IN WHAT IS BEGINNING TO RESEMBLE PILING ON, ANOTHER SOLDIER HAS HIS SAY ABOUT THE MEDIA COVERAGE

We've got something on the order of 135,000 soldiers there. Reckon how many reporters CNN, and the networks have there combined? Can't be more than 50, 75 tops.

Our soldiers are on the ground, every day, in some way interacting with the Iraqi people.

Their reporters tend to stand on top of hotels with pretty views in the backgrounds of their shots.

Who would you believe?

As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened. I am sorry that I have not been able to visit all of you during my two-week leave back home. And just so you can rest at night knowing something is happening in Iraq that is noteworthy, I thought I would pass this on to you. This is the list of things that has happened in Iraq recently. Please share it with your friends and compare it to the version that your paper/TV is putting out:

* Over 400,000 kids have up-to-date immunizations.
* School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war.
* Over 1,500 schools have been renovated and rid of the weapons stored there so education can occur.
* The port of Um Qasar was renovated so grain can be off-loaded from ships faster.
* The country had its first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August.
* Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever inIraq.
* The country now receives two times the electrical power it did before the war.
* 100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed, compared to 35% before the war.
* Elections are taking place in every major city, and city councils are in place.
* Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city.
* Over 60,000 police are patrolling the streets.
* Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country.
* Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side with US soldiers.
* Over 400,000 people have telephones for the first time ever
* Students are taught field sanitation and hand-washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs.
* An interim constitution has been signed.
* Girls are allowed to attend school.
* Textbooks that don't mention Saddam are in the schools for the first time in 30 years.

Don't believe for one second that these people do not want us there. I have met many, many people from Iraq that want us there, and in a bad way. They say they will never see the freedoms we talk about, but they hope their children will. We are doing a good job in Iraq and I challenge anyone, anywhere to dispute me on these facts.

So if you happen to run into John Kerry, be sure to give him my email address and send him to Denison, Iowa. This soldier will set him straight. If you are like me--very disgusted with how this period of rebuilding has been portrayed--e-mail this to a friend and let them know there are good things happening.

Ray Reynolds, SFC
Iowa Army National Guard
234th Signal Battalion

Emphasis added.

"YOU GUYS CARRY GUNS, WE CARRY SOAP"

CPT Patti, and many other soldiers from 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st AD are now located at Camp Victory North.

And now...so is a pretty good PX. Good for 'em.

The Army and Air Force Exchange Service opened the doors to their new 30,000-square-foot Post Exchange (PX) late last week in the Division Life Support Area of Camp Victory North.

According to David Schloss, the AAFES general manager for the Baghdad area, plans are underway to develop a diverse food court. Right now, Burger King is the only confirmed food concession for the PX, but other restaurant chains are awaiting approval...

The store at the Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) that closes this Friday has 7,000 square feet of selling space. The new PX is more than four times that size. The building's dimensions also include storage areas and offices, according to Jonathan Tokar, the general manager for all AAFES operations in Iraq.

Other concessions that tend to be around a PX won't be encased within the 30,000 square-feet of the building, AAFES officials noted. Concession shops such as barber, beauty, sewing and alterations, food concessions, and gift shops will be outside the structure.

An array of local venders will also be found outside the new PX. The current plan is for all the venders at BIAP to move to North Victory, Schloss said.

AND IT ISN'T BECAUSE THE TERRORISTS HAVE ALL SUDDENLY FOUND JESUS

There were 190 acts of international terrorism in 2003, a slight decrease from the 198 attacks that occurred in 2002, and a drop of 45 percent from the level in 2001 of 346 attacks.

The figure in 2003 represents the lowest annual total of international terrorist attacks since 1969.

SATURDAY, MAY 1st

Day 356 of CPT Patti's deployment.

YOU NEED 15 MINUTES OF QUIET AND A BOX OF KLEENEX

Because this REQUIRES your attention.

And out of respect for him, and for others like him, his will be the last posting of the day.

GOOD CATCH

Sarah finds a great read. Read it here...well worth your time.

