| Tuesday, September 20, 2005 |
| FIVE RIVETING SOLDIER BLOGS |
A SOLDIER'S THOUGHTS MISOLDIERTHOUGHTS.BLOGSPOT.COM
AN ARABI LINGUIST on his second tour in Iraq, Zachary Scott-Singley, 24, understood the fighting part. It's the setting-up-the-democracry part he does'nt get. "I do feel like we were lied to about our reasons for being here," he writes in jis meditative, almost daily blog about lie in Saddam's hometown, posting pictures of what he sees on his base; a headless palm tree that had been hit by a mortar, for example, or agold carp caught in the Tigris. "Here", he writes, "they teach you to trust no one because anyone might be your enemy".
BOOTS IN BAGHDAD BOOTSINBAGHDAD.BLOGSPOT.COM
MARK PARTIDGE Miner remembers lying on a beach in SDt. Augustine, Fla. looking at the stars and wishing he were fighting in Iraq. So he dropped out of college and volunteered, he spent moths grudgingly guarding a gate to Baghdad International Airport and yearning to be on the convoys heading into the read zone. His early posts, some of which are addressed to the insurgents ("The whites of my eyes are the last thing you will see before you kiss the feet of my God...."), are zealous and antsy for action. His later ones, after he starts going on foot patrol, ducking mortars and witnessing car bombs, are less gong ho, as when his unti shoots into the cab of an oncoming car and hits a teen boy; "I constantly look back on that night."
LIFE IN THIS GIRL'S ARMY SGTLIZZIE.BLOGSPOT.COM
SHE'S HOME FROM IRAQ NOW, and her posts include bubbly accounts of horsing around with her little brother and sparkling close-ups of her new engagement ring. But even when her transport blown up by a roadside bomb in December, Sergeatn Lizzie -- who declines to share her full name -- wrote about the event with same bouncy style, flip asides, exclamation points and smily faces. Describing herself under the destroyed truck, gashes on her face, she writes, "I made the remark that I would'nt be pretty again LOL."The medic teases her for wearing a matching ba-and-panty set in a war zone. But in guieter moments of the blog, tinges of survivor guilt emerge.; "Why did I walk away from a wreck that killed a comrade and a friend?"
365 AND A WAKE UP THUNDER6.TYPEPAD.COM
DANJEL BOUT, 32, A LOGISTICS captain, writes to digest what he sees, to make sense of his expreriences and most of all to escape. From a group of fellow officers being fed a sheep's-head dinner to missing his wife to watching a robot disarm a roadside bomb that nearly blew him up, Bout gives vivid, sometimes lyrical, descriptions of the smells, tastes and sounds of the Baghdad he sees. The cooling summer morning, he says, "settle around you like a light winter coat". He uploads lots of photo too. "Some soldiers immerse themselves in video games, others click on their DVD players"he says, "I just write".
MA DEUCE GUNNER MADEUCEGUNNERS BLOGSPOT.COM
a self-desribed "Gun Nerd," he posts photographs of himself posing with a confiscated rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and he named his blog after his M@ heavy machine gun. Between glory shots with guns and photos of the Jungle Fa;;s Suite in Idaho, where he stayed with his wife while on leave, Ma Deuce Gunner (who never reveals his name) gives detailed descriptions of the new Iraqi army he patrols with around Kirkuk. Despite their flimsy body armor, mismatched uniforms and the yellow-papered Gauloises cigarettes constantly dangling from their lips, their resourcefulness and enthusiasm give him hope.
(abstracted from TIMEMAG/ by: Brian Bennett) |
| posted by infraternam meam @ 6:41 PM |
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| About Me |
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Name: infraternam meam
Home: Chicago, United States
About Me: I am now at the prime of my life
and have been married for the past 25 years.
Sickly at times, but wants to see the elixir vita,
so that I will be able to see my grandchildren from my two boys.
See my complete profile
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