Salute to the Servicemen: I'm without speech...
 

I was sitting with Azharen chatting and catching up while looking at personal emails.

When I finished with them I checked my AOL spam folder, and found an email from my cousin about another cousin. Smitty I correspond with from time to time but the email she forwarded to me was from a cousin I had not seen since 8th grade. We are the same age. We had similar childhoods. Our paths crossed whenever our families would get together.

I was not aware that he was an officer in the Army. I had not not tried to contact him in several years and the last time I was in Hawaii he was away. I remember meeting him for the first time as kids. We hit it off playing and carousing as young boys do.

And here was an email that he wrote a couple of days ago regarding his tour in Iraq.

I read it aloud so that I could share it with Azharen. Tears welled up in my eyes as I read the story to him. My thoughts followed his pictures that his words painted.

He and I are no longer kids. I recalled to Azharen remembering the first time I met my cousin and the horse race toy we played with. I remember the last time I had seen him when I was in Hawaii at 13/14. I still have some innocence left, but he has not. I wept for joy that I know he is safe and sound after not ever knowing that he toured Iraq. He gave me a perspective that I would have never seen or heard from the media. I want to keep it close to me and the only way I know how to do that is to write about it in my journal.

It gives me faith that humanity is there. That positve forces are still in motion.

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Hi Everybody,

It's been five months since I left Iraq. It has also been 1 year and 5 days since I came very close to being killed by a suicide bomber in Fallujah and with Memorial Day coming up, I've been thinking a lot about my time over there. I've had so many people ask me what it was like over there and I've never really given anyone a straight answer. I always laugh it off by just saying, "It sucked" or "It was hot".

Everyone's experience over there was different. You also have to remember that I'm what's called a "combat support" officer. I'm not an infantry guy whose sole job in life is to close with and destroy the enemy. Every time I left the wire, I was only thinking about survivability, I wasn't looking for a fight. I can't imagine what the real infantry guys went through day after day.

I've been shot at with bullets and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs). I've even been in a C-130 when a surface to air missile nearly hit us. I've been mortared so many times that I could tell the difference in the "thump, thump" sound of the mortar rounds to determine whether I should run for cover as fast as I could or simply keep drinking my coffee. And then there was the suicide bomber. An Iraqi wearing a belt loaded with explosives ran towards the Iraqi police station in Fallujah where we were meeting with the local police. He got within 10 feet of the door before he was shot by an American soldier guarding the door. But then the belt exploded and both were killed instantly. I had shared a cigarette break with that soldier not 15 minutes prior to that incident.

I've seen the professionalism and heroism of American soldiers every day. I've looked into the eyes of soldiers, MY soldiers, as they prepared to move out on convoys wearing old flak jackets and they knew full well that there was a good chance they would get shot at and those jackets weren't going to do a damn thing to help them. They never complained, never said they weren't going to go. They knew had a job to do, and they did it. They knew if they refused to go, somebody else would. I've also looked into the eyes of a soldier wearing the new Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) immediately after he got shot in the chest and the plate stopped the bullet cold. After he picked himself up, you have never seen a look of bewilderment, and then followed by a look of relief in your entire life. I've also performed first aid on a soldier who was hit by shrapnel right below his IBA and that vest was pretty much the only thing keeping his gut from spilling out.

Because he saw my rank on my helmet, he thought I was a doctor. I saw his look of fear and panic turn somewhat into relief because he thought he was in capable hands. He just kept calling me "Doc" and I just kept telling him that he was going to be all right and did what I was trained to do. I never told him that I really had no real idea what the hell I was doing. heard later that he pulled through.

I've also seen and done things that I'm not proud of. I've seen Saddam's mass gravesites and cried, but I've also laughed at dead men. In the aftermath of a firefight, I overheard a soldier complain about having to help clean up the corpse of an Iraqi shot in the head and in a reference to "Pulp Fiction", mutter "Why the hell am I on brain detail?" Instead of scolding him, I laughed with him. I've given instructions to my vehicle driver not to stop if a child is in the road. You see, the insurgents will tell a kid that American convoys will always stop and give out candy and clean water. So if you see a kid standing in the middle of the street, that's a good sign that you'll get hit with an IED. The convoy stops, the insurgents set the bomb off, and Americans get killed. If running over a child saves Americanlives, then that's what has to happen. I've questioned my own sanity when I saw for the first time an Iraqi insurgent get shot. Instead of feeling remorse or sadness, I distinctly remember having a thought pop into my head about how different it was from the movies.

There was no staggering, no theatrics, he just kinda flopped down. That kinda brings me to another point. I've also noticed that people have looked at the pictures of prisoner abuse and wonder how seemingly normal Americans can do something like that…how they can treat other humans in such a manner.

