Iraq: What's it really like?

Hey Smooth,

This question is specifically for you (although there may be other ILP members in Iraq!). What is it like in Iraq at the moment? You get all sorts of media coverage on it from boths sides but you never know who to believe. What is life like as a soldier out there? Obviously there’s some stuff you can’t say but I’m personally extremely interested to know anything that’s going on there.

What’s the general feeling of the troops? Do you have contact with the Iraqi people? What’s their general feeling towards US? We’ve seen protests against US in the media recently especially from the Shi’ite Muslims. Are things worse now that Saddam is gone or are a lot of people very happy?

Any info you could give, objective or personal would be great!

• ben

This is going to be long Ben. Pardon me as I re-post something I posted over on DFS.

You are correct that there isn’t much I can say, so this might get vague.

The Marines are motivated, and soldiers are pissed off. Nobody wants to be out there. But you will find more Marines enjoying themselves. It’s weird because overall everyone is sort of having fun.

We would sit outside at night and look up at some of the clearest skies any of us have seen and under star lit skies we all talk. We talk about politics, philosophy, literature and most than anything we discuss our lives before being deployed. We never discuss the war, or what is going on.

We joke more than anything. It’s like trying to get your mind off what you are doing. And everyone has everyone else. I say this much, I sleep in a tent with 30 other guys. And I’ve met these jarheads about three and a half weeks ago. And I would trust anyone of these guys over any of my old friends from before the military. We have bonded and that is the general feeling of the troops.

I get to see alot of the personell because of my magic. The same thing happened last year. The word spreads quick that there is a magician on base, and everybody is bringing their friends to see my tricks. So a lot of times I’m around military members from units other than mine, they are smiling.

I did. I did tricks for the little kids out there and they would give me little gifts for it. It was cute. We would also give the kids the candies out of our MRE’s. We then would give them sticks and tell them not to let anyone in beyond a certain point. LOL… The kids would beat the crap out of anyone that would dare come five feet near the road. It was funny as hell.

Whom the kids? The people or the service men and women?

I always wonder what all these might seem to one of those kids. What are they thinking about all these events. The people that I was in front of, all seem to love it. Others were indifferent. I tried my best to stay away from the natives.

Hard to tell. We don’t get commentories, or are priviliged to much information about what is going on out here. But… I’ll say this much. I’ve been out of Diego since March 19th and it seems that the people are as is. They don’t walk around with smiles on their faces all the time, and they don’t throw rocks at us all the time. It’s weird how the media can paint a picture.

Also I can’t tell which people are Muslims, which aren’t. There is also a portion of people out here that are from other countries and come to Iraq to work. There are more dynamics that I don’t know about. I just focuse on my magic tricks and planning for XXI Entertainment.

By the way, the thread he took that from is here - dreamsforsale.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=22. It’s about Ted Kennedy - that’s the “you” i was referring to in the quotes (just so you understand the context). I also used the word “only” when referring to deaths, because i was comparing it to Vietnam’s 58,000.

Nos.

There are a lot of men and women dying so that we can live the way we do here in the United States. Everyday is like 9-11 in Iraq. I just want to thank all the men in the military (all around the world) because I understand the pain their families feel. I guess anyone who has ever lost someone knows how their families feel.

P1: if you support the war, you approve of armed service action in iraq.
P2: i do not support war
C1: i do not support armed service action in iraq.

you have mistakenly equated armed service action in iraq with the soldiers. i think this is because you think that one can only support them by hoping that they are successful (whatever that means in war). in fact, one can support them by hoping that the fewest fatalities occur on both sides, and that military occupation of iraq ends asap.

What would you have your armed service do? The only way a military can function is by discipline. A soldier faces difficult choices, and cannot operate as a lone agent, but must, in most circumstances, respect the chain of command. Else there is no point in a country having armed forces. (Sadly, mankind has not yet reached the point at which this dream can be realised.)

i would also like to thank all members of the coalition forces for risking their lives, and for catalysing the eradication of a malicious regime.

Smooth,

All I can say is thank you. And I hope you get to come home soon.

Oh no Gabrielle, thank you.

And don’t thank me, the guys and girls you need to thank are out there sleeping in foxholes everynight. Due to a knee injury a long time ago I couldn’t join Force Recon or be a grunt, so I get to be in relative safety. As you can see, I get to be on this forum most of the day. But I’ll make sure I’ll forward everybodies thanks. I perform often in front of all the troops, and since I have their attention, I’ll let them know.

You could ask any of the British Royal Air Force personell that was stationed in Ahmed Al Jaber last year during the war if they know any American Magicians. I was sort of popular out there, philosophizing, giving riddles and doing magic tricks.

~ Smooth

Perhaps you should view the thread, because as i said, you must understand the context.

Nos.