Letter from Iraq

The following letter is from a soldier I know in Iraq. I wanted to make sure that he was alright with me publishing it and I sent him an email. He wanted to add the following so that people could better understand where he is coming from. -cd
Here is his addendum:

not a disclaimer but…
You know I only write letters when I am at the height of my mood swings, when I feel full of anger and fury, when I feel powerless, when I see soldiers with black armbands, when it seems every week there is a memorial for a soldier at the chapel. The mood swings are more often now, there is survivor guilt, there is remorse to leave now knowing I leave so many behind in this war. you know what the worst thing is about serving in war, is how you convince yourself it is right to avoid thinking about deaths of your fellow soldiers. A soldier died just a few trailers down from me. I passed him a few times walking to the shower trailers, they had a memorial for him, i didn’t know him and only just exchanged pleasantries, but i forced myself to go to his memorial. Should I let these lives and deaths into my life, even though it tears me up to no end. or should I avoid all of it, not think of it at all. I worry if I don’t let them in, if I don’t care, than who will, when our finest young that die are now just numbers that scroll by on the bottom of news feeds, “7 soldiers die in Iraq, … Paris Hilton serves first day in jail.” at what point has the sacrafice of young americans become so ordinary and common that thier deaths are only worthy of a blurb on tv. If i don’t care enough and I am over here, who will? I don’t know anymore. I guess I am trying to let you know that I am not this soldier all the times, full of fury and hate, … there are quiet times, and times of just zoning out, than its obvious we are at war and people are wiping blood off concrete barriers.

Here is the original.

so the man has shut off most of our web sites, even gmail is close to impossible to get to, (we have to use a proxy) the man says its for opsec, but considering I work Intel i know that is a bunch of bull shit. this is just a way for the man to shut us up. They say soldiers inadvertently give away operational secrets, that is bullshit. They are just concerned that soldiers are telling thier friends and family how fucked up this situation and how fucking far we are from even coming close to a real permanet solution. ( oh, wait, my conservative friends will say I just aided the enemy, …. send me to the stockade for using my first amendment right ! I guess I am a terrorist because I have a first hand opinion about a bloody civil war that does not align with the currend administrations view of the war ) …. what is that knocking on the door. Oh , Its the man, you see i missed my last three brain washing sessions the army had apointed for me. sorry. free thinking coming back into my head.
but these fucking conservatives only get half the backlash, How much can i stand of this liberal bullshit about Darfur. yes, Darfur is bad , but now its alright to occupy a country with our Army… liberals, Now it is alright to say fuck your soverignty and our values and our views are right , and we have the right to save these people. Liberals, the kurds were going through the same fucking thing with Sadaam in power. But I guess Amnesty International is the final say in when we pick up arms. they are the holy messiah of what is right. So when Mr. Liberal forms his opinion from an MTV video and says our Army should go in to stop this injustice, know that fuck tard is a hypocrite if he opposed Iraq. and yes, you freely saying we should send troops into Darfur means a little more to me than you, because I could possibly be one of those soldiers going over. so before you freely say we should send troops maybe you should back that up yourselves and join the army and say lets go to Darfur! didn’t think so.
NEWS FLASH…. if we did what Amnesty International wants and send US troops into Darfu to stop the violence. I promise you six months afterward Amnesty International will have an article saying “US Troops in violation of human rights in Darfur”. So fuck Amnesty International, they are a political organization in non profit clothing and they support terrorist organizations. and thier aims are not all richteous. I know that for sure.
But in the end I already came to the realization I am just a tool, a tool for whoever is in office, i mean we as soldiers are already being jerked around by both parties. Being a soldier is honorable, being used for political aims is not. I honestly don’t think a single fucking politician actually gives a damn about us, we are an end to a means for them. and when i say that I include our president, rudy guiliani, pelosi, clinton, edwards, obama, and every fucking politician. I already have decided I will not admit I was ever here, if people ask me how Iraq was, I will say, “what are you talking about, I was never there.” There is little to be proud about this deployment, and if you think otherwise you are a fool. all it means is that you got suckered.
Can you tell I am not going to reenlist. I am actually going to try and make sure no one enlists, it will be my goal to un-enlist as many people as possible. I will see that as my civic duty. Hell join the coast guard, airforce, or anything else, I am past whining and feel i am about to punch someone.
I just read this interesting stat, nearly 40 percent of people in the Active Army have yet to get deployed to Iraq or Afganistan, but still they are taking people off IIR. IIR is where you are basically out of the military, but still can get called up if things get crazy, but knowing that 40 percent of the Army has not yet served in Iraq and they are calling up IIR is just ridiculous. but that is the culture of the army. this is how they fuck you. no, not fuck you. but FUCK you. lets say you are close to finishing your contract with the army, and you decide not to re-enlist, the commander will try to convince you to. but still you are of sanity and you say no, i did my part and gave back to the army. The army will reassign you to another unit that is about to get deployed, so if say you got like three months left on your contract they will send you to another unit that is deploying in two months and now you will have to go on that deployment. that is the dark secret of the army, that is how this country repays the citizens who decide to protect freedom , that is the respect this Army thinks is due to them, and I know i will have to put up with that myself. I know this for a fact, already seen it. So I got venom in my mouth from this. sure they are trying to keep up numbers.
NEWS FLASH… if the army actually was used in a proper way and not to support corrupt interests more people would stay on. they wouldn’t have to do underhanded shit like this. anyways,
Just watching band of brothers, at darkly morbid and terrible as it sounds, at least the deaths of those GIs in world war 2 meant something, we have no allies here in Iraq, the shiias and sunni both could turn on us at any second, because the mast majority of iraqis want to live in peace, over 90 percent, but the radicals are equally mixed in all the populations, what that means is you can’t trust anyone, one bad apple in every crowd. Every inroad we make we take steps backward elsewhere, we constantly hear insurgents taking over small cities, we have to recapture them and down the road they recapture and hold up another city. this is ridiculous. they see us as an invading tribe. We really are an occupying force and why are we here? the most obvious of questions we can’t answer.
I have decided I am going to stay at my demob station for a little longer with a medical issue, one to get something fixed and the other to avoid the hooplah and fake celebration of coming home ‘heros’ , already i feel nauseas at the thought. i really want to go home with no fanfare, put away my uniform and not think of it ever again.