Snapshot from Iraq

Wave the Flag on my blogroll is the voice of a soldier serving another tour in Iraq. He doesn't post frequently, but when he does it's the real stuff. He had another blog three years ago that posted a description of memorial for a fallen comrade that brought tears to my eyes. He hasn't posted since April, probably because life where he is can be pretty monotonous, but yesterday something happened to break the routine.

Here is what he wrote, unfiltered.

an unimportant yet significant day

So today was like any other day here in Iraq. Hot. Humid. Boring.

No missions, no nothing.

Just another day closer to going home.

Then around 9 at night, there's a huge firefight out in the distance.

It's not any of us, but ended up being that a local leader, a sheik, just got whacked.

What's worse was that his whole family was wasted along with him.

I mean, really. Where's the humanity.

We've met this sheik before, we've met his family. We've sat down with him and drank tea. We played around with the kids, speaking bad arabic and joking around.

Turns out some insurgents deemed him an enemy, and so they killed him while him and his family were sitting out in their lawn preparing for bed.

Here in Iraq, since it's obviously extremely hot, and there's obviously no such thing as central heating in these simple iraqi households, alot of families go outside and lay out blankets and pillows and sleep outside, it's their culture. Hell, I'd sleep on the roof of our Patrol Base if I could.

After the incident a young boy, no more than 3, and another familiy member was brought into our patrol base, to be treated by our medics.

The man was pretty much DOA, so we put outside on the stretcher he came in on and put a blanket over him body.

That was my first legitimate close up dead body, and what stood out to me was how fast; from the time he time, to the time I saw him on the stretcher, that his face looks so glossed over, like rubber or clay, it was weird.

Mind you, it's not like this is a PTSD moment or nothing, I got enough bombs from last deployment for that. But it was just weird.

The little boy we Air medivac'd him out. He was deteriorating fast and my platoon medic, "DOC" said his chances of living were slim. He just lost to much blood.

Just a few minutes ago DOC and I were on the patio, smoking and bullshitting, and we got to talking about the kid, and the overall feeling was just frustration.

That ya, we get it, the Sheik was friendly to us, so it makes sense a the enemy to kill him off.

But the kid?

the women?

It's mindblowing how a human being can do that.

I wonder what goes on the mind of the insurgents, the moments before the decide to open fire on the whole family, unarmed, unaware.

The little boy messed my DOC up a little bit I think. This is his first deployment, but he was an EMT for a few years before joining up, but it still messed with him.

I think it's because of the circumstances.

Then we got to thinking about another Sheik and his whole family. This sheik we've been seeing throughout the whole deployment, forging strong professional relationships, we help him out with economic needs, and he gives us word on cache's and rumors of bad guys.

It's counter-insurgency 101, and it works.

We've come to know his sons, his nephews and nieces, and when DOC and I wondered "what if" they did the same thing to Him and his family.

I said flat out, "I'd be furious, I'd find the motherfuckers and give them a slow death".

My response came out so fast that it caught me off guard.

I mean...

They're not my friends.

I don't REALLY know them.

and then we both kind saw eye to eye on the situation.

There truly isn't a word out there that can describe the strange "bond" between us and the locals that we help.

I hope we find the insurgents, and I'll tell you what, I hope they receive a slow death, and if it wasn't for the pussy ass arm chair quarterback motherfuckers back home who whine about war, I'd join in and torture the shit out those insurgents.

Those fucking people who blab ignorantly about torture and war are goddamn piece of shits who sleep safely at night who have no idea what the hell goes on here.

You get your news about from CNN and FoxNews. Hell, they don't even report it anymore.

Now?

It's barely a FUCKING TICKER on the bottom of the screen.

And yet there's some stupid random bitch that'll blog about how sad it is that Heath Ledger was stupid as fuck and OD'd off his meds.

9 soldiers died recently in Afghnistan in an ambush. A fucking ambush.

And I barely see it on the news on the TV downstairs.

They were pulling an OP when they got whacked.

I've been pulling OP's outta my ass this whole deployment, for something like that to happen is monumental. It's THAT serious.

And yet...

What's funny is, I'm the liberal one here, I'm the one that loves pissing my fellow republican soldiers off by telling them Obama '08

Who knows....

Seriously....

And all that I support the troops crap. Most of us soldiers here, we're tired of hearing it. Why?

Because you'll send candy and shit as long as we don't shoot people.

Most assholes back home want a "nice" war.

Where only the "bad" guys get killed, but oh, no, you don't want to hear about it of course.

You fucking morons.

It's war. People die. ALL people, not just grown men. Women, Children.

A 6 month old Pregnant woman

A 13 year old girl walking home from school.

A soldier who just came back from leave.

A father who's son got killed in a suicide attack.

But who cares, it's only a blip on the bottom of the screen, and you probably don't even see it because you just found out that Morgan Freeman is in the hospital from a car wreck...

Buncha Assholes y'all are.

He said it well. No further comments from me. Readers whose fur got rubbed the wrong way by his language can get over it.