ITS GOOD TO HAVE FRIENDS

A London academic who risked his life to save military colleagues in Iraq has become the first foreign civilian to be given a US medal for bravery.

Dr Andrew Rathmell, 37, repeatedly ran into the line of fire to treat injured soldiers during a mortar and rocket attack while visiting a base north of Baghdad in January.

He was knocked over and temporarily deafened by the assault, which killed two US soldiers.

PERSPECTIVE

Another Army Surgeon gains some.

In addition to service members, the doctors treated Iraqi prisoners and civilians, some of whom had chronic conditions that had been left untreated for years.

"That was a very rewarding part of being over there, to provide some of the medical care to the civilians," he said.

Since returning in February, Matsumoto said he has gained new perspective on the trials of non-combat life, such as waiting in lines or getting stuck in traffic.

"I'm sitting in traffic and I'm like, 'Hey this is great,' " he said.

A CASE STUDY

Why on earth should it take 59 years to erect a monument to "The Greatest Generation" and their contributions to freedom?

Certainly, I believe, it takes a while for the import of such an undertaking to transform from "event" to "historical watershed" in the minds of nations. And no doubt immediately after WWII there was war fatigue that couldn't abide further reflection on the war to dampen the national celebration of its end.

But there is more to the story.

A handful of folks who do not come from The America I Live In blocked this monument citing EPA regulations and architectural style objections at a time when the Veterans of this war were dying at a rate of 1100 per day.

Finally a resolute congressman stepped forward and did what, undoubtedly, an overwhelming majority of Americans felt was the right thing to do.

As a result, The Greatest Generation has its memorial. As it should be, but would not be if we continued to allow a minority to dissuade us from doing that which is right.

Led by the National Coalition to Save Our Mall, foes of the project objected that it marred the open sweep of the Mall and intruded on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial.

They also complained that the National Park Service violated federal laws and regulations by pushing through the project without undertaking the proper environmental impact studies.

Others complained that architect Friedrich St. Florian's original design was too massive and resembled the neoclassical Fascist style used by German architect Albert Speer for Nazi monuments and buildings.

Numerous lawsuits were filed to block the World War II project, but none succeeded. Some 22 public hearings were held, many marked by angry debate.

Finally, in 2001, in 2001, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, a World War II veteran, introduced legislation that virtually exempted the memorial project from any law, federal regulation or judicial review. It was approved overwhelmingly.

"We want to be there when this memorial is opened," Stevens said.

"WE DON'T WANT TO HURT ANYONE WHO DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE HURT"

Just before 10:30 a.m. Thursday, 1st Lt. Nicholas Bradley crouched next to an Iraqi boy, telling him he’s going to live. The boy, about 12, was bleeding from shrapnel wounds in his back, near his spinal column, and his arm.

The boy couldn’t move his legs, couldn’t feel anything as Bradley probed his feet. But the platoon leader kept talking to him soothingly as medical help arrived. Bradley held the boy’s hand while repeating, “Hey, buddy. You’re good. You’re gonna be all right,” sounding like he believed it, too.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this...

Rolling through the Al Khadrah neighborhood just outside the Blackjack’s gates, Bradley, a 27-year-old from Salt Lake City spotted the fresh pile of dirt on the side of the road.

“The trash starts to look familiar, believe it or not,” Bradley said of the second nature scanning skills many soldiers learn.

So, his platoon pulled over to deal with a roadside bomb. With the area secure, bomb explosives soldiers from the 752nd Ordnance Company out of Fort Sill, Okla., arrived and prepared to detonate the bomb’s 155 mm artillery shell.

As they worked, locals gathered. Between turns at trying to unsnarl traffic, Bradley and his team — Sgt. Jeremy Lewis and Spc. Timothy Heim — talked about how this fit a recent pattern of attacks in which insurgents wait until bomb disposal teams arrive, then attack with mortars.

Seconds later, their fears came true.

Three mortar rounds landed only about 50 feet from their up-armored Humvee.

Miraculously, no soldiers were injured. But two small Iraqi boys lay dead. A third, older boy tried to drag himself to safety.

