Got the following email exchange from our friend, Blue Star Mother Sue Peterson, who describes it as "A first-hand account of the situation in Iraq from the son of a friend. The son is a grunt (11B) down in the trenches doing a fantastic job with our other soldiers and marines." We reprint it here with permission.
Hey y’all,
I got a myspace message from Brander last night. As you will read below he is safe and doing well. I send this on to let you all know how he is doing and as an illustration of the strength of character found in our young men and women we are supporting and praying for. May God continue to bless and protect Brander and all of those serving this great nation.
Love
BillJun 3, 2008 2:13 PM
Subject: greetings and sal-u-tay-tionsHey Dad,
All is well. I just wrote a letter to Colleen and Collin thought I should share a portion with ya’ll. If you could tell Andy to check his myspace for me too next time you talk to him. I would be thankful. The weather is heating up and things are hectic. Sorry to hear about all the road time. As for me I’m trying to remind myself that life is about the journey not the destination. Well I love you send my best to the rest.
I love you,
BranderThe fighting over here has stopped. We found out just recently that all the bad guys we’ve been having such a hard time finding fled the country months ago. We spend our time now organizing grants from the Iraqi gov. for local people to create jobs and boost the economy, overseeing public works (that are decades behind) to insure quality and weed out corruption, sitting down for dinners and meeting with the once warring fractions to settle differences, talking to the key leaders to advise them on how to keep corruption and terrorists from coming back into the city and trying to rebuild and reestablish the education system, and sometime I dance and sing with the kids.
As a special project we take it upon ourselves to check up on the child households and widows in are area. I wouldn’t recognize the city I showed up in and the one I live in now as the same. The trash is cleaned out of the streets and canals. The streets are full of children laughing, playing, and moving to and from school. The markets, once barren alleys with boarded up shops, are now jam packed with people haggling and shopping. There are even a few soccer teams that started up with uniforms’n’all. I have no idea who started them but we stopped and watch a game with a crowd of fans. Wedding parties fill the now clean court yards on a regular basis with dancing and singing long into the nights. All the once vacant houses have been filled with the happy faces of the former owner.
People are no longer afraid to talk to us in public, but go out of their way to seek us out and offer us there gratitude and hospitality. We have made this city our home and the people in it our friends and neighbors. In doing so, we have changed the lives of those around us forever and given them the tools to dream again. Thank you for supporting me in being apart of this. All of you back home have been the answer to my prayers and that is what gives me the strength to be the answer to theirs.
This is really good news. It seems that things have really changed over there. Brander’s first-hand description of the work our fine troops are doing over there and the palpable progress being made further demonstrates the folly of a pullout at this time. I hope Senator Obama and the rest of the naysayers in Congress get to read Brander’s message of REAL hope…
Iraqi children playing soccer. (Found on the ‘Net)
[UPDATE: Here are more stories straight from the ground. H/T: What Bubba Knows]