POSTCARDS FROM IRAQ FRONT LINE

NY Post ^ | September 2, 2007 | Ralph Peters

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* Scrawny Iraqi police recruits chattering like excited birds as they marveled at the tattoos on a Marine weightlifter's torso: A flesh-and-blood metaphor for muscular, over-the-top America and our relationship with malnourished, bewildered Iraq.

* Leaning on the rail along a moonlit arcade in Fallujah, analyzing Civil War campaigns and commanders with 1st Sgt. Howard Kraemer. Speaking earnestly of a bygone conflict in the midst of the present one, we forgot the troubles of the day and the slap-down heat that lingered into the night as we debated Grant's decisions in Virginia and Lee's hushed-up deficiencies.

We were standing in Iraq's Atlanta, discussing Sherman. For one of those lightning instants when you grasp something beyond words, we both felt the timelessness of war and soldiering.

* Sitting in a plywood-partition office in a combat outpost with an American captain and an Iraqi Provincial Security Forces general as the Iraqi "complied" with the captain's request for three bids from local firms to deliver gravel to a dirt motor pool before the rains began.

Eager to close a deal that wouldn't do his own retirement savings any harm, the general laid down three pieces of paper. They were identical, except that one specified $800 per truckload, a second $750 and a third $700.

It was obvious that the bids were all from the same source and that the drill was simply to do things in the peculiar way Americans expected. And when the captain, alert to the legal ramifications, declined to commit the funds, the general began a one-sided bout of haggling, offering additional services at no extra cost. The mutual incomprehension was almost total.

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bump

[ARE SOLE]

Here is an impartial bump.

Regards

[Jewels1091]

love the last couple of paragraphs!!