Woody (after Woody Harrelson) and Oprah (its origin obvious). Explosions from the AC-130 strikes often lighted up the sky.

Occasionally, insurgent rockets and mortars reach out to the command post. My first night, five hit in succession. An individual nicknamed “Rocket Man” seems to delight in sending several into our compound at roughly 8 o’clock each night. The hunt for “Rocket Man” was intense but he seemed to be firing from a crowded neighborhood and thus a decision was made not to risk civilian casualties to take him out.

Nighttime also brings one of the strangest, scariest noises of all. Something is inside the walls. Breathing and scratching, it seems to be trying to escape to get at me. Others have heard it too.

Marines of Latino heritage suggest it might be the Iraqi version of the chupacabra, the mythical beast that Mexican villagers blame for sucking the blood of goats. That does little to calm my concern.

The roosters that live in the dusty surroundings of the apartment complex seem unnerved by the AC-130 bombing. They crow night and day. One found its way into my apartment and pecked at my dirty clothes.

Without water or electricity, and caked in dust, dirt and rust, apartment living approximates a kind of Third World indoor camping. Troops farther away from Fallouja are housed in former Iraqi palaces and amusement parks; they enjoy the Internet, showers, chow halls and even a PX; I try not to think about them.

In a satellite phone call, my wife told me that our younger son had just bought a black leather coat. I noticed a child’s black leather coat in my apartment. I figure that gives me something in common with my unseen host, but the gap is still too large and I can’t fill it in.

The Marines were told to be respectful. The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Gregg Olson, was clear: No taking souvenirs, no unduly damaging the place. At some point, Seabees will do repair work and a Marine lawyer will go door-to-door handing out money to returning residents and fielding any complaints.

I share the apartment with Pfc. William Cook, 24, of Stafford, Va., who is married with two children. He’s a communications specialist. He is everything I could hope for in a roommate -- polite, respectful of my stuff, and heavily armed. In this neighborhood, that’s important.

When we depart, I plan to leave some money underneath the Mr. Potato Head doll. I left money behind when I lived for a week in an Iraqi gravedigger’s house before we moved here.

That’s me, an American. I don’t know much about people in foreign lands, but I know how to throw money at them.