Oh ... Really?

That's not all I have to say! »

Me: Never thought of it that way but we have people who opposed war and they would be upset and cancel subscriptions. Besides, they would look to another paper to get their news if they didn't like what and how it was stated.

Kostya: So? What about people who were happy about getting Saddam? Why not leave to another source of news?

Me: Most of them are like this. We have a new network called FOX and people make fun of it because it's more to the right.

Aleksei: I never thought Americans were so enslaved in their emotions. If we were Americans in America we would have parades, demonstrations (their word for positive showing of support rather than the opposite of what it means here), and all kinds of good feelings.

Me: I am sure many of my friends, real and on forum, are very happy about this. I am sure they are showing their happiness.

Misha (16 year old): What a waste of time. I thought I was going to read something cool (he actually used the English word "cool"). If I want to read boring text, there's plenty of Russian literature.

Me: You guys are weird, I thought you were against the US and thought that we put our noses where they don't belong.

Some in chorus at the same time: yah, but you already put your nose in there, and you did well, considering.

Not that I agree with anything nor disagree, but I thought it was an interesting conversation.

« Hush me up!

That's not all I have to say! »

On Sept 18, 2003, Chief Wiggles wrote:

Today, as usual, my day started with a flood of calls informing me of the arrival of one source after another at the front gate, right up until dinnertime, now 6pm. I didn't have time to eat breakfast or lunch, getting one of my interpreters to bring me a plate of food so I could eat during my debriefings.

But during the course of the day I was forced to pause for a moment, even making my sources wait, while I attended to an issue more important than anything else. While out at the front gate I noticed a young girl crying behind the barbed wire that separates us from the throngs of people waiting for their chance to speak with someone. Her mother, only having one leg, had hobbled in on her crutches a few moments earlier. The young girl separated from the only person she was familiar with, began crying, now hiding behind the rest of the crowd, I searched through the mass to see where the crying noise was coming from.

She was obviously very poor, in her tattered old dress, totally worn out plastic flip-flops, her hair matted against her head indicating she hadn't had a bath in a long time and her skin blistered from the dirt and weather.

Once I saw her I quickly told the MP's to move the barbed wire back to let her in to join her mother. Her crying stopped as she darted in to grab a hold of her mother's long black dishdasha, torn and frayed from years of use. As she stood by her mother's side, grasping her dress, I moved over slowly to brush her stringy hair away from her eyes and to pat her gently on the head, as I told the guard to make sure they don't leave before I could return.

I quickly loaded up the sources in my car and returned them to my office in the palace. I told them to wait for a moment, while I rummaged through my FedEx box full of toys sent my by my teammates back home. I grabbed a comb, a brush, a pair of new flip-flops, a whistle, a stuffed monkey whose arms hang around your neck, and a new toothbrush and tooth paste and dashed out the door, telling my interpreter to come along.

As I made my way back over to the front gate, I saw the little girl and her mother waiting patiently anticipating my return, not knowing why I had asked them to wait. Bending down I handed her the items one by one, as I explained what each item was, to insure she knew what I was giving her, especially as I gave her the toothbrush, asking her to be sure to brush everyday.

Her eyes lit up with such joy as I put the monkey arms over her head. She was so excited to receive everything, being somewhat shy though, not having dealt with an American before. She was so precious as her big brown eyes looked up at me, causing me to almost breakdown into tears as I walked away quickly so as to not bring too much attention to the little girl from the on looking crowd.

What a moment! In my own little way, I am influencing and affecting the attitudes of Iraqis one person at a time, taking baby steps, one experience at a time. My sphere of influence is small in comparison to the task at hand, but who knows what the ripple affect will be of my small effort to calm the tears of one sweet little girl. Thanks to my team mates back home who made this moment possible by sending me the toys to hand out to Iraqi children. I have only one request of them and others please send me more toys.
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Only Time

That's not all I have to say! »

When I got home, I called my mother. My parents don't watch TV much at all, and I didn't know if they had heard yet. They did. And mother and I spent an hour or so talking about the horrors. My focus was on the rescuers. As a former paramedic, those were my brothers and sisters in the wrecked buildings ... my brothers and sisters dying. But I held it together. I wasn't hysterical or distraught. I dealt with this tragedy like I do any other ... I intellectualize it, and then I can handle it.

My son arrived home from school later that day. I had turned the TV off by then, so I could assess his reactions from the information he was given at school, and talk without the media hysteria blaring away. He was calm, surprisingly so considering he was weathering the aftermath of his own personal tragedy at the time. Then he asked me, “Mom ... is it OK if I go outside and play? I mean ... is it safe to be out there?”

I assured him that yes, we are safe here and it was OK for him to be outside. New York and Washington are very far away. He accepted my word on this and went on out.

That was when I lost it. I turned the TV back on, and that's when the reports started coming in of the firefighters, police officers and paramedics that were caught in the towers when they collapsed. My brothers and sisters. Combined with seeing the effect of events so far away on a child right here, right now, causing him to be afraid to go outside in his own neighborhood ... I lost it. And I cried for all the lost souls, hopes and dreams. I cried for the lost innocence of the nations children. I cried for the families torn apart. I cried in mourning for the nation we once were, and never will be again.

