"Dad/Mom/Rebekah-

I was honored to fly the Iraqi VP (Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaffari --
heavily favored to be elected in January) from Baghdad to
Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. yesterday. He sat up on the flight deck,
and I invited him to get up on headset to visit with us for
a little bit. Talk about an intelligent man. He is a
medical doctor that could easily pass as a history professor
in any university in America. He no doubt knew more about
our own campaigns for freedom than most Americans do. He
named places, dates, anecdotes, etc. about US history and
compared them to the struggle underway for Iraq today.

I pointed out that our own Revolutionary War took years to
end, even against the will of some, or at least the apathy
of many of the American colonists. He agreed and continued
with the histories of many of the world's democracies. Our
press seems to forget that building a true democratic nation
cannot be accomplished over night. Our own country went
through, and continues to go through growing pains. Nearly
100 years after the Declaration, our country went to war
with itself. It should be no surprise that violence is
occurring here...and for many of the same reasons: Fear of
government, struggle for power, fear of liberty, repression
of weaker peoples, religious fervor, etc.

The conversation turned to Iraq under Saddam. He described
the mass graves. Told of his own family members being
killed under the regime. I said it seems like every family
can point to some relative who was persecuted under the
Hussein family's terror. He agreed, and then again pointed
out why the people in the Sunni-triangle region are
resisting. Most of the resistance is not Iraqi. Afghanis,
Jordanians, Iranians...the terrorist melting pot has
gathered and now hold the people captive with fear and lies.

He admitted that the terrorists have left no option but
violence to end this. It is regrettable, but the
reality...something most of us have known since September 11th.

Dr. al-Jaffari then told me of his family, all intelligent,
successful people and then asked about my own family. I
told him of my five beautiful girls and showed him a picture
of them all. We talked about families, and the perceptions
of the Iraqi people. He was shocked to see four children in
an American family...he said he thought most American
families had two, maybe three. He himself is the youngest
of twelve boys, and I think three girls. He has five
children of his own. We talked about the birthplace of
civilization, of Abraham and the foundation of Christianity
and Islam. His English is decent, and he was an easy
conversationalist. I have no concept of his political
leanings, or his intent for Iraq other than security and
freedom. But as a person, he strikes me as decent and
steadfast. He said he was excited about President Bush's
re-election...which immediately gained favor with me.

He then said a curious thing. He said he viewed the
soldiers in Iraq as his own children. He called me his son,
and my co-pilot his daughter and struggled to find the right
words to explain what he meant. I do not know if this is a
common thing in this culture; regardless, it struck me as
intimate. Despite his struggle with words, his point was
made clear. He was implying that it pains him to see the
sacrifices here, but is made proud by the courage and
commitment of the American Soldier...the same feelings we
would experience when our own children suffer, or succeed.

He was so grateful. It was really humbling for him to say
such wonderful things to us personally, and the US military
on the whole. And I wish those things could be heard by
everyone in America. The people at home just don't get it.
One day...one day, they might. Freedom is the goal, and as
Dr. al-! Jaffari noted...forgetting your past will certainly
lose your future.

I think Iraq is in good hands.

May God's will be done here...

Love, Nate


PS My crew was selected as the top C-130 crew for October... "

" have been in the Army for the last seven years. I have gone through the good and bad times in the military. It is a lifestyle that if you do not live every day, you cannot even come close to understanding.

I have been to Bosnia, Kosovo, and have just returned from Iraq. I can tell you that no one feels the loss of soldiers more than we do.

Even the families do not deal with the emotional pain and stress that we do when we have to pick up the remains of our friends – the same friends that we joked with, lived with, even shared our deepest fears and worries of life with, and in many cases the same friend who saved your life the week before.

I am always concerned with how the Army can be more effective at saving the lives of my fellow soldiers. Armor is not always the answer. In fact, armor can prevent us from being able to do our job. Every pound of armor makes us less effective fighters.

I patrolled the streets of Baghdad in a Humvee that had no doors, let alone armor. This was a decision that I made so that I was a more effective soldier. With better fields of vision, I could respond more effectively to the hazards of a combat zone.

