A friend forwarded me a copy of an email from his buddies son. I have hacked out the following paragraphs. Thought you might enjoy them. I believe this to be real based on the mention of a local town. It is where my friend lives and it doesn't show up on snopes
Personal time is non-existent, but i still try to write in the diary. I have only made 4 or 5 entries so far, but they are all 4 or 5 pages. Some of the stuff that is going on here is pretty surreal. We are using a lot of UAV (Unmanned aerial vehicle) feeds to get guys at night when they start bebopping around after curfew. I got to watch a successful UAV mission the other night. it was awesome. As it is right now, there is a really bad section of about 1200 houses that the Al Queada (Sunni) have almost totally taken over. they use daily violence in the streets and the eviction+death threat combo to push all of the Shia and Sunni people out to the point that it is almost vacant. on our way to a meeting three days ago, i saw a dead guy face down on the side of the road...obviously, he didn't make his eviction notice. He was covered with a sheet with a bunch of arabic written on it. he also had a note in his hand that some insurgents put there. there was a massive pool of blood near his legs, and his left shoe had flown off as they kicked him out of the car where he was shot. based on the location of the body, i knew he was a shia. the sunnis and shia do it to each other, and drop bodies in different nieghborhoods. you can literally follow the schism line between Shia and Sunni on the map with your finger week by week. The shia consistently gain ground. it was the first time i have ever seen something like that, and at that point, it felt really good to be in an armored vehicle followed by more armored vehicles on my way the hell out of there. anyway, they now they use the abandoned homes they create for their own little playground. Who knows if these guys are really legit AL Queada as we know it. My personal opinion is that they are just gangsters that use Islam and jihad not only to have fun, but to add meaning to their miserable lives. they are searching for jihad because there is nothing better to do. That being said, they are also victims of their surroundings and upbringings. And that being said, they will still be shot when they put on their terrorist pants and involve themselves in tom-foolery. I will give all the details when i get home because of course, it is secret right now. I am getting all of the good stuff in my diary...like how we use our technology to screw these guys over. needless to say, it seems like we are doing it on our own. all i know is that we will keep working all day every day like we have been until they tell us we can roll on home. whether it is seen as a loss or win in the end will be irrelevant. At our level, we will have completed every completable mission given to us. I cannot emphasize enough the meaninglessness of most of the media coverage. it is not that it is inaccurate, but it lacks perspective and objectivity. If you could see the streets here and talk to the people that live in them, you would understand why another country might fork over some resources to help out despite our reasons for invasion. Contrary to what some might say, our mission is purely humanitarian. That is all i do here and soldiers would tell you the same thing. Locals are scared shitless, don't know who to trust and can't even buy groceries without the fear of getting shot, or having a mortar round turn them into dust (yeah, they mortar their own neighborhoods here. at the meetings, they always ask if we can shoot them out of the sky before they hit. we always try to explain that it is not possible, but they don't believe it and end up blaming us for not having the tech to do so). At any time, they could wake up to a scarlet letter on their door saying to be out or shot in 24 hrs. they don't give them enough time purposely so after they leave, they can sell all of the furniture and belongings. That is life here, and these are some of my opinions thus far. I could give a symposium on what i have learned about this place already. I equate this war to a baseball game at the Vallejo teeball complex between the world series caliber Yankees, and the local 7 year old Vallejo teeball champs. US Army=Yankees, Teeballl=insurgents. We are in inning 514, and the score is 9000 to 3 (3 runs on errors). Against all odds, the Yankees will lose because the game has been going on for months, all the fans are gone, and the corporate sponsors have cashed out. The teeballers will win because they are still having fun and can just walk home after it is over. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| ColdFusion MX7 and Flex 2 Build sales & marketing dashboard RIAâs for your business. Upgrade now http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2?sdid=RVJT Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:235254 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
