Real Stories From Iraq

Well, I didn't expect any American products would be sold in Iraq.

When I got there, however, I was amazed to find "Cool Tamales." They were like the American "Hot Tamales," except they were blue, and mint flavored.

Weirder still, I missed the stuff when I got back, and contacted the company, which says they were unaware of any such product.

Durned Iraqis.

I dont know about any other Iraq vets,but I was amaxed when we first went in that I could get a cold Dr. Pepper over there.
I dont really know what I was expecting,but that wasnt it.

I was also shocked at the reception we got from most people.
Most of them welcomed us,fed us,acted as guides,and generally welcomed us.
I stated busy providing basic medical care to the locals,and I was shocked at the needs these people had.

Even when we were in combat,the locals would risk themselves to show us where the shooting was coming from,and to generally help us ut.
I was wounded in Nassiriyah,trying to get to a wounded Iraqi woman and her child.
They were caught on a bridge,in the crossfire between us and the enemy.
We had already lost two marines,because we would not risk hitting that woman and her child.
When I was able to get to them,I got hit and was wounded (I lost 3 fingers on my right hand).

I still have friends there,and they are constantly shocked at the news reports from here about them.

I was too when I returned.I was made out to br a criminal,a killer,a baby killer,and various other things.
Now I understand what my dad went thru when he returned from Vietnam.

That reminds me of the time when my friend in Nassiriyah was trying to get to a wounded woman and her child, and he ended up loosing three finger from his hand.

That was on a bridge though. A little different than your story.

You lost me,what does this mean?

I was saying that your story reminded me of something similar that happened to me, only my incident took place on a bridge. The woman and her child were trapped on the bridge.

OK,I'll bite.
Who were you with and when was it.
I can provide the citation for my purple heart if you want.
I know of no other corpsman that was wounded in Nassiriyah.

Mysteryman

I applaud you for your service and sacrifice.......I'm relatively certain you have more stories. Please share them with us because I sense you have a psychological need to get your story out..........I have a need to hear them and I believe others have the same need.

SCoates

Was that a sick attempt at humour or are you trying to be a jerk?

bookmark

Mysteryman - I am very sorry to hear you have been disparaged because of your service. I was (and am) very much against our military action in Iraq, as are most of the people I know. However, I have never heard any of them say anything negative about the soldiers serving there. Just the opposite, I think the vast majority of Americans have great respect for our troops. I personally feel the soldiers are just innocent fodder for the hubris of this administration. I would prefer to see our fighting forces preserved for times when our country is truly being threatened.

I am very sorry you have been permanently wounded. I recently learned my neighbor's son will be returning without his right leg from the knee down and worse - he has lost much of his ability to hear. He wanted to study music and joined the military to pay for school, I don't know what this will mean for him and his musical aspirations. Like most of the people serving he is very young and I just can't justify the sacrifice in my heart. Perhaps we need to go back to the early medieval tradition of the king leading the troops into battle. I think this war would never have happened if GW Bush had to serve in combat with you.

I too think Iraq was perhaps an even bigger mistake than VietNam, but thank you and those like you for your service. I hope you get all the lifetime benefits and care you deserve from our government for your service and sacrifice.

I don't know anyone who considers military in the negative light you speak of unless it's been proven they did something like that.

You want disrespect here's a few stories:

http://www.thekcrachannel.com/news/4180042/detail.html

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/40259.htm

baldi, i get your frustration, but we want this thread to be a place where the guys back from, or still in, iraq can post their experiences while in country.

okay? thanks :wink:

Excellent e-mail letter from Marine First Lieutenant Brian Donlon. He is a 2002 NROTC graduate of the University of Virginia. His tour in Iraq is ending soon and he will be headed home. He sends us his final thoughts before departing on his journey, and I think some of them are pretty elegant,...especially for a Lieutenant, ...and as many of you non-Marines would note, ...especially for a Marine.

>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> To All,
>
> This will be my final letter from Iraq. I will be leaving the country in The next week and should be home in the United State soon after. Spring is now here in Iraq. The weather is pleasantly warm with the occasional sunny day. On a recent trip, I flew in a helicopter North of Baghdad over miles of small farms, criss-crossed by irrigation canals, each surrounded by bright green fields. It all gave an impression of timelessness, life unchanging but for the season. In the days since the elections it has been very quiet here and all my Marines remain safe. Everyone is very ready to go home. Before I give my final impressions of Iraq, I have one final experience To relate.

