Dear Friends,
One year ago today I left my family, my home, my life as I knew it, and deployed with my battalion, and landed in Kuwait on May 5, 2003. Sixteen days later, I was on my way in a huge convoy of army vehicles that slinked across the desert, and found myself in Baghdad. There, I celebrated my birthday, my 15th wedding anniversary, Thanksgiving (good turkey), mother's day, father's day, My 14 year olds birthday, my 9 year olds birthday, and my 6 year olds birthday. I could only think of the country I loved, as I ate my dinner on July 4th. I say none of this in the spirit of complaining. I spent about 7 months over there. So many soldiers will do twice that time. When you are there, though, it seems like you will never leave. You dream about it, you pray for it, you hope for it, the anticipation to be back on American soil is like nothing I have ever felt. I have spent some of my life deployed. While in the Navy in the early to mid 80's, I spent 2 years aboard the USS Enterprise . Sometimes off the coast of Libya, sometimes just sitting in the Indian Ocean keeping the shipping lanes open. However, nothing compared to Iraq.
I know, I haven't sent an e-mail out about this. Truth is, I have never left Iraq in my mind. I think about it everyday. I think about my soldiers there all the time. I can picture them. I wonder what they are doing. I just found out that after being there a year, they have been extended 4 more months. My heart hurts for them. I pray for them daily. I know they want to see their kids, hold their wives, parents, friends. My unit just lost their first soldier. I knew him, saw him almost everyday. Our neighboring unit, just lost 7. It breaks my heart.
On top of all of the pain, you want to know what crushes me the most, though? The American people are not getting the straight scoop on what is happening in Iraq. The media is telling the truth for the most part, however, they are leaving out a whole lot of information (you can say things that are technically true, and not tell the whole story). I have been wanting to scream this to the top of my lungs since I returned from over there. I returned to Germany on Dec 2, 2003, and got back to the states on Dec 12. So I have been back for over 4 months now. What does your news channel tell you about the war? You hear something like this, "4 Americans died today when their convoy was ambushed." and that's about it aside from a few details here and there of the grenade that went off, or the soldiers who were drug through the streets, or the recent EPW's who were humiliated....it always seems to be negative. Aside from the blistering 138 degree heat that I experienced through the summer, shots were fired in my general direction twice, I had a grenade go off fairly close to me, and nearly everything else I saw was on the positive side. I wasn't thinking about it from any political slant, or religious slant, or Muslim, or American, or Iraqi slant....I was thinking that we are all human beings here, and here we are in a position to help some people who are less fortunate than we are, and that is exactly what we are doing.
I can only tell you this from my perspective of what I saw when I was there, not the opinion or experience of anyone else. This is what, through God's power, protection, and assistance, that I experienced, accomplished, saw accomplished, and watched with my own eyes, in my unit's own zone of Baghdad:
1. We organized "Operation Neighborhood Cleanup." Towns that had human waste flowing through the streets, coupled with trash, open sewage, and burning feces, now have clean drinking water, a sewage system, and clean up crews (i.e.: garbage men) with regular jobs.
2. I have countless pictures of the more than 100,000 dollars in school supplies we took to kids as they held us, wept, thanking us for not only the supplies, but the air conditioning we put in the schools, the paint (one school chose hot pink and purple to spice up the town), the heaters, the water fountains, the electrical work, and on and on.
3. We lost count of how many Iraqis now have jobs at the airport, and in their respective towns.
4. In our zone, we were able to repair 11 different mosques that were damaged, fixed their plumbing, and supplied them with a generator so they could worship (remember, there are hundreds of zones where this is going on, I am just talking about one.
5. I saw the first city council come together in the town to which I was assigned.
6. Last I heard from one of our doctors in the department of defense, we have given out right at 1 million immunizations to children and adults alike. Also, we supplied a hospital in our zone (this is happening all throughout their country) with medical supplies, check-ups, as well as getting to work side by side with these kind people.
7. American Churches, synagogues, mosques, salvation army, and many other charitable sources have sent extreme amounts of clothes, toys, and supplies which has reached every orphanage and school in Iraq. The only ones who have not received anything, are those who turned down the help (which was not the norm).
8. I had one family thank me for the phone and electricity (like I had something to do with it).
9. One Iraqi gentleman hugged me, kissed me on the cheek and said, "Your people will never know how evil Sadaam Hussein was. You will never know how thankful we are that he is gone." He continued, "My neighbor spoke out against Sadaam, Sadaam's people came, fed him to the dogs, and put him back on his porch for his wife and kids to find in pieces." He said this while weeping. The man was a friend.
10. The education system in Iraq is through the roof as far as money, teachers, supplies, administrators, etc.
I have only scratched the surface here. There are so many more examples I could use. I know this is long enough already, though. The morale of many of the troops right now is not so good. It is for various reasons. They are tired from doing all the things I have just mentioned, plus trying to stay alive while doing them. Deployments are very long right now. 18 months in a miserable place messes with a persons mind. Another downer for them is when they hear people say that what they are doing over there doesn't really make a difference. I saw grown men cry more than I ever care to remember. Many times, it was because they felt that they weren't appreciated by many of the people back home. When they realized the overwhelming support, prayers, and thoughts that were for them, it made their stay in Iraq bearable.
I do thank you for those who made it to the end of this e-mail. I used to think about writing this all the time. I have needed it. I guess it's been therapeutic for me to say the least. I know this; after being there, and seeing it for myself, I know what I saw. You should be proud of those men and women. Not all of them (in fact very few of them) are like the idiots you saw on TV this past week doing those cruel things to fellow human beings. Those aren't the American soldiers I know...maybe America's most wanted...not American Soldiers, not the people I served beside. Iraq is changing from the inside out, and from the outside in....and they truly are better off than they were when we arrived 1 year ago today....no political agenda here, I just had to get the other side of the coin out....and receive some of that therapy stuff...I guess sometimes the Chaplain needs a Chaplain.
God Bless all of you,
Chaplain (CPT) Darin Powers
US Army
