It's been a while since my last entry in this series. Mainly because, from all reports, his life has been fairly quiet.
And as I mentioned in the previous two diaries, he is in Support Operations, not in actual combat operations. He is a little over 1/3 of the way through his tour, and is looking forward to his leave in September.
My initial thinking for this diary was to talk about little stories, both about him and his family back home, and I will start with those, but some other things have come up which will be mentioned near the end.
The rightwing pundits have often decried that lack of positive stories coming from Iraq. They ignore the fact that there aren't many, and what they are represent very isolated incidents. But I do agree that perhaps a few should come to light and the first story I have to tell represents one of them.
As I have mentioned, my son has 3 boys back in the states. The oldest will be celebrating his fourth birthday on July 1. Before my son left, one of the things he and my daughter-in-law talked about was how to avoid losing an emotional contact with the boys.
Once he got over there, they decided that she would send him books, which he would film himself reading on his digital video camera and then sending them back to her to play for the boys. That way they could both see and hear their daddy, and be able to replay it.
Because they are very religious, at first they thought they would use books with a Christian message. But one thing changed that. On my son's base there are many Iraqi civilians working, and my son has befriended one of them. This civilian is married with young children who he wants to make sure learn English.
So my daughter-in-law picked books that have moral lessons, but without any overt Christian preaching involved. My son records himself reading them for his boys, but then gives them to the Iraqi civilian for his children. From what my son has reported, the civilian has been very pleased with this and states that his children do enjoy the books.
A small story, and not terribly significant in the larger picture, but illustrative of what we could have done to win some "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people if done on a larger scale.
The second story is related to the first, and takes place back stateside. It occured when my daughter-in-law was picking out some books to send. She was at Wal-Mart (and yes, I know how most Kossacks feel about Wal-mart, so no lectures please). As she was picking out the books, another woman starting talking to her and my daughter-in-law mentioned why she was buying the books. Suddenly this strange woman was reaching in her purse and pulled out money (I don't know how much, it may have been only $5) and gave it to my daughter-in-law, saying to please buy something for my son and send it to him.
Before my daughter-in-law could even respond the other woman disappeared. She never saw her agian that day to thank her.
Why do I mention this? I don't know if this other woman supported the war or not, but she did want to express support for at least one person in the military, and even expressed regret she didn't have more available to give at the time.
Again a trivial story, hardly worth mentioning. But it struck a chord in my heart.
But now the other side, for me and my family. I had a nightmare last night, the first of its kind since he was deployed. I don't remember the details, but my wife and I were somewhere when an Army officer came up to inform us that our son had been killed in Iraq.
Yesterday, Father's day, my son called me to wish me a happy Father's Day. It was 9:30 Pm in Iraq, and I asked him what he was doing. He reported that part of his company had to go on a convoy. When I mentioned that I thought they didn't have to leave the base, he told me things had changed but that he couldn't go into details.
He also told me that he has been and will continue to go on convoys. He also asked me if I had heard about the new IEDs that are being used. I mentioned that I had and they are much more destructive as they have a more focused blast.
He told me that I was correct and that his battalion, which is totally a support non-combat battalion had lost a soldier to one of these last week. He did not know the soldier personally but I could tell from his voice that this has affected him.
He really avoids talking about a lot, other than the heat and body aches, so the fact that he even talked this much tells me a lot about his concerns for his people and himself.
Unless something drastic happens, my next diary on him will probably be after he has his 2 week leave. Maybe when I going fishing with him he will open up more. As it happens, my daughter-in-law and my 3 grandsons will be in town tomorrow as a birthday present for me and that will be enough for me for the time being.