In absolutely no way can I ever justify what those soldiers did. They are disgrace to my Army, they crossed the line, and they should be punished. The only explanation I can give as to the reason why they did what they did is that in war it is very easy to dehumanize the enemy. In order to rationalize the awful things you have to do and somehow get through it without going insane is to make the enemy "not human". Those MPs took it to the extreme, but I realize that I found myself saying, "God, I hate this entire country." Or, "Fuck 'em, they're just Iraqis". You get so tired of being scared, so tired of being frustrated at the situation around you, so tired of living with the constant fear of getting killed, that you sometimes just want to take it out on somebody. Added to that is the fact that you didn't really know who the enemy was. They didn't where uniforms. That normal looking Iraqi walking down the street could be the guy who turns around and pops a cap in your head. You just never knew… it was hard to differentiate between "good guys" and "bad guys". So the easiest (and safest) thing to do is assume they're all bad. I recall being in my vehicle at a stop, my weapon down but ready. I remember looking a man in the eye, and him looking at me in the eye. I couldn't see where his hands were or if he had a weapon or not. I remember hoping, praying even, that he would make a move so I could put a round in his chest. Just to be able to do something, to fight back instead of just running for cover during the latest mortar attack.

I realized that my attitude towards Iraqis had started to change, so what I started doing was going out with the Civil Affairs guys who were rebuilding schools. Seeing the kids and doing something positive was great and put things in perspective. The coalition really is doing a lot of good things out there, though you'll never see that on the news. I made them laugh and gave them candy and tried to teach them baseball. (They only know soccer, so they ended up kicking the ball instead of batting). A million times I've waved back at them when they called out in the only English they know, "Hey Mister!"

I've taken a picture (with her father's permission) of a little 9-year-old Iraqi girl so beautiful that she belongs on the cover of National Geographic. Her shy smile and utter delight at the prospect of going to school for the first time in her life is something that will remain with me forever. (And by the way, her uncle was killed and her father imprisoned and tortured by Saddam for being a part of the 1991 Shia uprising.) I've seen children look at us in utter amazement, thinking we were like some kind of swaggering "robo-cops" in our helmets, body armor and sunglasses…ah yes, the sunglasses.

Iraqis really don't wear sunglasses, except for Saddam's Bathist henchmen. So there was a real live, honest-to-God rumor that the black, wrap-around sunglasses that were issued to American soldiers had "x-ray vision" and could see through women's clothing. It's not that they're stupid, but they believe Americans have the technology to do anything we want. X- ray glasses were certainly within the realm of our technology. So the first thing we did when approaching Iraqis (especially females) was to take off our sunglasses, just in case. But the kids would love to try on those glasses. You should see the look of disappointment when they peered through them and the only thing that happened was that everything got darker. I actually had a child put on glasses, then take them, look at me and (through his father's translation) ask me to "please turn on my glasses".

I guess I've seen it all, if not all then certainly I've seen a lot. I've seen soldiers act like heroes and soldiers act like total morons. I've seen sergeants who've been in the Army 20 years cry like babies and I've seen 19-year-old infantry soldiers so hardened that they laugh at the destruction around them. I've been the new guy who wore his body armor out to the latrine, and then I've been the vet who heard the sound of a stray bullet that I knew wasn't remotely close enough turn around to a bunch of new guys to ask them if they heard it, only to find out that they all dove behind a retaining wall. ("Hey guys, it's going to be a REALLY long day if y'all keep doing that.")

So I'm home now, back at my "normal" Army job. I think I'm doing okay. I still have an occasional nightmare. I hate being in crowds, I find myself scanning each person to determine if they are a threat. I specially freak out when my car is stopped on the street and someone walks near it. It's little things in my everyday life that sometimes take me back there for a moment or two. If I'm driving and see trash or debris in the road, I'll automatically swerve to miss it because that's where the bad guys put IEDs. And then I wonder how long I'll keep doing that, or if it'll ever stop. Seeing news footage of Iraq is hard, because then I can put myself right back there…the sights, the sounds and the feelings of fear.

Anyway, that's what my experience was like over there. Like I said, every soldier's experience was different. For you civilians out there, this is your war too I guess. We all have a stake in it. I don't mind anyone forwarding this email on to anyone who might be interested, as is often the case with emails. The only thing I ask is that you delete any reference to my full name when forwarding it on…you can say "my brother" or "my friend" it's not that there's anything classified, it's just some things are personal. And God only knows where forwarded emails end up. I just hope this brings you some perspective to what's going on over there.

- Anonymous Soldier

It certainly does for me.

Thanks for posting this, Cynthetiq.

Btw, what is an IED?

Improvised Explosive Device

more significant than a thousand second- and third-hand media stories on "what's happening over there"

if our "highly sophisticated" and "technologically advanced" state-of-the-art media would simply deliver us things like this we might not be a clueless as we are.

Thanks, Cynthetiq....

Thanks Cynthetiq.

Thanks a lot. I've saved it on my hard drive so I can read it again sometime. It's well-written and really touching.

