"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." ~ Benjamin Franklin

A Soldier's View

>> Wednesday, August 25, 2004

As friends and family know, Jody's brother, a SSG in the Iowa Guard, just came back from Iraq. He'll be stationed in Washington, DC for the next year or so. We haven't really sat down and discussed his war-time experiences yet, but it's something I hope to do in the near future.

I told you that in order to segue into another soldier's experiences in Iraq. Mike is stationed in Mosul. He started his blog to kill time and because he's a decent amateur writer. It’s definitely worth your time to read his stuff. His Men in Black post has received a lot of attention.

His latest post is about being on guard duty in a tower overlooking Mosul.

I'm constrained up in some f--king guard tower in Mosul, Iraq (itching for stimulants to help me cope with the boredom) staring off at the night lights radiating from this ancient Islamic city. Working the guard tower shift sucks. There aint s--t to do up in that tower but stand there and stare off into that city and fight boredom as best you can.[uncensored in original – DJH]

I remember back to my own time on guard duty and it only sucks donkey d--ks if you’re not expecting trouble. Mike has written about a lot of scary days, but he now finds guard duty to be boring. In Mosul, no less. Let’s hope it stays nice and boring for him. The more boring days we can string together in Iraq, the better Iraq (and by extension, the US) will be.

7 comments:

Amanda B. 10:56 AM  

I recently saw a Kerry ad on TV and it disgusted me, and a lady I work with said, "You're not voting for Bush, Are you?" with that crumpled up prune I'm richer than you and older and smarter look on her face. I said "I'd rather vote for Bush than a two faced lying backstabbing Botox horse-faced flip-flopper." Then I asked her if she had a relative or son or daughter in the service. No, what does that have to do with it? Know what? alot. Ask soldier who he is voting for. All of the ones I have spoken to say they would vote for Bush. That we should be over there, and you never see or hear the good things on the news. She asked me about weapons of mass destruction because there were none. The obvious WMD was Saddam, and his sons Oochy and Coochy (it's my story, I can tell it how I want.). The thousands of Iraqi men and women that were tortured, disfigured, and killed that had a difference of opinion from Saddam and his Baath Party. This kind of thing takes time, and if we didn't step in, who would have? The French?

Amanda B. 11:12 AM  

Speaking of good deeds done, check out this website, and see what I mean! You will never see this on the national news. http://www.chucklarson.com/ The pics on this website are priceless to see children treasure their new gifts!

Doug H 12:37 PM  
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Doug H 2:47 PM  

Here's a roundup of WMDs that has found in Iraq and publicly acknowledged:
1. Chemical/biological weapons labs and the raw materials found in scientists’ homes
2. Chemical/biological (35 or more) artillery shells
3. Vials of Sarin
4. A Sarin bomb on its way to being detonated in Amman, Jordan
5. 1.7 metric tons of uranium removed from Iraqi labs
6. Long-range missile bodies found in scrap heaps
7. A radioactive missile body found in a scrap heading to Amsterdam (now why would a missile body be radioactive, I wonder?)
8. The bodies from Kurds and Sunnis murdered by Saddam using WMDs on his own people
9. Hundreds of thousands of Iranian victims of Saddam’s WMDs


WMDs first started surfacing in the summer of 2003. Even though the Marxists insist that “Bush lied!”, he was vindicated over a year ago.

PPS: I'll try to post links to validate my above statements when I get home from work.

Amanda B. 3:10 PM  

Well, yeah, there were those too...

Jody 5:36 PM  

If everyone hasn't followed the link Jarod posted, please do so. And pass it on.

Also, Jarod, great posts! You should do stand up!

Anonymous 10:58 AM  

I'm Doug's brother-in-law that just returned from a short tour in Iraq. Because of a mix between the National Guard and Active Component our activation orders came in late, which resulted in my team getting deployed a month later than our counterpart that we joined in Iraq. It was lucky for me, only 4 months in the sandbox, but I missed out on the 3 purple hearts. I guess I can't compete with John Kerry.

I can related to Mike's boredom. Life's much more exciting when the mortars are flying and stray rounds are passing overhead. I was lucky to have a job on the Corps staff, so I didn't spend any time in the guard towers. I did do a pretty good amount of driving between BIAP (Baghdad International Airport) and the Green Zone (Downtown Baghdad). Luckily, we were never fired upon while driving, but we were behind or in front incidents on a few occasions.

I feel that we are doing the right thing in Iraq. Of course no one wanted to see me go, and I had mixed feelings myself. I can tell you first hand that not nearly enough of the good news stories about what we are doing for the Iraqis makes it to CNN or FOX. It's just not exciting. How many good news stories do you see on the local news?

I have a meeting to go to concerning our deployment, but I'll try to write later.

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