[Peace-discuss] soldier friend in Iraq

[Ricky Baldwin]

Folks,

I thought some of you might be interested in this web
log, called “The Sandbox,” by a former college
housemate of mine who just got deployed to Iraq last
month.  She had been in Afghanistan before that.  She
joined up a good few years before Sept. 11, 2001, and
never dreamed she’d be sent into combat.  She was an
art major from a working class family and needed some
saleable skills.  She has been deployed 5 times in the
last 6 years, and she has some tales to tell.

Here’s what she told me recently about the invasion
and occupation of Iraq:

“For the record, I think this entire conflict is
horseshit. Most of us feel this way, but we don't say
it, and we CERTAINLY don't say it publicly. Reference
above, ass-reaming [in which she asks that none of us
quote her by name], although that one would get you
UCMJ prosecuted for mutiny. I'm not kidding.”

Highlights include a hellish five-day road trip from
Kuwait to Baghdad in “face-melting” heat (130 degrees
F) and full body armor; getting mortared by another US
unit; witnessing another US unit charging and running
over local Bedoin’s flocks (this one titled “No wonder
they hate us, Jackass!”); and -- most disturbing for
me as her friend -- one entry about her attempts to
avoid deployment followed by another about her
gut-wrenching decision to give in and go with the
soldiers under her, whom she felt depended upon her
and whom she felt were in danger due to their
commanding officer’s “jackassery.”

http://www.kristens-private-blog.blogspot.com/

Oh, and before any of you smart alecks ask how one so
young could have been a housemate of mine in college,
she was an undergrad and I on my second master’s at
the time.  We were a very diverse house, age-wise if
not politically.

Read it and weep.

Ricky







		
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