A U.S. soldier serving in Iraq sent me a note recently after coming across this blog. He told me he was a fan and read the web log to hear the story of Iraq through Iraqi voices quoted here.
I wrote him a quick note thanking him for his comments and the soldier sent me back an e-mail with his story.
The young soldier joined the military for college tuition. At the behest of his father, a Vietnam veteran, he talked to a recruiter. The day he was to enlist in the National Guard his father threatened the recruiter. The metal hip, the bad knee, hand and shoulder where he had been shot, were reminders of what this man's father had been through in Vietnam. Something the man rarely spoke of to his son.
His father taught him about the "evil American military/politcal machine."
He thought things had changed.
"My theory was that we had learned our lesssons from Vietnam and that Americans would never let that happen again. Wrong!" he wrote.
The father and son struck a deal. The teen-ager would enlist in the ROTC and become an officer. When he donned his uniform tears rolled down his father's cheeks.
"I had never seen my father cry," he wrote.
Today he serves his second deployment in Iraq and this is his description of his military service: "Our job is to go around the world killing people at the American citizens' expense."
Somewhere in Iraq this soldier is hurting.
"Orwell wrote in 1984 that the most rational views of "war" reside with the subjects of the disputed territories. The most delusional views occur with the most intellectual, educated people of the occupying power," he wrote to me.
These are the stories that we NEED to hear back home in the US. We need to hear the voices of our sons and daughters as well as the Iraqi people themselves. The American Press has domesticated the news. Our democrazy...weeps
Please Check my blog. Stop this insanity...for humankind..IMPEACH
Posted by: News Sophisticate | July 24, 2007 at 01:44 AM
These are the stories that we NEED to hear back home in the US. We need to hear the voices of our sons and daughters as well as the Iraqi people themselves. The American Press has domesticated the news. Our democrazy...weeps
Please Check my blog. Stop this insanity...for humankind..IMPEACH
Posted by: News Sophisticate | July 24, 2007 at 01:45 AM
These are the stories that we NEED to hear back home in the US. We need to hear the voices of our sons and daughters as well as the Iraqi people themselves. The American Press has domesticated the news. Our democrazy...weeps
Please Check my blog. Stop this insanity...for humankind..IMPEACH
Posted by: News Sophisticate | July 24, 2007 at 01:45 AM
This is one soldiers remarks. I have heard many more in the afirmative. How does this soldier think 9/11 happened? Iraq may have not been the right place but we are there and please get the job done and then you can go to college withe the money you signed up for and get on with your like. God bless you.
Posted by: tony DeBottis | July 25, 2007 at 10:26 PM
First and foremost, thank you Leila for the blog. I too have spent some time looking for an Iraqi perspective. Quick background, I am American and have spent time in the service. I am proud of both. I believe most people of the world are proud of their heritage, as well they should be. I too joined the service not only because I felt it was "right" but for the educational benefits. Financial hardships on my family left me with an early out of the service and without any benefits. But I'd do it again even knowing where it would lead. I hope this soldier respects his duty and follows up on it. There are sons, daughters, husbands and wives counting on it. If he chooses to turn an ambivalent eye, even for a moment, both American soldiers and innocent Iraqis will be put in jeopardy. You should judge another until you walk a mile in their shoes (or boots) but if he isn't committed to helping the Iraqi people he should back in the US.
Posted by: Dan Wh | July 27, 2007 at 06:42 AM