I missed writing last week – my first time. I would have to say that this weekend was pretty good. It started with an afternoon conference for our military section – the J9 Civil Capacity Building and Embassy Engagement. We were looking at how to best engage the progressing situation in Iraq and how it would/should affect our work. Over all it was very successful as the members of the command put forth a lot of energy to ensure we had a good and thoughtful discussion. That is a challenge given the long hours that all of us work and that the conference didn’t help anyone get their day-to-day requirements completed. It was time spent ensuring the organization was set-up well for the next team (many of the people at the conference will be home by the time the decisions take place).
I want to use this time to express the deep respect that I have come to develop for the Army in my time here. First off, I must say the Army has issues. I am not going to spend any time speaking to those here today, but I will admit that me and my Navy buddies frequently spent hours discussing them. The navy is a minority here (about 6,000 of 100,000 troops in Iraq) and we coped by focusing on the negative.
But I have some to know many Army officers and enlisted and I have come to know their work and I am more than willing to say that I was wrong to spend as much time focusing on the issues.
And unlike me, who is serving this one time in Iraq as a Navy Reservist, I have met countless Army Reservists who have spent 3 or 4 years here. They are repeatedly called to come back and they do so. Each time they miss their families and each time the work hard to make Iraq a better place – and they are succeeding. Of course a great deal of the work is being done by Iraqi’s too, but I am in awe of these Army men and women who keep coming back to serve – because it is needed. I am grateful for their efforts, because as I come here to serve in year seven of the war, I see the fruits of their labors. I see a free people who for the 30 years prior to our arrival saw hundreds of thousands murdered (if not upwards of a million) by a dictator. I see religious hatred, starting to fade (especially in the young).
To get there has cost a great deal for both the Iraqi’s and the US. I do not want to say “it was worth it,” because to me that some how implies a 100,000 dead in seven years is “an acceptable price.” Still, there is a human truth that freedom costs, it requires suffering. It requires love (not the easy kind found on rainbow colored signs, but real love) that is willing to die for the other. I have to admit that I struggle with this concept, especially during Lent where we focus on Jesus’ image of love. I don’t have all the answers, or the poetry to make it sound better, but I do have a hope that we as the human community can accomplish the building up of our world community with perhaps a little less death. My hope is that love requires only the willingness to sacrifice (like Abraham in the reading several weeks go); that in the end God will help us build up all of the world’s communities (Afghanistan, Israel, Haiti etc) without so much death and suffering.
Peace and Happy Lent,
Mr. Culver
Spending some time near conference site. This Palace is on Saddam's former hunting grounds. The lake is rumored to have dead bodies from the former regime. Don't know about that, but the fish in the last are about 4 ft long (personally verified that fact)
PS.
In the paper today (the seventh anniversary of the commencement of the war in Iraq which removed Saddam) it mentioned a US female protester carrying a sign, “Bread not Bombs.” All I could think about was how uninformed a comment. Even the mainstream media is noting the incredible work the US government (not just the US Military) is accomplishing in building up the community of Iraq from education, to agriculture, to developing their oil resources, to advancing women issues and simply teaching a people how to exercise freedom without rushing to kill each other. It hasn’t been about bomb for at least two years. This is about keeping a presence in the volatile middle east. We have been here a number of times ... it is time we started doing it right and not leave at the first sign ....
