Free Republic

<p>I would like to start off by saying thank you to everyone for your outpour of support for me during my time of suffering. Your prayers, concerns, and well wishes meant a lot to me, and I hold them in my heart. Unfortunately, as is with all letters of mine, they are written date by date. This will keep you reading and not jump into the climax portion. Sorry but boredom is mandatory, and there is no cheating allowed.</p>

4th, 2005 in Iraq... Thomas Paine wrote, “We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.” Is the right of freedom an exclusive right? Is the right to live without fear or oppression meant only for those fortunate living in the United States? Why am I here in Iraq? What is my purpose, my goal, my motivation? My hope and prayer is that I am here because freedom isn’t exclusive and all people should be able to live in a world free of oppression and...

AR-RAMADI, Iraq -- A letter to his wife by a Florida National Guard soldier simply intended to express his belief in America's mission in Iraq. But the soldier didn't realize that a show business personality would latch on to his letter and make a political statement. Spc. Joshua Madsen, 26, of Indian Harbor Beach, serves as a rifleman with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry. Stationed at a base called The Combat Outpost in the eastern section of Ar-Ramadi, one of the toughest parts of the Sunni Triangle of Iraq, he has dodged explosions and bullets on patrol. "I know...