Thank you
Posted on 12/25/2004 7:29:13 AM PST by mountaineer
Editor's note: The following letter is from Staff Sgt. Brett Ledfors, a U.S. Marine currently stationed in Ramadi, Iraq. Ledfors was born in Wheeling (W.Va.) and is serving in Iraq with Moundsville (W.Va.) resident Sgt. Daniel Ealy.
As a Marine serving in Iraq and someone born at Wheeling Hospital, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish the citizens of West Virginia a Merry Christmas while sharing a true story.
News we get from home sometimes seems quite grim as far as the war. When I initially considered writing to a newspaper about the war, I wanted to show the progress being made here. I looked at the various positive signs from Iraq's growing economy, to the training of their security forces that's humming right along, to our growing success at combating the insurgent threat. Until a few days ago, nothing jumped out at me until Bravo Company Marines patrolled to an anonymous grid coordinate in a city called Ramadi.
The second platoon of B Company, a reserve unit based in Pittsburgh, regularly patrols a suburban area with one to two story buildings, few paved, and many dirt roads. Herds of sheep, palm trees and canals fed by the Euphrates River crisscross the landscape.
Throughout this area are two things that aren't native; U.S. troops and the bad guys (mostly non-Iraqi) they hunt. We refer to the bad guys as AIF (Anti Iraqi Forces), the Muj (short for Mujahadeen), or simply insurgents. The insurgents are rarely seen, but assert themselves by mortaring us regularly, with the occasional improvised explosive device and small arms fire to keep us on our toes.
With that kind of negative attention, the average Iraqi citizen often avoids contact with Marines so as not to be victimized by insurgents. This setting led to my revelation as to what positive thing I could share with the readers of The Intelligencer.
During our patrol led by Sgt. Dan Ealy, who lives near Wheeling, we had a beautiful experience. As Ealy guided our heavily armed column through narrow back alleys, we stopped for a short security halt to look and listen for anything unusual. Our column consisted of heavily armored HMMWVs (replacement for the jeep), with Marines walking amongst them for mutual support. As I looked around the area, I saw several children tentatively watching us from behind a fence. A quick scan of the area showed nothing suspicious, so I approached the kids who eyed me warily. The kids' demeanor changed to tentative smiles as one of my hands left my rifle and pulled candy out of a pocket. The first few children excitedly took the candy and ran around a corner, then the dam broke. A rush of children swirled into our patrol painting a picture of some stern Marines standing guard while others gave candy to kids. Shortly after this, the kids' fathers came out to meet us. They thanked us for the kindness to their children. Even more rare, we could see some of the women smiling at us from a respectable distance. That was something positive indeed. The women being out and interacting with us showed a great deal of progress in this part of the world. What followed could have been a visit among friends. Before I knew it, instead of a rifle in my hand, I had a cup of sweet tea that my new friend Mohammed brought for me and several other Marines.
As it turned out, Mohammed appreciated the simple kindness we showed his children and then the respect we showed him when he arrived. We stood there almost as neighbors sharing hot tea on a cold day making small talk as best we could with the language barrier. All good things must come to an end, so we eventually parted. As we continued on with our patrol though several very poor children had candy that they'd rarely had in their lives, while some very cold Marines had hot tea in their bellies. We shared those things not as Muslims and Christians or civilians and Marines, but as people, pure and simple.
After our patrol returned to base, I shed my ammunition and body armor to sit down to the more mundane side of operations that it seems no profession can escape: the paperwork. As I dated the after action report, it hit me; it's only a few days before Christmas. The symbolism of our encounter with those Iraqis a few days before a holiday symbolic of togetherness didn't escape me as I realized what a sign of hope that simple encounter brought. A cup of coffee tried to warm me from the cold local winter as I replayed that positive experience in my mind. That coffee, however, didn't warm me nearly as much as Mohammed's tea still did hours later.
Staff Sgt. Brett Ledfors
2nd Platoon, "Iron City"
1st Marine Division
Ramadi, Iraq
If that doesn't touch you, your heart has turned to stone. Merry Christmas, mountaineer.
Love it. Merry Christmas all.
bttt
This story touched my heart. I am livid and disgusted about what the mainstream media is attempting to do to the morale of our troops. I wish there was something we could do to assure our troops that the MSM doesn't represent the millions of Americans who love and support them and their mission. If anyone has an idea how we can get that message to our troops, please post it. As for the MSM, I think they're Liberal "cowards" not worthy of wiping the boots of our soldiers. Too bad we can't get that message to them as well. May God bless and protect our brave soldiers.
Merry Christmas.
The true spirit of Christmas..Thank you for posting this!
Thank you
I'm glad I was able to see it. 8^)
Beautiful story. Merry Christmas to you too :-)
The "insurgents" aren't human. The first guy, at least he didn't see hurt, screaming children, but the second guy did and he exploded his car bomb anyway.
I'm sending stuff to a platoon on a regular basis. I have no doubt in my mind that the guys are at least giving some of it away to local children.
It's a shame our guys don't know how much they are liked and appreciated by the Iraqis. They just don't dare express it. Once this is over, our guys are going to be overwhelmed.
So am I. MSM is fouling their own nest. How about starting to come up with ideas for Valentine's Day? If we started now, it could happen. A sidebar notice with a live thread would help. Info has been posted a jillion times regarding mail, packages, and needed items for our troops, but if it was up permanently, then we could send gifts not only for Valentine's Day, but also Easter and other holidays for the troops. I'm pretty scatterbrained these days, so this would help me and anyone else who is running in different directions. They need to know that America supports them.
Photos provided
U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Brett Ledfors kneels with a group of Iraqi children in the city of Ramadi. Ledfors and members of his unit supplied the children with candy during a routine patrol.
We keep posting these kinds of threads and many also email them, so the word is getting out, bypassing MSM.
From various historical reports, it isn't much different (from the libs and msm) than it was for WWI or WWII or any of the other wars. Libs and msm seem to always be against the military and the majority of the Nation and for the elements of the opposition.
A beautiful story. Unfortunately, the media will never talk of stories like this.
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