I have two things I would like to talk about.
First,
Gen. B.B. Bell showed up here for a couple of days. He went around and visited with the troops from Europe. That is what his visit was for. Yeah, right.
He visited everyone in Company F, 159th Aviation Regiment “Big Windy” besides the motor pool. We had to clean and make the motor pool all nice for him because he was supposed to show up. But I guess in his busy schedule he forgot about our motor pool.
Second is about the Quran in Cuba and how it was mistreated, or whatever. I think it will be out of line to punish our troops for that. These people burn our flag outside of base, yet it’s OK. Do you see anyone apologizing for that? Do you see anyone in trouble for that? If they burned our Bible or mishandled it, do you think anything would happen to them?
We are suppose to have freedom of religion and speech. It’s just a book and people need to get over it.
We televise it every time Americans do something wrong. I keep my family informed about what is really happening, or else most of the people in the United States would think we are bad people what with this and the Abu Ghraib scandal.
If we are going to report all the bad we do, we need to report the good also.
Spc. Tom Merchant
Bagram, Afghanistan
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=29488
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Newsweek will surely want to question Spc. Merchant's own handling of the Quran, as will the Pentagon. :sarcasm:
This is one of the reasons why Germany did not want to send troops to Iraq: the lack of troop training on Middle East/Central Asian cultural mores, which would eventually contribute to the current quagmire of the unwitting US troops' own making.