I LOVE this picture. It really DOES say it all about why we are there. And yes, am going to cross post it everywhere, and link to you.
Thank YOU, MaryAnn for all that YOU do.
This is an awesome picture. I'm also going to cross-post this where ever I can. It perfectly embodies the spirit of the US soldier. Just looking at it envokes so many emotions; humor, pride, love are the first three that come to mind.
Thanks for posting this - I stole it, too, MaryAnn. Sent it around to all my e-mail buds. Have had great reactions. Most people never see anything like this with regard to our guys and it's really touched a chord.
Yay! Another awesome photo.
It REALLY does say something about our guys and gals when children will climb all over them even when they're armed and concealed by helmets and sunglasses. Kids are careful, ya know? Especially, in my experience, when they can't make eye contact.
It's not only why we fight, it's why we win.
You made my morning.
Thanks. Just beautiful.
Awesome!
Absolutely beautiful picture. (Is there a collection of photos showing the positive progress of Iraq and our soldiers?? If not , there should be one created.)
No.
This is why we WIN.
(Is there a collection of photos showing the positive progress of Iraq and our soldiers?? If not , there should be one created.)
Wes, just go to DVIDS http://www.dvidshub.net/?script=
It's all there, every day.
May God bless and protect these two for the rest of their lives. Beautiful.
That is why they are willing to die.
I bet that sand is awfully HOT.
Haha, what a great picture. My little boy does the same thing to me, it is a sign of trust and being comfortable around someone.
I mean you can almost hear the soldier say "Little man... I would die for you."
Just a breathtaking picture! I'm also, linking this to everything and everywhere.
Thank you so much!
Proud mother of an US Army Staff Sgt. who served in Iraq for 18 mnths.
GOD Bless them ALL!
Give your son a big hug from all of us at SA, Nanc.
I sure will do, thank you MaryAnn!
Yeah, and the sand is too hot to stand on, too,
Thank you, Michelle, for posting this picture. I've been involved in a project wherein we have sent thousands of stuffed animals to our deployed soldiers to distribute to the children in both Afghanistan and Iraq. This effort has saved the lives of our soldiers because they've endeared themselves to the populace, and the people of Iraq have responded by turning over the bad guys. As a Soldiers Angel, I must also applaud your efforts to promote the SA efforts. God bless you, Michelle.
Our soldiers are good. So very good.
In addition to all of the reasons listed above as to why that picture is incredible is the location in which the photo (and the soon-to-be park) was taken.
Truly wonderful.
That is just so sweet. And it is hopeful. The children of Iraq are the future. In more ways than one.
Sand is hot this time of year. Been there done that.
Nice picture and I agree with the sentiments.
Great picture. May God bless our brave soldiers.
No doubt this photo will appear on the front page of the NY Times or any number of major U.S. papers, right?
Absolutely awesome.
God watch over and protect you guys.
Good job, BeerGirl!
Jesus Christ are Republicans dumb. Any of you morons ever look at the pictures of all the kids that we kill?
You mean like this child?
The kids have found out they can see our eyes when they get close -- of course, they had to *get* close to find that out in the first place...
Just out of curiosity, Levi, have you ever seen kids that the *terrs* kill?
Not pictures -- the kids.
Didn't think so...
Abraham Lincoln said: "No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child."
As an American, I feel like I'm standing tall when I look at this picture. Godspeed to all who serve.
It's clear that the child is under interrogation:
Mean Soldier: "Tell me where the bad guys are, or else it's off my boot and on to the hot ground for you!"
Child: "No, No...I'll tell you! They're in that pointy-topped building in Washington DC you call the Capitol!"
Yes, that is why we and I fought. Here is another one:
http://magyartruth.blogspot.com/...do-not-
lie.html
Somewhere above Mosul, 2004.
Here's another good story from a small kentucky town. Two heroes!
http://
www.glasgowdailytimes.com..._179151549.html
Sorry! Here it is.
I teach 1st and 2nd graders in Sunday School. This should really bring it home!
God Bless our Servicemen!
