Captain's Quarters -

Mike The Contractor Speaks Out On Zarqawi

A good friend of CQ has spent decades in the Naval Reserve as a SEAL, volunteering regularly for active duty during conflicts. He has served in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf as a SEAL and spent some time as a contractor in Iraq. He was in Iraq when Islamist "insurgents" murdered four contractors and desecrated their corpses -- burning them, hanging them from a bridge, and then tearing them to pieces. Since then, Mike has occasionally shared his thoughts on Iraq and the war on terror with CQ readers. After the death of Zarqawi, Mike sent me this letter and allowed me to once again pass it along to you, after redacting some personal information.

As I am in and out of town on active duty until mid-summer I am really enjoying magical weekends off with my awesome high energy boys. At the same time I, like many veteran friends of the Iraq War conflict wish that I was in Iraq at this moment and especially for the coming days.

I wish this because I know that American and Multi-National Troops there, while still on careful guard, are going through well-deserved emotional highs. But even more important, for right now and just for a few more days, the Iraqi people as a whole are jubilant, they have real hope again, they are smiling and hugging Americans and foreigners from more than 30 Free Countries.

Please do this for me, because you only have a few days to do it and I don’t have time right now. Scour the internet news websites. Copy pictures of Iraqi people smiling, laughing, Iraqi patriots holding their guns in the air, arms around multi-national troops -- clear evidence that we are doing the right thing in this small part of the greater Global War on Terrorism. Show these pictures to your children so that they will not be afraid to stand up for freedom in the dangerous days that still lie ahead of us.

I say you only have a few days to do it because I fear it will only last a few more days. You see some of our own elected officials and the heavily lobbied predominately liberal media will do everything possible to squelch images such as these. And although, most of the Iraqi people are appreciative of our efforts and genuinely believe they should press on until they are truly free of terrorism, much like impressionable children (even college-age children), they are influenced by media.

I was in country when Udai and Qusai Hussein were killed. This was a tentatively jubilant time for all the Iraqis I knew, especially those with direct knowledge of Udai’s horrific atrocities. But on December 13, 2003 when the Ace of Spades was captured, oh my God…I have never experienced or imagined such people in pure and utter jubilation. Did you see it? Did you get a small view of what a people coming out of bondage feel? It didn’t last long did it? Remember those stained fingers and proud faces of people voting in a free election (in higher percentages than our own free nation) for the first time in their nation’s history? Where are those pictures now?

When I first entered Iraq, less than half of the Deck of Cards (55 of Iraq’s Most Wanted) was accounted for. When I left more than a year later there were only 9 left. I participated in finding, fixing and finishing barely “medium value targets” - MVPs. The HVT that was recently finished is beyond huge, but a lot of ground will be lost if we as a people of the greatest free nation on earth cannot come together and support this War in meaningful ways.

For the moment we are doing our part in fighting terrorists and freeing people away from the shores of our own country. Now I am humbly asking you to do your part.

In the coming elections I very respectfully request that you vote for the candidates who take the strongest stands on prosecuting the Global War on Terrorism and protecting our own borders.

Your friend, family and servant,

Mike

Let's Remember Them All

Longtime CQ readers will remember my friend Mike the Contractor, who spent a long time in Iraq both in the Seals and as a contractor. I've published some of Mike's letters in the past, especially those to his young sons in explaining the war on terror. Today Mike sends this message to his friends and family, reminding us of the role that his contractor friends continue to play in protecting Americans and Iraqis in the most dangerous areas. Mike will return to Iraq in the near future to continue this work himself.

On this Memorial Day, we honor the military men and women who have been killed in action while defending our freedoms. After seeing fallen military brethren that I have served with receive official honors and family compensation, I thought it would be appropriate to honor some other comrades-in-arms, which are my contractor brothers who also paid the ultimate price over the last couple years.

This e-mail will go out to a couple hundred military friends as well as civilians. Many of you already know very intimately what armed contractors do and also what it is to lose someone who has gone into the fray with you.

For those who don't, there are two (2) main kinds of contractors in war zones.

The kind that you have frequently seen on TV pitifully held hostage and beheaded on video are the un-armed kind. They generally work for companies like KBR (a Halliburton subsidiary) or construction or oil companies and are the completely innocent people who are doing the major rebuilding and support work in Iraq. Their slayings are particularly heinous at all levels including the Islamic Qur'an that states "If you kill someone who is not himself a killer, it is as if you have killed all of mankind."

The other kind of contractor is the kind that I was and served with. We are fully armed with American as well as foreign weapons. We work for government contracted security companies and/or specialized medical support companies that primarily hire former special operations personnel. Many of the men I worked with were on leave of absence from a Special Forces unit or like in my case a Reserve Navy SEAL unit. There is virtually no chance that any of us could ever be taken alive and to my knowledge, none of us have.

But no matter how well you plan or train, you can certainly die a violent death like anyone else. In fact as I look back over my 334 days in Iraq, I realize that there are well over a dozen contractors who I knew who died there. Scottie Helvenston, who was slain in Fallujah and hung on a bridge on March 31, 2004 is probably the only one with any public name recognition. American names like Roy Buckmaster and foreign names like Cristoph Kazka will only be remembered by their eternal friends and relatives and the Lord.

