News from Iraq

Hi all, more Quinn pictures to come (soon, I promise, we have a bunch taken, but it takes time to get them formatted and uploaded). For now, I thought I would pass along a fairly lengthy email from Nathan. As we all know, the elections went well and our soldiers can be very proud that it happened because of their sacrifice and that of their families back home. I’ll let it speak for itself.

“Mar-Habah (Hello in Arabic)”
Greetings family and friends,
I hope all is well with everyone of you. Things are okay with me a bit stressed-out at times but okay. I am not stressed about going out and risking my life everyday and being in constant danger it is the stupid little things that the military want us to do, any of you who have been in in the service know exactly what I am talking about. The things that one would think would be left in garrison in the U.S. but have followed our host unit to Iraq and because of that we are now subect to those details that seem so unimportant in the combat zone. I understand that attention to detail is important for many things especially in the combat zone. However, there are just as many not so important details that are also being pushed. Oh well there is nothing I can do about that but deal with it and stay as safe as possible.
On the brighter side of the news, the election was a hit. I have to admit after
everything I have seen over here and how absolutly nothing works right, that I was in udder shock that the election went off without to many issues arrising. We actually were not staying at our normal camp over the duration of the election. We spent a few days on a camp that is on the grouds of Uday’s Pleasure Palace, which is almost completely destroyed on the inside. The outside is in quite good shape, those bunker busters sure work. My Platoon spent a few nights in Uday’s racket-ball house, it was quite nice, but not kept up very well. The morning of the election did not sound good, explosins were going off almost constantly, I woke up not to my alarm clock, but to exposions and thought to my self, “today is the day.” I have heard that there were any where in the neighborhood of 50 explosions consiting of mortars, rockets, and improvised explosive devices going off. I was not looking forward to going out there at all, of course i did not have access to news so I did not know what was going on until later in the day. We went out to conduct our mission and I could not believe what I was seeing, people were actually going out and voting, some walking several hours with elderly family risking life and limb to vote. It was truly a site that I will remember for the rest of my life. Everyone who passed was proudly showing me thier finger (the good finger) stained with the ink used to put thier finger print on thier ballots. They were so proud. Of the hundreds of people I searched that day I only remember one man who was not smiling but that could have been for several reasons, after all it is Baghdad and many explosions did occur earlier that day so it is very possible that could have some how effected him negatively. I am very relieved that this was such a success, I think it was a real boost for Iraqi Patriotism they were not afraid of attacks that day. I only hope they can keep this momentum going and turn this place around.
I have tried sending picture but my e-mail account is not letting me. So I hope
I can get some circulating some how and all of you can see me in the place where they keep the war. I miss all of you very much and hope to communicate with you again soon.
Pray for Peace,
Nathan