..."Until they all come home",
Martha (SA from Georgia)
what a powerful image... anyone sent that on to Reid or Pelosi yet? (or maybe Murtha?) just sayin'...
http://www.endthiswar.org/enemy.htm
Those are the pictures of Iraqi kids that I find interesting. War, especially this type of war, isn't a bunch of Kodak moments, it's lots of dead kids killed in the crossfire.
You people really are sickening with all of your 'this is why we fight' nonsense. Terrorists weren't blowing up 5-year olds until George Bush invited the terrorists into those 5-year olds' backyards.
Levi, Wow! Islamist terrorists have been hijacking Western aircraft since the 1960's ...
Wonderful photo that tells a story.
Levi: That site you're pushing is a joke. Those poor children could be from literally dozens of war torn places and their injuries could have been inflicted by anyone. There's no provenance on any of the photos. This matters since the site is trying to pass off a picture of a child with spina bifida as a "victim" of the war. If the site is lying about that picture, it's a safe bet they're lying about the rest. How typical for the hate-America crowd to make up "facts" when the real facts don't suit them. Pathetic.
Wow, Levi... I wonder who cheers louder when a an American soldier is killed in Iraq? You or the terrorists
American soldiers have died saving Iraqi citizens; especially children. They've also taken extra ordinary steps safeguard the citizens, even to the point of costing a soldiers life. Our soldiers are not targeting civilians. Not like AQI. So you please go take your vehnom to moveon.org or the huffington post.
That's it Republicans, no kids have died in Iraq! Exactly. They're all fake pictures, from someplace else, totally not having anything to do with our invasion. Iraq is only filled with happy moments.
Levi,
Your situational awareness appears poor.
First, no one is claming that no children die in war. In fact, I pointed you to a post discussing that subject myself.
Second, since you do not appear to realize where you are here, and that many of us have witnessed death and horrible injuries firsthand, I would like to kindly ask you to take pete dawg's advice and find a less informed group for the photos you so callously call "interesting".
Levi's pushing that same garbage site some spammer dumped into my in-box a few weeks back, MA.
Not that I'm drawing any connections here.
*ahem*
Well, BillT... it sure is a topsy-turvy world when a Baby Killer like yourself is not as gleeful about the use of photos of death and destruction to make a political point as our pacifist friend Levi.
Glad to see people here are intelligent enough to discern fact from fiction and not be misled by emotions. Sadam piled dead children into carts, then claimed they were killed by "american" bombs.
MaryAnn. I am especially drawn to your remarks.
Wouldn't it be interesting to post the millions of children killed by communists and muslims?
Unfortunately, there are not many journalists with the courage to attempt such an exposure.
Take a visit if you like. I was stationed at Ramstein three times in my career. Spent one night at Landstuhl on our way back from Hungary in 1996,
This is really unbelievable. Why can't I just flatly declare this picture to be staged?
Everyone that's died in Iraq is our responsibility. Notice I said our. I don't blame the troops for the dead kids, it's America's fault. It's more Republicans fault than liberals' fault, but we share it, because we've put our military into an impossible situation. Fighting street to street in the middle of a community, there's going to be lots of collateral damage, and kids are going to get blown up. So look at those pictures, you barbarians, if you're going to look at any at all. There's the shocking, gut reaction to seeing the sight of dead babies, and then there is the realization that it is our fault.
Levi,
You're obviously too young to remember when a lot of those pictures were taken.
1988.
In a town just north of here called Halabja.
The kids were Kurds, Levi, and they were killed on Saddam Hussein's orders.
They were shot and *gassed*, Levi. *Gas*, as in, Weapon of Mass Destruction, the WMD that you guys keep denying Saddam possessed.
What you find unbelievable is what many who have been there, in combat or as embed, know as fact. You can't declare it staged not only because you are not God, but because you can no more declare light to be dark and day to be night. While none of mine are this poignant, I have a number of similar shots from my time in Doura at Christmas -- Iraqi children unafraid and reveling in being with our troops.