I will pick 2 men to profile here whom I worked with closely and who were killed a few short weeks after I returned home to the privileged surrealistic world we call America. I will state their names as they were released to the press but I will leave out the name of the agencies they worked for.

Todd Engstrom and Dave Randolph were not just shooters, they were Team Leaders and Program Managers for two different security companies operating at the same time out of a forward operating base near Fallujah. Because I was a medic, I was honored to work for and with both of them in the last months of a contract to secure and dispose of explosive ordnance. But it really didn't matter who you worked for at this place, affectionately called "the Rock," because we all felt like brothers in the same family and Todd and Dave made that happen. They were friends to all of us and obviously the closest of friends to each other.

Todd was qualified to teach the Sate Department Alpha & Bravo course, so he made sure that everyone on site had ample opportunity to qualify on his course even if they worked for a different company. Todd's company set up combat shooting courses all the time even though temperatures went over 130 in the summer and their operational work schedule was oppressive. I remember one week where the course was a 12 station AK-47 shoot-on-the-move timed evolution. We were issued only Iraqi ammunition to shoot because it misfired so frequently (we always loaded good American or Russian ammo in our operational magazines) and required you to clear your weapon several times on the course. Guys from Todd's company challenged guys from Dave's company to compete against them. Dave showed up on the last day and set the course record on his first run.

Todd and Dave were just about the best leaders I have ever seen. You may have heard instructors or leaders say, "I will never ask you to do something I wouldn't do myself." Todd and Dave never said words like that (Dave rarely said anything without an F word in it). They didn't have to. They were always right there with you doing it. And although they were both strong enthusiastic leaders, they were not reckless.

Whether it came to patrolling the outer regions of the FOB at night, clearing areas strewn with unexploded ordnance, or going on convoys outside the wire, both of them had only one thing in mind - bringing back their men alive. As such they made sure that everyone knew every job. Everyone had their own maps and knew all of the main routes as well as escape and evasion routes. Everyone had the communications plan, medevac plan, intelligence summaries, all of it. Because Todd and Dave literally led from the front, they made sure that they could be replaced by anyone of us if disaster struck.

While I was processing back into the U.S. at Fort Bliss Texas in October of 2004 I was notified of the death of Todd Engstrom who was in the lead vehicle when an improvised explosive device was detonated north of a place called Taji.

The following month, while I was home around Thanksgiving with my family, David Randolph was killed by an RPG that exploded into his lead vehicle on a convoy between Fallujah and Baghdad. Next to him was another man I worked with who I will call Avin. Although Avin was not his real name, it is close enough for those who know to remember. Avin's brother is another SF contractor that I know and greatly respect. He was in country at the time and flew home with the remains of Avin and is now back in Iraq, which is why I leave his family names out of this.

In each tragedy, the remaining contractors instantly unleashed 'violence of action' to vanquish the enemy, cross-loaded their guntrucks with the bodies of their fallen leaders and friends and got out of the kill zone.

American contractors get paid OK on a daily basis, once we are actually working in the war zone. However, when a contractor is killed in action, there is no fanfare, no pension for the family, not much in the way of life insurance.

A memorial fund has been set up for the families of Todd Engstrom and David Randolph and Avin by their respective company. Dave & Avin have surviving children.[I will post the website for this as soon as I have it -- CE]

"No greater love has a man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
John 15:13

Coalition means partnership. This Memorial Day, please know that the Coalition Forces of Iraq who paid the ultimate price, be they men or women; military, government or civilian; American, Iraqi, British or more than 40 other nationalities, included all who love freedom as their partners and friends.

Michelle Malkin has an excellent roundup of other Memorial Day tributes.

A Voice From The Front, Part III

The final part of the interviews with "Mike".

Q. How much play is our upcoming presidential election getting in Iraq?

A. It�s huge. It�s critical. The left-wing media has been spewing a lot of crap about how the Iraqis want us out of there as soon as possible. We all want to get out of there as soon as possible � which is going to be several years from now. Anyone who wants to be realistic about the whole situation knows that it�s not going to happen in a few months, it�s going to happen in a few years. At the point where Iraq is finally on its feet and rebuilt, able to keep terrorists out and any other despot that might want to take control of the government, then we�ll leave. But right now, what�s really happening is that the Iraqis who want to provide a better life for themselves � the majority of the people � they not only don�t want us to leave right now, they�re petrified that that�s exactly what�s going to happen. The reason for that is that John Kerry keeps saying we never should have been there in the first place � wrong war, wrong place, all the stuff you heard during the debates.

It�s wreaking terror in the hearts of the good Iraqis who want to come forward and govern their country the way it should be governed. Their perception is that we could just leave; we could just leave as soon as Kerry gets elected. Then the murder rate, which is already through the roof right now, would skyrocket. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of the victims are not Americans, but ordinary Iraqis who just want to come to work for us and with us, and stepping up to take charge of their country. That�s the majority of people getting killed over there by terrorists. Once we leave, their fear is that retaliations will begin and they�ll be slaughtered. They�re exactly accurate about that.

