Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

The type of news on Iraq you don’t get on TV, from a soldier we know, who will remain anonymous:

FIRST PERSON/OPINION

Via e-mail

I get out of here in three and a half weeks. It is actually starting to feel like it now. We are having our finance briefing and our “reintegration” briefing–basically it tells you not to go nuts when we get back to Germany–and I am finally beginning to pack. We actually have some of the advanced party for our replacement unit here now. It is interesting to see them with the glazed-eye stare we had when we got here.

My former NCOIC was severly injured in a terrible roadside bomb yesterday. He was in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle commander’s hatch when it exploded and some shrapnel hit him in the back of the neck. Luckily the convoy he was in was right next to a U.S. base so they managed to air-evacuate him almost immediately. He spent about 6 hours in surgery and they almost declared him dead twice. They finally managed to stabilize him but they weren’t showing any brain activity. So basically they thought he had brain stem damage. But this morning he was doing better and they are putting him under observation for 2 days to see if the swelling in his brain goes down before they try to evacuate him to Germany. My soldiers are pretty upset. He is now the 3rd soldier that I personally know who has been killed or severely injured here. He had a month left to go–he has a wife and 3 kids back in Germany. We are all just praying for his recovery.

The other bad news is that for some reason the stupid idiots at the Corps level JAG are deciding to clean out the jails here in Iraq. Well, instead of letting out the low-level weapons violators they are letting out the terrorists that are involved in putting out these roadside bombs–because they claim that we don’t have enough evidence against them. In the last two weeks three major figures in the main bad guy group here have gotten out–and we have already seen the results as one of our unit’s informants has already been assassinated. So it seems like everything we have worked for for the last year and the 13 deaths our unit has sustained has been for nothing. We are all pretty discouraged.

Anyway, that is about it from here. I’m hoping the next couple of weeks bring more good news than bad. A couple of my friends are on their way out here and I hope their experience will be OK.

Well, I must close for now. As usual, my love to all.