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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 12:26 am Post subject: The War in the Words of the Dead |
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The War in the Words of the Dead
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He was exhausted, but he wanted to talk to his daughter, and the only way to do that in Fallujah was to write a letter. "This war is not like the big war�there are no big sweeping maneuvers with hundreds of tanks pouring over the border and so forth," Army Maj. Michael Mundell told his 17-year-old, Erica (nicknamed "Eddie"), on Friday, Oct. 27, 2006. "It's a fight of 10 man squads in the dark, of ambushes and snipers and IEDs. When I go out to fight, it's usually with less than 20 men ... And I go out to fight almost every day."
The pace, he admitted, was punishing.
"We are weary, Eddie, so very weary. I can't tell you how bone tired I am. There are times when we get back in and ... it is all I can do to drag myself from the truck and stagger up here to take off all the junk I gotta wear ... " His tone briefly brightened as he thought of Erica's life back home, where she was a senior at Meade County High School in Brandenburg, Ky.: "Tell all of your friends and your teachers that I said hello from Fallujah. I am doing well and our battalion is considered the best in the brigade. We are fighting the enemy and hopefully winning, though that is difficult to measure." He signed off with a pledge: "Never forget that your daddy loves you more than anything and that I will be home soon." Mundell could not keep that last promise. At a quarter to 2 on the afternoon of Friday, Jan. 5, 2007, he was killed by an IED while on patrol in Fallujah; the casket was closed at his funeral in Kentucky. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 1:53 am Post subject: |
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It's a good article and many of them were (and are) clearly dedicated, idealistic, and believe in what they are doing, which I respect even though I simply cannot understand what they are thinking sometimes.
For instance, when one says he thinks Iraqis should 'fight for their own freedom' I just cannot understand what he thinks he means by that. It's beyond me. The words seem so far divorced from relation to anything in concrete reality as to be meaningless.
They mostly seem to cast themselves in the same role as the liberators of Europe back in 1944, the same selfless noble sacrifice on behalf of the oppressed other...yet how can anyone possibly possibly think things are the same now as in WW2? A lot of these soldiers seem well-informed about the everyday situation in Iraq, but the historical perspective is terribly skewed. If you truly expect Iraqis to rise up and fight for their freedom you must think Baghdad is something like Paris in 1944. Why else would you believe something so absurd? |
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