Q. It�s been suggested that we don�t have enough troops in Iraq to provide a stable security situation there. What�s your opinion on that?

A. It�s a complex topic. The simple response is � we don�t. We don�t have enough troops to provide absolute security. We probably would have been better off if we�d declared martial law as soon as the war was over, but we couldn�t do it because we didn�t have the people to enforce it. How is that the current sitting president�s fault, when Clinton is the one who cut our military down to two-thirds of what it was prior to his coming into office? So now this hypocritical argument that Kerry uses � �Well, we should have had more troops, we should be having this, we should be having that� � thanks to the Democrats, we don�t have enough troops to go into every country and take full control. We also have the rest of the world to cover. We need people in Afghanistan, and we�ve got them. We need troops on the ground in the Philippines, Indonesia, and the other fifty different places around the world where we have a presence we need to maintain. We can�t just strip one area and send the forces to Iraq.

Besides, our whole mission in Iraq is to turn it over to the Iraqis, so our role right now is to train the Iraqis to take control of the situation. And they�re doing a great job. I�m actually surprised that as many Iraqis are continuing to come forward to be police officers in their own country or enlist in the new Iraqi Army when they are being targeted by terrorists, some of which don�t even come from Iraq, for doing exactly that.

Q: What are the real sentiments of the typical Iraqi? What�s it like for Iraqi civilians?

A: Most of my interpreters � actually, all of my interpreters were educated Iraqis. Usually they were English professors from Iraqi universities, which made them perfect for interpreters. They made three dollars a month from Saddam, and now teachers and professors make two to three hundred dollars a month there. When they work for us, they make six hundred dollars a month as interpreters. So I was dealing with the intelligentsia of Iraq; a couple of these guys were doctors, medical doctors trained in Iraq, and they would work a week for us as interpreters and then a week in an Iraqi hospital, making nothing.

For four weeks I was in An Najaf, which is 100% Shi�ite, and after that I was in Tikrit and Fallujah, which are mostly Sunni with a few Shi�ites and Kurds, all working together, all getting along, working on the job with us. None of them wanted us to leave � quite the opposite; they�re terrified we�re going to leave because of idiots like Kerry saying we never should have been there in the first place.

I don�t know why anyone comes forward to help us, or help themselves really, because they become a target. Most of the people getting killed now are Iraqis trying to do something with their lives and cooperating with us. They love us. Far from hating us and wanting us to leave, most Iraqis love us. It doesn�t matter whether you�re talking with Shi�ites, Sunnis, whatever. That�s the fact that doesn�t get reported.

Q. It�s been claimed that the US has lacked a plan for winning the peace in Iraq. Is that what you�ve seen on the ground there?

A. No, there were great plans. [Chuckles.] I mean, there are 18-wheelers by the thousands pouring into Iraq to rebuild that place. I don�t know if you noticed or not, but up until about March, we did a pretty good job of securing that country. There were isolated incidents before, but after March it got worse, and it got worse for a couple of reasons. One, predictably, [the terrorists] are turning up the heat just before the elections, so they can overturn the elections in Iraq and they can overturn the elections here in our country. I�m going to be very surprised if there isn�t a major cataclysmic event that takes place in our country just before the election, just like they did in Spain.

Naturally, you�d expect them to be turning up the heat right now. But one other thing took place, and that was Abu Ghraib. I have no doubt that the low-level Army guys were way out of line, and they�re going to be court-martialed and their lives and careers are over. But the amount of media attention that that one event received, that�s what our president was not prepared for. He was not prepared for an American senator running for office, saying the kinds of things he is. I mean, the terrorists could not be writing a better script for John Kerry if they tried. He and all the people like him are giving comfort to the enemy. Boy, he�s exceeding himself.

Q: Sounds like a replay of 30 years ago.

A: I didn�t even know he existed until this year, but throwing his medals onto the White House lawn and whatever he said thirty years ago is nothing compared to the damage he�s doing right now.

A Voice From The Front, Part II

The second part of the interviews with "Mike".

Q. Obviously, the Iraqis got this ammunition hand over fist before our invasion, and as you said, a good portion of it wasn�t deployable by the Iraqi military. Was any of this disappearing into terrorist hands before the war?

A. Of course! There�s the terrorist side of it; the Wahhabi Muslim terrorists, who see their role in life as to blow up unbelievers that they think are attacking Islam, specifically Israel. The end state for Muslim terrorists is to get the Jews out of Israel, and anyone supporting Israel has got to go along with them. But money is what it was all about in Iraq. There was a minister for everything. There was a land mine minister, an RPG minister, a free-rocket-over-ground minister; for every type of explosive ordinance that exists, there was some minister for it. And he made money by buying the stuff and bringing it into the country, and of course he�d make a profit off of it.

Saddam Hussein believed he was the reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar, or at least that�s what he told people. He planned on using it all to blow up Jerusalem.

Q. One of the issues in this presidential campaign has been weapons of mass destruction and whether or not they were present in Iraq. Now obviously what you�re describing is massive weapons of destruction, as you�ve told me before, which probably had more destructive power than some of the WMD we�ve been concerned with in the run-up to the war. What can you tell us about WMDs in Iraq?

