Impressed with the troops

Finally, a long-overdue blog, although I'm in a rush to catch lunch before the dining facility closes and to get a much-needed haircut before interviewing two soldiers from the 298th who experienced gunfire and an IED during a convoy run.

Was on Al Sharpton's radio show last night, although Spc. Charles Burke spent more time talking with him than I did. It's funny. Earlier in the day, Sgt. 1st Clas Richard M. Lee was telling me how he heard Sharpton speak when he joined a protest in Florida over the 2000 election voting.

I'm impressed with the soldiers. They each have a story that would be worthy of a book. At least the older ones do. These women and men deal with the same things most people deal with back home: wives and husbands in the states needing guidance on discipline or whether to get their children that first cell phone, high school graduation or that first day of kindergarten, illnesses at home, what bills to pay, etc.

Most of all, they believe in what they're doing and they believe that they can really make this country better, despite the violence and the political situation. Although they have no illusions about the largely discredited U.S. motivations for they invasion, most people I've talked to feel that any U.S. pullout now would guarantee the rending of the country.

The cool thing about what they say is that, unlike the Bush adminstration, their concern is the Iraqi people and not some political or economic aim. Since this is a blog, I can drop my objectivity and express my anger and outrage at why these soldiers are here and my hope that whatever happens after Nov. 7, whoever's in control will make this right: for the U.S. soldiers and, more importantly, for Iraq.

When I read about unaccounted for Iraq Army weapons or the Senate Intelligence Committee report confirming that outright lies underpinned claims about Hussein's arsenal and connections to al Quaeda, it makes me cringe. At this point, these soldiers deserve the truth from their leaders, not non-sensical and overworn platitudes. They need hard answers, and they need to know that the managers of this occupation are managing it efficiently.