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Not in the main stream media |
by
Major Scott Stranger
(
02/15/2005 ) |
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Another Election Day Story...From the Horses Mouth
This is an e-mail from Major Scott Stranger of Benton
, Ark. to his wife Ronda. Reprinted in the Gazette by
permission.
Today I got to witness first hand a new democracy
take its first steps. My day started early. Actually,
my day started about 4 days ago because we have been
going non-stop since then, hence no updates lately. I
was up at 5 a.m. and my head was pounding and my
sinuses were killing me. I was up and out with my team
by 5:30. The day started slow and we had some small
arms fire, 8 rockets shot at us and we found one IED.
The small arms fire and the rockets missed us. The IED
was another matter. But we called our bomb guys and
they took care of it with the bomb robot. Which, by
the way is their third robot. The other two died in
the line of duty.
The polls opened at 7am and that's when things got
interesting. The press showed up in droves. It would
have been impossible to swing a dead cat and not hit a
reporter in our area of operation today. I met
Campbell Brown from NBC. She was likable, but you
could tell she did not want to be in Baghdad. She was
very jumpy. I guess we were that way when we first got
here, too, but you get used to the shooting. We had
very tight security on the polling sites and all
around our area of operation.. Iraqi police and Iraqi
army soldiers were at every polling site defending
them. I have been planning for about 8 days for this
mission and it was the largest we have done to date.
Infantry, armor, attack helicopters, engineers... you
name it, we had it. The Iraqi government shut down all
traffic in the country so the streets were deserted.
At about 10am the streets were packed with large
crowds of people walking to the polls. We were on edge
waiting for more attacks that never came. By about 3pm
we could start to let our hair down and talk to the
people. The sight was amazing. We dismounted from our
vehicles and were instantly mobbed by about 200 kids.
The kids were all over the place playing in the street
while their parents voted. The kids walked with us for
about 2 miles while we were talking to the adults. I
have never seen anything like it. People everywhere
wanted to talk to us and thank us. This is what it
must have been like when the Allies liberated Paris.
Iraqis of all ages wanted to shake our hands and thank
us for allowing them to vote. The kids were proud to
tell us that their parents voted. Adult after adult
wanted to thank us for making this day happen. When
the Iraqis voted they dipped their fingers in
indelible purple ink so that polling officials could
tell who had already voted. When we walked the streets
the Iraqis would hold their purple finger up in the
air as a mark of pride. They were very proud of their
purple finger. The Iraqi' statements to us were all
the same: "Thank you for your sacrifices for the Iraqi
people...Thank you for making this day possible...The
United States is the true democracy in the world and
is the country that makes freedom possible...God
blessed the Iraqi people and the United States this
day...We have never known a day like this under
Saddam...This day is like a great feast, a wonderful
holiday..." I shook more hands today than I have ever
in my life. If you missed a hand they would follow for
a mile to get a chance to shake and say thanks. It was
nothing like we expected or have ever seen. The Iraqi
people were strong and brave today. The Iraqis, stoic
to danger faced fear, and went out and voted. Then
after they voted they stayed on the street to
celebrate by singing, dancing and trying to shake the
hand of any American they could find.
Even though today was as great day for Iraq, they took
their lumps. There were 6 car bombs, 2 of them in
Baghdad. One I believe did more for Iraqi morale than
any other event that I have ever witnessed here. A
suicide car bomber drove up to a polling site, which
was not too far from us and blew up. The bomb did not
kill anyone but the bomber himself. After the bomb
went off the Iraqi voters calmly walked out of the
polling site an spit on the remains. The polling site
stayed open and the voting continued. That incident
ran all day on Iraqi TV. It was a beautiful act of
defiance for the Iraqi people. They stood up for
themselves today and stuck a purple finger in the
enemy's eye. Later in the day I thought about our
sacrifices that we have made. I wondered if the three
men that my unit has sent home in flag-draped coffins
was worth what I saw today. I am still not sure if
that is the case, but when a grown Iraqi man thanks me
with tears running down his face it made me feel
better about what we have accomplished... (signed)
Scott
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