Hey Guys, sorry it’s been so long since I’ve sent anything but a quick note to you individually. However things have been pretty hectic since the end of hostilities and the start of the real war. Despite what the assholes in the press like to say over and over:

1. We did expect some armed resistance from the Ba’ath Party and Feydaheen;
2. It isn’t any worse than expected;
3. Things are getting better each day, and
4. The morale of the troops is A-1, except for the normal bitching and griping.

My brief love affair with the press, especially the guys who had the cajones to be embedded with the troops during the fighting, is probably over, especially since we are back being criticized by the same Roland Headly types that used to hang around the Palestine Hotel drinking Baghdad Bob’s whiskey and parroting his ridiculous B.S.
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I’m no longer baby-sitting the pukes from CNN and the canned hams from the networks, but have a combat mission coordinating a bunch of A teams, seeking, finding and rooting out the mostly non-Iraqis that are well-armed, well-paid (in U.S. dollars) and always waiting to wail for the press and then shoot some GI in the back in the midst of a crowd.

The only reason the GIs are pissed (not demoralized) is that they cannot touch, must less waste, those taunting bags of gas that scream in their faces and riot on cue when they spot a camera man from ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN or NBC. If they did, then they know the next nightly news will be about how chaotic things are and how much the Iraqi people hate us.

Some do. But the vast majority don’t and more and more see that the GIs don’t start anything, are by-and-large friendly, and very compassionate, especially to kids and old people. I saw a bunch of 19 year-olds [deleted] not return fire coming from a mosque until they got a group of elderly civilians out of harm’s way. So did the Iraqis.

A bunch of bad guys used a group of women and children as human shields. The GIs surrounded them and negotiated their surrender fifteen hours later and when they discovered a three year-old girl had been injured by the big tough guys throwing her down a flight of stairs, the GIs called in a MedVac helicopter to take her and her mother to the nearest field hospital. The Iraqis watched it all, and there hasn’t been a problem in that neighborhood since. How many such stories, and there are hundreds of them, ever get reported in the fair and balanced press? You know, nada.
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The place is still a mess but most of it has been for years. But the Hospitals are open and are in the process of being brought into the 21st Century. The MOs and visiting surgeons from home are teaching their docs new techniques and One American pharmaceutical company (you know, the kind that all the hippies like to scream about as greedy) donated enough medicine to stock 45 hospital pharmacies for a year.

Safe water is more available. Electricity has been restored to pre-war levels but saboteurs keep cutting the lines. And The old Ba’ath big shots are upset because they can’t get fuel for their private generators. One actually complained to General McKeirnan, who told him it was a rough world.
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Our search and destroy missions are largely at night, free of reporters and generally terrifying to those brave warriors of Allah.

The only thing that frightens them more is hearing the word "Gitmo". The word is out that a trip to Guantanimo Bay is not a Caribbean vacation and they usually start squealing like the little mice they are, when an interrogator mentions "Gitmo".
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As the movie quoted old General Patton, "God help me, I love it." I do. Nothing more satisfying than working with the BEST damn soldiers in the world, flushing real human poop down the drain and giving some folks a chance at trying freedom for a change.

They may learn to like it and then my great-great-grandson won’t have to worry about some maniac trying to destroy the planet.
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P.S. A couple of you asked me about Curly and his two sons, Dumb and Dumber. I still think we got him and one son, but the slugs may have gotten away. If they are alive, I can’t believe they are hanging around here. Even Curly isn’t that stupid ... then again. He might be in Syria or Lebanon. If he is, he’s too moronic to keep quiet, then we’ll get him. I promise.