A good friend of mine is a soldier in Iraq. He has been there for over a year now and occasionally sends me updates. He has allowed me to post some sections of his emails, though he asked me to edit out some information that in any way identifies him. What I will say is that he has command over some men and that his unit is very active in both restoration and battle.
I asked how things actually were in Iraq. He wrote last month:
Anyhow, it all depends what you’re doing here, or what progress you’ve seen. You can talk to a soldier who has spent the majority of his time fixing vehicles, and never leaves the gate, while he lives in an air conditioned room with internet, and has 3 hot meals a day, and he’ll tell you Iraq isn’t that bad. You can talk to guys out of **** where the tribal leaders have worked together to make their neighborhoods safer and work with US forces to end corruption within the Iraqi army and Iraqi police, as well as hand over known terrorists…they’ll say they had a rewarding experience and that we’re making a difference.
Baghdad is so damn political though. If you watch the recent news, they talk a lot about the Iranian made EFPs which have been killing a lot of our troops. Back in early November we were going into **** to rescue a captured soldier, and got into a lot of long firefights. During that time, the EFPs were almost non existent because we had so much presence in that area and had set up checkpoints around their known routes for trafficking. Well Prime Minister Al Maliki told us to take down those checkpoints and 2 days later I witnessed 2 guys killed by an EFP. Afterwards there was a huge spike, but we were still to keep our guys out of that area. Things like that, giving the enemy a safehaven, and not being able to detain insurgents KNOWN for attacking our forces because of lack of sworn statements, or releasing snipers that have killed our guys because of technicalities in the Iraqi court system; those things get frustrating. It sucks though because I’ve met a lot of great people here. I’ve met lots of people who are willing to help us out, and who want our help. The sad thing is, even they will tell you, their culture looks at kindness as weakness. I’ve had many well-educated people tell me that the only way to get the message to them is to scare the hell out of them…make an example out of them. We can’t do that though, as much as some of us would like to, and we won’t. My task force has lost 30 guys here and not a damn thing has done about it. The rules of engagement are so restrictive, guys second guess whether or not they should shoot when they’re threatened. Plus, everything is reactionary. If a guy is digging on the side of the road at 3 am, well, you can’t shoot him unless he’s positively identified as a threat…who plants trees at 3am?
So basically, yeah, I don’t personally know a single dude who is willing to stay here for more than a year after this, and who wants to come back to this place. There are certain things you are willing to sacrifice your life for, or sacrifice permanently being disfigured or handicapped for. But I know that when I went back home and saw all the great things I miss about home, I didn’t think of us being in Iraq really made a difference in protecting all the things I care about. I don’t believe that terrorists won’t attack the States just because we’re here. In 2003 when there was talk of invading, I remember having a discussion with my philosophy professor and telling him how I thought that invading Iraq would just be violating the just war theory we had just learned about. But here I am now. I came here hoping that no matter if I agreed with the war or not, I’d do my best to bring something positive here and take something positive out. I’ll have fond memories here, and I’ve learned a lot about myself and learned lessons no one else can teach me. Ive also seen things I wish I never had and lost many friends. I can’t say I wouldn’t do it over again, if I know what the outcome will be…but I know I wouldn’t do a second tour if I had the choice. I know right now I’m one of the more fortunate ones, but if something bad did happen to me, I’d regret my decsison to ever join the Army because now my eyes are opened up to what’s really going on here. It’s been a **** experience, but i’m glad I did it so I can tell it how it is…from my perspective anyways. I do wish I could say ,”I was in Iraq, and realized that the people here are hard working, and despite what you hear on the news, we’re doing great things here. The news only makes it worse than it is.” Sadly, my personal experience was nothing like that.
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