Tell him thanks for me.

Thanks Cynthetiq...thanks.

Thanks---I think Art said it best...

really enjoyed that...most of us don't get enough of the undiluted
soldiers perspective.
thanks

Thanks for sharing that Cynthetiq.

man, I'm speechless. Thanks Cynthetiq

Thank you for sharing that. I wish more people could read it so they realized not every soldier is some sort of sociopath.

Thank you for letting us read it - it was a very touching letter, and I'm proud of your cousin for serving our country.

there's nothing I could ever add to that....

Thanks for posting that.
wow.

strong work.

Thanks for the perspective.

Wow. That really touched me. I've copied it and am sending it to my other friends just so that they can get a perspective on what's going on. I hate the fact that we as human beings have to engage in wars.....but it's always good to see that we as human beings can also be compassionate and be what we are all supposed to be in the first place........just human.

Well thought out, well written, thanks for sharing... (glad your cousin made it out safe and hopefully sound.

Awesome! Just...awesome.

No matter what side of the room you're on, regarding the war, that piece hits home. Thanks, Cynthetiq, for sharing it with us. It is apolitical, and it is real. I'll be copying it, and sharing it.

Thanks man

Everyone in the country need to read that letter, hell probably everyone in the world.

Thanks

Interesting all the responses, thank you. It's going to be even more interesting to see this come back changed and modified.

This will be the beginning of a snopes inboxer rebellion page, and we read it here first at TFP.

Thanks for posting that.

So much insights from so little words...as compared to the media where the poured millions of pages yet failed to capture what this letter let us see.
Thank You.

Thanks for the perspective Cynthetiq.

Thanks a lot for that perspective...

Sadly it is needed as much of the world (myself included) has absolutely no idea what it is like over there...
Let's hope we never really experience that ourselves.
I have great respect for those that fight our wars for us, and do so with pride, skill and dignity. I just wished we wouldn't make them go there...

God Bless your cousin. He's out there doing the hard work with his fellow soldiers. Thanks, Cyn, for posting some very visually powerful stuff.

That was interesting. I read something like that in one of the soldiers blogs I follow.

I don't think that Thank You is even sufficent enough...

But thank's anyways.

Nothing but the bush's PR crew at work, it's disgusting

^^ :rolleyes:

There wasn't anything political about that. It was real, and it was powerful. Take off your partisan blinders for a minute (polite-society speak for pull your head out of your ass) and really read what he has to say (and just so you know my affiliation, I am pro-Kerry 100%).

The war is not the soldier.

I wish that was the case.

I've spent the better part of the past 24 hours since I've received this email in getting more history and perspective of my cousin's service record.

In doing so I have also learned of other cousin's service, but not anything like this one as this cousin is the only one that I have found in my family that is currently serving.

If it wasn't a long weekend I would have spoken to him directly already, as anyone who knows me here, knows that I don't take things without corrobating and verifying as best as I can. I'm not sure if even once I reach him to talk to him about this email that he won't even be willing to discuss it further. It's taken him at least 1 year to come to terms with what he's seen and done.

There are a number of people who are members here who have served and recently returned. There are others who are currently deployed and I pray for thier safety.

Your statement while a very valid opinion, is unfortunately the only digusting thing.

Do post confirmation when you do speak with your cousin. I was relating the letter to some aquantances of mine, and they where a bit leery about the nebulous connection between me and the source of the letter.

In particular, stories of identical letters coming from Iraqi soldiers made them leery.

I suspect this letter is nothing of the sort, however if I knew you had talked to the writer of the letter, I'd have an easier time convincing them. Don't do anything you wouldn't do otherwise, but if you can, salve my friend's doubts.

Thanks!

edit: replaced "source" with "sort", my bad.

Thank you for the link. I was not aware of this news story when it broke out in Oct 2003.

I am in the process of following up with my cousin. The relatives all know that I'm trying to reach him and when he contacts me I will be ready.

Salutes!!!

edit
 

Thanks for posting this letter nonetheless. Even if it is not corroborated, I think more stories like this should be sent to the media for print. The media puts such a negative spin on the war that I think some positive news out of Iraq would be refreshing. Not only that, but if more positives outcomes were to be read, I think people would be less apt to incriminate the Bush Administration in thinking it is only a way to bolster his campaign efforts.

And please....when making an effort to derail the efforts of the Bush Administration, please do it with references to justify your response. Otherwise, your opinion will not be highly regarded as worthwhile of the thread. (And I don't particularly like Bush)

I got an email from a friend also ... his cousin wrote him the same or very similar letter.

Could it be the same cousin?

I thank your cousin and the thousands of men and women like him who serve their country so that we may be afforded the freedoms we enjoy, and sometimes take for granted.

Wonderful.

Regardless of your political beliefs on the war, you have to support these guys.

*HERO*