TandJ61574
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2002
- Messages
- 341
This story was written in Chicago Magazine (Oct.) By Jeff Ruby
I did not find a link to this story so I typed out some excerpts and not the whole thing because it was too many pages long. I did find a link to some of his pictures though.
http://shakman.smugmug.com/
I felt it was important to post because you dont hear much of this in the media.
A Soldier's Story
Ben Shakman, 36, is a Chicago native and full-time captain in the Illinois Army National Guard. He has served in the armed forces for more than 17 years. In August 2003 he volunteered to go to Iraq.
The day Suddam Hussein was captured
I was driving from Baghdad to Babylon that day. As we passed, people of all ages celebrated the end of their oppression by waving at us and yelling things like Saddam is donkey and Thank you Amerikee and Good Bush! It was inspiring. Everyone I met was very pleasant and grateful to have the dictator gone. Almost all of the locals who I developed friendships with showed me pictures of friends, neighbors, and relatives killed by the former regime. Saddam had outlawed a great number of the Shiites overt religious practices, and there were mass grave sites scattered around that part of the country that spoke volumes.
How the regime change affected them
Once, some Iraqi workers-(all about 15-20 years old) offered to feed me chicken and bread every day. I told them that I appreciated the offer, but that they surely needed to feed themselves. They said that they had far more than they ever had during their lifetimes. One of them told me that before the regime change, he had been earning about 50 cents a day in a job that he was forced into by some low-level political clown. After the regime change, he made 4 dollars a day and was planning to buy himself a Sony Playstation.
His thoughts about the former regime loyalists were that they should not be jailed. He wanted them executed. That is what they did to my people, he said so he thought it was an appropriate payback.
What I think of the American medias coverage of the war
The American media is fixated on the negatives, but I have seen and been part of many positives. Some of my fondest memories are of the humanitarian relief mission that I went on with Filipino soldiers - we brought medical care to villages that had not been visited by a doctor for over 30 years.
What I learned in a year
My year in Iraq has given me a much better understanding of what poverty looks, feels, and smells like. I have seen firsthand what a dictator can do to a nation. I have gained a newfound appreciated for what it means to be an American. And, after learning so much about other nations and cultures, my ethnocentricity is in remission.
I did not find a link to this story so I typed out some excerpts and not the whole thing because it was too many pages long. I did find a link to some of his pictures though.
http://shakman.smugmug.com/
I felt it was important to post because you dont hear much of this in the media.
A Soldier's Story
Ben Shakman, 36, is a Chicago native and full-time captain in the Illinois Army National Guard. He has served in the armed forces for more than 17 years. In August 2003 he volunteered to go to Iraq.
The day Suddam Hussein was captured
I was driving from Baghdad to Babylon that day. As we passed, people of all ages celebrated the end of their oppression by waving at us and yelling things like Saddam is donkey and Thank you Amerikee and Good Bush! It was inspiring. Everyone I met was very pleasant and grateful to have the dictator gone. Almost all of the locals who I developed friendships with showed me pictures of friends, neighbors, and relatives killed by the former regime. Saddam had outlawed a great number of the Shiites overt religious practices, and there were mass grave sites scattered around that part of the country that spoke volumes.
How the regime change affected them
Once, some Iraqi workers-(all about 15-20 years old) offered to feed me chicken and bread every day. I told them that I appreciated the offer, but that they surely needed to feed themselves. They said that they had far more than they ever had during their lifetimes. One of them told me that before the regime change, he had been earning about 50 cents a day in a job that he was forced into by some low-level political clown. After the regime change, he made 4 dollars a day and was planning to buy himself a Sony Playstation.
His thoughts about the former regime loyalists were that they should not be jailed. He wanted them executed. That is what they did to my people, he said so he thought it was an appropriate payback.
What I think of the American medias coverage of the war
The American media is fixated on the negatives, but I have seen and been part of many positives. Some of my fondest memories are of the humanitarian relief mission that I went on with Filipino soldiers - we brought medical care to villages that had not been visited by a doctor for over 30 years.
What I learned in a year
My year in Iraq has given me a much better understanding of what poverty looks, feels, and smells like. I have seen firsthand what a dictator can do to a nation. I have gained a newfound appreciated for what it means to be an American. And, after learning so much about other nations and cultures, my ethnocentricity is in remission.
