Here’s another soldier’s account of his experience in Iraq:
“I don’t mean to paint too rosy a picture by implying it’s all about challenging and engaging humanitarian work. We still fight. Early on, there was the incident that would have changed everything were it not for a faulty stretch of detonation cord that failed to set off four 155mm rounds (the big ones) buried on the side of the road. It was funny back then. We had a great laugh during dinner when our silence was broken by, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say someone was trying to kill us.” We ate hamburgers that night, a rare treat, and laughed with mouths wide open.
The fighting is much less funny now, but we are not the perpetual victims my month-old newspapers seem to imply. Sometimes the enemy decides when and where to fight and sometimes we do. When the fighting happens at all, however, it feels like failure. When I spend my time worrying about school contractors and the business plans of artists, it feels like success.”
Once again, an eyewitness says the media just doesn’t get the story right. And I believe this guy – anybody who made it through the Physics 60 series at Stanford (like yours truly and sometime visitor Carl Drews) has instant credibility with me. On a side note, the editor’s introduction is pretty good too:
“Some Americans admire and respect U.S. soldiers but would rather not use them. Others admire and respect U.S. soldiers, especially when we use them. Still others claim to admire and respect U.S. soldiers, but privately would admit they so abhor the notion of sanctioned killing they can’t stomach the uniform.”
Good stuff, Maynard.
