This is my first time on this site, an I'd like to introduce myself.
My name's Julian. I was born in Jamaica, and lived in America for most of my life. I'm 21 years old, and I turn 22 in November. I'll be spending my birthday in Iraq.
Why do u ask?
I'm in the U.S. Army, stationed at JSS Istaqlal. I go out on patrols every day, meet the Iraqi people every day, and see the results of firefights every day (not boasting, actually pretty sad about it). It's a long story how I came to this site ( i won't go into it, because i might run the risk of offending some people here), but the fact of the matter is that I'm here, and I want to learn more about the people who live where I only visit for a year at a time.
I hope that I can stay and have some interesting conversations with you all.
SoggyMilk: Welcome to the site bro, and it's great seeing American soldiers actually interested in finding out about our totally different culuture and people. I hope it'll really help you out there knowing a bit more about us, winning hearts and minds better and not antagonising the people too much, so you can kick away all that damned Iranian influence plaguing our country.
I really hope you guys the best luck, and stay safe like all the civilians and innocents in this mess. Thanks for joining, and welcome again bro.
Junraj: Welcome to the site bro, I'm really pleased people who aren't directly involved in this mess are sympathetic and compassionate enough like to to listen to our opinions, and hopefully help us sort ourselves out. Thanks for joining mate, and again, welcome.
We try not to behead either of you two..... too much.
If Iraq was a body, Iran would be Tetanus in the blood of Iraq. They feed off of the conflict here, because it takes attention away from them.
So it's not that Iran's having an influence, but rather it's slowly killing Iraq like a disease.
junraj: I'm a soldier, so I only have seen one aspect of the many facets that is Iraq. I've only seen the War side. I've seen many IED's hit my vehicles, and I've seen people get hurt, badly. Right now, I'm in a very..... angry state, because one of my friends in another unit was wounded yesterday. I don't know, I get mixed feelings about Iraq every day.
On some days, the kids will come out, and they'll come and try to talk to you, and the adults will smile, and wave at us, and we'll feel like we're doing some good.
Then, you've got the days when you're down in Sadr City, and an IED'll hit you, and you'll see the people in the alleys, staring at us w/ hatred in their eyes. When days like that happen, and they choose to let someone put a bomb in the road, and then smile as we're pulling back w/ our broken vehicles, and our injured men, it makes me want to do VERY....BAD...THINGS.
*shrug*
So I don't know how I feel about Iraq. Some days I feel good, some days I feel bad.
Welcome to the site. I'm a 21B, but I'm in the process of reclassing to 35M, I'm in the NG and they moved the combat engineers out, so that's why I had to switch it up.