A. Did I actually see any WMD? The only thing I can tell you about that is if I saw any. At the right time and the right place, it will be revealed to the American public, because as far as I know, there�s nothing official coming from the United States government that we found any since we invaded Iraq. However, I can tell you that the large amounts of it that we know exist are not in Iraq now. That definitely is true, that the gigantic stockpiles of sarin gas and VX in artillery rounds and the other stuff is nowhere to be found.

That leads to the next question: where is it? There�s no question that the President had good reason to invade Iraq, for all the reasons he gave. I mean, Saddam bragged about all of his WMD and what he was going to do with them against us, so we had more than one just provocation to go in there and find the WMD. If it�s not there, and there�s no inventory and no destruction worksheets or anything, to show he disposed of it in any way, then why is the left-wing media not more interested in finding out where it all went? Because we may just find out in our own country where all that WMD are.

Q. That�s a good point, Mike. You just don�t go out in the desert and blow up a bunch of sarin gas containers; you have to do that in a controlled environment. You�d expect there to be some kind of record that the stuff got destroyed because you have to make certain preparations to make sure it doesn�t get out and contaminate the countryside.

A. Right. And why would he do it anyway? He was thumbing his nose at us the entire time. He was violating every UN sanction, everything that the UN told him to do. What would he have to lose by offloading it onto terrorists?

Q. The story you hear from the press is that he didn�t have the stuff, and he lied to his own people. Telling them he didn�t have it would have undermined his power, leaving him more vulnerable to being overthrown by his own people. That�s the story we hear right now.

A. Part of that is true. There was a lot of bravado in the things he told his own people. Still, it doesn�t mean � it actually validates our invasion. If he�s telling that to his own people and we think he still has it, then that�s all the more reason to invade when we did. Obviously, he didn�t have it the moment we walked in the door, most of it was gone. But we know he had thousands of tons of it at a certain point in time, because he used it on his own people. There were inspectors who saw it and gave him a time frame to get rid of it, and somehow it was gone � but where did it go?

That brings me to my next point. So there�s not a lot of WMD being used against us � in fact, it hasn�t been used against us at all. What they�re using is low-tech weapons. They�re using 155mm artillery shells, and basically the entire Saddam arsenal is being used against us from Iraq to Israel, and who knows where else? It�s a project which needs to be seen all the way through to its end state. We�re setting aside a small percentage of it that will be usable for the new Iraqi Army, and detonating or open-burning the rest of it.

In the final part, Mike discusses the effect the presidential election is having on the situation in Iraq and his experience with the Iraqi people.

A Voice From The Front, Part I

A good friend of mine has served in the Navy as a SEAL, both active-duty and reserves, since the Vietnam War. �Mike� most recently spent the better part of the past three years in Iraq before, during, and after the war. After serving as an active-duty SEAL handling Arabian Gulf interdiction missions, he took a leave of absence to work as a civilian security contractor inside Iraq, including some of the toughest areas in the Sunni Triangle, such as Fallujah and Tikrit. As a private contractor, Mike spent most of his time securing and destroying captured enemy ordinance at ammunition supply points like Al Qaqaa, which has found itself the center of attention during this presidential election. However, Mike worked on sensitive missions during his time in the Gulf, and for the safety of his family has asked that he not be identified by name.

I interviewed Mike twice, once for Captainsquartersblog.com and once on the Northern Alliance Radio Network Network in Minneapolis, MN. I�ve combined the two interviews to share Mike�s first-person perspective on his missions, the ongoing American effort, and the effect our election is having on the Iraqi people.

Q: When did you first to go to Iraq and in what capacity?

A: I got called up to Enduring Freedom in November 2001, from my civilian job. I�m a reservist with a naval Special Warfare unit. I�m a SEAL corpsman, and my first assignment was to train up SEALS to deploy, and then I was put in an active-duty role to go forward with a special boat team that does ship takedowns in the North Arabian Gulf.

What we�re doing is stopping smuggler vessels in the middle of the night that were smuggling for Iraq prior to the war. We did 32 direct-action missions against blacked-out ships that were trying to get away from us. They were loaded with every kind of contraband you could think of. Everything coming out of Iraq was carrying illegal oil. Anything coming in was carrying weapons and other kinds of things.

Q. Mike, you and I were talking about that earlier. Where did these illegal weapons come from that you captured on these interdiction missions?

A: Anything that came into Iraq in the mid-90s, no matter where it came from, was illegal because of the embargo, which leads to my next job. Russia, China, France were all the countries that were supplying Iraq in the last decade or so.

Q. When you were running these missions, that�s what you were finding, and the weapons were coming from those three countries?

A. Some. You know, it�s difficult for me in my SEAL role to know where a lot of it comes from. If you have AK-47s all over the place and they�re made in Russia, you can only assume at some point it came from Russia. You don�t know at what point the smuggler got hold of them. The smugglers were either merchants from India or Pakistan or various other places, or some of them were terrorists. There were a couple of high-value targets that we actually did stop � they weren�t all just people trying to make a buck on terrorism. That was pretty interesting.

Q: What else besides oil got smuggled out of Iraq?

A: Most of the time they�d be smuggling oil. My group alone got 9,000 metric tons of oil that was smuggled out in violation of the trade embargo.