And, no, not everyone who has died in Iraq is our responsibility. I know you will never believe it, for it is a matter of faith to you rather than reason, but the facts don't support you. Saddam did indeed rape, torture, and kill hundreds of thousands -- including children -- during his reign, and we had nothing to do with that other than that many covered their eyes and pretended it didn't happen or didn't matter. The mass graves, and they are multiple, give lie to the former and no one with a working sense of ethics can stomach the latter.
Have Iraqi children died during our time there? Yes. Have we killed some of them, by accident (wrong place, wrong time)? Yes. And when that has happened, you will find that we have done what we could to try to make that right.
By the same token, you must also accept that AQI, JAM, and others have also worked hard to put the innocent in the middle as a matter of policy, or have deliberately targeted those same groups as a matter of policy. Rather than try the sophistry to lay the blame for those murders most foul, for that they are, at the doorstep of our troops or the fallacy of group accountability, why not have the intellectual honesty and moral courage to lay them where they belong? Why ignore the fact that our soldiers laid down their lives to prevent innocent deaths, that they took damage they did not have to take to prevent death and injury to innocents?
Where the oh-so-brave "insurgents" in Iraq (and elsewhere) deliberately target the innocent, we prosecute those on our side who do so. We work hard to heal those children and other innocents who are harmed by those who deliberately target them. Moreover, our troops have found quite a few children and even adults that needed specialized treatments for a number of naturally occurring maladies, treatments that were denied to them under Saddam, and arranged for them to get that care for free here in the United States or elsewhere.
So, no, neither I nor anyone else here has to accept the blame for all the deaths in Iraq or to engage in any of the other logical fallacies you try to weave in what I hope is ignorance. Lay it with the individuals who made the decisions to maim and kill innocents as a matter of convenience or policy. If you bother to look at verifiable and citable facts, you will find that America has very little which needs be shouldered. Indeed, of that which needs be contemplated and serious thought given, far more needs be given to willful ignorance and blind eyes given to those who's policy is to
ignore such or condone it in the name of political expediency. Should you ever have the intellectual wherewithal and moral strength to go and see things for yourself, drop me a line and I will see what can be arranged for the two of us. I'll even see if Mike Yon, Michael Totten, and some others might be willing to throw in a few days each to show you what they have seen there.
Not quite what HaloScan lopped off, but close.
LW, you have the patience of a saint.
BillT and Chief RZ, if more people had a basic knowledge of history the world would certainly be a different place. Too much just goes down the memory hole...
Btw, Chief, if you don't know BillT, you may be interested in reading about his current Excellent Adventure over at his blog. In fact, you may wish to start with this post http://thedonovan.com/archives/
2...call_us_sa.html
Oh, and I thought there had to be a Hungarian connection based on the name of your blog. Any posts on that at your place you can point us to?
Yeah baby.
MA, those pictures aren't history to me, they're part of the reason I stayed in uniform so long.
I can understand the anguish at seeing them -- what I can't understand is how some Americans can hate America so much that they'd blame *us* for the atrocity.
One of "Saddam's Soldiers" asked me a question I couldn't answer. He said, "I understand someone leaving his country because he is afraid. He loves his country, but fears for his life, but when the cause for fear is gone, he returns. He loves his country, but not so much as his life, but he still loves his country. But I do not understand -- how can someone come back and try to destroy his country, kill his countrymen, and still say he loves his country?"
He was talking about Iraqis who joined AQI, and I couldn't give him an answer because *I* don't understand how people like Levi can be so consumed with self-hatred that they're willing to try to drag the rest of us down the same path, just so they'll have company in their misery...
I understand, Bill.
And I wouldn't know what to tell your guys, either. But on days when I feel the world's going to hell in a handbasket, it gives me perspective to look at the past - at history - and see it's always been so.
The eternal struggle between good and evil.
MaryAnn, I paid a visit. Here are two from Hungary. I took a visit on my own to see if "The Bridge" was in fact built as predicted by James Michener.
1. http://magyartruth.blogspot.com/...nser-
kanal.html
2. http://magyartruth.blogspot.com/...on-
curtain.html
3. http://magyartruth.blogspot.com/...sm-is-
evil.html
I have more, but these show The Truth about a humble, brave, honest and gentle people.
