| 03 March 2006 Conex The messages on the computer from overeas left me a little nervous. Two friends have just arrived overseas to play their parts in the Long War. One is in the Green Zone in Baghdad, and the other is in Bagram AFB in Afghanistan. I don't know what accommodations are like in the Green Zone, though I imagine I will learn more when my pal has time to write. I think he will be in one of Saddam 's buildings, since the dictator was in this for the long haul. I don't think he realized he would be laving so soon, to live in a box at the airport he named after himself. In Bagram, they are living in Conex boxes. They are the modular answer for accommodations from the firm of Kellogg Brown & Root, the advance construction arm of the Halliburton Corporation. Conex boxes are the perfect answer to rapid deployment contingencies. They stack easily and are intended to be weather and rodent-proof, though in practice they are neither. They stand eight-feet-six inches tall, are eight feet wide, and come in a variety of lengths. Twenty feet is a nice one for human occupation. They have slots on the bottom for forklifts and hoisting strong points on the roof for easy lift. The Conex boxes are built to specifications established by the International Standards Organization in the 1960s to make intermodal shipping a reality. Previously, there was a wild hodge-podge of containers built by individual transportation companies, all different and difficult to stack and move. The ISO standard was devised to make the boxes compatible with rail, truck and ship systems and make rapid movement possible. I don't know what people lived in before the ISO standard. Conex boxes provide a Spartan privacy for the soldiers and contractors who stay in them, and are an emerging standard for overseas transient living. I have heard about them from my pal Santa, who lived in one at a forward operating base in Iraq, and from a Canadian associate who was deployed to a stack of them in Bosnia. Someone should talk to FEMA about them, since they cannot seem to distribute the trailer homes they are supposed to be providing in New Orleans. Big Pink provides me a loose equivalent, though I have fine large windows that pierce the three boxes that comprise my living quarters. I am still a little uneasy about having more than a single room, but I am getting used to it, I am comfortable enough in my armchair. If I turn, just so, away form the screen of my television, I can see the spire of the red-brick church across the street just above eye level. The cross of Christ is thus right with me, one of the first objects to be lit by the rising light in the morning. It is a comfort, in a small way, since I can imagine Ward and June Cleaver driving up to the red-brick building in the station wagon with the Wally and the Beaver in the back seat, just as I recall the transportation and worship of my suburban youth. The church was constructed in modules dictated by the finances of the congregation. Being land-locked, the structure was built to non-standard dimensions by local builders. The church is intended to be a permanent thing, a rock (or brick) of Faith. It wasn't going anywhere, at least not the way the Elders of the day were thinking. The largest wing was built last. The assembly hall was intended to be the pinnacle of the holy vision, and its consecration was presumably at the peak of membership. It is a boxy addition with a curved front; nothing remarkable, a thoroughly middle-class and middle-of-the-road structure. I could not tell you the denomination without going downstairs and walking across the street and around the building to see what the letters say on the front. I assume it is protestant. Let's say they are, or were, Presbyterians. It is nice to have the Church as a neighbor most times. It is quiet. The Army Reservists park there in the large asphalt lot, and walk to the reserve center that occupies a corner of the Arlington Hall campus that used to belong to the Department of War, when there was such a thing. The Spooks took the campus over at the beginning of the largest war of the last century, and when they outgrew the place, transferred it to the State Department for training purposes. The Presbyterians are courteous to the changing members of the neighborhood, just as they are to the constantly changing residents of Big Pink. They permit us to park on their property when our lot is being resurfaced, or look at the meteor showers when they come in the early morning. It's the Christian thing to do. The Presbyterians are scarcely visible. If the demographics of the neighborhood are reflected in the congregation that holds the mortgage, they would be a lot of white retirees. Mostly female. I don't know how church finances work. I recall only a bit from my days of uncomfortable respectability when I erratically attended another Presbyterian congregation. There was an ominous period of giving each year, an intense campaign of guilt and exaltation. They were talking about serious commitment to the building which did not suit me. With the members dwindling from the founding congregation, there must be some other mechanism for the Christians across the street to survive. Based on the signs I see around the neighborhood in Korean and Spanish, it appears that the churches have determined on a dual-use strategy to finance their ministries. The Presbyterians across the street have apparently financed their soup kitchen for the poor by renting the facilities to a vibrant Hispanic congregation. There are all manner of ceremonies and festivities, mostly in the afternoon on the weekends and in the evenings during the week. I enjoy the music from the balcony, and it is good to see life in the place. Sunday mornings with the Presbyterians is pretty sedate. You would scarcely know they are there at all. At some point, the demographics will make the change final, and the Presbyterians will wind up selling out to the Charismatics. There isn't any more land left to build on around here, and a Church should be a local institution. But looking down from the Balcony that is temporarily mine, I realize that everything is intermodal, changing profoundly. You just have to watch very carefully to see these things move. Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |