Email from Iraq

[Cornholio]

I got an email from a friend in Iraq about how to prepare for deployment there. He says it's funny how accurate most of the things are-- "spread gravel and sand thoughout your house. Add some to every meal."-- but one struck me because it may be sort of representative of how the ground-pounders are feeling about this:

"Go to the worst, crime-infested, place you can find. Go heavily armed, wearing a flak jacket and a Kevlar helmet. Make sure you look nothing like anyone in the neighborhood. Set up a fortified tent in a vacant lot. Announce to the residents that you are there to help them."

[crashnburn'd]

A message from one of my friends, who I haven't heard from since January.

"Just a short e-mail to say that the elections went smoothly in the city we were providing security for. We spent 3 days in the city of Qura Topa to make sure no one messed with the polling places or the ballots. We slept in city hall and some of us including myself got to have tea with the Mayor and his personal body guards. It was an odd site to see, 15 men with rifles slung on there shoulders drinking tea and talking about elections, freedom and democracy.
I want to thank everyone for keeping me in their thoughts and prayers.
I hope the rest of my deployment will go as well as these first elections have."

[thedudeabides]

ive got a lot of respect for those folks

[Lurch]

My GFs brother in-law gets back from Iraq in a few days. He was stationed on the Syrian border. I'm interested in what he has to say about the whole thing but I won't talk politics with him. He had a few men under his command die and as his wife says he has no chice but to believe this is all worth it.

[ill-advised strategy]

no choice but to believe this is all worth it.

Seems like there's a few ways to look at this. The larger sense: which requires idiocy and delusion to think this (war) is all worth it(oil, "freedom"...whatever), or the more local perspective: this (military service) is all worth it (paying for school, healthcare for family, hiring preference for some jobs, learning about life and death..etc).

A realistic person can say that the war is stupid and fucked without striking the value of the experience to him/her as an individual.

Just my opinion.

[schuss]

the war is fucked and stupid, but that doesn't take away from what these people are doing. Many hopes that we see no more casualties.