Move America Forward: Surge plus Iraqi Love for America equals Success (Back From Iraq)

Move America Forward. ^ | Jan 6, 2008 | Catherine Moy

[Syncro]

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Sunday, January 06, 2008

Posted By:
Catherine Moy
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Surge plus Iraqi Love for America equals Success

After a two-week stint outside of the Green Zone in Iraq, Move America Forward staffers have returned with news and photographs that can be summed up in four words: American troops are winning.

“They are making a difference now,” said Mary Pearson, MAF deputy executive director and professional photographer, whose photos will appear in the Sacramento Union and here.

MAF Chairman Melanie Morgan traveled to the Middle East and interviewed troops during her stay in Kuwait City. Morgan, who is also an award-winning journalist and radio talk show host for KSFO radio in San Francisco, was on her second trip to the area. She witnessed stunning changes in the area and in the morale of U.S. troops.

“The Surge is working, and America’s troops are helping secure safety for U.S. and Iraqi citizens,” Morgan said.

Pearson, MAF Communications Director Danny Gonzalez and Gold Star mother Debbie Lee, worked out of Forward Operating Base (FOB) Falcon and traveled on daily missions where they spoke with Iraqi citizens, interviewed Iraqi and American soldiers, ate in mess halls, and investigated Baghdad and Ramadi, once a hell-hole of violence and death.

They did not witness Iraqi citizens welcoming American troops with flowers and candy. It was much more personal. Iraqi mothers sent their children out to hug U.S. soldiers. Iraqi men invited U.S. soldiers into their homes for tea prepared by their wives and daughters. Our troops are changing the minds and winning the hearts of the native people of Iraq.

MAF’s staffers walked the very streets that were once crippled by violence and splattered with blood from innocence and our troops taken in roadside bomb or enemy fire. While they wore protective gear on their patrols – which is quite heavy - not once did they fear for their lives. The long haul that American troops and our allies began on March 19, 2003, has changed the landscape of the Muslim country once ruled by a brutal dictator and sworn enemy of the United States, Saddam Hussein.

“I figured I was with the finest. There was no reason to worry,” Pearson said. “These faces were like my sons.”

As photo-journalists will do, Pearson got up close and personal with native Iraqis, some of whom did not want their pictures taken. There are a number of reasons for such camera shyness, such as security. But every once in a while Pearson would come across a man who shunned the camera and it was clear her subject was on the lam, perhaps up to no good.

Like any large city in the world, Baghdad has its population of miscreants, those who still fight for the lost cause of Saddam Hussein, or who fight over religious differences that arise in the Shiite/Sunni belief systems.

But children, even girls, now come out to play in streets that are still mostly populated by men. Women, when they appear in public, often wear full cover. It is a choice, though, not inflicted upon them by a Taliban-style regime or the thugs that still beat women in Iran for wearing the wrong colors.

Lee, whose son Marc Alan Lee was the first Navy Seal to give his life in Iraq, was comfortable on the streets of Baghdad where markets are booming and Iraqi children play in the streets and parks.

The MAF staffers spent Christmas Day in Baghdad where they walked the streets and saw peaceful scenes that carried the message from 2,000 years ago when Christ was born in Bethlehem.

“We witnessed the large group of children playing on the new slide and park that had just been constructed 3 weeks before. It was amazing how packed the streets were with people,” Lee said. “I’ve never seen streets in America that had such a large percentage of people out in their neighborhoods. It was an amazing turnaround from the pictures we saw in the briefing when we first arrived. When this unit took command in February, there were no shops open, the streets were barren, and garbage was thrown and piled everywhere. They would regularly find bodies of the locals that the insurgents had brutally murdered for speaking to the American soldiers.”

Pearson captured pictures of the children laughing and playing at the park. And she saw something else that will forever remain burned in her memory just like the photos she clicks with an artist’s eye.

“I saw men and women, couples, walking up and down the streets together,” Pearson said. “They were strolling, like in an old fashioned movie. The same couples, up and down. They were enjoying the day. It was so beautiful.”

Christmas also meant celebrating with American troops. Move America Forward collected more than 200,000 Christmas and Hanukkah cards and delivered them. Each message from America lightened the souls of our fighting men and women.

The rest can be Read Here

[Syncro]

The MAF crew that headed out to Iraq on December 18th after the Honoring Heroes at the Holidays Tour that ended in New York December 16th has returned.

They collected 200,000 Christmas and Hanukkah cards and distributed many of them across Iraq.

[Syncro]

A couple of Troops enjoying their Christmas cards in Iraq.

[freema]

I’m glad I didn’t see those Christmas pictures at the link until now. (I don’t know where to buy an industrial strength mop.)

Wish I’d been there, too : (

[Syncro]

Yes, isn't it a great report?

Gold Star Mother Debbie Lee with out Brave Honorable Troops in Iraq at Christmas time.