Q: Who kept the oil?

A: We would either confiscate the ships or send them back up to where they came from. In the middle of the night, you can�t always get people to come baby-sit, and once we take them down, we�re not going to just sit there for hours until morning. Usually [the Navy] sends someone out to take care of the ship. If they can�t do that, we send them back. The smugglers tell us, �Oh, Saddam will kill us if we go back,� and we tell them that�s not our problem, and if you don�t go back, we�ll kill you ourselves. That was our mission, nighttime black-out interdiction. During the day, the Coast Guard would stop anyone stupid enough to try it during daylight. At night, they sent SEALs out to do it.

Q: What did you do after that?

A: For the last year, I was a contractor in Iraq, and my role was to be a �shooter� or security guy, along with being a primary medic. I frequently would be the only medic for about a hundred people, most of which were Iraqis who were injured or severely sick. Our project was captured enemy ammunition. Our job, the Captured Enemy Ammunition Project � which is still going on today, it�s not classified � is very underreported in the left-wing press because it�s an example of something that�s going very well over there and it absolutely needs to be finished before we leave. It won�t be done for another two years, I�m guessing, at the very least.

When I first got over there, a year ago September, there was an estimated two million tons of captured enemy ammunition. What I mean by ammunition is bombs, missiles, land mines, RPGs, tank rounds, artillery rounds � all the kinds of things terrorists are using for IEDs [improvised explosive devices]. All of it is usable for terrorists. Very little of it was usable for the Iraqi Army even when we went to war with them, because we had taken away the Iraq Air Force, so all these 2,000-pound bunker busters were of no use to their army; they were only of use to terrorists. That arsenal is still there today. I�m guessing we haven�t even blown up half of it yet.

Our job would be to go get the ammunition from different cache sites, take it to forward operating bases, and detonate it to the tune of over 100 tons in a single shot.

More on ammunition destruction later ...

Coming Later Tonight: Interview With "MIke"

Over the past two weeks, I posted a five-part series of letters from my friend "Mike", a Navy SEAL and private contractor who served in both capacities in Iraq, to his young sons. I spoke at length with Mike during two interviews (one of which was on our Northern Alliance radio show), and Mike gave a fascinating look into his experiences in Iraq and what they taught him about the war on terror and Iraq's liberation. Mike spent the better part of two years there, and here's an example of what's coming up:

For the last year, I was a contractor in Iraq, and my role was to be a �shooter� or security guy, along with being a primary medic. I frequently would be the only medic for about a hundred people, most of which were Iraqis who were injured or severely sick. Our project was captured enemy ammunition. Our job, the Captured Enemy Ammunition Project � which is still going on today, it�s not classified � is very underreported in the left-wing press because it�s an example of something that�s going very well over there and it absolutely needs to be finished before we leave. It won�t be done for another two years, I�m guessing, at the very least. When I first got over there, a year ago September, there was an estimated two million tons of captured enemy ammunition.

I'm spending the evening transcribing the two interviews and piecing them together into a coherent narrative. As you can read from that short excerpt, his experiences have special significance given the news this week from Al Qaqaa and the Kerry campaign's response to the NYT/CBS hit piece. Check back later as I will post this before midnight.

UPDATE: This should be coming in the next hour (before midnight CT), but I will probably post it in sections as it's rather long.

Explaining Why We Fight To Our Children, Part V

This is Part V in a continuing series by my friend "Mike", a Navy SEAL who spent most of the last couple of years in Iraq as both an active-duty participant and a private contractor. "Mike" explains the war in Iraq to his young sons, and has graciously allowed me to share his letters with you.

IRAQ PICTURE LETTER TO MY SON
PART 5. THE COALITION OF MANY NATIONS

Some people say that our country is fighting this war and helping Iraq by ourselves. This is far from the truth. Our President has done an excellent job of leading many other brave countries in helping Iraq. You may have heard the term �coalition troops.� Well �coalition� simply means �partnership.� Daddy has worked very closely with many partners in our coalition and most of them are very motivated to stamp out terrorism and fight for freedom. Some of them from Eastern Europe are especially motivated because they come from countries that only gained their freedom recently.

Now we will see some of the countries that came to Iraq to help. I will show you the people and you see if you can find their countries on the World Map and point them out to Mommy. (See extended entry for these pictures -- CE.)

Daddy can show you many more pictures when he gets home and tell you stories of the brave deeds of our coalition partners. In the meantime take a look at this plaque. It has the flags of all the countries that first came to help with Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Can you count how many countries came to help?

Although many other countries are helping, our country is leading the fight because we are the most powerful country in the world and we are using our might to light the way. It is very appropriate that we should be the leader because the people in our country represent all of the cultures and religions of the whole world. Remember in school when the teacher told you that the United States is a �melting pot?� See if you can explain to Mommy what that means.

These young men are United States Marines from the First Marine Division. They did most of the hard fighting that won the War in Iraq last year.

These young men are United States Army Soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division. They did most of the rest of it.

American Army and Marine troops are the foreigners who are making most of the sacrifices to keep the peace over here at the moment. The rest of us �special operations� & contractor people support their mission.