I am an explosive ordnance disposal technician tasked with the removal of the roadside bombs, or IEDs, and unexploded ordnance in Iraq. The IEDs in Iraq often have enough explosives in them that the armor on most trucks proves to be ineffective at close range. Armor is a great asset and improves morale in some cases, but it is not the answer to our problems in Iraq.

There has never been an IED campaign in the history of the world like the one we are living through in Iraq. There is no way the leadership that sent us to war could possibly have known to expect these extreme attacks on its fighting force and the effects on the morale that the Army has suffered during these attacks. What the Army needs is to hunt out and destroy these insurgents, and that, of course, is not an easy task.

Then comes the true kick in the gut. The news media do not report the great things that we have accomplished in this country – the lives we have saved, and freedom that we are providing to a people who do, in fact, want this freedom. Freedom is not won overnight; there are pitfalls that must be overcome, and that takes time.

Instead, the media have decided to attack our morale by attacking our top leadership. There are a lot of things a soldier must deal with in combat; how are we supposed to perform when we have to deal with irrelevant controversy in Washington, D.C., as well?

The truth is that we have excellent leadership that supports us in every mission and provides us top-of-the-line equipment to accomplish our missions. We are at war, and war is not perfect.

I joined the Army because I love my country, a deeper and different love than I think most Americans can understand. I find this same patriotism in the soldiers I work with, even though there are prevalent risks to their lives. They do this because they and I believe in our country. We are soldiers: We adapt and over come all situations. We have been doing it since the birth of our country.

Leave our leadership alone, and we can and will win this war; and frankly, we do not need your selective reporting of how we are doing. We know our mission and objectives; our leadership has and continues to inform us wisely.

DALE MELVILLE Pine Bluff Arsenal, Ark. Ramona


"

"As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened.

I am sorry that I have not been able to visit all of you during my two week leave back home. And just so you can rest at night knowing something is happening in Iraq that is noteworthy, I thought I would pass this on to you.

This is the list of things that has happened in Iraq recently: (Please share it with your friends and compare it to the version that your paper is producing.)

* Over 400,000 kids have up-to-date immunizations. * School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war. * Over 1,500 schools have been renovated and rid of the weapons stored there so education can occur. * The port of Uhm Qasar was renovated so grain can be off-loaded from ships faster. * The country had its first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August. * Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq. * The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war. * 100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed, compared to 35% before the war. * Elections are taking place in every major city, and city councils are in place. * Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city. * Over 60,000 police are patrolling the streets. * Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country. * Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side with US soldiers. * Over 400,000 people have telephones for the first time ever * Students are taught field sanitation and hand washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs. * An interim constitution has been signed. * National Elections are scheduled in January for the first time ever . * Girls are allowed to attend school. * Textbooks that don't mention Saddam are in the schools for the first time in 30 years.

Don't believe for one second that these people do not want us there. I have met many, many people from Iraq that want us there, and in a bad way.

They say they will never see the freedoms we talk about but they hope their children will. We are doing a good job in Iraq and I challenge anyone, anywhere to dispute me on these facts.

So If you happen to run into John Kerry, be sure to give him my email address and send him to Denison, Iowa. This soldier will set him straight.

If you are like me and very disgusted with how this period of rebuilding has been portrayed, email this to a friend and let them know there are good things happening.

Ray Reynolds, SFC Iowa Army National Guard 234th Signal Battalion

"

Anyone in that war and being subject to those dangers wants to believe they are there for a good reason. That does not change the way the Moslems feel about the U S invading and occupying a Moslem country. The comments of the two soldiers is something that if it spreads will add yet another problem for America.

dog anything that does not fit genes scenario about Iraq will be ignored, if one serviceman says it's bad, gene will print it over and over again, if 2974 say we are doing a good thing gene will simply say they are brainwashed and not to be trusted.

The comments of the two soldiers is something that if it spreads will add yet another problem for America.

How sad that you believe that. I bet you would silence the soldiers just not to "offend" the enemy.

dog anything that does not fit genes scenario about Iraq will be ignored, if one serviceman says it's bad, gene will print it over and over again, if 2974 say we are doing a good thing gene will simply say they are brainwashed and not to be trusted.

Like he just did?

That does not change the way the Moslems feel about the U S invading and occupying a Moslem country. The comments of the two soldiers is something that if it spreads will add yet another problem for America.