Bradley, Heim, Lewis and the rest of the soldiers somehow stayed almost supernaturally calm. Although they expected rocket-propelled grenades to follow the mortars, they rushed to check the bodies of the children, and to drag the wounded boy to safety.

“God, that’s horrible,” Bradley said quietly after the situation stabilized...

Despite their outward nonchalance, Bradley, Heim and Lewis would like more than anything to fight the enemy straight up.

“We don’t want to hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve to be hurt,” Bradley says.

Insurgents lobbing mortars into a crowded neighborhood “shows they don’t care,” he says. “IEDs, RPGs and mortars guarantee civilian casualties,” he adds.

“If they really cared, they would wait till we were in an open field, and say, ‘Let’s do it.’ But they’re terrorists.”...

Thursday was an especially bad day around Baghdad. But on the positive side, they found and destroyed two roadside bombs.

“If there’s any good that came out of it,” Bradley says, “that’s two IEDs that won’t blow up convoys and kill soldiers.”

In the process, they somehow held onto their humanity and to their morale.

A BAD DAY

I don't know to which units these soldiers belonged. However, I can tell you they were not from the 1st Brigade. That is all I know at this point.

Eight soldiers from a Germany-based 1st Armored Division unit were killed Thursday when a car bomb exploded as the soldiers cleared a road of explosives south of Baghdad, military officials said.

The bombing that killed the eight 1st AD soldiers happened at 11:30 a.m. near the town of Mahmoudiyah, where the team was removing roadside bombs from a key highway south of the capital, officials said in a statement. A driver in a station wagon neared the team then ?detonated an explosive device,? killing eight soldiers and wounding four, the statement said.

THE CARE WE TAKE...THE RESPECT WE DON'T SEEM TO GET

My thanks to John for these links.

Referring back to Secretary Rumsfeld's remarks on Wednesday referring to the LA Times prejudicial headline.

According to BG Kimmet

Kimmitt said the Marines called in the strike only after taking fire from the minaret the second time that day and realizing that their return fire was not enough to take out the enemy. This, he said, left the Marines with a choice:

"Am I going to let my fellow Marines die, or am I going to recognize that that minaret has lost its protected status under international law and is being used as a firing platform and needs to go away?"

The Marines "made the right choice," Kimmitt said, by calling in precision strikes that toppled the minaret but inflicted "a minimal amount of collateral damage ... to any other part of that mosque."

And now, I want you to see for yourself the before and after pictures of that mosque. Go look here now.

And ask yourself...did you read this story and see these photos in your newspaper or on your TV news show?

FRIDAY, APRIL 30th.

This is day 355 of CPT Patti's deployment.

CUT ON THE BIAS

Heard from Bran at Blog-Irish (my boys! Alright!) who points out that the LA Times headline "Mosques Targeted in Fallujah" is not the first misleading inflammatory headline by the Times.

The Los Angeles Times headline Mosques Targeted in Fallujah to which Donald Rumsfeld called attention was nothing compared to the April 8, 2004 LA Times headline U.S. bombs Mosque in Fallouja - in view of the fact that in paragraph 15 we learn that what was bombed was a "perimeter wall".

Bran sorts it all out in great detail. Start here to go read it all.

A GOOD NEWS STORY - ACTS OF KINDNESS

Mark Romanych, a retired Army Major who served in the Balkans and Baghdad told me that U.S. soldiers were unique in that way. He said that in the Balkans people were glad when U.S. soldiers showed up in their neighborhood for U.S. soldiers gave things away while others took things. I do not know about other soldiers, but I do know that your soldiers in Iraq commit many acts of kindness and generosity. And in so doing, they may yet change the face of Iraq.

Thanks, Beth.

FLAG WAVING

Received a note from Toni, a longtime reader of CPT Patti's site, and her observations on one difference between Americans and non-Americans.

In part, here is what she says.

What I noticed was that people from other countries don't ever have anything which indicates a nationalistic spirit. Here I am with a flag lapel pin, probably a t-shirt or cap with some sort of flag or troop support on it and I'm not unusual. At least in the South.

