Live from Iraq! An Army family on the front lines

Letter and pix from Iraq ^ | 11/21/03 | Williams

[pabianice]

More New York Times lies revealed

Great to hear from you. I hope all is well with you and your family. It is so great to get messages from old friends and to see the intrest in supporting all the good we are trying to accomplish.

It would be great if you could get the word out on the type of things the military is doing over here. There is too much neagtive press about what is going on. Just the other day, an Iraqi doctor approached me on the street and thanked my soldiers for being there. He also offered me some sagacious advice. He told me we need to get more positive media on the air waves, because all the neagtive press does now is hurt the great strides we have made; water, electricty, fuel, security and not to mention getting the schools to begin operating. The AL Jezra network recently reported that we were on the streets beating children and stealing gold from Iraqis. Follow this up with a segment from CNN on how the troops in Iraq are not well recived. Where once this educated Doctor made a dollar a month for his services under the old Regime, he now can make 100 dollars a month. In the last 2 weeks my men and I have visited over 300 homes in the Mosul area, almost 99% of who we talked to were greatful for all we have done and continue to do.

Our soldiers have been in Iraq for over 11 months; the 101st ABN DIV (AASLT) is the only unit that still remains from the original group that led the attack to Baghdad; a testament to the excellence and professionalism of every one of the soldiers in the company and the division.

Unfortunately, the media has not been reporting all the good and positive things that our soldiers are doing daily, or about how much they personally believe in the cause. We know the impact we are having daily through the smiles and greetings we receive from the majority of the Iraqi people, they know the sacrifices we are willing to make and have made for freedom; freedom for all. This is about protecting people and their humanity and their rights to live free from oppression...

[stlnative]

Let there be no mistake, we know why we are here. We are here fighting terrorism in its purest form, we are preventing another 9-11, we are ensuring that the terrorists fight us on the ground of our choosing, not on our home soil. So that our own families can live free from fear.

God Bless You... Kevin & your wife along with all your other brothers & sisters who are over there with you!

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Bump, and out of here for 9 days. Have a great Thanks giving FRiends!

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"out of here for 9 days"

Have a safe trip!
Happy Thanksgiving
God Bless You both

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

God Bless you too FRiend!! Don't eat too much turkey!! :o)

[redrock]

Excellent!!!!

redrock

[Valin]

Bump and bookmark.

All we can do is keep telling people that it's nowhere near as bad as the media makes it out to be.

"There were good-faith disagreements in your country and mine over the course and timing of military action in Iraq. Whatever has come before, we now have only two options: to keep our word, or to break our word. The failure of democracy in Iraq would throw its people back into misery and turn that country over to terrorists who wish to destroy us. Yet democracy will succeed in Iraq, because our will is firm, our word is good, and the Iraqi people will not surrender their freedom."
Some guy from Texas, George....(I forget the last name). :-)

[Valin]

Will you bring us presents when you come back? :-)

[txradioguy]

Thought all of the good Canteeners would see the irony in this. We;re over ehre trying to give the Iraqi's the freedoms we enjoy in the U.S. and back home the so-called Islamic "leaders" like Ibrahim Hooper at CAIR are seeing skulls and crossed bones in ice cubes with a silly B.C. cartoon. Credit for this article goes to opinionjournal.com Enjoy.

"The crybabies at the Council on American Islamic Relations say they're being persecuted in the funny papers. At issue is the Nov. 10 B.C. strip, drawn by Johnny Hart. The first panel features a man walking uphill, approaching an outhouse. Then the word SLAM appears, and the second panel shows the outhouse sitting atop the hill. The third panel has a cartoon bubble, as the man inside the outhouse says, "Is it just me, or does it stink in here?"

That's kind of stupid, but why would it be anti-Islamic? The Washington Post explains:

The first public questioning of this cartoon arose in a washingtonpost.com chat Tuesday, when a reader noted that the cartoon seemed to make no sense, except metaphorically. The reader noted that the cartoon contained six crescent moons--three in the sky, and three on the outhouse door--and wondered if this might have been a veiled slur on the world's 1 billion practicing Muslims.

