Comforting Embrace

[DIVERTOM]

Would someone please pass this on to the mainstream media? Would rather read (and see) this than all the other stuff!

[Bill McIntyre]

Its a great pic, but the caption says the same thing that the mainstream media says. Her entire family was executed and she was shot in the head too. If that's what it takes to let a guy show his compassion, is it worth it?

Today's news says Shiite militias are going through neighborhoods and giving Sunni families 24 hours to vacate their homes or be killed. I hope there are some survivors, and if there are, I hope US servicemen will get to help them. But a touching photo has very little to do with the big questions facing us.

[jackpine savage]

Nice photo Tom, I saw on a news program that the majority of the patients that American miltary medical teams treat are Iraqi civilians, not just those wounded in attacks like this poor child but civilians who need emergency medical treatment for injuries that weren't from the war. Those Iraqis treated by our medical teams will always carry a positive picture of Americans

[Gradyman]

Wow, maybe he will eventually adopt her...thanks for putting this up.

[DIVERTOM]

Bill
When and how the killing stops is above and beyond me. There will be
more work to do putting that place back together and the scars will
remain a long time. Here's some articles you will enjoy reading.
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Three_Myths_And_One_More_In_Iraq_And_Beyond_999.ht ml

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iraq_Civilian_Slaughter_Grows_999.html

Actually I read this web-site's stories daily and they provide a lot of good
info about science and technology.

http://spacedaily.com/

[Bill McIntyre]

Tom,

I guess I was insensitive with my response, but please believe me when I say I get no enjoyment out of those stories. I wish it was all going great, or had gone great and we were out of there long ago.

Where I was coming from was the comparison of what we read in the main stream media. The main stream media said it was going great in the initial invasion, and that's because it was. Its not going great now, and I don't think we can blame the media for reporting the facts.

Its nice to have a photo showing the basic humanity of our troops, but I doubt that there is a photo like that to accompany ever bit of bad news.

I don't know what that Air Force Master Sergeant's job is, but I don't think the average Marine Lance Corporal has the time to sleep with an Iraqi kid in a chair every night. He is too focused on just staying alive.

[DIVERTOM]

Bill
I was stationed overseas 15 and a half years during the cold war. I
really went out of my way trying to assimilate everywhere I went. I was
called Zio Tom in Naples and had all the local school kids on my street
come around when I walked down the street and we would joke and have
a good time. One time I was asked to donate blood for a neighbors operation
and I did. I was on the front lines then. I know what the good soldiers are
doing over there. We cant blame them for whats going on. Come on were
you born yesterday?

[Bill McIntyre]

Bill
I know what the good soldiers are
doing over there. We cant blame them for whats going on. Come on were
you born yesterday?

Of course we can't blame them, and I am puzzled how you could think I am blaming them. I think that MSgt is doing a wonderful thing. What have I said that leads you to believe I blame the troops?

I don't think I'm to blame for being in Vietnam because Johnson sent me and Nixon extended me. I don't think our troops are to blame because they followed orders this time. They are doing a magnificent job and being heroic, and the more so because they are fighting a war that most realize can't be won in any conventional sense.

[aaron proffitt]

Conversly though,if you go to the post entitled run achmed(or to that effect)on the conversational forum,you'll see all kinds of negative responses.Even more so,if you actually go to youtube and read the reponses from around the world condemning the troops in question.What I saw was simply a bored kid.Many others see a mean-spirited American soldier.And yet,pics of the CMSGT. don't circulate nearly like "atrocities".

[t-rocks69]

its because american are held up to a spot light. since we hve made our selves to be the world police force all the bad stuff or fighting men do will always be up the the public's eye. with very little of the good stuff.

[MagicMike]

Very touching photo, thanks for sharing that. Thats the kind of stuff going on behind the scenes you don't often get to see. I feel for the kids, the truly innocent. I feel for that chief too. He should be home with his family.



They are doing a magnificent job and being heroic, and the more so because they are fighting a war that most realize can't be won in any conventional sense.

Sad Bill, but so true.