I even had a tour guide at the Jack Daniels Distillery compliment me on my tshirt. I chuckled at that one and there were 6 guys from Germany on that tour and not ONE had anything to indicate their country of origin on their being. I just found it interesting and once noticed I made a point of looking for it with non-Americans.

Pretty consistent if you ask me. For people who seem to think we Americans are such cretins it's amazing how they like to visit here.

I too have noticed it is generally true that Americans seem to display symbols to demonstrate a patriotic spirit while others I've encountered don't.

On any particular day, be it the 4th of July, or not, how many Stars & Stripes might you see around your neighborhood or on your drive to work. My experience in the USA is mostly in the South (as is Toni's) and I can tell you down there you will ride past plenty. Several in the residential areas, plus quite a few at churchs or businesses. Auto dealers, I've found, seem to love having the tallest flag pole with the largest flag on it.

I drive 26 miles one way to work here in the German state of Hessen. I do not pass a single German flag on display.

I don't know if there are laws against it...as Sarah recently pointed out, they have laws about everything here including what you can name your baby. But I doubt there is a law...because one will see enthusiastic displays of the German flag during international soccer matches when it is Germany against somebody else.

(Interestingly, during that same drive to work I pass no less than 3 rainbow flags overprinted with the word PACE ("Peace") on them.)

But I've yet to see a German flag displayed at a private home, nor at a business, nor attached to the car antenna or as a window decal.

Now, I'll grant you that Americans invented the T-shirt culture and nobody else lives it like we do (some, doubtless, prefer it that way.) So...one can't actually say that lack of display of patriotic symbols indicates a lack of pride...for it might only indicate a lack of inclination to display symbols at all.

On the other hand (I enjoy arguing with myself) I note the British and the Irish are pretty darn happy to display national and cultural symbols. In fact, it seems most of the Anglosphere are so inclined. And the Italians love plastering their green, white and red tricolor over their major explorts (pizza and Italian ice.) So...there isn't a total European aversion to patriotic symbol display.

What about you...have you also witnessed that which Toni observes? How do you account for it? Are we just more patriotic?

VIEW THROUGH A SURGEON'S EYES

One might imagine a US Army surgeon might see the worst of it all come through his ward.

Here is one who writes home.

This is a note from our cardio thoracic surgeon friend who was in practice with Win. He volunteered at the age of 56 to enlist in the service. The Army took him and has him stationed at a hospital in the middle of Baghdad... (Tim's note: Surgeons don't "enlist", strictly speaking...they are commissioned as officers.)

Apr 20, 2004, at 9:33 AM, Charles Edwards wrote:

Everybody: thank you once again for keeping me in your sights. I thrive on the messages and appreciate each one.

The pace has slowed dramatically and the number of American casualties has fallen. I spent the afternoon operating on a prisoner at the Iraqi prison who was mortared by his own terrorist friends separating him from his leg and a large chunk of his shoulder. Caring for these terrorists is the biggest challenge I have.

We have been told that all of us will be extended until further notice. I was scheduled to leave Iraq on May 11 but that may not happen at this point.

I know that the news is bad from here but it is exaggerated and the troops I see are in good spirits. The majority of the Iraqi people want what we have and unfortunately there is a group that has been displaced and they don't like it. The next two to three weeks will be decisive here and hopefully things will calm down.

The judicial courts are all open, the electricity is flowing at greater than prewar levels, the children are going back to school and the Iraqi police and Army are getting stronger. It will not all be a happy progression and it really is up to the Iraqi people to confront the evils in their society. I worry that the core values needed to govern fairly and wisely have never existed here and to develop a sense of justice at this late hour is a tall order.

I will close with one last thought. There is one lasting impression in every Arab nation, every Arab leader and citizen and it has nothing to do with negotiations, cease fires, weapons of mass destruction, etc. It is the indelible image of the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq and that unbelievable firepower that did in 28 days what the Russians could not do in 12 years and what annihilated the Iraqis on their home soil in a month.

