"We've been here for 12 months now and there's been no progress," said Spc. Richard Johnson, 20, of Bridgeport, Conn., as he manned a machine gun on the rooftop of an outpost ringed by a shallow moat of sewage.
"It's like holding a child's hand. How long can you hold onto his hand before he does something on his own?" Johnson said. "How much longer do we have to get shot at or blown up?"
"In Iraq, we try to win the hearts and minds of population," said Dow, 32, of Chicago. "They want Americans out of here. They blame us for all their problems. They look at us as the terrorists and then they turn around and help the terrorists who are trying to kill us."
"The Iraqi army is getting there," he said. "But they are still not where they need to be and I doubt they will be by then. Too many times, they are in a selfish state of mind. Too often they are along for the ride while we do the work for them."
"They are only going to do the right thing if someone's watching and they know they will be punished if they don't," he said. "That's not every soldier. I have met some great guys, but it is a lot of them. They don't care, and this is their country."
Asked if he was frustrated with the situation in Ramadi, he replied: "That doesn't cover it."
"U.S. soldiers are dying trying to help people who don't want their help," he said. "That makes you angry."
"We're just sitting around not making any progress. It's annoying. You're not motivated to help anybody," he said, adding his contract was up in 2008 and he did not plan to re-enlist.
"I don't want to live my life like this," he said.
Heart broken yet?
(I must give a head nod to two great sites from which I borrowed this news item. The always relevant Crooks and Liars and the great Daily Kos.)
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