Last updated on Monday, January 23, 2006
Laurie Miller, BNL grad, I.U. Graduate e-mails from Iraq that her general support team, military intelligence, is basically working directly for the Corps Headquarters in Baghdad. Laurie writes: One of the villages right outside the base was a model village during the former regime. It was built as a housing area for the officers who served in the air force for Saddam. All of the buildings look the same and there are amenities there such as basketball courts, a pool and a community center. Now, the town looks a little spooky. It has a post-apocalyptic feel in that we can see that it was once a really nice town but now is falling apart. The streets are scattered with rolls of concertina wire and concrete barriers.
A herd of goats roams the sidewalks and trash collects in flower pots and tree plots. A man there told us that, although the village (Bakr Village), has supported the American cause since the invasion, they are now starting to support the insurgency. It is hard not to fee sympathy for the situation that these men find themselves in. The men in that village lived the good life under Saddam. They were officers who were treated with respect and very well paid.
Since the Americans came, they are forced to choose between working for us, filling sandbags for $8 a day, or planting IEDs on the road for hundreds of dollars. There are just not enough decent jobs to go around. As the months pass and positive progress is slow in coming, the easy money is looking better and better to them. We saw a copy of a price list and a dead American is worth $15,000 to the insurgents. A destroyed Humvee is $25,000 , a tank if $50,000 while dead Shi'ite Iraqis are only $5,000 each. Of course, we know that there has been a price on our heads since we came to this country but it makes me feel kind of strange to see it written out in back and white.
The Iraqi people are so generous to us and many are grateful for the changes that they see and the possibilities in the future. Thank you all for your continued interest and support. We appreciate knowing that we are not forgotten and that folks at home are interested in what we are experiencing over here.
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