October 24, 2005--I've Not Been Paying Attention. You?
If you’ve been reading these postings, you know that I use an article from the NY Times as a sort of jumping off point for my own daily commentary and musings. If I may, today I want to offer just quotes from a story by Sabrina Tavernise that appeared over the weekend, about attempts by US forces to take control of the insurgency in Ramadi, Iraq, the place all agree where the fight is fiercest. (Link below.)
As we quickly close in on 2,000 American fatalities and the media frenzy that will result, as well as the paroxysms of protest that will commemorate and take advantage of the event, I thought it might be timely to have some of the troops speak in their own words. And for me to shamefully acknowledge I have not been paying sufficient attention to the situation. And thus have been passive and thereby accepting of this tragic reality.
The Bradley fighting vehicles moved slowly down this city’s main boulevard. Suddenly, a homemade bomb exploded, punching into one vehicle. The other explosion hit, briefly lifting a second vehicle up onto its side before it dropped back down again.
Two American soldiers climbed out of a hatch, the first with his pant leg on fire, and the other completely in flames. The first rolled over to help the other man, but when they touched, the first man also burst into flames. Insurgent gunfire began to pop.
Several blocks away, Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Rosener, 20, from Minneapolis, watched the two men die from a lookout post at a Marine encampment. His heart reached out to them, but he could not. In Ramadi, Iraq’s most violent city, two blocks may as well be 10 miles.
“I couldn’t do anything,” he said of the incident, which he saw on Oct. 10. He spoke quietly, sitting in the post and looking straight ahead. “It’s bad down there. You hear all the rumors. We didn’t know it was going to be like this.”
“We fight it one day at a time,” said Capt. Phillip Ash, who commands Company K in the Third Battalion, Seventh Marines, which patrols Ramadi.
“Some days you’re the windshield,” he said, “some days you’re the bug.”
As we quickly close in on 2,000 American fatalities and the media frenzy that will result, as well as the paroxysms of protest that will commemorate and take advantage of the event, I thought it might be timely to have some of the troops speak in their own words. And for me to shamefully acknowledge I have not been paying sufficient attention to the situation. And thus have been passive and thereby accepting of this tragic reality.
The Bradley fighting vehicles moved slowly down this city’s main boulevard. Suddenly, a homemade bomb exploded, punching into one vehicle. The other explosion hit, briefly lifting a second vehicle up onto its side before it dropped back down again.
Two American soldiers climbed out of a hatch, the first with his pant leg on fire, and the other completely in flames. The first rolled over to help the other man, but when they touched, the first man also burst into flames. Insurgent gunfire began to pop.
Several blocks away, Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Rosener, 20, from Minneapolis, watched the two men die from a lookout post at a Marine encampment. His heart reached out to them, but he could not. In Ramadi, Iraq’s most violent city, two blocks may as well be 10 miles.
“I couldn’t do anything,” he said of the incident, which he saw on Oct. 10. He spoke quietly, sitting in the post and looking straight ahead. “It’s bad down there. You hear all the rumors. We didn’t know it was going to be like this.”
“We fight it one day at a time,” said Capt. Phillip Ash, who commands Company K in the Third Battalion, Seventh Marines, which patrols Ramadi.
“Some days you’re the windshield,” he said, “some days you’re the bug.”
posted by Steven Zwerling at
10:50 AM
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