---ColdefectiveGenes

Oh, go screw yourelf, Gene....you don't know a damn thing about what the "Moslems feel about the US invading and occupying a Moslem country". Are you there? Do you have friends/family who feed you secret knowledge that we regular people don't get? No, you don't. You only know what you get from the cherished MSM,and they only tell you what gets ratings, and Good News is No News.



Great stuff, ID.....keep it up.

Rightwinger

I know a lot more then you. The real experts have said what I have in that the war has added to our enemies and thus has made us less secure. If you believe the Moslems accept our invasion and occupation of Iraq you are mistaken. Read the following:



The Boston Globe
Study cites seeds of terror in Iraq
War radicalized most, probes find

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | July 17, 2005

WASHINGTON -- New investigations by the Saudi Arabian government and an Israeli think tank -- both of which painstakingly analyzed the backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq to fight the United States -- have found that the vast majority of these foreign fighters are not former terrorists and became radicalized by the war itself.


The studies, which together constitute the most detailed picture available of foreign fighters, cast serious doubt on President Bush's claim that those responsible for some of the worst violence are terrorists who seized on the opportunity to make Iraq the ''central front" in a battle against the United States.

''The terrorists know that the outcome [in Iraq] will leave them emboldened or defeated," Bush said in his nationally televised address on the war at Fort Bragg in North Carolina last month. ''So they are waging a campaign of murder and destruction." The US military is fighting the terrorists in Iraq, he repeated this month, ''so we do not have to face them here at home."

However, interrogations of nearly 300 Saudis captured while trying to sneak into Iraq and case studies of more than three dozen others who blew themselves up in suicide attacks show that most were heeding the calls from clerics and activists to drive infidels out of Arab land, according to a study by Saudi investigator Nawaf Obaid, a US-trained analyst who was commissioned by the Saudi government and given access to Saudi officials and intelligence.

A separate Israeli analysis of 154 foreign fighters compiled by a leading terrorism researcher found that despite the presence of some senior Al Qaeda operatives who are organizing the volunteers, ''the vast majority of [non-Iraqi] Arabs killed in Iraq have never taken part in any terrorist activity prior to their arrival in Iraq."

''Only a few were involved in past Islamic insurgencies in Afghanistan, Bosnia, or Chechnya," the Israeli study says. Out of the 154 fighters analyzed, only a handful had past associations with terrorism, including six who had fathers who fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, said the report, compiled by the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Herzliya, Israel.

American intelligence officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, and terrorism specialists paint a similar portrait of the suicide bombers wreaking havoc in Iraq: Prior to the Iraq war, they were not Islamic extremists seeking to attack the United States, as Al Qaeda did four years ago, but are part of a new generation of terrorists responding to calls to defend their fellow Muslims from ''crusaders" and ''infidels."

The Boston Globe Study cites seeds of terror in Iraq War radicalized most, probes find

GENE!
Why are you so much more willing to accept the opinions, stories and results of studies and polls in the biased worlds of academia and the MSM, and yet completely and utterly dismiss the more encouraging words of the people who are actually there and doing the fighting? hy don't you give both sides equal weight?
Know why? I'll tell you why: YOU DON'T WANT TO! You don't like to hear good things coming out of Iraq because you want to believe that nothing good will come of it, so you just shut it all out. That's all.
It's a personal choice on your part, Gene, that's all it is.

Exactly. Col only sees what he wants, and ignores everything else.

That is a great letter Island Dog! Evidence that scum like Colon Gangrene are as ignorant as they are anti freedom.

The REAL ugly TRUTH about Colon Gangrene:

Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq. * The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war. * 100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed, compared to 35% before the war. *

I think a major problem is that most people think the US is rebuilding Iraq because of the destruction the war brought. They have no idea that people went without drinking water under Saddam, and the media don't tell them; because that news doesn't sell.

That does not change the way the Moslems feel about the U S invading and occupying a Moslem country.

By "the Moslems" I assume you are referring to the Muslims of Arab countries who are constantly fed lies by their governments? I cannot imagine that you talk about Kurds and Shi'ites, the vast majority of Iraqis, who together have come up with Iraq's first democratic constitution and certainly do not miss Saddam one bit.