I don't blame the death of everyone that's ever died in Iraq on this country, just the ones since we've invaded. George Bush challenged the bad guys to a battle to be waged on the streets, in the hospitals, in the schools, and on the playgrounds in Iraq. You know, where people live. Where kids live. I don't blame our troops, I'm an Army brat, raised on Army bases, my dad was working at the Pentagon on 9-11, my sister is currently serving on the USS Cole, my brother is a freshly minted Army Lt. I blame George Bush for misusing the military and placing them in this impossible situation. I know our soldiers don't target civilians, but our presence there is inherently bad for the civilians that surround them. Yes, terrorists are targeting civilians, but they weren't doing that until we invaded. What's so hard to understand about this?
Take responsibility for the war you people so mindlessly advocate. We've proven unable to maintain the same basic level of security that Saddam could maintain. It's a stupid idea to hunker down in the middle of a completely foreign and alien culture with our entire middle and expect people come around to our way of government, especially when there's no apparent plan from the military's civilian leadership. Wake the hell up.
Can't i just say what a cute pic that is?
President Bush misused the military... really last time I checked. The US mainland hasn't been attacked since 9/11. Everybody thought we were sure to get hit again; to the Democrats consternation it didn't happen. Saddam Hussein is taking lava baths in hell. Libya gave up on it WMD programs. Iran suspended it's WMD at least a while, until the Democrats started stabbing Bush in the back and said he can't attack Iran. Al Queda made Iraq the number one front against the Americans. They threw in gigantic amounts of money and men to defeat us there. Thanks to President Bush having a back bone we didn't hand over Iraq to the terrorists and Iran. The Sunnis have now totally regected Al Queda's version of Islam; to the point that some of the sheiks are offering to help the Americans in Afghanistan. Al Queda is just an empty shell of itself, not even a tenth of the strength it had once before. Even the "Arab Street" (which liberals love to fear) has rejected Al Queda's suicide bombers.
In my opinion I'm proud of our US forces. Their conduct has been inspiring and honorable. The crap they endure from certain parts of the American population is disgraceful. They deserve our thanks and admiration, not pity, scorn or disdain. War is f'd up. Innocent people always die, the Iraqis (especially the Sunnis) know who the US forces are fighting for and trying to help. Our forces being misused, bull$hit they are foward deployed and are kicking the hell out of the enemy.
Levi, if you ever decide to stop treating this as a religious matter and one of reason, I reiterate my offer to go see for yourself. I would also ask you to stop and think about two things you obviously haven't since coming here. You claim that all here are republicans and mindless; and, you have repeated that claim several time since.
This site is one by Soldier's Angels, and it is specifically by MaryAnn who does work at LRMC. While I doubt you know it, LRMC is where all the wounded that have to be evacuated come to before either going back or going back to the States. MaryAnn and the Angels work with those troops; they see the arrivals; they help the families; and, unlike you, they damn well know the price being paid. Unlike you who think it, they live it.
It was pointed out to you before, but since it didn't seem to penetrate it, this site is non-political. It supports the troops, and while I doubt you have the capacity to grasp this, that does not equate to supporting any party or President. One would think that with the background you claim you would get this, but obviously not.
You came in here with a preconceived bigotry -- and, yes, that is what it is -- and have shown manners that would shame a goat and an ignorance coupled with arrogance that is amazing; and, alas, not at all unique. After all, it is the same as shown by any religious/political figure that knows the ultimate truths and exactly what should be done and will do anything to make all share that vision no matter what.
I reiterate once again that should you decide to view this via reason rather than faith, that I will be glad to help you discover for yourself what is true and what is not. Otherwise, allow me to suggest that you show some breeding and manners, and stop displaying your shortcomings for the world to see.
Meantime, mindy, you certainly may and I will agree with you. In fact, I will admit that I wish I had made the shot. 
Can't i just say what a cute pic that is?
Exactly.
While the world is certainly a $h!thole in many ways, being able to see the good as well as the bad is what keeps me going.
