IT WAS FEBRUARY 2004 IN SUNNY BAGHDAD—back before everything totally hit the fan in Iraq and nation building still seemed like an iffy but viable concept. My friend Jeff and I were in our office at the city's convention center, a cavernous building tucked inside the Green Zone, the walled-off seat of power, money, and assumed security where the United States government based its postwar reconstruction.

We had shown up in Baghdad a few weeks earlier—unannounced, carrying backpacks, and lacking any real qualifications—hoping to volunteer somehow. On our first day of job searching, we'd lucked into work with the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the U.S.-led agency that ran the reconstruction from just after the invasion's end, in May 2003, until Iraq's interim government started taking over, in June 2004. Our assignment was to help oversee the distribution of humanitarian aid, but on this afternoon—after making our runs—we were back in the office writing field reports.

That's when an Army private walked in and introduced himself. His name was Ricky Skyler, but all his friends back in Arizona called him Sky. He spoke in a slow, low, mumbly monotone. After a little small talk, he got to the point.

"All the people in my unit suck," he said. "I hate the Army. Do you guys have access to any drugs?"

"Huh?" It was a bold question.

"Drugs... You guys look like you might have some."

We did? Well, we did.

"Uh, we don't really have any good drugs," Jeff said. "Just a little Valium, some weird painkillers... but we could get hash in a couple of days, I guess."

"I'm a straight candy raver," Sky said.

We didn't know that was still popular.

"Out west, there's still these crazy raves," he went on. "Popping pills in the desert under the stars with my girl. That's my shit." Hmmm.

We liked this guy. His honesty was refreshing, and he seemed totally helpless. Medium-tall and thin, with dirty-blond hair and an innocent baby face, Sky was a normal 20-year-old who'd joined the Army and ended up going nuts. He hated the military, with its power-hungry sergeants bossing him around.

Jeff gave Sky some painkillers; I gave him Valium. Then Jeff took him to meet an Iraqi we knew who could get just about anything. That was day one. By day three, Sky was a full-fledged member of our crew. In return for the drug hookup, he treated us to huge meals at the al-Rashid Hotel's restaurant, one of the Green Zone's finest dining establishments. Sometimes he'd blow his whole paycheck.

Like us, Sky hung out at malls in high school, and we bonded over appreciating the great Arizona shopping palaces. Jeff and I had been through a few when we visited the state to play poker at Casino Arizona.

"Guess I'm the only cool soldier around, huh?" Sky asked Jeff one day.

"Well," Jeff said, "you're definitely the only one to just walk up and ask for drugs."

Adapted from Babylon by Bus, by Ray LeMoine and Jeff Neumann (with Donovan Webster), to be published August 8 by The Penguin Press.