War Stories

In the past few days there have been a couple of incidents that have shown what can happen here. I don't want to say they're extraordinary, because a sad fact of war is that bad and bizarre things will happen.

Yesterday, the enemy mortarmen screwed up their shot. Instead of landing the 82mm mortar on to one of our bases, they dropped it on a house. It killed three children between the ages of three and five and wounded the three other kids in the room (young teenagers). We had to put out an immediate press bulletin before Al Jazeera could try to say that we had done it. Great. Dead kids are now a political game.

Today a man came out of a palm grove with a gun as a US convoy was passing. Many times the enemy use the palm groves for their ambushes. The convoy stopped and tried to direct the guy to put down the weapon. He didn't comply and they shot him in the gut. They discovered it was a toy gun. They were later told by the man's family that he's retarded.

Anyhoo, that's my little slice of sunshine to brighten up your holiday spirits.