News from the 3rd Armoured in Western Iraq

Aisia Times currently is running a 5-part report from journalist Nir Rosen, who is with the 3rd Armoured Cavalry in Iraq, titled "Every Time the Wind Blows".

Two-week-old copies of Stars and Stripes newspaper get passed around like porno. The official military paper provides much of the soldiers' news, and so they are not well informed about debate back home over the Bush administration's justifications for the war. Anyway, they don't have time to dwell on such things, but rather "believe, and hope, that our leaders sent us here for the right reasons". - Nir Rosen

Part 1
Part 2

Some quotes:

"It's not difficult to understand why somebody might pick up an AK 47 against us. Maybe we killed his father in the first Gulf War, maybe in this Gulf War, maybe he's just a dick." - Sergeant Reginald Abram

"I'm not after WMDs. I think when they realized we were coming in they got rid of it. I definitely think al-Qaeda is alive and well in Iraq. Our soldiers don't have a clouded vision of why they’re here." - Staff Sergeant Michael Adair

"I wonder how I would feel if someone was breaking down my door, or if it was my grandfather who didn’t
understand instructions at a checkpoint and panicked and was shot by the foreign force." - Captain Chris Alfeiri

"If they would be peaceful and be nice we would be out of here in no time. We're trying to help them. They don't understand and they're trying to prolong our stay by butting heads with us." - Soldier on the phone to his wife

"With the intel we've been getting it's probably a house full of nuns." - First Sergeant Clinton Reiss, on a mission to search for a supporter of attacks against US troops

"No culture likes to have an army in their neighborhood. If the Chinese occupied the US we would react the same way, we would hate them too." - Squadron Commander Lieutenant-Colonel Greg Reilly

Catch the series here.

....or do what you want....you will anyway.