thedrifter
06-20-07, 08:04 AM
A letter from Iraq
I wanted to share this letter from a friend in Iraq with as many people as I could. Even though I feel US citizens were dupped as to the reason for being in Iraq, apparently we are seeing some good come from being there. That’s a good thing!
“Thanks for the letter. I do get excited to receive correspondence, it isn’t because the call my name, they only do that in boot camp. The reason I like getting letters is the little vacation I get to take when I read them. I get to picture the places in my head and take a little trip for the 2 minutes while I read. So thanks for the trip. I have experienced SV in both the summer and winter and I have to say that I prefer the winter. I am more a cold weather person, this whole Iraqi desert thing just doesn’t agree with me. I have a hard time sleeping, mainly because I am moderately concerned I will drown in a pool of my own sweat, sorry for the unpleasant sight. But we don’t have a/c at our Combat Out Post, we just recently got a refrigerator, and a generator to run it, the fridge doesn’t work so well and there are 100 of us here, so the water doesn’t get too cold. I have been using the sock method to cool water. You wet a sock and put it on the water bottle. Leave it in the breeze and it will be cooler than when it started. It is by no means cold, but better than room temperature, which has been about 110 lately. But we are doing a lot of good things out here, which you should tell your friends, because we all know the news won’t tell you that things are working here. We haven’t been shot at since we moved in, a good start, but we have also established a local police force to deal with their issues, we turned the power, sewer and water on for the whole area, something that has been out for 4 years. There has previously been too much fighting going on to repair the systems, but we calmed it down and pay contractors from the town to fix everything. We even started the trash collection again. All contracts completed by locals. With our guidance they have elected city council officials and hold weekly town hall meetings. They are solving their own problems and dealing with their terrorists. The police arrest more terrorists than we do. They are working us out of a job. If things continue the way they are, I see us out of here in a couple of years. I know it sounds like a long time, but if you look at Kosovo, it has been over a decade since we stuck our nose there and haven’t left yet, whereas we could be out of here in under a decade, I think that is success. Plus they are really starting to take ownership in everything. As an infantryman, I am pretty board. As an observer of history, it is pretty remarkable. But if you see anything like that on TV or in the papers I would be surprised. CNN just came here looking for all the bad things. All they found was Iraqis working with US Marines to fix their city and turn it back to normal. Needless to say the reporter asked some leading questions and was disappointed with the responses the people and the Marines gave him. Oh well………Just know that our efforts aren’t in vein and we are doing some good here.
Regards, CB”
Ellie
I wanted to share this letter from a friend in Iraq with as many people as I could. Even though I feel US citizens were dupped as to the reason for being in Iraq, apparently we are seeing some good come from being there. That’s a good thing!
“Thanks for the letter. I do get excited to receive correspondence, it isn’t because the call my name, they only do that in boot camp. The reason I like getting letters is the little vacation I get to take when I read them. I get to picture the places in my head and take a little trip for the 2 minutes while I read. So thanks for the trip. I have experienced SV in both the summer and winter and I have to say that I prefer the winter. I am more a cold weather person, this whole Iraqi desert thing just doesn’t agree with me. I have a hard time sleeping, mainly because I am moderately concerned I will drown in a pool of my own sweat, sorry for the unpleasant sight. But we don’t have a/c at our Combat Out Post, we just recently got a refrigerator, and a generator to run it, the fridge doesn’t work so well and there are 100 of us here, so the water doesn’t get too cold. I have been using the sock method to cool water. You wet a sock and put it on the water bottle. Leave it in the breeze and it will be cooler than when it started. It is by no means cold, but better than room temperature, which has been about 110 lately. But we are doing a lot of good things out here, which you should tell your friends, because we all know the news won’t tell you that things are working here. We haven’t been shot at since we moved in, a good start, but we have also established a local police force to deal with their issues, we turned the power, sewer and water on for the whole area, something that has been out for 4 years. There has previously been too much fighting going on to repair the systems, but we calmed it down and pay contractors from the town to fix everything. We even started the trash collection again. All contracts completed by locals. With our guidance they have elected city council officials and hold weekly town hall meetings. They are solving their own problems and dealing with their terrorists. The police arrest more terrorists than we do. They are working us out of a job. If things continue the way they are, I see us out of here in a couple of years. I know it sounds like a long time, but if you look at Kosovo, it has been over a decade since we stuck our nose there and haven’t left yet, whereas we could be out of here in under a decade, I think that is success. Plus they are really starting to take ownership in everything. As an infantryman, I am pretty board. As an observer of history, it is pretty remarkable. But if you see anything like that on TV or in the papers I would be surprised. CNN just came here looking for all the bad things. All they found was Iraqis working with US Marines to fix their city and turn it back to normal. Needless to say the reporter asked some leading questions and was disappointed with the responses the people and the Marines gave him. Oh well………Just know that our efforts aren’t in vein and we are doing some good here.
Regards, CB”
Ellie