2003 Soap Box Archives

From The Front Lines 11/07/03

On the nightly news and across the front pages of our daily newspapers
we are shown images of the people in Iraq protesting our troops being
in their country.

Peter Jennings, Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw all show the very worst
scenario of things in Iraq and Democratic Presidential
candidate Howard Dean, among others,wants to pull the troops out.

Where does the truth lie in this situation? Do the people of Iraq
really want the U.S.A. to walk out and leave a huge power vacuum?
Should we listen to the major media who seem to have their own agenda
or to the people who are in Iraq actually trying to help the Iraqi
people form a new government and have a better life?

I will leave that decision up to you, but I feel that to make an
informed decision you should hear both sides of the story. I recently
received an e-mail from a soldier on active duty in Iraq and asked his
permission to print it in this column. I want to thank him for agreeing
to share this first hand account with the readers of this column.

Charlie,

I am currently in Balad, Iraq, it is in the Sunni Triangle you hear
about on the news. We’ve been here since May. I’ve been hearing a lot
of negative stuff on the news about us being here and that we shouldn’t
have started the war, etc.

Well, I will tell you that we have freed a long oppressed people. I
have spoken to many common Iraq people and they are very glad that we
took Saddam out of power. I’ll give you a few examples.

We employ hundreds of Iraqi truck drivers. I have talked with several
of them. Before we got here they were making about a dollar a day. We
pay them $20-35 dollars a day.

We hired a guy to clean our building three times a week for seven bucks
a day. He had not had a job in three years! He is one happy guy. He
has a wife and three kids.

The point is, we believe the majority of the Iraqi people are very glad
that we came and freed them. There is a minority of extremists and
criminals who aren’t. Unfortunately they have the weapons.

So let the American people know that the sacking of Saddam was a good
thing for the Iraqi people and now we need to focus on rebuilding the
country, not on why we should not have come over.

I thank you for your support of the military and our great country.

Msg. Randy B. Silvey
U.S. Army

Nuff said.

Pray for our troops.

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels