My God, it's full of stars

Back at Camp Victory, the night we left for BIAP, we had to stop at the Perfume Palace to pick up a driver who would return the borrowed truck after dropping us off at the passenger terminal. Joe rushed inside and I took to repacking our gear so someone could fit in the back seat. That only took a few minutes. When I finished, I noticed how dark it was. The palace sits astride one of several man-made lakes. The lake in this case is completely walled in and devoid of light towers. It was really dark. I looked up and saw stars, the kind you see only in, well, really dark skies. Above me, spanning many degrees of arc, was magnificent Orion. I hadn’t so much seen a constellation in Baghdad. I hadn’t seen this one, well, before leaving the US. And here he was, familiar from my youth, looking down on me. Perhaps a harbinger, pointing the way home.
Using a trick I learned as a child, I looked just askance at the three faint stars that make up his sword. While not directly looking at it, I could just make out the middle star, which really isn’t a star at all but spectacular nebula, the Orion Nebula, a cloud that would span the distance of many of our own solar systems, a giant stellar nursery where stars are being born.

As I continued looking around the sky I saw Canis Major, Orion’s faithful dog following just behind and to the left of Orion, the tight star cluster of the Pleiades, which are so young, the dinosaurs didn’t see them, and the familiar W shape of Cassiopeia. All familiar from my childhood, all now visible on my last night in Baghdad. Directly overhead, I noticed two brightly flashing strobes, not stars, but manmade anti-collision lights. A moment of confusion because there was no sound of an aircraft engine. As I looked more closely, I saw the dark outlines of a tethered aerostat floating silently above me like some bespoke German dirigible.

In addition to the dark, it was also preternaturally quiet. No helicopters, jets, or Prowler UAVs overhead. No whine of diesel engines from HUMVEEs or tracked vehicles. Just quiet and dark. Maybe even peaceful.

Presently, my revelry was interrupted by voices drawing near attached to two moving shadows: Joe and our driver. Time to go. See you soon, I whispered to the stars.