[Syncro]

Melanie Morgan with one of our finest in Kuwait

[xtinct]

American troops are winning. “They are making a difference now"

[Traveler59]

Move America Forward collected more than 200,000 Christmas and Hanukkah cards and delivered them. Each message from America lightened the souls of our fighting men and women.

I will personally vouch for this statement. The cards and letters that I and my troops received meant that someone, somewhere, actually cared about what we were doing. I made it a point to answer every card I received.

-Traveler

[freema]

It is. But I wanna go : (

That must have been so awesome.

[Syncro]

Traveler, thanks SO much for your service.

It’s great to get feedback from those of you that got the cards and also to see how much they are appreciated.

Many of the cards that kids made (And there were literally thousands of them from children) even had their phone numbers on them!

I’m betting that some of them got calls.

How great of you to answer all the cards you received.

Again, thanks for fighting to keep our great Country safe!

[pattty]

They did not witness Iraqi citizens welcoming American troops with flowers and candy. It was much more personal. Iraqi mothers sent their children out to hug U.S. soldiers. Iraqi men invited U.S. soldiers into their homes for tea prepared by their wives and daughters. Our troops are changing the minds and winning the hearts of the native people of Iraq.

Awesome!

[pattty]

Traveler, Thank you for your service...:-)

[ARE SOLE]

Thanks bro.

[doosee]

I think all agree hearing news like this is priceless. Bravo to all of our brave soldiers and the MAF volunteers who deserve so much credit.

[Syncro]

The rest of Cat's article:

Pearson did visit with a couple of guys who seemed blue. They were thousands of miles away from their families, in a war zone, on the day most Americans were opening presents, playing games and eating loads of food. And praying – for our troops.

“Everywhere we went, we thanked them for their service,” Pearson said. “This whole tour was about our troops.”

Traveling outside of Baghdad with the military is an adventure. Pearson, Lee, and Gonzalez hitched a ride on a helicopter to Ramadi, a city that was once overrun by terrorists, insurgents and outsiders from Iran whose welcome wagons included powerful bombs and other

This is were Lee’s son, Marc Alan, made his last stand and gave his life. This is where a camp was named after Marc Alan. This was an emotional stop.

We cannot talk much about it for security reasons. But a mother who suddenly loses a child always wonders about that child’s last moments. Lee stood in the sand on a dark night in the land where her brave son was “redeployed to Heaven,” as she likes to say.

Loss is a part of life, but it is not natural for a mother to lose her son. Parents should go first. In Iraq, violence still scars the countryside. But Pearson, Lee and Gonzalez witnessed the light that our troops have given the world with their sweat, professionalism, tenacity and their lives.

We are winning in Iraq. But, more importantly, we are safer because children hold our soldiers’ hands. They play on new slides. They go to school. Shops are open. These children and their families will not forget the Americans who saved them first from Saddam Hussein, and then from the terrorists who came to steal their lives.

Catmoy@moveamericaforward.org

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

THANKS TROOPS and thank you MAF for going as our emissary!

BUMP!

[Syncro]

These pictures have been added to the Original Article:

[DrDeb]

THANK YOU for posting this amazing article!

[freema]

So glad they were able to brighten up a Blue Christmas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbmp-9kudO4&feature=related

[Retain Mike]

Contrary to Democrat chants, U.S. troops are best employed in Iraq to win the Global War on Terror. Minimum penance, considering spiritless, pathetic responses to fifteen previous terrorist attacks, obliges U.S. persistence for Iraq representative government. Highlights of our servile behavior include Carter’s failure to defend Iranian embassy sovereignty. Under Reagan, Marines were forbidden to load weapons when guarding their barracks, and we ran after Hezbollah killed 241 in Beirut. Under Bush #1, Arabs around Basra revolted with U.S. encouragement, and then were abandoned to Hussein’s retribution. Under Clinton, we fled Somalia after 18 Rangers were killed, and allowed Hussein to eject U.N. inspectors.

The State Department now reports many African, Oriental and Asian countries willing to confront terrorism, instead of accommodating these bestial elements to become squalid societies. Our credibility as an ally requires our troops sustaining initiatives Iraqi people are taking for bottom up development of stable neighborhoods and cities. Positive changes at the local level allows emergence of moderate leaders demanding and/or facilitating national reconciliation on difficult issues.

Sustaining confrontational initiatives of African, Oriental and Asian countries brings Global War on Terror victory by frustrating plans, breaking alliances and fracturing organizations of Wahhabi jihadists into ever less effective units. Without cities, countries or armies they live out unnaturally shortened lives as pariahs. Sun Tzu would consider mobilizing allies to minimize our own bloodshed, the greatest achievement of warfare. We will never again fight “The Long War” so cheaply.

[RWGuy]

You definitely don’t see any of these positive reports coming out of the MSM. It is almost radio silence over there, so you know things must be good.