A part of me is re-living the events of 9/11 ... the focus of my memories is on the brave deaths of my brothers and sisters ... and how the events were viewed through the eyes of a child.



« Hush me up!

That's not all I have to say! »

“Hey guys,” I said ... “you know what? It ain't about the oil. It isn't about getting rid of Saddam, freeing millions of repressed people or retribution for the torture and massacre of hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Iraqis. It isn't about establishing an American colony in the Middle East or putting in a puppet regime that we can control.

This war did not start on March 20, 2003. It didn't start with 9/11 or even back in 1991 when we freed Kuwait. No boys ... this war started back before you were born, back on a cool fall day in November 1979. And THEY started it! We went over there to finish it once and for all!”

(The following is an embellishment of my basic rant)

Since then we have been attacked, bombed, our citizen taken hostage over and over. In 1979, they took hostages in our embassy in Iran. In 1983, the Beirut embassy was bombed killing 63 people. A few months later, they hit the main gate of the US Marine Corps headquarters with 2500 lbs of explosives and killed 241 US servicemen. That's more than TWICE the number killed in Iraq since 3/20/03.

Two months later, another truck loaded with explosives blows up in the US Embassy in Kuwait. September 1984 - the US Embassy in Beirut. April 1985 - Madrid. August 1985 - the main gate if the US Air Force Base in Rhein-Main ... 22 killed. That same year, the Achille Lauro was hijacked. One American was singled out, shot as he sat in his wheelchair and then his body dumped into the ocean.

Then they started messing with our airliners ... TWA Flight 840 in April 1986 and the tragic Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland which killed 259 people. In January 1993 they finally struck within the borders of the US when two CIA agents were shot and killed outside CIA headquarters in Langley, VA. The first strike on the WTC came the following month when a van loaded with explosives was set off in the underground parking garage. Over 1000 were injured, 6 died.

June 1996 saw an attack on a US military compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 and injured over 500. Shortly after, a coordinated attack was carried out on the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania resulting in the loss of 224 lives.

October 2000 the USS Cole, docked in Aden, Yemen, was the target of a suicide attack when a small boat exploded next to it killing 17 sailors.

September 11, 2001 ... a day that needs no descriptions or reminders of what happened.


America finally said, “Enough!” and dispensed with the diplomatically correct attitude that the terror strikes are criminal acts that should be investigated by the FBI and CIA, and adjudicated in the courtroom. These have been, all along, acts of war perpetrated against the US and in an effort to maintain diplomatic relations with the countries the terrorists hailed from, the US took the attitude that the terrorists were acting not as agents of any government but militant rogues. “Enough!” say us.

Yes, the US erred when she didn't strike back in 1979, or in 1983, 1984, 1985 or 1986. The late 70's .. we were still reeling in the aftermath of Vietnam, not quite willing to become an aggressor again, going after impoverished third-world nations. The 80's brought the height of the Cold War and when it was over, the downsizing of the military. By then it was too late. Like school-yard bullies, the terrorists and rogue regimes thought they could continue to torment the great, the powerful United States of America ... an attitude hardened by our withdrawal from the Gulf in 1991. While we achieved our stated goal of freeing Kuwait, we did not go far enough and remove Saddam then and protect the Kurds from his massacres and torture. The militants and extremists of the Middle East were given free reign to smack around the mighty US of A at will.

September 11 changed all that. It didn't just bloody our nose, it was a round-house, knock out kick upside our head. In the words of Admiral Yamamoto, “they have awakened a sleeping giant.”


We went after the terrorists themselves, on their ground ... Al Qaidah and the Taliban in Afghanistan. But that wasn't enough. America had no choice. Seeing the entire Middle East in total disarray with tyrant regimes, human rights violations everywhere, threats of WMDs and chemical weapons ... Enough!

“American shouldn't try to be the world's policeman” ... OK, then WHO?

We have the mightiest military force on Earth backed by humanitarian policy that guides our wartime action, a dedication to freedom, human rights and dignity as basic God-given rights as human beings for all mankind. Who else has the guts to step up to the plate and say, “You are a BAD man, Mr Saddam, you must go NOW! And to hell with what the rest of the world thinks! If we have to bomb the crap out of your country to get rid of your sadistic regime, then so be it! You've had 12 years ... your time is UP!” We chose Iraq simply because, after the Taliban, its regime was the most vicious, nastiest set of evil-doers that we had a current bone to pick. We gave the UN Security Council their chance. Over and over. They blew it. We gave diplomacy and the attempt at peaceful resolution too many chances. It didn't work. Tyrants don't understand diplomacy ... they only understand power in the form of bombs.

We came, we saw, we kicked some serious ass. As a world super-power, the United States of America has returned to her throne. Already, leaders of other countries that have been rattling sabers and making nasty grunts and growls in our general direction are taking heed. North Korea has already soiled her pants, Syria still has some defiance in her, but she's taken notice.

THAT, my young friends, is why we went there. To remind the rest of the world who we are, what we can be, what we stand for and what we won't stand for.

God Bless the USA!
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