>
>
> Recently I spent several days in Fallujah.
>
> As the largest battle fought in this war and the most brutal fight for the Marine Corps since Vietnam, the name "Fallujah" tends to engender visions Of smoke and fire, death in the streets. I cannot speak for the condition of the city before and during the assault but what I witnessed was perhaps The most secure and peaceful urban area I have yet encountered in Iraq, including the Green Zone. For four days on security patrols in and around the city I did not even Once hear the report of gunfire in anger or the echo of an explosion. Of course, when you systematically kill or capture every insurgent in a

completely cordoned city and search, blast or burn every single structure, you can expect resistance to become light or nonexistent. My hosts were the warriors of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, who fought along the regiment's right flank during the battle and back-cleared the entire Northern sector of the city following the operation's conclusion. These men fought a grisly, tedious and exhausting battle street-by-street, block-by-block for almost two months.

>
> For all my imagination, until I walked the streets, listened to the stories, saw the pictures and read the after action reports I had no concept of what a fight it had been. Covering enemy dead with ponchos as they went, they killed Muj (as they nicknamed the insurgents) in the streets or toppled buildings on top of Them with mortars, artillery and aerial bombardment. They shot dogs and cats caught feasting on the dead, found the mutilated corpse of aid worker Margaret Hassan, discovered a torture chamber with full suits of human Skin and refrigerated body parts right out of "Silence of the Lambs", opened a cellar with chained men who had starved to death and broke down doors to find rooms full of corpses, hands tied behind their backs, bullet holes in the back of their heads. These are just in the pictures I saw. The enemy they encountered was fanatical and often fought as if pumped up On drugs. His ethnicity was varied and his tactics ranged from insurgents attempting to cross the Euphrates River on inflated beach balls to houses detonated on top of Marines as they entered the first floor. As I listened to the stories I Had visions of Henry V's warning before the walls of Harfleur to "take pity of your town and of your people, whiles Yet my soldiers are in my command; whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace o'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds of heady murder, spoil And villany." I thought of all the times in history where invaders had systematically destroyed a city, extinguishing the population and sowing salt in the earth. Yet, for the battle damage on all sides, the city of Fallujah had more children and a more industrious citizenry than any other I encountered here in Iraq. Almost every house had been re-occupied following the invasion, gutters cleaned of garbage, white flags flying over newly patched garden walls, "Family Inside" written in large letters in both English and Arabic. Marines control access to the city; Marines mediate civic disputes; Marines provide food, water and are protecting those who are repairing city infrastructure; Marines patrol the streets, policing both the citizens of Fallujah and the Iraqi Army who sometimes abuse their authority. Fallujah is a city on lockdown and ironically is probably the safest and most progressive place in Iraq right now. I now understand why the Citizens in a nearby neighborhood here in Baghdad worriedly asked the Army command we are attached to "What have we done? Why are Marines here?" when we began to patrol there. With that experience, I more or less close my time here in Iraq. I have a few more hurdles to overcome before I am home but now all tasks are Related to ensuring a safe journey there. Reflecting on what I have seen here in Iraq, the overwhelming emotion I Feel is of pride, not In myself or even in my Marines, but in being an American. Patriotic sentiments tend to gravitate between cliché and taboo in the sensibilities of popular culture but if I was not defined before as a "patriot", I am now. I am very proud to have been a small part of this effort and to come from a nation where not only could such an effort be sustained but whose aim was the betterment of another people a world away.

>
> A few months ago, I was walking at night through a logistics yard and as I weaved between mountainous stacks of crates stamped with the names of a dozen nations, I was struck by how fortunate I was to be an American. The perspective bordered on the sublime. Just outside the wall lived People in poverty and squalor who had been subjected to their lot by a tyrannical ethnic and political minority who shrugged off human misery with the medieval belief that it was the "will of Allah." Not much has changed in the Middle East in the last few thousands of years, except for the religion and identity of the tyrant in question. Just South of where I sit now, in the city of Babylon in the 5th Century B.C., the Persian Xerxes planned his doomed invasion of Greece, his logisticians collecting mountains of supplies, compiled from the labors of subject millions.

