Post by Nym Zeal on Feb 9, 2005 9:32:22 GMT -5
Maybe an old theme, but my brother is actually in Iraq rather than Kuwait now and I thought I would share bits and pieces of his email with y'all.
I can't imagine him on the other side of the world, that close to the level of poverty you see in the commercials trying to get you to sponser children.
The internet here isn't up yet the guy was supposed to come yesterday but didn't and the advanced party said they've been hearing that for two weeks. We walk around here in full battle rattle and it's pretty much a swamp there's so much mud here... nothing but mud actually. It's blackout at night so there's no lights and you can't see nothing. As much of an inconveniance that is none of us are complaining because that makes the locals think we're demons or
vampires (seriously, they claim that since we operate at night without lights and "don't die when they shoot at us" that we can't be regular humans) so they stopped attacking us. We like that and plan to do everything we can to keep the locals thinking that.
vampires (seriously, they claim that since we operate at night without lights and "don't die when they shoot at us" that we can't be regular humans) so they stopped attacking us. We like that and plan to do everything we can to keep the locals thinking that.
The locals we passed on the way were pretty much all farmers due to our route, and they were all poor, real poor. The kids would just line up on the road wanting food, as young as 2 or 3 years old, without any parent in sight. They'd get so excited to get an MRE it was sad. And some of them would flick us off or show us the bottoms of their feet when we didn't throw them anything. I saw things that were really funny, such as the kids opening a soda can that a soldier just threw them from a truck and had bounced off the road a couple of times and maybe was even spewing coke from the side. And I saw stuff that made me wond
er, such as the cow that someone put in the back of a toyota truck, one of the really small toyota trucks, and had it's head and shoulders sticking out one corner and the rear end sticking out the other. How he got that cow in there I can't figure out.
er, such as the cow that someone put in the back of a toyota truck, one of the really small toyota trucks, and had it's head and shoulders sticking out one corner and the rear end sticking out the other. How he got that cow in there I can't figure out.
It's interesting to see how people live here, I can promise you that it's a lot different then what the news makes it out to be, they never mention the good stuff we do for the locals, they just mention the attacks and deaths. They might not want us in their country, we'd feel the same way if rolls were reversed, but the large majority are thankful of what we've done and are ready to move on free of a tyranny.
P.S. To my parents, I heard about a soldier telling his mom this and I'm going to borrow from him, I know you want to protect me but you can't, you did a great job raising me, so try to relax and let me protect you now.
I can't imagine him on the other side of the world, that close to the level of poverty you see in the commercials trying to get you to sponser children.
that helps... a lot. It'll be a year and it'll really suck but I'm lucky to have you guys to help me through it