However most of the real sacrifices and hard work is now being made by the people of Free Iraq. You see lasting Freedom will never be
free of cost for any country.

No matter what you hear or see on TV or in this letter or in future letters, you should not be afraid. Terrorists are cowards who will keep doing sneaky evil things if they think they can scare people. You should also not be afraid because God is on our side and he is giving strength to our President and our country to stay the course and not back down.

You go to a great school that reinforces the morality and the need for the war we have to wage for freedom. Remember the last line of the national anthem you sing throughout the year? Well the United States of America really is the �Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave� and many other countries are realizing that if they want to stay free, they must be brave too.

It makes me happy every time you say you love me on the phone. The best thing you can do to show your love for me is to help your Mommy and always show her love and respect. Mommy is the real patriot of our family while I am gone.

I love you and miss you and I am glad you are my son.

� Daddy

I will be transcribing interviews I did with Mike later on today, and hope to have them posted tonight. Keep checking back!

Explaining Why We Fight To Our Children, Part IV

This is Part IV in a continuing series by my friend "Mike", a Navy SEAL who spent most of the last couple of years in Iraq as both an active-duty participant and a private contractor. "Mike" explains the war in Iraq to his young sons, and has graciously allowed me to share his letters with you. NOTE: Some images may be disturbing!

IRAQ PICTURE LETTER TO MY SON
PART 4. DADDY�S WORK IN IRAQ

In the last section we learned about the Captured Enemy Ammunition (CEA) mission that Daddy helps with. All of the �planned detonations�, which is when we blow things up, are closely supervised by former military explosives experts called EOD technicians. EOD stands for Explosive Ordnance Disposal. �Explosive ordnance� is another way of saying �ammunition.� The EOD techs try to blow something up almost every day so that we can get rid of the dangerous ammunition as soon as possible.

But there are many other things that have to be done to make sure that everyone is safe and Daddy helps with those things too. Sometimes Daddy goes out into the community near his FOB to meet with local people and help them with what they need. If Daddy�s team helps their neighbors, then those neighbors help in protecting Daddy�s FOB.
If they can read & write Arabic (their own language), they can even get jobs at the FOB.

It is all part of what we call �winning hearts and minds.� Most Iraqis are very glad we are here and are very scared about us leaving until good Iraqis can run the country. So we are teaching them the good things that we know.

Something for you to remember in Life is that �No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

Now we have to talk about a very troubling topic which you have asked about Daddy�s work.

You have heard that Daddy is working as a �contractor� in Iraq. That is true. Daddy has taken a �leave of absence� from his military reserve unit and fire department to work as a civilian which means that he is getting paid by a company instead of the government. A contractor agrees to work for certain periods of time and when the time is up the contractor can either go home or get another contract. Daddy is definitely coming home at the end of this contract.

You may have also heard on TV or on the radio that contractors are some of the defenseless people that terrorists prey upon in Iraq. It is true that some contractors have been kidnapped and killed in Iraq. But these contractors were unarmed which means they were not carrying guns. Daddy is definitely not one of those kind of contractors.

Daddy is always well-armed while working here in Iraq and there is no possibility that he or any of the contractors he works with will ever be captured alive and killed later by terrorists. Daddy and his friends only fire their weapons at people when they are bad people who are trying to hurt good people.

Sometimes Daddy helps to search people to make sure they don�t have weapons or explosives before they come on the FOB. Sometimes Daddy helps to �detain� people in Iraq like when they are trying to steal ammunition from his FOB or other cache sites. They steal the ammo to sell to terrorists who use it to attack us or the people of Free Iraq. After Daddy�s team detains the bad people, they turn them over to the U.S. Army. Sometimes Daddy shoots at bad people if they are coming to hurt people on his FOB, or a convoy that we might be traveling on.

But Daddy also works as a medic and his main job is to help people when they are sick or injured just like he does on his main job at home. Only in Iraq Daddy is usually the only medic at the FOB (or on a convoy) which is very far from a hospital so he has to do a lot more than when he is a paramedic. His first priority is to help other American contractors that he works with. Daddy also takes care of American and foreign military people when they need help.

But Iraqi people that Daddy works with get sick or hurt more than others do. So Daddy helps Iraqis when they are sick or hurt more than anyone else. Sometimes Daddy has to sew up big cuts like this one. But if the cuts or injuries are too serious, Daddy calls in a medical helicopter to take the people to an American military hospital in Iraq.

If Daddy and his team can�t save the person, they die and Daddy is in charge of taking care of the dead person with dignity and respect.

Sometimes Daddy even takes care of children in Iraq. One time Daddy brought this burned child in through the main gate of a military base where there was a good temporary hospital. Even though the hospital staff wasn�t supposed to treat outside local people, they got special permission and we took care of him.

His burns were �debreaded� each morning which means we cleaned and trimmed the dead skin. And every day he got new medication and bandages until he was all healed up.

Many children get burned in Iraq and unfortunately much worse than this boy.

We are very blessed to be born in America where we have so much and to be able to share it with others who don�t.