The CAIR e-mail mentioned the moons, and also noted that Hart had drawn a prominent sound effect--"SLAM"--between two frames to accompany the closing of the outhouse door. The SLAM was stacked vertically, in the shape of an I, and could be seen to signify "Islam." The cartoon appeared on the 15th day of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.

First they came for B.C., then they came for the Wizard of Id . . ."


Meanwhile the war here in Iraq Continues.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Thank You Sir for your input!

Those not familiar with FReeper txradioguy check this out.

Audio Reports
from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team

Click on the patch and you can see and hear the voice
of our own txradioguy reporting from somewhere incountry.

Thank you, John, for your service to our country.

[txradioguy]

Actually there is an independent Iraqi news organization trying to get off the ground. They've hired tv execs from the U.S. as "advisers". It's called Iraqi Media Network. Problem is, most of the people here don't trust them because they think that because the folks at the State Dept. are helping to fund it, it plays nothing but U.S. propaganda. I've seen it, it's not anymore true than when you hear the DUmmies say that Fox gets their daily talking points from Karl Rove. Brokaw at NBC did a hatchet job on the IMN about a month ago. Seems that funding for the current IMN channel and a second all news channel were in the $89 billion spending bill that congress just passed for over here. Ol' Cornhusker Tom had that stupid smirk on his grille the whole time he was introducing the story.

[txradioguy]

probably the ONLY way you're going to find out the good that we soldiers are doing here on a daily basis is to go to the military websites where military journalists like myself post our stories. Here are a few:


www.army.mil/srtv

www.dod.mil

www.defendamerica.mil

www.1ad.army.mil

www.campbell.army.mil

http://www.riley.army.mil/OurPost/CurrentNews.asp (This is who I write and broadcast for)

Also, actually a tip of the Kevlar needs to go to Dr. Bob Arnot at MSNBC and to The Fox News guys that are here with us. They are really making an effort to go out with the units and get the good stories and not just focus on the "body count".

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"Also, actually a tip of the Kevlar needs to go to Dr. Bob Arnot at MSNBC and to The Fox News guys that are here with us.
They are really making an effort to go out with the units and get the good stories and not just focus on the "body count"

It's a shame their editors stateside keep their stories from us.
If it's not some sensational murder, or celebrity scandal we just don't get to see it.
Michael Jackson had a 6 full minutes at the top of the hour on FOX when he was arrested the other day.
Good news on what the troops do in Iraq, 0 minutes.

[txradioguy]

I know. But to Arnot's credit he's been brave enough to be quoted in Newsweek as being in disbelief at how his fellow "journalists" are ignoring the good stories over here. There's actually a couple of Blogs that are pro DUmmies that are trying to create a conspiracy about the "timing" of the whole MJ thing. That is was "timed" to happen now to take the heat off of the President over Iraq and the spotlight off the nine ninny's trying to take W's office.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

This is where I check for the "real news" on what all of you are doing over there.

Thanks again for Standing the Watch!

[blackie]

Ping for our awesome troops who should not have to both save civilization and tell the world ~ Bump!

[StarCMC]

THANK GOD FOR FR! (yes, I am shouting!) I am convinced that Viet Nam was lost by the media. It will not happen in Iraq and FR and the internet are a big reason why not!

We have the BEST military in the world, bar none. Hoo-yah!

[blackie]

Live from Iraq! An Army family on the front lines ~ Bump!

[Indy Pendance]

Thanks, another good thread to send to my kids. Bookmarked.

[VOA]

More New York Times lies revealed

here's the book on the subject:
Journalistic Fraud: How The New York Times Distorts the News
and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted by Bob Kohn

I got to hear the author interviewed by Hank Hannegraff (sp?) on his "Bible Answerman"
radio show.

While it may seem weird that a Christian apologist (Hannegraff) would be
discussing this book, he said he wanted his audience to learn how to spot journalistic
fraud anywhere, even in the Christian press.

BTW, one caller to the show was the father of a soldier who'd just returned from Iraq;
his son has been stunned at the deceptive and negative reportage stateside.
According to the caller, something like only 1-2% of the thousands of daily
US Military patrols in Iraq results in any sort of violent exchange.

[VOA]

thanks for the list of links...
and I've always got the feeling that Dr. Bob is one of the good guys.
I remember when he covered one of the food crises in Africa and got himself
pretty sick in the process.