This will endure and prove to spare American lives in the future at home and abroad.

Keep the faith.

Chuck

AMEN

I'm hoping my father-in-law, Pastor Paul sees this. He was a soldier before he became a minister. Had the two coincided, he'd have been a heckuva Chaplain.

Sitting on the ramp of a military vehicle on the lawn of Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace, Lance Cpl. Jeff Guthrie’s eyes welled with tears that streamed down his muddy face.

He had just stormed the gates of the palace in a gruesome fight with his fellow Marines and claimed victory.

Lt. Carey Cash, a chaplain with his battalion, saw Guthrie’s distraught face and walked up to him.

Cash, in a new book, “A Table in the Presence” released April 7, takes his readers onto the hot, dusty, Iraq battlefield to learn how God worked miracles and answered prayers in individual lives of Marines like Guthrie.

“Sitting down on the grass in front of him, I asked what was wrong,” Cash writes in the book, recalling a few life-changing moments spent with Guthrie.

“‘Sir ... I’m, I’m just so sorry,’ he said, tears welling up in his tired eyes.

“‘Sorry for what, Guthrie?’ I had no idea what he was talking about.

“‘It’s just what I’ve done in my life. All I can think about is that I’ve just been through the worst experience of my life, and yet, God protected me through it all. But why did He do it? How could He do it after all the things—the bad things—I’ve done? I don’t know what else to say, what else to feel. I’m just so sorry.’

Surrounded by 20 Marines, Cash, 33, led the young soldier to Christ.

The next day, April 13, 2003, Cash baptized Guthrie in the palace.

Cash wrote, “... I baptized Jeff Guthrie, a new creation, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. As the waters of baptism poured over his head and onto the marble floors of the palace, the symbolism wasn’t lost on anyone... A place that had been known for the presence of darkness and treachery had become a place of the presence of God—a table in the presence.”

Before his tour was over, Cash had the privilege of baptizing 59 men in his battalion.

“I watched God use that environment to behold His Son,” Cash told Baptist Press. “It was awesome.”

YOU KNOW WHAT, SYRIA...ONE DAY THIS IRAQ THING WILL BE OVER

And from your record over the last year, I'm thinking there is a lot of reckoning in your future.

Syrian President Bashar Assad described armed attacks against U.S.-led troops in neighboring Iraq as legitimate "resistance" against foreign occupation.

His remarks, aired Wednesday on the Qatar-based pan-Arab al-Jazeera satellite station, are likely to strain already tense U.S.-Syrian relations.

WELL THIS IS KIND OF A COOL IDEA

Presuming it doesn't get hijacked by those with an agenda. And with the inclusion of Victor Davis Hanson...we can be assured the conservative view has an outlet.

"Operation Homecoming" will make some of this country's most prominent authors available to servicemen and -women, for workshops and lectures intended to help them express and record what they've seen and felt in combat.

The program is part oral history project, part literary talent search, and part a writing-as-therapy program for troops, particularly those in Iraq, who have been under extraordinary stress in America's first protracted war since Vietnam.

The 16 writers who agreed to participate by visiting military bases include Tobias Wolff, Tom Clancy, Victor Davis Hanson and McKay Jenkins. Ten other writers, including Shelby Foote and Richard Wilbur, have contributed reminiscences and readings to a compact disc and Web site the Endowment has produced.

The NEA project will add to extensive oral history projects supported by the military, and to a Library of Congress initiative to collect material, including journals and letters, from veterans of the two world wars, and the Korean, Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars. "Operation Homecoming," which will anthologize the best of the material it collects, is focused on soldiers fresh from the ongoing conflict.

"These are not voices we would easily hear, otherwise," NEA chairman Dana Gioia says. They haven't been heard for a number of reasons, most important of which is that America's military men and women are preoccupied with fighting.

Well, yes, so they are. But there have been oh, a hundred thousand soldiers or so who have already returned from this war. And the local press seems to be able to find those with voices fairly well.

So, I'm not buying all the way into Ms. Gioia's explanation.