Chief, look forward to checking out your links. Thanks.
We've proven unable to maintain the same basic level of security that Saddam could maintain.
Really? That's not what the people who *live* here are saying.
They don't have to worry that their sisters and daughters will be pulled into a van, raped, then dumped back on the streets by Saddam's thugs.
They can speak openly in front of their kids without having to worry that they'll be interrogated at school by Saddam's informers.
The "security" that Saddam provided was the same security prison guards provide to the inmates.
Nap time's over, Levi. We beat al-Qaeda in Iraq and we did it without the massacre of the innocents you seem to firmly believe happened. And despite your disclaimer in your last comment -- yes, you *have* been blaming the troops.
By the way, say "Hi" to your dad in the Pentagon, your sister who's sailing on the Cole and your brother who's a brand-new Lieutenant for me.
And despite your disclaimer in your last comment -- yes, you *have* been blaming the troops.
Nah, I'm sure he *loves* the troops.
It's just their mission, leadership, CINC, and country that he hates.
It is cute, Mindy! It looks like they are just brothers having a chat. No fear, all trust.
I wonder if that soldier has kids back home or maybe even a younger brother.
Isn't it great that all you see is a child and a young man having a moment.
I feel so sorry for misguided people who only look for the bad in circumstances, they miss so much wonder!
Pete Dawg. Good reply. Some people are unable to recognize The Truth. I have offered to take certain people to see for themselves some things I have debated with them, but they decline every time.
They are intent on only one thing, the destruction of America from within.
Yes, people die in wars. We did not start this one.
Others have no regard for innocent civilians. Neither did the JAPS in WW II.
These people can not discriminate between good and evil.
Thanks, ChiefRZ and thank you for your service to our country.
Speaking of the Imperial Japanese; my parents saw firsthand the brutality the Japanese inflicted on their home country the Philippines. It seems AQI and the Imperial Japanese were cut from the same cloth.
Innocents were killed in the liberation of the Philippines. The filipinos knew they had to endure this if they wanted to be free. My parents are from Leyte; none of the villagers living in the areas where the Americans were going to land evacuated. They didn't want to tip off the Japanese. Once the Americans liberated Leyte my father felt the kindness the GI's expressed to the Filpinos. It was the reason my father hitched a ride to Guam and joined the US Army at the outbreak of the Korean War. He was 16 1/2. He ingrained in me the sacrifices the Americans made to free the Philippines. Over hundred thousand filipinos died in the liberation on top of that 27,000 Americans GI's perished freeing the Philippines. I doubt none of those brave souls wanted to die, but those are the cost to free a country from tyranny. It's something I'll never forget.
I too wanted to serve this country, but none of services wanted me because of a medical conditon. My oldest son though is going to Army Boot camp at the end of this summer. I didn't push him into and he's not dumb like the liberals like to paint our soldiers. He just wants to serve.
pete. Thanks for posting The Truth. Too many liberals try to cover up the evils of fascist regimes.
Some of what you described was portrayed in the movie: The Great Raid. I recommend it.
I also watched as Corazon Aquino and the citizens took to the streets and Marcos was thrown out of power. Too bad the citizens of Zimbabwe didn't do the same thing with Mugabe.
Don't forget these photos:
http://tinyurl.com/5vj4gn
One of the finest acts of courage and humanity ever caught on film.
It's disgusting how the Levis of the world absolve the terrorists of all responsibility for their actions.
He's like the people who blame the police when a criminal tries to speed away and hits a pedestrian.
He accuses us of being "mindless," when the real mindlessness is squawking "War is bad for children and other living thing!" like some horrible undead relic from 1968.
When will these Vietnam-era zombies go away for good? Not soon enough for me.
Speaking of winning hearts and minds, I think the kid's got that troop pinned down under heavy fire....from the heart.
Ah Ha Eric that was great!
Hello all-
I just wanted to say thank you for all of the warm heart felt comments that were posted about this picture. The soldier here does in fact have 2 small children awaitng his arrival home. This soldier also happens to be my best friend and husband. Amazing man in more ways than one...obviously Again many thanks to you all!
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