chapter twenty-three you ramble down the mountain dodging rpgs and strings of bullets and thinking hard about land mines and realizing that you left the m-16 in the humvee and you jump back in the truck with a real road trip feel to the whole thing and you start it up and get it in gear and haul ass down the mountain , switching back and forth down the brown hillsides and the dry grass and the rocks that look like someones backbone up out of the earth , and then you hit a long highway and drive on that for a while with the tires humming and the wind whipping and the dry air sucking the water out of your body , and then finally you hit the checkpoint just south of zakho and the marine tells you to run up to the gate and you drive up past trucks and tractors and horses and wagons all loaded to the brim and above with furniture and clothes and all kinds of shit and you hit the checkpoint and get waved through and then you drive down the road and into the town of zakho .