Explaining Why We Fight To Our Children, Part III

This is Part III in a continuing series by my friend "Mike", a Navy SEAL who spent most of the last couple of years in Iraq as both an active-duty participant and a private contractor. "Mike" explains the war in Iraq to his young sons, and has graciously allowed me to share his letters with you.

IRAQ PICTURE LETTER TO MY SON
PART 3. WHY WE INVADED IRAQ & WHY WE ARE STILL HERE

In Part 2 we learned about how Saddam Hussein was an evil and crazy ruler of the Iraqi people and that he had bad intentions for the world and especially Israel. However, Israel is quite capable of defending itself. We also learned how cruel he was to his own people. However that doesn�t explain why President Bush sent us into Iraq when he did.

One reason is because we believed that Saddam Hussein helped the terrorists who attacked our country on 9/11. Saddam is now saying that he had nothing to do with it. Well if Saddam Hussein didn�t directly help the terrorists he shouldn�t have been so arrogant as to have paintings like these made after it happened. Several paintings of Saddam celebrating the attack on America have been found in his Presidential Palaces.

But the main reason we had to free Iraq is so that we could go in and find and destroy the massive weapons he was building up so that he or other terrorists could not use them against us or other countries.

Do you know how much a ton is? That�s right, 2,000 lbs. Well everyone knew that Saddam Hussein had many tons of special weapons that are illegal and kill people in most horrible ways. He actually used some of these awful weapons against some of the people in his own country that he didn�t like. He is saying that he got rid of the really horrible weapons years ago, but what we don�t know yet is where they all went.

What we do know is that his country has more ammunition than almost any country in the world. Every year he kept buying more and more ammunition mainly from Russia and France and China. Helping to find and destroy �Captured Enemy Ammunition� (CEA) is the mission that Daddy has been serving in Iraq.

But what do we mean by ammunition?

When we talk about �ammunition� we aren�t just talking about bullets for guns that you can carry. We are talking about almost anything that explodes, including bombs, missiles, rockets, mortars, tank rounds, artillery rounds (big guns), and land mines.

When Daddy first came to Iraq it was estimated that there was more than 2 million tons of ammunition stored in hundreds of storage places called �caches�. We may not have that much ammunition in our own country.

Most of this ammunition could not even be used by the Iraqi military under Saddam Hussein and most has no use to the new military of Free Iraq. Saddam�s corrupt government sold or gave lots of it away to terrorists. Today terrorists try to steal the ammunition, so they can use it to kill innocent people.

Some of it is used to make bombs that they plant in places where there are a lot of people. Other ammunition, like this rocket, is ready to launch right out of the container. These kinds of rockets are launched on our bases and convoys by bad people every day.

So Daddy�s team goes to where the ammunition is and we keep it safe until big trucks come. Then we go out to the desert far away from people and stack the ammo close together, we �prime� it with special explosives ... and then we blow it up.

The explosions you see were what we call planned �detonations.� Some of our planned detonations destroyed more than 100 tons of Captured Enemy Ammunition (CEA) in one shot! They all happened at different remote places in Iraq called Forward Operating Bases or FOBs. Daddy has worked out of FOBs near cities from as far south as Al Basrah and as far north as Tikrit and as far west as Fallujah and others in between.

The CEA (Captured Enemy Ammunition) project will take many more months or even years to finish. It is an example of only one important project that will help the people of Iraq and all of the nations of the Free World to stay safe. None of the information you just learned is a secret. It very sad that the people who report the news choose to report on things that go bad in Iraq, instead of these projects that are so necessary and are going so well.

Explaining Why We Fight To Our Children, Part II

This is Part II in a continuing series by my friend "Mike", a Navy SEAL who spent most of the last couple of years in Iraq as both an active-duty participant and a private contractor. "Mike" explains the war in Iraq to his young sons, and has graciously allowed me to share his letters with you. "Mike" will appear on the Northern Alliance Radio Network today to discuss his experiences and the situation in Iraq. The show starts at noon CT.

IRAQ PICTURE LETTER TO MY SON
PART 2. THE EVIL RULER OF IRAQ

Do you know the name of the bad man who ruled Iraq until last year? The US Army just captured him on December 13, 2003, and he is going on trial in a few weeks.

That�s right, his name is Saddam Hussein. He put his face on all of the paper money in Iraq which they call �Dinar.� Saddam Hussein had trillions of Dinar, which he got by taking money from what little his people earned (taxes) and by illegally selling oil and other things. He spent huge amounts of the money in Iraq to build palaces for himself. Germany helped Saddam build more than 400 palaces and more than 70 of them were called �Presidential� Palaces just for him.

Many of palaces are now on military bases. Daddy travels to some of them to pick up mail and supplies depending on where he is working. Here are just a few of the palaces:

While Saddam and his family were living in palaces, most other Iraqis lived in poverty. Poverty means they didn�t have enough money to eat healthy food or live in a safe house.
For example teachers made less than $3.00 a month (in Dinar) when Saddam was in power. Now Iraq teachers make several hundred dollars per month and it is getting better and better.

Saddam Hussein was very cruel to his people and his son Qusay was even more evil and cruel to the people in Iraq. They tortured and murdered many thousands of Iraqis.