>
> There is no difference between that tyrant 2500 years ago and Saddam Hussein whose palaces dot across this country like vainglorious lesions, one built just miles away from here, complete with fresh water dolphins in Artificial lakes, observation towers with night clubs, and irrigated tree-lined walks, built in the midst of international sanctions levied against his country. As I stood dwarfed by piles of water bottles and phone cable I realized Two distinctions. The first is this: as countless millions of dollars are spent, what American citizen can truly point to the cost that this war has had on his quality of living? What a magnificent nation we live in where we can wage so massive an effort without bankrupting our citizenry in the process. The second contrast is our motive: for all the insinuations of imperialism, corporate benefit and hawkish war-mongering, the most dramatic moments I witnessed here revolved around an election not an exploitation. What other nation would spend such sums to give a people so far away self-determination? I am not advocating war. Being so far from home for so long, smelling and seeing the dead and placing Marines in harm's way are not truly enjoyable experiences. Yet I agree wholeheartedly with the much-criticized statement by General Mattis, it IS fun to wage war against a foe who seeks only his own self-gratification, who tortures, murders and abuses the weak. You can opine all day long about Wilsonian self-determination, but without the will to do what is necessary to make such visions reality, they remain mere words. In short, as I give my farewell to this country in the next week, I leave with overwhelming pride in being an American and an Unshakable belief, based in what I have seen here, that this effort will not fail. Whatever comes in Iraq, the impact of this invasion will not be as that of every other conqueror, relegated to a wind worn mound of stones in the desert. I want to thank all of you who have taken the time to read these often-verbose letters of mine. Just being able to write to this audience Has been a great stress relief. I especially want to express my gratitude to those who have written to me both electronic and snail mail, sent care packages and kept me in their thoughts and prayers. This was without a doubt the best experience of my life thus far and would have not been so without the support and generosity you have shown my Marines and I. Once I leave the country I will no longer be able to access this e-mail address. For those who are not sighing with relief at the end To these e-mails, my new e-mail address, effective 15 March, is: [email protected] or [email protected]. I would love to hear from any and all who these letters reached. Thanks once again for all you did for me. Semper Fi! Out. Brian Donlon

bm

I understand that, I was answering a post blueveinedthrobber, as well as Green Witch who claimed that there isn't any negative response to the troops themselves. I was simply disproving this. I will refrain from posting non-relavent info the the topic at hand.

bookmark

That is a good letter from the Lt.

The bad thing is,there are still to many people that will ignore any and all letters and eyewitness testimony from people that were there.

In every town and village we went thru during the invasion,we left behind teams of people to provide medical care,help with rebuilding electricity,food and water supplies for the locals,and everything else we could to help them.
Yet,according to some people on here,we were only there to harm,destroy,and kill.

The examples of the attacks on me I posted earlier,
are only some of the things that were said.
I didnt see anyone complain,protest,condemn,or decry those statements,but I did sense apathy,or even agreement with them at the time.

As a Canadian, perhaps I don't have a right to comment in this arena. However, I too am against the war in Iraq. I am against the administration that somehow justifies this in the face of logic. The soldiers are there because they are under orders to be there. We cannot fault them for doing their duty when called upon by their country. It is sad that so many of them either will never come home, or come home and leave something of themselves in the desert.



It is easy to sit in the chair and send the kids into battle. GW gets to sleep at night in the comfort of his own bed. I wonder if the last war in Iraq would have been initiated by George Sr. if George Jr. had to go. I also wonder what the situation would be if Mr. Bush had sons instead of daughters. I have to ponder why it is the Bush family that goes to war. Mr. Clinton had some personal flaws, but American boys were not being killed when he was President.

They say that it is better to do something than do nothing. Perhaps, in this case, it would have been better to do nothing.

God bless you all

[/QUOTE] I also wonder what the situation would be if Mr. Bush had sons instead of daughters. I have to ponder why it is the Bush family that goes to war. Mr. Clinton had some personal flaws, but American boys were not being killed when he was President.