Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

Yes, and not for the lack of trying. WE ALL the entire US .. as far as I know .... wanted Iraq to make a deal.. but Maliki would not.. His people had had it up to here with us! .. You don't blame them do you? . .My god . .to wake up to what we sent that the early dark morning .. ? If I lived there I'd spit on every American I got close enough to ... at least for awhile anyway ... Just look at these images from that morning .. Death came on loud planes and brought FIRE with them! ... Horrible .. I'd never forget and I don't think I could forgive either .. .it's not something I'd want to get even for but it would burn whenever it came to me ! ..


[ https://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/37-remarkable-photos-from-the-iraq-war-and-the-stories-behin?utm_term=.mgEYmZQ0L#.riQ5Vqkdb ]
Baghdad, Iraq. March 21, 2003.

“I waited all night for the first strike on Baghdad. Two nights later there was a massive bombing, and that’s when I took this photo. I remember Iraqi troops came into the Palestine hotel, where most journalists were staying, looking for disks and tapes showing the bombing. They searched other journalists, but not me. I’m not sure why they didn’t search me perhaps because I tried to be nice to them.”

more photos of various things - http://www.rferl.org/media/photogallery/24928557.html

Our military went through HELL! outright unadulterated HELL! That man oh never mind ... .. shit!

Then look at this poor older soldier ! http://blogs.reuters.com/fullfocus/2013/03/19/photographers-notebook-iraq-war/#a=1

“This is my most published picture from the Iraq war. The caption says ‘a medic holds a child after the confused front line crossfire ripped apart an Iraqi family after local soldiers appeared to force civilians towards U.S. Marine positions.’ That’s as much as I knew at the moment that I sent the picture to the Reuters desk.

Ten years later I know a bit more about the child and her family as some papers and magazines followed the story but not much more about the sad incident that happened that day. It was supposed to be a day off for the Marines on their way to Baghdad – the small base was built overnight by the road “somewhere in central Iraq” and everyone was busy cleaning or fixing their gear or just resting.

I was resting in my fox hole with a broken foot when the frantic firefight broke out – small weapons and some heavy machinegun were fired at the edge of a camp. After maybe 15 minutes (maybe more but it looked like five, really) the whole situation was over. What exactly happened I don’t know nor will I ever know but there were dead bodies around a dark brown bullet-ridden Russian made car, several wounded people crying for help and some armed men captured in a field outside a base.

Apparently local gunmen in a military truck, whoever that might have been, were chasing a car full of civilians or forcing them somehow towards the small military base. Marines reacted as Marines usually react in such situations - they opened fire.

Soon after I sent my pictures, the Marine convoy was on the road again. The picture lived its life that I could control very little of – printed, celebrated, discussed and taken out of and back into context. Some people wanted to know what happened to the girl, others were interested in what the doctor in the picture felt while holding a child.”

Caption: U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman HM1 Richard Barnett, assigned to the 1st Marine Division, holds an Iraqi child in central Iraq March 29, 2003.

but tears come to all of us no matter what age we are!