There is a prison in Iraq called Abu Ghraib which is still in use today. Iraqis who were sent to that prison have suffered some bad things. The prisoners we keep there now are treated in an extremely fair way, even if they are accused of really bad things. But when Saddam Hussein was in power he ordered the torture and killing of many people even if they were good.

This man was cut deeply many times while he was tied up and nearly died at Abu Ghraib:

This man said he was burned at Abu Ghraib and also came close to death.

These men were the lucky ones. Many worse things happened at Abu Ghraib and other places in Iraq, even to women and children. But we don�t need to talk about or see such things until you are much older. We should be very thankful that we were born in the USA.

Now you will learn about some of the things Daddy discovered about the evil plans this crazy man Saddam Hussein had for the world outside Iraq.

Do you remember when I wrote the picture letter to your class about the ruins of the ancient City of Babylon and the new Babylon built by Saddam Hussein? Look on the map of Iraq and see if you can find it again and see what famous river runs through it. That�s right, it is the Euphrates River, one of the oldest in the World.

Almost 3000 years ago Babylon was the capitol of an ancient civilization called Babylonia. When you study history and read the Bible you will learn about a famous Babylonian ruler with a hard name to pronounce. Can you say �Nebuchadnezzar�?

Well Saddam Hussein restored the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar for a very symbolic reason. Saddam Hussein told some Iraqi people and other Arabs who came to visit that he was actually the re-incarnation of Nebuchadnezzar which means he is the same person born again (which of course is impossible).

Daddy saw this stone carving at the Presidential Palace in Babylon. Saddam�s face is in the middle and behind him his supposed to be his old self, King Nebuchadnezzar.

Do you know why Saddam would want certain Arab people to believe something crazy like he is the re-incarnation of Nebuchadnezzar? It is because he bragged to people that he would do the same things that the real King Nebuchadnezzar did again in our time.

You see the real Nebuchadnezzar conquered many neighboring lands and one of them was the nation of Israel which is the homeland of the Jewish people. Many years before the time of Christ, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, claimed the land for Babylonia, killed many Jews and forced the rest of them to leave.

70 years later the Jewish people came back to Israel after the fall of Babylonia. But they didn�t stay very long because they were again forced to leave their homeland by people called Persians. After more than 2,000 years of exile, the Jewish people were given their homeland back. Israel became a nation again right after World War II which was the war that your Grandpa fought in. Some people want to take the Land of Israel away from the Jews again. Saddam Hussein was one who boasted to others about doing this.

Daddy saw many things in Iraq that confirmed Saddam Hussein�s intentions to conquer other people especially Jewish people. Look at this chair that this American solider is sitting on which we found in Al Faw Palace in Baghdad. Coalition soldiers, who help us, like to get their picture taken sitting on this chair too. Even Daddy got his picture taken there. But that was before he learned about the writing on it.


You see, under Saddam Hussein, only people who wanted to hurt Jewish people would sit in the chair. Do you see the large Arabic letters on the back? Across the top it says, �Victory from Allah and soon we will again conquer Jerusalem.� And on both sides, up and down, it says, �Jerusalem is ours.�

There is another thing that Saddam Hussein copied from Nebuchadnezzar. On almost every brick from the original Palace of Nebuchadnezzar one could find his name engraved. Well, Saddam Hussein made sure to leave his initials on places in every palace that he made as well. Saddam also had many statues made of himself in Babylonian dress like Nebuchadnezzar. And he challenged his military to be brave warriors and be ready to die for him, which many did.

But when we finally caught Saddam Hussein he wasn�t very brave. He was found hiding in a hole with a loaded gun and he begged for mercy.

Because our country believes in justice, even for suspected criminals, he was not shot to death. Instead he was arrested and will stand trial for his crimes in front of the Free people of Iraq.

Explaining Why We Fight To Our Children, Part I

The First Mate and I have a friend who has served in Special Forces for over 30 years. The FM has known "Mike" since before he enlisted, and I've been fortunate and honored enough to be a friend to him and his family for over 10 years. "Mike" has served his country in many conflicts, starting with Viet Nam right up to the current conflict in Iraq. I posted a letter from Mike in April, when he worked as a security contractor in Iraq and just after the butchering of four of his colleagues in Fallujah.

I will also be interviewing Mike about his experiences on the Northern Alliance Radio Network show this Saturday, which starts at noon CT. I hope to post more extensive interviews with Mike over the nest couple of weeks.

IRAQ PICTURE LETTER TO MY SON
PART 1 � TERRORISM & RELIGION

Do you know what a terrorist is?

A terrorist is a bad person who deliberately kills good people who have no way of defending themselves. They often try to kill as many people as possible to scare other people into letting them have what they want. The terrorists we are facing today want to destroy our country and take away the freedoms we have. They want to destroy the government of other free countries too, especially Israel. These are two of the main leaders of Terrorism today:

The demons you see above tell other terrorists to spread hatred for America because we represent Freedom and we help people in other countries that also love freedom.

When terrorists do bad things it makes the Devil happy and God sad. But the terrorists today are especially evil because they are actually saying that God TOLD them to do very bad things like fly jet airplanes into the Trade Towers in New York or cause the train wreck in Spain or kidnap and kill innocent people who are trying to help re-build Iraq.